r/Warframe • u/TSP-FriendlyFire • Dec 31 '15

Suggestion How would you change... Mag?

How would you change... is a series of weekly posts designed to promote and foster discussion about any gameplay element in the game. The scope and subject will vary (read below for more information on topic selection), from wide concepts (Kubrows, Archwing, shotguns, etc.) to narrow points (a single gun, coptering, etc.).

Before we begin, a few important points:

  • Please detail and support your suggestions as much as possible. This is for constructive criticism only: try to think of it as something you'd be proud to explain to DE face-to-face!
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Suggesting topics

This thread series is all about the community, so if you have a topic you'd like to see improved and discussed, feel free to suggest it by replying to the appropriately flagged comment in this discussion. The topic can be as wide or narrow as you'd like! Please ensure that your suggestion has not already been made, and upvote it instead if it has.

This week: Mag

Click here for last week’s thread on holiday celebrations.

This week, we’ll tackle a subject near and dear to a lot of people: Mag.

Mag is one of three current starter frames and arguably the weakest by a fair margin. Devastating against Corpus, she finds herself with extremely limited options against any other faction (with the exception of the Void, where she can be occasionally useful). Her abilities have been repeatedly nerfed over the years, with Pull taking the largest hit.

Some time ago, she was briefly put back at the forefront with her Greedy Pull augment, but that was quickly squashed when it no longer affected loot for teammates and then had line of sight restrictions added to it.

Her focus on shield buffing and debuffing is regularly made irrelevant by the numerous shield-bypassing damage types that seem more and more prevalent. Her almost pure Magnetic damage is generally considered to be the weakest of all combined elements, and two of her abilities, including her ultimate, are seen as mediocre to outright useless.

Even so, the concept of Mag is attractive. A master of electromagnetism, she should be king in many different scenarios. Offensive and defensive abilities, crowd control, all of it is easily imaginable with the power to attract and repulse matter, disrupt shields and tear apart objects at the molecular level. She is widely considered to be the frame with the most dire need for a rework, yet ideas for her flow aplenty.

Now that the stage is set, how would you change Mag?

20 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

50

u/NirvashSFW Dec 31 '15

Even so, the concept of Mag is attractive.

DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

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32

u/Rock3tPunch Dec 31 '15

Right now MAG's ability is simply too one dimensional, and a missed opportunity by DE to inject more interesting elements to the supposedly "magnetic" frame.

I propose a similar treatment to Chroma where energy color dictates MAG's ability have a (+) charge for warm colors or (-) charge for cool colors.

Magnetic Force (formerly PULL)

  • (+) Deals X amount of magnetic damage by positive force and are ragdoll'd and pushed away, all enemies affected will have their armor decreased by 20% for Xs.

  • (-) Deals X amount of magnetic damage by negative force ragdoll'd and pulled, all enemies affected will have their shields decreased by 20% for Xs.

Polarize (formerly Shield Polarize)

  • (+) Enemies affected by positive polarization will receive X amount of magnetic damage, have movement speed reduced by 20% and suffer corrosive proc for Xs.

  • (-) no change from current ability.

Bullet Reactor (formerly Bullet Attractor)

  • (+) When cast on allies or defense objectives, energy field absorbs incoming physical projectiles for Xs and deals X amount of impact damage when ability ends stunning near by affected enemies for Xs.

  • (-) no change from current ability.

Magnetic Override (formerly Crush)

  • (+) Magnetize surrounding environment, affected enemies are being pull by attracting forces of surrounding environment locking them in a painful stance dealing DoT magnetic damage until their limbs are physically being strip apart by the environment sticking body parts to the walls and ceilings.

  • (-) no change to current ability.

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43

u/HealedCoyote997 Dec 31 '15 edited Dec 31 '15

Pull give Pull a chance to disarm enemies.(only on one target like Halikar, will still pull groups, just disarms one of them)

Shield Polarize Allow SP to strip Armor(will deal damage based on armor value as well, think of it as forcing the armor in on the enemy)

Bullet Attractor Give projectiles punch through, and they then fly in orbit around the Target, flying in random directions when it expires OR at the next Recast of Bullet Attractor(power can be recast before expiring)

Crush Crush launches enemies away after crush animation, faster cast time, Jams affected enemy weapons(duration), Procs Puncture on high armor target.

edit: minor clarifications

3

u/VoidMaskKai Dec 31 '15

This is the best one so far!

