Nezha- Not A Trap In Any Way What So Ever

I never understood the whole thing about calling Nezha a trap. Sure, the Warframe based on the folklore deity isn’t the thickest Warframe around, he isn’t the beefiest and he’s certainly not very muscular, but even with the little ribbons on his default helmet, Nezha never looked feminine to me. The source material was always supposed to be playful and flirty with both genders, but Warframe Nezha… I just don’t get it.

Nezha’s a male Warframe. He doesn’t even have a hint of breasts, legs and chest like most female Warframes do. If anything, Warframes like Loki and Volt have got more robust hips and Frost doesn’t even seem to have a crotch. And on top of that, the award for biggest crotch armour goes to Zephyr, a female frame.

While we’re on this subject, both forms of Equinox are female. The Day side does seem more masculine but once you take off the armour on both forms, she looks more female.

The new skin for Nezha basically cements his masculinity. He looks like such a badass now.

But anyway, everyone’s favorite hula-hoop user got a brand new skin and a lovely mini-rework to go with it. Really, the mini-rework is the best part of Nezha, because it makes him less of a shitty Rhino…

Because originally, that’s what Nezha was. A mediocre, skinny version of Rhino. His Warding Halo gave him invulnerability similar but not as strong as Iron Skin and his Divine Spears were a more awkward version of Rhino’s Stomp. Blazing Chakram, a thrown ring, was hard to use at best and Fire Walker, Nezha’s first ability that left a trail of fire along the ground, was a channeling ability, meaning Nezha would have to turn it on and off if he ever wanted to get more energy.

Nowadays, Nezha’s got himself some little buffs. The first being that Fire Walker is an ability with a long duration that can be refreshed at will. This means it costs less energy in the long run and doesn’t force Nezha players into building for efficiency at the cost of duration for their other abilities.

Blazing Chakram used to heal a little tiny bit on kills, but now it increases the chance of dropping both health and energy orbs. The bouncing effect of the Chakram is still there so it bounces off enemies, but you can also charge it and throw it in a straight line, giving you more control of where you’ll teleport to if you activate the ability mid-flight. Which is how so many people manage to completely bypass the myriad of traps in Lua Spy missions.

Warding Halo now only blocks 90% of damage dealt, but really, 90% damage resistance is actually really strong, especially since Warding Halo stuns nearby enemies and deals slash damage. But so you don’t instantly die the second Warding Halo runs out, you get 3 seconds of invulnerability before the 90% damage reduction starts and 1 second of invulnerability immediately after it ends, which is just enough time to get another halo up. Plus, with his augment, Nezha can share Warding Halo with others.

Divine Spears got the nicest change. Originally, using Divine Spears would stun enemies, but when the effect ended, Nezha would be locked into a finishing animation. That animation can now be triggered optionally and enemies are slammed into the ground automatically at the end of the ability anyway. Seems like a minor change, but in that one second of forced animation, you couldn’t do anything else, which gave enemies an opportunity to completely fuck a Nezha up.

The differences between old Nezha and new Nezha (Newzha maybe?) aren’t actually that huge, but they’re all quality of life changes that make playing Nezha a lot more fluid. You’re not stuck doing fancy animations, you’re too busy leaving trails of fire and not dying the second Warding Halo ends.

Nezha’s definitely worth a spot in your Inventory. He may have traits very similar to Rhino and Gara, but Nezha’s fast and flirty, built around skidding around, burning things and moving. There’s no more juddering along, you just zoom by.

And frankly all the new cosmetics for him, the deluxe skin and a recent new helmet, have been great. So you can look as skinny or as thick as you like.