Channeling Mods Not Viable > Explained

[Starender]

Yo

 

Introduction:

I did a lot of testing with the new channeling systems, the new mods and melee in general, and there is some things that are really wrong with it but can be quickly corrected by changing some formula, let's clear some things first:

 

-When you activate channeling, you deal +50% damage based on your total damage (pressure point, elementals...);

(total damage)*150% = +50% damage from channeling.

 

-When you hit an ennemy while channeling, it will use 5 energy, i tried to be smart here and hit as many as i could in one swing, but guess what ? it does take me 5 energy each time i touched >< so be carefull before doing some crazy AOE with your bo, because energy burns really fast.

 

 

Test 1:

Now we can begin, so if i wanna use a lot this shinny new system, it makes sense that i want to mod my weapon in this direction, first thing i tried is Killing Blow > http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Killing_Blow +120% channeling damage, looks good right ? NO ! this is garbage! and this is why: 

 

The formula must be this: (total damage)*(150%+(50%*120%)) = (total damage)*(50%+60%) = (total damage)*210%

 

Yes, as you can see this mod maxed increase the damage by only 60% ! not 120% ! why ? cause it increase by 120% the original base of channel, and if you don't remember the very first line on the top of this page it is 50%.

so now we know that this mod increase our total damage by another 60%, but the question remains, is it worth it or no ?

This mod would actualy take the slot of another mod right, and it would certainly be an elemental, which will do an addition of +60% based on the modified base damage (base + pressure point...), and now guys we can finaly compare which one between Killing Blow or another elemental is better:

 

base: 100

first elemental: 90

second elemental: 90

third elemental: 60 (additional)

 

Config 1: test with additional elemental:

standard: 100+90+90+60 = 340 damage

channeling: (100+90+90+60)*150% = 510 damage

 

Config 2: test with Killing Blow:

standard: 100+90+90 = 280 damage

channeling: (100+90+90)*210% = 588 damage

 

Result: if you equip Killing Blow, you will loose ~20% standard damage and gain ~15% channeling damage

this is true crap right ? welcome to my world

 

Test 2:

-Next let's talk about the "energy efficiency" of the channeling, you wanted to use your nasty new life steal mod on your bo ? > http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Life_Strike you can, but you will never ever use channeling at any case besides heal yourself, cause:

 

240%*5 = 12 energy

 

HOOOooooOOooooo NO! now it uses 12 energy on every single f***ing hit ! means that you can't use channeling anymore to do damage it is far to hard for your energy, and hey, i have another surprise for you ! this mod use another slot right ? so say bye bye to one of your precious elemental, you can cry now.

 

 

Test 3:

-Next is Corrupted Charge > http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Corrupt_Charge ho boy this one will die fast.

remember how i explained how Killing Blow is a joke ? well this one is like the joke of the joke ! not only it is worst than an elemental, but even more, it does increase your f***ing "energy efficiency" by another 2 point, makes it 7 energy with this mod alone, god i hate this mod, delete plz ?

 

Test 4:

-Or right next is Quickening > http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Quickening increase attack speed by 20% and increase channeling cost by 2.5, this is not worth it, but some people would sell they're soul to have it, who knows maybe i miss something here... maybe for coptering ???

 

Test 5:

-Next is Reflex Coil > http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Reflex_Coil first time i saw it i asked myself "is it the holy graal ?" awnser: HELL NO ! this mod lower the hit/cost of channeling by 3, which would be great if only it doesn't take an elemental space ! why the hell would i want to hit this lancer twice more for 2/3 the cost ??? i loose time, i take more damage, and finaly i use the same exact energy to kill him. this mod is crap.

 

 

 

But hey i still love this new system, and once it will be updated who knows maybe even me will use Corrupted Charge ? ... hahaha

 

see ya

 

PS: it is late and this is not my native language so sorry about the writing.  

Edited April 18, 2014 by Starender

[BrotherIcarus]

Maybe because it is 5 am but I do not see the problem.

[taiiat]

you know, i thought something felt weird when i looked at all of the Melee Mods. i saw all the Mods revolving around Channeling, and i used Channeling a few times and thought - well, i'm not really ever going to use this, whatever. 

so now i equip Melee Mods and don't even care if Channeling Efficiency goes up or down. i use it like 1/150 attacks anyways, so i'll just take the completely free benefits and ignore Channeling.

