Hello Emma Frost forum! So @rbmaia‌ @MisterJescah‌ and myself have gone through Emma's Design Feedback thread to compile it all in one place with the hope that it will help with her upcoming QoL and foster necessary changes to make our Emma the best that she can be! @Ryolnir‌ @Doomsaw‌ @amthua‌ @MichaelMayhem‌ @KingBacon‌ hope this is helpful!

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General Notes

• Emma's level one talents could use rearranging. They should be: (Psi-Bolt or Astral Bolt), PD, LL and DF. This leaves her without a true spender at first level, but keeps everything clean after a retcon use. If PD isn't in her base line up we'll all need to get new pets every time we use a retcon. We all need LL, and no other hero needs to actually spec into [their movement ability]. DF could even be removed as a separate skill altogether, and rolled into another skill if it's felt we need Gleaming Strike at level 1. (Thanks to @Nootteryouknow‌ )

• Emma is in need of innate spirit regen options in some builds. Consider adding power spirit cost reduction to her kit via her uniques or passive abilities.

• Include some sort of credit boost to reflect her wealth/status

• Improve the relevance/usefulness of her passive abilities.

• Re-examine her group buff options.

• Really attempt to define the playstyle/ideology behind each power tree (OT is ranged, HH is control/minions, DP is melee)

• NEW POWERS or revisions of existing ones could be done to improve survivability (Emma's Psychic Surgery skills could be added to a passive/ability, Health regen could be baked in to powers like Telepathic Mastery/Sudden Dread/Telepathic Torment [like SW regen on Chaos Warp or Ravenous Binding]).

• Please change Emma's synergy. @Scade suggests - 4% DoT damage, 2% Damage mitigation.

• Consider adding charm mechanics to her kit. She's very persuasive. [ @ShikiOuji ]

• Consider removing Commanding Aura from minions and baking it into Emma/Vision's kits - it is mandatory to have in order to be competitive, much like Haste Aura was, and isn't an exciting choice.

• Consider giving Emma multiple signature abilities like Dr Doom. This way Diamond builds aren't at a disadvantage. ( @lastolympian )

• Consider giving Emma a mental-based movement power.

• Please refer to @ReyXCX suggestion for a tuning pass here and @rbmaia suggestion for a tuning pass here.

• Please consider giving her power vfx an upgrade.

• Please consider dynamic updating on all her DoTs.

• Please review her damage output/metrics.

• Consider adding a new secondary resource for Emma:

@ShikiOuji suggests:

"Psychic Surgery" - As Emma is damaged or uses support skills this bar will fill up. While filling up, it will give Health Regen and Defense (which scale according to how full the bar is). When full, it will give burst healing and Spirit, and also refresh cooldowns or Invulnerability procs.

@IronSkye suggests:

"Astral Energy" - Emma manipulates the astral plane to deal additional mental damage with every mental attack, the additional damage depending on how much astral power she has. Additionally, she could suck energy from the enemy every time she hits with a mental power to gain some spirit back and destroy some enemy spirit at the same time (pvp mechanic).

"Psychic Shield" - Emma gets a Psychic Shield bar instead of diamond armor in her normal form. Emma and her teammates get X% reduced damage and are resistant to stun until the bar is empty. The bar will decrease every time enemies hit or stun the team. The bar will be filled with each mental attack.

@rbmaia suggests:

Isn't Emma capable of rerouting pain? I remember reading a comic where she is wounded, and transfers this pain to her aggressors that fries their brains. It could be translated to this game as damage reflection, but since that's useless, what about regenerating Spirit just like Ms Marvel does when she's attacked? Or maybe a proc with bonus damage rating for some seconds.

@Fireawayx :

I'd love to see Emma get a Cable treatment - where picking a specialization unlocks a final power in each tree that hones in on the intended niche. The Telepathy spec would give you the Eventually-Iconic-When-Implemented Psychic Spear, a pet build would get access to the Cuckoos, and Diamond could finally have the Anime Emma Dive Kick we've all hoped for.