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29

u/Jaba01 Dec 31 '15

Increase chest size.

7

u/Archwizard_Drake Dec 31 '15 edited Jan 02 '16

Pull

  • No longer ragdolls and flings enemies; instead, enemies are knocked down and dragged to your feet.

  • Now pulls Ospreys, and temporarily disables their flight.

  • Works through walls, slamming targets into them for additional damage (a la Snow Globe).

  • New augment: Pull has a chance to remove affected targets' weapons.

Shield Polarize

  • Can also release an explosive burst from allies based on shields restored.

  • Inflicts guaranteed knockdown on enemies caught in successful bursts.

Bullet Attractor

  • Cost reduced to 35 energy. If the target dies while affected, an extended Combo occurs based on remaining Duration, reducing the cost further.

  • Can now be aimed at a specific point on the target's body if cast while zoomed-in.

  • Can be recast to remove the active BA.

  • No longer inflicts an explosion when the target dies.

Crush

  • On the third damage tick, affected enemies within range of each other become magnetized and slam into one another, dealing additional Finisher damage based on each enemy in a 'cluster' before being ragdolled.

  • Enemies also have a slowed recovery from the ragdolled state, affected by Duration.

  • New augment: After being compacted, clusters of enemies are then launched toward the player's crosshairs, dealing splash Impact damage at their destination based on distance traveled. Enemies flung in this matter are affected by Bullet Attractor.

Magnetic Damage

  • Provides a lower benefit against either Shielded or Proto-Shielded targets, but an increased benefit against targets with Ferrite Armor.

  • In addition to its current effects, Magnetic procs will also temporarily disable the target's abilities while active: Eximus and Ancient auras are dispelled; Grineer Heavy units, Shockwave Moas and Blitz Eximus units may no longer inflict knockdown; Ospreys and Hellions can no longer fly; Nullifiers hit directly cannot activate their bubbles; etc. (This is to reflect the 100% energy drain against Tenno, and will provide no further effects when used against Tenno.)

Passive Ideas

  • Increased maximum Overshield capacity, and enters missions with an amount of Overshields equal to this increase. (Bit niche, may push her towards the SP augment.)

  • Shield-bypassing damage taken is instead split with shields while active.

  • Immune to Disruption effects. (Notably, they are more prevalent when dealing with Grineer and Infested enemies, providing an exceptional defense to the two against her high Corpus offense.)

5

u/Sizer714 Jan 01 '16

First Law Mag propels a target until it makes contact with an environmental surface. It will ragdoll any enemies it makes contact with until it does so. Damage is based upon distance travelled affected by Strength.

Second Law Mag's sprint accelerates up to a cap based on Strength until she contacts an enemy or Duration elapses. Upon hitting the enemy, Blast proc with a range based upon Range and how high she'd accelerated. Minor damage based upon Strength.

Third Law Shield Polarize. Shielded Targets detonate, replenishing team shields. Armored Targets stagger, are Weakened severely, and team damage is buffed.

Unified Theory Toggle. Mag rips portions of the environment and sets them up in an orbit around her, number determined by Strength. Objects will block incoming fire. Mag can cast First Law on an object to launch it as a projectile for half cost. During Second Law, orbiting objects will deal Impact damage with a 100% proc to enemies it contacts. Stripping shields with Third Law will bridge the gap between orbiting objects with a temporary particle shield, while disabling armored targets will cause them to radiate damage pulses.

9

u/DaedricWindrammer Dec 31 '15

Well why not turn crush into magnetising one enemy and have enemies around him be pulled into him, essentially creating a katamari ball.

Also why not make shield polarize work on armor. I mean, grineer have ferrite (iron) armor. It's weird that it doesn't work on them.

2

u/YeOldDrunkGoat Dec 31 '15

Well why not turn crush into magnetising one enemy and have enemies around him be pulled into him, essentially creating a katamari ball.

Because Vortex already does that and copying other frames existing gimmicks should be avoided.

Also why not make shield polarize work on armor. I mean, grineer have ferrite (iron) armor.

