Highest DPS Zaw VS. Balanced Zaw. Which?

[Acculiterary]

 

DPS:

 

 

Strike:

Plague Kripath (For both Zaws since Viral rids Health, and stacks theoretically adding damage)

Grip:

Seekalla

--- Damage

+++ Speed

Link:

Ekwana Jai II (For both Zaws since Speed and Status fills the Damage/Speed gaps)

-- Damage

++ Speed

- Critical Chance

+ Status Chance

 

Balanced:

 

Strike:

Plague Kripath

Grip:

Shtung

+++ Damage

--- Speed

Link:

Ekwana Jai II

-- Damage

++ Speed

- Critical Chance

+ Status Chance

 

So in comparison, which one has more overall Damage? Zaw 1/2?

[taiiat]

"since Viral rids Health, and stacks theoretically adding damage"

eh? are you...... referring to Viral Status functionality from years ago?
you are aware that Viral Status no longer deals infinite Damage, right?

(and that Kripath and Keewar really only apply Viral Status like 5% of the time because of how low the Damage Value is)

 

as for the comparison you're trying to make, the Post is approaching unreadable. less autoformatting, more plain text that shows what is in play.
but you're basically just comparing between one Zaw which will need a Speed Mod to be usable, and one that can get away without one.

Edited October 30, 2018 by taiiat

[Xzorn]

Input your Zaw stats into the Blank Weapon table on Warframe builder to get an idea of what you're looking at with mods.

http://warframe-builder.com/Melee_Weapons/Builder/_Blank_Melee_Weapon

In general higher DPS is slower and works as Crit on unarmored enemies or Status Viral/Slash against armor.

Lower DPS is faster and works as Status Corrosive against armor or multi status Condition Overload stacking.

Crit Vs. Infested, Status and/or Crit Vs. Corpus, Status Vs. Grineer, Status Vs. Corrupted.

You can't really build a single Zaw to be best against all factions. I lean on Status since it's usually easy to boost damage output via abilities.

[0_The_F00l]

I am not sure what the question is, 

DPS or balance?,

are you confusing damage per hit with damage per second? 

Maybe the title should say DPS v/s Utility? 

A balanced build should net you the highest DPS (damage per second). 

A utility build will improve your survivability but have lower DPS. 

Please clarify you query, also please clean up your original post, unable to read correctly. 

My suggestion as a staple for any zaw is usually as follows:

Speed : near 1

CC: near 15% ( either 14 or 18%) 

SC: near 27 (either 32 or 25%)

Damage : whatever gets you the above 😛

14/32 balance tends to get best returns on both low as well as high level content. 

The build is a typical hybrid blood rush + CO combo. 

Edited October 30, 2018 by 0_The_F00l

[SgtHotPepper]

I use 2 Zaws:

- One based on status/range/speed with Plague Keewar polearm (10% crit/36% status) with Gas element, a riven, 100% status chance build, Condition overload and a primed range.

Great for sweeping entire rooms of mobs.

- One  based on crit/heavy damage with Dokrahm heavy blade. This build initially  have 32% crit chance and 10% status and use Corrosive damage.

With Berserk/Blood Rush/Drifting contact (but Body Count is ok too)/Primed toxic Damage and a 60/60 electric mod and a Riven with some more damage, speed and crit chance.

He hit very fast, the red crits pops in no time and the 20% status chance + Speed boost( from Berserk) and corrosive  works well even against heavy armored targets.

 

The two builds work fine with all ennemies that i encounter but the second kill ennemies faster and is funnier (Tempo Royale... 🙂 ).

 

And for the initial question :

It's better to push one of the extremes (crit or status) and when work your build to deal with a max of ennemies.

A hybrid build is far less potent and harder to mod because you have only 8 mod slots.

On my second zaw i primary build around crit and raw damage.

To face the armor problem i adapt my elemental damage and rise up the speed to proc corrosive and slash. (20% status when you hit with a speed of 2.5 proc often). The speed boost is also great for damage output.

 

Edited October 30, 2018 by SgtHotPepper

[0_The_F00l]

23 minutes ago, SgtHotPepper said:

It's better to push one of the extremes (crit or status) and when work your build to deal with a max of ennemies.

A hybrid build is far less potent and harder to mod because you have only 8 mod slots.

 

I will have to disagree, hybrids will usually be more viable near higher levels, 

Pure Crit and pure status builds are good for less than lvl 100 Content, but will usually not scale well later (especially pure Crit) 

I have built for all three options and the hybrid is my go to zaw for most missions. 

[SgtHotPepper]

il y a 38 minutes, 0_The_F00l a dit :

I will have to disagree, hybrids will usually be more viable near higher levels, 

Pure Crit and pure status builds are good for less than lvl 100 Content, but will usually not scale well later (especially pure Crit) 

I have built for all three options and the hybrid is my go to zaw for most missions. 

I will continue to experiment.😀

In fact my Dokrahm build is a sort of hybrid but the status chances are only here to strip/avoid armor and the proc is due to the raw speed not to the mods.

And the final hit of the Tempo Royale with the explosive proc is great to lock the target on ground.

 

 

[0_The_F00l]

4 minutes ago, SgtHotPepper said:

I will continue to experiment.😀

In fact my Dokrahm build is a sort of hybrid but the status chances are only here to strip/avoid armor and the proc is due to the raw speed not to the mods.

And the final hit of the Tempo Royale with the explosive proc is great to lock the target on ground.

 

 

May I also suggest the exodia hunt, when you test your dokhram zaw, cause:

stagger, knockdown = status proc,

stagger, knockdown = open for finisher, 

Condition Overload = exists

So you will be killing enemies really really fast. Even if you don't depend on the status procs. 

It's purely due to tempo Royale that you may not be noticing a difference, but other stances don't have as many opener combos. 

 

Edited October 30, 2018 by 0_The_F00l

[SgtHotPepper]

Hmmm, good idea, thx !😊

 

[Acculiterary]

 

Just now, Xzorn said:

Higher DPS is slower.

Lower DPS is faster.

 

WDYM? Also, apologies. This setup I guessed was a good combo, but I ran some trials and it turns out Plague Kripath+Seekalla+Ekwana II Jai has greater stats in overall Speed and Status. Same Build tho, I'm trying to run Viral & Corrosive/OR/Gas on my "ChainZaw" and Phage. Slash obviously wins in terms of DPS (Which I got confused with Attack Speed, since Speed boosts the amount of hits, not Damage,) as well I was supposed to put a different link in there, which I forgot near immediately.. Damn Geometry homework... And ye, I'm MR5 so what really should I know? XD And by Higher is Slower and Lower is Faster, do yo perhaps mean that the Damage over Attack Speed is unreliable, or is that just the Status? Also, where in the hell did the first guy think "Infinite Dmg?" Is it because Viral doesn't stack anymore?

Edited October 31, 2018 by Acculiterary

[FreeWilliam]

When I build melee (and I'm basically a melee main in this game) DPS is always my LAST consideration. 

You never run out of hits and it's generally more useful to stay alive and keep other people alive than it is to kill a single thing more quickly (additionally too much damage slows down combo counter buildup, so you're frontloading less damage instead of backloading more)

Attack speed is awesome for a multitude of reasons and you generally want a way to handle absurd armor values if you're going to extremely high levels (Corrosive or Slash procs generally...and no Viral isn't mandatory or even particularly useful for slash unless the viral percentage is in the 'one proc per sturdy mob' range), but other than that just build not to die, for fun, and for what works best with your chosen stance.

 

 

[Xolgys]

flat DPS never did a whole lot unless its vs lv <50 enemies. sure, u can walk around and 1 shot lv125 with corinth via headshots, but add 10 lvls and the story is told different. talking about melee something like this is impossible without taking stuff like combo counter / buffs into account. i would never pick a weapon over another just because of higher paper dps.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Xydeth

[Acculiterary]

Just now, FreeWilliam said:

When I build melee (and I'm basically a melee main in this game) DPS is always my LAST consideration. 

You never run out of hits and it's generally more useful to stay alive and keep other people alive than it is to kill a single thing more quickly (additionally too much damage slows down combo counter buildup, so you're frontloading less damage instead of backloading more)

Attack speed is awesome for a multitude of reasons and you generally want a way to handle absurd armor values if you're going to extremely high levels (Corrosive or Slash procs generally...and no Viral isn't mandatory or even particularly useful for slash unless the viral percentage is in the 'one proc per sturdy mob' range), but other than that just build not to die, for fun, and for what works best with your chosen stance.

 

 

If that is so, and since I never used damage to begin with but Status and Speed, and since Plague Strikes are the only weapon in the game that has an innate full Element AND Slash, then why would I just go for Slash rather than a combination of everything Health-Armor lethal related? PLUS!, Melee 3.0's gonna fuk with Combo Counter anyways, and other than the fact that I use my Operator Focus Node... forgot which gives but.. to give more Combo Time, as well as Blood Rush and Berserker stacks. (I might have heard wrong, correct me.) And the reason I used Chroma P is because his DR, his damage is useful, but half the time I tend to forget about it, since his 2nd has Damage Reflection and my equiption of 2 Arcane Guardians, so I'm good with mainly weapons over powers. He's however a tempo till I get Nidus, with all that Armor and EHP, how could things possibly go wrong? :3

Edited October 31, 2018 by Acculiterary

[Acculiterary]

 

Just now, Xydeth said:

flat DPS never did a whole lot unless its vs lv <50 enemies. sure, u can walk around and 1 shot lv125 with corinth via headshots, but add 10 lvls and the story is told different. talking about melee something like this is impossible without taking stuff like combo counter / buffs into account. i would never pick a weapon over another just because of higher paper dps.

And where am I supposed to find Combo Counter on a Zaw? (Besides Mods) Plus, it's a Polearm, I picked it for CC/Range.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Acculiterary

[Xolgys]

Gerade eben schrieb Acculiterary:

 

And where am I supposed to find Combo Counter on a Zaw? Plus, it's a Polearm, I picked it for CC/Range

is this a serious question ? im not really sure so excuse.

[FreeWilliam]

2 hours ago, Acculiterary said:

since Plague Strikes are the only weapon in the game that has an innate full Element AND Slash, then why would I just go for Slash rather than a combination of everything Health-Armor lethal related?

Oh yeah, totally with ya.  I didn't mean that it's innately bad and Plague Zaws are the big exception in my book, just that there's not much point in adding viral with mods because you're giving up other mods, procs, and effects...that was in response to the whole 'Viral and Slash' meta, which is more a ranged thing because if the viral is too high you're getting viral procs instead of other procs that are more useful.  The Plague Zaws have a pretty low percentage viral anyway so they work out positive for most weapon/stance combos between the life-halving and the CO fodder

Once you can comfortably take out the tougher mobs you run into then have fun! I usually throw electricity on there to add CC for the group and to let them all pile up on me so I can slaughter a bunch at once or gas if I'm running against a lot of infested.  Once you're effective, be weird 🙂

[Xzorn]

4 hours ago, Acculiterary said:

 

WDYM? Also, apologies. This setup I guessed was a good combo, but I ran some trials and it turns out Plague Kripath+Seekalla+Ekwana II Jai has greater stats in overall Speed and Status. Same Build tho, I'm trying to run Viral & Corrosive/OR/Gas on my "ChainZaw" and Phage. Slash obviously wins in terms of DPS (Which I got confused with Attack Speed, since Speed boosts the amount of hits, not Damage,) as well I was supposed to put a different link in there, which I forgot near immediately.. Damn Geometry homework... And ye, I'm MR5 so what really should I know? XD And by Higher is Slower and Lower is Faster, do yo perhaps mean that the Damage over Attack Speed is unreliable, or is that just the Status? Also, where in the hell did the first guy think "Infinite Dmg?" Is it because Viral doesn't stack anymore?

 

I mean it quite literal. If you go negative Atk speed modifiers with +Damage modifiers after modding you will get the highest DPS and if you go +Atk speed with negative damage you will get lower DPS. The choice of picking Status, Crit or a little of both is somewhat separate.

Since your making a Kirpath Zaw I would not recommend slow speed high DPS. That is more a Cyath build. The IPS distribution on Plague Zaws is poor and you will be mostly relying on fast procs with extra status effects to kill armored enemies. DPS matters with a status Cyath build because it directly impacts your Bleed DPS. A generalization between the two methods against armor is that Bleed DPS is directly attacking the enemy health pool while Corrosive status is knocking off %eHP per hit. When it comes to Corpus Status Slash, Status Gas + Electric or Crit Toxic all work well. When it comes to Infested or Unarmored Crit High DPS works well.

The point is you can't exactly make a perfect Zaw to fight everything. This is a high DPS Status Slash build made specifically to kill armored enemies.

Spoiler

Swap Primed Reach to Lasting Sting for maximum Bleed DPS.

 

[Acculiterary]

Just now, Xzorn said:

 

I mean it quite literal. If you go negative Atk speed modifiers with +Damage modifiers after modding you will get the highest DPS and if you go +Atk speed with negative damage you will get lower DPS. The choice of picking Status, Crit or a little of both is somewhat separate.

Since your making a Kirpath Zaw I would not recommend slow speed high DPS. That is more a Cyath build. The IPS distribution on Plague Zaws is poor and you will be mostly relying on fast procs with extra status effects to kill armored enemies. DPS matters with a status Cyath build because it directly impacts your Bleed DPS. A generalization between the two methods against armor is that Bleed DPS is directly attacking the enemy health pool while Corrosive status is knocking off %eHP per hit. When it comes to Corpus Status Slash, Status Gas + Electric or Crit Toxic all work well. When it comes to Infested or Unarmored Crit High DPS works well.

The point is you can't exactly make a perfect Zaw to fight everything. This is a high DPS Status Slash build made specifically to kill armored enemies.

  Hide contents

Swap Primed Reach to Lasting Sting for maximum Bleed DPS.

 

So, CC isn't important? As I said, Slash is OBVIOUSLY king, But isn't all rounding good too, or does killing your opponent as fast as possible more? Viral adds Toxin Procs to Shielded enemies, so I don't need Toxin. And Slash deals DOT, but is reduced by armor I presume, so isn't an element more reliable on a Plague Zaw since it has IPS already affiliated? Or does Status Duration on Slash top the over Elements?

[FreeWilliam]

2 hours ago, Acculiterary said:

So, CC isn't important?

If you're playing in a group or have something to protect than it most definitely is.  Not so much in solo extermination, so it does depend a little on how you play.

 

2 hours ago, Acculiterary said:

As I said, Slash is OBVIOUSLY king, But isn't all rounding good too, or does killing your opponent as fast as possible more?

Slash is mostly king because it solves the same problem as corrosive (It ignores armor) while still being available on most weapons.  It also stacks beautifully.

I'm personally firmly in the camp of 'Killing them faster doesn't do a lick of good if they're already dead because you're close to them'.  

I'll add though that I noticed that @Xzorn wasn't using Healing Return which I consider pretty crucial to in-your-face melee builds (unless you're doing a channeling+life strike thing) regardless of frame due to mobs like Nullifiers and Leeches.  Not necessary (there's lots of ways to play), but if you're not getting stronger the more you fight then yeah...maybe frontloading damage and going high DPS is pretty helpful 😉 .

WITH Healing Return and any number of build approaches...

Spoiler

 

...everything's dead the moment you lay eyes on it so it's more about group support and fun at that point...that's why I'm a big fan of backloading...more procs and faster combo counter buildup. It doesn't really help to one-shot trash mobs so I tend to build more for when I see a Nox or a Nullie and build so I can happily trade blows with them.

That's why I got off the DPS bandwagon a few months in and haven't looked back since for melee.  You need damage for weapons you run out of bullets with, you need survivability, mobility, and support when you have unlimited ammo (i.e. thwaps) 🙂

Oh, and it's Gas that adds the Toxin, not Viral by the way.  The wiki on status effects is really good!

Edited November 1, 2018 by FreeWilliam

[Acculiterary]

Just now, FreeWilliam said:

Oh, and it's Gas that adds the Toxin, not Viral by the way.  The wiki on status effects is really good!

Lol, whoops :D

Edited November 1, 2018 by Acculiterary

[FreeWilliam]

8 minutes ago, Acculiterary said:

Lol, whoops 😄

No worries, it takes a while for it all to sink in!

Oh, and FYI, I forgot a couple of those builds in the link are a bit more than any sane person needs.  The Enduring Affliction/Life Strike combo is absurdly strong for any content you can get to in this game without dedicating hours to an endless mission.  (Life Strike heals you for every tick of any slash and toxin proc you create and Enduring Affliction makes them last basically forever, turning everything into personal healbots until they die... I'm dying for an excuse to use it in game but I generally run with plague zaw that has a gas+electricity riven)

[Acculiterary]

1 hour ago, FreeWilliam said:

(Life Strike heals you for every tick of any slash and toxin proc you create and Enduring Affliction makes them last basically forever, turning everything into personal healbots until they die.

So if I were to use Enduring Affliction.. would it be best to run it on a Slash-based Melee due to consecutive/stacked Procs? As well as Status and consistent Damage, what was 0_The_F00l saying? Since Impact Procs sure as hell wouldn't kill your Armored fleshy fellers as fast, and stacks Combo Counter due to more hits, which basically gives your Stats steroids with legs, and the Impact would give Staggers non-stop, opening them to Finishers, would that basically Stack the hell out of Condition Overload and whatnot?

[Acculiterary]

Just now, Xzorn said:

Input your Zaw stats into the Blank Weapon table on Warframe builder.

Thx for that, found out some Mods that worked better than the ones I was gonna buy from the Market.

[Xzorn]

6 hours ago, Acculiterary said:

So, CC isn't important? As I said, Slash is OBVIOUSLY king, But isn't all rounding good too, or does killing your opponent as fast as possible more? Viral adds Toxin Procs to Shielded enemies, so I don't need Toxin. And Slash deals DOT, but is reduced by armor I presume, so isn't an element more reliable on a Plague Zaw since it has IPS already affiliated? Or does Status Duration on Slash top the over Elements?

 

Melee weapons stagger enemies when you hit them. It's not constant or reliant as a status proc but they have some CC built in. How important extra CC is on a melee weapon is depends on the frame you're using. I personally only go full melee with frames that are built for it.

A weapon that is primarily Slash weighted, esp without elementals will proc almost nothing but Bleed damage which ignores armor and shields. A weapon with more balanced IPS ( Impact, Puncture, Slash ) is more for stacking Condition Overload status effects so such a weapon needs to be fast since there's a time limit for "most" status effects and a threshold for how many you will get on an enemy in Avg. Attacking quickly improves that threshold.

 

3 hours ago, FreeWilliam said:

I'll add though that I noticed that @Xzorn wasn't using Healing Return which I consider pretty crucial to in-your-face melee builds (unless you're doing a channeling+life strike thing) regardless of frame due to mobs like Nullifiers and Leeches. 

 

I use alternate healing methods like Magus Elevate x2, Arcane Grace or generally stick to melee oriented frames that can deal with taking damage like Rhino, Trinity, Nekros, ex-Chroma, ect. If it's more of a generalized frame I don't usually bother to melee since for now melee is kinda an all or nothing with combo counter dependency.

It would also help to explain I'm an endurance runner and generally gear for lvl 300+ enemies though I've not found many situations where gearing for that level was counter productive to lower levels. The main issue usually being access to certain mods or equipment. Healing Return is a good mod but that mod slot is important when pushing the limits of a build and in my experience Healing is mostly a luxury to frames over 40k eHP and/or eventually just doesn't exist.

Healing Return or Similar can certainly help new players with melee but that's the stigma of Warframe builds. We effectively gear to go nowhere and you don't really need to mod well to finish typical content. Things that help at lower levels don't help later and there's some redundancy to builds without pushing them to the limit.

[FreeWilliam]

15 hours ago, Xzorn said:

 

It would also help to explain I'm an endurance runner and generally gear for lvl 300+ enemies though I've not found many situations where gearing for that level was counter productive to lower levels. The main issue usually being access to certain mods or equipment. Healing Return is a good mod but that mod slot is important when pushing the limits of a build and in my experience Healing is mostly a luxury to frames over 40k eHP and/or eventually just doesn't exist.

Actually, as mentioned above that's what I use the Life Strike/Enduring Affliction bit for.  I DON'T endurance run much (Give me lvl 300+ mobs right away rather than make me wait forever for them plz, DE!) but when I do it hasn't been a struggle and I find an Atlas with that and the full Quick Thinking/HA/Rage loop (infinite EHP as long as you can keep over 2hp, the loop breaks at 2) is only vulnerable to one shots.  The only problem with Healing Return there is that you need to be constantly attacking to heal (I also use a fast staff with clashing forest to get the mobility/range sweet spot)

Murder on the 'E' finger though.

15 hours ago, Xzorn said:

 

Healing Return or Similar can certainly help new players with melee but that's the stigma of Warframe builds. We effectively gear to go nowhere and you don't really need to mod well to finish typical content. Things that help at lower levels don't help later and there's some redundancy to builds without pushing them to the limit.

So...just to be clear, being able to build for 3+hour endurance runs isn't something I consider 'veteran' or 'endgame', it's just a slightly different type of build and by building that way you can often make all the other content just...boring.  If you've got the time and that's your thing then yay, but I consider it kind of niche content and prefer things that aren't 'exactly the same thing, but slightly harder' for large chunks of a day.  I don't think DE focuses on that content either and instead they're adding more 100-ish level content that changes the context and keeps us from making one 'meme' build for all content.

Healing Return's well optimized for everything you can hit within 3 hours in a single mission.  Again, I melee CONSTANTLY, I gripe a little when I have to get out of my stance and can't use maneuvers to flow around the battlefield, so melee's kind of my thing.  I'm always watching for particularly juicy Kuva Floods (Like Ambulas...yum), race through sorties, and have no trouble hanging if a particularly fun group wants to stick it out.

I also found Healing Return VERY useful as a lil' baby Tenno.  I can't think of a good reason to recommend against it unless you're only getting like a hit a second (and why do that?)   Melee's strong enough that you can spare the slot and I've only got a couple of builds that explicitly don't need it...but most of them can be leeched/nullifiered so it's nice to have a backup that doesn't depend on energy and can't get thrown on a cooldown.

The weakness is 'getting knocked on your butt and then pummeled into oblivion' of course, but that's when the convo gets to frame builds (Handspring, the QT/HA loop, Atlas and Valkyr's passives, stagger resistance) and which stance you use (Highly mobile stances that don't make you immune to knockdowns but let you feel the action like Clashing Forest and Final Harbinger vs. ones that provide more protection but don't have the same feel and/or speed). That's a WHOLE other convo though!

[Xzorn]

12 hours ago, FreeWilliam said:

So...just to be clear, being able to build for 3+hour endurance runs isn't something I consider 'veteran' or 'endgame', it's just a slightly different type of build and by building that way you can often make all the other content just...boring.  If you've got the time and that's your thing then yay, but I consider it kind of niche content and prefer things that aren't 'exactly the same thing, but slightly harder' for large chunks of a day.  I don't think DE focuses on that content either and instead they're adding more 100-ish level content that changes the context and keeps us from making one 'meme' build for all content.

 

It's just a min/max build. It works for all level ranges where as other methods do not. Play style is another situation. I simply maximize builds and doing so has little effect on lower level content. You made a mention of me not using Healing Return and I tried to explain why. Which content, here or why isn't really the point. That's a maximized DPS build against armored enemies and that's all.

Far as the "meme" build though. DE is the majority creator of those situations. Endless missions have the greatest amount of diversity in play options with team synergy in the game. The confined content with cheap anti-player tactics that DE makes are what limits our options down to a select few. Just look at Eidolons. Rad Lanka forever because they gave us little choice by making them immune to status effects and majority of Warframe abilities. By not giving us scaling rewards they made AoE blerb builds like WoF / Spores mainstream and by adding Nullifiers they ruined Snipers / Bows for years. Now you've got players leaning on eHP or Invis frames in Arbitrations because yet again DE blocks our options with counter-play instead of fixing their game and making it genuinely difficult.

Majority of my frames and weapons have 3-4 builds. If I stuck with DE's lvl 100-ish content; I'd prolly go down to 1 or 2 builds. Hell, I'd use that one Zaw build I posted for everything cuz it doesn't matter. Meanwhile I'd certainly use something different for lvl 300+ Infested and while it would be alright against Corpus I'd rather use Crit Toxic or Status Gas.