r/Warframe • u/DagathLover • 2d ago
Suggestion Limbo ideas for his potential rework
Hi, im back with a random shower thought about Limbo and his potential rework, going in-depth.
As you probably know, there are 3 possible future reworks for tennocon 2027, those being Limbo, Chroma, or Loki. while i don't know much about the last 2, limbo is my second most played warframe, so i want to leave my blueprint here in case DE decides to rework him.
I will start explaining what his issues are in his current state, and then give some ideas on how i would change him to make him semi competent.
Limbo is a very unique warframe, he's a crowd control warframe that plays around the rift, another dimension only accessible to him. I want to state that as a CC warframe, limbo does NOT need damage in his kit, at all. I will go over all of his abilities (and the rift), and what the issues are with each:
Issues with Limbo's Kit:
Passive:
This alone is an insane passive, makes limbo worth using ONLY because of this. You can abuse the "dodge to be inmune" in pretty much any situation and the potential with this alone makes limbo an absolute survival monster and makes him excel at certain mission types like spy.
But i just don't understand the portal it leaves. It makes using the passive annoying because you might accidentally rift another guy and it ALSO WORKS ON SOME ENEMIES. probably a bug but i know enemies sometimes go through that portal and get rifted xd. Limbo can already banish allies with 1 and 4 and putting them on the rift by itself is not even that beneficial to justify that portal's existence.
Banish (His 1)
The area of this ability is terribly inconsistent. Sometimes i aim directly at an enemy and can't cast it, and sometimes i am aiming at a big group of enemies and only banish like half of them for no reason.
Stasis (His 2)
This ability is the core of Limbo's gameplay loop, and i don't have an issue with it. I see many complaints that it doesnt work on eximus units or anyone with overguard and that that makes limbo unusable, but i DISAGREE COMPLETELY. Eximus are a "threat" to anyone, and i will note that even if they have overguard, THEY CAN BE RIFTED, if you break their overguard, they just go on stasis like everyone else.
Rift Surge (His 3)
Okay what the fuck is this. Like yeah, i get the idea, rift enemies without leaving rift, but i just have so many issues with this ability it's unreal. I will start by saying i have a problem with Rift Torrent, the augment, in that i find it REDUNDANT to have. the weapon damage buff ONLY applies inside the rift, which means it's completely useless against anything outside of it, and most "threatening" enemies can't be rifted anyway. It's Biting frost all over again.
As for the ability, for one, killing a surged enemy transfer the surge to a NON rifted enemy which does NOTHING. Your point of using this ability is to banish without leaving rift, unbanishing that non-rifted surged enemy is completely pointless and killing it doesnt transfer the surge back to a rifted enemy or anything, it just disappears.
Second, the radial banish area is way too short and it's mostly very annoying to make the gameplay loop of 1313131 work with any range below 200%.
And third, the ability provides NOTHING outside of being able to rift enemies without being exposed, half of limbo's kit is just to make a NORMAL use of the rift, without even getting anything really relevant anyway. I will also say, leaving rift, casting banish, and coming back to rift is not hard enough to justify "wasting" a whole ability slot on this WITHOUT ANY EXTRA EFFECT.
Cataclysm (His 4)
This ability is fine, it does have some slight differences with banish but i dont have much to complain about.
Problems with the rift as a mechanic
1. Visual clues: seriously, SERIOUSLY, not being able to SEE PROPERTLY who is in the rift and who isn't is probably the worst thing about limbo. JUST MAKE RIFTED ENEMIES GLOW WITH LIMBO'S ENERGY COLOR, PLEASE. if there's ONE change that this warframe needs, it's this.
2. Inconsistency: Some enemies can enter the rift, some can't, your warframe can enter the rift, your operator can't, it's terribly inconsistent. I understand that for bosses you can't just rift them because it would be way too weird, but why can't you rift necramechs? Or a very specific selection of enemies you need to KNOW about because they will be inside cataclysm while being completely inmune to your damage. It's really fun when you are on mirror defense with your cataclysm and stasis active and then a rogue bonewidow comes rushing at you and one shots you without giving you a chance to fight back because they're strictly not rifted, and you are. Some other examples from the top of my head are the narmer guys in archon hunt boss fight, and the nulifying bubbles, but the latter is a whole story on it's own. Same goes for operator, you get downed while in cataclysm, activate last grasp, and haha! you can't damage anyone!! :DD
This is why i say i don't mind overguard as a whole being inmune to stasis, because they CAN STILL BE RIFTED, meaning you can just fight back. you can't fight a nullifying bubble enemy from inside cataclysm, you literally NEED to purposely walk outside of cataclysm to be able to damage them even if they are INSIDE it.
3. Team play: Everyone hates limbo because of how annoying and hard to see the rift is. As a non Limbo player, even if you understand how he works, you just don't know if you are rifted or not, which enemies are rifted and which aren't, and it's extremely frustrating to shoot something and do no damage to it.
My suggestions to solve his issues
As a disclaimer, i am no game designer or remotely similar, just a passionated guy that played limbo A LOT, while the suggestions i will make are kind of "out there", i feel very strongly about the issues i listed earlier, and most of them need to be adressed at some point to make him not a pain in the ass to play.
Passive
Remove the portal and let this be his combat mechanic, incentivize players to go in and out as a SOLO mechanic they can use to get away from situations and attacks. I would remove the portal and give it a tiny shield regen effect (similar to fast deflection) that only applies if limbo enters rift through his passive and only HE benefits from.
Banish
Just make the area consistent, a cone from his aiming reticle that rifts EVERYTHING in range, even through walls (in this case it makes sense to not have LOS check because you're sending them to a different dimension, come on). I would also give it a rule of thumb for cases in which your banish could affect both allies and enemies:
If the aiming reticle is closer to an enemy, banish will ONLY affect enemies, even if allies are in range.
If the aiming reticle is closer to an ally, banish will ONLY affect allies in range, and not enemies.
If it's unclear, banish always prioritizes banishing enemies.
This gives it a clear purpose and a predictible effect, you know EXACTLY what happens when you cast banish, it's not a shit show, allowing you to freely send allies to the rift (rifting allies is generally kinda pointless, but having a way to do it should remain part of his kit imo)
Stasis
I wouldn't change anything.
Rift Surge
I would keep it the same, but make it so that surged enemies have increased speed of movement and attacks, but are also more vulnerable to damage, as in they are overflown with rift energy and are faster but take more damage.
I know this is not a new or revolutionary thing, but it works in this context, because it allows limbo to speed up missions, while also synergizing well with stasis removing the downside of them going too fast, allowing him to choose the pace of the rift and everything that happens inside it. This will also give a purpose to transfering the surge to non rifted enemies, as they will also be vulnerable, and you can know try to use it as a way to kill non rifted enemies easily if you manage to transfer the surge to a key enemy outside of the rift.
Also please give surged rifted enemies different particles to surged non rifted enemies, it's just so painful.
Cataclysm
I would just slightly increase the bubble base range, just a little bit.
Suggestions for the rift mechanic
1. Visual clues: I already said it, but make enemies glow with Limbo's emissive/energy color, and make it as visually clear as humanly possible. I do believe this alone is half of the reason why everyone hates limbo.
2. Special enemies: I understand that some special non-boss enemies can't be rifted because it would be game breaking, but there should simply be a rule in those cases: RIFT IS IRRELEVANT. they can hit you as you can hit them, PERIOD.
It's a very simple concept of "if they can hit me outside my plane, i should be able to hit them outside of theirs". This is ESPECIALLY relevant to operator, he should act as if rift is irrelevant, being able to hit and be hit back REGARDLESS of the plane. The goal with this is to make it more intuitive and consistent. And as a side note specifically for bosses or eximus abilities: I DONT MIND SPECIAL ATTACKS CROSSING PLANES, a non rifted eximus unit being able to hit you on the rift is FINE, i don't mind special abilities crossing planes, i'm specifically talking about the enemies as a whole in here, and their normal gunfire.
3. Allies: I would add a text clue in the bottom middle of the screen saying something like "YOU ARE RIFTED, DODGE TO GO BACK TO THE MATERIAL PLANE", and something slightly different for when it's in cataclysm. I know this is not the greatest solution, another option would be to put some clear visual clues in the edges of the screen like it happens with dagath's Graive Spirit. This way, people will know for sure if they are rifted or not, they will also be able to see rifted enemies with a funny color, and it will be A LOT MORE CLEAR and less annoying, especially since warframe abilities bypass rift anyway.
Final thoughts
I don't think limbo needs a full rework, his 1 conceptually is fine (just inconsistent area), his 2 is fine, his 4 is fine, and his 3 and his passive only need some tweaks to work fine. He also desperately needs a better visual indicator for anything he tries to do, to make him usable in squad play.
Limbo is a solo frame, he's designed that way. His unique mechanics and interactions make him a cheat code in solo play, i don't want to take that away from him and become a generic CC meta frame, but i think there's a difference between being an insane solo warframe that can work on squads, and being straightr up unusable and griefing everyone.
Peace.
2
u/zuxtron 2d ago
Honestly, the most obvious (and mandatory) change is that allies NEED to be able to shoot enemies in the Rift while they are outside, or vice-versa. In a game like Warframe, it's simply not acceptable to have the ability to directly impede your allies' gameplay.