Khora's Planned Changes

[nickcurcurato]

13 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

• Ensnare
  • Ensnare effects multiple enemies. When an enemy is ensnared, the living metal will propagate and pull in every enemy within range. The living metal ensnaring enemies will then propagate a second time to pull in another wave of enemies within range.
  • Procs no longer wake up ensnared enemies.

• Venari
• Venari is now a passive ability - Venari is simply there, no casting required. When she dies, she will be revived when you Revive (*it's very likely you'll have the opportunity to revive Venari like other companions, but in the event you miss that window it'll be gone until you revive)
  • Venari fights independently until she receives a command. Khora’s third ability overrides Venari’s target and changes her battle posture at an energy cost.
  • Kavat mods like Animal Instinct have been fixed so they will work properly on Venari.
  • Venari deals slash damage to enemies instead of impact damage.

For Ensnare, does this mean that the original target pulses twice, or each captured target pulses once after being caught?

WRT Venari, will it behave like Vaub's grenades? Will switching be free and "casting" on a target costs energy?

[Omega.Jester.]

I love the changes. Although i was already having a lot of fun with Khora, these changes are all very appreciated.

However my one complaint: ... Venari should be able to be revived by recasting the ability, maybe attach a bigger energy cost to it or something but just making Venari stay dead is not an option in my opinion. Venari is Khora's signature Ability, and her being able to permanentley lose one of her Abilities completley until she dies and revives herself just seems ridiculous to me. That would be like... If Frost's Snowglobe dies he cant recast it until he revives himself. It is just way too harsh of a punishment over something that you dont have a lot of control over. I dont mind it on normal Companions, but for Khora it is one of her ABILITIES.

I hope that the Venari changes will be reconsidered slightly. But other than that, keep up the good work DE :)

[Ikusias]

Please get rid once and for all of the very idea of Strangledome, i'ts been pointed out to death that's impractical, has not enough range and is a copy/paste of other frames' abilities.

We were tantalized with an exalted whip and it's what many still want, it seems (give it a nice moveset, remove "spin to win" and you get an interesting weapon)

Also khora is missing survivability in her skillset

[MagentTanau]

Strangledome: needs to spread-eagle/vitruvian man any enemies snared by it - easier to aim at in the heat of battle.

Venari: needs a Bleedout state and revivable by the player, and allow us to use the aim reticule to contextually order Venari to attack specific enemies/ heal teammates (ie Dogmeat in Fallout 4). So you press 3 and reticule changes to order her around, press 3 again to exit the mode, and return to normal.

[CrazyNutz]

13 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

PC Tenno, what a week it's been!

This post aims to go over 1 main point of Beasts of the Sanctuary: Khora!
At a glance, I think the gap between Gara and Khora's release is one of the longest between releasing new Warframes. That alone doesn't feel too good. There are a lot of reasons for this, and most of them are layered in re-designs of the Warframe (IPS/Quest goals, etc). The way Khora was released was certainly not the most ideal given the wait for a new Warframe, but we are going to make her better thanks to your experiences.

As must be said for all time, everything below is subject to change! This is especially important - while we want to give you a sense of what we're planning, it's equally important that you know we are indeed planning. 

Here's what we're planning on doing with Khora!
 

• Ability casting times have been shortened across the board - Natural Talent is always great, but the base animations needed shortening.

• Whipclaw
  • Whipclaw will apply to and benefit from the combo counter.
  • All enemies caught in the Strangledome will take half of Whipclaw’s attack damage when one enemy in the Strangledome is hit with Whipclaw.
  • Hitting an Ensnared enemy with Whipclaw will cause the living metal to propagate.
• Ensnare
  • Ensnare effects multiple enemies. When an enemy is ensnared, the living metal will propagate and pull in every enemy within range. The living metal ensnaring enemies will then propagate a second time to pull in another wave of enemies within range.
  • Procs no longer wake up ensnared enemies.

