Working with Limbo: A guide for non-Limbo's

[HisokaXEveryone]

So, I play a pretty absurd amount of Limbo, he's my favorite frame by far, but I'm aware a lot of people don't really know how to work with him or what he does. So, I thought it'd help the community out if I made a pair of quick guides covering what Limbo can do, what you would want to know when working with him, and why he's a really great frame to have on the team. So here we go, first up a quick talk about what other players should be aware of when working with Limbo, including how to get out of the rift, how to deal with enemies in the rift, and all sorts of general things that should help make him more tolerable even if he doesn't yet know his character:

 

 

And next, a quick showcase of what Limbo can do and why you'd want him on the team, even in a PuG.

 

 

Also, if you liked these guides, keep an eye on my channel. There's an addendum to the second part that'll cover a few other mission types I forgot to mention like Hijack and spy missions, and I've got other Limbo and non-Limbo video's planned too.

Edited May 29, 2018 by HisokaXEveryone

[NocheLuz]

- If the other teammate bullets don't stop in the rift, there will be no complain.

- I've encounter problem where he banish enemies into rift (no static) and I don't see it. I've already empty entire magazine before realizing I've shoot the enemies but no damage at all (bacause Limbo).

- Rift should not effect Teammate when dealing with enemies. I've encounter problem where I've try to hack a console but then he either banish me into rift or use Cataclysm in hope to protect me while I was hacking. Resulting in failed hacking. Becasue console never go into rift, so when warframe go into rift they consider out of reach and failed. Also, there're troll where he'll use Cataclysm to make me failed the hack and trying to hack it himself. But I already know that, when I failed I switch to operator and continued the hack. He was like 'why can't I hack it!!' and trying so hard to hit his face into the console I'm hacking (lol).

- In conclusion, Use Operator when playing with Limbo.

[HisokaXEveryone]

2 minutes ago, NocheLuz said:

- If the other teammate bullets don't stop in the rift, there will be no complain.

- I've encounter problem where he banish enemies into rift (no static) and I don't see it. I've already empty entire magazine before realizing I've shoot the enemies but no damage at all (bacause Limbo).

- Rift should not effect Teammate when dealing with enemies. I've encounter problem where I've try to hack a console but then he either banish me into rift or use Cataclysm in hope to protect me while I was hacking. Resulting in failed hacking. Becasue console never go into rift, so when warframe go into rift they consider out of reach and failed. Also, there're troll where he'll use Cataclysm to make me failed the hack and trying to hack it himself. But I already know that, when I failed I switch to operator and continued the hack. He was like 'why can't I hack it!!' and trying so hard to hit his face into the console I'm hacking (lol).

- In conclusion, Use Operator when playing with Limbo.

To answer your points
 

1. Honestly, while I think the rift itself SHOULD block allied bullets due to balance issues, I'll actually agree with people who think their bullets probably shouldn't be stopped by stasis. However, this is only because killing an enemy who's frozen with melee as opposed to range isn't much of a nerf anyways. All that's different is that the other frame's wouldn't need to get as close to the enemy who cannot run, fight back, or do anything else. That said, in PuGs, Limbo's "Should" be running small bubble setups, so you shouldn't ever be in a situation where you're forced to melee something where a Frost's Snow Globe wouldn't also leave you in melee range(or rather, wouldn't make that the best option due to being in the enemy's face). For now, just be happy that your abilities can murder things that are in the rift without being effected by stasis.

2. Yeah, warframe has its bugs, and that one's especially annoying. However, seeing a loose, banished enemy's generally something that happens when the Limbo's inexperienced, and tends to disappear once he gets better at the character. And like with the last point, this is partially handled by being aware that ability's don't care if something is or is not inside of the rift.

3. Yep, he has trolling potential. So does something like Banshee, who can make survival missions extremely annoying by just running a max range build with low power strength and spamming nothing but sound quake, or Atlas by walling off enemies you need to kill in defense, etc. It's unfortunate, and there's ways that DE could get rid of it, but you already know how to get around the rift/console thing. 

4.In conclusion, not saying Limbo doesn't have ways to be improved. But the largest part of his "issues" are due to people not understanding a rather unorthodox Warframe. And since the community hates Limbo and tends to be rough on people who don't play him well, it leads to this lovely feedback loop where you get only fairly thick-skinned players who take the time to learn the guy.

[ShogunGunshow]

How to work with Limbo:

Leave mission, and get in one without a Limbo.

[HisokaXEveryone]

10 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

How to work with Limbo:

Leave mission, and get in one without a Limbo.

