Why are baruuk's damage mitigation skills fighting against each other?

[robbybe01234]

I'm not sure the hate against him is warranted.  If the baseline for judging him is that he tank as well as or exactly the same as rhino while also dealing the damage of nova while deleting lvl160 enemies in 1 shot then oh yeah he falls short.  It isnt exactly that, of course, but you know what I mean.  Then oh man get this someone in these forums wrote "I actually have to use his abilities to survive" as a knock against him. Haha

Look, I can think of improvements I'd like to see with him as I could with every single other frame but when I can take him to eso, sortie, orb valis and be able to handle it pretty well while having a good time with him, I'll take that as a win. 

Btw I've got him at approx stats

120 / 130 / 145 / 180.  He just handles content that I find relevant.

[devildevil21]

2 hours ago, robbybe01234 said:

I'm not sure the hate against him is warranted.  If the baseline for judging him is that he tank as well as or exactly the same as rhino while also dealing the damage of nova while deleting lvl160 enemies in 1 shot then oh yeah he falls short.  It isnt exactly that, of course, but you know what I mean.  Then oh man get this someone in these forums wrote "I actually have to use his abilities to survive" as a knock against him. Haha

Look, I can think of improvements I'd like to see with him as I could with every single other frame but when I can take him to eso, sortie, orb valis and be able to handle it pretty well while having a good time with him, I'll take that as a win. 

Btw I've got him at approx stats

120 / 130 / 145 / 180.  He just handles content that I find relevant.

Agreed.

He currently is in a good place, or almost in a good place. His abilities really synergize well, and he works in endgame content (Heck, I just brought him to a 1h arbitration run and oh does he perform good! Immunity to attacks allows me to aim to those pesky flying shield drones and take them out without being attacked, making baruuk one of the safest warframe I've ever used, perhaps even more than limbo!).

 

Only thing I could suggest for baruuk is perhaps a small damage bump to his fourth. In no way does it deal low damage, but it could be brought up to pair with excalibur's exalted weapon, or dex pixia (titania's exalted weapon).

[robbybe01234]

1 hour ago, devildevil21 said:

 

Only thing I could suggest for baruuk is perhaps a small damage bump to his fourth. In no way does it deal low damage, but it could be brought up to pair with excalibur's exalted weapon, or dex pixia (titania's exalted weapon).

About the buffing of the 4.  You know, this may only apply to me because I use a controller with default settings for this game.  I find it far easier for me to deal with enemies than with exalted blade.  Blade requires precision as the waves have very narrow surface area.  So because I have to take my thumb off the right stick to mash the O button, I can't fine tune the aim.  With baruuk, I just point it in a direction and all those dudes are affected.  Plus the waves don't require los.  Not that I can see anyway as numbers just pop up behind walls.  Very user friendly for us controller scrubs. haha  Should something like that be used as compensation for reduced damage?  I can't say, but it is a thing that he gives me that blade can't.

[devildevil21]

15 minutes ago, robbybe01234 said:

About the buffing of the 4.  You know, this may only apply to me because I use a controller with default settings for this game.  I find it far easier for me to deal with enemies than with exalted blade.  Blade requires precision as the waves have very narrow surface area.  So because I have to take my thumb off the right stick to mash the O button, I can't fine tune the aim.  With baruuk, I just point it in a direction and all those dudes are affected.  Plus the waves don't require los.  Not that I can see anyway as numbers just pop up behind walls.  Very user friendly for us controller scrubs. haha  Should something like that be used as compensation for reduced damage?  I can't say, but it is a thing that he gives me that blade can't.

True. His 4th feels like an AoE beast, but the thing is, when the enemies reach lvl 80 (grineer atleast) he starts falling off slightly. Just a small bump, doesn't have to be anything crazy. But still, his 4th has quite the damage already. Just a bit more and it'd be perfect.

[birdobash]

On 2018-12-29 at 4:07 PM, --Q--Sleeping said:

I don't think you are applying this right. Elude is invulnerable to even melee attacks, only area of effect damage affects him. Aside, Desolated Hands is mainly a disarming skill, it's main purpose is to remove any ranged threat so you can be offensive and enemies are no longer an issue as Elude turns off, its damage reduction is just a bonus attached to it, not to mention you can simply recast Desolate Hands.

Elude is not being detrimental, in fact it's boosting DH's main purpose. The idea you are suggesting is basically overlapping invulnerability and damage reduction, which if you ask me, is completely stupid.

Not true, desolate hands disarm feature is in comparison very weak to the go to disarm ability radial disarm, and doesn't fit the meta of warframe as disarming 1 enemy at a time when enemies come in swarms of 10-20 is NOT useful, especially when those swarms die so quickly. Adding AGAIN is the fact that desolate hands is Baruuks WORST way to erode restraint, it is both slow and energy inefficient compared to lull and erode, although erode being very very situational.

In fact, the DR from desolate hands is the thing you want, baruuk doesn't have any other form of DR other than eroding out all restraint for 50% DR. Since elude doesn't work if you attack, which you'll be doing 90% of the time, desolate hand daggers will be your main source of tankiness. Having it split off from you to go disarm a few enemies who are going to instantly die anyway is detrimental, especially with it being the highest energy costing ability for baruuk.

Including the fact that elude and desolate hands are counter productive to each other in many ways, but one way I havent seen mentioned is that elude is the fastest way to erode restraint, but only because most enemies are bullet hoses. Desolate hands disarming enemies of their guns/bullet hoses severely nerfs the restraint eroded from elude, since each melee strike takes around 1.5-2.0 seconds, when normally you could get a single enemy to shoot at you 3-4 times in a second, or much more if they use a beam weapon or the heavy gunners gorgon.

Edited January 5, 2019 by birdobash

[SenorClipClop]

Baruuk's abilities don't contradict each other. What they do is overlap, which is good since no one of his defensive skills are all-encompassing. Elude makes Baruuk (moslty) invulnerable for a toggled Energy cost, but only when not attacking. If you want to do anything offensive, or if you need to conserve Energy, you need to break Elude, which is where the DRs from your built-up Restraint and the DR from your Desolate Hands come in. Yes, if you build low range to maximize DH, you're going to gimp Elude (and also Lull), so building to either Range extreme depends on whether you want to be a DR-heavy bruiser or an incredibly safe team support. I run either one depending on the situation, but a middle ground also works fine and dandy. The overlap in damage mitigation also means that you don't have to crank up your Range for a 360^o Elude in order for you to survive. You just need to be aware of where enemies are and face yourself accordingly while your multiple DRs have your back vs sneaky enemies and AoE damage.

6 hours ago, devildevil21 said:

Only thing I could suggest for baruuk is perhaps a small damage bump to his fourth. In no way does it deal low damage, but it could be brought up to pair with excalibur's exalted weapon

IMO, Serene Storm is a lot stronger than Exhalted Blade already.

They have the same base damage, Crit multiplier and Status Chance. I believe EB is slightly faster and the energy waves have a bit more range, but SS/DW's waves are wider and can CC enemies both toward and away from Baruuk. The biggest differences are that Desert Wind has far better Finisher damage values than Exhalted Blade, and Exhalted Blade has a 15% Crit chance while Desert Wind's Crit chance is 50%. Its Crit potential is more than triple EB's. You can use the Sacrificial mods to bump up Desert Wind to 100% Crit with a x5 multiplier without even maximizing the mods. Desert Wind also has better sustain: EB requires Energy while limiting the ways Excal can regain Energy while it's active, but DW is fueled by Baruuk's other abilities while not limiting its own refueling by being active. In terms of raw damage output, I would wager that Desert Wind already outperforms Exhalted Blade. Currently EB's saving grace is that it can use Chromatic Blade and some Status to get around piles of Armor, which DW can't do due to its low Status Chance. However, weapons don't need to blitz through every obstacle without issue (weaknesses are allowed), and also there are work-arounds. Shattering Impact works better than Corrosive Status on high-level but low-tier enemies (Lancers etc.), and Heavy units can just be put to sleep with Lull and hit with a Finisher.

If anything, I might ask for a refining of Desert Wind's ease of use, mainly in lining up hitboxes for Finishers on knocked-down targets. Its damage, in my opinion, is just fine.

