A Trinity main tries out a Trinity rework

[Teridax68]

It's time for another one of these, I feel. Trinity's issues are largely well-known at this point:

• She tends to break energy consumption wherever she goes, offering vast amounts of energy to her whole team with just the press of a button.
• Energy Vampire also tends to break customization by benefiting from negative power duration. The only frame that approaches this is Nova with her Speeva build, and that build carries clear tradeoffs.
• Well of Life is kind of redundant relative to Blessing. This isn't really the worst of issues, nor is it one unique to Trinity (plenty of frames have redundant abilities, especially 1s that are weaker versions of their 4), but if she does get updated (or rather, nerfed), it might help to take a look at this.

And to preface, when I say I'm a Trinity main, I really do mean that I've spent most of my time in Warframe playing Trinity. I have over 1400 hours and 165 million XP accumulated with Trinity + Trinity Prime. While I do not claim to be the only expert on Trinity, nor do I think this makes my rework correct by default, I do think it gives me the right to say I have some experience with the frame, and am aware of her playstyles, intricacies, and problems. To start, here are the aspects of Trinity I like the most:

• Saving allies. While Blessing does have a lot of power attached to a single button press, using it at the right time, and predicting the flow of combat well enough to use it at clutch moments, I think is incredibly satisfying, and an expression of skill that other players can feel as well.
• Marking enemies for death. Energy Vampire has its flaws, but the base mechanic of being able to mark an opponent, then kill them for a reward (which also exists in Well of Life to some extent), is fun when you get to rack these kills up. Even on EV Trinity, who doesn't have to kill enemies to get the full benefits, being able to focus a single target in this manner can still be fun when against a tough opponent.
• Surviving. Trinity is deceptively durable with the right build, and can even become one of the tankiest frames in the game. Being able to save oneself from certain death is also a tremendous feeling.

With this in mind, I feel any sort of Trinity rework should have the following goals:

• Prevent her from negating her team's energy costs. She should still be able to offer energy, but doing so should involve some more interaction.
• Enable appropriate costs for her protection. Trinity should be able to save allies from the brink of death, and from very far away, but she shouldn't be able to just press a button and stop everyone from dying for the next few seconds every time.
• Strip the redundancy from her kit. There are multiple overlapping effects in Trinity's ability set, namely Well of Life and her double damage reduction, that limit her choices to some degree, while frequently giving her more power than she has use for.
• Play up the trinity theme. Trinity should stand out from the support roster in that she should have very specialized tools for three specific functions, namely healing, protection and debuffs, which she can use directly on single allies, enemies or herself.

And now, onto the proposed kit (numbers are placeholder and could change anytime):

• Effects highlighted in red are affected by Power Strength, effects highlighted in blue are affected by Power Efficiency, effects highlighted in green are affected by Power Duration, and effects highlighted in orange are affected by Power Range.
• All of Trinity's abilities are one-handed, can be used in mid-air, and do not interrupt her other actions.
• Passive - Triage: Trinity can see and target allies within 50 meters at all times, including through walls. Allies with low health or in a downed state are highlighted with a red aura.
• 1 - Well of Life: Trinity imbues herself or the target ally with life, granting them 10 charges that last indefinitely. Upon getting hit, one of the charges expends itself to grant her target 35% / 40% / 45% / 50% damage reduction (capped at 95%) and immunity to status effects for 1 second, during which time no other charges are expended. If held, Trinity performs a full animation to cast Well of Life on all applicable targets in range at once, prioritizing targets with lower effective health. Costs 50 Energy.
  • Pool of Life reworked: Now creates a 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 meter wide stationary pool at the target's feet on cast that lasts for up to 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 seconds, which any ally can enter to replenish Well of Life charges.
• 2 - Energy Vampire: Trinity marks the target enemy within 50 meters permanently, revealing the target to her and to all allies, including through walls, and rendering them targetable to certain effects. This does not alert the target or other enemies. 2% / 3% / 4% / 5% of all damage dealt to the marked target is converted into Energy for the one who dealt the damage. Trinity can only mark one target at a time with Energy Vampire, and placing a mark on a new target causes the old one to expire. Costs no Energy.
  • Vampire Leech unchanged.
• 3 - Link: Trinity links permanently with the target enemy within 11 / 14 / 17 / 20 meters, amplifying the damage they take by 20% / 30% / 40% / 50%. All pre-mitigation damage and status effects applied to one enemy, or Trinity, is applied to all other linked enemies as well, though damage from Link cannot reapply itself. Trinity can link with as many targets as she wants, but each link drains 2 Energy per second. Trinity can press the ability on a linked target or move out of range to cut the link, and can hold the ability to either cut all links immediately, or perform a full animation to link to every enemy in range if she has no links active.
  • Abating Link reworked into Hastened Link: Every time a linked enemy is slain, Trinity is hastened for the next 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 seconds, increasing the speed of all the actions she performs by 10%, stacking up to a maximum of 50%. Further stacks refresh the duration.
• 4 - Blessing: Trinity expends as much of her Energy as possible to instantly heal the target ally or herself's health and shields for 700% / 800% / 900% / 1000% of the amount spent, up until the target's health and shields are full. If held, Trinity performs a full animation to heal herself and all allies in range at the same time, attempting to equalize all of their effective health.
  • New augment - Miraculous Blessing: Trinity can use Blessing on a single downed ally or herself to both revive and heal them, but can only do so once every 120 / 90 / 60 / 30 seconds. If Trinity is alone in the mission, Miraculous Blessing activates automatically when available, if she takes fatal damage.

The idea here is relatively simple: Trinity's energy generation is too generous overall, whereas Blessing is often too good at keeping everyone alive all the time without much effort, and so both could do with a nerf, but her kit as a whole could use some more options after that happens, without necessarily changing too much in functionality. Instead of managing her cooldowns, Trinity's challenge here would be target selection, and choosing who to mark for clutch protection or death at any given time. EV Trin builds would be left relatively unchanged, with the one difference that negative power duration would no longer offer a benefit (EV would still not need power duration, though), and Bless builds would still make good use of duration with the Miraculous Blessing augment. Meanwhile, hybrid builds would remain durable, though that durability would likely need more of a focus on power strength.

Overall, Trinity would lose her two single-target CCs, and wouldn't be able to use EV or Blessing as cheaply, but would be able to protect allies from farther away if she focuses on them, as well as provide some damage amplification to her team in addition to her top-tier defensive bonuses. She'd still have plenty of solo potential as well, including with the reworked Link augment and new Bless augment, and the changes to her animations means her casting would be much more fluid alongside her weapons use. Effectively, she'd be much less abusive in the situations where she's currently too good, but would gain a ton more fluidity and options in return.

What do you think of this? Whether or not you main Trinity, your opinion is valuable: what are your thoughts on Trinity, and how do you think she needs to change, if at all? How would these changes affect your current builds on her?

Edited July 10, 2018 by Teridax68

[(PSN)psycofang]

I like it. You get my vote.

[VertegrezNox]

Not trying to be rude, but this is the worst idea I've ever heard for a healer. If you hadn't claimed over 1000hours as a "Trinity Main" I would assume you've never played her and built this entire speculation off of rumors a friend told you about the frame. 

of all the games I've played, never has NERFing been the Answer. Nor have I heard a "Healer" "beg for NERFs". This doesn't really sound like a "rework" IMO but more you creating a custom frame out of one that already exists. I can understand that, as it is something many of us likely do, but I do not personally find your description sounds "Fun" at all. 

Trinity is supposed to help the team with energy consumption & she cannot completely refill allies Energy bar with 1 single cast 

Unless 2 conditions are met, a) High Power Strength (over 223%) & b) ally has no Energy Mods and using the base energy

So this does not work for other casters, and you cannot refill your own Energy in 1 single EV use. (Try 4minimum)

I have my own opinions about making Trinity more AoE or dps oriented as her 2 Offensive Abilities are Single Target Only & slow to cast (albeit faster with recent updates) but personally love her Exactly how she is (aside from how slow she is and how little she can contribute to the teams damage output while still providing healing and support.)

Here is a guide created a while back for those looking to "Have More Fun" with Trinity.

I do agree that Well of Life is pretty garbage outside of the "Forma Process" but it does have it's uses (for that). I'll follow this thread and check back to read more of the updates, sorry I didn't really agree with this first drafted version but I am trying to think about Balancing the learning curve between New Healers.. I mean Trinity players, and for the more refined veterans alike. Cheers

 

 

[Teridax68]

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of all the games I've played, never has NERFing been the Answer. Nor have I heard a "Healer" "beg for NERFs". This doesn't really sound like a "rework" IMO but more you creating a custom frame out of one that already exists. I can understand that, as it is something many of us likely do, but I do not personally find your description sounds "Fun" at all. 

So first off, there is a pretty large consensus that Trinity does need a nerf, and as someone who has played her extensively, I fully understand why. Balancing frames only by buffing them is precisely what leads to power creep, and what has led us to the current state of affairs, where we pay for our overpowered frames and weapons with cheesy, sometimes uninteractive and frustrating enemies. This also indirectly ends up nerfing frames anyway, particularly since so many abilities with flat damage now have virtually no impact at higher levels until they're powercrept as well. Trinity is at the center of all this, because she is almost single-handedly responsible for making energy costs practically useless whenever she's around. She is also responsible for making the design of support frames much more difficult, because she does so much of what a support needs to do so well, that it's difficult to make a frame that carves out its own proper niche, while still being just as desirable. I'm not sure if you were around at the time, but Trinity was a must-pick for every Trial mission (in fact, multiple Trinities were often recommended), and EV/Bless Trinity continue to be near-mandatory in many high-level mission types. It's certainly flattering to be in such high demand, but it's not fair for everyone else when this power comes at such high a price.

Also, I'd be interested in knowing which parts of the kit make you think I'm creating a different frame. I tried my best to preserve as much as possible from Trinity's current kit, with her three most used abilities retaining pretty much the same functionality and gameplay.

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Trinity is supposed to help the team with energy consumption & she cannot completely refill allies Energy bar with 1 single cast 

Whether she can fill literally an entire energy bar with a single cast is irrelevant. An unmodded EV will restore 100 Energy in one cast, and an EV Trinity can crank this up to 224 Energy every 1.17 seconds. Within three casts and less than 4 seconds, an EV Trinity can bring virtually any frame from 0 to full Energy, and even a Trin with another build can replicate the process by killing her marked target. This is not okay.

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Unless 2 conditions are met, a) High Power Strength (over 223%) & b) ally has no Energy Mods and using the base energy

EV Trinity exists, and is by no means rare. I'm not sure why you're spending this much time framing what is a very common build as some sort of elusive Warframe unicorn.

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So this does not work for other casters, and you cannot refill your own Energy in 1 single EV use. (Try 4minimum)

Sure, Trinity can refill her own Energy completely in four casts from virtually nothing, especially with Zenurik. Does this not come across as even a little unbalanced to you?

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I have my own opinions about making Trinity more AoE or dps oriented as her 2 Offensive Abilities are Single Target Only & slow to cast (albeit faster with recent updates) but personally love her Exactly how she is (aside from how slow she is and how little she can contribute to the teams damage output while still providing healing and support.)