• Venari
• Venari is now a passive ability - Venari is simply there, no casting required. When she dies, she will be revived when you Revive (*it's very likely you'll have the opportunity to revive Venari like other companions, but in the event you miss that window it'll be gone until you revive)
  • Venari fights independently until she receives a command. Khora’s third ability overrides Venari’s target and changes her battle posture at an energy cost.
  • Kavat mods like Animal Instinct have been fixed so they will work properly on Venari.
  • Venari deals slash damage to enemies instead of impact damage.
• Strangledome
  • Once an enemy dies in the Strangledome, they will drop to the floor, making room for new victims.
  • We have other plans that are too in-progress to share yet - we'll update here with more information as we get it!

We expect to release this to PC this week for the most part - so stay tuned to notes as each hotfix rolls out. We think Wednesday at the earliest pending testing and implementation!

P.S We are also making some FX changes to simply have more oomph and visceral feels! 

This sounds good and all that .. but if we want to be able to keep the cat (and frame) alive we will need alott more health and/or armor. Becuse to heal it we will most likely have to do alott of melee ( "pack leader" mod for pet heals with melee ) she needs to be able to survive sorti lvl stuff atleast cus we cant protect a cat that we cant 100% control  and ofc if we want a pet frame like this we should have a pet that can survive while running around outside of our full controll. 

 As said before .. Best pet frame atm is Inaros becuse of that HP pool and good armor.

Ofc Inaros also have godlike CC potential. But in a no energy situation its that HP pool and armor that makes him work, and with all the nullifiers and no energy mission handicaps that exist and eximus units draining your energy we better have enought armor/health to save our pets from dying.

[Yaerion]

Cool changes overall. She'll benefit from them for sure. I also have suggestions and ideas.

 

WhipClaw

I thought we would be able to select 3 states of the whip (in addition to the current neutral one), each one having enhanced damage on either Slash, Impact and Puncture?

This being said, this would be cool to be able to perform a circular strike when casting while crouched/sliding (spin attack). => significantly much less damage (maybe fixed damage only affected by power strenght?), but with guaranteed status chance?

I like the synergy to come between this power and Ensnare and StrangleDome. +2!

 

Ensnare

Very nice enhancements!

Like Gara's 2d power (Splinter Storm), could we cast this power on Khora (when aiming the decor) or allies? It would enhance their melee range and status chance?

 

Venari

Ok... I think that the posture of Venari should influence the passive of Khora. Because if Venari becomes permanent, the armor buff just becomes the regular armor of Khora, not a passive anymore. Suggestion (per pet):

- Attack: +15% flat status chance to weapons | Protect: +15% Evasion to Khora | Heal: +15% Armor to Khora

 

StangleDome

Casting Ensnare on a Dome should make it temporarily grow and grab nearby enemies into the trap.

Also, if the WhipClaw ever gets the 3 other damage-centered shapes some day, the Dome could align to these damages?

[Callandor361]

With regards to Venari...I don't feel that treating her like a regular Kavat for revival/death purposes is fair.  I can respect regular Kavats not being revivable if you miss the timer, but Venari is a unique ability and deserves something better than requiring Khoras revival to get her back.

Maybe something like...

If Venari dies, it activates a cooldown timer on Khora's 3 ability; not a gigantic, unreasonable timer, but something that fairly punishes the player for Venari's death.  After that timer is over, allow the player to cast 3 with a high energy cost to revive Venari.

[Skaleek]

I didnt even know Khora was underpowered, I havent gotten her parts yet from sanctuary onslaught. :(

 

[Lantesh]

A decent start.

Whipclaw seems to headed in the direction. Just need to fix up the collision on it to actually hit properly and it should be good to go.

Ensnare sounds alright as well, but there's still the problem of the enemy dying before it has a chance to spread. Maybe do something like an energy refund similar to Ash if the target dies before the power has a chance to do it's thing?

Venari...is 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Having her out all the time is great and is a change I completely support. Having stance swapping use energy and then having her die until Khora revives is outright awful. Simply swapping stances should cost no energy. If they had additional uses like a charge ability or something else that isn't just changing stances then energy use would be fine. Venari dying until Khora revives means that I'll now have an entire power slot that is useless unless I die. This is not a good design. I feel like you (DE) are going out of your way to make Venari feel too much like a normal Kavat here. Venari is a part of Khora, tied to one of her power slots. She isn't a normal Kavat and shouldn't be treated like one at all. She should be the exception to the pet rules because she isn't just another pet. The idea that others had of resummoning her with 3 is fine. I think you need to do something else with the stances though. They currently aren't worth the energy expenditure unless they do something else IMO.

