Balancing Soma

[castem]

I'm seeing quite a bit of the "It's only powerful because you modded it" argument. I agree with this, and the fact that it does indeed suck without mods, but you guys have to take into account the fact that it's one of the few weapons with which a crit build is viable-- meaning that there are three extra mods out there that will buff its damage like crazy on top of the other mods that make other weapons as powerful as they are.

So it's not just that this weapon is powerful while modded that's the issue here, it's more so that the mods that this weapon is compatible with give it far more damage potential than virtually any other primary weapon.

Mod space is limited, though.  Simply increasing the number of viable mods a weapon can use does not necessarily make it more powerful.

 

Assuming a Soma is potato'd, it has 60 points to use at max rank.  Therefore, a crit build like this is possible (all mods listed are at max rank):

Serration [polarized slot] - 7

Split Chamber [polarized slot] - 8

Point Strike - 9

Vital Sense - 9

Hammer Shot - 9

This build has 18 points left over.  That's not a lot of points to spend on other mods you might want with the Soma, such as Piercing Hit, Fast Hands, Cryo Rounds, Wildfire, etc.

 

A weapon that doesn't have a viable crit build might seem worse off, but they can use the freed mod space to pile on multiple +elemental damage mods and/or various utility mods.

Edited September 18, 2013 by castem

[Vector88]

Why don't we actually buff the Supra?

Cause you know, it costs a forma to build?

And clantech?

Supra should be superior to Soma in terms of raw dmg for those reasons.

Exactly

 

The main argument being thrown around for a Soma nerf is that it outclasses the Supra in DPS, but if that's the case, instead of unnecessarily nerfing the Soma, why not ask for a Supra buff? The Soma is fine for what it is.

 

Besides, in regards to its nature of being a crit build reliant weapon, the user does not have many options to toy around with in terms of mod setup seeing mods like Split chamber, Crit damage, crit chance, serration, Ammo drum/ammo mutation, and Piercing hit are absolutely necessary to make this rifle viable against the later levels. That leaves only 2 open slots to use for whatever you have leftover. It severely limits builds for it.

 

At worst, if this weapon really needs a "nerf" then increases its mastery level to 4 and up its resource and credit cost. Besides, it's still a bullet damage weapon, its effectiveness still takes a severe hit when one faces high level ancients and Grineer

[shut]

Nerf Critical rifle mods = congratz you just ruined snipers and bows.

That's not even remotely close to what I was implying. Don't make stupid assumptions.

 

 

Mod space is limited, though.  Simply increasing the number of viable mods a weapon can use does not necessarily make it more powerful.

 

Assuming a Soma is potato'd, it has 60 points to use at max rank.  Therefore, a crit build like this is possible (all mods listed are at max rank):

Serration [polarized slot] - 7

Split Chamber [polarized slot] - 8

Point Strike - 9

Vital Sense - 9

Hammer Shot - 9

This build has 18 points left over.  That's not a lot of points to spend on other mods you might want with the Soma, such as Piercing Hit, Fast Hands, Cryo Rounds, Wildfire, etc.

 

A weapon that doesn't have a viable crit build might seem worse off, but they can use the freed mod space to pile on multiple +elemental damage mods and/or various utility mods.

 

True, true. There's always room for some more Forma, though.

But yeah, with Critical builds, the eight slots run out faster than with other weapons. However, the Critical boost that you can get with this weapon seems to outweigh the boosts that other weapons can get with other slots entirely-- which is why people consider this a "crit weapon" in the first place; its critical build will outweigh its rainbow builds.

With less room for elemental attacks, though, I guess you could say that this weapon is sacrificing a bit of utility and versatility in exchange for its DPS.

Edited September 18, 2013 by SortaRandom

[castem]

Why don't we actually buff the Supra?

Cause you know, it costs a forma to build?

And clantech?

Supra should be superior to Soma in terms of raw dmg for those reasons.

 

Exactly

 

The main argument being thrown around for a Soma nerf is that it outclasses the Supra in DPS, but if that's the case, instead of unnecessarily nerfing the Soma, why not ask for a Supra buff? The Soma is fine for what it is.

 

Besides, in regards to its nature of being a crit build reliant weapon, the user does not have many options to toy around with in terms of mod setup seeing mods like Split chamber, Crit damage, crit chance, serration, Ammo drum/ammo mutation, and Piercing hit are absolutely necessary to make this rifle viable against the later levels. That leaves only 2 open slots to use for whatever you have leftover. It severely limits builds for it.

