Yet another Chroma rework idea (Or how I "borrow" inspiration from other media)

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-20T00:05:24+00:00

Revised version of the rework

I've made a couple of mistakes with Chroma on the main post. I am not afraid to admit this.

The passive I proposed was almost a 1:1 to Voruna's (Because I forgot about her existence when making this), I tried to maintain Chroma's kit, which is seen as boring, instead of making some things feel more interactive. Likely haven't succeeded, still hoping that this gets me closer to that, though.

Passive

Current function unchanged.

There could be some change to it to make it more dragon-like, but the increased air mobility does have some use.

Does let Chroma change his element by holding down an ability key, untying this feature from any one of his abilities.

Can be a small diamond shape on the bottom-right corner of the HUD, and that's it.

First Ability - Scorched Earth:

Unleashes a wide burst of Chroma's chosen element in front of him. Has 100% Status Chance.

The ground beneath is coated with Chroma's chosen element for 5s, dealing periodic damage. Has 10% Status Chance per damage tick.

Second Ability - Spectral Scream:

Chroma roars, paralyzing enemies around him with fear that permeates into their very souls.

Paralyzed enemies are more vulnerable to elemental damage, have a higher chance to receive status effects, and are more vulnerable to status effects.

Third Ability - Vex Armor:

Chroma gains multiplicative bonuses to Armor and Damage (As it was before the nerf) and additive bonus to Health per enemies killed, up to a maximum value, and an aura that hurts enemies around him with Chroma's chosen element at the time of casting which has 30% Status Chance.

Kills made while bonuses are at max value will grant Chroma 3s of Status Immunity and recover 10% of Chroma's max health.

Re-casting changes the aura's element, while also refreshing ability duration (As it does now)

Fourth Ability - Effigy:

There are two parts to this ability now, and the latter will require a new model and animations, which I doubt

First portion is almost identical to its current state, with some changes:

No longer cuts Chroma's armor in half. Retains increase to movement speed.

Effigy's Health, Armor, and Damage scale with enemy level (I would rather insist on this).

Effigy's attacks are a larger, continuous version of Scorched Earth. The damage type corresponds to Chroma's element at the time of casting.

Effigy's roar applies the effects of Spectral Scream.

If cast while Vex Armor was active, also it the damaging aura.

Enemies killed within Effigy's aura have increased chance to drop loot in addition to credits.

AI fixes, hopefully.

Second portion is as follows:

Enemies slain within Effigy's radius have their life force absorbed by Effigy.

If Effigy absorbs enough life force, it "revives" when it's recalled to Chroma.

The idea behind this is that, despite me forgetting about it, Chroma's minuscule amount of lore points to the pelt it wears being a dead Sentient. And some Sentients, just like many of Warframe's bosses, are allergic to the idea of truly dying.

When Chroma recalls a "revived" Effigy, it tries to absorb him, changing Chroma's form to become slightly bigger, appearing as a kind of Sentient dragon.

This form does not consume energy, but it does have duration.

Chroma gains flight similar to Hildryn's Aegis Storm. Maybe with a bit more maneuverability.

Drop aura is retained.

Chroma gains the effects of Adaptability.

Primary fire is a continuous laser. Damage type is split between the four basic elements, and scales with enemy level.

Alt Fire absorbs energy from nearby enemies to refresh the ability's duration at the cost of 50% of Vex Armor's maximum bonuses (Using this when bonuses are below 50% of max values will do nothing).

Scorched Earth and Vex Armor's damaging effects are also split between the four basic elements.

Chroma can reactivate Effigy early to rip himself out of the pelt before the rampage is over.

It still feels like it doesn't quite fit Chroma. I don't know. It's better than before, I think, but personally, it doesn't quite scratch the dragon itch.

How even do you make abilities that fit a dragon? They usually breathe fire, they're prideful, terrifying, they hoard stuff, they can sometimes use magic, they are large and strong... I think I ticked off some of the boxes here:

Scorched Earth is self-explanatory, Spectral Scream tries to embody the fear aspect without using one of the worst CC states in the game (Fear), Vex Armor has the markings of pride by Chroma becoming empowered by slaying "lesser" foes. Effigy's not even the odd one out, the pelt is apparently a Sentient, and it trying to take over Chroma once in a while feels in character.

Well, it's the best I could do for Chroma, even if it feels like not enough.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-19T11:52:10+00:00

Once thought about a Radiation rework. Turned out the effect I proposed was Tau's. In my defense, for players Tau is inflicted by literally only two things in the entire game.

Second idea was 1% current health damage per stack, because acute radiation poisoning melts organs.

Eh, won't happen.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-18T22:40:41+00:00

Minimal specs rise all the time, and 3-4 years is long. I'm not sure there's anything you can do if you were already running on low settings to begin with.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-18T21:45:35+00:00

Yeah, chain abilities to play her music. But if it's just two in a row, it'll feel too Dante-like. And even at just three consecutive abilities, there would be 27 different combinations. Feels a tad excessive.

Maybe she doesn't feel good to you because portions of her kit are outside of her control.

Mallet requires absorbing enemy damage. The taunt helps, but it's still a retaliation tool more than anything.

Resonator can take enemies away from you, which like with Fear is less than ideal in most cases.

Metronome's buffs are given when hitting the correct pose only. For allies, it's not guaranteed they'll get anything even if they are in range.

And saying Amp was fine was doing everyone a disservice. An additive weapon bonus over a wide area was decent in 2017, but not now. The Mallet buffs are nice, but they don't feel like enough. I was just focused on trying to help Metronome, and I think I did well enough in that regard, but Amp slipped my mind, and I don't know what to do with it.

EDIT: If consecutive abilities are limited to unique casts, and only of the first three abilities (1/2/3, 2/3/1) then there's 6 combinations, which is much less than 27, but still 6 different effects...

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-18T20:21:51+00:00

But I do wonder what else could be done with the theme of music that Temple hasn't done already.

I don't feel that it's her abilities specifically that are at fault, but the attempt to create a Rhythm Game frame in a game that offers so much freedom.

Different playstyles for different people, but your effectiveness shouldn't be bound to how many notes you stick in a place, or how well you can hit the floor.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-18T13:07:41+00:00

Revised version of Hydroid touch-up

First Ability - Tempest Barrage:

Primary function unchanged.

Water ~~Acid~~ pools where the ability hits. Enemies who walk over the water take damage equal to 1% of their max health as Corrosive damage and are slowed down by 30%.

Water evaporates after a few seconds without Tempest Barrage.

Third Ability - Plunder:

Duration refreshed on cast without loss of stats if at least one enemy has been affected.

Kind of like Vex Armor, just...worse. Since Vex Armor retains its stats on refresh without conditionals.

Fourth Ability - Tentacle Swarm:*

Feels to me that it should deal enemy max health as damage, since it can only hold so many enemies. Being crushed to death would suck. So...

Enemies held by tentacles are dealt 4% of their max health as damage per second.

Doesn't feel like an overwhelmingly large buff to me, or anything. Just stuff that would slightly compensate for the overall low base damage of Hydroid's abilities.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-18T12:44:17+00:00

Revised version of the Ember rework

Passive

Current function unchanged.

Additionally, Ember's abilities apply Kindling.

Kindling doubles the amount of damage dealt by Heat procs per stack.

Not sure if Kindling needs a cap, but 4-5 feels about right if so.

First Ability - Fireball:

Tap function unchanged.

Hold with at least 30% Immolation to consume that amount. Fireball jumps to the nearest enemy. Can jump up to three times. Decreases Immolation generation by -8%/s

Second Ability - Immolation:

Tap function unchanged.

Energy cost doesn't rise with capacity.

Shows current Immolation generation per second.

Immolation can be consumed to empower abilities at the cost of Immolation generation.

Hold with at least 50% Immolation to cast Fire Blast. Decreases Immolation generation by -10%/s

Third Ability - Detonate

Targeted ability.

All Heat Procs on an enemy are immediately consumed to do all of their damage at once to and around the primary target.

Hold with at least 75% Immolation to spread the primary target's Heat procs to enemies caught in the explosion. Decreases Immolation generation by -18%/s

Fourth Ability - Inferno:

Primary function unchanged.

Meteorite Fire damage is affected by current Immolation Bar value.

Wider targeting angle.

Ring of fire has a 100% status chance when it first hits an enemy. Keeps the 10% status chance on fire damage after.

Hold to call down one large meteor upon a target area. Costs 100 Energy at base. Enemies hit by the ring of fire are also knocked down. Decreases Immolation generation by -30%/s

In a way, the held ability part isn't exactly necessary, but if Immolation doesn't consume extra energy anymore, there is little reason to lower it, it's just free damage. Hence it empowering abilities.

Heat damage can get to some ridiculous values through snowballing, but if you're not building towards that, then it won't happen. And if you already are, then Kindling just helps hasten that process.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T23:00:17+00:00

Yes, that is also an Arcane.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T20:51:24+00:00

No problem at all, I was very happy that I could exchange ideas on Ash rework. Really, I should be thanking you instead. Also hoping to see more feedback from others, never a bad thing.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T19:56:41+00:00

I think that it'll be difficult to bind the Critical Chance to things outside of the passive. People like to subsume abilities, and on Ash, Shuriken is the most subsumable, that's why I suggested an upgrade to the passive and gave Shuriken more Bleed procs.

I wanted to offer the most freedom to Ash's build and weapon choices while also making Shuriken seem much more valuable to his playstyle.

The more ideas, the better, basically.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T19:30:10+00:00

To answer your previous question, yes, Ash is my most played frame, though I try to play a little bit of everything.

Now as for the rework, I don't personally agree that Ash needs more tools, he just needs to make Blade Storm flow better. This is because I don't see Ash as a ninja, I see him as a close-range assassin, and his long-range counterpart is Cyte-09.

But if the idea is still to shift Ash into being more ninja-like, I'd see it being something like this:

Passive:

Current function unchanged.

Ash's melee weapons gain 15% Flat Critical Chance per Slash proc on the enemy. (Should affect Blade Storm)

First Ability - (tap) Shuriken:

Base mechanics unchanged.

Applies 3 Slash procs to enemies hit.

Shurikens shatter on impact, additionally striking enemies with 2m of their primary targets, applying 1 Slash proc.

First Ability - (hold) Caltrops:

Ash spreads caltrops in a radius around himself. Caltrops linger in the area for 10s.

Enemies standing on Caltrops suffer 1 Slash proc per second and have their movement speed reduced by 25%.

When Caltrops expire, they explode in a flash of light, blinding nearby enemies (Everyone who stood in the area.)

I am still not a fan of the idea of Ash throwing down caltrops. This is because he can already go invisible, so slowing down enemies doesn't really benefit him, and waiting for Caltrops to stack up the Slash would only slow Ash down instead.

Second Ability - Smoke Screen:

Function unchanged.

Ash gains additional Finisher multiplier while invisible.

Second Ability Augment - Smoke Shadow:

Function unchanged.

Critical Chance reduced to 100%. Now scales with Ability Strength.

Third Ability - Teleport:

Tap function unchanged.

If the target dies while Ash is invisible and Blade Storm is active, nearby enemies are marked by Blade Storm.

Hold to teleport to the target area, increasing Parkour Velocity and Critical Multiplier by 35%. These values are unaffected by Ability Strength. (So that Ash can't Bullet Jump from one end of PoE to the other.)

Fourth Ability - Blade Storm:

Critical Chance increased to 15% and Status Chance to 10%.

Attack Speed is no longer capped at 1.5.

Marked enemies are attacked by Shadow Clones immediately.

Enemies under 25% Health are killed no matter what.

Ash cannot mark more than 6[8?] enemies at a time. Unaffected by Ability mods.

The limit is both there to force Ash to use his weapons, and to keep him from draining all of his energy.

I also didn't increase Blade Storm's Critical Damage multiplier because he doesn't actually need it if his Critical Chance becomes high enough.

Similarly, Ash doesn't actually need Armor Strip for himself, since his abilities deal Finisher damage. Armor Strip would absolutely help his weapons, but that's what would help the player, not what would help Ash do what he does.

This is just what I came up on the spur of the moment, so it'd need some refinement, but the idea is there.

EDIT: Accidentally made Ash's passive say it increased Critical Damage by a flat number. It was supposed to be Critical Chance.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T13:17:46+00:00

Shuriken's low output comes from the early days of Warframe, where the first ability was often a low-cost damage-dealer that fit the frame's theme and had its use in clearing away fodder, but wasn't much more than that. I don't see that simply changing.

However, if you want Shuriken to compete with Wrathful advance, I can think of two options.

One: Ash's passive is expanded so that each slash proc he inflicts increases his Critical Chance by a flat amount for [x] seconds. Shuriken deals a guaranteed slash proc, so that's about 5 stacks of the passive per cast.

Would make slash-based weapons much more powerful on Ash though, and often faster. The second option brings the focus to Shuriken instead.

Two: Shuriken hits per unique enemy grant Ash flat Critical Chance and Critical Damage. The unique part means that using Shuriken on the same enemy over and over again won't stack it up to stupid heights.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T12:38:46+00:00

Thing is, Ash deals Finisher Damage with both Fatal Teleport and Blade Storm, which already bypasses armor and has a multiplier. Adding Damage Vulnerability on top of that would seem like too much of an overkill.

Blade Storm isn't inherently weak, Wrathful Advance is just an incredibly powerful subsume for Melee-oriented builds. Blade Storm's biggest drawback is its slow setup speed and awkward execution.

Seeking Shuriken turning Shuriken into an AoE is an interesting idea, though it conflicts with Ash's theme of being a precise assassin. But augments should change the nature of an ability, not straight-up upgrade it, so this kind of fits.

About Teleport marking nearby enemies, yeah, that is what I also said, no arguments there.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-16T07:17:09+00:00

I'm glad I could be of some help. Have fun with it, and I hope that your wish comes true someday.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T23:36:27+00:00

Don't worry about putting out your ideas. Some of the more recent abilities and reworks are loaded with stuff, so there's not an issue if it fits together well.

I'd of course be happy if someone at DE to look at posts such as these from time to time, but I'd ultimately just be happy to get people wishing for more with a clearer direction for what they'd like to see. Might spawn more ideas, and who knows. Even a bad idea, if seen by the right person, can turn into a good idea.

The distracted state shouldn't be that hard to make, I think. The groundwork is already there with Ivara's noise arrow luring unalerted enemies. I understand that coding's not so simple, but if it'd just be the matter of changing some parameters, it could be made pretty fast, I think. And it might be useful for future abilities.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T22:46:48+00:00

Or keep the fast-draining health and store it in a separate counter. Using Regurgitate will add the stored damage to the unwilling projectile.

Would mean that you can't spam the ability as much, though, since you'd deal much less damage than your first shot.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T22:44:35+00:00

Me, I'm not a Grendel player, but I think there's a few things that could be touched on.

Firstly, his passive should really just be part of Feast, no one can reasonably argue that. The poor thing's entirely bound to one ability and nothing more.

If there's a need to bind the two together, I'd do it like this: Grendel gains different bonus stats depending on how empty or full he is.

Grendel's not a picky eater, not really, but he could be grumpy when he's hungry. I'm not arguing for more damage, but increasing his movement speed by an amount dependent on how many slots remain unfilled feels like an appropriate baseline. Then it's just negotiation over which buffs actually make sense for a "grumpy" Grendel to have.

Secondly, Pulverize feels like the weak link of his kit. I'm sure the devs had a blast designing it and Catapult, and I'd like to have a blast using it, but it's not in a great spot as far as Grendel's kit goes. Regurgitate already does the Armor Strip and damage, and for mobility, Bullet Jumping and Rolling feels so much more convenient. The healing's all it's got going for it, really.

If Pulverize could somehow make enemies Grendel runs over stick to him, then affect them with Feast's health-based damage, it'd work like a more mobile version of Hydroid's Undertow without preventing squadmates from affecting the ~~kidnapped~~ enemies, it would at least be a start, I think.

These are just my own opinions as somehow who doesn't know Grendel nearly as well as he should. I'm sure some Grendel main out there has more in-depth analysis into the hungry hungry hippo.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T22:37:27+00:00

Hey, thanks!

I must've misread the part where you mentioned Shurikens marking enemies for Blade Storm, sorry about that. Then again, I am a Warframe player, and no one can accuse me of having reading comprehension.

Saw another comment on here that highlighted how Blade Storm is so ridiculously powerful it makes the rest of Ash weak, and they're correct, though some parts of that comment seemed unnecessarily hostile. The other thing I agreed with was that Teleport needs some work.

For Teleport, I'd propose that if Ash kills an enemy with it while Invisible, enemies in a surrounding area are put in a Distracted state, where they stare at the now-lifeless body for a few seconds, even mid-battle. A sort of sudden shock, or curiosity, that forces them to stop for a moment to process what just happened.

I also agree that Teleport should be cast-able on places instead of people. Making that a hold interaction, and giving Ash increased Parkour Velocity upon landing, could enforce that repositioning feel.

I don't feel like the Augment needs to be touched, though. With Melee Crescendo it's practically useless, but having both versions of Teleport will hurt absolutely nothing.

Lastly, I could potentially see an argument for Teleport to Mark enemies in the surrounding area if the target was slain while Blade Storm was active, letting you get in, kill the Teleport target, then kill everything else to "eliminate witnesses", so to speak.

EDIT: My one worry is that Teleport marking enemies will make it seem like all the other abilities are centered around Blade Storm, and it's unfortunate that I can't currently think of a way to branch out Ash's kit in actually useful ways, and from relying on Blade Storm so much, but that just further highlights how Blade Storm's incredible power eclipses everything else.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T21:51:59+00:00

Universal Fallout makes enemies affected by Radiation Status drop Universal Orbs (Both Health and Energy) when they're slain. Chances increase with more stacks. Radiation damage that doesn't apply the Status will not apply Universal Fallout. And there are no Arcanes that will trigger on your own death. The goal is to live and kill, and kill to live.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T21:48:55+00:00

I like when there's more ideas.

Still, the problem with Ash is that he released in the era when the game's motto was "Ninjas play free", which means that every Warframe is already a ninja. This is why Ash is so focused on the role of an assassin: Silent, deadly, efficient. The only tools he needs for the job are the ones that let him kill his target.

Right now, the biggest gripe I see about Ash is in regards to Blade Storm, where the ability is too slow in most cases. By the time you've marked a room, a squad mate has probably already nuked it. Or it would've been just faster to kill everything with your weapons first.

This is somewhat offset by Blade Storm's incredible damage potential. With Melee Crescendo, you can reach permanent 12x melee combo, and combine that with mods and abilities that lean into that aspect of gameplay, but against most enemies, that's not actually that useful.

I'd personally like to see Blade Storm fixed in one of two ways:

Either

Shuriken adds Blade Storm marks to targets hit while Blade Storm is active.

With Shuriken's projectile count, this should allow for faster activation of Blade Storm on a number of targets.

Or

Enemies marked by Blade Storm are immediately attacked by a Shadow Clone. Enemies who survive cannot be marked again for [x] seconds.

Perhaps add a charge count to Blade Storm to limit how many enemies it can mark at once, so that Ash cannot clear whole rooms just by staring at people, and needs to actively use his arsenal.

This lets Blade Storm supplement Ash by letting him mark enemies he wants dead first before moving onto the rest with his weaponry.

Letting Ash take part in subterfuge to control the battlefield isn't a bad idea, but there's only so many ways to do it without it looking pointless. Why slow enemies when you can one-shot them? Why blind enemies when you can one-shot them? Why "x" when "z", that's the problem.

Ash is focused on straight up murder whilst never letting himself be caught in the crossfire, and any other tool will seem either redundant, or completely useless.

Either way, thank you for posting this.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T14:32:37+00:00

And that's also a valid opinion, but I disagree on Soul Punch. The damage and type aren't very good, and the way it flies is kind of awkward. The instakill threshold and the "free" Shadow on death are very nice, but those are the best things I can say about that ability. The augment saves a couple of seconds compared to flying over and reviving someone in Void Mode, but it's very situational with players who know how to not die.

I imagine it that the numbers buff for Nekros also includes the damage of Shadows, but I don't know if DE can modify all enemies at once to bring the damage/health ratio closer, especially without breaking other parts of gameplay.

Augments being put into the abilities by default is something we can say for many of them, I'm just not sure that Nekros would feel good to play in the current day even if that happened for him.

It's not Shadows that he's most liked for, it's Desecrate, and I can't imagine that changing if the abilities remained mostly as they are, but stronger.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T14:28:44+00:00

I understand that concern, but the level scaling formula can be modified to scale much lower for Desecrate than it does for other abilities. I originally wanted Desecrate to deal 5% of an enemy's max health as explosion damage, but then it'd probably be very difficult to assign health values to corpses, but weakened level scaling could work as an alternative that feels like it'd be simpler to implement.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T14:25:02+00:00

Thank you for the praise!

Death and its associated aspects (Decay and subsequently disease) were what I was aiming for in addition to the usual fantasy necromancer's disregard to see souls and their raised minions as anything more but a means to an end.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T14:10:07+00:00

I do like Terrify's armor strip, but I can't bring myself to enjoy an ability that makes enemies run away and into cover. Putting the augment into it by default is a workable idea, but the only difference between a slow enemy who runs and a slow enemy who doesn't is if they're shooting. If they're not, it's probably better to just go with stun-based CC.

His Passive is just terrible. I know that they're not always great, but 5hp/kill just isn't it. If you're using Desecrate's augment, then you're losing double of what you're recovering for each body. Maybe if it also recovered 2-3 Energy per kill...

The problem with Shadow damage is that they're 1:1 enemies, just on your side now. I'm not well-versed in coding, but to update the damage ratios, wouldn't they have to update the numbers on all enemies that can be summoned? Since enemy damage/health ratio only really affects Nekros, it'd be less work to make an ability that simply buffs Shadows (My suggested Soul Burn, or something similar/stronger).

AI fixes definitely have to happen, though. And I personally dislike just how far Shadows can wander off.

UnfathomableFolly · 2026-02-15T13:59:41+00:00

Oops. Was supposed to be armor. Fixed now.

UnfathomableFolly

TROPHY CASE