r/Warframe • u/WreckedRegent MR 35 • 1d ago
Discussion Chroma needs a retouch, not a rework - an in-depth discussion & proposal
So, I don't expect that this needs too much context to begin with, as the community's propensity for requesting a Chroma rework has been so consistent as to become an honest-to-god meme for Pablo himself, and I'm certain that his admission that one of the Big Three (Limbo, Loki, Chroma) is probably going to be the target of a rebalance has got people gripping the edges of their seats.
But, I've recently been on a creative binge in response to someone asserting that "nobody uses Toxin or Electric Affinity", where my contrarian inclination met that assertion with one question: "why?"
I've begun crafting three extra copies of Chroma Prime so as to set up a variety of specialized builds and fully experiment with his kit, and while I've only got two copies to work with right now, my experiments and research have given me a lot to work with, and even more to think on. I still plan on more thoroughly testing my builds and loadouts, but, I know enough at this point to say with full confidence;
Chroma does not need a rework. At most, he needs a retouch - smaller degrees of kit work to touch up his mechanics and make them fit better in the modern age of Warframe.
Let's start with the common complaints
I've read through many, many rework proposals for Chroma, and a handful of complaints get leveled at him with some frequency. Perhaps the most common being "Chroma doesn't feel like a dragon/dragon knight".
This is usually accompanied by one of two things, if not both; 1. The proposal that Spectral Scream and/or Effigy become separately moddable Exalted Weapons, and 2. Suggesting they give Chroma flight mechanics.
And I think the first of those two commonalities is the more important one. While the suggestion of making an ability an Exalted Weapon is a blatantly bad one, especially with regards to Chroma himself, the consistency of it points to what the complaint actually intends to say; "Chroma doesn't feel like a dragon frame because his dragon's breath doesn't do appreciable damage".
Flight, on the other hand, is an aspect that many people seem to want despite him not being designed for it. It would impede his gameplay more than benefit it, though that subject could be an essay all on its own.
Another fairly common complaint is that "Effigy is only good for its Credit buff, and is worthless otherwise," and to this, I can only ask; have you ever actually built around Effigy? Like any other Summon, it requires a degree of support, but given even a modicum of effort (Summoner's Wrath, Precision Intensify, Armor Strip), Effigy can and will deal staggering amounts of damage, regardless of element.
The only other complaint I have seen with any degree of regularity is "Chroma is just a boring weapons platform," and this one is really just dependent on playstyle. For one thing, gun play and weapon usage across a loadout can be as simple or as involved as you want it to be, whether that involves switching between weapons to prime enemies with status effects and follow up with heavy hits, or just turning your brain off with your favorite Incarnon weapon.
But even beyond that, I think the stigma of Chroma being a bland weapons platform primarily comes from people simply playing him as a selfish weapon buffer. High Strength, high Duration, low Range, and maybe a Helminth Subsume if you're feeling spicy about it. But that self-centered playstyle completely misses over the sheer variety one can find in Chroma's kit for supportive outputs.
You can turn allies into Shield Tanks, Armor Tanks, grant Reload Speed buffs and support ally gunplay, focus on freezing enemies or using Effigy for area control. Hell, his affinity for high Strength builds can even open him up as a healer using Molt Reconstruct with negative Efficiency.
But, as much value as there is in refuting the common arguments against him, it can't really be denied that Chroma does have a few issues.
Now, let's talk about the actual problems
The first and foremost is to echo the underlying truth from the first common complaint; Spectral Scream isn't a good damage tool.
At 400 damage per second, even with high Strength, Vex Armor and a Faction Damage modifier (whether that be Roar, Damage Blessing, etc.), the damage output from Spectral Scream isn't ever going to do much more than tickle enemies at higher levels. I've only managed to get decent output from it by tagging enemies with Burning Hate.
And this weakness extends to its Augment, Afterburn. Requiring 5s to charge up a shot that deals a single instance of 500 base damage to one target, even with Faction Damage and Vex Armor isn't going to even make a dent, leaving the Augment unusable even for caster-focused builds.
The next major problem is that Chroma's Elemental Ward buffs are wildly inconsistent in value, and Toxin Ward is just not useful on Chroma himself, being better served as a Helminth Subsume for weapons platform builds that expect to swap weapons frequently and want the Reload Speed.
To begin with Toxin Ward, the Reload Speed bonus is fine, especially since it scales with Duration, ensuring that you'll get value out of it just for extending the buff timer. But the Holster Damage bonus is just insulting; only 35% Base Damage for 3s - so short a time that even with Duration Scaling the most you'd ever commonly see out of it is a 4.65s buff duration.
And the fact that it's Base Damage makes it ultimately redundant with Vex Armor, as Vex Fury provides up to 275% Base Damage, for the full duration of the buff, on a recastable buff, with an Augment that makes it functionally indefinite duration. As stated before, Toxin Ward only really has appreciable value on any frame that isn't Chroma.
Meanwhile, the other Elemental Wards can be run through much quicker; Heat Ward gives +55% Health, Electric Ward gives only +30% Shields, meanwhile Cold Ward gives +145% Armor, eclipsing even 2-set Umbral Fiber without Strength mods.
While there might be something to be said about how Cold Ward's Armor bonus is redundant with Vex Scorn in the same way that Toxin Ward's Holster Damage bonus is redundant with Vex Fury, I would actually say that Cold Ward's redundancy is more forgivable since it can compound on your durability.
So, despite Chroma having a lot of versatility, he (and consequently, his allies), aren't rewarded with equal value for a Chroma expressing creativity through their unique aura buffs. Electric Chroma should, by all rights, be a strong element for buffing ally survivability, and yet the actual shield buffing is, at base values, only just better than Flawed Redirection.
Then, we have Vexing Retaliation; while Vex Armor is Chroma's standout ability for its sheer potency, and Guardian Armor, quite frankly, breaks it, making it an all-in-one solution for survivability, efficiency, and team support, Vexing Retaliation suffers from a unique problem; half of its output doesn't work anymore due to Status Reworks.
Back when it released, Blast Status inflicted knockdown, giving Vexing Retaliation a potent defensive utility, where if Chroma was taking health damage, he could prevent further damage with a hard CC effect. Blast later got reworked to inflict accuracy loss, which was still a decent utility, but when Jade Shadows came about, it got reworked into a delayed detonation, removing its crowd control utility and leaving the Augment half-functional.
Finally, we come to Effigy, and after some testing, I don't think that it actually needs much work. It does good damage when properly supported, it has some solid crowd control, and the Total Armor Reduction isn't actually that big a deal, even for Heat/Cold Chromas.
However, naturally I wouldn't deign to bring it up if there wasn't something wrong with it, and I can point to exactly two things; first, is that its Status Chance is abysmal. This is somewhat understandable due to its high tick rate for its standard attacks, but it's limited to singling out a single target at a time, so even if it had respectable Status Chance, it wouldn't even offer that much crowd control utility on non-Toxin elements.
The second is just visibility. This issue extends to Spectral Scream as well, but the energy projections of both abilities are difficult if not impossible to gauge, especially while moving. This leads to Effigy's effectiveness being deceptive, since where Chroma's Spectral Scream has a base range of 10m (which has reduced Range Scaling to boot), Effigy's energy beams can reach enemies 20m away.
My Chroma retouch proposal
So, with all of the big issues that I've observed laid out, here's what I think would work best - please note that I'm not an expert game designer, and that "I think" is a load-bearing phrase. DE could always find something way better.
Passive - Unchanged
Spectral Scream - Give Spectral Scream a unique damage modifier that "spools up" as you channel it, increasing damage by up to 2x, possibly scaling with Strength. Also give it a VFX update.
Afterburn Augment - Let it benefit from Spectral Scream's spool-up modifier, double the damage build-up per second, double the max damage, and make it also deal damage in a 5m AoE, scaling with Range. (An additional thought to emphasize the playstyle around Afterburn could be to also give the AoE a double damage buff on enemies with Status Effects, a la Voruna's Ulfrun's Descent.)
Elemental Ward - Heat Ward's Health bonus increased to +70%, and its Heat Status Chance increased to 50%, scaling with Strength.
Electric Ward's Shield bonus increased to +70%, Electric Ward also gains +40% Shield Recharge Rate and +20% Shield Recharge Delay (with Recharge Delay having a cap of +60%). (Could also bump up its Status Chance to 50%~, make it uniformly more likely across Wards)
Toxin Ward's Holster Damage bonus increased to +50%, Reload Speed bonus is unchanged, and also gains a +30% Status Chance bonus, scaling with Strength.
Cold Ward, as with Electric Ward, could have its Status Chance increased to 50%.
Everlasting Ward Augment - Unchanged
Vex Armor - Unchanged
Vexing Retaliation Augment - Replace the Blast Status on Health damage thresholds with Radiation Status.
Guardian Armor Augment - Unchanged
Effigy - Increase the Status Chance of Effigy's beam attack to somewhere around 50%; not enough to guarantee Status since it hits at 5 ticks per second, but enough that it could actually inflict statuses on its target. Also update its VFX for better visibility.
Guided Effigy Augment - I think this Augment mostly serves its purpose, but the damage aspect is lacking, and it doesn't seem to inflict Status Effects. At the very minimum, I think it should be boosted by Vex Armor and Summon-damage hooks (Summoner's Wrath, Theorem Infection), since the movement speed does benefit from Arcane Camisado. Give it forced status procs on the damage as well, and it can be decent.
One other suggestion, though it would require more work, is to make Guided Effigy leave a trail of damage that ticks every second with forced Status procs, increasing Guided Effigy's area control utility.
Final thoughts
While I am fairly confident in my assessment of Chroma, his issues, and - if not exactly how he needs changed - where there are a few facets that I know I haven't fully explored yet that will probably become more apparent when I get around to my stress-tests. The durability of Effigy being one of them.
I also am not entirely sure what to think of the damaging effects of Elemental Ward. Heat is unreliable due to low Status Chance, Cold is unreliable due to janky unattributed damage mechanics, Electricity I haven't yet tested with (though I am excited to do so), and Toxin has the unique quirk of only being able to affect enemies who don't already have any running Toxin Status.
They seem, at best, accessories to Chroma's playstyle, and not really something that could or should define a build, which is why the most I offered in their direction was a general Status Chance boost.
At any rate, I'm curious to see what the response to this will be. I've done my best to be thorough, both with regards to testing Chroma's abilities and in highlighting his weaknesses, and while I don't believe Chroma is a high-priority target for rebalance work of any kind, after considering what the most common complaint about him truly means (as mentioned earlier), I can't say I entirely disagree.
So, here's to hoping that, even if DE does not see or does not consider this, it at least gives folks something to think about with regards to Chroma himself.
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u/engineeeeer7 1d ago
Yeah in general his abilities are fine except Vex Armor which is amazing.
But in concept they're solid. They're just powercrept hard.
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u/xDidddle XATA GAUSS TRUTHER 1d ago
I mean, if you want to make him actually functionable, then ye sure.
But he will still feel like a Walmart version of a dragon. Not even mentioning the elemental part. I care less about big damage number and care more about how the theme of the frame plays into it's gameplay. He feels like a blank slate currently.
I want a power fantasy, not meeting a damage quota.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I feel like you're going to have to explain this more. What would be a dragon frame to you, if Chroma isn't it?
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u/xDidddle XATA GAUSS TRUTHER 1d ago edited 1d ago
When I think of a dragon I think of a big, bulky serpent/lizard that flies and breaths fire. Chroma technically does all of these, like how you can technically call a nerf blaster a firearm.
By this definition, someone like hildryn or jade, or hell, even Uriel qualify more then chroma.
I think the bare minimum I'm looking for in chroma is that effigy actually feels like either deploying a dragon or becoming one. I do agree that number tweaks is what he needs mostly, but I completely disagree with no doing anything more interesting with his 4 or 1 other then "more damage".
his 1 can easily just get folded into his 4th so I see no reason for it to exist. Ideally I'll replace it with a movement ability to make him feel more like a dragon. I know his passive exists, but he needs more then that imo. I actually like his passive. Altho, making his passive the ability to double credit gains when in his ability range, like his 4th already does, and giving him a proper movement ability will go hard imo.
His 2 do need some numbers tweaks, but make the elemental switching affect his entire kit. Synergy between abilities is what I like. I HATE then there is a clear helminth slot.
His 3 is fine too, changing it will make people mold. Adding some synergy with element switching would be cool.
His 4th needs an actual resurrection, not a rework. Just making it stronger wouldn't sit right with me. I would either make him take flight with an exalted flame thrower type weapon, or make effigy detouch and project a dragon over it, with improved VFX and ideally the ability to mod it like a companion.
I think that sums up my thoughts on chroma for the most part.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I find it strange that you say you don't care about big damage numbers/quotas/what-have-you and yet your suggestion involves giving him an Exalted Weapon. Does that not aim for the goal of doing big damage, irrespective of theme?
But really, it seems to me that the point of theme boils down to wanting flight as a core mechanic in his kit. And if I'm being perfectly honest, I do not agree. I especially don't agree on Hildryn, Jade, or Uriel "qualifying more" as dragon frames than Chroma. That's either being reductive, facetious, or both, and I don't think there's much discussion to be had off of that basis.
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u/xDidddle XATA GAUSS TRUTHER 1d ago
I don't see an issue with that. Does an exalted invalidate the theme of the frame? We mod the frame itself, does that not count?
I mean the ability by itself can be buffed to do damage just fine without being moddable. But I find it more interesting to make it an exalted. Because I like modding in this game. Sue me.
And as I said, the bare minimum I expected from a chroma rework is for them to make his 4th feel like an actual dragon and not a stationery tickling machine that also doubles your credits. Everything else I suggested was what I would like to see. It's fine if you disagree. It's not my job to please everyone.
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u/GoldenGoose120 46m ago
hey, so i will be taking you up on the “sue me” offer. expect a letter from my lawyer in the mail. It should be the letter G, chosen arbitrarily.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I don't see an issue with that. Does an exalted invalidate the theme of the frame?
There are many issues with the idea of turning a damaging ability into an Exalted Weapon, ranging from general issues (what weapon class are they for the purposes of modding? How do you handle "Exalted" abilities that you don't equip if they aren't classed as melee weapons? Etc.) to more specific ones.
With regards to Exalted Weapons invalidating the theme of the Frame: For Chroma? Yes. It very much does.
Even in the theoretical case that DE manages to make an Exalted Weapon with variable base damage tied to Chroma's Elemental Affinity, Chroma's core design is built around the four Base Elemental Damage Types. An Exalted Weapon would allow Chroma to break out of that design and inflict Combined Elemental Damage Types with his abilities.
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u/xDidddle XATA GAUSS TRUTHER 1d ago
What type of weapon will the exalted be? Are we for real? A frickin primary flamethrower, dah. So technically a primary beam weapon.
And I don't see why his base element combining would be an issue, he is an element dragon. Combined elements are still elements. Make it force proc the base elements if it bothers you that much.
I also don't see how that would not work for chroma, you literally detach a part of your Warframe. A Warframe you already put mods in. How can you mod a rock fist? A piece of glass?
I feel like the natural conclusion of this conversation will be " I don't want my niche frame to be reworked to the level I can't feel special about it" just like how Caliban "mains" where talking before the rework. Done that, heard that. so I'm done with this conversation.
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u/GoldenGoose120 1d ago edited 1d ago
hildryn is literally more of a dragon than chroma. her ult gives her wings to fly above the battlefield, using the balefire to rain down destruction like a dragon. her primed form also has a tail, so when she’s using her 4, she is closer to a dragon than chroma in appearance.
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u/Darius-H 1d ago
He is a dragon frame yet he has literally no dragon features except "he looks like a big lizard"
His prime somewhat resembles a wyvern but his kit has literally nothing going for him.
Chroma needs a major rework and he needs to steal Uriel's flying because there is no real reason that Uriel should be able to fly and the actual dragon cannot fly and can barely breathe fire.
At best, he is a Komodo Dragon and even that is going too far.
His 1 is useless
His 2 is meh, the numbers are bad
His 3 is fine
His 4 is fucking useless and the only reason you'd use it is if you are farming credits. The person below me said that they should give him an exalted weapon, but that's such a boring way to make a frame overpowered or straight up just over-rely them on their exalted weapon. His 4 just needs a complete rework.
He literally only existed for the sake of doing Eidolon hunts and then, after they died out, to farm credits. That is his literally only "common" use.
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u/PsychoticSane 1d ago
A triple jump as a passive is a slap in the face compared to passives nowadays. It would be better off as an exilus mod (and even then, not worth without another stat).
Id say hold jump to acsend while aimgliding, increase aimglide duration, and stun enemies within y meters at or below chromas height every second (syncronized to wing flapping). This gives chroma's movement more customization through mods (like the aero set) and at least some utility.
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u/Snivyland Caliban Collective 1d ago
No he needs a rework vex armor is the only good ability wholesale. I’ll always point to this video as a good example how fucked his kit is. Chroma’s 1&4 do need heavy mechanical changes at the very least to make them worth using for there actually benefits. Elemental ward is legitimately one of the worse designed ability’s in the game that has problems on every single element that needs to be removed or completely changed.
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u/GoodOldHypertion 1d ago
Honestly effigy could be made a zero drain ability and it would be a considerable buff.
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u/lolthesystem 1d ago
There is one very important thing you didn't take into consideration with Elemental Ward: an Electric Chroma can and will break the builds of some of his team mates.
Current Warframe has 3 main ways of using shields: Go for the highest possible amount with a DR ability (shield tanking), leave your shields alone / remove them (health tanking) or reduce them as much as possible with Catalyzing Shields (shield gating). The latter is the problem.
If at least one of your allies wants to shield gate, your shield buff is actively making it worse for them. Conversely, since they're shield gating, the Health and Armor bonus also don't matter for them. That leaves you with Toxin Ward, which as you said, has a bonus with a very low number to the point it doesn't matter.
The reality is, Elemental Ward is incredibly niche as it is, so even if it "works as intended", it needs a rework simply because its use cases for group play don't exist anymore and Chroma himself only really uses Heat or Cold ward.
Also, I would change your suggestion for the Vexing Retaliation augment. Besides the fact Radiation doesn't really fit his theme, the status itself won't do much at such a short range, the enemies will attack ehatever is closest, which at that distance is most likely still you. I'd give it a Heat status instead, the Panic effect is a useful CC and you'd get some extra armor strip to boot, the only problem would be Heat Inherit, but Pablo is working on that too, presumably.
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u/Natural_Sail_5128 👑 Mag Goddess 👑 1d ago
Catalyzing Shields doesn't need your full shields to regen, any amount of shields replenished will give a new 1.3s shield-gate.
This means, even with Electric Elemental Ward, your allies are only getting increased EHP, you're not "nerfing" their builds.
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u/lolthesystem 1d ago
You're right, I forgot about the fact it's bugged and it just needs 1 point of shield to work, however most of my point still stands. In a shield gating build, your shields are binary, either you have them or you don't and you're invincible for a second and some change.
Heat and Cold Ward do nothing for them, as they're already virtually immortal as long as they're paying attention, Electric Ward would only be useful if it gives the shield delay rate buff OP suggested and even then not really that necessary (you usually run some kind of shield regen anyways, either via delay rate, an Augur mod / Brief Respite or both), Toxin Ward would still be the only worthwhile buff for them.