 

At worst, if this weapon really needs a "nerf" then increases its mastery level to 4 and up its resource and credit cost. Besides, it's still a bullet damage weapon, its effectiveness still takes a severe hit when one faces high level ancients and Grineer

 

+1

[Volume]

It's just too good a weapon. I don't know how it got implemented in its current state.

 

- It has the best baseline polarities (It has two V polarities, compared to the Gorgon and Supra who come with NONE)

- It has the best accuracy (Nearly pinpoint if using single shot or short bursts)

- It has the largest magazine (100 vs 90 for Gorgon/Supra)

- It has the shortest reload (3.0 sec vs 4.2)
- It has 3x critical damage instead of 1.5x critical damage

- It has the shortest spin-up time (faster than Gorgon)

- It has pretty much no recoil to mention

- It has a faster fire rate than the Gorgon and Supra (15 vs 12.5)

- It has a mastery level requirement of 3 (Gorgon is also 3, though you can get the blueprint from login rewards), Supra is 7)

- It is hitscan (compared to Supra which is not)

- It does not require Forma to craft (compared to Supra which does)

The one thing that it has worse is base damage. But when you're doing 840% critical hits with a Vital Sense and Hammer Shot mod, and scoring these 840% critical hits on almost 9 out of every 10 shots, (87.5% critical chance thanks to max-rank Point Strike) it's hardly a downside worth noting.

 

Please note: Thanks to the V polarities, you can equip a max rank Vital Sense and Point Strike together at rank 10 on the Soma (each requires 9 points, rounded to 5 in the polarity slots), and have a weapon at rank 10 that has 87.5% crit chance and 540% crit damage. Hilariously wonderful.

I'll admit, it does have a high amount of resource requirements (even if they're easy to get), and it does cost 65k credits to build/craft, but it's absolutely ridiculous.

The math has been done - it outshines the Supra by roughly 5,000 DPS.

I am not saying to nerf the Soma. I love it, it feels great. I am just saying it blows my mind that it entered the game in its current, superior-to-every-rifle state, with statistics that make other rifles look pedestrian in comparison.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Volume

[DrugsForChildren]

 

 

No.

 

 

[ChaoticVice777]

Not going to bother quoting the entire wall of text.

 

1) "It's too powerful!"

 

Due to armor scaling, there are VERY few weapons that are considered powerful without the "right" mods, and the best example would be the Acrid. The Uncommon/Rare Mods all have a decent chance at dropping, with the exception of Hammer Shot, due to Endless Defense mission rewards tables.

 

Additionally, you need to take into account the common sense factor and mod viability. The major difficulty of getting an "effective" Soma lies in ranking all of the effective mods to respectable levels. Additionally, with some observation, there's actually not a lot of variety in terms of mods that effectively boost DPH/DPS.

 

If we factored in theoretical DPS, an "effective" Soma has the second highest DPS rating of all weapons. That's broken, especially since the Soma has relatively low costs and low Mastery rank restriction. That leads to...

 

2) "It's Mastery Rank Should Be Higher!"

 

Only adding this would just slap on a band-aid on the Soma situation. The issues are the power:cost ratio, which indirectly relates Mastery. Plus, more rifles need to be available for Tenno in the marketplace earlier.

 

3) "It's Critical Chance is too High!"

 

It's the combination of all the Soma's stats that make this weapon problematic. This weapon should be Grakata 2.0, not Grakata 2.5-3.0.

 

There are virtually no downsides towards using the Soma. The critical stats are the highest of any rifle in the game, the magazine size is one of the highest, the reload speed is faster than all the other weapons that have such large magazines, the recoil/spread is pretty slow, the fire rate and spool time is quite fast, and it has hitscan. The downside is damage, which is barely a balancing factor due to fact that the critical stats are so high.

 

4) "It shouldn't have two Polarity slots!"

 

Leave it; having two polarity slots makes using this weapon as a newbie more tolerable. Besides, Formas and Catalysts can also mitigate the issue.

 

5) "It Should Require More Materials to Build!"

 

Sure; the most difficult material to acquire for the Soma would be the Rubedo. Everything else can be found within a few hours. Contrast that to the Supra, which requires clan research. Control Modules are easier to drop these days thanks to changed drop rates, but those materials are of a higher level.

 

TL;DR: Buff the other rifles, and no matter how you word it, the Soma needs to be nerfed in some form for the sake of balance.

[Ceres666]

No.

[Campaigner]

DE makes a bunch of cool weapons and people come to love them.

 

Then they release one new, vastly superior gun and take a metaphorical dump on the time they spent creating all the pre-existing weapons.

 

It's like they're reducing Warframe's content by deleting multiple weapons and leaving only one in their place. Why would any player build a Supra, etc. when they can just make a Soma and forget the rest?