Edited January 5, 2019 by SenorClipClop

[birdobash]

My build on Baruuk has these approximate stats on it, going left to right is duration, efficiency, range, strength

150%/85%/175%/225%

I also put on both vitality AND redirection on him to fill both D slots he comes with, alongside arcane aegis not maxed, and arcane grace not maxed, since they're not maxed they're just a bonus(cus I'm poor for arcanes)

So here's my thinking for each ability for the build:

ELUDE:

Seeing as elude only works if you are not attacking, which you are going to be 90% of the time in a game like warframe, I opted NOT to build for 200% range to cover his entire body. Although even with 175% range he is effectively ALMOST completely covered, and the chances of an enemy shooting you directly in the back in that gap is low, and if it does happen, you can just angle your Baruuk a bit to change the spot you're vulnerable. It's completely possible to also just face your back to a wall so its physically impossible to get hit from that spot. I rarely use elude, mostly only if I see a bullet hose type enemy like a heavy gunner or beam type enemies from the corpus so I can erode restraint FAST, for example, it only takes about 7 seconds to go from full restraint to none of you get a single detron crewman with a beam or one of those beam type moas.

LULL:

Lull is baruuks CC ability, its a decent OH SHİT button as even though it doesn't immediately sleep it does immediately slow enemies, which translates into less incoming damage. The fact that Lull is LoS based, BUT it has a lingering duration really saves the ability. If lull went through walls, it would sleep enemies in spawn rooms which is not good, having the lingering duration saves it as you'll sleep all enemies within LoS of the zone for a sizable duration. It is also your most consistent method of reducing restraint, as although elude is good at doing it, it cannot do it with infested or if you don't find a bullet hose. This ability is the main reason I built for 175% range and 150% duration.

Desolate hands:

This ability is the main reason I built for 225% strength, although you only need a little extra strength to hit 9 daggers for that sweet 90% DR, the daggers drop fast if you run positive range builds. Having 17 daggers gives me an 8 dagger buffer for that 90% DR, meaning I won't be spastically spamming this ability all the time. The disarm feature of this ability isn't all that great since you want bullet hoses for elude, and it doesn't disarm on a large enough scale to be very useful either. Plus if you lull enemies which you'll be doing often, disarming them does basically nothing since theyll be dead before they wake up.

SERENE STORM:

A lot of people give this ability a lot of S#&$ because it can't handle heavy units or lots of armor very well, and that is a valid arguement, but the thing is, 90% of the enemies in the game that can spawn at a given time are usually trash mobs like your Lancers or chargers, and serene storm is very very good at killing trash mobs, although there are a few workarounds to actually let this ability kill heavy enemies. One, condition overload works on the desert wind, using 2 dual status mods I can get around 23% status, not a lot, but enough that CO will still proc. It won't proc at all on trash mobs because they die, but on heavy mobs where you WILL be hitting them more than twice, it will eventually proc, it is still very RNG reliant though. NUMBER TWO, abuse the fact that slide attacks do substantially more damage than normal attacks, and that Baruuks hands have an insane amount of multistrike on his slide attack, comparable to valkyr. The downside here is you won't be killing the heavy through those walls or floors, because you have to contact the enemy with baruuks actual fists and hitbox, but what you get is the ability to oneshot all heavy armored enemies up to level 100, and 2 shot them up to 120. Level 150-160 require more but 90% of the time you're not going to be going up to that kind of level, but even at level 160 trash mobs still die in very few normal hits.

Also note in general, negative efficiency is totally fine on Baruuk if you don't use elude often, elude surprisingly eats up a lot of energy, its comparable to having two 75 energy cost abilities that you must cast often. Because I don't use elude outside of its rapid restraint erosion niche, or when rezzing downed teammates, I have rarely any energy issues, and if an eximus energy leech comes by and steals all of my energy, I can activate baruuks desert wind still and kill it by blindly shooting waves in every direction, since desert wind requires absolutely no energy.

In regards to thoughts about buffing desert wind and desert wind only, I would ask to buff its status chance a good margin. 10% status isn't much, and 50% crit maybe seem great and all, but because it is an exalted it can't utilize blood rush, AND because it mainly utilizes waves that don't build combo counter, it cannot utilize gladiator mods like wukong or valkyr can. Therefore the only Avenue it can go down is to utilize condition overload just like chromatic blade excal. The status chance shouldn't be insanely high, nothing like chromatic blade excal 100%, but even a buff to 20%-25% would open up a lot of avenues for his 4s damage potential.

IMPORTANT: Also, is it just me or are baruuks waves completely incapable of dealing slash status procs? I've seen impact and radiation (what I modded my fists for) I think I might've seen puncture at least once? Hard to tell for puncture, but I swear I've never seen a slash proc once.

Edited January 5, 2019 by birdobash