Mecha Set Feedback: A Detailed Examination.

[Xaxma]

(A TL;DR is offered at the bottom of the post)

Let me first off say that Fortuna's mod sets for once did something right, which was incorporate interesting gameplay mechanics through their bonuses that offered clear and decisive play-style alternatives. Unlike Cetus' set mods, which offered very little in the way of set effects and have been picked and pried apart from each other respectively for individual mod bonuses with little regard to the set effects (AKA Augur Secrets, Vigilante Armaments, Augur Pact, etc.), the ones from Fortuna not only showed us that DE is interested in pet/companion gameplay, but that they were willing to try something new for their design principles. Today, I'm only going to be talking about the Mecha mod set. 

Mini Blood Rush on combo multiplier? Tiny chances for orange crits? More shields? Who cares! The spreadsheets are there, and the NEET buildcraft monkey hard at work with their 6 Forma Primed Triple Positive + One Negative Stat Rivened ubermenche have figured any total commitment to any one weapon set is absolutely worthless and boring.

But in the case of the Mecha mod set? It becomes a little more difficult to declare exactly how good or bad it is in "theory" with HARD quotation marks.

The Set Bonus

The mod set states the following: Kubrow marks an enemy every 60/45/30/15 seconds for 3/6/9/12 seconds. Kill them to apply their Status Effects to all enemies within 7.5/15/22.5/30 meters.

If you have ever practiced with the full set, this can actually be a very devastating combo when it wants to work. If you ask me, the numbers are mostly there, and the effect of delivering all status effects onto a massive AoE is nothing to take lightly. At an instant, you can wipe an entire room with bleed/gas or CC with Radiation, so with enough status and the right elemental combo, the practical use can be very potent.

So, where's the issue?

This.

This is the issue.

What is this you might ask? It's the supposed "mark" your kubrow will place upon the enemy of its choosing. This microscopic, faded, fizzled blemish upon your screen is the only indication given to you amongst a sea of enemies, rapid paced maneuvering, and potentially blended environments. Are you beginning to see the problem? It's not only bad enough that the mark is virtually invisible in most cases, which robs you of obtaining that sweet, succulent AoE proc + bonus armor from [Mecha Pulse], but that your kubrow has a terrible habit of marking worthless enemies that makes no difference whether or not they take the extra damage from [Mecha Empowered].

In most cases, the mark will time out before you even get a chance of reaping its benefit, and this becomes ever more punishing as a gameplay alternative when you cannot afford to place the whole set, which is another detriment in of itself. At intervals of 60/45/30/15, this time constraint is brutally punishing if you go any less than the full set if you want even a shot at finding this Warframe Waldo, and it's only for a SINGLE ENEMY. I'm all for rewarding the player for using a full set, but realistically, not every mod has a place, so you're likely to end up taking one or two off, but for those who decide to go this route, why does it have to be this crippling? Why does it time out so soon? Why does the mark have to be so damn hard to find?! 

I've ranted enough on the set bonus itself without talking about the mods themselves, so let's move onto that since it seems appropriate to examine how exactly these mods work.

Mecha Pulse

Now, this is honestly a rather solid mod. High Risk/High Reward is a feature I naturally find enticing and exciting. In cramped corridors and tilesets that tend to swarm with enemies, it only takes 6 enemies surrounding your marked target to overpower the effects of a maxed [Steel Fiber], plus it's cheaper to mod for, and it's a V polarity to boot, fitting in to your Warframe polarities seamlessly without having to congest your slots with a cruddy D polarity. So, where is the issue? In reality, it could only effectively serve as a full [Steel Fiber] replacement if and only if you can consistently find and gun down your marked Waldo, which is challenge in of itself for the aforementioned reasoning. As of now, it serves as an occasional armor steroid that gives you a bit more relaxation under its effects.

Mecha Overdrive

In continuing the discussion of duality with player and pet, this is a very nice mod. Kubrows come equipped with slash damage, and so with a high status primary, to which this reverse-link is basing its stats on, this will give your pet a whopping 65% status chance to proc bleed on its attacks by itself. So, what's the problem? The added status chance doesn't get multiplied with the new 60/60 dual stat elemental mods. Mods like [Frost Jaw] only take into account the base status chance of the kubrow, which is a massive 5%. In other words, it's pretty worthless trying to put them on if your kubrow has 100% status chance dreams. If the dual stat pet mods could be coupled with the status link, it would make a potent and solid combination in exchange for sacrificing the mod slots, but for right now, it's just not enough.

Mecha Recharge

The purpose of this mod is a little confusing to say the least: Why offer one mod, Pulse, that increases armor, when this mod increases the recharge rate of the Warframe's shields? Generally, you want to build towards a single defensive stat, and most frames do not benefit from a dual investment into armor and shields. Ignoring the conflicting build theories, ignoring the ongoing discussion of the inferiority of shields vs armor, the very premise alone is nonetheless a welcome one for the fact that it gives your frame a [Fast Deflection] without having to spend any of your Warframe's  precious mod slots. I could get behind the idea of a pet supporting the player outside of direct combat (AkA as a 'stat-stick') in a variety of similar methods, giving misc effects and arguably useful stats most players couldn't be damned to mod into their frame due to slot constraints (Animal Instinct as Enemy Radar, etc.).

Mecha Empowered

Despite the juicy promise of power, this is perhaps the worst mod in the set, and it's a shame it had to be the aura. Now, I'm not against the idea of a set mod being an aura, in fact, I was excited about it. I love the idea. However, in practice, it has be able to pull its weight and carry its niche with potent effectiveness because it's competing against [Corrosive Projection] and [Energy Siphon], at least initially according to its polarity. Regardless, few would be willing to part from free armor reduction or free energy in exchange for an unreliable mark-of-death, which MUST continue to be stressed as being difficult to find. The numbers are deceptively lovely sounding on paper, but in reality, 1000 dmg or 2500 dmg on a regular Lancer with only 300 HP isn't going to make a difference, and so unless the kubrow's decision making is improved to prioritize big targets in the area first such as Bombards, Ancients, Tech, etc., it's going to remain useless.

Conclusion

Perhaps the biggest sin of all in regards to the mod set is that if another player in your squad kills the marked enemy before you or your pet can, nothing happens! This is an ongoing issue in regards to player co-op and how it only reinforces a lack of build diversification because of a terrible oversight under the pretense of a mostly well-designed mod set established to alleviate said lack of build diversity. Oh, the irony.

Please let me know if you would like for me to examine the other set mods in the latest Fortuna update.

Suggestions

I will mostly leave it to you guys to come up with more improvements to these glaring issues, but here are a couple right off the bat I think would be universally accepted as necessary and imperative changes and QoL improvements:

• Buff the Set Bonus numbers in the marked target itself to having the Kubrow mark every 40/30/20/10 seconds instead.
• Remove duration of mark entirely and have it remain on an enemy until killed or until player leaves the vicinity by some distance (30 m). 
• Let other players pass status effects on enemies in the set bonus AoE on kill.
• Improve marking AI to target big enemies first in the area.
• IMPROVE VISIBILITY OF THE MARK.

TL;DR

• Mark is too small and hard to see.
• Cooldown on marking is too high, duration of mark is too low.
• Your own squad can grief you by killing marked target before you can = No set bonus effects.
• Intelligence of marking is nonexistent.
• Mods in of themselves conflict with each other.

[AndouRaiton]

32 minutes ago, Xaxma said:

Improve marking AI to target big enemies first in the area.

Well, an alternative to this is to use Hunter Command, which causes your pet to attack enemies with a slash proc on it. But this is a band-aid fix at best.

Personally i just wish we had a button that says "attack this guy" for our pets so we can actually control them. Hopefully pets 2.0 has this, whenever it's suppose to arrive.

Also;

34 minutes ago, Xaxma said:

Mecha Recharge

Pretty sure that's the pets shield that recharges faster, not your frames.

[Xaxma]

1 hour ago, AndouRaiton said:

 

Pretty sure that's the pets shield that recharges faster, not your frames.

I extensively tested this mod myself. It affects the frame.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Mecha_Recharge

 

Edited December 23, 2018 by Xaxma

[DatDarkOne]

17 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

Well, an alternative to this is to use Hunter Command, which causes your pet to attack enemies with a slash proc on it. But this is a band-aid fix at best.

How can this be a band-aid fix when Hunter Command came out first.  A "band-aid" comes after something to fix it and not before.  I swear people are just using taglines without thinking about what they truly mean. 

[AndouRaiton]

54 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

A "band-aid" comes after something to fix it and not before.

You seem to misunderstand yourself. I'm saying Hunter's command is a band-aid fix to pet AI targeting in general, not just to this mod set.

Further, the reason i say this is a "Band-aid" fix is that it CAN be used to solve the problem BUT not entirely as it relies on placing slash procs on enemies you want to be targeted meaning you not only need a slash based weapon but also have to land the proc on that enemy only, when an alternative that would actually resolve it fully is to give us a button to command our pet into targeting an enemy we are aiming at; this fully resolves the issue as anyone can use it regardless of gear or procs at anytime as long as they have a pet active.

[DatDarkOne]

Ok, you admit that the overused phrase was badly used in this case?  Especially as you could have given the more detailed answer the first time instead of using a now overused forum trope as a response.  

That was my point.  

Having said that, I do like your idea of having a button command to target enemy we're aiming at.  

 

[Xaxma]

On 2018-12-23 at 4:46 PM, DatDarkOne said:

Ok, you admit that the overused phrase was badly used in this case?  Especially as you could have given the more detailed answer the first time instead of using a now overused forum trope as a response.  

That was my point.  

Having said that, I do like your idea of having a button command to target enemy we're aiming at.  

 

I have tested that the additional status chance gives your Kubrow the chance to proc slash, which therefore gives it the effect bonus from the Hunter set if you have both mods equipped. In the event you equip [Hunter Command], your Kubrow will essentially "double aggro" whatever it attacks and make sure it attacks. The slash proc also receives the damage bonus.

[(PSN)Soul_o-O_Eater]

I agree with the statements on Mecha enemy marking. It should be bigger or not translucent/ different color or enemy should be highlighted yellow like it's covored in kubrow stank. I would like to see the marking only on enemies within ~30m range. In the simulacrum, this works beautifully because it is a small space. I need to test solo but on last night's public sortie I saw a marked target once. 

I will add that while in the simulacrum i witnessed 2-3 simultaneously marked targets with the full set and i did not see a marking expire. The simulacrum is buggy however and I'm not sure if it was working as intended. I am sure that my build was devastating. 1 tigris shot and 20 lv 160 heavy gunners dead. I can see why they didnt make this bonus or Tek mod set bonus available to the whole squad. However, I would like to see marked targets marked on the mini map at least and have them closer. Also if our kubrow could keep up with us that would be great.

Edited January 17, 2019 by (PS4)Soul_o-O_Eater
specifics

[Devil_Zeldris]

No all statuses appling on targets within 30m 
For correct work need minimum one tickable status (Example: Heat, Toxin or Slash). 
If the target died on Viral Status - in 30m Vidal does not apply in the targets in 30m 
 

[(XBOX)Calliber]

I generally agree with OP's assessment on the set; and to restate, this set is can be incredibly strong when used at full strength, which is why it should have some drawback.  Pulse is a solid mod and really no changes needed.  Overdrive to me is a bit meh but makes sense in this set and you can't have everything be top tier.  Recharge could use a little boost in that I'd add in some additional shield capacity, it's for the Kubrow so it's basically there for set bonus.  Empowered though....is down right horrible; without being able to direct which enemy gets marked this AURA mod is basically worthless, and I'd argue counter-intuitive to what you want from the set.  Granted, these mods were made prior to the armor and enemy rebalancing so the sandbox was a little different, but I feel like the best way to make use of the full set and make it worth an aura slot would be to actually increase the damage resistance or overall HP of the marked target (instead of increasing damage against it) so you would be able to apply more status effects before killing them.  

EDIT: This set could be quite effective when solo'ing SP missions due to the enemy spawn count and increased enemy EHP. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by (XBOX)Calliber

[PhiThagRaid]

12 hours ago, (XBOX)Calliber said:

Granted, these mods were made prior to the armor and enemy rebalancing so the sandbox was a little different, but I feel like the best way to make use of the full set and make it worth an aura slot would be to actually increase the damage resistance or overall HP of the marked target (instead of increasing damage against it) so you would be able to apply more status effects before killing them.  

I think that idea wont really work, sure in low level missions you would want to be able to make use of the system, but at those levels it's faster to just kill all the enemies individually. I find this set is well suited to SP. Most if not all enemies have enough health for you to stack a few statuses on them. The set seems to be made to encourage using high status builds. One thing you can try is Condition Overload instead of damage mods, making you more likely to kill enemies only after they have statuses on them.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Why does the mark have to be so damn hard to find?! 

Currently the mark (similar to Magus Lockdown) uses the enemy's energy colour, I believe just making it use the Kubrow's energy colour would help a lot.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Mecha Pulse

I find this to be a great mod, the higher level the enemies the more enemies there are and the higher the effect of the buff. So, I think this one has nice scaling and for 9v it is quite nice +60% is higher than any other 9 drain mod, which makes sense given that it is active rather than passive armour. 1 enemy makes it better than passive 9 drain armour mods, but 2 or more makes it compare to some of the strongest armour mods. In close quarters such as Hydron it is easily possible to hit 10+ enemies providing more than 600% extra armour. With the max passive armour you can get when modding solo is 45+45+192.5+25.5=308%. So one active mod can compare to 4 passive mods with good enemy grouping.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Mecha Overdrive

This one is a weird one, but encourages the use of a status based primary, the status duration buff could be clarified, though. I think this is quite powerful, I run Zenith as my primary, so this mod gets the nice status chance of the primary fire. I think it not stacking with other kubrow status chance mods makes sense, since otherwise you can have some insane status chance percentages. 240% if you have all 4 dual stats on top of a linked effect. People mention the Kohm which can get the kubrow over 200% status chance, stacking 240% on top of that would be nearly 500% status chance which is a bit insane. Regardless, the status chance from something like the Zenith is enough to cause kubrows to proc quite often.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Mecha Recharge

I agree that this mod does not fit with Pulse. Running Gauss, I find this quite useful, though. It is probably not the case, so if they made Pulse into armour that also affected shields, then this would add to the synergy. I would actually prefer this to have more of a synergy with the set as well. I would think another link effect would be the best, There is already a crit-chance link in the Hunter set, so perhaps a Crit-damage link(would also be nice if it could link to something other than primary weapons, then).

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Mecha Empowered

Somewhat said my part at the start, but I think this is a good addition to the set. I think a flat 2.5x multiplier on damage is quite powerful. I get 1-shotting not effecting this, but that is only in low level combat.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Perhaps the biggest sin of all in regards to the mod set is that if another player in your squad kills the marked enemy before you or your pet can, nothing happens! This is an ongoing issue in regards to player co-op and how it only reinforces a lack of build diversification because of a terrible oversight under the pretense of a mostly well-designed mod set established to alleviate said lack of build diversity. Oh, the irony.

The set should definitely be made to activate regardless of who killed the enemy. (Not tested much in groups, so not sure if that is currently not the case.) Pulse might be the exception, either applying to the person who performed the kill or to the owner of the kubrow that marked the target. The status spread should always trigger no matter how the enemy died, though.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Buff the Set Bonus numbers in the marked target itself to having the Kubrow mark every 40/30/20/10 seconds instead.

Personally don't think this is needed, I find my kubrow marks enemies fast enough. If team mates also run the set, the amount of marked enemies also increases as well as the damage you do to those enemies. (Rarely seem to run into other players using this set, though)

 

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Remove duration of mark entirely and have it remain on an enemy until killed or until player leaves the vicinity by some distance (30 m). 

Perhaps, the mark system is still a bit buggy, having marks stay over dead enemies and such. 30m would be too low range IMO. I am not too bothered by the stay time of the mark, though. 15s to spawn a mark and 12s to despawn a mark makes sense to me.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Let other players pass status effects on enemies in the set bonus AoE on kill.

Yep, if not the case, should be the case.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

Improve marking AI to target big enemies first in the area.

Meh, I don't really care about marking bigger enemies, would rather it mark enemies that have the most other enemies around it.

On 2018-12-23 at 4:25 AM, Xaxma said:

IMPROVE VISIBILITY OF THE MARK.

As mentioned above, just fix energy colours. I also suggested the enemy be marked a different way on the minimap.(Perhaps this would be a good replacement for Recharge, similar to Saryn's augment it could highlight the marked enemy on the minimap.)