[LtZerge]

I'm really confused about people saying noobies can get this gun instantly and win. I thought it was established you required mastery rank 3 at least before you can get it? (still think it should be 4 or more, though) Maybe most people discussing these topics are simply too far into the game to notice these prerequisites. I don't really have anything new to disclose that hasn't been said, but its getting a bit annoying to read this mis-information.

[Amistyrja]

Increasing its material cost to justify the Soma's power? Wouldn't it make more sense to just change it to a secondary weapon so it doesn't seem so OP?

Haha no but really. This gun is so perfect I even feel a little guilty using it. But don't nerf its crit chance please

[icosta27]

NO

[X3Evanescence]

No.

[Tennosaurus_Lex]

Soma? More like SoMAD!

[else_where]

honestly, this gun caps out for me around level 40-50 mobs due to lacking split chamber. without rare, and expensive to upgrade mods like serration, this gun underpreforms more expensive and mastery requirement primaries. i think alot of people who already have these mods, upgraded and available to them to slot in soma are forgetting the hours and farming they had to do to get these mods that are the only thing that make this rifle shine. and my despair still out preform my beloved soma

[ChaoticVice777]

honestly, this gun caps out for me around level 40-50 mobs due to lacking split chamber. without rare, and expensive to upgrade mods like serration, this gun underpreforms more expensive and mastery requirement primaries. i think alot of people who already have these mods, upgraded and available to them to slot in soma are forgetting the hours and farming they had to do to get these mods that are the only thing that make this rifle shine. and my despair still out preform my beloved soma

 

All weapons need some set of rare/uncommon mods before their damage potential is fully unlocked. Bad argument. Also, Armor 2.0, go.

[Estred]

wut? If anything the weapon should be mastery locked to 5.

Agreed. Do not nerf the item. It feels like a worthwhile assault rifle, I do admit it's a flat better Gorgon atm and needs to be Mastery Locked after that.

 

 

I think it's too late to change it to mastery rank 5 by now, it's also too strong for its cost. The materials aren't hard to obtain from defense missions. The weapon is too good for its cost (highest reload speed, accuracy(included with projectile speed), and fire rate of all machine guns). The developers need either need to nerf this weapon by reducing the fire rate or crit rate (by little), buff other weapons (including the old ones), or change how armor will function.

Partially agreed. We don't have a good Crit Rifle after Grakata was damaged so to speak. Soma seems more in line with Gorgon than Grakata in terms of playstyle.

 

The thing is Gorgon is very fun, so is Supra, however Soma seems to trump them both. Each needs an aspect that it excells in. Without mods that would be

- Gorgon for Damgae

- Soma for Crits

- Supra for Armor Ignore or something.

 

Mods blur those lines though. It's harder to balance based on those.

[Zakalwe]

The Soma only feels op because most of the other rifles suck, especially in comparison to secondaries.

 

You want to go cry about weapons that need nerfing? Go whinge about the Despair and Acrid, not the Soma.

Or get the other rifles buffed. Either works.

This.

Some is in line with how a later stage weapon should be. It's not OP at all. The ACRID is OP.

It's not too late to add mastery to it, this is BETA. It should be rank 5.

[Idiocy]

Fun fact: Even Twin Furis can get higher raw DPS numbers than Soma :P

 

Granted, it's a lot less accurate, but we're only talking pure dps here, right?

Edited September 18, 2013 by Idiocy

[PeripheralVisionary]

Agreed. Do not nerf the item. It feels like a worthwhile assault rifle, I do admit it's a flat better Gorgon atm and needs to be Mastery Locked after that.

 

 

Partially agreed. We don't have a good Crit Rifle after Grakata was damaged so to speak. Soma seems more in line with Gorgon than Grakata in terms of playstyle.

 

The thing is Gorgon is very fun, so is Supra, however Soma seems to trump them both. Each needs an aspect that it excells in. Without mods that would be

- Gorgon for Damgae

- Soma for Crits

- Supra for Armor Ignore or something.

 

Mods blur those lines though. It's harder to balance based on those.

So make all equally weapons viable?

Ehhh.....

[MECT_HET]

No.

You've already done it before!

[zzang]

No.

^this

[Juranai]

shred mod on the soma so who cares if they lower the fire rate. and as for the supra I put 4 formas on it so I'm still useing it as it's a better fit for certain fights. 

 

as for the crit rate 35% or 20 % who cares just leave it at 35. 

Edited September 24, 2013 by Juranai

[G3m1n1]

No.

[Dasmir]

No.