 

 

interesting to see that without doing any math, i already could see subconsciously that modding for Channeling was pointless.

[DeathKoala]

Modding for channeling actually works pretty decently for slower, heavier weapons. And Reflex Coil + Focus Energy gives you +100% channeling efficiency and gives electric damage. That lets you do channeling for free while giving an element. And the mods which boost at the expense of efficiency are meant to give your normal attacks a boost while sacrificing the ability to use the stronger channeled ones.

 

Edit: I just checked the wiki and apparently there's a hard minimum of 1 energy per channeled attack. Still a huge improvement.

Edited April 13, 2014 by DeathKoala

[Scherhardt]

What I use channeling for................. utility iykwim.

[Mr.ominous]

Thank you fellow number cruncher! You just simultaneously saved me some work and provide great feedback. +1

[shut]

I think your problem is that you're doing all of your calculations under the assumption that the mods have a multiplicative impact.

 

Channeling is absolutely beastly when you test it out in the actual game, so although I need to test this out a bit more, I'm fairly certain that, like all other mod-stacking formulae, Channeling mods stack additively.

 

 

EDIT: Mother of god, it's neither. It's actually far worse than either case.

According to Tempera's data below, the channeling damage works as follows:

 

 

BASE CHANNEL DAMAGE = (Regular damage) * (1 + (0.5))

TOTAL CHANNEL DAMAGE = (Regular damage) * (1 + (0.5 + [channel multiplier]))

 

 

e.g. Say we have an attack that deals 163 base damage, and give it a Rank 3 Killing Blow (+80% Channel Damage, or a 1.8 multiplier).

 

TOTAL CHANNEL DAMAGE = (163) * (1 + (0.5 * [1.8]))

TOTAL CHANNEL DAMAGE = 310

 

The result is that the impact of Channeling mods is much, much smaller than it would be if it simply added to or multiplied the base (1.5) multiplier. Still definitely worth using, but you're going to have to make some hefty sacrifices if you want to squeeze out every bit of channel damage you can get.

Edited April 13, 2014 by SortaRandom

[Shanicus]

Have you ever thought that Channeling is supplimentary to the melee system instead of something you have to dedicate entire builds to? I've found Channeling incredibly useful to give a finisher move a massive boost or wrap up a Combo with an Elemental/Critical strike - adding something like Killing Blow or one of the other channeling mods if you've got the space can be extremely beneficial in practice, since Channeling benefits from all the standard melee mods anyway.

[Tempera]

Modding for channeling actually works pretty decently for slower, heavier weapons.

Yeah, it works great on weapons where you want the most out of every hit. The Gram, the Fragor, all those types of heavy weapons.

 

Alright, let's give it a bit of a test. I've got my Gram here, Rank 30; let's strip it of mods and head to E Prime.

 

Alright, it hits for 39 damage per hit with a normal attack, and 59 damage per hit with a channeled attack.

 

Let's try adding some mods. We'll go with a Rank 3 Molten Impact and a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, giving us an additional 45 Radiation damage, and an unranked Jagged Edge. Do we still get straight increases in damage?

 

Yes, okay. We're hitting for 79 with normal attacks now, and 119 with chanelled attacks. Incidentally, we're also hitting for 159 with spin attacks, and 239 with channeled attacks.

 

So, yeah; channeled attacks are a straight +50% increase in damage. I also confirmed that the energy cost is per enemy hit; striking two enemies drained me of 10 energy.

 

So, let's test how Killing Blow interacts with this; we stick a Rank 3 Killing Blow on there, for an 80% increase in damage, and our channeled attacks now hit for... 150 damage exactly. Er, alright, that seems off, let's test it a bit-

 

Alright, heading to Everest, we hit for 147 damage with a channeled strike. Seems about right, given the enemies are a level or two higher.

 

Er. Let's try Everest again without our Killing Blow.

 

Without our Killing Blow, we're hitting for... 117.

 

So our Killing Blow, which increases our channeling damage by 80%, is adding 30 damage to our hits.

 

... Let's strip off our elemental mods and see if it's just increasing our base channeling damage.

