Mag is, to put it lightly, a hot mess.

[YagoXiten]

Her survivability is laughable. Her synergy is forced and ineffective. Her energy costs are astronomical. Her damage is irrelevant without abusing specific weapon loadouts or massive investments in Ability Strength. Her crowd control is lackluster without her Augments--Counter Pulse almost strictly outclasses Fracturing Crush and Magnetized Discharge in that regard, but at least one of those still ends up being mandatory depending upon what mission you're in. She requires Ability Duration for Polarize's range and to use two of those Augments but doing so makes Magnetize unwieldy. You're also almost always forced to run Fleeting Expertise unless you somehow manage to make do with Zenurik and Streamline.

Detailed Explanation:

Spoiler

 

Let's go through a usual bout of modding Mag.

We put on Vitality so that we don't bleed out all over that pretty tile after taking a few Slash procs or fighting Venomous Eximi. Next we throw on Counter Pulse so that we don't die to stray Bombard rockets or get ambushed by a Detron Crewman. We'll throw on Fleeting Expertise so we can actually use our powers and Primed Continuity so we can actually use Polarize. So far, so good, right?

Well, that's where things get frustrating. Overextended seems like a nice fit for Pull, Magnetize, and Crush--but if we do that our Magnetize bubbles are more of a hinderance than anything on small tilesets, and since Blind Rage is out of the question with these energy costs we end up having to run Intensify AND Transient Fortitude if we want to use Magnetize with a weapon other than the Lanka. And this is before we've even talked about armor.

Maybe just Stretch, then? Sadly, the base explosion range on Magnetize is 15m and Crush is 18m, so that isn't enough most of the time. We can add Augur Reach, but now we're down to 2 mod slots. If the mission is against Grineer or Corrupted, we need to run Fracturing Crush to deal with their armor. Crush's cast time is abhorrent, so we run Natural Talent...And then we still don't have any Strength to actually deal with their armor. 

Maybe we take out Augur Reach and slot in Transient Fortitude? Now our Duration on Counter Pulse is barely longer than our reload speed with half of the weapons in the game. Maybe just Intensify? Sure, that seems ok.

And then we go into a Sortie and our powers do no damage because Polarize affects total armor. We can cast Polarize and then Crush two or three times in a row and finish with another Polarize...But now we've spent all of our energy and six seconds doing nothing more than stripping them of their armor.

And then we die, because some Bombard behind us and just outside of Crush's range got out of Counter Pulse. Back to the drawing board.

And all I can think is: Why? Mag has a combo!

In theory, at least. You use Crush to lock them down, Polarize to weaken their defenses, Pull to round them up, and Magnetize to blow them away.

Except that isn't what happens. You have to cast Polarize first so you don't die in Crush's animation. Then you cast Pull to group them up and...they all go flying randomly behind you across the room. (That, or you only hit the Corrupted/Ancient Healer because its aura protects everything around it from Pull's CC.) Then you cast Magnetize and start filling that poor guy full of holes, waiting for the big bang. And then it never comes because you kill everything in the room and then Magnetize dies off with a whimper. You can fix some of these issues with modding, but it's ultimately like trying to patch a major hull breach when you're already on a sinking ship. You constantly find at least one or two major issues that you cannot seem to get rid of.

 

If not exactly the changes below, I think we can all agree on this much:
 

• Mag's Energy usage needs toned down. [Remember that this is caused, primarily, by her dependence upon Polarize and Fracturing Crush to deal with enemy scaling. And to a lesser extent by her dependence upon spamming her two most expensive abilities for the shields they generate.]
• Pull should allow us greater precision in corralling enemies.
• Pull's Energy Orb generation mechanic shouldn't require her to kill the target.
• Magnetize's damage should scale better with the damage dealt by Pull/Polarize/Crush and the damage dealt by weapons that lack obvious synergy with the ability.
• Magnetize needs some sort of QoL changes to make it less difficult to use with projectile weapons.
• Magnetize should, in some way, have manual detonation.
• Polarize's armor reduction needs to scale far better than it does.
• Crush and Fracturing Crush need to be less redundant with Polarize and Counter Pulse since both abilities deal damage, remove armor, restore shields, and CC enemies.

My Suggestions:

Pull: No longer pulls enemies wildly towards Mag. Instead, Mag pulls all enemies within 15/20m (affected by Ability Range) of the point her reticle is aiming at a distance of 15m (affected by Ability Range) towards said point. This works like Hydroid's Tempest Barrage and has infinite cast range. Furthermore, keep in mind that Pull is currently either a hemisphere or a cone, though it is extremely difficult to prove for certain it is one or the other. If it is a cone, then a 15m radius sphere is very similar in volume. If it is a hemisphere, as seems more likely, then a 20m radius sphere is similar in volume. In other words, please ignore that the range has 'gone down'. It has not--it has merely been redistributed. Damage reduced to 100 (affected by Ability Strength). Damage multiplier on Magnetized targets changed to 4x (affected by Ability Strength) and this damage is now absorbed by Magnetize. The first time Pull is used on an enemy directly targeted by Magnetize there is a 25% chance (affected by Ability Strength) to spawn an Energy Orb. Pull now has a 100% chance to apply the Magnetic Status.

• Augment - Greedy Pull: Unchanged

Magnetize: The damage dealt by Magnetize's damage over time effect is now based upon the greatest absorbed damage type. Magnetize's damage over time now has a 20% Status Chance (affected by Ability Strength). Magnetize now properly absorbs the damage dealt from all weapons. Magnetize no longer has bizarre targeting interactions with hitscan weapons.

• Augment - Magnetized Discharge: No longer has a chance to disarm enemies. Instead, enemies are slowed by 60% (affected by Ability Strength, cannot exceed 80%) for 6 seconds (affected by Ability Duration). Magnetize can still be manually detonated with this augment.

Spoiler

From what I can tell Magnetize currently only tracks damage instances that actually hit an enemy within it. Shooting the sphere with no enemies inside does not add damage. Shooting at the sphere whilst enemies are inside it, but not in the center, will not add damage unless they collide with a shot left trapped in the field. If a single shot manages to strike enemies multiple times it will add damage to Magnetize multiple times. If an enemy is attacked with a weapon which has multishot and the target dies to the first pellet, then subsequent pellets will not add damage as the target died before they hit.

All of this together means that the properties of Mag's weapons and the health of Mag's target affect the damage dealt by Magnetize in an absurd manner.

Two weapons which have the same DPS and time to kill can add dramatically different values to Magnetize. This is particularly significant when you compare high rate of fire but low damage weaponry, such assault rifles, and high damage but low rate of fire weapons such as snipers. They may both kill a target in a single shot, but only the sniper will contribute significantly to the damage absorbed by Magnetize. Status weapons are affected by this even more, as not only are they typically high rate of fire but low damage weapons, they also tend to rely upon the Corrosive status which does not actually deal damage.

I want to fix this.

Ideally by making it so that Magnetize tracks the damage type and damage dealt to the sphere itself, rather than the raw damage dealt to enemies inside of the sphere. This would still allow projectile weapons to damage enemies multiple times. It would not, however, allow a single Lanka shot to increase Magnetize's damage for every time it hits an enemy. This is not a nerf, though it may seem like it at first glance, because the damage type dealt by Magnetize's damage over time will be able to ignore 75% of a target's alloy armor with Radiation damage or 75% of a target's ferrite armor with Corrosive damage, on top of the expected 1.75x damage increase in both cases.

Polarize: Polarize now briefly staggers enemies that have neither armor nor shields. Polarize's damage changed to 250 (affected by Ability Strength) and Polarize's shield restoration is changed to 500 (affected by Ability Strength). Polarize's armor reduction now applies to base armor as opposed to total armor. The shards created by Polarize now add 100 (affected by Ability Strength) damage to Magnetize.

• Augment - Counter Pulse: Unchanged

Crush: Crush now causes all instances of Magnetize within range to detonate, and its damage is absorbed by Magnetize.

• Augment - Fracturing Crush: No longer reduces enemy armor. Instead, all enemies are affected by the Puncture Status and cannot move for 8 seconds (affected by Ability Duration).