Strangledome still just doesn't fit Khora IMO. The enemies swinging around overhead are just a pain to shoot. If you're really dead set on having some sort of whip trap, then I have an alternative that's somewhat similar. I'll call it "Briar Patch" for now. Khora whips the ground like she does now but instead of forming a dome, it creates a sort of net that pins enemies to the ground. Enemies caught in the Briar Patch could be opened up for ground melee finishers or something. Enemies that walk into the Patch when it's at capacity could be slowed down. If an enemy caught in the Patch dies then another nearby could be dragged down to the ground. You could limit this to only 1 Patch at a time instead of multiple domes like we have now. This more or less functions to what we have now but without enemies swinging all over the place. That's the main thing I hate about the dome.

[KennBone]

hace 13 horas, SatoLiger dijo:

press and hold to revive Venari when Venari dies 

like a normal kavat then ?.. i wish not

[Zin-Azshari]

Making Venari be like a real kavat is bad.

Venari is fine as she is, but if you really want to change her, why not make it to a middle ground?

 

Remove the duration, there. Problem solved. Still keep Venari as a summon ability, when needed, but after summoned, she works like Gara's wall, she only dies when hp is down, and you can resummon her after that.

 

I think that will be the best solution for Venari. Many dislike her duration based summon (me included), but making her an actual kavat wannabe is far worse.

[iShootUCome]

i hope they just make a vote , what comunity want with khora ability that would be more fair

 

[Regulator-Zero]

So I am probably one of the few who have successfully farmed for Khora.  I say that  because after all that madness I will say first, thank you DE for looking at reworking her.  Right now she seems like an awkward emotional teenager.  Her abilities don't seem to
have a synergy with the overall frame.

Now to the proposed rework.

Whipclaw:  That seems cool, but the ability itself is underwhelming a bit.  So even if we can now do more damage due to the combo counter.  But let's say range mods affect it's area of effect etc.  The range doesn't do anything major for her other abilities (I will explain later).  So there isn't any overall benefit for the frame.

Ensnare:  Let's look at it from the Nidus perspective people have mentioned.  Even with range affecting it, it is slow as molasses.  For Nidus it is super quick.  Hers needs to be a bit faster.  

Venari:  I say keep him as a summon.  He is so much better as a summon instead of a passive.  Also her third then kind of becomes useless if you didn't revive him.  He is probably one of the best things about her abilities.  The only thing I can think of that would improve him better would be to have an ability to summon a herd of cats to attack enemies like Ash's current Blade Storm without the targeting mechanic.

Strangledome:  It is the most awkward of her abilities, not because of no exalted whip, but because it locks Khora in one spot to try and shoot or hit ragdolled enemies.    People have compared it to Vauban's or Harrow's abilities.  It is similar, but here is the thing - with both of their abilities you can kill the enemies at the same level around you.  With Khora you have to aim up and down in a kind of small space.  Even if you make it so the dome is bigger, the dome only controls fewer enemies than Vauban's or Harrow's.  Making it harder to use for crowd control.  So how to improve it?  Maybe have it grab more enemies (again please make it faster than the current ensnare), have the dome work as a shield so that enemy fire outside the dome hit the ragdolls in the dome instead of whatever frames are inside (or even have the shield dome's life be based on the enemies in ragdoll), or I don't know have her also get some sort of buff from doing so.     

I guess this might just be my thoughts though.

 

[Irisena]

Still wont reach a A rank, or even B rank frame either way. She's so incredibly bad right now, that i can't even imagine what's the point of this change except for her 2.