 

Back without any elemental mods and anything, we're hitting for... 38 normal, and 58 channeled. So with Killing Blow, an 80% increase in channeled damage, we should be hitting for 103 damage, or thereabouts, correct?

 

No. Instead, we're hitting for... 72.

 

Uh.

 

We'll reconfirm elemental damage;

 

With elements equipped, we hit for 77 normal damage, 116 channeled damage , and 147 damage with Killing Blow equipped.

 

Alright. Now for the real test.

 

In addition to our Rank 3 Molten Impact, Rank 3 Shocking Touch, and unranked Jagged Edge, we equip a Rank 5 Pressure Point.

 

We now hit for 163 normal damage, and 245 channeled damage.

 

Now we re-equip our Rank 3 Killing Blow, and we're hitting for... 310 damage a go.

 

So that's, lessee. These are all done against Level 8 Frontier Lancers, so the armour values and resistances should be the same.

 

With a Rank 30 Gram, completely unmodded, we're hitting for 38 with a normal hit, and 58 with a channeled hit.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 3 Killing Blow equipped, we're hitting for 38 with a normal hit, and 72 with a channeled hit.

- That's an increase of 34 damage, or an increase of 14 damage per channeled strike.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, and an unranked Jagged Edge, we're hitting for 77 damage, and 116 damage with a channeled hit.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, an unranked Jagged Edge, and a Rank 3 Killing Blow, we're hitting for 77 damage, and 147 channeled damage.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 5 Pressure Point, a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, and an unranked Jagged Edge, we're hitting for 163 normal damage, and 245 channeled damage.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 5 Pressure Point, a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, an unranked Jagged Edge, and a Rank 3 Killing Blow, we're hitting for 163 normal damage, and 310 channeled damage.

 

Reflex Coil increases channeling efficiency by 10% per rank, up to Rank 5, so at max rank, you're able to hit for 2 energy per go.

 

Conclusion: At the cost of two mod slots, and two energy per strike per enemy, you're able to increase your damage by 110%. 50% base channel damage, plus 120% bonus channel damage, for 110% total channel damage.

 

If you're in a Warframe that doesn't use their energy regularly, then speccing out a heavy melee weapon to deal charge damage is totally worth it.

 

Edit: That said, the real joke is, despite running all those missions, I still never got a Trance mod. Curse you, DE, etc.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Tempera

[Kyte]

Trance mod?

[Tempera]

Trance, stance, I keep referring to them as Trances in my head for some reason.

[MixterFox]

Conclusion: At the cost of two mod slots, and two energy per strike per enemy, you're able to increase your damage by 110%. 50% base channel damage, plus 120% bonus channel damage, for 110% total channel damage.

 

If you're in a Warframe that doesn't use their energy regularly, then speccing out a heavy melee weapon to deal charge damage is totally worth it.

They weren't saying that those 2 mods weren't worth it their math even shows it. The point was that if you wanted to use channeling and any other channel mod(s) you lose damage and efficiency to the point of it not being worth it.

[shut]

-snip-

 

Thanks a bunch for doing all the testing!

[DocHolliday13]

So here's what I'm taking away from this.

 

1. You really don't want to use Fury if you're doing channeling. It's just counter-intuitive.

2. While the channeling mods are worth it (at least for slower, heavier weapons), Killing Blow doesn't seem to be adding the amount of damage it should. Like, it's bugged or something.

3. There's no reason to ever have more than +80% channeling efficiency, unless you're wanting to use a mod that costs you some as well.

[DeathKoala]

So here's what I'm taking away from this.

 

1. You really don't want to use Fury if you're doing channeling. It's just counter-intuitive.

2. While the channeling mods are worth it (at least for slower, heavier weapons), Killing Blow doesn't seem to be adding the amount of damage it should. Like, it's bugged or something.

3. There's no reason to ever have more than +80% channeling efficiency, unless you're wanting to use a mod that costs you some as well.

Yeah, that would about cover it. In the instance of #1, Spoiled Strike would also be a good choice if you have the mod slot, since you're trading speed for even more power. And that power would be getting multiplied for the Channeled attacks.

Edit: Heck, you could use spoiled strike to slow down faster weapons if you really wanted to go for a Channeling build.

Edited April 13, 2014 by DeathKoala

[Kyte]

So here's what I'm taking away from this.

2. While the channeling mods are worth it (at least for slower, heavier weapons), Killing Blow doesn't seem to be adding the amount of damage it should. Like, it's bugged or something.

No Killing Blow is not bugged. It's always like this, people. +% of a % is multiplicative, not additive. Proc chances, crit chances, and now channeling. Stacking multiply (that's how they call it) of +100% over 10% base will give you 20%.

[Tempera]

2. While the channeling mods are worth it (at least for slower, heavier weapons), Killing Blow doesn't seem to be adding the amount of damage it should. Like, it's bugged or something.

No, it's adding the correct amount of damage. I was thinking of it wrong. Killing Blow doesn't add an amount based on the base damage; it adds an amount based on the channeled damage.

 

Take my maths above.

 

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 5 Pressure Point, a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, and an unranked Jagged Edge, we're hitting for 163 normal damage, and 245 channeled damage.

With a Rank 30 Gram, with a Rank 5 Pressure Point, a Rank 3 Molten Impact, a Rank 3 Shocking Touch, an unranked Jagged Edge, and a Rank 3 Killing Blow, we're hitting for 163 normal damage, and 310 channeled damage.

 

There was an increase of roughly 82 damage between my normal attack and my channeled attack. When I added Killing Blow, there was a second increase of roughly 65 damage- 80% of the additional damage dealt by a channeled attack.

 

Killing Blow does exactly what it says; it increases the channel damage of an attack. With a Rank 3 Killing Blow, at 80% channel damage, I was dealing 90% additional damage on a hit- the regular 50% damage increase of a channeled blow, plus 80% of that same increase.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Tempera

[Noble_Cactus]

Good thread. Now, what about the Glaive? When channeled and thrown, its last bounces cause explosions. These -seem- to scale with your base damage, unlike Thunderbolt. Has anyone done any testing with Glaives? There's also the potential for the Glaive to suck a huge portion of your energy pool if it hit s a bunch of enemies on the return trip and with the explosion, but in practice that might be unlikely.

[Tempera]

I'd... test that out, except I don't have the Glaive stance, unfortunately.

[Monolake]

I had the same impression at a glance, but didnt bother to do ze math. 

 

 

Now I have one objection to how it should be valued: there are 8 slots, so you should judge opportunity cost based on 1/8 of all the mods. 

 

Typical optimal (non crit) build will be: base dmg, base dmg, speed, physical dmg, element(+90), element(+90), element(+60), factions mod  

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/trcWndV.png 876 dmg

channel dmg 876 * 150% = 1314


with killing blow

http://i.imgur.com/B4L2LDg.png 691 dmg

channel dmg 691 * 210% = 1451


So 90% elements mod is ~26% difference total normal damage

     60% elements mod is ~16% difference total normal damage

       physical dmg mod is   25% (Gala might be bad example since its all slash dmg)

replacing 90% element with Killing blow adds about +10% to channel dmg

replacing 60% element with Killing blow adds about +20% to channel dmg

replacing  physical dmg with Killing blow adds about +12% to channel dmg

 

 

if you go Void and lose faction mod its 2% different on 60% elemental mod

ze math is hard (this is bad approximation btw, since proper elements do bonus damage to enemies)

 

Now please some one tell me Im wrong

Edited April 13, 2014 by Monolake

[Monolake]

Edit: was wrong number bonus, derp. 

TLDR you lose ~14% on normal attacks, win ~22% on channeled in best case.

 

The less mods you have equipped the lesser relative bonus from killing blow you  get.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Monolake

[Tempera]

You are correct. Sort of.

 

Channeling doesn't fit every weapon; this should be obvious from the outset, given channeling drains energy on hit. Any weapon that relies on a great number of relatively low damage hits will murder your energy reserves.

 

You can drop one or two mods for a slight increase in channel damage; whether this is worth it is up to you, given you do have to worry about energy while channeling. I feel that it's worth it for some heavier weapons; I'm happy to drop Fury and my Smite Grineer or whatever for a Killing Blow and a Reflex Coil on my Gram, for instance. It's also worth noting that some things do only work while channeling, like parrying, I think? So parrying becomes a lot more viable with a channel build.

 

But channeling does require speccing your weapon for it, and you get relatively small returns for the cost of draining your energy to do it.

 

Which is like... the way it should be, really. Channeling shouldn't be inherently superior to normal attacks; channeling deals more damage, but does come with downsides that can screw you over if you mess up.

[Starender]

TLDR you lose 14% on normal attacks, win 14% on channeled in best case

 

The less mods you have equipped the lesser relative bonus from killing blow you  get.

exactly, at this point it's better to stay with our elemental instead

 

 

so dev's, i explained how broken it is, now here is some good solution:

 

channeling damage mods:

Killing Blow is 120% channeling damage -> make it 170% and why not add an energy effiency bonus of +20-40% on top of it

 

Corrupted Charge is 100% channeling damage, -40% efficiency -> make it 130% channeling damage and remove this efficiency malus ! or 150% channeling damage and -20% energy

 

special mods with malus efficiency:

Life Steal is -140% malus -> seriously the simple fact that it takes the slot of an elemental is costy already, so a malus of -40% is already a lot.

 

Quickening is 20% speed bonus for -50% malus -> again, it is takin a lot already because it switch place for an elemental, so +40% speed bonus and -20% efficiency is ok

 

Reflex coil is +60% energy efficiency -> it is suposed to be used when we have a lot of malus efficiency, meaning that we loose A LOT of normal damage, but seriously this is so low... +140% energy efficiency is minimum here, at least if no changes will be made on the other mods above

 

some people will say that i abuse, but no, i don't, simply because by using channeling it costs energy, so you should actualy do more damage and not the other way around, if those mods are not attractive then why the hell do they exist ? let's just stick to our elemental config and use the basic channeling unchanged

[Monolake]

exactly, at this point it's better to stay with our elemental instead

 

 

so dev's, i explained how broken it is, now here is some good solution:

 

channeling damage mods:

Killing Blow is 120% channeling damage -> make it 170% and why not add an energy effiency bonus of +20-40% on top of it

 

Corrupted Charge is 100% channeling damage, -40% efficiency -> make it 130% channeling damage and remove this efficiency malus ! or 150% channeling damage and -20% energy

 

special mods with malus efficiency:

Life Steal is -140% malus -> seriously the simple fact that it takes the slot of an elemental is costy already, so a malus of -40% is already a lot.

 

Quickening is 20% speed bonus for -50% malus -> again, it is takin a lot already because it switch place for an elemental, so +40% speed bonus and -20% efficiency is ok

 

Reflex coil is +60% energy efficiency -> it is suposed to be used when we have a lot of malus efficiency, meaning that we loose A LOT of normal damage, but seriously this is so low... +140% energy efficiency is minimum here, at least if no changes will be made on the other mods above

 

some people will say that i abuse, but no, i don't, simply because by using channeling it costs energy, so you should actualy do more damage and not the other way around, if those mods are not attractive then why the hell do they exist ? let's just stick to our elemental config and use the basic channeling unchanged

oops I put in the wrong numbers, its ~22% chan bonus in best case (see previous post on the 1st page)

 

I think Killing Blow should be twice better: +240% in the current system, to be justified and to make slower weapons vaiable, now they are garbage compared to fast, especially crit weapons. But thats out of the blue, you REALLY need to make a table and do proper math, considering all the mods and weapons. But thats DE designers job.

 

Life Steal is broken too, 20% is absurdly hight, it makes you immortal untill there are enemies who can one-shot you, its Quick thinking all over again  - gamebreaking. 

Edited April 13, 2014 by Monolake

[MixterFox]

Channel builds are only "good" when spin attacking cuz you have a higher damage value to multiply and are only hitting once. strangely high attack rate weapons have the highest spin attack. 2 handed get around 1400 with a channel void build and duels and thrown get are 2300. Adding a channel build bring the charge damage up to 2.1x so you can see 7500+ with duels 4500+ with 2 handed. So you can see that 2 handed weapons don't make for better channel builds. If DE expected you to hold channel down and spam normal hits with weapons they should have made the efficiency cap 100% and add toggle so you could do so.

Edit: spelling

Edited April 14, 2014 by MixterFox