How to be annoying to a Limbo and two random, unfortunate players.

Be host, and dodge a mission just cause you couldn't learn to work with someone who can effectively prevent you from failing a mission. 😄

Seriously though, you're free to be that way if you'd like, as far as I know DE doesn't punish people for constantly aborting missions.... but you'll be dodging a lot in the future if Limbo Prime really does come out. Would probably be far less annoying to just learn to work around him.

[NocheLuz]

17 minutes ago, HisokaXEveryone said:

1. Honestly, while I think the rift itself SHOULD block allied bullets due to balance issues, I'll actually agree with people who think their bullets probably shouldn't be stopped by stasis. However, this is only because killing an enemy who's frozen with melee as opposed to range isn't much of a nerf anyways. All that's different is that the other frame's wouldn't need to get as close to the enemy who cannot run, fight back, or do anything else. That said, in PuGs, Limbo's "Should" be running small bubble setups, so you shouldn't ever be in a situation where you're forced to melee something where a Frost's Snow Globe wouldn't also leave you in melee range(or rather, wouldn't make that the best option due to being in the enemy's face). For now, just be happy that your abilities can murder things that are in the rift without being effected by stasis.

I should be happy? What IF they didn't bring Melee weapon or Sortie is either Primary or Secondary only? It should be THEIR problem because THEY never bring Melee weapon or not allow to bring one? PuG is one thing to consider that any scenario can happen. I've encounter a problem because in Sorties defense where it only allow Rifle only. When enemies hit the edge of Cataclysm that pretty much it. We cannot do anything and hope Limbo take it down. Not to mention it force other players to go out of defense objective to fight the enemies where you don't know if Limbo gonna take down Cataclysm and Leave Operative undefended.

Why I concluded in using Operator? because Operator power not hider any Limbo ability and Limbo ability cannot do anything to him either. So, in Cataclysm where everything stop. Operator still can shoot enemies. They also have some protection from the Cataclysm (melee unit can't reach them). I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm being realism. So, when you reply like that to me it was like 'Did you only play Limbo and don't know how other feel? or how other live with Limbo?' kind of thing...

[HisokaXEveryone]

2 minutes ago, NocheLuz said:

I should be happy? What IF they didn't bring Melee weapon or Sortie is either Primary or Secondary only? It should be THEIR problem because THEY never bring Melee weapon or not allow to bring one? PuG is one thing to consider that any scenario can happen. I've encounter a problem because in Sorties defense where it only allow Rifle only. When enemies hit the edge of Cataclysm that pretty much it. We cannot do anything and hope Limbo take it down. Not to mention it force other players to go out of defense objective to fight the enemies where you don't know if Limbo gonna take down Cataclysm and Leave Operative undefended.

Why I concluded in using Operator? because Operator power not hider any Limbo ability and Limbo ability cannot do anything to him either. So, in Cataclysm where everything stop. Operator still can shoot enemies. They also have some protection from the Cataclysm (melee unit can't reach them). I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm being realism. So, when you reply like that to me it was like 'Did you only play Limbo and don't know how other feel? or how other live with Limbo?' kind of thing...

First, I have to say.... Limbo was using cataclysm to defend the operator? That was NOT a good Limbo. Banish works far better, just fire it off and the NPC's safe for until it wears off, at which point Limbo just recasts it. It's far cheaper than cataclysm and still makes the operator invincible to anything that cannot bring him out of the void and that Limbo himself didn't throw in there. Not even any real need to turn on stasis in the first place.

Second, yeah, it can be awkward to deal with a Limbo who stasis's when you can't use a melee weapon. Not much I can say here beyond using abilities. It's unfortunate, but hopefully he's doing it for a good reason, and can handle anything that gets sent to the void by cataclysm without the team. There are good Limbo's out there, who are a genuine boost to his team's success, I promise you.

 

Third, if you are noticing a Limbo to such a degree that you want to use operator, it's because he's playing in a way that I also hate. The large bubble/stasis combination has some function, but in PuGs it's only on things like interception where he should basically just be dropping it on a point to block off both terminals, and then leaving it to go shoot things in another area. Otherwise he SHOULD have the Narrow Minded mod equipped, which turns his cataclysm from a massive ball with 30 seconds or so of duration into a dome that lasts for upwards of a minute and takes up much less space than a frost's dome. He just fires it at an objective he needs to shield, turns on stasis, keeps a loose eye on it and it's timers, kills anything that gets close, and refreshes when necessary. 