I personally do not really see why Trinity should be made more AoE oriented when she only has one AoE ability capable of affecting enemies (and even so, it only redirects damage, instead of producing some of its own). Similarly, while I'm personally a fan of giving her damage options, I don't think DPS needs to be part of her core identity when she is already top-tier at both energy and healing. Trinity is already top of the line at too many things at once, and the last thing she needs in her current state is more buffs.

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sorry I didn't really agree with this first drafted version but I am trying to think about Balancing the learning curve between New Healers.. I mean Trinity players, and for the more refined veterans alike. Cheers

That was partly the intention of my rework here. There are some aspects to current Trinity that are a little finicky, namely her duration management (for hybrid/Bless Trin), EV spam (especially for EV Trin), weird functionality to her Energy management (you need Energy to produce more Energy), damage reduction layering, ally awareness, and casting lock-outs, all of which cause less experienced Trinities to hiccup on their casting and cause someone to die, often themselves. At the veteran level, none of these are a real problem, but they do tend to induce some degree of repetition when you're constantly spamming the same sequence of abilities just to maintain uptime on a bunch of stuff. Ideally, these changes would make Trinity easier to pick up, with elements like her passive making her casting easier overall, while also making her more versatile to veterans, who'd get more options out of their kit (EV could be used for stealth, separating the damage reduction from her heal would allow both to be applied separately at the right times, etc.), and just making her smoother to play altogether.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Teridax68

[ShortCat]

This is one of the better rework suggestions I have seen on the forum. You clearly name Trinity's current problems and define goals she need to achieve in her role as a support. However I disagree on the point with negative duration for EV; Trinity does not need it since the change to energy generation on target's death. A hybrid build works just fine and does not gimp Link and Blessing in the process. If you play her as EV-Bot you don't deserve her.

I like your idea to make EV work like WoL: if you want energy, do something for it. Furthermore it would require players to pay attention where their support is if they want some energy, not the other way around where Trin has to run after 3 different people scattered across the map.

Separating heal and damage reduction on Blessing sounds interesting, however your rework runs into one issue, later on it. In my opinion, the best Blessing design was, when damage reduction scaled of the healed HP, because it promoted an active gameplay, as a Trin player had to monitor squad's health and hit the right timing. If only the self damage issue could be solved...

Your WoL and Link suggestions complement her kit with damage reduction and further options, HOWEVER require repeated casts on allies(who are jumping like crazy monkeys) and/or enemies, which leads into a tiresome and boring gameplay of non stop casts for little gains. Kinda like EV-Bot ramped up to 11.

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

You raise good points but my honest feeling is that now they have nerfed her one ability which can be used offensively, you will probably never see her again except maybe in arranged teams where one player has agreed to play a necessary support role, random play, trinity will largely no longer exist. If link damage was magnified by about 300 times, meaning that shooting trinity was fatal to what ever you're linked to, that would have been a fine answer to people using self harm... As it stands, even with her augment, the damage transferred over link is irrelevant. It's like trying to melt through iron with a candle. 

Edit to add. I know link isn't the point of the frame. I also know that nobody in the wild is going to use a frame that only benefits other players without any return at all in their investment.

Edited July 9, 2018 by (PS4)Echo_X

[Teridax68]

36 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

This is one of the better rework suggestions I have seen on the forum. You clearly name Trinity's current problems and define goals she need to achieve in her role as a support. However I disagree on the point with negative duration for EV; Trinity does not need it since the change to energy generation on target's death. A hybrid build works just fine and does not gimp Link and Blessing in the process. If you play her as EV-Bot you don't deserve her.

Thank you for the feedback! I think the criticism is fair, as well. I agree that negative duration isn't necessary to get the most out of EV, since you can just shoot the target to death (I'm personally a fan of hybrid Trinity with high-powered burst weapons), though the percent health damage means that it turns into a powerful single-target nuke at higher levels. This is probably another abusive mechanic I should've brought up, because several bosses, such as Kela de Thaym, needed hidden caps to the damage they took so that EV Trin couldn't just 2 them to death.

36 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

I like your idea to make EV work like WoL: if you want energy, do something for it. Furthermore it would require players to pay attention where their support is if they want some energy, not the other way around where Trin has to run after 3 different people scattered across the map.

Yup! In general, I think the role of the support is to enable new playstyles for allies. This can be done by directly buffing them, but sometimes it's much more interesting to dangle a carrot in front of one's teammates and have them reap the rewards you set for them. EV I think deserves to be this, particularly since it could definitely resolve those irritating "energy pls trin" spam requests once and for all.

36 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

Separating heal and damage reduction on Blessing sounds interesting, however your rework runs into one issue, later on it. In my opinion, the best Blessing design was, when damage reduction scaled of the healed HP, because it promoted an active gameplay, as a Trin player had to monitor squad's health and hit the right timing. If only the self damage issue could be solved...

This is fair, and it was tremendous fun to be able to deploy clutch blessings and also lay down monster damage reduction in the process. To some extent, I don't even think Martyr Bless Trin was that much of a problem, since you could just average out her own health relative to her team's to equalize the scales. If I did have one reservation, though, it's that Bless providing both top-tier healing and top-tier damage reduction at the same time meant it kind of ended up crowding out alternatives, namely any sort of dedicated healing or DR ability (e.g. Harrow's 4 much later in the future). To some extent, this problem still persists, since 75% damage reduction is already quite large.

36 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

Your WoL and Link suggestions complement her kit with damage reduction and further options, HOWEVER require repeated casts on allies(who are jumping like crazy monkeys) and/or enemies, which leads into a tiresome and boring gameplay of non stop casts for little gains. Kinda like EV-Bot ramped up to 11.

This is fair, and to some extent I did intend Trin to be very focused on applying bonuses to single targets, rather than crowds at a time. With that said, I also wanted to make sure Trinity's kit would turn out less spammy for it: her 1 should usually be able to last at least 10 seconds, if not more, and her 4 is meant to consume a ton of Energy per cast, so that she can't cast it all too often. I still gave her the option to go for the current animation and heal everyone, though doing so would also drain much more of her Energy. I think part of the issue here could also be resolved with improvements to targeting, so that aiming the ability slightly next to an ally, or near their previous position while they're in motion, would still target them properly.

12 minutes ago, (PS4)Echo_X said:

You raise good points but my honest feeling is that now they have nerfed her one ability which can be used offensively, you will probably never see her again except maybe in arranged teams where one player has agreed to play a necessary support role, random play, trinity will largely no longer exist. If link damage was magnified by about 300 times, meaning that shooting trinity was fatal to what ever you're linked to, that would have been a fine answer to people using self harm... As it stands, even with her augment, the damage transferred over link is irrelevant. It's like trying to melt through iron with a candle. 

This is fair, and I agree that the damage redirection is kinda meh. The problem with Trinity's current kit is that it's so strong already, and does so many things, that she kinda needs to not scale in certain ways, as giving her that power wouldn't be justified. I'm tempted to have the above kit double-dip on Power Strength to amplify both the redirected damage and the damage amp itself, though there's an argument for putting that power strictly on the damage amp. With Trin's current heavily defensive kit, I think it's more or less okay if she lacks offensive abilities, because that's what her niche entails, though I think she'd deserve to have Link's damage become properly functional if allowed more power.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I'm loving this rework.

I was a healer in WoW and FFXIV and it was no where near as mind-numbingly easy as healing with Trinity is. That's not to say these games are meant to be played the same way, but considering Harrow has an extremely active approach it's clear that DE doesn't want simple one-button frames (not to mention them plainly saying that out of their own mouths).

Her play style should be active, like most other frames.

[GreenVajene]

While I have only just over a third of your XP at 62mil, I totally see where you're coming from, and feel like I've been in a similar place for a while. Trinity simply isn't as engaging as other frames, and her redundancies are annoying.

But while, overall, I think your rationale and "thesis," if you will, are sound, I don't believe the bulk of the changes you've proposed actively facilitate the themes you outlined. In fact, independently, I would argue that they are ill-suited to practical application once moved from the realm of theory to the realm of hands-on play. In some places a simple tweak might suffice, but some other changes are more problematic.

The major problem I've identified which generally applies to all of your suggestions is that this rework demands a higher degree of organization and precision than can reasonably be assumed in many situations, and focuses too narrowly on niche scenarios which defy general application, while minimizing Trin's core strengths. Someone has suggested that inspiration here might be taken from healing/support classes from other MMOs, and while not inherently a bad resource to mine, specific problems arise due to some fundamental differences separating Warframe from other games, and those are:
a. Visibility
b. Dimensionality
c. Pace

Take for example the single-target skills you've proposed. They must be manually targeted, one at a time, and must accommodate for self-targeting as well (if I am understanding correctly). This is managable in games with a more isometric perspective or generous and adjustable fields of view, playing out largely in two dimensions where characters move at slow rates, and with tab targeting to easily cut through any confusion.

However every one of these aspects which facilitate the simple task of individually targeting enemies and allies becomes incredibly more difficult in the dense, multi-levelled, fast-paced horde shooter/slasher warframe is. How wide will be the FOV cone to target an ally you're trying to buff or heal, when they're a volt speeding past you at 40m/s? What if they're in close proximity to another ally who's fine, and who you don't intend to target? If you miss your ally, will you accidentally cast on yourself?

And as pertaining to EV, I would add that the rate at which enemies are killed is extremely fast. It will often require restraint on the part of your teammates so that the intended beneficiary of the now single-regen-single-frame skill will be the one who actually benefits, and not the Saryn, Equinox, or Spin-To-Win Hallway Hero who zooms through on his or her slaughter parade.

These kinds of things are enormous practical problems which need to be addressed for 3/4 of the kit you've proposed, assuming that you're not in a party of uberpros who are all tightly coordinated on discord together (and realistically, how often will that be the case?)

Now, to get more specific:
Passive:

Spoiler

I assume this was designed to mitigate the problems with single targeting, but as I've outlined above, I don't think this change alone is nearly sufficient enough, and there will be visibility problems if your allies are taking visual priority on your screen whenever there are overlapping models. The emphasis on downed players is also a problem, I think, but I'll address that on Blessing.

WoL:

Spoiler

 

In addition to my above remarks on single-targeting, I would say that this change has some cost/reward problems. 50 energy to protect one ally or yourself for ten seconds... first of all, I have a question:
When does a triggered WoL activate? Is the hit which triggers a proc of WoL on an ally mitigated by that proc, or does the proc take effect after the initial hit? If the former, then I don't understand the purpose of separating the buff into 10 independent procs... why not make it a set duration? And if the latter, then nearly all of the frames which might require 95% DR (including Trinity herself) will likely be dead before the buff can even proc.
(Additionally, it should be pointed out that this skill steps a little bit on the toes of Oberon, granting not only status immunity but damage reduction while allowing allies to move around rather than requiring them to stand in a static position, all for the same cost.)

As written, this WoL seems needlessly complicated, and tedious to use as well. On, for example, a high-level survival mission you could potentially be spamming this every ten seconds on yourself and each of your allies, which would leave you approximately 6? 7? seconds of free time before needing to reapply, assuming all of your allies are standing obediantly in a group near you at the alotted time. I don't think such an expectation is realistic.

I would say, to work, the skill should simply be converted to a single period of time per cast, and this time period should be generous (20-30s at least). The augment could be rolled into its base functionality while removing the status immunity (no reason to rob poor Oberon of that). In this way, WoL might automatically be a self-cast, and allies would be required to run through it to gain its buff (or a lesser percentage of its buff), for the remainder of its natural duration? Just a thought.

 

EV:

Spoiler

 

I would say that, given the limitations I stated above on single targeting, restoring the AoE of the energy buff would be perfectly reasonable, while keeping the proportion of energy restored relative to %damage done (or perhaps off of a % of the base enemy's health as weapon damage could vary from the hundreds to the millions per case). Being an AoE, an energy cost could be incurred once more upon casting the skill.

This way it would scale with level (as I assume you intended) while still encouraging more deliberate use, targeting heavier units and not punishing you and your party for the sake of a guando-meme-ing Rhino harvesting mobs before you can get a bullet in edgewise, or worse a Excal, Valkyr, or Titania swooping through when they can't even benefit from the energy gain they'd be giving themselves.

 

Link:

Spoiler

Pound for pound, this is simply a worse version of Banshee's Sonar. And for something that behaves like Ash's Bladestorm it should accomplish something 75% as good as killing all of the enemies being targeted (for which nearly killing everything selected is just about the only equivalent). I have no idea how to adjust this to be more useful, honestly.

Bless:

Spoiler

 

Pace is the obstacle which mitigates this ability as you've written it. The purpose of keeping your allies alive is to prevent any downtime from occurring at all, so that resurrection isn't necessary. As it currently is, Bless is designed to prevent the need for rezzing allies so that no one stops fighting, rather than reacting to their being downed (as with your augment), and given how quickly allies can go from 100% HP to 0% HP it needs to be essentially immediate if it is to be useful, especially as you've removed the secondary benefit of passive DR.

And this suggestion, too, steps on the toes of Oberon, although its cost and cast time are much more prohibitive. I would recommend the following:
Holding down bless "charges" it, feeding your energy bar into its restored health pool for a multiplied percentage of energy spent (similar to the mechanic you've suggested, except this healing would not be released upon completing the charge). The rate of the charge could depend upon power strength and duration, similar to Harrow's Thurible. When triggered again, the stored healing releases instantly, at no cost, affecting all allies in range.

As for the augment, I would recommend something which does not hinge on becoming downed (and I'm not sure I understand how your current augment would activate when Trinity is alone without making her strictly impossible to kill).

 

Well this post is long enough, so I'll stop there.

[Teridax68]

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

Take for example the single-target skills you've proposed. They must be manually targeted, one at a time, and must accommodate for self-targeting as well (if I am understanding correctly). This is managable in games with a more isometric perspective or generous and adjustable fields of view, playing out largely in two dimensions where characters move at slow rates, and with tab targeting to easily cut through any confusion.

The ability's mode of application is literally just Amesha's 1, which can self-cast and land on fast-moving targets without too much trouble. Archwing also tends to be generally more confusing than normal play, due to how there's often no clear sense of up or down, so if it can work there, I think it can work here. 

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

And as pertaining to EV, I would add that the rate at which enemies are killed is extremely fast. It will often require restraint on the part of your teammates so that the intended beneficiary of the now single-regen-single-frame skill will be the one who actually benefits, and not the Saryn, Equinox, or Spin-To-Win Hallway Hero who zooms through on his or her slaughter parade.

If the "wrong" person is benefiting from EV, then chances are you simply chose the wrong target. I can agree that frames spamming room clear buttons may make things more difficult, but that is a problem that lies with AoE damage frames, not the above. As with my 1, my proposed 2 already has a precedent in the current Well of Life, so while the ability's not used too often, there are generally no major issues when it comes to how to use it. If the right frame has no issue getting their healing out of WoL, I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to this version of EV.

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

Now, to get more specific:
Passive:

Being able to see objects through walls is not that uncommon, particularly since you can have a kavat reveal scores of enemies at a time in this manner (you can also do this just by pulling out your Synthesis scanner). Highlighting allies through walls would not represent much more of a cost, and the fast-paced nature of Warframe, which you've brought up several times yourself, means that two models will rarely overlap for any meaningful amount of time.

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

WoL:

Again, this ability is pretty much Amesha's 1. Because this ability can effectively grant near-invincibility for an extended period of time, and because I removed the Energy cost to EV, I think it is justified for such a powerful ability to have an increased cost. This wouldn't be the first time, as Nidus's 1 also costs 40 mana, and is much more spammable than this effect.

To clarify, the first hit is also negated, which means that as long as you have this buff on you, you'll take reduced damage and be status immune no matter what. The reason I chose the charge model (which again, as proved by Amesha, really isn't that difficult to grasp), is so that Trinity wouldn't have to manage uptimes: if you have this effect and are running around only occasionally getting hit, this buff could last for a very long time, and it's only if you were getting continuously hit that it'd only last ten seconds as a baseline. This means Trinity could apply this effect to herself and her allies, and generally be good to go for a while until one of them starts to drop. Just to go back to Amesha once more, its charge model is what allows the Archwing to lay down defenses without having to stare at a timer all of the time, an effect I've also wanted to avoid on Trinity.

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

EV:

So basically just the current EV, then. I'd rather not.

Also, if the ability were to scale based on the portion of the enemy's health damaged, the ability would become worse with level, as you'd need to deal increasingly more damage to get the same amount of Energy. I also pointed out in my OP here that incurring a fixed Energy cost to be able to generate energy is neither intuitive nor all that functional, and affects newer Trinities disproportionately harder than veterans. As mentioned above, WoL also has the same basic mechanic as this, so if one functions, I don't see why the other wouldn't.

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

Link:

The ability as I suggested works completely differently from both Sonar and Bladestorm, and carries advantages neither effect has. I'm not sure if you read through the thing, but damaging one enemy damages all other linked enemies, meaning you can link to a bunch of enemies, focus on one, and kill the rest by association. 

1 minute ago, GreenVajene said:

Bless:

Well this post is long enough, so I'll stop there.

Preventing "any downtime from occurring at all" is precisely the problem I am trying to solve. Pressing a button to save an ally from death is exciting; pressing a button over and over to make your team incapable of dying is not. Oberon is not the only frame with a resurrection ability, as Nekros has it on his 1, and I do think a resurrect would be appropriate on a healer frame, particularly since with the above changes Trinity wouldn't be able to easily save everyone all the time. Charging this kind of ability for any amount of time I think is an absolutely terrible idea, because the ability is meant for clutch-healing, and there are very few situations where a charged-up heal would be worth it without Trinity just charging all the time, just in case an ally needs a heal. Also, using it on oneself would still incur a cooldown and an energy cost, so while it would certainly make a solo Trinity harder to kill, it wouldn't make her immortal.

As much as I appreciate your feedback, I feel your post is guilty of the very mistake it attributes to my own. You've said my abilities look good on paper but not in practice, but the mechanics you've claimed to be hypothetical exist in the game already, and are more than functional enough. Meanwhile, the criticisms you've levied, which are entirely hypothetical, are countered by many examples of preexisting mechanics, which I've mentioned above, and I'm not quite sure whether there was any awareness of those when making that post. There's also a fair amount of contradiction in the critique that I feel comes from a desire to just have a different kit: my 1 is apparently too complicated, but then the same post mentions charging up Blessing in order to juggle power multipliers, and as my rework is criticized for being unfriendly to new players, the same critique suggests keeping energy costs to Trinity's energy generation, an effect that has no consequence for veterans who know how to manage her energy, but that can completely shut down less experienced players. I do not claim to know perfectly how this rework would turn out in practice, and I agree that there are some risks to what I'm suggesting, but I do not think those risks are the ones mentioned in your post.

[GreenVajene]

I've just thought of a potential solution for the single targeting problem.

WoL and Bless now operate like Vauban's mines and Ivara's quiver, except the choices given are the other members of your party. When activated, those abilities affect both you and the selected party member (so you are both sharing the benefits), provided that they are in range. Switching between allies while a buff is active would remove it from the last party member and apply it to the newly selected one for the remaining duration.

While adding some party-management engagement and forcing some choices (which party member to prioritize at any given time), this would also play into her name; you could have a buff on up to only two different allies at a time (WoL for one and Bless for the other), and since each buff also affects you, you would form the third out of the "trinity" of shared buffs.

Just a thought.

[Teridax68]

9 minutes ago, GreenVajene said:

WoL and Bless now operate like Vauban's mines and Ivara's quiver, except the choices given are the other members of your party. When activated, those abilities affect both you and the selected party member (so you are both sharing the benefits), provided that they are in range. Switching between allies while a buff is active would remove it from the last party member and apply it to the newly selected one for the remaining duration.

I feel this would be far too complex and reliant on too many button inputs for abilities that are meant to provide clutch protection. The reason Blessing currently works in the live game is because the only input Trinity needs to save an ally from death is a single button press. When allies are losing massive chunks of their health bar in a fraction of a second, this becomes particularly important, as every moment counts. Holding a button up to two times, then pressing said button does not really lend itself to clutch-healing, and the reason that kind of cycling works for frames like Vauban or Ivara is because the abilities they're on are much more deliberate, and don't need to have just the right thing deployed as close to instantaneously as possible.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Teridax68

[GreenVajene]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

I agree that there are some risks to what I'm suggesting, but I do not think those risks are the ones mentioned in your post.

This is getting dense. I did misread your intended meaning in a part of your OP, but I think you also misread my meaning in my own post in places.

Now that you've made the comparison to Amesha I see where you're coming from. However, I think the assumption that what works in archwing will work in non-archwing is an unjustified logical leap. But I'll go back through this.

Passive:

Spoiler

In optimistic conditions, yes, like the Kavat radar and scanner, seeing objects through walls can be perfectly fine. However, this assumes broad areas with low density (like open space archwing), and not cramped hallways. The concept I take into account when considering dimensional space in Warframe is always a claustrophobic Eris map, where there is a lot of visual noise in constrained areas and following allies down hallways. If you think such a scenario is not at all confusing, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

WoL:

Spoiler

 

While I agree with the need to consider newer players in general, one should consider that Trinity is now gained from farming Ambulas, and a player will have a fair few MR before they even have the animo beacons necessary for such an undertaking. New players also tend to be fairly unfamiliar with archwing mechanics, let alone Amesha's WS which, granted this is anecdotal, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use, and certainly not the MR11s who are still leveling up Odonata.

But on the subject of Amesha, while I can see how there is a correlation, there are significant and major differences:

Targeted objects on all layers of Archwing are easily accessible because you can rotate a full 360 degrees, and spaces are so vast that an incredibly generous FoV on allied targets has little chance of even intersecting with any other allies in the area. Ability ranges are also enormous; 50m in archwing is a length of space you can clear in a split second in archwing, and archwing's massive affinity range reflects this.

The vastness of the map spaces also means that generally enemies are easier to evade, as there are a full 360 degrees of avenues along which to escape, and at speeds that are much, much higher than warframes can achieve. Enemies targeting you and your allies have a much more difficult time hitting you, because even the non-sprint speed is rather excessive. This means the effectiveness of damage mitigation like Watchful Swarm is enormously amplified.

Again, I have to invoke the Eris map as a real stress test of this concept, and that's where I see problems arising.

Since complexity has repeatedly come up, let's look at what WoLing a full party will require. You will have to visually acquire, target, and click the ability upon each ally, and once, away from any, for yourself. You haven't stated that WoL is one-handed, so from what I can tell casting WoL means not using your weapons. In dense maps you will be getting swarmed by enemies; separately casting each WoL independently while getting mobbed in cramped quarters seems like a less-than ideal experience, even before considering how a newer player might feel.

