It’s been a while since our last Devstream, and we have a lot to cover this week, including the Kuva Lich System, Vauban and Ember reworks, and more! This is a beefy one, so we’re going to dive right into the overview.

As always, you can watch the full episode on our YouTube channel, but we’ve compiled a recap for you below!

Housekeeping:

• Nightwave Series 2 ends on October 13th! We will follow-up with an intermission afterwards.

• We have THREE Gift of the Lotus alerts live on all 4 platforms for 72 hours, for the following rewards: Vauban Noggle, Orokin Catalyst Blueprint, and a Rifle Riven Mod.

• Atlas Prime Access is live. Get him, Tekko Prime and Dethcube Prime in-game now!

Empyrean

We’re not ready to give a date yet, but the Empyrean update is being rolled out in three phases:

Kuva Lich System

We have talked about this system in different permutations over a large number of Devstreams -- you might have heard them referred to as the Kingpin system once upon a time as well.

At its core, this is a system where a procedural enemy spawns for you, and takes a related power from a Warframe. Each Lich has their own unique weapon with their own innate bonuses. In their generation, they could also come with an oddity characteristic which comes with unique gameplay moments. Apparently “afraid of children” is Steve’s favourite.

Kuva Lich influence on the Origin System. Nodes where their followers are will be marked on the Star Chart -- kill these followers to reduce influence. 

If you track down the Kuva Lich and destroy them, you steal their weapon and can use it yourself. These weapons don’t offer MR, but are a step above regular weapons! Destroying them isn’t so simple, however -- their death is tied to the new finisher shown at TennoCon:

Instead of destroying them, you can also convert them to fight for you. Upon doing so, there is chance for them to come assist you when you need it most.

If a Kuva Lich is spawned and doesn’t tickle your fancy, we will be adding the ability to donate your Lich to your clan so your clanmates can take them on instead.

Here’s a clip showing some internal stats of a generated Lich, and their influence on the System:

October Mainline Update

Grendel will be headlining our next big update, slated this month for our PC Tenno! In this update, we also have the following content planned:

• Grendel’s own Syandana and new Masseter melee weapon.

• See here: https://clips.twitch.tv/ColorfulEnergeticPastaDoubleRainbow

• Exilus Slot for Primary and Secondary Weapons, meaning you will have an extra space to equip your utility Mods. Melee weapons will not get this until Melee 3.0 is live.

• Three additional purchasable Upgrade and Appearance configs, meaning you can expand it up to 6 total per Warframe.

• Vauban and Ember reworks, more details can be found below, but a full write-up can be found in our Developer Workshop here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1132197-vauban-ember-dev-workshop/

Vauban Rework

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is only a brief overview of the changes, for a full write-up please refer to our Dev Workshop here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1132197-vauban-ember-dev-workshop/

Passive: Unchanged!

First Ability - Tesla Drones (replacing Tesla Grenades): Vauban’s abilities are getting mobile! Casting his one will now spawn roller Tesla Drones that will latch onto enemies and shock them. Hold cast to spawn multiple, and they will follow you looking for the next foe to electrocute.

Second Ability - Minelayer: A complete replacement of his mines! Here are their new functions:

• Sticky Ripline: pulls enemies in wherever it sticks

• Nail Grenade: as if you gave sentience to a nail gun with a score to settle, it fires nails in all directions over a duration (instead of all at once)

• Boost Pad: lays down a walk pad, granting a boost of speed in a chosen direction (indicated by arrows)

• Damage Amp: will latch onto you or a nearby ally, giving a flat damage buff.

Here are only the first two in action, since the second two are fairly self-explanatory:

Third Ability - Orbital Strike: Throw down your beacon and summon, you guessed it, an Orbital strike. Scott says it scales with the levels of enemies around its spawn beacon.

Fourth Ability - Bastille: Vortex and Bastille had a beautiful baby together and named it… Bastille. Cast to spawn a Bastille as you previously knew it, and hold cast to collapse them into a Vortex. Allies are buffed when standing within the Bastille, and enemies have their armor stripped.

Ember Rework

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is only a brief overview of the changes, for a full write-up please refer to our Dev Workshop here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1132197-vauban-ember-dev-workshop/

New Passive - Spicy: Gains ability strength based on the number of enemies on fire within a range around her. Numbers aren’t final and are pending testing.

First Ability - Fireball: This hasn’t changed too much. We fixed a lot of animation latency, should be able to spam it more easily.

Second Ability - Immolation (Replacing Accelerant): When cast, Ember Immolates herself with protective fire armor. Her current level of self-Immolation is indicated by a unique UI indicator; the higher the heat, the more damage resistance, and the more effective Ember’s other abilities become.

Your first and fourth abilities contribute to this meter, your third lessens it. Make sure to manage it carefully, because if you fill it completely, you will overheat and unleash a wave of fire, expending all your energy.

Third Ability - Fire Blast: This no longer uses duration, and instead is an AOE ability focused on armor stripping and CC. Knock back enemies upon cast, and melt their armor off!

Fourth Ability - Inferno (replacing World on Fire): Upon casting Inferno, all enemies currently within sight are struck by a fiery comet, lighting each target ablaze. As they run around with their pants literally on fire (those liars), they can also catch other enemies alight, spreading the blaze.

Fire Procs

With Ember’s rework above, we are making changes to heat proc to be in line with other status procs in that further procs will stack damage over time. Additionally, it will literally melt armor while active, in addition to the existing damage over time and panic effects,

Vampire Kavat

A new wildlife type is being introduced to the Plains of Eidolon and will only spawn at night! This will be part of the conservation system, but you will also be able to get your own Vampiric Kavat, involving your own poor non-Vampire Kavat. I wonder what that entails…

Baby Kavat Version:

“Why am I in Reb’s Orbiter” Version:

Titania Deluxe and Tweaks

Titania Deluxe is still being worked on, and will be coming with some requested tweaks:

• Overall animation streamlining to make casting feel more fluid, and are upper body only (Razorwing excepted).

• Can spawn up to four more Razorflies if all Tributes are active, one per Tribute.

• Razorflies can now pick up Tributes

• Thorns Tribute now has damage reflected AND reduced to help our little bug feel a little less squishy.

Other Tidbits:

• A Halloween event is coming, and you can get Bat Ephemera from it for surviving long enough. https://clips.twitch.tv/ChillyLivelyJaguarDeIlluminati

• Melee 3.0 is still being worked on. Stances are getting reworks to simplify them, we have major changes to channelling being done, tweaks to combo metres, and more. We’ll have a full Dev Workshop with more info when it’s ready to share.

• Cross-save is being looked into by the team, not cross-play at the moment.

New War is still being worked on! Here’s a very rough sneak peek from our animation team: