They did it because they don't like builds that focus only on one power. They want to force you to run a balanced build. However DE are the ones who created this whole problem with the introduction of corrupted mods to begin with.
I never liked the corrupted mods because while the idea of corrupted mods looks good in theory (forcing you to make a tough choice and sacrifice something), in practice all it does it make your other power useless.
So while I agree with wanting to encourage players to run more balanced builds, I DO NOT agree with changing the game's core mechanics to nerf corrupted mods and forcing people into a more universal/generic single build for a frame that takes away player choice. If you don't like how corrupted mods are working, maybe you should introduce some new mods that don't have negative stats and are better and more attractive to use and let the corrupted mods become older outdated content. Done that way, frames would maintain their existing peak power levels and become more balance by bringing the other powers up a notch.
But what has been done is a nerf and lowered the power of frames, and this basically takes something away from players that they were used to, and that will always be met with a negative response.
Read it, first. If you're using abilities that cost 25, 50, and 75 energy often, you will quickly run out of energy. This is seen when playing Excalibur like he was before this change with dashing around and blinding enemies. You may be able to take out two or three groups now before running out of energy because you can no longer run Streamline/Fleeting Expertise.
1. Use one duration mod. There's plenty of room on that build for it and you'll want it anyway for RB.
2. You can hit 70k+ damage per wave with a max efficiency EB and RB, so losing a damage mod (which you don't even have to, but assuming you did) won't even really affect your TTK much until theoretical levels.
3. Any time you get close to running out of energy IN THE WORST CASE you can toggle off and pop a blue pizza. Excal has all the tools he needs to get to a safe place and neutralize all the relevant enemies so that he can take a breather for a few seconds to replenish his energy pool. If you have a battery Trinity around you don't even need to wait for the pizza and can just toggle off for a second. That's all assuming that you still hit an energy drought even with your low-to-nonexistent TTK due to the ample damage EB provides.
I honestly have not really run into the problems you mentioned just using Streamline and continuity, which was my point, corrupted mods are not needed, but can give you different build options. They dont make or break any frames I can think of.
That is so remarkably strange: that you and I would get such different mileage with Equinox in Night form as to be at apparent antipodes regarding its present state. In my experience, as things are at present Pacify has been neutered to the point of being charmingly comical in practice. Ah well. I'm sure you must be right.
No one is 100% wrong or right, im not saying your concerns aren't valid, its just this duration change is getting overblown at this point.
I want to take this moment to remind you all that there is no place on the forum for uncivil behavior. Discussions like this are crucial in the following weeks after such a huge change, but if you want your feedback to be taken seriously - if at all - then do it in a way that is constructive, mature and clean.
To add my twopenneth, there is a lot of talk about how this change effects certain abilities and certain frames, but not how it effects the overall impact of the game with all frames and all builds. Lets keep the feedback coming but again, lets keep it civil. If it goes off the deep end, the thread is going to get locked.
Guys don't forget a frame got 4 abilities and Excal got an ability called Radial blind. This one is the most useful ability of Exca..
This change is very nice, you just need to play smartly.
Fleeting Expertise being a choice is a positive thing. However, I'm not sure it's much of a choice for Frames whose toolkit doesn't have a toggle ability or two. Regardless, I find it perplexing that this change adversely affects Night form Equinox when the abuse was clearly with a Day form staple, or that Banshee's 4 gets nerfed when the synergy between its 2 and Day form's 4 was very much more at the core of the issue for which one can assume this change was partly intended to remedy.
To me at least that raises questions about the validity of the change in its current implementation.
It wasn't a no-brainer. I didn't use Fleeting+Streamline, or just Fleeting on every Warframe. A lot of Warframes use Power Duration, and energy-efficiency wise, it would be silly to have something that takes away Duration on an ability that is reliant on it, just to make the cost less.
Yes, you can make up for it with a big Power Duration mod like Primed Continuity, but all in all, you're wasting mod slots doing this, and you end up just casting the ability a bit more often when for the same power you can have your ability reliant on Duration still going. And now you have one to two more mod slots to play with.