@MarvelMechanic :

Emma is in need of some kind of high impact cooldown power.

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GENERAL OT POWER TREE NOTES:

• Clean up/speed up animation responsiveness on all powers (wind down/locks on targets); Kneel Before Me (have its CC begin very shortly after its start up so enemies can't walk out of it while you're rooted in place, and make it more difficult to be interrupted)

• Make CC more effective/worthwhile/compelling to use (SD stun, FC etc.)

• Increase the radius on her powers, which are quite small compared to other heroes (JG, Magneto); Telepathic Torment (vs any of JGs DoTs), Psychic Blast (vs Magneto's Metal Tempest)

• Move KBM to the OT power tree. Move UP to the HH tree. This would help establish a more concrete design theme to each power three: OT (ranged), HH (control, minions, buffs), DP (melee)

• Add Weaken to her Telepath kit

• Add a Telepathic-themed movement power

• Please refer to @MagmaFangFlamingo 's OT Revamp Thread for consideration.

@Skipjones‌ suggested:

Give her a psychic surgery skill that is a health regen and ally revival, like skills used by Dr. Strange and Cyclops

@Skipjones suggested this:

As an alternative for telepaths, I propose a short cooldown "teleport", although with flavor text suggesting Emma was a psychic projection and never really where you thought she was.

@Fireawayx :

OT is more or less almost there by itself, and the inclusion of specializations could/should patch up what issues it does have, which I would say are mostly flavor and gameplay at this point rather than numbers. My ideal would be adding additional DoT ticks through certain mechanics like Psychic Spear, because huge DoT numbers fits a telepath very well.

@CaptainSkidMarks :

I'd like for a skill to be able to reset the duration of her dots just so you don't have to worry about reapplying them.

@Arkhes :

Instead of that, how about a cd skill that CONSUMES all her dots, making them do their full damage immediately rather than over a duration? It would not only give us some burst damage, but also allow us to reset the dots to safely snapshot again.

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BASIC ATTACKS: PSI-BOLT, ASTRAL BOLT

• Merge Psi-Bolt with Astral Bolt, keeping the Spirit on Hit component. One of her basic attack power slots could be used for a new STSS (to be given an alternative to using Drain)

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TELEPATHIC TORMENT

• Increase the radius.

• Fix the Slow affix at 40%, increase the spirit cost in order to increase TTs damage. ( @Shunixa )

• Consider the following images comparing the radius of Emma's TT to Jean's Psychic Lethargy

@EmmaxFrost :

It would be great if TT had a chance to instantly disable enemies (like Scarlet Witch's skill that gives a 10% chance to get rid of enemies).

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PSYCHIC BLAST

• Increase range and radius of the power. (Consider the radius of Magneto's Metal Tempest ability).

• Speed up casting animation

• Possible candidate for the Weaken debuff for mental builds.

• Consider the following images comparing the radius of Emma's PB to Magneto's Metal Tempest

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TELEPATHIC MASTERY

• Add Critical Hit Rating and Brutal Strike Rating to mental powers. (also, see @Scade 's suggestion below)

• Maximum spirit (especially if Gaz plans to push mental-heroes into spirit stacking given the implementation of Clea/Xavier Omega node). [Emma is extremely well trained and practiced in the use of her abilities, enough so to go head to head with psychics who possess more raw power than her and still triumph - ie Xavier, Rachel Grey etc]

• +% Power Radius, Gain X Spirit when you hit with a DoT power (with appropriate CD), consider placing Emma's mental Vulnerability application here instead of TT.

• Add various random % procs to Telepathic Mastery (similar to SW's Chaos Magic), in order to demonstrate Emma's potential for control and affecting the minds of her adversaries in battle. They could consist of a DoT, vuln application, slow application, stun application, % chance to Instantly KO minor enemies (lore - rendering them unconscious with telepathy) [thanks to @MrLehane for this one] etc. ( @MagmaFangFlamingo )

• Merge Mental Cloaking's stealth and CC cleanse effect into Telepathic Mastery, making this a passive/active talent. ( @polenzex ). The active portion could also be a mental-based movement power similar to Loki's Misdirection ( @ReyXCX 's suggestion)

• Consider adding the following effects ( @rbmaia ) : Restore 3 Spirit when you critically hit with a mental power, Mental powers don't break Stealth

• X% Mental Power spirit cost reduction.

