A game, in essence, is the act of reaching an end goal with interesting, conquerable obstacles along the way. I understand players’ tendency to gravitate towards maximum efficiency when it comes to farming simulators like Warframe, but at the same time, we have to understand that maximum efficiency is antithetical to the whole purpose of video games. To those people I will sincerely suggest fucking off. Now before I fire off any ideas, I know some people will oppose any changes that threaten her role as a trashmob lawn mower. Nothing feels worse for a new player, or anyone, than going into a mission only for someone to kill everything before they’re even in sight. Her kit is one that ruins the experience for basically everyone. Furthermore, she drags everyone else in her squad down with her into the purgatory of boredom. This means you’re essentially playing a regular shooter without all the skills, except everything die before you shoot them. There’s always a reason to have them on, and never really a reason to turn them off. Accelerant and WoF aren’t opportunistic like many of the “oh shit pause the game” ults, nor do they have a requirement for casting besides energy, which ember never has to worry about. What’s left of those abilities are some of the least engaging in the entire game. The pushback on her 3 is literally a detriment and its buff is a worse version of Toxic Lash. The damage, status, and CC are all covered by WoF and Accelerant, and taking into account their energy investment and poor scaling, they’re not worth using at all. The main problem, if you can’t tell, is that her 1 and 3 are completely redundant. Besides there are plenty of frames better at those other play styles (giggles in Saryn). But let’s face it, you use her to rush low level missions and afk defense. She can be played in other ways, obviously, such as with fire weapons and acc spam. Her core playstyle can basically be summed up with this shitpost Helpful guide. So basically, her kit consists of her bread, her butter, and 3 instances of wasted development resources. It’s basically 80% of Ember’s kit and 100% of her identity.

Status: the bread bit of bread and butter. Works as panic button, but since WoF is always on, you don’t really need it. Status: the butter bit of bread and butter, but it only applies to a single (not very good) element. Not viable in high level, not needed in low level. There are some self-harm builds around but they’re fiddly and requires a purposefully low damage weapon. Status: Useful only in theory, so it’s useless. Passive: Regenerate energy when set on fire.Equilibrium would be much better if life orbs dropped ever, but they don’t so it’s not. The lack of a built in heal is annoying but easily made up for. Overall decent, the high energy pool means she can mostly ignore energy costs with a rage build. Thicc Energy pool, Rage viable with quick thinking & equilibrium/life strike.

Base stats: mediocre armour & shield & health.

So, before I start overdesigning the rework, as is tradition with these sorta posts, let’s examine her current kit right now. What ember truly need is not a power buff…….well, not JUST a power buff anyway, she’s also going to need a Saryn style mechanical rework. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’ve actually fallen asleep playing ember before. Mostly because hardly anyone can stand the spirit ascending, qi cultivating, sainthood acquiring level of boredom that comes with using such a non-engaging kit on a regular basis. With her being so good at filling her niche, there are plenty of Ember players running around and only running around, but I don’t think I’ve met either one of the Ember mains. Her power level is only a matter of stat tweak (and making fire a good element). The problems I have with Ember is mostly in terms of her playstyle and design. While she’s by no means high up on the list, she’s got a role to fill and she fills it perfectly fine. I think Ember’s power level is in a decent position right now, as the single most efficient trashmob clearer. I want to first clarify that when I say Ember is bad, I don’t mean it strictly in terms of game balance. Now, with that outta the way, let’s talk about Ember. Besides, with Ember being barely able to handle sorties, this kinda talk will not appear in this post regardless.

Ember warframe thicc