1. Got multiplied by combo counter. So what? My atterax, a fellow whip weapon can kill enemy faster and without cost. also, this ability hitbox is still wierd
2. The buff will make this ability much more useable, Good job DE
3. the cat's dumb and stupid. unless it got some powerful buff that can slay a lvl 100 heavy gunner, or able to use smeeta / adarza mods, it's not even worth the hassle of babysitting the damn cat.
4. f***ing joke of an ability. damage share with her 1? her 1 didn't even leave a scratch on anything, and you share HALF of that non-existent damage? Not to mention the range is still small as hell, making it not even useable. NOT TO MENTION AGAIN, the enemy captured are subject to pointless ragdoll making it harder to hit.

[Vykhram]

4 minutes ago, Zin-Azhsari said:

Making Venari be like a real kavat is bad.

Venari is fine as she is, but if you really want to change her, why not make it to a middle ground?

 

Remove the duration, there. Problem solved. Still keep Venari as a summon ability, when needed, but after summoned, she works like Gara's wall, she only dies when hp is down, and you can resummon her after that.

 

I think that will be the best solution for Venari. Many dislike her duration based summon (me included), but making her an actual kavat wannabe is far worse.

So much this, i'd hate it if Venari acts like a normal kavat, although i'm one of the few that thinks that Venari is as good as she is right now.

But if you want to change her, make it that Holding the button (3), sends her to a specific target or go into a spinning turtle shell that whips with the tail into the aiming direction or something like that, since her Tail looks like part of her attacks.

Sure, having the duration removed is good and all, but seriously, don't make my summoned companion be a regular companion with a few twists.

[MichaelTheory]

Please don't remove the recasting of Venari!!

I really liked having that ability because it made Venari feel more related to khora instead of just another pet.

Since Venari is part of Khora's kit it kind of defeats the purpose that your 3 is useless unless you die. 

What if you're super good at staying alive, will Venari stay dead the whole mission? Don't kill the space kitties!!

 

[KennBone]

hace 17 minutos, Zin-Azhsari dijo:

Remove the duration, there. Problem solved. Still keep Venari as a summon ability

yeah this pls ,,, we don´t enjoy the normal kavat system

[Netist]

Wasn't it said in Devstream that Whipclaw was going to be a guaranteed AoE status proc? What happened to that? It would be a useful, versatile, and unique ability.

Changes to Ensnare are good, and I think the ability itself will be fine now, but I agree with others that Ensnare and Strangledome are far too similar.

Venari makes much more sense as a passive. Hopefully we'll have the ability to revive her at energy cost, possibly with a cooldown, if she bleeds out. I do think we needs more aggressive AI, though. Pets are generally fine as they are, since they're just extra DPS and utility on top of your normal abilities, but I don't want to sacrifice an ability slot for just another pet. Also, I don't think tagging enemies is particularly worthwhile. The point of combat pets is to attack things you're *not* looking at. In the time it takes you to tag an enemy, for Venari to get to the enemy, then actually attack it, you could just, y'know, shoot the enemy,

Strangledome, if it's going to continue existing the way it does, definitely needs to give some kind of buff to Khora while inside.

[Ham_Grenabe]

Whipclaw and Ensnare seem fine with the updates. If I had my way, I'd really focus on Venari and "beast mastery" as the theme here, though. 

Venari Passive

Honestly, Venari should just be an unkillable. This is a beast of legend who has dealt with enemies beyond the trivialities faced by the Tenno, after all. If Venari is damaged beyond a certain limit, a low-health state it just vanishes for a bit (30 seconds? or a gradually increasing amount each time this happens?), then reappears somewhere else away from danger, and then sets back on the hunt.