 

Why?

This satisfies every bullet point listed above. In addition: Mag has substantially greater flexibility in her modding as her base abilities are improved and her Augments diversified, her survivability has improved, and her crowd control options are more differentiated. A large amount of Ability Duration no longer hinders your ability to detonate Magnetize and/or no longer mandates an Augment. Ability Strength is now more beneficial to Mag, but is still not required. Ability Efficiency is improved as a  Mag no longer has to cast Crush and Polarize multiple times in a row for Magnetize to scale against armored enemies. Ability Range is just as powerful as it is now, but Mag players running low Range should enjoy still being able to use Pull to round up far away foes. Melee Mag players should enjoy using Condition Overload with the Puncture procs from Fracturing Crush and the Magnetic proc from Pull.

Edited June 8, 2018 by YagoXiten

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

i just move around a lot and jump ... lasted years for me

on the habit of not standing still or running up and smacking a big enemy i know will 1 hit ko me 

new kit is very great 

just simply cast 1/4/3/2 and your good 

[MickThejaguar]

You poked the wrong beehive, friend.

[EinheriarJudith]

9 minutes ago, (XB1)EternalDrk Mako said:

i just move around a lot and jump ... lasted years for me

on the habit of not standing still or running up and smacking a big enemy i know will 1 hit ko me 

new kit is very great 

just simply cast 1/4/3/2 and your good 

pretty much. the only thing mag needs really is a better passive.

Edited June 5, 2018 by EinheriarJudith

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

Just now, EinheriarJudith said:

pretty much. the only thing mag needs really is a better passive.

bullet jump grab is fine, she at least has innate vacuum and dosnt then require a sentinel 

[Hypernaut1]

Wow

[-Bittersteel-]

I almost stopped reading after the 1st assessment. How does she have bad survivability right now, you can get max overshields in a second, probably one of the best Warframes to do so at the moment. And I didn't even know what's Counter Pulse, not sure why it is so mandatory.

[Katinka]

I enjoy playing Mag, but I think I'd still enjoy her with these changes.  I'm not sure if they are really better, but I could live with them. 

The main things I want changed with Mag is her passive, and for Magnetize to work more consistently (is it even working as intended right now?  I don't know.)

Edited June 5, 2018 by Katinka

[EinheriarJudith]

12 minutes ago, (XB1)EternalDrk Mako said:

bullet jump grab is fine, she at least has innate vacuum and dosnt then require a sentinel 

all frames have a 3m innate vaccum. the passive has no place.

[Serinexxa]

8 minutes ago, EinheriarJudith said:

all frames have a 3m innate vaccum. the passive has no place.

Mag main who prefers playing without vacuum anyways here.

I'd thought a bit about better passives. One idea being immunity to procs while shields are up, and another is gaining energy/shields on magnetic procs instead of losing it.

[YagoXiten]

41 minutes ago, EinheriarJudith said:

pretty much. the only thing mag needs really is a better passive.

The new kit is infinitely better than the old kit, sure. But Saryn 2.0 was better than Saryn 1.0 and better than Mag currently is and they still went through the effort to release Saryn 3.0. There is almost always going to room for improvement.

Why should we settle for Magnetize bubbles we can't control without an Augment? Why should we settle for Fracturing Crush / Polarize being unable to strip armor when Ash, Oberon, Saryn, Banshee, and Hydroid can easily do that and more than the rest of Mag's kit with less effort? Why should we have to use a Lanka or other projectile weapon for Magnetize to even properly absorb damage? Why should Polarize have a faction it does absolutely nothing against? Why should Crush cost more energy, deal less damage and have less range and less CC than Polarize when the only thing it does slightly better is generate overshields if you have a dozen enemies nearby and are already maxed or near maxed out on shields?

Mag might not need work as much as some other frames like Ember or Vauban, but she's nowhere near as effective or as well designed as Atlas, Banshee, Equinox, Harrow, Hydroid, Inaros, Khora, Limbo, Loki, Nekros, Nezha, Nidus, Nova, Oberon, Octavia, Rhino, Saryn, Valkyr, or Volt.

[EinheriarJudith]

27 minutes ago, Serinexxa said:

Mag main who prefers playing without vacuum anyways here.

I'd thought a bit about better passives. One idea being immunity to procs while shields are up, and another is gaining energy/shields on magnetic procs instead of losing it.

they could have given her something like " enemies have a 50% chance to attract friendly fire while under the effect of mags powers" ^_^ they could do alot. vacuum on bullet jump is just odd when you have innate vacuum and sentinel vacuum.

[BiancaRoughfin]

1 hour ago, YagoXiten said:

Magnetize: The damage dealt by Magnetize's damage over time effect is now based upon the greatest absorbed damage type. Magnetize's damage over time now has a 20% Status Chance (affected by Ability Strength). Magnetize now properly absorbs the damage dealt from all weapons.

• Augment - Magnetized Discharge: No longer has a chance to disarm enemies. Instead, enemies are slowed by 60% (affected by Ability Strength, cannot exceed 80%) for 6 seconds (affected by Ability Duration).

I see where this is going... Just so Tigris Prime Fanboys can take the most advantage of her skill?

Not gonna happen.

Mag is great as she is, her only issue being her Passive and slightly her Survivability.

[NezuHimeSama]

My only interest in changing mag right now is making it so the bullet absorb bubble is smaller than it's damage area, and fixing hitscan weapons not hitting enemies in front of it, both of which are stupid problems and make her one of the most effective frames for griefing.

[AdvisorZ]

So, what I have just read:
"Mag does not bring damage" - Of course. I destroy with her help 150 (+/-) levels of any faction. Yes. No damage.
"Mag does not survive" - Sure. She was upgraded, added shields from the Ultimate (including for teammates), and slightly reduced cast time. Augmented "Disarmament" with manual disconnection of the dome. Yes. All what not stand still  and does not receive damage - Rino Trinity Chroma Nidus - , while drinking tea, all badly survives. To spit on "to move in battle," "modes of vitality," "mechanics of abilities and their adaptation." Yes. 

" Mag badly controls opponents ". Of course. Can hurl opponents with the first ability as much as she wants (not to mention the fact that this ability was exposed to nerf). She can keep the opponent with her fourth ability as much as she wants, plus, with the augment - control gets even better.  Yes. She is a "very bad" crowd controller.

So, what did I see? Nothing new. Again, whining, which has already hurt many frames (and will still harm, more than once, in future updates). 

"I cant deal damage by playing for Mag, I cant survive by playing for Mag, I cant do anything, by playing for Mag. So - I order you to spit on the players and do as I said !! Change Mag, because I do not know how to play for Mag!". 

Dude, if you do not know how, that's your personal problem. But whining and complaining that: "Ah, a bad frame., Change!" - no one needs. You will only spoil everything. Or learn, or leave the frame alone, and do not spoil the pleasure of other players. 

The only thing useful in the entire monologue is: Words about 100% status, for the 1st and 4th abilities. 25% chance to pull the sphere of energy out of the opponent. Replacement of passive ability (or increase the radius of attraction). That's all. 

Everything other in this monologue - personal fantasies about "unicorns, rainbow, invulnerability and mass destruction with one click" (you need to another universe, sir) who have already done enough bad things.

Mag like everything is not perfect. But she is excellent, as she is. And she does not need any changes and "vanilla" ideas.  (Only those little ones that I mentioned).

 

P.S I have one personal request, DE. If you read this. Please, never, do not change Mag, she's good! Never.

[NezuHimeSama]

1 minute ago, AdvisorZ said:

P.S I have one personal request, DE. If you read this. Please, never, do not change Mag, she's good! Never.

I take issue with this; her 2 needs to be reworked to remove it's griefing aspects. Also, it's interaction with hitscan weapons is bugged, and that should be fixed as well.

[YagoXiten]

14 hours ago, AdvisorZ said:

So, what I have just read:
"Mag does not bring damage" - Of course. I destroy with her help 150 (+/-) levels of any faction. Yes. No damage.
"Mag does not survive" - Sure. She was upgraded, added shields from the Ultimate (including for teammates), and slightly reduced cast time. Augmented "Disarmament" with manual disconnection of the dome. Yes. All what not stand still  and does not receive damage - Rino Trinity Chroma Nidus - , while drinking tea, all badly survives. To spit on "to move in battle," "modes of vitality," "mechanics of abilities and their adaptation." Yes. 

" Mag badly controls opponents ". Of course. Can hurl opponents with the first ability as much as she wants (not to mention the fact that this ability was exposed to nerf). She can keep the opponent with her fourth ability as much as she wants, plus, with the augment - control gets even better.  Yes. She is a "very bad" crowd controller.

So, what did I see? Nothing new. Again, whining, which has already hurt many frames (and will still harm, more than once, in future updates). 

"I cant deal damage by playing for Mag, I cant survive by playing for Mag, I cant do anything, by playing for Mag. So - I order you to spit on the players and do as I said !! Change Mag, because I do not know how to play for Mag!". 

Dude, if you do not know how, that's your personal problem. But whining and complaining that: "Ah, a bad frame., Change!" - no one needs. You will only spoil everything. Or learn, or leave the frame alone, and do not spoil the pleasure of other players. 

The only thing useful in the entire monologue is: Words about 100% status, for the 1st and 4th abilities. 25% chance to pull the sphere of energy out of the opponent. Replacement of passive ability (or increase the radius of attraction). That's all. 

Everything other in this monologue - personal fantasies about "unicorns, rainbow, invulnerability and mass destruction with one click" (you need to another universe, sir) who have already done enough bad things.

Mag like everything is not perfect. But she is excellent, as she is. And she does not need any changes and "vanilla" ideas.  (Only those little ones that I mentioned).

 

P.S I have one personal request, DE. If you read this. Please, never, do not change Mag, she's good! Never.

The only things suggested here that are anywhere near controversial are changes to Pull's cast paradigm and making Crush detonate Magnetize. The former is almost strictly an improvement. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to actually control where Pull pulls things. The latter, well, Crush sans Fracturing Crush is objectively one of the least effective powers in the game. I made it do potentially massive damage if you take the time to set it up. The rest is just quality of life changes or slight numerical tweaks to offset the significant buffs. No one proposed dramatic and radical changes to her identity. She loses absolutely nothing.

It isn't hard to tackle level 150 enemies. It isn't hard to parkour, and no matter how good you are at it you will eventually eat a Bombard rocket or have a Nullifier snipe you out of Bullet Jump. It isn't hard to mod Corrosive Projection, use status weapons with Corrosive damage or use Radiation/Hunter's Munitions on a crit weapon. You aren't better than me or anyone else for doing those things. But we can do better than expect every almost every single Warframe to run those things in every single mission to make up for their frame's innate lack of scaling, and we certainly shouldn't be doing that whilst spamming CC abilities like Counter Pulse whilst crouched behind a chest high wall because losing track of a single enemy for a quarter of a second means instant death. Warframe is a fast paced horde shooter. You aren't special because you manage to play Mag in high level missions like you're Nathan Drake.

Threads like these exist because a lot of us would rather play a better game than meet someone's narrow preconceptions of 'playing better'.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

@MagPrime I SUMMON THEE!

Though I am surprised you weren't already here.

As for the OP, I agree that much of the synergy is forced, and that there can be difficulty in modding her, the only change I think is really needed is your change to Pull. As it stands now, Pull is just a ragdoll with a vague force vector that isn't useful for anything but emergency CC (and limited in that). The only other change I can think of is to increase the pull strength of Magnetize, so that enemies can't animation-lock their way out of it.

 

[YagoXiten]

14 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

@MagPrime I SUMMON THEE!

Though I am surprised you weren't already here.

As for the OP, I agree that much of the synergy is forced, and that there can be difficulty in modding her, the only change I think is really needed is your change to Pull. As it stands now, Pull is just a ragdoll with a vague force vector that isn't useful for anything but emergency CC (and limited in that). The only other change I can think of is to increase the pull strength of Magnetize, so that enemies can't animation-lock their way out of it.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are a few builds I like on her. But I'd really like to not have to put in so much work and change my loadout or run specific weapons just to keep my damage and CC consistent across the various factions. I really hate losing a mod slot to Magnetized Discharge because its CC is strictly worse than Counter Pulse or Crush, but I'd like to control when Magnetize goes off. I know a lot of Mag players don't like Magnetized Discharge because they don't want to accidentally detonate Magnetize, which is fair and thus why I suggested adding that effect to Crush and making the Magnetize augment do what it currently does but in a way that's less redundant with Counter Pulse.

The big change is making Polarize strip armor without having to spam it or Fracturing Crush. Everything else is just QoL tweaks and bug fixes. Nothing here is all that crazy. I like Mag as she is, but I'm also not so biased that I can't see where she could easily be improved.

[NezuHimeSama]

Your suggestions to magnetize don't address the issue of it protecting enemies inside of it, and generally being a pain to work with, as well as generally not being necessary to it's function.

In fact, in general, these changes are pretty damn significant, and far more than "just QoL tweaks and bug fixes".

I also didn't see any mention of the hitscan magnetize bug.

[YagoXiten]

38 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

Your suggestions to magnetize don't address the issue of it protecting enemies inside of it, and generally being a pain to work with, as well as generally not being necessary to it's function.

In fact, in general, these changes are pretty damn significant, and far more than "just QoL tweaks and bug fixes".

I also didn't see any mention of the hitscan magnetize bug.

My changes to Pull's cast paradigm are significant, but the basic idea is just to let Mag have actual control over where enemies get sent. You could fix that without changing the cast paradigm, which is what most people want. I thought about that and realized Mag doesn't always want to pull enemies to her since standing inside her own Magnetize bubble is likely to get her killed thanks to the physics changes a few patches ago.

As for Magnetize, by giving it a status chance, making its damage over time type match the damage it absorbs, and making it actually behave consistently and absorb the damage dealt from all weapons (as in please fix the bugs that seem to show up every other patch) it will fix Magnetize being a griefing tool. It will end up like Hydroid's Undertow where you can easily kill the things inside by shooting at it, at least for the enemies actually in the field. There's not much to be done about it blocking hallways except making it so that Mag is the only one who can contribute to it or making its range static both of which would feel terrible. It can be a little annoying, but Frost and Limbo are far worse than Mag in that regard, anyways.

What's significant about the other changes? You can do literally everything that you could before, but are infinitely more flexible and reliable.

[NezuHimeSama]

The issue with magnetize is that enemies in front of magnetize can't be hit with hitscan weapons, and enemies on the edge of magnetize can only be hit with projectile weapons if the projectile passes through the enemy to get to the center of magnetize.

Like I said before, make the magnetize absorbtion area smaller(30~50% the size or so?) than the damage area and fix the hitscan bug, and magnetize will be fine. No further changes needed. It does plenty of damage, it just doesn't do it to enemies at the edge of the bubble, but if you can attack those enemies normally anyway, it doesn't matter. Simple fix, mechanically it's very similar to an existing ability(amesha), there's no reason this shouldn't solve everything without any major changes. Bonus points if the augment, instead of requiring reactivation to explode a bubble, causes the bubble to instantly(no slow shrink) burst as soon as no enemies occupy the space in the core(the part that absorbs bullets, as apposed to the damage area)

Crush detonating magnetize is a pretty big deal, and not a great idea. It removes the defensive property of camping inside the magnetize bubble, forces you to detonate all magnetize to activate crush, and it's not necessary to fix magnetize.

For the pull suggestion, the issue is that pull is mag's fastest CC ability for a reason. It's a defensive move meant to quickly incapacitate immediate threats to take the heat off mag so she can use the rest of her kit. The only issues it has are not working through walls, and greedy pull not pulling resources for the party. The proposed changes not only break this functionality(and it's important for squishy mag to have this!) but the other suggestions are honestly kind of OP.

