Dying in Style
Over the weekend I was able to spend some quality time with Warframe. Warframe is great to spend time with. Time flies by, she is very unselfish and giving, and she is just a lot of fun to hang out with. Several times during gameplay, pretty much with every session, I have moments where I have to pause for a second to admire something beautiful, or something cool, or just a “wow” moment that makes me smile. Skewering soul less enemies is sometimes a part of that.
Depending on your weapon and it’s stats some of the hits are ridiculously powerful. A bit crazy, even. That poor Corpus (bastard) above was running away from me up those same steps I am admiring the view from. I took my time, did a full bow draw (for maximum power) and the arrow sent him flying off the steps, to the wall of the cavernous ravine, and stuck him right in there. Shiskebob! Bob.. that’s probably his name too. How fitting. (Anyone wondering about my mental health these days?)
Take this guy. Slumped in a chair. He is (was) probably an accountant, just minding his own business, filling in an excel sheet and then I walk by, notice a simple error in one of his Excel sheet formula and BAM. Dead accountant. Poor Trevor, he should have known nested IF statements is a messy way to build a query. I may have put him out of his misery though, come to think of it, as that chair doesn’t even recline.
It’s not just bows that has this kind of impact on chickens accountants bad guys. There is a rifle that launches bolts, called the uh, Boltor, which also has a huge impact. Leslie here didn’t get the Labour Day memo. Punishable by skewering and hanging on a wall like a Group of Seven Saskatchewan Winter Plains painting. For extra Canada reference, this isn’t at the ROM.
Come to think of it, (this is a seque)Â Warfront is pretty simple with their naming conventions. Frost is the Warframe that uses Cold. Ember is hot. Volt is electricity based. They do sometimes stray from pretty standard naming conventions but for the most part what you hear/read is what you get. This is true of my next Show and Tell Warframe, Rhino.
Show And Tell: Rhino
I will give you 10 seconds to guess what kind of a Warframe Rhino is. Go ahead, give it a good old college try. Yes, that’s right! Tanky and strong. Here is a cookie.
And here is his video.
Right now I am playing Warframe in two ways. The first, is doing daily missions and relic grinding to level up my new Warframes and weapons. The second is taking on more challenging content trying to finish out my Star Chart (Still 30% more to go there). The first activities I can pretty much get by with any frame, and any sets of weapons. The higher level content is proving challenging and Rhino is my “go to” top level frame. The main reason is his skill “Iron Skin” which makes you basically invulnerable (until you take X amount of damage). It is low cost and I can keep it up pretty much indefinitely. His third power, “Roar”, increases damage to everyone in range for a solid 30 seconds (base) which means groups like hanging out with you – and you can pop Iron Skin, then Roar, and kill everything around you before you take any real kind of damage.
His fourth power, “Rhino Stomp” is just incredibly cool. You stomp (duh) and everything in range pops into the air, but in a stasis mode, so it looks like they are all going in slow motion (still moving). It’s such a cool effect and you can run around melee’ing them all or shooting them all as the slowly float up and back down. It is a sight to behold and never gets old.
I keep forgetting to take pictures of it, and the video (around the 1 minute mark) doesn’t do it justice. I’ll try to remember to get some in my next play session.
Quick Mesa Revisit
Last post I discussed Mesa, and how her damage first playstyle would be great in certain situations – most likely groups – but that as a mostly solo player I didn’t get to see her at her full potential. Well, I did in a defence mission as I finished leveling her up to 30. It was GLORIOUS. My stats were ridiculous – I had double the kills as the next person in my group AND a 98% accuracy rate. In defence missions, especially higher levels, there is a really high volume of enemies all heading towards an item you are trying to protect. This made it perfect for me to toggle my fourth ability (Peacemaker – which aims for you and does sick damage) and mow them down like a remake of the Lawnmower man(woman). Quickly run around, pick up more energy, rinse, and repeat.
Of course my accuracy is never that high, but combining a high damage auto aim ability with a lot of bodies (dropping lots of energy) and a slow, 10 energy per second drain meant I could literally spam impressive damage for 20 to 30 seconds at a time. Often there was just no one in range to kill.
I am still amazed I haven’t even caught up the main expansion yet. I sincerely hope the destination is as fun as the journey.