 

Finally. . . I didn't mean to be rude or offensive in my reply, and I'm sorry if I came out that way(And TBH, you're coming off the same way.) But I really would like a reasoned debate if you're game. I'm happy to quit Limbo if people can actually convince me he's a bad warframe. However, I currently have several HUNDRED hours on him, and people have so far failed to do that. And since no one's had any issues with my way of playing him for the last few hundred, I think I'm probably doing something right! 😄

Only reason I feel the need to make these video's is because I still hit the occasional person who spots a sexy hat and dodges.

[(PSN)johnsoigne]

Nosam cutter

[NocheLuz]

Well, I'm gonna say this now before it's escalate into something big... I didn't hate Limbo. In fact, I like him. That is why I try to live with Limbo who don't know how to play him well. But when you trying to defend those player who can't play Limbo it's tick me off somehow... Really sorry about that... Anyways, in one sorties day (I call day because we did all 3 missions togerther even we are PuG). There is Limbo player who know what he is doing. It's make the sorties really easy and Lower the risk of failing the mission significantly.

So, I really did appreciate you who do the video. But I think you should do how to play Limbo instead of How to live with Limbo... Because it may somehow lead the new Limbo player into thinking he is good even he can't play him well...

[HisokaXEveryone]

2 minutes ago, NocheLuz said:

Well, I'm gonna say this now before it's escalate into something big... I didn't hate Limbo. In fact, I like him. That is why I try to live with Limbo who don't know how to play him well. But when you trying to defend those player who can't play Limbo it's tick me off somehow... Really sorry about that... Anyways, in one sorties day (I call day because we did all 3 missions togerther even we are PuG). There is Limbo player who know what he is doing. It's make the sorties really easy and Lower the risk of failing the mission significantly.

So, I really did appreciate you who do the video. But I think you should do how to play Limbo instead of How to live with Limbo... Because it may somehow lead the new Limbo player into thinking he is good even he can't play him well...

Oh a series on Limbo for Limbo players is in the works, the script's about halfway done. But it'll be a while, it's become kind of enormous even though it's well split up(It'll be uploaded into several smaller 10-minute guides focused on specific parts of building/playing him)

But anyways, as I said in the video, there's already a LOT of guides on how to play him, and not a lot aimed at helping others learn to work with him, so I wanted something to help the 95% or so of the community who doesn't use him better understand what he's doing, why they'd want to have him, and what they can do when trying to work with him.

 

As for the defending the players who can't play Limbo bit, the only reason I do that is because I totally understand the reasons they don't. Normal reasoning for most frames is that more range is better, and as Narrow Minded is a rare mod from a mission type that people don't run that much you might get players using him who aren't even AWARE that negative range is a real or valuable thing. Combine that with his general complexity, the hate he normally gets, his ability to easily mess up teammates when misused, and the fact that a lot of the guides for him are either outdated, incomplete, or in at least one case I found, full of bad information, and you have a character who is absolutely horrible for new players to learn. So I try to cut bad Limbo's a bit of slack whenever they don't seem to be intentionally trying to piss people off, and help them when I can.

[Xenonthetenno]

How to work with Limbo : don't

Limbo's problem is that he can change everything but doesn't be changed from anything. There is no feedback only one-way

The problem is that when others play limbo,

'You' should change

'You' should adjust to his playstyle

Wanted to shoot? Too bad limbo don't think so

 

The worst way to play limbo

Go into rift and do nothing

 

Hmm.. maybe I am not hating Limbo.

Im hating the ones playing it and using him for easy trolling

Edited May 29, 2018 by Xenonthetenno

[HisokaXEveryone]

19 minutes ago, Xenonthetenno said:

Hmm.. maybe I am not hating Limbo.

Im hating the ones playing it and using him for easy trolling

We all hate those. In general though, when you think of Limbo, are you thinking of the ones who summon a massive bubble that covers the whole map, or the ones who create a small bubble that shields a specific point, or banishes an npc you have to protect? Because from everything I've seen, what seems to be the root of all the hatred for him is that the vast majority of those picking him up go for the large bubble setups that are often more likely to be a negative for the team's enjoyment, rather than using small bubbles and selective banishes to completely defend important objectives.

[Starcanum]

What seems to be the root of all the hatred for him is the stupid human nature. Instead of talking to a person and asking him to disable the bubble and/or stasis people choose to blindly hate the frame and prejudge everyone who plays it, because typing tons of hateful things and leaving a squad is so much easier than saying a couple words in the chat. Ever since his rework I've only encountered 2 limbos who were specifically trolling and ignoring everything, everyone else listened to reason and likely got better at Limbo thanks to the feedback.

