Bow Impale Mechanics

[itsbigjon]

I'm confused.

 

I've only noticed this in U9 onwards, but my bows no longer impale enemies 100% of the time on the killing shot.

I could've sworn, that once upon a time it was different.

 

I'm seeing grineer sometimes drop dead in on the spot instead of being sent flying back 1000 miles by my arrows, and I'm not liking it. Has it always been this way? is it just me?

 

It's a pretty important mechanic and one that truly differentiates the bow class weapons from the sniper weapons. Having this not work 100% of the time is a nightmare!

 

I call on YOU, the Warframe community, to slap me in the face and tell me I'm wrong, or to agree with me so I know I'm not alone, and we can hope to have superhappyfuntimes with our bows again.

[X3Evanescence]

It works, but if the damage from the elementals are enough to kill the enemy, the impale mechanic would not work.

Try removing the elementals and see what I mean =)

[geninrising]

I agree something in the bows mechanics has changed..prior to u9 i had 100% physics knockback which was the only reason I liked paris vs dread now it is not working properly so I just started using dread

[Jin_Kazama]

It works, but if the damage from the elementals are enough to kill the enemy, the impale mechanic would not work.

Try removing the elementals and see what I mean =)

This is 100% true, its the only downside of using elementals on bows, you lose the amazingness of impaling.

 

This is also true with the dread, by putting things like ice and electric, you lose the amazingness of slicing enemies in half with a single shot, and you just get them slowly falling to the ground in pain. :(

[itsbigjon]

3 minute response time from community. Nice.

 

I'll test it out again without elemental... maybe the dps loss is worth the impale? :'(

[Poke007]

You can always go crit builds on bows, those also work really well with the high base crit chance. :D

[Jin_Kazama]

Yeah just go 

Serration, 

split chamber, 

shred, 

speed trigger

Point Blank (Crit chance methinks)
Vital Sense (Crit damage methinks)
Hammer shot (Crit damage)
Piercing hit (Armor piercing)

if you wanna fit in thunderbolt since they fixed it, take out hammer shot ^.^
dont wanna take out hammer shot? take out speed trigger ^.^

[noir_kero]

Yeah just go 

Serration, 

split chamber, 

shred, 

speed trigger

Point Blank (Crit chance methinks)

Vital Sense (Crit damage methinks)

Hammer shot (Crit damage)

Piercing hit (Armor piercing)

if you wanna fit in thunderbolt since they fixed it, take out hammer shot ^.^

dont wanna take out hammer shot? take out speed trigger ^.^

 

This is one of the mods combination I want to try out, but unfortunately I put two - polarity in my bow, forcing me to put at least 2 elemental in it. sad..

[itsbigjon]

I do go crit build actually, my current build (Paris Prime):

 

Serration - 14 cost (reduced to 7)

Split chamber - 15 cost (reduced to 8)

Vital sense - 9 cost (reduced to 5)

Speed trigger - 9 cost

Point strike - 9 cost

Hammer shot - 9 cost

Arrow mutation - 7 cost

 

= 54 points

 

and then 1 half-cost elemental mod depending on faction

Piercing Hit - 9 cost (reduced to 5)

Hellfire - 11 cost (reduced to 6)

Stormbringer - 11 cost (reduced to 6)

 

 

 

now, my for my new build, i'm thinking of replacing those elemental mods with straight % damage mods by faction.

Bane of Corpus

" " Grineer

" " Infested

 

Any better suggestions?

 

Regarding shred: reckon it's worth using? I mean, the puncture doesn't work on bows I heard?

 

Regarding thunderbolt: yeah, as far as i knew, the explosion removed the normal initial damage, so back when I was using it, it was doing its crappy damage AOE when it proc'ed, instead of the usual 10k or whatever single target, which wasn't a worthwhile tradeoff. If you're saying that has been fixed, I will definitely re-visit the mod.

 

Also, how IS thunderbolt damage calculated? I'm seeing 250 base damage on the wiki, is this then affected by any mods? i.e. does it get affected by serration? because 660 damage AOE would be beautiful (OP) :D

 

Sorry if these questions seem really noob to people.

[Jin_Kazama]

Im not entireley sure but last time i checked it only does a set amount of damage regardless, btu yes the mod has been fixed, it now does your damage and THEN explodes

[Hameln]

Use Ice mod, they explode so doesn't block your target anymore

[taiiat]

It works, but if the damage from the elementals are enough to kill the enemy, the impale mechanic would not work.

Try removing the elementals and see what I mean =)

this is the issue with all weapons that have special effects in Warframe. if it makes corpse cannons, or throws enemies, or any of the other special effects, they will not happen if anything but the base damage kills them. since all damage is applied at basically the same time, that means if you have elemental damage equipped :/ don't expect it to work.

 

not a new issue, either.

 

btu yes the mod has been fixed, it now does your damage and THEN explodes

:o?

i'll check that. Thunderbolt would be cool to use if i could still deal damage with it on.

 

on second thought, did you have multishot on? if you did, one arrow could explode, and the other hit, and it would appear like it's fixed. i'll test it myself though.

 

 

 

Regarding shred: reckon it's worth using? I mean, the puncture doesn't work on bows I heard?

Puncture was changed a couple hotfixes ago, it seems to work on all projectile types now. 

Edited September 13, 2013 by taiiat

[Striker_108]

In my experience, Whether or not the Bow has been able to Impale targets depends on their proximity to a surface. Admittedley, when it was first introduced, the distances a lightly fired arrow would send their targets flying was both comedic and gloriously violent, but that was nerfed fairly early.

 

I find nowadays that the best way to continually impale enemies to whatever you want to is to fire fully charged arrows at close range, works everytime. And if that doesn't work, then try bodyshots.

[Jin_Kazama]

As to quote DeRebeccas post on update 9.8
 

FIXES:

• Made a large number of optimizations to improve host frame-rate (especially when fighting many NPCs).
• Fixed issue in Dojo where rotating decorations while holding shift will cause them to pop in some locations.
• Fixed Dojo Rooms not accepting prerequisites from the old art set when trying to build rooms from the new art set.
• Fixed issue where leaving a game after using a buff aura power causes the power to stay infinitely for all other players.
• Fixed Thunderbolt explosive damage trumping impact damage. Projectile damage now applies first, and then the chance to explode is checked.

[itsbigjon]

Thanks all for the feedback. I tried removing elemental mods and that seems to fix it.

 

Regarding thunderbolt: i thought i would revisit it because of the fix, but i started using it again, and yes, it's fixed, but it still doesn't justify the arrow not impaling in my opinion. I'm really addicted to being able to kill 2 or more ancients with one shot... I wish the elemental mods worked with impale D:

 

Also, shred seems to be a good alternative to the anti-faction mods. Suck on that shield lancers!