Venari's normal behavior will be kavat-like: roam around, kill enemies, be weird. When S#&$ goes down, you then have:

Power 3: Venari Control; call it Beastmaster

Switchable power mode (like Vauban's mines or Ivara's Quiver), with possible things like:

• Protect: designate an ally or an objective (by whipclaw? or maybe just aim at the thing) and Venari will follow and defend it by attacking any enemy that get within X range.
• Kill: activate this, then hit an enemy with whipclaw. Venari attacks that target relentlessly, until either you designate another target, the target is dead, or Venari is driven back into the shadows
• Succor: venari goes into a healing mode, moving from ally to ally healing them. If any ally is down, Venari instead moves directly to them and revives them (it's one or the other; either Venari roams around giving small heals, or goes and revives one ally)

Power 4: Ghosts of the Pack

Get rid of Strangledome, and replace it with an arc-shaped AOE projecting in the direction of your reticle. Venari leads the ghosts of her pack (do Kavats have packs? Whatever, it's a wave of ghostly kavats) that surge, wave-like, through a formation of the enemy, killing, slashing, and slowing (think "hamstringing") the enemy as they pass. They don't linger to kill, they just do one pass of damage, and inflict slash procs and slowing on the enemies that don't just die. 

[-QUILL_PETER-]

Would it be possible to make Whipclaw into a 1-2-3 combo like Atlas' Landslide?

[-Krism-]

So, Venari, if she dies, she only comes back after you revive, &/or maybe, we'll be able to get her up if she gets knocked out. (bleedout).

Don't really like that, Hunter Recovery is what makes Khora able to survive in high lvl mission, if Venari dies, first, the 3rd ability becomes useless, second, Khora will become more squishy & won't be able to heal either herself nor anyone else.

[Landario]

Hello!

i am happy you realize she really needs a lot of work.

I wish DE would start to find some synergies between the so called "signature" weapons they release with Frames and the Frame itself.

She is supposed to be a pet Warframe...a Master of Cats...

And since they dropped all the Idea about her being a I/P/S based frame. Make her more like an elemental based Beastmaster

So why dont make her 3 VENARI into something more interesting AND find a Synergy with her Signature Weapon Hystrix for example.

When she use her 3 she can either summon a Toxin, Electricity, Cold or Heat based Cat(could also make those look really nice according to the Elements)

Those cats would to damage according to their Element and when she use her 4 (since DE really wants that to be a form of CC) the Enemies would be trapped in a Dome where they take Elemental Damage according to your current Venari and you can combine that with the Element of your Hystrix.

Example you summon a toxic based Venari(Should be green and mean ! haha ) and use your 4 and when you shoot on the Dome(or whatever is used to capture the enemies) you shoot it with your Hystrix set to Electricity the Enemies take Corrosive Damage.

Just an Idea :-)

Cheers !

 

 

[Gandergear]

Much better. Looking forward to when i can finally build her, fix the drop rates will you? Theyre the worst in the game for frame parts, 5%, really?

[S33K3RsDude]

I'm looking forword to all the changes, but there are a couple of things I' like to point out:

Having Venari be permanently gone until you die is a really bad idea. Essentially it would be rewarding bad playing, or it would punish good playing. You never want to put a player in the position where dying is a good thing. No other frame can lose any of their abilities until they die. Possible ways to address this would be putting Venari on a cooldown of 45s at the most (please don't repeat the several minutes cooldown madness of Focus abilities) or the ability to resummon it for a large amount of energy by holding one of the ability buttons.

The changes to Whipclaw should really help with scaling, but they don't seem to address the most annoying issue with it right now which is the broken targeting. I'm just going to assume that isn't mentioned because it's a fix rather than a change.

It would be nice if enemies caught in Strangledome would be entirely fixated, as in not ragdolling around similar to Tentacle Swarm.

Edit: I just remembered changing Venari's stance is still a thing, so the following might be irrelevant.

Since the cat is going to be her passive there now is one empty ability slot. Are there any plans on what to fill it with? If not here's my suggestion. Allow Khora to pounce forward like a cat similar to Excaliburs Slash Dash and Rhino Charge, staggering and debuffing enemies in her path (making them take increased damage or do less damage e.g.). That would synergize really well with Strangledome on larger tiles by enabling her to cross distances quickly.

[mchaggis79]

15 hours ago, --Q--Voltage said:

Nice! Khora deserves some much needed buffs. Hopefully she gets more use than Gara does :(

Agreed. After gara's nerf it seems everyone ditched her even though her shield is incredible. Her 3 is about as useful as wiping before you poop, but at least blowing up her mv does some nice damage and like I said she's a good frame. She's my go to frame atm.