Prime Weapons: Some Consistency Would Be Nice

[Paradoxbomb]

So, I decided to take a look at the various prime weapons damage increases to see exactly how much stronger they are compared to their standard counterparts. Needless to say I honestly don't understand the logic with Prime weapons (excuse any inaccuracies, I had to use the wiki for some of these):

 

Weapon  Normal dmg   Prime dmg    Dmg Increase

 

Boar                96               117                 +22% 

Boltor              25                55                +120%

Braton             20                25                  +25%

Burston           30                39                  +30%

Latron             55                85                  +55%

Paris               75              100                   +30%

Akbronco      105              105                     +0%

Bronco          105              140                   +34%

Lato                12                21                   +75%

Lex                  70               85                   +21%

Sicarus           30                32                     +6%

Ankyros          30                38                   +27%

Fang              30                36                    +20%

Glaive          105              105                      +0%

Orthos           50                65                    +30%

Skana            32                34                      +6%

 

I'm not so much bothered by the fact that the Boltor Prime basically outclasses every other prime (well, maybe a little) but I'm more bothered by the lack of consistency between the Prime weapons and their normal variants. For the most part about half of them seem to have a 20-35% damage increase, which is fair seeing as they also offer enhanced utility, which greatly improves their usability compared to the regular version.

 

But then the other half of the weapons are either ridiculously powerful or gain little to nothing damage-wise . Why does the Boltor Prime deal more than double the standard Boltor's damage, on top of better utility? Why do the Glaive and Akbronco deal the exact same damage as their normal counterparts, and only get a boost in utility? Such disparity in damage would be more acceptable if the ones that gain such high damage gained little to no utility (or even lost some), but to my knowledge every prime weapon is superior to the original in terms of utility so weapons like the Boltor Prime and Latron Prime are flat out easier to handle on top of their incredible damage, whereas the others lose out and only gain slightly improved utility.

 

It's as if the Devs can't make up their minds as to whether or not the Prime weapons are meant to be sidegrades or full on upgrades to the standard weapons, which is very annoying. My Sicarus Prime is just barely stronger than a starter weapon, but my Boltor Prime can trivialize the majority of the game's content without any Forma. This isn't so much a complaint to nerf stronger primes like the Boltor Prime or Latron Prime, but just to give us consistency. If Primes are meant to be ridiculously OP compared to the original, than make them all ridiculously OP. If Primes are meant to be sidegrades, than just improve their utility and maybe give them a moderate damage boost.

 

Personally, I feel DE should take the latter route, most Primes have the advantage of improved utility that already gives them an edge against their originals, and when built right and well invested in even starter weapons like the original Braton or Botor can carry you through a good deal of the game, so excessive damage seems unnecessary. Unless they have a significantly high critical chance/damage or have extremely improved utility, Primes should average around a 25%-33% damage increase.

 

 

P.S. Have a shot everytime I say utility.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Paradoxbomb

[xlraistlx]

+1 OP

[denshibushi]

I am unclear on what you mean by utility?

[Paradoxbomb]

I am unclear on what you mean by utility?

 

Fire rate, reload speed, accuracy, etc. Basically the non-damage aspects of the weapon.

[xlraistlx]

I am unclear on what you mean by utility?

An example is the Orthos and the Prime version. Aside from the augmented damage output, we received faster attack rate and wider range.

 

Edit:

Tenno'd

Edited June 11, 2014 by xlraistlx

[NightmareT12]

EDIT: Forget this post, move below...

Edited June 11, 2014 by NightmareT12

[Marthrym]

Waow. I never tried to do a chart to compare the damage difference between "regular" and Primed versions. I knew about the Glaive, but seeing it like that really shows how uneven it is^^'.

Also shows how much the Braton and Lato are utter crap subpar... The Primed versions in particular...

Edited June 11, 2014 by Marthrym

[Paradoxbomb]

Wait, wait OP... That is damage, yes. But what about Status chance? Critical Chance? Even Flight Speed for the Glaive.

 

Damage is not the only thing that can be buffed, that's the point -- one wouldn't really need a damage buff if you get a nice base critical multiplier.

 

I know, that's a point I made. Although enhanced utility is an upgrade in itself, the issue is that just about every Prime already receives an improvement in utility anyway, so you can't argue that the utility upgrades of weapons like the Sicarus Prime or Akbronco Prime justifies them getting little to no additional damage compared to Boltor Prime, which gets enhanced accuracy and reload speed on top of an additional 120% damage.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Paradoxbomb

[AscendantWyvern]

"Some consistency would be nice."

 

That one statement...could probably fit with everything in the game at the moment. 

 

Market, Prime Weapons, Prime Warframes (stats... number of polarites...SERIOUSLY MAKE UP YOUR MIND), views on time and grind walls, correlation between stats and cosmetics, mod adjustment...

 

 

Yeah....some consistency would be REALLY nice.

[Tarille]

I think some of this is to do with the fact that they only relatively recently decided that primes (Both Frames and Weapons) should be directly superior to non-primes.

 

Hence why Orthos Prime used to be exactly the same as regular Orthos - But was later buffed in pretty much every way, in a similar vein if i recall correctly Latron Prime was also buffed to be significantly better than original Latron.

 

It's also why Rhino Prime is the first Frame to have a noticeable stat increase over the original (In the form of 0.1 speed increase)

 

Also, you might want to take into consideration some other factors that some Primes have gained that make them viable in end-game usage while the unprimed versions are comparatively trash tier.

 

For example: Paris to Paris Prime may only be a 30% damage increase, but it's a 50% critical chance increase - This crit is what makes it high tier material, the guaranteed crits is a huge damage increase (Also the new Red Crits makes the over 100% chance gained from just Point Strike also further increase damage output)

 

Meanwhile Boltor to Boltor Prime is mostly just a damage increase with not much else changing that affects damage output.

 

As far as priming goes, it would be nice to have a more consistent upgrading in strength - I don't necessarily mean giving every prime weapon X% more damage, Y% more fire rate an Z% more magazine capacity - But upgrades to stats that make sense for the weapon that increase it's power at an overall accepted level (Things like fire rate for bullet hoses, crit for precision weapons etc)

[Paradoxbomb]

"Some consistency would be nice."

 

That one statement...could probably fit with everything in the game at the moment. 

 

Market, Prime Weapons, Prime Warframes (stats... number of polarites...SERIOUSLY MAKE UP YOUR MIND), views on time and grind walls, correlation between stats and cosmetics, mod adjustment...

 

 

Yeah....some consistency would be REALLY nice.

 

Pretty much this. Good as this game is, I think the thing that irks me most about it is the Devs tendency to release something and almost never look back on it, regardless of how UP or OP it is (or even release an event item that outclasses it's predecessor and act like it never existed).

 

 

I think some of this is to do with the fact that they only relatively recently decided that primes (Both Frames and Weapons) should be directly superior to non-primes.

 

Hence why Orthos Prime used to be exactly the same as regular Orthos - But was later buffed in pretty much every way, in a similar vein if i recall correctly Latron Prime was also buffed to be significantly better than original Latron.

 

It's also why Rhino Prime is the first Frame to have a noticeable stat increase over the original (In the form of 0.1 speed increase)

 

Also, you might want to take into consideration some other factors that some Primes have gained that make them viable in end-game usage while the unprimed versions are comparatively trash tier.

 

For example: Paris to Paris Prime may only be a 30% damage increase, but it's a 50% critical chance increase - This crit is what makes it high tier material, the guaranteed crits is a huge damage increase (Also the new Red Crits makes the over 100% chance gained from just Point Strike also further increase damage output)

 

Meanwhile Boltor to Boltor Prime is mostly just a damage increase with not much else changing that affects damage output.

 

As far as priming goes, it would be nice to have a more consistent upgrading in strength - I don't necessarily mean giving every prime weapon X% more damage, Y% more fire rate an Z% more magazine capacity - But upgrades to stats that make sense for the weapon that increase it's power at an overall accepted level (Things like fire rate for bullet hoses, crit for precision weapons etc)

 

I want to believe that they recently decided to make them superior, but then why is it that the Boltor Prime is a vastly superior upgrade whereas the Bronco is only slightly better than the original Akbronco and actually sacrifices damage compared to the Bronco Prime? One is clearly a step above while the other borders between sidegrade and upgrade. And these two weapons came out at the same time.

 

I'll give the utility vs. damage for the Paris Prime and Boltor Prime though, I won't doubt that the utility upgrades are all inferior to direct damage, although I stil stand by the fact that for the most part the discrepancy between most of the weapons is pretty high, and should be brought within line if all Primes are meant to be on an equal level.

 

I still feel that the base damage increase range for primes should be brought more in line, but I do agree that it's those utility improvements that should be what really sets them apart.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Paradoxbomb

[qazxedcv1]

You forgot Burston Prime.

 

+30% damage from its successor and with significantly improved utility.

[Paradoxbomb]

You forgot Burston Prime.

 

+30% damage from its successor and with significantly improved utility.

 

Whoops, missed one. Added.

[Vanadium]

Also +1. 

 

I would also like to see this extended to wraiths/vandals.

 

Since Straith, the rewards for getting these have been less and less satisfying, despite the increased difficulty (amount of grind) to get them (for those who don't know, to get the Straith you only needed to do an event survival past 20 min when the capsules would drop like un-nerfed energy orbs; "Too easy...")

 

Utility buffs are always nice, especially for guns that really needed them (Gorgon vanilla vs. G. Wraith's reload speed), but when you start comparing the improvements some guns get, you just keep asking "Why didn't this gun get as good as a buff? I spent just as much/more time for it!" This sours some of these guns for me.

[qazxedcv1]

Oh yeah, some of the numbers from the wiki are wrong (because weird rounding or some other).

 

According to the ingame codex:

 

Boar vs Boar Prime is 96 vs 117

 

Boltor vs Boltor Prime is 25 vs 55

 

Latron vs Latron Prime is 55 vs 85

 

Akbronco vs Akbronco Prime is 105 vs 105

 

Bronco vs Bronco Prime is 105 vs 140

 

Lex vs Lex Prime is 70 vs 85

 

Sicarus vs Sicarus Prime is 30 vs 32

 

Orthos vs Orthos Prime is 50 vs 65

 

 

Just a little bit of OCD.

[Paradoxbomb]

Necro(ish) bump, with some number adjustments (thank you Qaz).