How I’d Rework Yareli

I’m going to honest here, Yareli isn’t that great a Warframe. She’s too small and cute to be chopping Grineer in half. But Yareli’s biggest problem is that, well, she doesn’t do that much. There’s no niche for Yareli to claw out for herself, and most other frames are more useful.

But not all is lost. Digital Extremes are known to buff weaker Warframes. However, WHEN a Warframe gets reworked is often somewhat random. And if it’s not random, it’s close to a release date for a Warframe’s Prime variant.

In the mean time though, I’d like to have a go at reworking Yareli.

Let’s start with Merulina

Merulina is Yareli’s organic K-Drive. It technically is an exalted weapon. However, unlike most exalted weapons, Yareli’s Merulina isn’t mod-able at all. This means that, in open spaces, pretty much any K-Drive is going to be better. Merulina’s lack of mods means you can’t even add a speed mod to it, it’s completely inaccessible.

Okay, sure, Yareli is harder to knock off her Merulina. But what’s the point if Merulina is worse than actual K-Drives. Lucky, making Merulina mod-able would help a lot.

But at the same time, I feel like Yareli and her Merulina should be able to do more. Merulina does act as damage mitigation, but you’re restricted to secondaries only. Yareli is supposed to be the master of K-Drives, she should be able to do so much more on Merulina. Being able to melee or use a primary weapon would be fucking cool. Fuck it, allow Yareli to use her K-Drive at the same time as an Archwing gun!

Merulina should be a passive.

The biggest issue though, in my opinion, is that most maps and tilesets are too small and cramped to have a K-Drive in. Heck, Necramechs barely fit too. But Necramechs have movement closer to a Warframe than K-Drives do. Maps are not designed for something that moves fast on a horizontal surface. If Yareli had extra movement on her board, something akin to a bullet jump or an air glide, Merulina would be way more useful in cramped spaces.

You’re also giving away a whole ability to be able to have this K-Drive. Sure, Titania kinda does the same thing, but she also gains tenacity and two incredibly strong guns at the same time. Yareli on the other hand doesn’t get much aside from some faster casting times, and will have to jump off her Merulina constantly to get around. If Merulina was a passive (maybe like Khora’s Venari) and followed you around, you could free up some space for a whole extra ability.

Her crowd control is weird.

Yareli is good at one thing and that is K-Driving and moving around swiftly. However, two of her abilities kinda require her to stand still and cast them. Sure, Aquablades and Riptide are cast faster while on Merulina, but you’re not always going to be ON the fishy K-Drive. If all of Yareli’s kit included hand-only actions, then she’d flow a bit better.

But Yareli should be bringing her crowd control with her. Sea Snares are good in theory but they hold enemies in place. Instead, I feel like Sea Snares should pull enemies towards Yareli, and be dragged behind her. As it stands, Nova is the only frame who can really force enemies to come to us more quickly. But Yareli could have a niche in also dragging enemies to their doom, bringing the fight to her. Having enemies be dragged behind you on Merulina would also mean that she can get more damage from Aquablades and Riptide.

To be fair, Sea Snares does kinda already drag enemies towards Riptide. But Riptide is a very short ability that doesn’t last very long.

At least there is some true damage in her kit.

The ability I like most from Yareli is Aquablades. I mean, my most-used augment is Shocking Speed for Volt, and that’s a circle of electricity. Aquablades deals slash damage. Slash damage is very good, as it’s strong on most enemy units. However, Aquablades only damage enemies they physically hit, and its range can’t be modified. A very simple buff would be to make Aquablade hit enemies within the watery ring, as well as enemies who physically touch the blades.

As for everything else, just up the numbers a bit?

I don’t think Yareli’s kit is bad, I just think it’s impractical and a bit weak. You have to put in a lot of effort to make things work. Currently, the only strong part of her kit is her passive. And the fact that literally any other K-Drive is better than Merulina is simply depressing.

However, I doubt we’ll get any major changes for Yareli any time soon…