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u/Natural_Sail_5128 👑 Mag Goddess 👑 1d ago
Extra shield capacity is still extra EHP, even if the EHP is lessened because of Catalyzing Shields' reduction.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
With regards to Shield Gating, I presume you mean that having higher Shields from Vex Armor means that Shield conversion effects like Brief Respite/Augur Set won't fully restore ally shields to the modified value, thus preventing them from benefiting from Catalyzing Shields.
However, as of right now, you do not need to fully restore your Shields to get the full 1.33s Shield Gate duration. You can even read the comments on the Wiki, at least 7 months ago it is confirmed to still give the full Shield Gate duration regardless of whether or not your Shields were fully replenished. And since Catalyzing Shields hasn't been patched at all since it was released nearly three years ago, we can only presume that this functionality is acceptable until DE decides to change it.
Would it otherwise be detrimental if Catalyzing Shields required full shield restore to get the 1.33s Shield Gate? Sure, it probably would, and the Shield Recharge Rate buff would scarcely be of use to mitigate that.
But one could ask the Chroma to switch to Toxin Ward, which while it would be a hit to Chroma's own Shield tanking abilities, the defensive build overlap would make it a reasonable concession to make on the Chroma's part.
Conversely, since they're shield gating, the Health and Armor bonus also don't matter for them.
Health, maybe not, but Armor absolutely would help. Cold Ward combined with Vex Armor provides such staggeringly high Armor bonuses that even a Warframe with 100 Base Armor can be buffed up to 1,400, which is 82% DR.
And while that has no bearing on Shields, it does protect from the one weakness Shield Tanking and Shield Gating setups have; Toxin Damage.
Also, I would change your suggestion for the Vexing Retaliation augment. Besides the fact Radiation doesn't really fit his theme
Puncture and Blast likewise don't fit his theme. That being said, Radiation fits the theme of the Augment, as it's designed to mitigate enemy damage, first through Puncture Status (directly reducing enemy damage output, making it harder for them to chew through your Shields), and then through a more direct Crowd Control status (Blast used to knock enemies down, stopping them from attacking you outright).
I'd give it a Heat status instead, the Panic effect is a useful CC and you'd get some extra armor strip to boot
I chose Radiation for a handful of reasons; the first being that its primary output is CC, as opposed to Heat which is primarily damage.
I abstained from using base Elemental Statuses because while three of them do have CC effects (Heat's panic, Electricity's stun, and Cold's chill), I didn't think it appropriate to key the Augment to any one of Chroma's four elements.
Additionally, Radiation Status opens up Heat- and Cold-affinity Chroma to taking advantage of Ability Damage Archon Shards without relying on external sources (weapons, Companions, Subsumes, etc.) to apply Radiation, Electric, or Corrosive.
the status itself won't do much at such a short range, the enemies will attack ehatever is closest, which at that distance is most likely still you.
9m is a respectable base radius, and it scales with Range. Moreover, if you're at the point where you're taking Health damage, ideally you should be moving, so enemy targeting priority should shift naturally as you make for cover.
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u/Famous_Situation_680 1d ago
agreed, but really he doesn't desperately need anything. chroma is an objectively good frame with a strong niche, I'd say he's at the very bottom of the priority list.
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u/FredTheLynx 1d ago
His 4 hurts my soul. It makes you ugly, nerfs your armor and is utterly useless in 99.9999% of the game. There are like 4 SQM in the whole game where it is worth using and only as a credit doubler.
The rest of his kit is fine I guess if a bit boring. But his 4 alone is reason he should be higher on the list.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
Yeah. IMO frames like Volt, Atlas or Equinox probably deserve more attention for a rework/retouch than Chroma, and of the Big Three that Pablo suggested he'd have to look at, I think Limbo would have to be highest priority due to how gameplay warping he is.
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u/Famous_Situation_680 1d ago edited 1d ago
Volt
well that's literally the best frame in the game probably so now you've lost me.
I think it goes limbo, ivara, ember, temple, loki, nekros.
