Warframe Review - Voruna - Week One
I'm titling this thread as I am because DE has a habit of patching frames for the first couple weeks (or in Caliban's case forgetting he exists,) and given it's being posted on the morning of what is the usual update day I might have to eat my own words.
For now I'm not putting any forma into her other than an aura forma, and Grendal already got my umbral forma, so she'll have to wait for that one, or for the all clear on any changes she might/not get.
TL;DR
I like her. HOWEVER. Either through personal inexperience or a need for final polish to the warframe itself, her kit doesn't feel quite right As Is.
Animations
Perfect. Personality, poise, there's a real sense of 'who' Voruna is. I am including sound design here. Good Job team.
Passives
I'm not going to even pretend to care about the names here. All the wolf names INCLUDING VORUNA'S are edgelord trash as far as I'm concerned. VORuna. LYCAN. Etc etc. This is stuff i'd have come up with in middle school, or expect seeing the werewolf clans to be named in Twilight.
1. Go invis with the skill, and meep meep I don't wanna deal with this mess with the added parkour speed buff this gives. Good stuff, pairs well with the ability
2. The one downside here is it doesn't act as a status cleanse, but I view that as acceptable given her flexibility, though if a clense got added I would quite enjoy that. Has no real synergy with its associated ability other than being the defensive side to the coin. Easily her best 'if i had to pick one' passive.
3. If this were 100% efficiency new builds would open up, and since this is voruna only even with helment since that can't grant the passive mechanic to anyone, why? Is it a problem with the game code? Taking advantage of this passive means shutting the door on other passives, which helps balance it out. If it had that mechanical change it would pair amazingly with its associated skill because you could wind up your combo and then go ham.
4. This is a great passive with a flaw that makes it useless. Switching away from it also puts it on cooldown. meaning you can't use it as a panic button, which seems to be the intended design given her 2nd passive is a far better generalist 'get out of trouble free card' when in the middle of a fight. Fix that and it becomes a pretty decent 'Oh Crap I'm aobut to die' panic button. Though I suppose that doesn't matter considering the skill it's associated with is the most likely to be removed, thus removing this passive from the rotation.
Abilities
On the whole there is this feel of 'Fun, but-' to Voruna's abilities. Either 'I can't use all of them in a single build setup,' or 'this ability is good but needs tweaking' or even 'that ability frankly feels anti-synergy. And yet in spite of that feel. She's incredibly fun with zero forma invested.
Disclaimer
I have put three azure archon shards into her to shore up her energy economy, as her starting energy supply is fairly low to the point that primed flow isn't all that much more than my setup (it IS more, but that costs a mod slot I'd rather use for equilibrium.) Given the resources for Voruna include a thing you can't get til post new war that shouldn't bother too many people. however she is buyable from the market which does affect what people have access to. I would be negligent if that was not mentioned,
1. An in general solid ability. Something of a compromise between Loki and Ash, with a touch of Ivara thrown in by way of it breaking regardless of duration if you shoot or swing a weapon silent or otherwise. I want to say using her 2 doesn't break it, but strangley? In play I haven't really been able to tell. The 'nice but-' of this ability is that it ends whenever you attack, silent or otherwise. Which is fair. This is more a movement tool useful for getting out of trouble than getting into trouble. However what i would like is if the counter paused on attack, then resumed with you going invisible again a second or two later. That way you can get interesting synergies with the skiajati, or arcane trickery.
Potential ability synergies in their entries.
2. Love it. Very simple. very to the point. Maybe widen the base radius, but this is what I view as Voruna's party piece. Assuming I'm not out of my mind I want using this to not end her 1, This thing is supposed to be a primer ability with only a little damage from itself. Maybe as tradeoff have it do NO damage in of itself and instead give a two second enemy stun for the initial target.
3. Good as is. My complaint is more towards the passive rather than the active skill. Solid as is. Simple. to the point. Is an utter joy that opens up equilibrium shenanigans to keep the party going.
4. I honestly don't think this ability deserves its slot. As is I can use her 2 to pounce a target, and then go full melee monster without the energy cost to get better results. This is a case of Number Go Up being needed. However i don't want it to just be 'bump number up.' Instead I want enemies killed by this ability to either trigger a five second invisibility if her 1 isn't active, or if its five seconds that is modified by duration) added to the timer.
I am not sure if there is a condition overload effect in play, but if not there needs to be, and if there is bump the number up to be explicitely on par with melee CO without the ability cap (or cap it at five.) That way people are encouraged to hit 3 to get orbs, roll into her 1 for stealth bonuses and the bonus if your strike KILLS something. Hit 2 to apply statuses, then hit 4 to kill that target and apply the slash dots FROM this target into everything around it.
We have seen that Styanax's 1 can be tuned to have less cost as base, which means the abilities don't have fixed costs. So, instead of the current 'five tally marks you use up.' Just make the ability cost twenty energy a pop. Same cost per five shots, but far less hassle and this ability suddenly feels like less of an up front bother on investment.
Lastly on her 4. As of this post, it does not trigger her 3 in spite of it being a melee kill. Either have it explicitly count as a melee attack, or just have an 'on kill spawn a greater health orb' effect. I'd rather than over energy refund shenanigans because her 3 already incentivizes running equilibrium. So lean into that.
In Conclusion
I enjoy Voruna. She's a fun powerful feeling berserker melee monster that paradoxically can also be tweaked towards a stealth tank build. Maybe my suggestions miss critical information. I don't know. If my information is taken into consideration I do hope that other input is given weight and measure so I don't hurt other player's experience. I just feel like she needs a few tiny nudges and she'll be in a wonderful place. Her 1 and 2 need simple nudges, her 3 is great, and either her 4 needs major tweaks and fixes, or it is helminth bait.
I would be found wanting to not point out the humor in a pack themed warframe having very selfish buffs. No making augments that give her 1 and 3 group application isn't the right way to go, nor is it inherently bad that she's selfish with her buffs. It's just something to be noted and observed.
Still. I love this frame in spite of her flaws and hope it gets a good grooming and brush out so she can shine.
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/gemlog/2022/