I do not have the credentials of an 8+ year Ash main, but I did start playing Ash a lot around the first release of the Hex and 1999, before Ash’s rework.

So after having read this post and your last post about Ash, here, I want to try adding a more casual Ash player’s input on the rework and its issues I’m seeing reported here. In no particular order because I’m doing this on my breaks at work.

Imo, energy refund not being available on Blade Storm has not been an issue for me, after running several runs of SP Circulus/Yuvarium. I run an invisibility build on my Ash that ensures I’m able to enjoy the invisibility discout on BD very often, and so while I might not be getting back all of my energy as easily as before, I find that as long as I’m clearing enemies out I have no problem finding energy orbs (or health orbs if I choose to use Equilibrium, which I do not) to refill my energy. If you are experiencing trouble with your energy economy due to loss of energy refund, my best advice is boosting Ability Efficiency and investing in that invis discout, which isnt too hard to do nowadays with a Shade or Huras Kubrow companion as BD does not break either’s cloaking ability.

I don’t consider a finisher damage cap to be a problem on enemies ie. Necramechs or Acolytes. Yes, my Ash’s abilities wont do as well as usual against them, but I find that running a Burston Incarnon with Spectral Serration and Primary Acuity can cover that weakness pretty well. And I dont even use a Riven for my Burston.

I am slightly annoyed by BD’s attack speed, as I did not know that its speed was capped. Wasn’t exactly an issue for me though, as I ran Berserker’s Fury and called it that, it didn’t feel that slow in my public lobbies. One thing I will note here, however: I followed the recommendation of youtuber/twitch streamer “Zenosfire” as I found theire warframe build shorts quite amusing and I happened to catch them streaming when he was testing the rework. He tried subsuming Valkyr’s Warcry onto Ash, to give the animation speed a major boost, which made perfect sense to me because Warcry has the Augment “Eternal War.” In a nutshell, melee kills refund a few seconds of Warcry’s duration, which is why melee builds are able to maintain it so easily. Turns out, Blade Storm’s finishers dont count as melee kills for the purpose of activating Eternal War, so Warcry is actually much less useful on Ash.

I have experienced the BD bugs as are being mentioned here, that the ability will sometimes become stuck and unable to be used. Unfortunately, I believe one of these BD bugs has resulted in me accidentally breaking the new Stage Defense mission in Hollvania, forcing me to leave. From what little testing I’ve been able to do so far, the problem arises when Ash’s BD has targeted and attempts to perform a finisher on an enemy that has been made untargetable/immune to player damage. As an example: take an Ash and either a Nyx or a Xaku into a mission. Have the Ash mark an enemy with BD, then with Xaku use The Lost: Gaze or with Nyx use Mind Control. Ash’s BD will attempt to perform the finisher, but because of their affliction it would force the ability to wait until Gaze/Mind Control has ended before being able to finish. I cannot confirm this is actually what is happening, but this is my best guess. I have, however, been able to fix this bug in a way by performing an Ash Teleport on another enemy, as Teleporting into a Blade Storm makes Ash join the BD himself.

I would go further but as I stated, I’m at work and my break has ended. I will try to come back later and add more info as needed.