She needs some help. Not much, just a couple tweaks, but she reeealy needs those tweaks.
Ok, so here are my credentials for talking about this topic:
I'm an MR 27 player with that started in 2014 judging by my frame-use-percentage and my time played, i have clocked well over 1000 hours on this frame.
Zefy my favorite frame, and she's been my go-to pick since she came out, but she's only had a handful of updates to her kit in entire 5 year lifespan and i found the recent rework a little lackluster. Recently aerial mobility is becoming more and more a staple of every frame, and she's beginning to feel less and less special. As it stands now, Zephyr's abilities aren't very damaging by themselves, nor are they especially good CC, She's outclassed by arkwings in terms of open world transportation and operators are significantly better at getting you somewhere relatively close by in an instant, so i think she needs a little help.
Here's a alt helmet concept i drew to help break up the post and keep things interesting
Let's talk about where she excels.
Immediately available mobility. - her 1, her passive, and her augmented 3 all combine to make you a frame that can be wherever you want to be in the blink of an eye, capable of leaping across the entirety if a battlefield, raining bullets the whole way, and plunging down into groups of enemies with the new directional slams. It feels so dramatic and fashy and awesome and It gives me a dumb boyish glee that i don't quite get from other frames.
Super Tankey - even when not modded for zephyrs 3 is excellent damage mitigation. It in combination with a kit that supports flipping around like a trapeze artist reducing enemy accuracy, makes here surprisingly durable.
Projectile speed buff - This may not seem like a core part of her kit but for me, it's like a whole half of her kit. Zephyr's 3's augment is an explosive and shotgun lover's best friend.
A) The augment gives you a speed buff to make or close distance between you and your target.
B) Projectile speed significantly decreases fall off damage
C) Projectile speed turns arcing or slow projectiles into something close to hitscan, which is especially useful if soaring overhead or firing from a safe distance with the majority of explosive weapons.
D) "Plasma ball" projectiles like the Catchmoon and Plasmor tend to sacrifice range damage and ease of use. This like triples their range without touching a mod slot.
TLDR- She's great at jumping around and blasting groups without having to worry about the consequences too much. Super fun, a real warframe's warframe.
Some glamorous fashion frame
Ok, so now the not so great.
Let's take a look at her abilities and where i think we could use some edits.
Passive-half gravity
Falling at half speed is cool and i actually really love this part about the frame, but there are times when it can really mess with your movement in tight corridors. I get that it was the first frame to have a passive, but now that other frames have things like: "Immune to knockdowns, "invisible in the air" or "healing on kill" it seems outdated. Now this isn't something that really needs a change, but think of how great it would be if she also, say, never had to fall out of aim-glide? That seems super fun, very on-theme for the frame and doesn't seem too busted.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.)Tailwind.
I love this ability but there's one big issue, Tailwind really needs to impact walls, and could really do with some way of canceling it mid flight. In fact DE, if you read this, please. Please PLEASE. If there one thing you ever do to this frame, let it be some method of instantly stopping momentum. The one thing that plagues this frame more than any other is running with your 3 augment or hitting your 1 and having it fling you past your intended point and into a wall, where you just have to sit there pancaked to the side of a door, waiting for your momentum to wear off. It hurts the mobility part of this mobility based frame soooo much.
- Also, the "charge-up and hang in the air" thing that was added in the rework is.. I don't want to say "useless" but i've never done it thinking that it would help. The fact is that just jumping and aim gliding is this-but-better in 9/10 circumstances, and in that 1/10 when you are using an accuracy based rifle, (rather than the host of weapons zephyr really excels at) and you are trying to find a nice still sniper spot above everyone else so that you can pop heads in peace. This ability will have you charging for 3 seconds so that you can hang in the air for 5-10 seconds while everybody nearby continues to shoot you because you're now standing still, fairly close by, and totally out of cover. Why do that when you can just zip over to the nearest perch. Zephyr's really good at doing that that.