But speaking again of newer players, you suggest that 10 hits can last someone a long time. that is true, if the player is good, or if they have a mobile playstyle. However, that assumes a higher-than-average level of knowledge and skill, which speaks to the point I raised earlier: many of your suggestions seem to assume a very organized and skilled party, which caters well perhaps to clans and the like, but not to the pub groups which make up an enormous fraction of the game.

One of Trinity's best current capacities is to help act as training wheels for new players, and new players don't know how to dodge. If your goal was to minimize the upkeep-management endemic to current Trinity, then recast-per-ten-seconds is going to be your reality, and if you're babysitting more than one new player, then the effort will be multiplied.

In terms of stress-testing the concept again, in a squad of four new-ish players, a Trinity will be constantly chasing after their allies blowing through their 10 second buffs (and who are likely to diverge at completely different distances and ranges on a moment's notice, charging at heavy gunners and bombards) and babysitting their upkeep almost the entire time. After all, the effort of each individual recast occurs during a depletion of time from the last cast, which means by the time you hit all 4 party members the first cast is almost up.

I fail to see how this is an improvement upon Bless's DR, which, while it is an upkeep management job, requires much less micromanagement even where your party isn't feeling especially cooperative.

As for calling the 1-second-per-hit system complicated, I was speaking less in terms of player comprehension and more in terms of mechanics. There will be people who blow through those ten seconds all at once, and in those cases it is much more streamlined to simply make the ability last ten seconds than to proc ten individual times.

If the idea is for the ability to scale with player skill (so better players go through their DR less quickly, and noobs crank through it all at once), it's an interesting approach, but it seems rather antithetical to Trinity's overall themes of support to say, "You must be this competent for my abilities to help you, or you'll make my job tedious."

 

EV:

Spoiler

 

This is where I believe you misinterpreted my meaning, or perhaps I failed to convey it properly. My suggestion was that the energy returned be a percentage of the destroyed target's "maximum HP." as opposed to the damage done to that target as you described. To my mind, a percentage of max HP scales better at high levels than damage done for the problems you yourself have stated, so perhaps there's some more confusion here.

As for group cooperation... again, I don't feel it holds up to a stress test. Unless you are in voice with someone saying, "Don't Maim yet Equinox, this EV target is for Excal," I foresee a lot of frustrating "kill stealing," and, perhaps even more irritatingly, party members who don't even realize they're being treated to a great big feast of energy, or at the very least, not quick or equipped well enough to exploit it.

Let's take an MR2 Volt noob into our noob party. How much is this EV going to help him exactly when he's using his unmodded Braton? He's going to be plinking away at it for a while.

Meanwhile if just Saryn the Killinator managed to barge in and sneeze the wrong way, the whole room has died to spores by the time Volt bro has farmed 12 energy. Saryn didn't even need the energy! She's got Primed Flow!

From what you stated in the OP, it seems that energy return is based on weapon damage, which means, as Trin, if you are trying to single out a party member to top off, you're going out of your way much of the time to make sure it's plopped down precisely where they can best hit it. If you are assuming you can plop it anywhere in range and that party member will recognize it and harvest it with a high-damage weapon before anyone else steals it from them, you're pretty much assuming they're a fairly experienced player at the very least.

And there's no predicting those Pub Rhinos. They can always unpredictably double back with their Guando and clear the room before you can say Iron Skin.

You could say "that's a problem with your party, not the design," but I really don't see that as a reasonable counter. A warframe's abilities should generally be designed with an eye more towards those stress-test scenarios, and less so toward the presumption of coordinated groups who aren't going to unwittingly nuke each others' targets.

 

Link:

Spoiler

This is where I completely misread your statement. I read it as the damage debuff transferring to the also-tagged enemies, not the damage itself. Understanding it correctly now (I think), I completely change my mind, although I'm confused as to how it is applied. Is the shared damage subject to the enemy DR, or does it ignore it? If so, it is still subject to being mitigated by the same scaling damage problem you mentioned at higher levels, and if not, it might be a bit too OP. But it's still much better and more interesting than current Link.

Bless:

Spoiler

 

Finally, here we are at the last ability before the next inevitable round. I have to again question why new players are being invoked; potentially losing a huge chunk of your energy to full heal one person is extraordinarily punishing. I agree that Bless spam is problematic, but this seems like an opposite extreme which will not serve new players at all, and require a fair amount of experience to master.  As for the augment, thanks for clarifying, I wasn't sure what was intended.

But furthermore, having to press-hold for a full-party heal (and quite possibly losing all of your energy in the process) is going to require a high degree of skill to recover from.

Both scenarios require that you, first of all, have stored enough energy beforehand for the job, and given the pace of WF which we've mutually acknowledged in the need for "clutch heals," as you put it, there is already a necessary degree of preparation and timing for the ability to be employed effectively.

And if you're intending to full heal the party, you're requiring a longer engagement time on the button which, by necessity, causes a delay which contravenes the urgency of the application.

The intention of my suggestion was to put the effort into the preparation, so that once stored the clutch heal would be available on demand, instantly and in full with no punishing cost, but would not be spammable (since it would need to be charged again before being used, prepared again with cost).

However if it is meant as a clutch heal to prevent the need for rezzing as you say, then the augment is still redundant if the design is used as intended, and is only really useful if player skill i snot sufficient. but as I've noted before, if player skill is low, then all other abilities may be easily compromised, too, due entirely to a lack of coordination for the team.

 

Vaub/vara switching:

Spoiler

I was struggling to home in on what exactly your priority was. I don't see the focus required in using aimed single-target effects as broadly applicable given the usual dynamics of active play in the gamespace, and was trying to rectify that with what I read your intent to be. Personally, I don't see member-switching as particularly more arduous than manually tracking around to find them in the area or chasing them down, but the idea was mostly just a shot in the dark.

Final final thoughts:

I still see the presumed level of skill as fairly high for this rework to, well, "work."

Problems with aiming abilities, mitigating hits, managing energy, organizing the placement of EV targets, and successfully managing the costs and utility of bless, you have explained away, essentially, as, "Well, I can do it." I don't doubt that you can, but you have 1200 hours under your belt and 165mil on the frame. If you intend for Trin to be an expert tier higher-skill-floor frame like a Harrow, I think there's nothing wrong in saying as much and focusing on that prerogative. However, I can say with certainty that all of those dynamics I listed will overwhelm just about any new player, and require a fair degree of practice and mastery even from non-noobs before this reworked Trin can be fully utilized.

You are a self-proclaimed Trinity main. Are you designing for Trinity Mains or for Noobs, and if the line is somewhere in the middle, that should probably be hashed out without the assumption that all players share your skill.

Edited July 9, 2018 by GreenVajene
Space

[Azamagon]

Overall, very creative and interesting rework! But, it's not without flaws.

Let me tackle them one by one:

Passive - I like this one. Like, a lot. It's a cool and unique passive, fitting extremely well with her healerstyle, and even could fit lore-wise (i.e. she can sense her allies' lifeforce). Might it be possibly visually cluttering? Maybe. But I find it's creative upsides more than worth it!

WoL - Yes! You split the jobs of Blessing and WoL so they aren't redundant, but instead they become highly synergistic. Yes, it's basicly copying Amesha's #1, but honestly, if it works, who cares? ^_^
WoL Augment - Hmmm... this sounds like something that won't be used, to be honest by most people. It's both potentially overpowered, but also killed by its tiny range, overall making itso impractical it's just not worth using. Basicly the same issue as Mirage's Total Eclipse. EDIT: I don't know what else to suggest for it (some offensive buff maybe?), but I feel it definitely could go with a change.

EV - I like the idea of having to work for it. But it's not a great solution, imo, as a Warframe with dominating levels of damage (think Saryn's Spores) will not let Trinity give energy to anyone but Saryn, basicly. Not only that, but it still retains 2 other big problem of current EV:
1) The energygains are really bursty
2) Trinity still has to spam the button like a madman (giving her less time to pay attention to combat and/or healing allies)
Thus, I'd like to propose this rework instead, attempting to solve those 2 issues:
First, you mark an enemy. A marked enemy could have no real benefit (besides maybe minor utility, like letting you see them through walls? Dunno *shruigs*). Killing this enemy grants Trinity a stack of Energy Replenish, capped at 3 stacks. Energy Replenish is an aura, which grants X energy per second to Trinity and her allies within its big range. The aura has a max duration, fully refreshed whenever you gain a stack. All effects (energygain, radius, duration) are modifiable by mods (strength, range, duration respectively).
With this, Trinity's energy-regain is not wildly bursty (instead it trickles in steadily) and she won't have to spam it as much as she does right now (since it has a duration).
EV Augment - In my proposal, her EV-augment could still remain as it is, but maybe potentially becoming stronger in its conversion rate (since the energygains are slower).

Link - I honestly don't see the need to change this ability's casting mechanisms. Why not let it remain a duration-ability that autolinks up to 3 enemies? Sure, remove the damage-reduction and replace it with the damage amp (since WoL has the job of protection after all), but this need to mark each enemy seperately sounds like a total hassle. Especially since one of its current uses is for quick target finding (massively useful for finding targets for EV, for example, which remains a thing in both yours and my versions of EV too!) I feel that this would be a MASSIVE mechinical QoL-loss. Then add to it that it uses an energy-drain mechanism, which doesn't even work with EV itself. Overall; No thanks for this ability-rework. Change its effect (i.e. from DR on Trin to Damage-amp on Enemies, sure), but don't change its casting mechanics.
Link Augment - Your augment for Link is very good though (even when applied to "my" version of Link (i.e. current Link, but made offensive instead of defensive))

Blessing - This one I like. Especially since the holdcast option is there for quick life-saving moments. No complaints here.
Blessing Augment - This one is also good. Simple and very effective.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Azamagon

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

Passive:

 

Spoiler

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then, because as I mentioned, there are multiple precedents to this, and even if it doesn't work for you, it seems to work in general. If you want to take issue with this effect, you can start by asking to remove the ability to see objects through walls on other mods and effects first.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

WoL:

 

Spoiler

One does not need to be familiar with Amesha to know how to use the ability I'm proposing. I mentioned Amesha because the Archwing ability is proof that the ability works just fine. Moreover, the question of range is a red herring, because the values of ranges are only larger to match the scale of the maps, so there is no meaningful difference in how range interacts here. Also, Watchful Swarm's charges expend for every hit, and it is precisely because of the larger number of hits in normal play that I added a duration to each charge (hence why there is also no need to "streamline" this effect). The point you are trying to make has therefore been anticipated.

I would also advise you to read what I've typed a little closer, because contrary to what you said, I did specify that all of Trinity's abilities would be one-handed. Moreover, I also specified that Trinity could perform a longer animation to buff all enemies in range simultaneously, at a compounded Energy cost. You may not think duration management is significant, but it has a negative impact on gameplay, due to how it drags the player's attention towards their ability bars, rather than the actual game at hand. In this particular case, the intent is to shift Trinity's attention from focusing on uptimes to focusing on her allies, so that she can tell directly what they're in need of. Perhaps newer players may get hit more often, but the infinite duration on this ability means Trinity doesn't have to press a button every ten seconds to maintain uptime on a buff. She would certainly have to protect allies on a case-by-base basis, but that is the very intent of her gameplay here. Looking out for allies and applying key utility on them should be a valid point of gameplay, and if you're seeing this as a chore, Trinity may not be for you.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

EV:

 

Spoiler

Yes, the enemy's maximum health scales with level. This is a scaling that goes against the player. This is why having a bonus that applies only on-kill will scale worse with level. I initially thought the proposal here was to deal a percentage of the enemy's max health to gain the same amount of energy, but what you're actually suggesting seems to have just as many problems.