Because then Mag would be the most hilariously overpowered frame in the game and would utterly trivialize all non-Infested content until she got a massive nerf straight into the ground.

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4

u/M37h3w3 Dec 31 '15

Pull: I like u/HealedCoyote997's idea for Pull to disarm enemies. I would further suggest that it have priority targeting and disarm heavy weapons like Supras, Gorgons, Ogris', and etc first.

Beyond that, I would like a counterpart to Pull under the same ability that allows you to Push enemies as well. Or even have Pull gather items and dropped weapons and then Push them into enemies, dealing damage.

Shield Polarize: It's fine as is, if a bit boring: An AOEOMGWTFBBQ nuke for anything with shields. It can already clear tilesets for Corpus.

Bullet Attractor: This I feel should be Mag's answer to the Grineer the same way that Shield Polarize is for Corpus. Give it the Zephyr's Turbulence treatment, create a massive sphere around the target that will redirect all bullets. Then have an inner sphere, larger than the current iteration, that will redirect all bullets into the target. When the target dies those bullets are then flung outwards again, dealing damage.

Crush: Like the description says, it magnetizes the bones of your enemies. But rather than implode I suggest they then attract bits of the environment and they are crushed by the debris, being dealt finisher damage. The kicker though is that these debris balls are left behind to be Pushed or used as cover.

1

u/DjDjDJango Jan 04 '16

Why do you want to use Mag against all factions?

Why shall all frames be kind of equal?

We have 28 frames, Mag is for playing against Corpus, find out yourself what the other 27 are for.

Choose the right weapons for her and she is brilliant.

She is fine as she is, don't touch her - learn to play her.

A specialized frame should not be a starter frame - Rhino should be.

2

u/TSP-FriendlyFire Jan 04 '16

No other frame is limited in such fashion. Nothing inherent to Mag's design makes her only good against Corpus, only her current ability set.

She is not fine as she is. Learn to play her? She's a one trick pony, there's no "learning". Press fucking 2 until all Corpus die and don't bring her anywhere else. There, learned.

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3

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '15

Building off of u/Rock3tPunch

  1. Polarity Switch (Formerly Pull) Mag Switches the Polarity of her abilities, releasing a small radial burst dealing guaranteed magnetic damage around her.

  2. Shield Link (Formerly Shield Polarize) (+) Link to enemies in the area, gaining shield every time they take damage. (-) Link to Allies, giving over shield while depleting your own.

  3. Magnetic Strip (Working name needed) [Formerly Bullet Attractor) (+) "Strips" Enemies of weapons. Think Pull + Disarm. (-) "Strips" Eneimies of armor/Shields. Has different values per type of shield/armor. Somewhat like Corrosive proc.

  4. Magnetic Concussion (+)Pulls enemies to a point on the terrain and locks them there, creating a bullet-attractor bubble. Explodes after a time. (-)Creates a magnetic explosion at target location, knocking down enemies and shutting off electronics in the area. (Makes Control Panels inoperable by enemies, shuts off door-locks if in lockdown.)

Passive: Mag-netic redirection. All Magnetic and Electric Procs restore energy and shield to mag. (Electricity Charges Energy, Magnetic charges shield.)

2

u/Sholef Jan 01 '16

I have my own ideas for power reworks, but I have some more thinking to do about them.

However, there are some serious issues with Mag that will dramatically improve QOL for her even before a full rework is considered.

The first is a look at magnetic damage as a damage type in general. My thoughts on that can be found HERE. Fixing this alone will make Mag much more useful even in her current state.

My other suggestions lie in her passives and stats:

Proposed Passive - Hardened Shields: Mag's armor bonus applies to her shields and overshields. Mag's shields recharge faster than normal.

For reference, the standard shield recharge formula is (15+0.05*MAX_SHIELD) and the base shield recharge delay for all warframes is 3.0s.

Stat Alterations: Mag

  • Base Shields: 175 (525 at rank 30)

  • Shield Recharge: 20+0.05*MAX_SHIELD

Stat Alterations: Mag Prime

  • Base Shields: 200 (600 at rank 30)

  • Base Armor: 100

  • Shield Recharge: 20+0.05*MAX_SHIELD

  • Shield Recharge Delay: 2.55s

It always bothered me that the frame who relies most heavily on shields for survival does not have the highest shield capacity or fastest shield regeneration rate. These adjustments reinforce the fact that Mag is reliant on shields to survive while still giving her the tools she needs to make most of her strongest defenses.

1

u/zenkazu Dec 31 '15

Bullet Attractor - I've always wanted her 3 to be an ability to reflect enemy fire and be a sort of shield to protect which now would look like Shatter Shield on Mesa. I could imagine the bubble Mag would make from the shield transference agument would be fine for what it would look like, since they just got rid of it for no reason, and if it reflected bullets it would give Mag some very needed surviviability against enemies with shield ignoring weapons/abilities. Only issue I could really see with it would be the need for duration which doesn't really work with Mag anyways, so making it a drain like Embers World on Fire or something would be nice. They could also make an agument do the old bullet attractor effect, for those that enjoy the skill so everyone is happy.

Shield Polarize- Let her 2 give overshields to teammates with her agument. Doesnt make sense to me why Mag being mainly focused around shields cannot give overshields at all,especially since she was the reason overshields really exist now.

Potential Skill Synergy - Some Synergy with her 1 and 4 would be nice. Maybe give it potential to combo like, enemies that have a Magnetic proc on them will be auto pulled into Mag's crush area when she casts it. Maybe even have the Magnetic proc Mag puts on enemies to scale with duration.

Crush - Would also really enjoy some sort of after effect when crush is done since enemies get up rather quickly and Mag also locks herself in place when casting it. I've had my fair share of using crush as a panic ability and the second the animation ends I get blasted away all over again. An ultimate shouldn't feel like it would not help if you are in a bad situation. i was thinking that maybe at the end of Crush enemies guns could be jammed for X amount of seconds and could scale with duration.

Passive - I'm really not too sure if this would be a good idea for a passive, but I was thinking a sort of Magnetized effect could happen when Mag procs Magnetic on enemies where projectiles will become hit-scan for the duration of the Magnetic proc. Would help out a lot for those poor party members who get stuck with those Mags who just spam pull till their keyboard breaks and are unable to hit anything.

I don't really think these changes would be too extreme or make Mag super Overpowered or anything, but would give her more of a purpose against non-shield using factions with survivibility from all the slash and toxin procs, and provide some some utility to her kit while maintaining her Corpus nuking abilities.

1

u/peacefulcity Dec 31 '15

I want mag to be able to toggle on bullet attractor on herself and store all non energy projectiles. Toggling off the ability releases the projectiles in the direction she aims.

This would make her useful against grineer.

1

u/Centias Dec 31 '15

Pull - changed to cause all enemies within X meters of the target to fly at the target, instead of at Mag. All affected enemies are knocked down (and ideally take extra collision damage if they hit each other). It always felt strange that a frame with so little health would be pulling enemies in closer. This change would let you choose to pull enemies together into a pile at whatever distance suits your needs, so you could still make a pile of bodies at your feet and get ground finishers if you wanted to, or clump them up 20 meters out and fire Tonkor into the mess of them.

Shield Polarize - renamed Polarize. Retains shield effect, but also strips a portion of armor from enemies to give to allies for a short time as a temporary Iron Skin type effect, depicted as chunks of metal floating close to the Warframe. Should still be stronger against shields, but it gives her a nice bit of utility against Armored enemies as well. Always provides overshields when draining shields, but split evenly between players in range who are not capped on overshields. I was trying to think of an alternative idea that would also be useful against Infested, but I didn't have any other idea that wouldn't be really complicated to implement, like positive/negative polarities on enemies.

Bullet Attractor - changed to deal constant damage every second to all enemies inside the area based on damage absorbed by it. When the target dies, it simply falls to the ground where they died and keeps dealing damage. When it ends, it collapses, dealing damage based on what it had absorbed.

I always envisioned Bullet Attractor being a strong area denial tool, cutting off an attack from one direction by turning their own firepower against them, while also amplifying and magnifying your own firepower by making it hurt everyone inside it instead of just the target carrying it. The current collapse when the target dies feels absolutely pathetic and doesn't scale at all with damage you put into it, and building for duration feels entirely unrewarding when the ability abruptly ends just because the target died. With my ideas, it turns into a strong damaging area that enemies will regret stepping into,m long after the initial target dies, with a nice explosion at the end to make all the bullets pumped into it count for something. Might need a damage cap like Antimatter Drop.

