Looking over my personal usage stats and my clan’s usage stats; and contrasting with the community usage stats, I noticed something interesting. One of the least-used archetypes, and one rife with frames with bad or polarising reputations, is the hybrid damage buffer/CC frame. Meanwhile these are really popular in my Alliance, as we have a few stalwarts spreading the good word. (I’m doing my part for Banshee propaganda.)

I can say that the usage stats reflect a sentiment I hear a lot: “just use <purported best frame>”. In this case, Nekros and Octavia dominate this particular role at 3.2% usage apiece, reflecting community belief that Octavia is the best frame in the game and renders other CCs useless. Meanwhile there is a harsh dropoff in the buffer/CC archetype after Octavia (or Nezha if you count him). The next most used is Mag at 1.5%, then Frost and Zephyr at 1.1%. After this, the rest of the archetype all have less than 1% usage.

Other support archetypes are in a similar place: the healer/buffer is dominated by Wisp, and the damage/CC archetype by Khora.

A second factor is the “death spiral”. If a frame has a bad launch or a rough patch as the meta shifts around them, they seem to never shake that bad reputation. For example, year on year, even with extensive positive coverage, Zephyr sees very little change in equip time. Yareli is Turbomurder Water Nezha now, but it’s still a common sentiment that she’s squishy and has poor damage potential. Everyone has an opinion about Sevagoth even though nobody plays him.

A third factor, and I think another kind of death spiral, is unappealing meta builds. For example, Nyx is dominated by Assimilate builds, Banshee by glass cannon builds, Caliban’s meta being a complete mess, one-button Frost and Loki builds, and so on. People don’t invest into the frame because it has been typecast and the builds ossify, and if the builds aren’t fun to play, nobody invests or experiments, and the cycle repeats.

So, that’s my take. I’d love to hear your opinions!

  • b14700
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    1 year ago

    a quick look at the usage stats makes it clear , popular frames are the easy frames and usually one or two standouts from each archetype dominate and the rest stay niche

    wisp got all the buffs , octavia goes invisible without becoming a turtle and has lots of damage , nekros is mindless looting , mesa is aim bot , saryn is piss easy nuke , volt for slowpokes that have yet to learn how to bulletjump properly , wukong was tanky and gave you a bot to make the game a cakewalk and is now replaced with revenant after the bot was kneecapped

    with all the powercreep you can carry 3 super aoe weapons and slap your favorite flavor of buffs on any frame with helminth