New WARFRAME: BULWARK

[Buhrserk]

Hello, Tenno. For years I've watched Warframe expand on its arsenal of weapons and frames alike, and to this day I've never found a Warframe that has an entirely and pure defensive skillset. Yes, I know Rhino has fantastic defensive abilities, as well as Equinox's night form, but I mean something More, a purely defensive frame that utilizes material shields to be able to defend teammates and uphold a team's survivability more than just standard crowd control, but by manipulating your team into an indestructible force.

 

Backstory

Designed by Ergo Glast as a prototype design of the Corpus Proxy AMBULAS, Bulwark is the Corpus' closest attempt at replicating Orokin technology, which was lost to the outer reaches of Pluto when the Corpus Manufacturing plant nicknamed "SECHURA"  fell victim to a spreading infestation, of which too was of Orokin biological tech. Pristine and untouched behind a varying multitude of Corpus made technology stands Bulwark, a Corpus designed Warframe utilizing scraps of Orokin ruins found in the bounds of Lua after Orokin security began to reactivate after millennia of standing dormant, peaking the attention of the Corpus and Grineer alike. 

 

Cosmetic Design

Though I'm no good with art tools, the picture in my mind is imagining him with a very bulky stature similar to Rhino. The overall design of Bulwark will be similar to a Bursa's armor, possibly with portions of the body that fuse Orokin and Corpus tech to give a very mut-like appearance, a fusion between the two factions.

 

Base Stats

ARMOR  175

ENERGY 100

HEALTH (100 -> 250)

SHIELD 175

SPRINT SPEED (1.00 -> 0.85)

 

Abilities

PASSIVE: When BULWARK's abilities are active, enemies within 50m will agro only on him and those abilities, ignoring other players as well as security protocol.
 

ABILITY #1: Phalanx: (10 Energy/Cast @ LEVEL 30)) User selects two points on the ground, creating a wall on the linear path between them.

RANGE: Increases or decreases the size of the barrier respectively, as well as the maximum distance that between the two points. 

STRENGTH:  Primarily increases HP of the wall by 2,500/50% as well as minorly increasing the verticality. (7,500 Base HP @ 30) 

EFFICIENCY: Effects the casting cost of the barrier.

DURATION: Primarily effects the casting cost of the barrier, but also minorly increases HP. 

 

ABILITY #2: Siphoning Barricade: (Shield Drain 50/1000 HP) Upon activation, Bulwark amplifies that available resevoir of HP of all defensive abilities in the area by absorbing Bulwark's shields, which include: (Inaros's SCARAB SWARM, Gara's MASS VITRIFY , Loki's DECOY, Khora's VENARI, Frost's SNOW GLOBE, Atlas' RUMBLERS & TECTONICS, Nezha's BLAZING CHAKRAM, Rhino's IRON SKIN, Nekros's SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, Trinity's WELL OF LIFE, Volt's ELECTRIC SHIELD, Nidus' PARASITIC LINK, & Bulwark's PHALANX & SENTIENT OSPREY)

(Parasitic Link, in this case, was a special type of synergy which I think could be interesting in play. What this essentially does to that ability in specific is when Nidus' link is affecting an enemy, it increases the Health of that enemy to double of their cumulative hitpoints, thus making it harder to kill when it's eating shots for Nidus. When it's affecting another player, this will essentially just max out the frame's Overshields (if they have any to begin with.) As for the rest of the abilities, it will just gradually add hitpoints to that ability.

RANGE: Effects the area in which abilities are amplified by Bulwark's Shields.

STRENGTH: Increases the ratio of Shields to health of each ability, every 50% adding or removing 200% more HP respectively.

EFFICIENCY: Increases or decreases the number of shields consumed per "cast" of this ability.

DURATION: N/A

 

ABILITY #3: Sentient Osprey: (100 Energy) Bulwark creates Corpus Ospreys fused with Sentient tech to follow all of his allies. These Ospreys follow the players, restoring 50% of their Shields every 5 seconds. Upon cumulatively losing 100% of their HP, the Ospreys will fuse with the players, creating a dome-like barrier around them for 5 seconds, reducing 50% of damage taken during that time.

RANGE: Effects the size of the barrier created upon the Osprey's death.

STRENGTH: Effects the collective HP pool of all the active Ospreys.

EFFICIENCY: Effects the energy cost of the ability.

DURATION: Effects the duration of which the Ospreys remain active, and how long their barrier stays upon their death.

 

ABILITY #4: Exalted Weapon: Trauma & Bastion: (Initial Cost: 25) (Energy Drain 2.5/sec @ LEVEL 30) Bulwark wields the legendary Hammer & Shield Trauma & Bastion, a designed weapon combo. Trauma is a blunt force hammer similar to the Arca Titron that functions in a cleaving motion when using it in Assault mode. Bastion, the shield of the legendary combo that is of fused Orokin design is the primary use of the Monolith mode which is activated by holding RMB when using the ability. Upon holding RMB, Bastion creates a large barrier held by Bulwark in front of where he's looking. This barrier is can be shot through by allies from behind, but not from in front.

RANGE:   Effects the size of Bastion's shield, and effects the cleave distance around Trauma's swings.

STRENGTH:  Effects the damage of Trauma and the Energy Drain when Bastion's barrier is taking damage.

EFFICIENCY: Effects the ability's drain overall.

DURATION: Primarily effects the energy drain, but also effects Trauma's swing speed minorly. (+/-0.05 per 25% Duration)

EXALTED WEAPON STATS (Base)

ATTACK SPEED 0.833

CHANNELING COST 7.5

CHANNELING DAMAGE 2.0x

CRITICAL CHANCE 20%

CRITICAL MULTIPLIER 2.0x

DAMAGE BLOCK 100%

LEAP ATTACK 2,100.0

SPIN ATTACK 964.0

STATUS 15%

WALL ATTACK 621.0

SLASH 45.5

IMPACT 555.0

PUNCTURE 0.0

 

So, that is my concept work for Bulwark. Any feedback is always appreciated, do remember though that these numbers are primarily placeholders, and they can be changed to better balance the frame for general play. Thanks for reading!

Credit to Xetael & FallenDemonX for inspiration for following:

@Xetael : Sprint Speed Reduction (Due to being a Tankframe)

@FallenDemonX : Health Increase (for the frame to work better with Siphoning Barricade) & Osprey Ability Buff

EDIT: Added a bit of additional text to Bulwark's Passive to better clarify. The modification made is to have the Ospreys become both more viable and more suseptible.

Edited August 1, 2018 by StrykerVI

[Xetael]

4 minutes ago, StrykerVI said:

Hello, Tenno. For years I've watched Warframe expand on its arsenal of weapons and frames alike, and to this day I've never found a Warframe that has an entirely and pure defensive skillset. Yes, I know Rhino has fantastic defensive abilities, as well as Equinox's night form, but I mean something More, a purely defensive frame that utilizes material shields to be able to defend teammates and uphold a team's survivability more than just standard crowd control, but by manipulating your team into an indestructible force.

 

Backstory

Designed by Ergo Glast as a prototype design of the Corpus Proxy AMBULAS, Bulwark is the Corpus' closest attempt at replicating Orokin technology, which was lost to the outer reaches of Pluto when the Corpus Manufacturing plant nicknamed "SECHURA"  fell victim to a spreading infestation, of which too was of Orokin biological tech. Pristine and untouched behind a varying multitude of Corpus made technology stands Bulwark, a Corpus designed Warframe utilizing scraps of Orokin ruins found in the bounds of Lua after Orokin security began to reactivate after millennia of standing dormant, peaking the attention of the Corpus and Grineer alike. 

 

Cosmetic Design

Though I'm no good with art tools, the picture in my mind is imagining him with a very bulky stature similar to Rhino. The overall design of Bulwark will be similar to a Bursa's armor, possibly with portions of the body that fuse Orokin and Corpus tech to give a very mut-like appearance, a fusion between the two factions.

 

Base Stats

ARMOR  175

ENERGY 100

HEALTH 100

SHIELD 175

SPRINT SPEED 1.00

 

Abilities

PASSIVE: When BULWARK's abilities are active, enemies within 50m will agro only on him, ignoring other players as well as security protocol.
 

ABILITY #1: Phalanx: (10 Energy/Cast @ LEVEL 30)) User selects two points on the ground, creating a wall on the linear path between them.

RANGE: Increases or decreases the size of the barrier respectively, as well as the maximum distance that between the two points. 

STRENGTH:  Primarily increases HP of the wall by 2,500/50% as well as minorly increasing the verticality. (7,500 Base HP @ 30) 

EFFICIENCY: Effects the casting cost of the barrier.

DURATION: Primarily effects the casting cost of the barrier, but also minorly increases HP. 