 

Adding a stagger to base polarize is also unnecessary and undesirable as it would slow down enemy movement, which is the opposite of what you want in a defense mission, aka where the expanding bubble actually functions best. Leave it for the augment. I think the amour reduction should be a % of armor, though, and the damage should be a fixed value not capped by armor or shields. Enemies just explode for X damage on being hit(maybe 300 base? something low) after having their armor/shields reduced by Y %(25%*str?) since it currently doesn't scale to high level enemies, which is where armor stripping is needed in the first place.

 

Also, imo, change fracturing crush to cause a cold proc on the final tick rather than "stopping enemy movement", as the brief slow will have a much better effect on the CC viability of Crush. The armor reduction is honestly stupid, and should be shifted over to a more effective polarize, but eh. Maybe make it boost allied damage to affected enemies by 20%*power str.

But, those are pretty minor issues compared to bullet attract being worse than ever.

Edited June 6, 2018 by NezuHimeSama

[YagoXiten]

13 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

The issue with magnetize is that enemies in front of magnetize can't be hit with hitscan weapons, and enemies on the edge of magnetize can only be hit with projectile weapons if the projectile passes through the enemy to get to the center of magnetize.

Like I said before, make the magnetize absorbtion area smaller(30~50% the size or so?) than the damage area and fix the hitscan bug, and magnetize will be fine. No further changes needed. It does plenty of damage, it just doesn't do it to enemies at the edge of the bubble, but if you can attack those enemies normally anyway, it doesn't matter. Simple fix, mechanically it's very similar to an existing ability(amesha), there's no reason this shouldn't solve everything without any major changes. Bonus points if the augment, instead of requiring reactivation to explode a bubble, causes the bubble to instantly(no slow shrink) burst as soon as no enemies occupy the space in the core(the part that absorbs bullets, as apposed to the damage area)

Crush detonating magnetize is a pretty big deal, and not a great idea. It removes the defensive property of camping inside the magnetize bubble, forces you to detonate all magnetize to activate crush, and it's not necessary to fix magnetize.

For the pull suggestion, the issue is that pull is mag's fastest CC ability for a reason. It's a defensive move meant to quickly incapacitate immediate threats to take the heat off mag so she can use the rest of her kit. The only issues it has are not working through walls, and greedy pull not pulling resources for the party. The proposed changes not only break this functionality(and it's important for squishy mag to have this!) but the other suggestions are honestly kind of OP.

 

Adding a stagger to base polarize is also unnecessary and undesirable as it would slow down enemy movement, which is the opposite of what you want in a defense mission, aka where the expanding bubble actually functions best. Leave it for the augment. I think the amour reduction should be a % of armor, though, and the damage should be a fixed value not capped by armor or shields. Enemies just explode for X damage on being hit(maybe 300 base? something low) after having their armor/shields reduced by Y %(25%*str?) since it currently doesn't scale to high level enemies, which is where armor stripping is needed in the first place.

 

Also, imo, change fracturing crush to cause a cold proc on the final tick rather than "stopping enemy movement", as the brief slow will have a much better effect on the CC viability of Crush. The armor reduction is honestly stupid, and should be shifted over to a more effective polarize, but eh. Maybe make it boost allied damage to affected enemies by 20%*power str.

But, those are pretty minor issues compared to bullet attract being worse than ever.

Since that Magnetize issue is an obvious bug or oversight I didn't feel like addressing it, but I did add it to the OP. Adjusting the size of Magnetize is a controversial change, which is why I didn't suggest it. It might not need considerable buffs, but the suggestion does improve projectile weapons being unable to hit things inside of the bubble without altering the physics because of the status chance and damage type changes. The only other way it is really affected is allowing Crush and Pull to increase its damage which should really be the case already since it is a drop in the bucket compared to a single Lanka/Tigris Prime shot. I get where you're coming from with Crush affecting Magnetize's detonation, but like I said standing inside of Magnetize bubbles used to be a reliable defense and is now a good way to get yourself killed. I'd honestly prefer Magnetize to just be recastable as a base function, but a lot of Mag players don't want that. I know I wouldn't want the augment to detonate automatically after killing all the enemies inside,  since I may have enough duration remaining on it to detonate it on another group later (Unless that's what the Augment does AND the ability can be detonated manually as a base function).

I don't think the Pull cast paradigm changes affect its defensive use at all. It is virtually instant to mouse vaguely in front of you or at your feet and get the same benefit of current Pull. It having the Magnetic status certainly isn't OP.  Shields are already irrelevant because Toxin damage ignores them, and there're a dozen weapons that can apply that effect just as easily like the Synoid Simulor. It creating Energy Orbs 25% of the time after spending 75 Energy is nothing compared to Trinity or Harrow or Zenurik or Large Energy Restores.

Polarize having a stagger shouldn't slow down defense missions because the only enemies that have no shields or armor are the Infested and some Corrupted units. You'd only trigger the stagger on enemies that you've already removed all the shields and armor off of, which means you've already used the ability and hit with its expansion at least once. Besides, a stagger only slows enemies down by about a half of a second. Polarize affecting base armor is more or less the same thing as affecting a percentage of total armor. The percentage just differs depending upon the enemy type. A Lancer has 100 base armor, and a Corrupted Bombard has 500 base armor. Polarize with 40% Strength would remove all of the armor off of a Lancer, but only remove 20% of a Bombard's armor. Polarize with >=200% Strength would remove all of the armor off of almost everything.

I actually originally had Fracturing Crush changed to a Cold proc, but it was redundant with new Magnetized Discharge and I felt it wasn't as fitting for her thematic as a generic Puncture proc. Both are good, since they add some additional utility and reduce the damage enemies deal.

[Ajwf]

Man, Mag got an absolute gift from DE with these last changes and people still complain like she's some garbage frame. There's a lot of stuff here that I think is honestly stupid to ask for because Mag doesn't need to be Loki/Octavia powerful, and her design is only getting more powerful in the general warframe meta as a large-scale area wiping/control frame. 

The fact of the matter is Counter Pulse is currently one of the best augments in the game. Having a 4-second full disarm on almost every corpus minus melees, all grineer minus non-shield melees (and no infested...) is really insane. And then there's the fact that the ability, at a good duration, will seriously room-wipe all enemies of their weapons. It's finally worth using on it's own, and that means you get the shards for the magnetize bubbles you already spam. 

Mag already has some of the best weapon synergies in the game, be it with the Supra Vandal, the Zennistar, the Drakgoon, the Zarr, and some of the weird projectile shotguns. These weapons (exception Zennistar, Supra) are basically worthless on their own but with Mag become insane killing machines off her 2, capable of shredding enemies at any level within magnetize. 

And while overshields normally aren't worth it, I don't ever see people complaining sporting 2000 overshields like a damn Harrow blessed with perfect aim. They aren't hard to get, they gave her proper survivability for using her 4, they're actually pretty manageable to gain back.

If anything, I think some of her older augments need some QOL updates. Her Magnetize Discharge disarming enemies at a 50% chance on explosion helps exactly no one. 50% base, and affected by ability strength? I'm sorry, but ability strength is normally the one stat Mag can forgo and not feel bad about losing. You normally want a combination of range (1 pull area, 2 size, 4 area, 3 base size?), duration (2 length of time, 3 area covered, which is the big one) and efficiency. So you're basically at a coin flip for a disarm for each enemy. 200% Strength is not a build I've ever seen on Mag. The only other utility thing strength does for Mag is increase overshields on Crush and tbh that's not needed if you're using crush correctly. You normally gain 200 shields per tick over 3 ticks on most casts. Fracturing Crush is cool for stripping armor but the finishing CC (can't move for like 7 seconds) is useless because those enemies can still fire. I'd prefer a reduced fire rate or something to preventing movement in a game where we're so hyper mobile. 

Like I find it hard to believe people are complaining about Mag herself given the state she was in prior to this rework. She's workable at any level and, with experience, incredibly strong. That's so much more than can be said for half the frames in this game. Lest we get too close to the sun and end up like Ember. Some of these criticisms would be cool to see (% armor strip on 3) but again, we're already close to the sun with how dominate she can be especially off her counter pulse augment. 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Ajwf

[EinheriarJudith]

people who use ember as an example of something bad that happened are usually people who don't know how to use her. its almost kind of cute.