• +Damage Rating vs Unaware Targets

• Merge Unlock Potential here, making the power a Passive/Active buff. ( @ReyXCX )

• Regenerate X Health when you hit with a mental power. ( @ReyXCX )

• As @MisterJescah suggests below, it could use a Health Regeneration component. This would represent Emma's psychic surgery skills.

@MisterJescah :

What about a health regen passive? It fits her lore - she is capable of mental stimulation to encourage healing. That could also help make her less frail in diamond and mental playstyles.

Telepathic Mastery
-You are able to see enemies on the mini map
-Damage negation of 10%
-Mental Damage rating of +188
-When you hit with a mental power gain Constitution and heal 210 health for 8s.
Let's just compare this to Scarlet Witches utility passive.

Chaos Magic Scarlet Witch
-Crit Rating 126
-Brutal Rating 126
-15% Chance to cause a minor hex
-Wither 28% attack/speed reduction
-Burning Agony 699 mental damage twice per second
-Restoration: restore 105 health and 5 spirit per second
-Ruinous Flux Aura - Mental damge of 726 twice per second with a duration of 5 s.
Active is a CC immunazation

So comparing it's beyond obvious how much we need a rehaul. And if we don't combine TM with Unlock Potential I'd at least like to see the change be something along these lines.
Telepathic Mastery
-You are able to see enemies on the mini map
-Damage negation of 10%
-Mental Damage rating of +188
-Crit hit of 126
-Brutal hit of 126
-When you hit with a mental power gain Constitution and health 210 health for 8s.
-15% chance to exploit the weakness of your foes and gain an advantage*
-Perfect Insight 28% attack/speed reduction to enemies
-Hurts Doesn't It area mental damage of 500 to enemies in (x% space of Emma) twice per second duration of 5s
-Calming Thoughts restor 105 health and 5 spirit per second.*
Gain the Accuracy Aura.
-Crowd control element
*All of these would be if Unlock was added to TM.

@Scade:

This passive is nice and all, but I don't think it quite embodies how skillful Emma Frost is as a telepath. She is consistently portrayed as being able to go brain-to-brain with other telepaths who possess far more raw power than her (Rachel Grey, Exodus, Xavier) and often best them. How might that skillfulness translate in game? Emma's telepathy here is largely characterized by DoT-stacking, so the mechanic should be something that works with that playstyle. One idea: Maybe she could get a +crit rating whose value corresponds to the number of DoTs she has layered on a given target. Something that rewards players who carefully monitor their DoTs.

@Nootteryouknow‌ :

TM should grant the same damage rating per rank of Diamond Heart. Constitution should be granted on mental damage dealt, not on mental skill used. Should also reduce cost of all mental skills by 5% at rank one, scaling with ranks.

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DRAIN PSYCHE

• Consider increasing the damage modifier; Drain's damage appears like it could use a slight adjustment upwards.

• QoL changes needed. Making it auto-lock after dash, like Iron Man's repulsor Barrage and Starlord's Empty the Clips, would be nice.

• Increase the range.

• Increase the damage ticks to 4x per second. Perhaps make it scale with attack speed. ( @Nootteryouknow 's suggestion below)

@Nootteryouknow‌:

Drain Psyche should have it's spirit cost per second doubled. This would net a sizeable damage increase. It should additionally be changed to 4 ticks per second, and receive 1% damage per 1% haste like Cyclops' Focused Beam to alleviate animation lock times, and make sure the skill scales with one of Emma's premiere stats.

