A Proposed Ember Change @DE

[Ssekys]

I posted this on reddit a couple of days ago, and got some great advice to post it here as well, as it would be more likely to be seen and read by DE and the people in charge of balancing. First and foremost, I am an Ember main with a background in game design, as well as modding and developing fan content for a few games, most notably Starbound. I have been an Ember main for the better part of my 1000 hours in Warframe, and I probably always will be in some capacity. However, the recent changes to Ember have definitely made her more one-dimensional in my opinion from a gameplay perspective, which I strongly dislike. It's not to say that the nerf was unjustified though, because it most definitely 100% needed to happen. The nerf however, killed every playstyle that wasn't "press 4 and obliterate level <30 missions", so with that, I've got ideas for a proposed buff / rework to Ember that keeps her in a more objectively (at least in my eyes) balanced place while making her more viable at higher levels of game play. 

Spoiler

 

Passive - Melting Point

• Ember gains a flat 5% damage reduction for every enemy within 12m that is suffering from a "unique" heat proc called Melting Point (applied through Ember's abilities), capped at 85%(?) maximum damage reduction, % DR scales with power strength, starts at 50% 
• Range will always match WoF's current range (synergizes with reworked 4th augment)
• Deals the same damage as a normal heat proc, however the duration is spread over 10s and does not cause the cc that a normal heat proc inflicts

PASSIVE AUGMENT - Corrosion

• Melting Point also additionally applies a Corrosive proc every second that it does damage

1st - Fireball

• Basically same as live Fireball with one exception (no heat proc on charged blast)
• A fully charged Fireball thrown into Ember's new 3rd ability causes a MASSIVE explosion within 24m, inflicting heatprocs on all enemies within range and doing double Fireball's normal damage (doesn't remove 3rd ability's AoE circle either, so is spammable)
• Refunds 50% energy if used on her 3rd ability

2nd - Ignite

• Throws out a wave of accelerant in a 20m radius, applying Ignition to enemies hit
• Enemies suffering from Ignition become inflicted with Melting Point if they are hit with a Heat proc or WoF (synergy with her 1 and 3)

3rd - Endothermia

• Gathers in thermal energy from every enemy within 24m, removing Heat procs from all enemies and freezing them for 2s (duration based), and giving Ember a buff to all Fire damage (25% per enemy, capping at x3.75 increased heat damage max)
• Worth noting that it only works on enemies that HAVE heat procs (you're supposed to set EVERYTHING on fire with World on Fire and then use this in an ideal scenario)
• after gathering, current Flame Blast behavior where it leaves a flaming circle on the ground that allies can shoot through to gain half of Ember's heat damage multi as additional fire damage (average of 165% heat damage)
• the shockwave that it sends out currently is still here, however it does MASSIVELY increased damage based on each enemy that you succ'd a heat proc off of

4th - World on Fire

• Very similar yet different to current WoF, with no target / max enemy cap
• Melting Point damage reduction is set to 85% so long as WoF is active
• Radius of 12m to synergize with her passive, they will always have the same range
• Firequake functions as normal, knocking all enemies down every pulse
• 2.5 energy per second, after 15 seconds, energy cost and damage slowly rise to x4 their base values like the current Ember 4 change, to encourage rise and fall as well as energy management

AUGMENT FIREQUAKE

• Increases the range on this and her passive to 24m base, but halves the damage and energy cost of WoF as I believe damage and cc should be mutually exclusive

 

When I began thinking about this, I had a few simple points that I wanted to accomplish without it being super hard for DE to implement. As this idea stands, it should require no new art assets or animation changes from DE, and would solely be mechanics / code base changes as far as I can see (I'm no DE employee though, so forgive me). I feel like this would help make Ember actually viable and usable in content that's higher than say, level 60, because as it stands currently Ember is pretty much a suicide area-of-effect caster and nothing else. This would allow her to get some tankiness in her kit without it being overbearing, as well as choose to be a squad "support" frame with the new Firequake if she so chooses. You could even go dual augment and become a heat-buffing monster with the reworked 3rd ability + Firequake, giving an entire 4 man squad some pretty good CC as well as massive heat damage increases. I do realize a passive augment is unheard of territory, but we *do* have passives that scale with ability stats already, and I feel like the augment being there is game-changing enough that it would make sense to potentially open up a new line of augment mods that change a Warframe's playstyle as a whole slightly, instead of just a singular ability much differently.

[Darkuhn]

I'd like to mention Ember is still viable in content above lv 60. Yes her WoF isn't doing as much AOE anymore, but a combination of her 2nd and 3rd Abilitys is still melting anything around you, while also providing a buff to fire damage with the Accelerant Augment.

Other than that your Rework seems pretty nice and is offering a nice Synergy between her Abilitys.

The only part I find a little OP is this:

vor 14 Stunden schrieb Ssekys:

Melting Point damage reduction is set to 85% so long as WoF is active

In My opinion this would be incentive to keep WoF active all the time. And that's entirely possible with Arcane energize.

What I would change about your 4th is the following:

- WoF deals no Damage but applies/prolongs Melting Point to all enemys hit. (so it could help sustain the 75% DR instead of enforcing it)

- WoF is Modifying the Damage dealt by active Melting Point procs by 10/15/20/25% per second. (so it's still usable in High LV Content and Synergizes with her other Abilitys while also rewarding active usage of more Abilitys than just WoF) 

- The Fire Quake Augment deletes the Damage Modifier for Melting Point but increases Range by 20% and sends out "Quakes" (Waves of some sort) every 3s that knockdown everything(Enemys only) the Quakes touch. The interval is effected by Power Duration with a minimum of 1.5s. This way you have to decide if you want the Damage Ember or the CC Ember but never both.

- The Energy consumed would scale like Equinox 3rd (0.5 Energy/Enemy with a ramp up to 2.0 Energy/Enemy modified by Efficiency) but you can't get Energy back while its Active.

-The Fire Quake Augment would change the costs to 10 Energy/Enemy hit by a Quake to prevent abuse. (A Max Range build would end up with 40.32m Range and Perma Hard CC of an Area that large would be pretty OP)

Regarding her Passive:

- I would remove the range cap, as it is highly unlikely to have many enemys within 12m.

- also I would set her DR to 7,5%/Enemy with Melting Point Proc (not Scaling with Power Strength) and a Max of 75% so 10 Enemys with Melting Point Max it out.

The other Abilitys are Great 😉 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Darkuhn

[ganjou234]

I actually proposed some changes to Ember's mechanics. Yours sounds like what I was intending to do on my post.

Would you mind if I add your Damage Reduction mechanic on mine? I'll modify it a bit though...