 

ABILITY #2: Siphoning Barricade: (Shield Drain 50/1000 HP) Upon activation, Bulwark amplifies that available resevoir of HP of all defensive abilities in the area by absorbing Bulwark's shields, which include: (Inaros's SCARAB SWARM, Gara's MASS VITRIFY , Loki's DECOY, Khora's VENARI, Frost's SNOW GLOBE, Atlas' RUMBLERS & TECTONICS, Nezha's BLAZING CHAKRAM, Rhino's IRON SKIN, Nekros's SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, Trinity's WELL OF LIFE, Volt's ELECTRIC SHIELD, Nidus' PARASITIC LINK, & Bulwark's PHALANX & SENTIENT OSPREY)

(Parasitic Link, in this case, was a special type of synergy which I think could be interesting in play. What this essentially does to that ability in specific is when Nidus' link is affecting an enemy, it increases the Health of that enemy to double of their cumulative hitpoints, thus making it harder to kill when it's eating shots for Nidus. When it's affecting another player, this will essentially just max out the frame's Overshields (if they have any to begin with.) As for the rest of the abilities, it will just gradually add hitpoints to that ability.

RANGE: Effects the area in which abilities are amplified by Bulwark's Shields.

STRENGTH: Increases the ratio of Shields to health of each ability, every 50% adding or removing 200% more HP respectively.

EFFICIENCY: Increases or decreases the number of shields consumed per "cast" of this ability.

DURATION: N/A

 

ABILITY #3: Sentient Osprey: (100 Energy) Bulwark creates Corpus Ospreys fused with Sentient tech to follow all of his allies. These Ospreys follow the players, restoring 25% of their Shields every 7.5 seconds. Upon cumulatively losing 100% of their HP, the Ospreys will fuse with the players, creating a dome-like barrier around them for 5 seconds, reducing 50% of damage taken during that time.

RANGE: Effects the size of the barrier created upon the Osprey's death.

STRENGTH: Effects the collective HP pool of all the active Ospreys.

EFFICIENCY: Effects the energy cost of the ability.

DURATION: Effects the duration of which the Ospreys remain active, and how long their barrier stays upon their death.

 

ABILITY #4: Exalted Weapon: Trauma & Bastion: (Initial Cost: 25) (Energy Drain 2.5/sec @ LEVEL 30) Bulwark wields the legendary Hammer & Shield and Shield Trauma & Bastion, a designed weapon combo. Trauma is a blunt force hammer similar to the Arca Titron that functions in a cleaving motion when using it in Assault mode. Bastion, the shield of the legendary combo that is of fused Orokin design is the primary use of the Monolith mode which is activated by holding RMB when using the ability. Upon holding RMB, Bastion creates a large barrier held by Bulwark in front of where he's looking. This barrier is can be shot through by allies from behind, but not from in front.

RANGE:   Effects the size of Bastion's shield, and effects the cleave distance around Trauma's swings.

STRENGTH:  Effects the damage of Trauma and the Energy Drain when Bastion's barrier is taking damage.

EFFICIENCY: Effects the ability's drain overall.

DURATION: Primarily effects the energy drain, but also effects Trauma's swing speed minorly. (+/-0.05 per 25% Duration)

EXALTED WEAPON STATS (Base)

ATTACK SPEED 0.833

CHANNELING COST 7.5

CHANNELING DAMAGE 2.0x

CRITICAL CHANCE 20%

CRITICAL MULTIPLIER 2.0x

DAMAGE BLOCK 100%

LEAP ATTACK 2,100.0

SPIN ATTACK 964.0

STATUS 15%

WALL ATTACK 621.0

SLASH 45.5

IMPACT 555.0

PUNCTURE 0.0

 

So, that is my concept work for Bulwark. Any feedback is always appreciated, do remember though that these numbers are primarily placeholders, and they can be changed to better balance the frame for general play. Thanks for reading!

Dude this looks amazing, but i would think for a tanker like this the speed sohould be like 0.75 or something cause this sounds like a pure tank and making him run around fast will just make people use him as a dps somehow, making him a pure anchor would be awesome. Need someone like that in this game who doesnt keep jumping around like a freaking ninja

[Buhrserk]

1 minute ago, Xetael said:

Dude this looks amazing, but i would think for a tanker like this the speed sohould be like 0.75 or something cause this sounds like a pure tank and making him run around fast will just make people use him as a dps somehow, making him a pure anchor would be awesome. Need someone like that in this game who doesnt keep jumping around like a freaking ninja

I was debating in lowering his speed, my only issue is to my knowledge DE doesn't give us much in regards to speed deductions to play around with aside from Cold Procs and certain augments such as Nyx's Assimilate Augment. I'll play around more with it and do some modifications to my frames to simulate that type of speed and see if it seems viable!

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

Aside from his ult it's a pretty good concept, I don't think we need a generic shield guy like Reinhardt in the game because you know your team aren't going to camp behind you even during a farming run. What I wouldn't mind seeing is a massive rocket barrage! How awesome would that be 

Edited August 1, 2018 by (PS4)Equinox21697

[Buhrserk]

Just now, (PS4)Equinox21697 said:

Aside from his ult it's a pretty good concept, I don't think we need a generic shield guy like Reinhardt in the game because you know your team aren't going to camp behind you even during a farming run. What I wouldn't mind seeing is a massive Brocket barrage! How awesome would that be 

While I do agree to an extent, that is primarily why I strayed away from making it solely a Shield ability and added the Exalted weapon into the mix. I definitely see how playing such a mobility based game creates an issue for bulky anchoring abilities, but still having the ability to use the equivalent to Mjolnir as an exalted weapon might turn to be a really cool concept. It all depends on what DE would do to this concept with Augments and things of that sort.

[FallenDemonX]

I gotta say, this a pretty neat concept. Not sure if you mind, I just wanna make a small analysis on every part of it.

 

 

Backstory: Simple but functional. DE kinda left the whole Ambulas lore to rot imo. The idea of having more prototypes roaming around would help the worldbuilding a lot, even if it mean having another Corpus frame (Valkyr being the first).

 

Passive: This is just cool. Player taunts should be a thing.

 

1rst: Might as well rework Atlas. As you pointed out in the second ability, there is already a lot of barrier abilities in the game, but I guess having a big ass wall that does nothing but being a big ass wall is somewhat new. Find it dull personally but could be fun.

 

2nd: Considering you will be drawing aggro all of the time I am not sure how much you want this. I get the idea though, basically change energy costs for maintaining defensive skills into shield costs. Considering the high energy costs this guy has, this is well though out.

 

3rd: I dont know why but this one just feels weird. It is a standard tank/paladin ability, the main effect feels kinda underwhelming and the floating effect is just odd. Does it remain on top of the players or is it like a bunch of mini snow globes?

 

Ult: Exalted shield and weapon sounds cool, gets that paladin fantasy going on.

[Buhrserk]

4 hours ago, FallenDemonX said:

I gotta say, this a pretty neat concept. Not sure if you mind, I just wanna make a small analysis on every part of it.

 

 

Backstory: Simple but functional. DE kinda left the whole Ambulas lore to rot imo. The idea of having more prototypes roaming around would help the worldbuilding a lot, even if it mean having another Corpus frame (Valkyr being the first).

 

Passive: This is just cool. Player taunts should be a thing.

 

1rst: Might as well rework Atlas. As you pointed out in the second ability, there is already a lot of barrier abilities in the game, but I guess having a big ass wall that does nothing but being a big ass wall is somewhat new. Find it dull personally but could be fun.

 

2nd: Considering you will be drawing aggro all of the time I am not sure how much you want this. I get the idea though, basically change energy costs for maintaining defensive skills into shield costs. Considering the high energy costs this guy has, this is well though out.

 

3rd: I dont know why but this one just feels weird. It is a standard tank/paladin ability, the main effect feels kinda underwhelming and the floating effect is just odd. Does it remain on top of the players or is it like a bunch of mini snow globes?

 

Ult: Exalted shield and weapon sounds cool, gets that paladin fantasy going on.

No, I didn't mind at all! I'm actually glad you did!

Backstory: Yeah, they really did. Trying to revive it in the recent events was something, but it hasn't really done much justice to some of the most dangerous Corpus enemies in the game.

Passive: I agree. Maybe not every frame, but having a frame with the capability makes it really nice.

As far as Ability 1 goes, it's the same idea in the sense of Gara's Mass Vitrify to a smaller scale. Suck up enemy attacks before they're allowed to progress, which given the idea that you can connect multiple of these barriers together to create a fortress around something or someone, thus allowing with a competent (or even kill-hungry) team to defend something with leisure.

 

Ability 2: This ability alone has given me some trouble ideally. Originally designing this frame I wanted to design a mechanic that possessed an idea of losing one to gain another, or in this case restoring defensive powers. This could be helped simply by increasing Bulwark's maximum health, but seeing as there aren't many frames that possess a stupid large health pool AND Shields makes it difficult to replicate it. There are frames such as Volt who replicate the opposite of such, with a large shield pool and not much health, which could potentially work in reverse scaling.

 

Ability 3: This, is, unfortunately true. When designing Bulwark's abilities this was the one that was an outlier in terms of how I wanted it designed. The problem with working on these numbers too extensively is that unlike Sentinels these Ospreys are on a duration, so it'd make sense to make them powerful, but then, it doesn't. The effect of the Osprey is a bit weak, and I am thinking about buffing those shield numbers and the intermission between them to make it feel more viable.

 

To answer your question though, the on-death effect of the Ospreys would essentially latch to the Frames they are following, Disappear and turn into a miniature Snow Globe that reduces incoming damage.

 

4: This ability makes me gitty. I want to swing around a giant @$*$ing Hammer with a large shield.

EDIT: Sir, you are an absolute genius. Look out for edits in the near future. of the original post.

Edited August 1, 2018 by StrykerVI

[(PSN)VoidVox_]

This is a great start. I've been trying to work on a shield frame for a while but it's just difficult to come up with things other than exalted shield and sword/hammer, and giant wall. 

Your lore also sounds similar to my own work with Havoc, but I mean that in a good way. It matches the theme and format but on a different planet with a different character.

I think this would be amazing if this and Havoc were released alongside such other. Defense and offense. Below is Havoc by the way, but I'll also look back through my shield-frame notes and see if I have anything that could help you or that you could add in.

My version of shield-frame was more of a knight sort of visual theme, but I'm sure theres some elements of it I could pass along to help you.

Anyway, again, great start, looking forward to seeing it refined.

[Buhrserk]

2 hours ago, (PS4)warhero229 said:

This is a great start. I've been trying to work on a shield frame for a while but it's just difficult to come up with things other than exalted shield and sword/hammer, and giant wall. 

Your lore also sounds similar to my own work with Havoc, but I mean that in a good way. It matches the theme and format but on a different planet with a different character.

I think this would be amazing if this and Havoc were released alongside such other. Defense and offense. Below is Havoc by the way, but I'll also look back through my shield-frame notes and see if I have anything that could help you or that you could add in.

My version of shield-frame was more of a knight sort of visual theme, but I'm sure theres some elements of it I could pass along to help you.

Anyway, again, great start, looking forward to seeing it refined.

After going through your Frame concept of Havoc, I like it! It really sits in my mind with the whole Iron Man idea with the multitude of gun-based abilities that the frame provides.

 

As far as coming up with abilities, there comes a point where you've got to think outside the box in regards to defense. Warframe has so many means of "Protection" even if it doesn't directly have to create something, hence where my second ability came from. It isn't a material ability, but a good Bulwark player will always have it active, synergizing with his own Ospreys and other frames. It's all about synergy, and as much as people don't like to admit it, there needs to be more of it to make the game feel more teamwork oriented.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

18 hours ago, (PS4)Equinox21697 said:

Aside from his ult it's a pretty good concept, I don't think we need a generic shield guy like Reinhardt in the game because you know your team aren't going to camp behind you even during a farming run. What I wouldn't mind seeing is a massive rocket barrage! How awesome would that be 

I completely disagree. People like to be in frost snow globe, im sure some people wouldnt mind being behind a giant shield. It just depends on the game mode

[(PSN)OriginalEquinox]

5 hours ago, (PS4)Ghost--00-- said:

I completely disagree. People like to be in frost snow globe, im sure some people wouldnt mind being behind a giant shield. It just depends on the game mode

Show globe is different, you just deploy it and move on and anyone in it will have protection from all angles, where as a shield like this will be facing the direction of the player using it AND there will be a big Warframe taking up half of your view the entire time.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Equinox21697 said:

Show globe is different, you just deploy it and move on and anyone in it will have protection from all angles, where as a shield like this will be facing the direction of the player using it AND there will be a big Warframe taking up half of your view the entire time.

Yea but its mobile tho like i could see this being used for hijack missions or any missions where the defense objective moves around. Warframe body may be in the way but it could be sacrafice worth making depending on how difficult the level is for your teammates

Edited August 2, 2018 by (PS4)Ghost--00--