What I believe strongly, that DE should've done; is make it so Negative Duration does not affect energy-ticking on toggle-able abilities, but keep the change for any Duration % over 100%.
All this really is, though, are the addition of Corrupted Mods coming back and biting them on the bum. They said they kind of regret ever adding them. I'd like to see Corrupted Mods getting removed in leu of something better, more balanced, and easier. A band-aid fix would be Baro'Kiteer giving Primed Streamline (max +50% Power Efficiency) so players can now use more of their other abilities without being energy-starved.
Prior to the nerf, Fleeting Expertise was always numerically the best choice, even for duration powers. It provided more efficiency than you lost in duration, meaning that overall,you could keep your duration powers up for longer. If you preferred to not use FE for your duration powers, that was a choice you could make, but in terms of number-crunching FE was always a first choice.
Personally, I think efficiency has been much, much too powerful. When everyone always has maxed efficiency, everybody spams their powers too much. Applying a consequence to maxed efficiency—a real consequence, not simply a slightly smaller advantage—makes it something that, numerically speaking, you have to pay attention to. It's no longer always the best choice to max out efficiency.
I'm not convinced it's possible to spam your powers "too much". It's all matter of opinion. Do you honestly play the game for the gun play, or are you drawn to the game for the frames and their powers? To me the game wasn't nearly as fun before max efficiency. Looking back in comparison, you hardly got to use your powers back in the early days. But now you get to use your frames to their fullest potential, and using different frames really feels different and meaningful now. Personally I think it's a good thing.
This has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Actually its related. If we have enough mod slot, we can easily compensate the negative duration with Prime continuity and constitution combo.
this is a ridiculous change.
why don't you change certain channeled abilities into durational instead of ruining everyone's day?
We have even less choice/variety now.
Toggle or not, you all need duration now.
Now most builds use streamline, fleeting expertise and primed continuity just for power efficiency.
And if you don't have primed continuity, you will probably need constitution, the 4th mod.
You also need redirection and/or vitality.
Some power strength and power range.
And they usually are transient fortitude or overextended... sometimes rage or natural talent.
So... we have even less choice/variety now.
Great. Now various mods have all kinds of undocumented weird &#! hidden stats.
I'm sure this looked good on paper to those who don't play the game. However in practice it just makes things incredibly confusing.
So... does this mean that corrupted mods now have 2 to 4 or more hidden stats, given how they affect various warframe abilities?
I don't really care too much about the change, but I see how it affects people. We've been modding a certain way for a long time, and whenever they make a change like this, we have to adapt, whether we want to or not. I'm happy that my max-duration Valkyr build got even better, however I found my Equinox, Excalibur, and Mesa builds all had to change.
The change was a long time coming, though. I mean, literally no downside to negative duration corrupted mods for a few 'frames? That's an advantage over the others. If anything, this change lets people experiment with their favorite Warframes again, and not the ones who do everything better. It's sad that it has to be forced like this, but the game goes on.
I am at work now so I can't confirm exactly but my Ember build consist of FE, Stretch and Narrow Minded/R8.
DE doesn't want you to min-max even more, they want you to actually think about your build instead of just slapping in Fleeting and Narrow Minded and spamming one power all day while gimping the other three.
Actually, this is what is happening right now because of the change.
Now people mod for the channeling ability and forget the others because why not?
This NEEDS to be changed back. We all formad our frames, upgraded mods and spent so much time to make those toggled abilities be awesome. Now they nerf it so some frames have to be repolarized and several hours/days spent to get them good for other abilities! Dangit this is insanely annoying. Too high energydrain!!
WTF - How often did you formad you frame that you can't do an alternative build?
How is it even possible to need so much build points?
And why did you specialize you frame of choice so much that every change has you to start over?
Multiple maxed rank 10 mods? Exilus slot? It's pretty easy to need so much build points, even more so when you need to use different auras. I have a frame or two with 6 of 8 main slots.polarized.