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MENTAL CLOAKING

• Lacklustre. Emma lacks Dodge in her kit, so this skill either have a passive +Dodge Rating component or some sort of proc, like +x Dodge Rating for 10 seconds after you use it. By being able to read her enemy's mind, she's capable of predicting their movements, which is much more reliable than just agile reflexes. Emma has been portrayed as an extremely smart, tactician telepath, capable of turning the tides in milliseconds, so she definitely deserves more dodge.

• Change to be a passive/active talent; passively granting damage mitigation, dodge, mental defense, with an active group CC break effect and stealth. @rbmaia

• @Nootteryouknow‌ suggests: Removing the CC break from Mental Cloaking, lower cooldown, add damage rating vs unaware passively

• A movespeed buff could be added here if a non-diamond power movement ability is not implemented.

• Allow it to cloak your minion, and add health regeneration for the duration of the stealth. @StarlightPhoenix

• Consider merging this talent with Telepathic Mastery and remove Mental Cloaking. ( @polenzex )

• Could have a passive self-resurrect portion – represents Emma using Illusions to make enemies think they've defeated her/struck a killing blow, while she cloaks her presence and resurrects/gains X% of her max health (with some sort of CD).

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UNLOCK POTENTIAL

• Consider incorporating Commanding Aura's buff into UP instead of having it on minions.

• Recommended to be moved to the HH power tree, to be more in-line with the tree's flavour (support, control, minions).

• Current design (short term change): Needs Better damage scaling. A burst of Spirit (like Captain's signature) would also be good. She's unlocking her full power so more spirit is reasonable.

• New design: [Invisibility removed.] Grants more buffs to the team (all non-ultimate buffs), working like Luke Cage's signature. Passive critical/brutal rating if it's not integrated to Telepathic Mastery. Burst of Spirit for Emma and possibly for nearby allies.

• Consider adding more stats to the active buff effect ( @polenzex )

+3 on all stats, +damage rating to all type, +defense rating to all type, dodge chance/ignore damage chance etc, +exp during buff duration, brutal/critical rating and brutal/critical damage, -X% spirits cost, attack speed & move speed, power duration, power radius

@Nootteryouknow :

This skill is exceptionally lackluster at the moment. I know you wanted a handful of heroes to have the group invisibility buff, so we're not going to offer feedback on that. If it's going to have a self only damage buff, as it does now, make that buff last considerably longer. Alternatively, since the power is basically a 1 point wonder no matter what you do to it, have it give all of the non-ult keyword raid auras for 10s.

• Another option is making it work like Ragin' Cajun, giving +Critical Rating and damage bursts, as @Shisukei suggested:

Maybe make Unlock potential give a passive Aura and buff her a lot on activation. Something like Ragin Cajun

Toggle Suggestion by @Scade‌ for Improving Frenzied Confusion/Unlock Potential

What if Unlock Potential and Frenzied Confusion were both stances? Both unlocked at level 47 (and both, I agree, in the HH tree), they could represent the different roles Emma has played over the years. Unlock Potential would embody Emma as Headmistress, focusing on team support; Frenzied Confusion, Emma as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, focusing on solo play. For example, maybe...

Unlock Potential:
+dmg rating to targets not attacking you
+Endurance buff for you and the team
When UP is active, Mental Cloaking functions as a group CC-break, in addition to turning everyone invisible for 5secs [basically, combining the functionality of the old MC and the current UP]
Frenzied Confusion:
+brutal strike rating
+"charm" aura (%chance for enemies around you to begin fighting one another)
When FC is active, Sudden Dread becomes a 4sec cooldown move with x3 expanded radius

[this would let hybrid players keep the old SD, which is more useful to spam at melee range anyway, but also enable pure mental users to keep the DOT as well as keep their distance]

• @IronSkye suggests the following changes for Unlock Potential:

passive for herself: Emma gets +brutal damage rating/ +critical damage rating / +spirit
passive for group: none
active: Emma links herself with a nearby ally hero or dominion and unlocks his/her true potential.

This is an on-going buff which reduces Emma's focus about 20% until it is deactivated. The hero or dominion and Emma getting +25% damage to powers / +15% power cost reduction/ + spirit regeneration