Once again, not every mission is Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, and even if it were, the problem with AoE damage frames is just that they kill everything too fast to begin with. To some extent, an EV implemented in this manner could still work in such an environment, because the frames getting the most energy would be the ones in the greatest need of it. Outside of situations like these, lower-level missions generally do not have high energy requirements (and when they do, you're not running a massive AoE damage frame to begin with), whereas high-level missions routinely leave plenty of enemies to EV. Again, this is not so different from needing a target to EV in the first place, so the issues here really are purely hypothetical, and based around extremely specific scenarios that may not even be problems to begin with.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

Link:

 

Spoiler

To answer your question, the damage is simply mirrored, before any modifiers are applied. If you deal 100 damage to the first enemy, prior to it being affected by their armor, Link modifier, etc., every other enemy takes 100 damage, which then is affected by their own modifiers. Exception goes to pre-mitigation damage modifiers such as Banshee's Sonar, where hitting a Sonar proc multiplies the damage, and then applies it to the enemy, which then mirrors that amplified damage to the rest.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

Bless:

 

Spoiler

I agree, healing a single target, let alone everyone at a time, will be costlier. This is intended, because this is meant to be a nerf. Players at low and high levels alike will have a harder time healing everyone, but this is acceptable. However, I actually think this would give lower-level players an easier time, because a) they will have less health to begin with, and b) the healing amount here is flat, rather than percentage-based. Whereas a player ranking up Trinity would only be able to heal for a portion of their health and shields with one cast, and so by performing an animation, here they'd be able to instantly top themselves up. In both cases, neither player would have enough energy to spam Blessing to abusive amounts. The delay to Blessing is surprisingly subtle, and tends to lead to newer players dying more than anyone else.

Also, to specify, holding the button is intended to produce the exact same delay and animation as the current Blessing, so there would be literally no difference in timing if you so choose. I agree that Trinity should be able to prepare her heals, but that just so happens to be exactly the gameplay I'm proposing, as she has the tools to charge up a powerful Blessing (EV), and cannot spam her healing otherwise. The clutch heal is certainly intended to prevent a rez, but because it is a heal, it cannot account for extreme amounts of burst, and the downtime I'm putting onto the ability means that Trinity will not be able to auto-prevent everyone from dying all the time in the heat of combat. This is where the rez comes in, so that she can have some level of safety. If the player's skill is low, and they are not paying attention to their team, this also acts as a dampener, since they could still make up for their mistake by rezzing their teammates (and thereby easing the frustration of whoever it is got downed).

It's also worth mentioning that the rez can work even when a teammate has been downed outside of Trinity's range, which can help outside of the typical range of her healing: suppose a teammate goes their own way, and gets downed hundreds of meters away from Trinity's position. Whereas other frames would likely not be able to make it in time, Trinity would only have to get close enough until her ally's highlighted in order to be able to revive them instantly. In general, it feels like you're judging the merits of my kit based on a highly specific situation where Trinity and her team are in non-stop heavy combat in a cramped environment, e.g. Sanctuary Onslaught. Even if Trinity weren't so good in this situation (and I doubt she'd be bad at all then), that would be a good thing, because it would finally imply a situation in which Trinity wouldn't be the top-tier support in the roster, unlike Oberon or Harrow, both of whom thrive in those situations. I'm deliberately pushing for Trinity to become more focused on spot healing and protection, because her abilities are insanely powerful, more so than that of any other support, and that kind of single-target focus is both appropriate on Trin (she's already looking out for individual teammates more than anyone else), and a way of keeping her ability to clutch-heal and protect, instead of just keeping her AoE buffs and watering them all down severely.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

Vaub/vara switching:

 

Spoiler

Like I said, aiming for a target and healing them requires, at most, a flick of the wrist/controller and a button press. What you are suggesting could take up to two button holds, plus a button press, to achieve the same effect. Moreover, I am specifically pushing for Trinity to keep an eye on teammates, and giving her the tools to do so far more easily. Even if my method were somehow not good, the one you are proposing is significantly worse on critical metrics.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

Problems with aiming abilities, mitigating hits, managing energy, organizing the placement of EV targets, and successfully managing the costs and utility of bless, you have explained away, essentially, as, "Well, I can do it." I don't doubt that you can, but you have 1200 hours under your belt and 165mil on the frame. If you intend for Trin to be an expert tier higher-skill-floor frame like a Harrow, I think there's nothing wrong in saying as much and focusing on that prerogative. However, I can say with certainty that all of those dynamics I listed will overwhelm just about any new player, and require a fair degree of practice and mastery even from non-noobs before this reworked Trin can be fully utilized.

 

Spoiler

This is not at all my argument. My argument isn't that I can do it, but that anyone can do these things already, because these effects and mechanics all exist already in other parts of the game, including parts that are very friendly to new players. Amesha especially is considered the most new player-friendly Archwing, and super easy to use overall, simply because of how easy it is for the thing to output powerful defenses. This is without a special passive that allows the player to apply said protections through walls. You can say with certainty that you would feel overwhelmed by this kit, but have no grounds to generalize, since your concerns have not only been eminently hypothetical thus far, but also contradicted directly by multiple well-established examples in game.

 

1 hour ago, GreenVajene said:

You are a self-proclaimed Trinity main. Are you designing for Trinity Mains or for Noobs, and if the line is somewhere in the middle, that should probably be hashed out without the assumption that all players share your skill.

 

Spoiler

You can check my profile if you doubt me, but I have spent well over 50% of my 2400+ hours on this game playing Trinity and Trinity Prime. That I main Trinity is a fact, by the very definition of what it means to main a character, and isn't a matter of being "self-proclaimed". Moreover, I specifically worked on the suggested kit above to make sure it would be friendly to new players, much more so than the current Trinity. A new player would find themselves playing a Trinity that would be far more fluid, that would never have any lockouts or delays if the player doesn't want them, that would always be able to give herself energy no matter how low she is, and that you could still put to use even if you're not good at aiming, simply by holding down whichever button and letting your ability apply to everyone in range (save for EV). She would be easier to use overall. At a higher level, more experienced players would have more options, as well as more synergies and subtleties to exploit, so it really is about giving players a kit that is simple to pick up, but that can be mastered over a very long time, thanks to all of the potential it offers.

 

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Overall, very creative and interesting rework! But, it's not without flaws.

Thank you for the feedback! Here are my thoughts on some of the points below:

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

WoL Augment - Hmmm... this sounds like something that won't be used, to be honest by most people. It's both potentially overpowered, but also killed by its tiny range, overall making itso impractical it's just not worth using. Basicly the same issue as Mirage's Total Eclipse. EDIT: I don't know what else to suggest for it (some offensive buff maybe?), but I feel it definitely could go with a change.

5 meters is actually pretty wide, much wider than the area for, say, Limbo's Rift tear he creates while sliding. Perhaps 5m should be the radius, rather than the diameter, but honestly, so long as it has a clearly visible effect, it shouldn't be too much trouble for allies to jump to it and restore charges.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

EV - I like the idea of having to work for it. But it's not a great solution, imo, as a Warframe with dominating levels of damage (think Saryn's Spores) will not let Trinity give energy to anyone but Saryn, basicly. Not only that, but it still retains 2 other big problem of current EV:

A Warframe capable of killing everyone else before anyone else can interact with an enemy is already removing everyone else's interaction from the game. By this token, you could argue that literally any Warframe with an ability that affects enemies is wasting their power, simply because frames Saryn exists. Already, frames like Saryn, Volt, Ember, etc. make it difficult for Trinity to cast EV at all, so really, the problem should be tackled at the source, rather than band-aided with some alternative that still gives allies free energy without them having to do anything about it.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

EV Augment - In my proposal, her EV-augment could still remain as it is, but maybe potentially becoming stronger in its conversion rate (since the energygains are slower).

I can agree with this for sure, should the augment prove too weak with the above kit.

1 hour ago, Azamagon said:

Link - I honestly don't see the need to change this ability's casting mechanisms. Why not let it remain a duration-ability that autolinks up to 3 enemies? Sure, remove the damage-reduction and replace it with the damage amp (since WoL has the job of protection after all), but this need to mark each enemy seperately sounds like a total hassle. Especially since one of its current uses is for quick target finding (massively useful for finding targets for EV, for example, which remains a thing in both yours and my versions of EV too!) I feel that this would be a MASSIVE mechinical QoL-loss. Then add to it that it uses an energy-drain mechanism, which doesn't even work with EV itself. Overall; No thanks for this ability-rework. Change its effect (i.e. from DR on Trin to Damage-amp on Enemies, sure), but don't change its casting mechanics.
Link Augment - Your augment for Link is very good though (even when applied to "my" version of Link (i.e. current Link, but made offensive instead of defensive))

I actually added the option to just hold and auto-link to every enemy in range, so if that is the issue, it should be resolved (including with quick target-finding). Besides that, I think linking to specific enemies grants Trinity more control, both over who she wants to link to, and how many enemies she wants to link to at a time. If you want to link to just 3 enemies, you'd still be able to do so, with far fewer delays and lockouts than the current version, and slightly less energy consumed as a baseline (6 energy per second over 12 seconds is 72 energy, less than the current 75). This version of Trinity is intended to output much more power onto specific targets at a time, which is why there's an overall theme here of giving her more single-target control over her abilities, while making her effects costlier if used on entire crowds at a time.

[GreenVajene]

4 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

You can check my profile if you doubt me, but I have spent well over 50% of my 2400+ hours on this game playing Trinity and Trinity Prime. That I main Trinity is a fact, by the very definition of what it means to main a character, and isn't a matter of being "self-proclaimed". Moreover, I specifically worked on the suggested kit above to make sure it would be friendly to new players, much more so than the current Trinity. A new player would find themselves playing a Trinity that would be far more fluid, that would never have any lockouts or delays if the player doesn't want them, that would always be able to give herself energy no matter how low she is, and that you could still put to use even if you're not good at aiming, simply by holding down whichever button and letting your ability apply to everyone in range (save for EV). She would be easier to use overall. At a higher level, more experienced players would have more options, as well as more synergies and subtleties to exploit, so it really is about giving players a kit that is simple to pick up, but that can be mastered over a very long time, thanks to all of the potential it offers. 

I apologize if it seemed like I was doubting you. I had taken your statement in good faith, and was using the term "self-proclaimed" in a purely literal, objective fashion (you made an assertion that you are a Trinity main, not only putting it in the title but prefacing the rework with it) and did not intend a skeptical tone. My point was not to contend that you might be misrepresenting yourself, but to emphasize that your expectations are set by a level of devotion to a frame where that devotion is not universal.

And while I think the assertion of improved "flow" is rather debatable in this case, I don't see how it could be argued that the much more punishing energy costs, increased skill casting times on group-buffs and clutch heals, increased amount of micromanagement, and requisite demand for greater spatial awareness you've offered all combine to lower the skill floor of Trinity and make her easier to use overall. All of these things seem rather to raise her difficulty significantly. It might be more manageable had some of these mechanics been applied only to one or two abilities—yet every single ability you've offered requires significantly more visual, mental, and tactile engagement, or else requires a full cast at a higher cost. Even making a comparison to Amesha again, your recurring benchmark for ease-of-use, you'll notice that it has one single-target ability; the rest are AoEs that don't charge you 4x for applying them to all party members.

But I am seeing some fundamental differences in perspective between us overall, and I think it's safe to conclude now that those distinctions aren't likely to be bridged.

I will reiterate that I do think the concept of the new Link is interesting, but aside from that, while your changes certainly accomplish the goal of nerfing each ability, I don't see their respective solutions as an overall improvement.

Edited July 10, 2018 by GreenVajene

[SapphireSuniver]

This rework sounds pretty good to me. I'm not a trinity main by any stretch of the imagination, but the rework seems like it's a well thought out rework.
I actually hope this happens because it sounds like it makes trin more useful overall and more fun to play.

[Teridax68]

3 hours ago, GreenVajene said:

And while I think the assertion of improved "flow" is rather debatable in this case, I don't see how it could be argued that the much more punishing energy costs, increased skill casting times on group-buffs and clutch heals, increased amount of micromanagement, and requisite demand for greater spatial awareness you've offered all combine to lower the skill floor of Trinity and make her easier to use overall. All of these things seem rather to raise her difficulty significantly.

• Increased energy costs across the board affects a frame's power, but does not make their abilities more difficult to use successfully. Moreover, these energy nerfs particularly target Trinity at higher levels -- at lower levels, even a newer Trinity would have enough energy to top themselves up more than now, and would be able to generate Energy more easily thanks to the removed energy cost on EV. All of this I have said before, several times.
• I specifically mentioned that the full animations would be the same as Trinity's current animations. Even if you had not read this in my post that was directly addressed to you, at no point did I mention how long these animations would take, let alone that they'd take longer than they do now. It's stuff like this that's making me feel you're more interested in looking for excuses to shoot down my ideas, rather than actually evaluating the kit as I've presented it, as this claim you are making is entirely fabricated.
•  Increased micromanagement and spatial awareness can both be bypassed by simply holding whichever button and affecting as many people in range as possible. The spatial awareness component in particular is also mitigated by the passive I added, which would give Trinity visibility over allies in range at all times. Moreover, I fail to see how a fire-and-forget ability on her 1, or a potentially never-ending Link, would constitute more micromanagement than Trinity's current focus on durations and damage reduction overlap.

Again, literally all of these points have been brought up before multiple times, and all of them have been answered already each time. You may not like my answers, but unless you have a substantial counter-argument other than "I personally feel differently", you may as well drop the subject. Repeating yourself when I have answered your points already is disrespectful, and does not move discussion forward.

3 hours ago, GreenVajene said:

It might be more manageable had some of these mechanics been applied only to one or two abilities—yet every single ability you've offered requires significantly more visual, mental, and tactile engagement, or else requires a full cast at a higher cost.

It certainly offers a different kind of engagement, but one that I think is certainly more engaging and intuitive than just staring at duration counters, as well as easier to pick up, as mentioned above. Again, you may not like my pushing for Trinity to look in the general direction of the allies she wants to help, but I and several others on this thread already see it as an opportunity for fun gameplay, particularly since the above kit would make life easier for her in many other ways. There would certainly be challenges to Trinity, as there are now, but that is a good thing if the champion remains easy to pick up. If your criticism of this rework is that the Trinity it produces isn't totally brain-dead, that's a good thing in my books.

3 hours ago, GreenVajene said:

Even making a comparison to Amesha again, your recurring benchmark for ease-of-use, you'll notice that it has one single-target ability; the rest are AoEs that don't charge you 4x for applying them to all party members.

Sure, except Amesha's 3 and 4 are weak and hardly used, which is why they don't need to cost much, and the entire Archwing's gameplay revolves around its 1 and 2.  Notice how my Trinity's 1 combines the damage block from Amesha's 1 and the status immunity from its 3. For sure, Trinity isn't Amesha, but thank goodness for that, as that was in no way my intention with this rework.

3 hours ago, GreenVajene said:

I will reiterate that I do think the concept of the new Link is interesting, but aside from that, while your changes certainly accomplish the goal of nerfing each ability, I don't see their respective solutions as an overall improvement.

Explain to me how my Trinity's 1 is a nerf compared to the current Well of Life, or how the passive I'm giving to her is a nerf from her current innate. I can agree that I did set out to nerf some of Trinity's abilities, but I certainly did not nerf all of them, and I find the accusation to be disingenuous.

[Birdframe_Prime]

I've toyed with the idea of reworks for Trin myself, so I'm glad to see that some of my ideas are shared with others as parallel evolution.

But I do think you could refine these, maybe simplify the targeting and mechanics for streamlining the functions. They're a little... bitty right now. You're also missing something that I think is necessary in Trinity's kit; Crowd Control. Although too much CC and she'll be back to 'godlike, pls nerf'.

For example, why not take the 'marking' idea further to simplify it? You're marking your allies for instances of damage reduction with 1, and you're marking your enemies for energy drop with 2.

The point-and-click vs hold mechanic for 1 is one of those parts I consider bitty. It's a 1 ability it needs to be direct and simple, and also slightly separated from the Amesha. Have it be a radial marking, and a reasonable base distance like 15-20m so that range modding can actually make it nearly the same area as Blessing. It then affects all allies in range and you can balance that range by making the number of charges affected by Strength (as in, use Overextended and get punished for it...).

You might want to consider something else; with the fact that Blessing currently allows only up to 75% of damage mitigation for allies, that this is capped for a reason. So providing allies with 75% damage mitigation at max wouldn't be such a bad thing. It would also keep Trinity's own damage mitigation on herself consistent with current (which is obviously where DE wants it to be).

The augment, Pool of Life, would then be closer to the original than yours, but incorporate it: with numbers affected by Strength, Trinity causes Health Orbs to appear within a small radius around herself on cast. Health Orbs synergise with other functions, you see, like Health Conversion and Arcane Pulse, that will make Trinity very reliable for working with those.

Energy Vampire is going to be a tough one to crack for most people, because at the moment it's so good that any change will be seen as a Nerf unless... you give something that people will really like as a selling point. Energy steal on enemies is one thing, but as people have mentioned that will hog all the energy to the really damaging frames and none for you. How about changing the cast to a Wave cast (like Limbo's 1, where it's large range, but directional and blocked by line-of-sight on geometry) where every enemy is Marked. This will have the effects you've asked for in terms of showing up through walls, but instead of energy gain for damage (which is variable) Marked enemies drop an Energy Orb on death and all affected enemies suffer a stagger similar to Banshee's Silence.

Why? Because this will do the one thing that Trinity has been unable to do; provide energy to Drain Ability users in a reliable fashion. You'll have to kill the enemies, but the ones you've marked will guaranteed drop more energy. Much like Energy Vampire now, the balance would be the Duration, you can't recast until either the Duration has expired, or the enemies have been killed.

Similarly, giving Trinity a stun ability on enemies is exactly the kind of CC she needs when confronted with a room full of enemies ^^

All you'd do for the Augment is grant shields back per kill as well, returning shields for effort invested, basically.

Link is one where you've also gone in the right direction, but over-complicated a little. A streamlined attempted might be something like this; Link will target all enemies in range and will transfer all damage received by Trinity, pre-mitigation, and all status procs to enemies linked, increasing effectiveness/multiplying damage with Ability Strength but also with damage divided by the number of enemies linked. Trinity gains up to 75% damage mitigation for the duration.

Example 1: Trinity links to 10 enemies, receives 1000 damage, all 10 enemies receive 100 damage each. With an Intensify, that becomes 130 damage each.
Example 2: Trinity is only linked to 1 enemy, that 1 enemy receives all 1000 damage straight back, or 1300 with Intensify.
Example 3: Trinity is linked to 20 enemies and receives a Fire proc; 20 enemies are on fire simultaneously, similarly this applies to Radiation, Cold and other Status effects.

Better Crowd control from this one, and that ability to spread damage around more consistently to enemies to make sure they're all softened up when you actually come to attack them. The Augment, though, is going to be another sticking point. Reducing armour is something that nobody will want to get rid of. It's incredibly useful against boss enemies, and especially when you're getting to the higher levels of play; armour scaling is so broken that being able to reduce it is a worthwhile function almost every time.

I would, however, like to limit it in the same way that the ability is limited; the more enemies you're in contact with, the less effective the individual reduction is. Although it can never drop below 30% (to make it a trade-off with a Corrosive Projection).

And Blessing... I...

I just think you should leave Blessing alone on any Trin rework. It's limited, it's strong within that limit, and it now doesn't cross over much with anything you do. Moving the Damage Mitigation from this to the 1 is a clever move, but then it needs something else back...

Something like it heals all allies in range, but does a secondary effect, because we can lose that health again so quickly... some reason to build it for Duration as well as Efficiency and Strength... like a team buff that lasts... maybe instead of damage mitigation you would give it synergy with her 1? Refresh up to X number of damage mitigation counters (better team buffing)? Synergy with her 2? Marked enemies in range are slowed by a certain percentage (better CC)? Maybe synergy with her 3? Increase the base range for the duration of the cast (Better personal damage mitigation and more chance of CC)?

Trin is all about the team, so having some selfish effects aren't all that bad in moderation.

Thoughts?

Also:

On 2018-07-09 at 5:40 AM, Teridax68 said:

So first off, there is a pretty large consensus that Trinity does need a nerf

I will guarantee you there's a larger one that says she doesn't.

But... reworks are not always nerfs, and making Trin stronger by changing the base effects to be more reliable for all players, but less... easy to abuse... for the Trin? Yeah, that we can talk about.

[Teridax68]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

But I do think you could refine these, maybe simplify the targeting and mechanics for streamlining the functions. They're a little... bitty right now. You're also missing something that I think is necessary in Trinity's kit; Crowd Control. Although too much CC and she'll be back to 'godlike, pls nerf'.

 

Spoiler

This is true, I deliberately removed Trinity's CC, though at the same time I think that's warranted. Not every frame needs CC, and in fact giving too much of it is what causes combat to become a pushover, since you then get to consistently prevent your opponents from doing anything to you. I didn't completely remove her CC, since she would still be able to reflect status effects, but considering how she's already top-tier at energy provision and healing, she can afford to not have other things instead. This may boil down to personal opinion, but I personally don't really think Trinity needs CC, since she's already good at mitigating and healing damage.

 

Quote

The point-and-click vs hold mechanic for 1 is one of those parts I consider bitty. It's a 1 ability it needs to be direct and simple, and also slightly separated from the Amesha. Have it be a radial marking, and a reasonable base distance like 15-20m so that range modding can actually make it nearly the same area as Blessing. It then affects all allies in range and you can balance that range by making the number of charges affected by Strength (as in, use Overextended and get punished for it...).

You might want to consider something else; with the fact that Blessing currently allows only up to 75% of damage mitigation for allies, that this is capped for a reason. So providing allies with 75% damage mitigation at max wouldn't be such a bad thing. It would also keep Trinity's own damage mitigation on herself consistent with current (which is obviously where DE wants it to be).

 

Spoiler

This I think is where one influences the other. On one hand, Trinity's abilities can cheaply affect everyone in range, but on the other, this also means she can't really be allowed to give her team damage reduction in the 90%+ range or the like, as she once used to. That brings us to the dilemma with current Trinity: either she retains the ability to spam all of her defenses, in which case they need to be watered down (or stay watered down, rather), or she gets to keep extremely powerful healing and protection, but at a cost. In this particular case, Trinity's Blessing damage reduction is capped at 75% because otherwise she'd be too good at having her team never die with the heal + damage reduction combo. By contrast, if she were to apply both separately for different occasions, and paid an appropriate cost for it, she could continue to be strong at what she does on a per-cast basis. Also worth mentioning here is that the damage reduction on Trinity herself would remain consistent: at +50% Power Strength, Trinity stacks 75% damage reduction from Blessing, plus the unchanging 75% DR from Link, which grants her 93.75% damage reduction in total. Capping out at 95% therefore gets within a similar range, particularly since remaining at +50% Power Strength would cause the 1 to provide 75% DR, just like Blessing now.

I also question whether the addition of a hold mechanic would really be "bitty". I completely agree that 1 abilities, and abilities in general, need to be direct and simple, but then again, this ability is simple, since as a baseline it's basically just Amesha's 1. Being able to hold the ability is merely an extra option for players who want to apply buffs to their whole team without having to individually focus on allies one at a time. I also don't really see why Trinity can't borrow from Amesha here, since one's a warframe and the other's an Archwing ostensibly designed to imitate her.

 

Quote

The augment, Pool of Life, would then be closer to the original than yours, but incorporate it: with numbers affected by Strength, Trinity causes Health Orbs to appear within a small radius around herself on cast. Health Orbs synergise with other functions, you see, like Health Conversion and Arcane Pulse, that will make Trinity very reliable for working with those.

 

Spoiler

I'm not sure designing an mod purely for the purpose of synergizing with a couple of other mods is really the best methodology. The effect should stand on its own, otherwise there are better alternatives.

 

Quote

Energy Vampire is going to be a tough one to crack for most people, because at the moment it's so good that any change will be seen as a Nerf unless... you give something that people will really like as a selling point. Energy steal on enemies is one thing, but as people have mentioned that will hog all the energy to the really damaging frames and none for you. How about changing the cast to a Wave cast (like Limbo's 1, where it's large range, but directional and blocked by line-of-sight on geometry) where every enemy is Marked. This will have the effects you've asked for in terms of showing up through walls, but instead of energy gain for damage (which is variable) Marked enemies drop an Energy Orb on death and all affected enemies suffer a stagger similar to Banshee's Silence.

 

Spoiler

If you've read what others have had to say about Energy Vampire and damage frames, you should also have been able to see my response to them: if we are in such a state where damage frames can prevent other players from so much as touching enemies, then that is the real problem that needs to be addressed. Dropping more stuff on the ground should not be the answer. I feel part of what needs to be challenged here is the notion that players can get energy for free without having to do anything about it, so if the game can progress in such a manner that some players will never be able to regain energy with this version of EV, then EV was not even needed in the first place.

Also, as mentioned in the very first bulletpoint list in my thread OP, purely benefiting from negative duration is not a healthy aspect of Trinity, and is part of what I want to change on her. I'm okay with an ability that neither benefits nor loses from duration, but I don't think locking oneself out based on one's duration is a particularly fun aspect of gameplay.

 

Quote

All you'd do for the Augment is grant shields back per kill as well, returning shields for effort invested, basically.

 

Spoiler

Side note, I think basing bonuses purely off of kills is not a good idea, because that tends to make the effect scale worse with levels. This is not so visible when you're in Sanctuary Onslaught and Saryn or whatever is AFK murdering the whole room just by existing, but outside of those niche situations, there will be plenty more where the Trinity player or their team will be faced with enemies that are tougher to kill, and who'd really like to gain benefits from their abilities sooner, rather than later.

 

Quote

Link is one where you've also gone in the right direction, but over-complicated a little. A streamlined attempted might be something like this; Link will target all enemies in range and will transfer all damage received by Trinity, pre-mitigation, and all status procs to enemies linked, increasing effectiveness/multiplying damage with Ability Strength but also with damage divided by the number of enemies linked. Trinity gains up to 75% damage mitigation for the duration.

 

Spoiler

So basically just current Link, with extra Power Strength scaling and some fiddly damage division across enemies when the ability's damage is already weak as a baseline. How is this related in any way to what I suggested, or less complicated? Also, how does this version offer better CC than mine?

 

Quote

And Blessing... I...

I just think you should leave Blessing alone on any Trin rework. It's limited, it's strong within that limit, and it now doesn't cross over much with anything you do. Moving the Damage Mitigation from this to the 1 is a clever move, but then it needs something else back...

 

Spoiler

Blessing is many things, limited is not one of them. Even after the many, many nerfs that have affected it, it's still an ability that can single-handedly guarantee that nobody on your team will realistically die unless you forget to press a button every few seconds. This needs to change, and while Trinity needs to be able to save allies from death, doing so should not be able to happen cheaply every few seconds. In fact, I strongly suspect Trinity is one of the main factors behind power creep on enemies in this manner as well: because Trinity can render her whole team nigh-invincible at all times, enemies need to be strong enough to still deal damage through that 75% reduction, which is why we're in a state of high-level damage where it's not uncommon for squishy frames to get one-shotted, which then leaves frames without innate damage mitigation or ridiculous amounts of CC feeling weak.

Also worth noting is that there is synergy in the above kit already: Trinity's 1 increases effective health, which amplifies the durability of allies that can then be healed more effectively with her 4, and the high energy cost of both abilities can be resolved with her 2, whose damage-to-energy conversion is amplified by the damage amplification on her 3. Just because she doesn't have an extra paragraph's worth of forced synergy between her abilities does not mean synergy does not exist, and I fail to see how implementing that would make for a simpler kit. I'm not a fan of forcing synergies in general, since they generally tend to not address the innate clunkiness to certain frames, and I think the above kit would already have enough innate synergy to stand on its own. 

 

Quote

Trin is all about the team, so having some selfish effects aren't all that bad in moderation.

 

Spoiler

Agreed, hence the change to the Link augment, which is already generally used for solo play. All of these abilities benefit Trinity directly, and some even have extra applications in solo play (EV can be used stealthily), so I feel I did do things that would help out solo Trin playstyles as well.

 

Quote

I will guarantee you there's a larger one that says she doesn't.

 

Spoiler

Show me. For sure, there will be a vocal minority of players with a vested interest in keeping Trinity in her current, abusively strong state, just as there will be some players who will always be opposed to change or nerfs no matter what, but Trinity's reputation as a game-breaking frame is widely known at this point. She's had a huge impact on the balancing of the game, and that impact has not been positive. This leads us to a dilemma: either we keep Trinity as strong as she is, as equally capable of giving everyone unlimited energy and healing, and thereby continue to have the entire game balanced around enemies being able to deal with warframes running on infinite energy, practically free healing, and almost always-on quad health, or we nerf Trinity just a little, and allow the rest of the game to return to a more balanced state. Perhaps this is just the support in me speaking, but I don't feel like I'm selfish enough to demand the entire game to be broken, just so that my personal favorite character can continue to remain as dominant as she's been her whole existence.

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Teridax68

[(PSN)N7_Dredgen]

On 2018-07-08 at 10:47 PM, Teridax68 said:

It's time for another one of these, I feel. Trinity's issues are largely well-known at this point:

• She tends to break energy consumption wherever she goes, offering vast amounts of energy to her whole team with just the press of a button.

I'm pretty sure any frame can achieve this by dropping Team Energy Restores everywhere.

Edited July 10, 2018 by (PS4)lagrue

[Azamagon]

20 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Thank you for the feedback! Here are my thoughts on some of the points below:

1) 5 meters is actually pretty wide, much wider than the area for, say, Limbo's Rift tear he creates while sliding. Perhaps 5m should be the radius, rather than the diameter, but honestly, so long as it has a clearly visible effect, it shouldn't be too much trouble for allies to jump to it and restore charges.

2) A Warframe capable of killing everyone else before anyone else can interact with an enemy is already removing everyone else's interaction from the game. By this token, you could argue that literally any Warframe with an ability that affects enemies is wasting their power, simply because frames Saryn exists. Already, frames like Saryn, Volt, Ember, etc. make it difficult for Trinity to cast EV at all, so really, the problem should be tackled at the source, rather than band-aided with some alternative that still gives allies free energy without them having to do anything about it.

3) I can agree with this for sure, should the augment prove too weak with the above kit.

4) I actually added the option to just hold and auto-link to every enemy in range, so if that is the issue, it should be resolved (including with quick target-finding). Besides that, I think linking to specific enemies grants Trinity more control, both over who she wants to link to, and how many enemies she wants to link to at a time. If you want to link to just 3 enemies, you'd still be able to do so, with far fewer delays and lockouts than the current version, and slightly less energy consumed as a baseline (6 energy per second over 12 seconds is 72 energy, less than the current 75). This version of Trinity is intended to output much more power onto specific targets at a time, which is why there's an overall theme here of giving her more single-target control over her abilities, while making her effects costlier if used on entire crowds at a time.

1) *shrugs* Still find the effect rather limitted. Or, in case of good coop, way too OP (as you'd just stick around each other and no one would ever lose their charges)

2) Even if the "kill-hogging" is still an issue in and of itself, it's still very limitted in how it helps the team. I think @Thaylien is more on the right track here, by making it produce Energy Orb(s) from killed marked enemies. It takes the ideas I had (make it limitted in burstyness, make it help the whole team like now - although still retains a bit of the "need to spam issue", but far less so than the current version) and adds another thing; Your allies won't just passively get the energy, they have to MOVE. So even if it works with channeled abilities (as per the nature of Energy Orbs), it prevents 100% camping, which is nice. It also gives a failsafe for non-present allies; they can still get that energy from the EV-enemy, by picking up the orb later.

3) Ummm... yeah, it'd probably need a buff in my version of EV. In yours it'd need a pretty big nerf (since the energygains, and thus by extension, shield-regains via the augments) are based on weapon or abilitydamage... and you know how crazy high damage we do, right? One shot, full overshields? Sounds a bit too strong to me.

4) That still misses the point, as you'd need to hold-cast every time you have killed all linked enemies. The current version autolinks to new targets in range for its duration, whenever a previous one has unlinked (be it by getting out of range or by killing it). That target-finding-automation would be lost even in that holdcast version of yours, as you'd still need to know where to find the enemy FIRST, before (hold)casting. Hope you understand what I mean.

Why not just keep the current version as it is, swap the DR to damage-amp, and then let Trinity manually be able to change to a specified target, by casting the ability again while aiming at your wanted target while it's still running? At no energycost, ofc, since you aren't gaining anything other than swapping who is one of your current 3 targets.

Also, you say that the intention is "much more power onto specific targets at a time"... are you sure you are a frequent Warframe player? You have realized the amount of enemies we face on a daily basis is rather... vast, no? Considering you'd have to babysit your allies with your new WoL, enemies still manually targetted with EV, and now potentially allies also with Blessing (if not heldcast) and you ALSO want Link to be a manually targetted ability? You realize the headache she'd impose in most players with all the maintenance, right? The tedium which it implies? Leave Link's targetting mechanics alone, really, is my firm opinion. I feel its current targetting mechanic is interesting and unique as it is.

 

EDIT:
I know this is nitpicking, but wouldn't it be more fitting to swap the roles of WoL and Blessing?

WoL has a name fitting a healing ability, while Blessing could fit for, well, any positive effect really. Just as a sidenote *shrugs*

Edited July 10, 2018 by Azamagon

[Teridax68]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)lagrue said:

I'm pretty sure any frame can achieve this 10x more potently by dropping Team Energy Restores everywhere.  I don't even know why anybody would waste time on EV Trinity - the only place EV would actually be better than spamming pads is pretty much the Sanctuary where you can use gear items.

You really can't argue with 500 energy over 30 seconds per pad... drop 2-3 of them and you're laughing.  

Both are an issue, imo. Pizzas in general tend to cheapen resource constraints, but then the fact that Trinity basically provides the equivalent of unlimited free pizzas to everyone no matter how fast they're moving shows just how much of a problem EV represents for balance. I support removing restores altogether, or at least energy restores, though I still think Trinity's own energy generation needs to change as well.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

1) *shrugs* Still find the effect rather limitted. Or, in case of good coop, way too OP (as you'd just stick around each other and no one would ever lose their charges)

So the effect is underpowered... but also overpowered? I don't quite follow.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

2) Even if the "kill-hogging" is still an issue in and of itself, it's still very limitted in how it helps the team. I think @Thaylien is more on the right track here, by making it produce Energy Orb(s) from killed marked enemies. It takes the ideas I had (make it limitted in burstyness, make it help the whole team like now - although still retains a bit of the "need to spam issue", but far less so than the current version) and adds another thing; Your allies won't just passively get the energy, they have to MOVE. So even if it works with channeled abilities (as per the nature of Energy Orbs), it prevents 100% camping, which is nice. It also gives a failsafe for non-present allies; they can still get that energy from the EV-enemy, by picking up the orb later.

It's still free energy at the end of the day, since energy orbs aren't so difficult to obtain when Vacuum is a thing. Moreover, dropping energy orbs on kill means you have to wait until a target dies, which isn't great at higher levels outside of certain Sanctuary Onslaught comps. In general, it feels like this version of EV is being judged exclusively on how well it'd do in Onslaught, which I don't think is a reasonable mode of analysis, as the mode's problems stem from other frames already. Having this EV not work for non-present enemies is intended, and I don't think allies should be able to gain energy from Trinity unless they're actively participating.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

3) Ummm... yeah, it'd probably need a buff in my version of EV. In yours it'd need a pretty big nerf (since the energygains, and thus by extension, shield-regains via the augments) are based on weapon or abilitydamage... and you know how crazy high damage we do, right? One shot, full overshields? Sounds a bit too strong to me.

Overshields are not a particularly abusive mechanic, and EV's conversion would not work on overkill damage. I'm not sure exactly which part of this is too strong, or why.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

4) That still misses the point, as you'd need to hold-cast every time you have killed all linked enemies. The current version autolinks to new targets in range for its duration, whenever a previous one has unlinked (be it by getting out of range or by killing it). That target-finding-automation would be lost even in that holdcast version of yours, as you'd still need to know where to find the enemy FIRST, before (hold)casting. Hope you understand what you mean.

Not to be rude or anything, but you don't know my kit better than I do. Moreover, you don't need to, because I've explained myself here already: I specified that hold-casting would take the same time/animation as the current, baseline Link animation, so there is no loss here, and doing so would still auto-link to enemies in range, including those out of sight, as with the current version. You may not link to new enemies while in motion, but being in continuous motion is not the time when you're searching for a specific enemy. Even if it were, you'd still be able to probe areas with Link, so there really is no meaningful loss in functionality here.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

Why not just keep the current version as it is, swap the DR to damage-amp, and then let Trinity manually be able to change to a specified target, by casting the ability again while aiming at your wanted target while it's still running? At no energycost, ofc, since you aren't gaining anything other than swapping who is one of your current 3 targets.

So change the control scheme to a version that would require far more inputs to do everything Trinity would be able to do with the scheme I proposed. Got it.

2 minutes ago, Azamagon said:

Also, you say that the intention if "much more power onto specific targets at a time"... are you sure you are a frequent Warframe player? You have realized the amount of enemies we face on a daily basis is rather... vast, no? Considering you'd have to babysit your allies with your new WoL, enemies still manually targetted with EV, and now potentially allies also with Blessing (if not heldcast) and you ALSO want Link to be a manually targetted ability? You realize the headache she'd impose in most players with all the maintenance, right? The tedium which it implies? Leave Link's targetting mechanics alone, really.

The number of players in a non-Trial session has never changed, though? Are you sure you play Warframe enough to know what you're talking about? Are you sure you're aware of what you're talking about at all here? Trinity is a support, who I'm pushing to focus on powerful abilities to deploy on individual allies, plus one ability that has always been single-target, and another that can be made AoE with a button hold. It's not rocket science.

[OptimumBow0]

This is a really deep/complicated thread, but as someone who's regularly played Trinity I'd like to add my 2 cents

Passive: I like it

WoL: Regardless of how much more "difficult" it is to use it, it would be used, which is good enough for me. It differentiates it enough from being EV's sad twin.

EV: The potential for energy hogging is undesirable (as others pointed out). If 50% - 75% of the percent damage dealt was pulsed outwards, I think that would be a better compromise. That way there are scraps for the rest of the team and there is still an incentive to deal damage. However, I would still like for the passive-pulses to be preserved, because there are times when it is nice to just let EV do its thang and focus on taking down higher-priority enemies that just peeked around the corner.

Link: I like that you put a greater emphasis on the damage reflection because right now it's just there for show.

Blessing: I don't know what to think, but it sounds cool. And expensive.

My only reservation is that the WoL, Link, and Blessing changes will make her play more around her abilities to the point that she can't so much play the objective. But, then again, I'm pretty casual when I play her, so I don't know. 

I do think, though, that if she is to have this level of thought and care built into her ability casts that it would be neat if Link synergized with WoL and EV in some way. Like Linking to an EV'd enemy grants more direct energy flow, which would be beneficial for her now costlier abilities and increased casting (at least, it seems the necessity to cast would increase at the foundations of her kit).

That being said, this is awesome, I love when people talk about Trinity.

[Azamagon]

3 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

1) So the effect is underpowered... but also overpowered? I don't quite follow.

2) It's still free energy at the end of the day, since energy orbs aren't so difficult to obtain when Vacuum is a thing. Moreover, dropping energy orbs on kill means you have to wait until a target dies, which isn't great at higher levels outside of certain Sanctuary Onslaught comps. In general, it feels like this version of EV is being judged exclusively on how well it'd do in Onslaught, which I don't think is a reasonable mode of analysis, as the mode's problems stem from other frames already. Having this EV not work for non-present enemies is intended, and I don't think allies should be able to gain energy from Trinity unless they're actively participating.

3) Overshields are not a particularly abusive mechanic, and EV's conversion would not work on overkill damage. I'm not sure exactly which part of this is too strong, or why.

4) Not to be rude or anything, but you don't know my kit better than I do. Moreover, you don't need to, because I've explained myself here already: I specified that hold-casting would take the same time/animation as the current, baseline Link animation, so there is no loss here, and doing so would still auto-link to enemies in range, including those out of sight, as with the current version. You may not link to new enemies while in motion, but being in continuous motion is not the time when you're searching for a specific enemy. Even if it were, you'd still be able to probe areas with Link, so there really is no meaningful loss in functionality here.

5) So change the control scheme to a version that would require far more inputs to do everything Trinity would be able to do with the scheme I proposed. Got it.

6) The number of players in a non-Trial session has never changed, though? Are you sure you play Warframe enough to know what you're talking about? Are you sure you're aware of what you're talking about at all here? Trinity is a support, who I'm pushing to focus on powerful abilities to deploy on individual allies, plus one ability that has always been single-target, and another that can be made AoE with a button hold. It's not rocket science.

1) Yes, that's what I'm saying. I mentioned Total Eclipse before, remember? It follows the same issue, it's both overpowered (huge numbers of damage buffing), but also really underpowered (itsy bitsy range that only makes it useable in highly coordinated groups) at the same time. It's better to make the effect not so overpowered, but give it useability that works in uncoordinated groups as a tradeoff. Less power, more QoL, basicly. To give an example in relation to Total Eclipse: Make its aura-radius much, much bigger, but make the buff-percentage much smaller for the allies. More useable in general gameplay, less overpowered in niche groupings (this was part of the Mag/Mesa/Mirage/Trin setup that was heavily abused in the old T4 Void Defense, for example).

2) If you have to kill the target, it also makes it less broken by default. In that way, the team has to actively participate to take it down, to get that energy. Basicly the same thing, less kill-hog-like. Not to mention, it could then have other side-effects; It could set a DoT on the target similar to now (thus it helping itself to get the target down for that energy orb drop), it could still have a single target CC while ongoing.

Actually, I didn't judge it based on ESO, but on general gameplay. That's your own presumption.

3) They could become near-abusive if they'd allow non-stop full overshields though. Especially along with your WoL-suggestion that provides plenty of damage-reduction, mind you. And I wasn't even thinking of overkill damage counting here, btw.

4) The keyword is exactly that thing you quickly scoffed off; "You may not link to new enemies while in motion". That. That's the tedium. That's the massive QoL-loss I meant. That's what I think many (me included) would really miss from it. Especially with 3 other abilities already requiring targetting.

5) HUH? How is your version LESS inputrequiring than the current one?? In your version you'd have cast to link to every single new enemy that enters her range. Current one, it targets 3 by itself. My addition just let's you swap out one of those 3 currently linked ones to one of your own choosing (in those moments when you ACTUALLY want a particular enemy focused, like a Bombard or whatever). I just add QoL to it, you add complete tedium to it.

My version means you'd just run around, with the ability linking itself to all mooks like it currently does. Oh, there's a Bombard? Alright, I'll target this one enemy manually, since I want it focused down first. No biggie. Alternatively, I could just kill the smallfry nearby (if there aren't all that many close at the moment), then it'll link to the Bombard by itself eventually.

Your version means you'd have to target every. single. mook, either one by one, or by constant holdcasting . Even targets like Butchers and Lancers and such. Manual targetting. Every time. Yup. No tedium at all /s.

Yet my version requires more input, somehow? Ok. Got it. >_>

6) *sigh* I specifically said the number of enemies are vast. Not number of players. In that context I was talking specifically about how tedious -LINK- would be with manual targetting for every single enemy. Even with the holdcasting considered, yes, as you'd still have to link to each one with continuous input (be it single casted or holdcasted), instead of Link doing it by itself like now, while moving and all (yes, that auto-targetting while moving is incredibly important, moreso in your rework, actually, since you'd spend more time focusing casting WoL/Blessing on allies manually).

Yes, I understand you wanted to have have more powerful effect on the ally-targetted abilities, but in turn also have them manually targetted. That's fine. But that wasn't my point there, again, as I was specifically speaking about adding Link, specifically, to that philosophy would be too stressful  (as you'd be really busy keeping track of allies with WoL and Blessing already). Otherwise I wouldn't be talking about enemies (since you don't target enemies with WoL or Blessing in your rework) after all, nor ending it with the "Leave Link's targetting mechanic alone".

Guess I didn't word that well enough to be clear that I only meant it for Link in that context? I apologize if that's the case.