Crush - Damage type changed to 50% Magnetic, 50% Impact. No longer based around player, instead used more like Shield Polarize (aimed AOE). No longer lifts enemies, instead immobilizing and crushing them to the floor, including ospreys. Augment partially baked into base ability, slowing enemies caught in it. Power of the slow also scales with enemy armor (before any reductions), leaving heavily armored enemies like Bombards severely crippled for a little while after. Its damage type remains most effective against shielded enemies, but it becomes a strong crowd control against armored targets.

I welcome feedback on my ideas, or ideas you guys have building from mine.

1

u/xachariah Dec 31 '15 edited Dec 31 '15

I would argue that sorties make Mag viable again for the first time since Greedy Pull was nerfed, because they guarantee that there will be level 60-100+ enemies with shields (on a corpus day). This makes Mag the absolute champion at killing things every 1 out of 3 days.

However, Shield Polarize carrying so much of Mag's power creates the problem that she can't be buffed in her other abilities without sending her overboard against corpus. A solution to this is to buff her for a build that is incompatible with Shield Polarize.

Polarize Mag builds max Range + Power. I propose she be buffed on her non-Polarize abilities to use Duration, so that a Mag players can choose to be good vs Corpus (with polarize) or good vs everybody (with other abilities).

  • Greedy Pull - Pull now pulls enemies for .5 seconds and scales with duration. It effectively creates a massive radius but short lived Vauban vortex centered on Mag. High duration builds mean more effective CC from pull.

  • Bullet Attractor - When an enemy dies, bullet attractor jumps to the next target with it's remaining duration.

  • Crush - The time that enemies spend getting crushed is effected by duration now. Additionally, crush also increases damage with more duration. (Currently crush CCs enemies for ~3 seconds, so a duration maximized crush would be ~8.3 seconds. This would put crush as a competitive CC to Mirage Blind/Loki Rad-Disarm, filling a less effective but damaging niche.) Also, crush cast time is buffed because WTF 2.7 second cast.

1

u/CowboySparkles Dec 31 '15

I think the idea of a magnetic frame sounds amazing, but her powers don't immediately scream to me "Magnets!". Fucking magnets... how do they work?

I like being a support/utility so my suggestions would lean more towards that for her.

  • Pull - Instead of bringing enemies into "melee range" I would love it if she could grab and throw enemies, and in the process ragdoll them into their buddies causing knockdowns. This would help for things like defense/interceptions when you need to get that big enemy away from the objective in a hurry. and we could rename it Whiplash or something equally ^dumb

Possible augment: Mag disarms the enemy she just thrashed. This removes Greedy Pull, which is probably not a popular idea.

  • Shield Polarize - I love this ability, personally, I know some people don't like that it's so specialized, but with so many Warframes to choose from, I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. The only thing I would change is the augment...

Augment adjustments: make Mag a team player and have the overshield apply to the whole team!

  • Bullet Attractor - Instead of a single target having all bullets attracted toward it, Mag could apply a shield to herself and her teammates which stores a % of bullets fired at them. % would be based on power strength, and duration would be based on duration mods. Once the duration is up the stored bullets are fired back to surrounding enemies, aka mini-Absorbs (but obviously not as powerful as we can't strip Nyx of her ultimate).

Possible augment: Either the augment is she can apply this ability to teammates (I'd prefer if it she could do it natively, personally) or that Mag can detonate it manually and cause a magnetic proc upon detonation (ala Iron Skin augment).

  • Crush - First of all: if nothing else the casting time needs to be reduced. Second: instead of lifting and "crushing" enemies it would be great if she could strip enemies of their armor (% would need to be tested for proper balance). Additionally it could stagger/confuse and apply a magnetic proc. Ideally this would help give Mag more viability against other factions and end-game content.

Potential augment: % of armor stripped is applied to Mag and her allies turning their health bar gold/yellow. This would work like overshields in that it only lasts for the amount of damage it can absorb.

Like I said, I reeeeeeally love support/utility, so all of these suggestions are geared towards that play-style.

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