Ardhanarishvara

Because it takes way more time, effort, and money to go through everything that would need buffing to get to the same level, and then you also have to contend with reassessing ALL existing content for the reduced level of difficulty they now represent. Buff when reasonably possible, nerf when not. It's not a particularly difficult concept to understand. Nerfs may yank the cushion of comfort out from under us, but it's a small price to pay to have to spend a few minutes finding a new cushion compared to having to waste time on 'fixing' absolutely everything that would need to be fixed just to avoid like five nerfs, and taking resources away from staving off content drought and once again having the entire playerbase either talking about how there's nothing new to do or moving on to different games.

I have to say, those Primary & Secondary Arcanes are a bit hit-or-miss. If they were a combination of both passive and conditional effects, they'd be more reliable, but the way they've been written out, they seem like exclusively a bunch of effects that are all conditional. Which is less useful in some cases than others. Example: Merciless Arcanes: +100% Ammo Maximum. This is the amount of ammo the weapon can hold. Unless it's planning on restoring all of its ammo every single kill, this isn't going to amount to much since if someone's already got an ammo mutation mod, odds are pretty good they're not going to run out of ammo particularly quickly, or any time soon. Unless this is a passive effect not linked to the On Kill conditional, or is otherwise replenishing maximum ammo, this isn't doing much. Now, if it was Magazine Capacity, that would be a whole other story. Using it with something like Javlok or Ocucor, for example, would be fantastic, since one's alt fire damage goes up the more ammo is in its magazine, and the other loses its bonus once it reloads. It would also pair well with any weapon that has a recharging magazine. For that particular stat to be worth it, it has to be either a passive, come with an ammo recharge, or be changed to Magazine Capacity. Otherwise the number of weapons that would be able to benefit from it would be exclusively bows that have intrinsic ammo mutation properties, which is, like, two. Dextrous Arcanes: In the video, they have combo duration. This seems great, even if it takes melee kills to activate. However... in the actual workshop write-out they do not. Which is more current? This is confusing. Makes it difficult to discuss them properly.

It is my belief that Berserker's nerf was... a bit too much on the extreme end. While it'll still be useful in some content, in my experience against higher level content, it was primarily defined by its ability to ramp up attack speed against enemies you couldn't kill in 1-10 hits. The Wolf of Saturn Six is a good example of this. You've taken a mod that could scale up at any time, and have made it that to actually achieve its function, you have to do something that you may not be capable of getting with its limitations. Granted, enemy levels would need to be pretty high, or the enemies in question would need to be pretty tanky, but it has effectively been locked out of extremely high-end content, a good number of bosses and mini-bosses, as well as more than a few mega-mooks and special enemies. The whole point of attack speed is to actually attack quickly enough to kill enemies in a reasonable timeframe. If you have to kill the enemies to get that attack speed, then the mod's value is moot. The same criticism could be made of mods like Bladed Rounds, which also require aiming at the same time, reducing your field of vision and mobility. The obvious solution is to use it alongside a non-conditional speed mod. Primed Fury is out of the running, so you might as well use Quickening, or Gladiator Vice. But then the question becomes... if there's a cap on how quick you can attack, and there's a cap on how high enemy levels can get before you simply cannot maintain your speed boost within the timeframe allotted (since you could easily lose it just by having to travel through the map, which happens regularly), why would you not simply pair those aforementioned mods with Primed Fury and have frontloaded attack speed at all times? My suggestion for Berserker is: +20% Attack Speed; Combo 8x or Above: +20% attack speed; On Kill: +25% attack speed for 12s. As well as a Primed Berserker Fury where the first two modifiers are the same, but the On Kill bonus is +35% for 16s. This would allow there to be a baseline boost from the mod (as expected from a Fury mod) as well as a conditional boost that is not tied to actual kill speed/maintenance, and a way to unlock its full power. It would suddenly be more comparable to Quickening and Gladiator Vice in terms of access and utility, instead of being relegated to being more akin to Spring-Loaded Blade, where it exists, but there's simply better options. In the end, though... if we're locking one attack speed mod out of being used alongside another, does that not set a precedent? If we look at Fury, Gladiator Vice, Quickening, and Berserker all as contemporary mods, then, aside from the base Fury, all of them offer similar-but-different bonuses for 9 Mod Power. Berserker gave the biggest attack speed, but had ramp-up and ramp-down via conditional activation and a timer, Quickening gave the strongest non-conditional attack boost alongside an extra boost that aided attack scaling, and Gladiator Vice gave extra attack power via criticals. All of a sudden, one of them isn't playing nice with the other, where they all used to live in harmony. Primed Fury existed, and in function it largely had the highest non-conditional attack speed boost, but also cost the most. I've suggested Primed Berserker Fury to exist. I will now make more suggestions. Quickening Fury: Quickening, but can't pair with other attack speed mods. Gladiator Fury: Gladiator Vice, but can't pair with other attack speed mods. Primed Quickening Fury: +45% Attack Speed, 35% Combo Count Chance Primed Berserker Fury: +30% attack speed, Counts as two Gladiator mods (+20% crit chance scaling with combo) This essentially guts Melee's ability to ramp attack speed up to max via mods alone, thus lowering its upper attack speed on average without assistance from warframe abilities, arcanes, or other such outside forces. This provides an effective nerf, but on the other hand, having three new buffed up mods to compete for the Attack Speed space alongside Primed Fury, all each with their own relatively appealing bonuses, would help to spruce up modding variety, no?

So. There's... a couple complications, when it comes to Lavos making use of the Helminth system: Replacing any one of his abilities locks you out of using that element -- and all combos made from it -- for his Elemental Imbuement. You cannot use Elemental Imbuement on Helminth-granted abilities. My suggestion here, is to offer a path to rectify this: If the ability that is infused by Helminth onto Lavos has a function that matches the element of the slot it replaced, or is thematically-appropriate, allow it to be used in Elemental Imbuement, both ways. Would work in all the ways that make sense; if an ability applies a status, also apply imbued element status; if an ability deals damage, also deal extra damage based on imbued element; if an ability grants a damage type to a weapon, also apply a (reduced) percentage of imbued element to said weapon. Ophidian Bite: Nourish (as it adds toxin damage to weapons), Molt (the thing explodes in toxin damage), Elemental Ward (if set to Toxin; status chance also applies imbued element), Infested Mobility (infestation = toxin, can add Toxin to imbuing, but not consume imbuing since it has nothing to affect), Larva (infested; augment deals toxin damage, benefits from Imbuement) Vial Rush: Ice Wave, Elemental Ward (if set to Cold; reflected bullets can also apply imbued element status), Petrify ('frozen' in stone; similar deal to Infested Mobility), Thermal Sunder (only casts Cold) Transmutation Probe: Shock, Tesla Nervos, Elemental Ward Catalyze: Fire Walker, Thermal Sunder (only casts Heat), Fire Blast, Elemental Ward