Afk Limbos are fine, they don't ruin anything for anyone else and when I actually need to make sure there'll be 4 active squad members, I turn to the recruitment chat. And even the trolling ones are fun in their own obnoxious way.

And to all those people that hate Limbo's guts, have fun with all the Limbo Primes running around soon, can't wait for that to happen.

[NocheLuz]

7 minutes ago, Starcanum said:

And to all those people that hate Limbo's guts, have fun with all the Limbo Primes running around soon, can't wait for that to happen.

TBH, I'm gonna be 1 Limbo player when the Prime arrive (lol).

Expected troll a good Limbo soon...

[Xenonthetenno]

2 minutes ago, Starcanum said:

What seems to be the root of all the hatred for him is the stupid human nature. Instead of talking to a person and asking him to disable the bubble and/or stasis people choose to blindly hate the frame and prejudge everyone who plays it, because typing tons of hateful things and leaving a squad is so much easier than saying a couple words in the chat. Ever since his rework I've only encountered 2 limbos who were specifically trolling and ignoring everything, everyone else listened to reason and likely got better at Limbo thanks to the feedback.

Well none of the limbos i ever met didnt asked

'Hey is it ok to use cataclysm?'

They just turn the bubble on and force us to follow

Sometimes chatting doesnt even work

Well, maybe because I play on asian server which has many people using different languages and has quite a lot of people who somehow hates english and tends to ignore it

[Starcanum]

Just now, Xenonthetenno said:

Well none of the limbos i ever met didnt asked

'Hey is it ok to use cataclysm?'

They just turn the bubble on and force us to follow

Sometimes chatting doesnt even work

Well, maybe because I play on asian server which has many people using different languages and has quite a lot of people who somehow hates english and tends to ignore it

Why would they ask if it's ok to use max range cataclysm + stasis if they have it in those missions in the first place? I've never had anyone ask that too, but I've had a lot of those who turn it on, see me ask to turn it off and do it. I've had a decent amount of those who didn't but asked "why?" in return, to which it was enough to say it's disruptive to the team and that they should disable it for now and bring the min range next time. I got one who max range'd a defense map and didn't disable it, I got one who purposely sabotaged the Sargas Ruk assa sortie, but other than that it didn't seem that bad. But yea, I can see how playing with language barrier might cause communication problems.

[MacEifer]

Here's the problem about the whole "learn to play with limbo" threads. The vast majority of limbos are awful and Limbo could always be substituted for a better frame except for some very specific high level sorties.

If I gnash my teeth and try to work against the ill effect the horse brain Limbo has on my Nitain alert, I'm only telling him "it's ok for you to waste our time. I prefer being annoyed for long periods of time in order to pretend I'm staying in the mission to further some unspoken dialogue between the people who want to finish and the challenged people who want to rift a level 15 brood mother."

I could be halfway through that mission already if I l just left and re-queued.

The community doesn't have to live with Limbo. I'm not investing any time into finding out whether you're a good limbo or not because unless this is a highlevel sortie, you're already not a good Limbo because you would know the limitations of your frame.

There are simply put abilities in the game that can screw with progress. Not cleaning up your snow globes is such a thing, large Bastilles  can hurt cleartime etc etc. Limbo basically IS one of those abilities.

In short, please pick Limbo where he is actually useful and stop bringing him along for everything else.

[Starcanum]

So let's recap.

Great in: Defense, Mobile Defense, Excav, Kuva Survival, Spy, Interception, Rescue, Eidolon Hunt, some of the Assassinations.
Neutral (including missions that can be done with a level 0 frame): Capture, Defecation, Sabotage, Hijack, Exterminate, Survival.
Negative in: Defense (bad limbos who max range stasis the room decreasing the clear time), Assassination (due to its nature = standing in one place for a long time a bad limbo can max range stasis too), ESO.

So where exactly is Limbo so detrimental that it warrants singling him out as a cancerous useless frame? It's far from limited to just the high level sorties.

[(XBOX)Evilpricetag]

Scenario:

I want Mesa's passive of additional health while no melee is equipt. Enter game with large Cataclysm Limbo.

What do?

[Axio.]

Why would I want a limbo when I could have instead had a Volt? A Banshee? A Trinity? A Harrow? A Frost? A Loki? A Nezha? If I am going into a mission where I already know the objective, I am going to take a frame specialized and good for that mission. Nekros goes into Survivals, Frosts and Garas and Nuke frames flock to Defense. CC Kings live in ecstatic delirium within Interceptions, stealth frames rule the Spies... Speed frames exceed Capture, Rescue, and Sabotage... Even Nezha is preferable to a Limbo because of his augment in a defection or sortie defense, because it doesn't inconvenience any other party members while doing almost the same thing.

 

Limbo is not useless because he has no use, he is useless because the situations where he is most useful (i.e. Defections and Humanoid-Defense Sorties) are too few and far between. In almost every other situation, I can think of several frames I would want to have, rather than a Limbo:

Mobile/Defense: Gara, Frost, Ember, Equinox, Saryn, Volt, Trinity, Vauban, Hydroid, Rhino, Nova, Nidus, Banshee, Nyx
Spy: Ash, Loki, Octavia, Ivara
Sabotage: Volt, Octavia
Rescue: Volt, Octavia
Capture: Volt, Octavia
Extermination: Volt, Octavia, Ember, Equinox, Saryn, Banshee
Interception: Literally any frame other than Limbo
Survival: Nekros, Hydroid, Ivara, Atlas, Oberon, Nidus, Banshee
Excavation: Gara, Frost, Khora, Volt, Vauban, Hydroid
Defection: Ivara, Nezha, Vauban, Trinity, Oberon, Harrow, Khora
Assassination: Chroma, Volt, Rhino, Inaros, Octavia

*** Just because a frame isn't listed here, such as Mirage, or Zephyr, that does not mean I'd rather see a Limbo than those frames. I'd rather never see a Limbo, because Mirage and Zephyr are not going to give me mental stress over what I am going to do if the player playing Limbo decides to be a jerk. ***

And don't even get me started on how horrendous his Plains of the Eidolon content is. About the only reasonably decent thing Limbo can do on the Plains is Rift out the lures.

It's not that Limbo is bad, he just suffers from Pre-work Oberon Syndrome. Why would you use him when better alternatives exist?

Two of Limbo's abilities have exactly 0 synergy with any other warframe or ability in existence. In a team-based game such as Warframe, Limbo's abilities are unanimously solo play viable. And that's it.

I don't want the playstyle of one person to disrupt and discourage the other three people in play. Limbo was poorly designed and ill-conceived, and you cannot honestly tell me, with a straight face, that any of these points can be easily refuted.

 

That's my two ducats on it, at least. Limbo cannot survive as being an explicitly solo-viable frame in a game that is 99% team based, and I will vehemently protest to preserve my right to leave a mission the moment I see someone playing this failed experiment of a warframe.

~~~~~

 

On a completely different note, you have an excellent speaking voice and the humor you use in videos, as well as the editing, are rather nice. You could stand to consider doing retakes of lines where you stammer, stutter, or stumble, but all in all the quality of your audio can be fixed simply with a better microphone.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Axio.

[Zeiss17]

Oh look, another Limbo thread. Been a while since I saw one. Probably because everything is drowned into the umbra hype.

[Oreades]

I really don't get why it's so hard for people who play Limbo to process how disruptive they are and why people don't like to play with Limbos. When most people's experience with a Limbo is that they walk into a game, toss out a max range stasis field that essentially shuts down the game and invalidates two thirds of your weapons loadout.... and their response to peoples issues are a continual stream of "learn to play with Limbo" and "you still have one third of your load out left~ you should be happy~".

I would say that it is the onus of the Limbo players to learn to play in a way that is minimally disruptive to the rest of the game. Good on those Limbo players who have actually mastered the seemingly illusive art of NOT running max range stasis at all times, always. 

[_Vortus_]

Zarr  or Kulstar will be standard when Limbo Prime comes out.   Or whatever other weapons that will overload Cataclysm.

[Maqabir]

I run with Glaive Prime, if there's a Limbo in my group I leave, tired of having my melee weapon stolen and unable to use my guns.

They should just allow other frames to shoot freely in the rift and attack any enemies regardless of whether they're in the rift or not.

If Limbo wants to stay safe in a parallell dimension then let him, it shouldn't affect my ability to kill.

[HisokaXEveryone]

5 hours ago, (XB1)Evilpricetag said:

Scenario:

I want Mesa's passive of additional health while no melee is equipt. Enter game with large Cataclysm Limbo.

What do?

Well, it's unfortunate that you get that lovely conflict, and big bubble setups are really annoying, but remember that your ability's pass through the void, and you get energy regeneration from the void, so abuse the hell out of peacemaker as much as possible. And ask him to drop stasis if you hit energy issues.