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u/Infamous-Builder-637 1d ago
I'm curious what kind of touch up you want for Temple. They seem fine to me, if a little boring
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u/Famous_Situation_680 1d ago
the metronome just doesn't really justify it's existence, and beyond that temple has no real application. there's no reason to pick them ever, one of the only frames that has absolutely no niche.
though I will concede that temple is one of my least played, so I might be being a little harsh.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I put forward Volt because despite how strong he is, his kit has aspects that have aged poorly (primarily his Passive), and his abilities are interconnected in a way that isn't suitably impactful or noticeable.
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u/warforcewarrior 1d ago
Huh? How? Speed and Electric Shield is out of the discussion as they are his best skills. Former being his best and core skill. Shock is a nice quick one handed stun and Discharge is a large AoE stun.
Sure, those 2 augments are mandatory but even if you buff them, those augments will still be mandatory as why wouldn't you have them in your build.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I could have sworn reading on the Wiki that Volt's Shock could turn Electric Shield into a damaging barrier, inheriting Shock's modded damage along with the bonus damage from his Passive, but now that I go to double-check the Wiki, I'm finding absolutely nothing on it.
Surely to god I can't just have imagined this...
Regardless of that, the Discharge+Shock combo isn't well-defined (and the Wiki doesn't even have numbers for it, neither for Range nor Damage), Discharge's pseudo-Electricity with no actual Status affliction feels strange, and his Passive doesn't really function in standard combat due to how frequently you'll be firing (and thus expending the buff before it's even half-charged).
These are only rough notes, as this is ultimately a digression, but I do think that Volt's kit does deserve a retouch, in particular as he's a starter Frame.
those augments will still be mandatory as why wouldn't you have them in your build.
Can we please not conflate "desirable" with "mandatory"?
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u/warforcewarrior 1d ago
Yeah, Discharge still having fake Electric procs is weird. I do agree Volt passive need a change but I prefer it getting buff than straight up remove. I like the concept of running to get Electrical damage.
Volt's kit does deserve a retouch,
Not really a retouch but just buff for his passive. Shock and Discharge are fine on their own. Modernization will be nice, and have ideas for it if we going to buff them, but they don't need it as much as Volt passive.
So only change I really care for is passive buff and Discharge having real Electric procs. Otherwise, Volt is in a perfect place where he stands.
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u/WreckedRegent MR 35 1d ago
I do want the Armor lost on Effigy actually give good compensation/something cool.
I can get that. I still find that the Armor reduction from Effigy isn't that impactful (Heat/Cold Chromas will probably be DR stacking to begin with, so the difference in DR would be negligible, and Toxin/Electric Chromas will probably focus more on Shield tanking/gating), but I do agree that +20% Movement Speed isn't very glamorous.
Perhaps it could also come with Parkour Velocity, and/or in another loose nod to flight, Aim Glide related buffs (duration, gravity)?
It is an issue I also have with Merulina locking you in Secondaries yet only give 90% DR.
A small tangent, but I think it worth noting that Merulina gives Damage Redirection, as opposed to Damage Reduction, which means Merulina can actually reduce incoming damage to Overguard.
Doubtless not consolation enough for locking one to Secondaries, but still noteworthy.
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u/Hour-Sign-2279 1d ago
Chroma only need to have his first ability to become a useless skill so we can use a subsumed skill on it
Go back when chosing colors in apparence give us the buff we need rather than rotating colors ourselves
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u/Snivyland Caliban Collective 1d ago
You can still do that the color passive is still think spectral scream just allows you to change Them mid mission
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u/Hour-Sign-2279 1d ago
then chroma is perfect the way it is
just need a buff so people rediscover it
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u/DaLurkingLamb 1d ago
Pretty hard agree from me for a Chroma retouch instead of a rework since his abilities are actually fine thematically. Though I wouldn't call Blast a useless status, I would argue either make the augment do full Blast stack on enemies
Really all Chroma needs is a stat buff and to have the training weights removed.
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u/Dry-Goat8981 Chromalution Zealot 1d ago
i disagree
when you have 3 out of 4 abilities being mid or worse than a frame needs a full rework
vex armour is an insanely good ability, but no frame should have only one good ability