To clarify, i don't think that this really needs to change. its harmless, like the head-bash thing. It's only problem is that I live in constant fear that someone at DE thinks it's a viable part of her kit, and that it validates forgoing a buff that would make her better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.) Gun-but-bad
I want to frame this post in a mostly positive light. Too many suggestions posts seems like a list of complaints, and i really do love this frame. However, when I heard that zephyrs 2, "Melee-slam-but-bad" was going to be incorporated into her 1 to make room for a new 2, I was elated. And then, when i saw that it was being replaced by "single shot from the weapons she normally uses, except it moves slower, costs energy, and forgoes the damage" well... i am ashamed to say I shed actual tears.
Please do something about this one. Any change is welcome, but here are some ideas i think would me fun:
A) have it ragdoll a wide range on enemies towards its point of impact. Its visually entertaining, it lets you sweep enemies into your tornadoes, and it works in synergy with the shotguns and explosives weapons she's great with.
B) what about an ability that gives you a "dart" of damage equal to the damage dealt to an enemy every time you kill someone while you are in the air. Then release your swarm of darts do damage to all nearby enemies that are in the air. You could use it to wipe a room of drones, add damage to enemies caught in tornadoes, release it with a melee slam to roast a single heavy unit, or combo it with other frames abilities that hold people aloft. Great fun for the whole family!!
C) tap 2 to stop moving and halt momentum. It could do something else in addition, but it really wouldn't need to. That would be plenty, and i'd use it all the time.
More fashion!
3 Turbulence.
This one good. No touch plz. Me like this.
I don't really have anything to say about zephyrs 3 that isn't common knowledge to anyone that's listened to a content-creator talk about this frame. And totally they're right, its super good. If you want to know more about it, look anywhere that mentions the frame.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Tornadoes.
This is good too. My only ask is that the tornado cores be made a little less opaque. They tend to frustrate other players by cluttering up and area and blocking sight lines.
There's a lot of people who would tell you that this could be better, but honestly, I like it the way it is. It's not steller, Zephyr was never a big flashy caster frame, but It has a lot of hidden uses. Sure it does fairly reliable CC and its nice for status, but did you know it also has infinite casting range? You can cast it from one side of Orb Valis to the other, what other frame can instantly cc any part of any map? Slightly better known, is its ability to duplicate instances of damage that pass through it. I've seen people talk about using the augment to make 12 tiny tornadoes and get really big bursts of multiplied damage. And this does work... but it also compromises a lot of the quality of life aspects of the frame. You need to drop a mod slot, lose your cc, and be cool with the visual clutter of 12 technicolored tornadoes that you can't really see through, and which like to throw dead enemies around. Alternatively, you can just not do that and use the 4 big tornadoes. the added size makes it likely that 2 to 3 will be touching the target whenever you get to shooting, which is not too different from what you would be getting if you use the 12 tiny ones, but without the hassle.
JRPG Antagonist themed Zephyr
In summary, this is an earnest plea for a touch-up to Zephyr. The last one didn't really address her problems or give her anything that set her apart from the pack. Most things are fine, some are very good. She doesn't need to the best at anything or even particularly viable, I mostly just want her to be fun. But her abilities seem to be finding their way into what every frame can do, and while i cant blame people for wanting that, (it is, after all what drew me to her in the first place) it seems like most of what made her special is now commonplace. Please give her some love DE.
-Thanks
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/t5sjw1tgqg131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/2fuee58snf131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.imgur.com/3sMSEgh.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/c9mfr6y5rc131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/j37wlw0egg131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/nifehkcgqg131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/37st5d6zhf131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/gga7vrvwgc131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/ohfkp1wlxd131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/4kpqf77mkf131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/l22grvfwhg131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/kpyi7uebzb131.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/2tcxmc788f131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/dy43qiu7uh131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/zjiadyopse131.png){kind=link}
![[link]](https://i.redd.it/ctcujyiere131.png){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment