Mag as starter

[SamMitter]

Hi guys,

Although not at all new to the genre, I am playing the warframe for a month only, so a newbie basically. And I have reached my first goal of building my 1st frame. So i decided to come back and talk something about my starter MAG.

When I started, I saw a lots of bad press for MAG, still chose her, as I thought it was well-suited to my play style. and after reaching MR5 and clearing upto Jupiter (still early in the game, i know😉), I think, I took good decision. She is not good at taking damage, true; can be a little complicated, but once i got past first few missions, and understood how to use her powers, she's a perfect damage dealer. In survival or defense, even when playing with others with better frames, I still deal a hefty damage everytime. 

I think her main problem is to identify the strength and weakness, early in the game, as a complete newbie. So I thought of asking you guys, who has taken her up as starter, how they started, their build and playing style...and have a little chats amongst us. 😊

[MagPrime]

I like to utilize a short duration Magnetize build on newer Mags.  Helps with the incoming damage a lot, and since you can drop 4 bubbles at once, it really helps.

Depending on the faction, I'd go with a health increase simply because her Crush grants overshields to herself and everyone in range of the ability. 

[SamMitter]

9 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

I like to utilize a short duration Magnetize build on newer Mags.  Helps with the incoming damage a lot, and since you can drop 4 bubbles at once, it really helps.

Depending on the faction, I'd go with a health increase simply because her Crush grants overshields to herself and everyone in range of the ability. 

I focused on increasing shield and health. i dont like to engage in closeup, and the extra shields means a few extra sec to line up sniper shots...

[MagPrime]

5 minutes ago, SamMitter said:

I focused on increasing shield and health. i dont like to engage in closeup, and the extra shields means a few extra sec to line up sniper shots...

I don't favor snipers, and shields recharge faster than health, especially with a Polarize + Crush combo.  

But it all comes down to playstyle.  

[Renegade343]

For me, I utilize movement, positioning, and aiming well to make Mag (new or modded), and frames in general, survivable. Of course, my playstyle means I tend to use less abilities unless I get myself in a bad situation or the enemies get too tough to handle, but it does mean that I often finish a mission with no deaths. Used to be able to do it with snipers at one point, but I think that was because I hip-fire it, and from what I've heard, hip-fire accuracy for snipers now is really bad.

[SamMitter]

I nrmally play slowly. try to take to take out as many of enemies as possible(barring defense or survival). But I use my powers very often too, specailly pull. Magnetize is best for defenses i think, use it over the tough guys, or a group of them. will kill themselves. 

Right now, I am using sybaris, it has good range. still gives me enough chance of using abilities.

  

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

7 minutes ago, SamMitter said:

I focused on increasing shield and health. i dont like to engage in closeup, and the extra shields means a few extra sec to line up sniper shots...

Punch through, punch through, and punch through.  As long as you have punch through you won't need a sniper. 

Shields and health will have much less value the further you get into the game.  With Mag, I use a bit of range, low duration, and a lot of power with the Counter Pulse augment for extra CC + shield/armor strip.  You can get by just fine with a maxed vitality if you use your bubbles and Polarize correctly.

[SamMitter]

Just now, (XB1)Thy Divinity said:

Punch through, punch through, and punch through.  As long as you have punch through you won't need a sniper. 

Shields and health will have much less value the further you get into the game.  With Mag, I use a bit of range, low duration, and a lot of power with the Counter Pulse augment for extra CC + shield/armor strip.  You can get by just fine with a maxed vitality if you use your bubbles and Polarize correctly.

Completely agree with you. magnetize is brilliant. and for those any enemies coming too close to my comfort, Pull is there. 

about weapon, my dex sybaris is doing pretty good job, good range and i modded some corrosive and blast damage and very high crit chance. and the extra shield helps me to line up good shots. 

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

Started with her. She's seen some ups and downs but was never bad (by the way, was around during the really early stages of the game, seen most of it). When I started due to the limited amount of mod variety and special mods you can obtain, I made an all around build that carried me throughout the entire Starchart. Mag isn't the absolute best at everything, but she's really good in long run survivals, locking down and defending areas, and scaling. Focus on range and a bit in strength with relatively high efficiency. Magnetize and Polarize are your best friends. Lock down points with Magnetize and debuff enemies while buffing your team with Polarize. Pull is great quick CC and can yield energy orbs on kills. Crush is also good CC and can also deal decent damage and restore shields while granting overshields (if you don't know, overshields are shields that can be generated that can bypass the cap on your normal shield values, usually under special conditions). She's very well rounded. Also, consider investing in her augments. They are all good with 2 standouts, Magnetizing Disarm and Counter Pulse.

You're a brave soul for starting with Mag. Keep playing with her and you'll know all the ins and outs.

[DatDarkOne]

7 hours ago, SamMitter said:

I think her main problem is to identify the strength and weakness, early in the game, as a complete newbie. So I thought of asking you guys, who has taken her up as starter, how they started, their build and playing style...and have a little chats amongst us. 😊

Dang It. I like this Tenno.  Respectfully requesting knowledge from us on how to get better with his chosen frame.  

I use a somewhat similar setup to what @MagPrime uses.  I add in the Counter Pulse augment and use a battlefield control strategy using al of her powers equally.  This does require having some form of enemy radar to work best.  I use Animal Instinct on either my kavat or sentinel.  

Thanks to some chats with MagPrime and @(PS4)Crixus044, I've created and experimented with a solo Mag build that uses a Gas Daikyu fired into a Magnetize bubble.  A combo which is shockingly powerful.  

[84773-RY]

My friend who recently started playing picked Mag and uses her so much, we often mistake other mags in the wild for them! Her bullet magnet I'm told makes relay fights super easy and its always funny to watch the enemys suddenly lurch after being pulled.

Currently working on getting all the parts for mag prime as a gift for them!

 

Another friend who is a long term mag user only has one thing they want to see for her. They'd love to see the return of the clang/bang sound that you used to have from mag-ing people into walls as the sound was the most satisfying thing ever, they say. 😄

[blacklusterseph]

10 hours ago, SamMitter said:

I think her main problem is to identify the strength and weakness, early in the game, as a complete newbie. So I thought of asking you guys, who has taken her up as starter, how they started, their build and playing style...and have a little chats amongst us.

Back when I started with Mag she didn't have Magnetize and her 3 did nothing to armour. Honestly for a long time I played the game without understanding any of the mechanics or exploiting them properly with Mag so I just built around Crush. I do kinda wish that Crush was a bit more viable to build around but Mag is generally in a much better place now. I still use my starter Mag sometimes even though I mostly use Mag Prime. If you see a regular Mag running around Mot meleeing everything with a dagger, that's probably me.

[SamMitter]

On 2019-04-11 at 4:55 AM, (PS4)ArtPrince17 said:

Started with her. She's seen some ups and downs but was never bad (by the way, was around during the really early stages of the game, seen most of it). When I started due to the limited amount of mod variety and special mods you can obtain, I made an all around build that carried me throughout the entire Starchart. Mag isn't the absolute best at everything, but she's really good in long run survivals, locking down and defending areas, and scaling. Focus on range and a bit in strength with relatively high efficiency. Magnetize and Polarize are your best friends. Lock down points with Magnetize and debuff enemies while buffing your team with Polarize. Pull is great quick CC and can yield energy orbs on kills. Crush is also good CC and can also deal decent damage and restore shields while granting overshields (if you don't know, overshields are shields that can be generated that can bypass the cap on your normal shield values, usually under special conditions). She's very well rounded. Also, consider investing in her augments. They are all good with 2 standouts, Magnetizing Disarm and Counter Pulse.

You're a brave soul for starting with Mag. Keep playing with her and you'll know all the ins and outs.

thanks man... I think I have got quite the hang of playing with her now. She is aleady maxed. And I use her abilities quite like u r saying

actually i am kinda feel good, when I see, the tactics I figured out, through trial and error, of using her; actually matches other veteran guys. 😉

cheers guys. 

[SamMitter]

On 2019-04-11 at 11:13 AM, DatDarkOne said:

Dang It. I like this Tenno.  Respectfully requesting knowledge from us on how to get better with his chosen frame.  

I use a somewhat similar setup to what @MagPrime uses.  I add in the Counter Pulse augment and use a battlefield control strategy using al of her powers equally.  This does require having some form of enemy radar to work best.  I use Animal Instinct on either my kavat or sentinel.  

Thanks to some chats with MagPrime and @(PS4)Crixus044, I've created and experimented with a solo Mag build that uses a Gas Daikyu fired into a Magnetize bubble.  A combo which is shockingly powerful.  

Thanks fellow tenno.... 🙂

I normally dont use Crush a lot.  coz i think if you dont have quite a crowd around u, it is waste.

pull  is obviously the all rounder,often even as support. My friend uses Excalibur, and loves to charge head on, and sometimes I help him out with pull, if he gets to crowded. polarize is the handiest in corpus defense.

But what I love is Magnetize.  They should rename it death bubble.. put it on toughest one, like the heavy gunners. and drink ur coffee. Just to give an example, yesterdat=y when opening jupiter junction, I have not fired a bullet. used the death bubble on the specter, and just hung back. 😉

 

[SamMitter]

BTW MAG fans here,

if you want to play together sometime, I us the same name in game as well,send me a request.... it will be fun to play together.

[DroopingPuppy]

Mag is infamous just because she is one of the starting frame.

Although Mag's power level is only mediocre, but in endgame she is a capable anti-grineer specialist so at least she has a job. But starting frame needs to be modding-free to work well, able to react on various situation and is easy to use, which Mag is not.

Sure, many warframes are sucks when unmodded, and many warframes are even worse than Mag when unmodded. But, it doesn't cover the fact that Mag is only functional with modded. Meanwhile Excalibur and Volt are work well even unmodded, and they are not so bad after modded as well. Consider it is one of the three frames that the newcommer can pick as their first warframe - and the only warframe for some days or even weeks - they are required to be quite usable even without a mod. And Mag fails newbies because it NEEDS good mods to be functional.

As a grineer specialist, Mag doesn't have a reason to employ on the other factions, and she doesn't do much. It is also a flaw compared by Excalibur and Volt which are work on almost any situations.

Mag doesn't needs that much controls, but still her kit is weird. Her crush needs too much casting time, even slower than Discharge. Magnetize is a troll ability that protects the enemy from the ally Tenno's bullets. Her mediocre overall power level is also a problem compared by Excalibur and Volt.

 

Anyway, Mag is not the unplayable trash like Ember. But, because she is one of the starting warframes, it is natural that she is so infamous.

[(PSN)Revak29]

Okay now here's how I build mag and the synergies that I use. I have 155% duration, 130% efficiency, 175% range, and 144% power strength. That's just the way mine is built, you do not need your mag to be just like mine. Mag's magnetize bubbles will deal much more damage to enemies if you use a projectile weapon. These are weapons that have travel time for the bullets such as the drakgoon, bows, the exergis, etc. Anything that walks into your bubble should almost instantly die. Using pull to get enemies inside is also pretty effective. It functions as great damage mitigation if you walk inside. If you are fighting grineer, use her Fracturing Crush augment for her 4th ability. It makes enemy armor decrease by 50% and scales with power strength to about 80%. Enemies also become unable to move so it functions well as CC. Both effects only affect enemies for 7s, but you can make the armor strip permanent by stripping armor with mag's 3. You can strip armor completely pretty fast by doing this. If you are fighting corpus or infested, your best bet is using the augment for her 3 which will make enemies unable to move for a few seconds. This is the most effective way of playing mag that I have found but that does not necessarily mean that you have to play her the same as me or even that my playstyle is the best way. What's most important is to just have fun and enjoy the game. 

[000l000]

Le 12/04/2019 à 15:49, DroopingPuppy a dit :

Mag is infamous just because she is one of the starting frame.

Although Mag's power level is only mediocre

Mag is infamous cause people who don't know a single thing about anything think that giving their own opinion matters. Volt or Excalibur are starters too and i don't see many people saying they're bad frames or anything.

Mag is one of the best frame around and shines at any level especially since she has scaling abilities such as Magnetize - her only weakness is a lack of efficiency against infested since her 3rd won't help much there. Anyway she can do a lot of things from Nuke to armor stripping and CCs thanks to her augments - Really a strong frame and not that fragile anymore since we have adaptation now (it synergizes well with shields/overshields).

[Benour]

Mag is top tier and hella fun to play. Just bads think shes bad. Magnetize is amazing (the amount of projectiles i can shoot in bubble with my rivened mara detron is INSANE, all the projectiles spinning around... just glorious). If you fight infested just slap augment for her 4 and no infested is gonna move, ever. 

Also made her look like army killer cyborg with tennogen/wolf armor and my coloring. Love her! 

Oh only gripe is her survivability kinda, but you should be spamming and CC everything with counter pulse augment or even her 1 or 4 anyway. Also i have ready this tank mag (arcane guardian/energize vitality/QT/pflow and adaptation which work on shields) have to test her on some endurance arbitration. 

[SamMitter]

5 hours ago, Benour said:

Mag is top tier and hella fun to play. Just bads think shes bad. Magnetize is amazing (the amount of projectiles i can shoot in bubble with my rivened mara detron is INSANE, all the projectiles spinning around... just glorious). If you fight infested just slap augment for her 4 and no infested is gonna move, ever. 

Also made her look like army killer cyborg with tennogen/wolf armor and my coloring. Love her! 

Oh only gripe is her survivability kinda, but you should be spamming and CC everything with counter pulse augment or even her 1 or 4 anyway. Also i have ready this tank mag (arcane guardian/energize vitality/QT/pflow and adaptation which work on shields) have to test her on some endurance arbitration. 

I totally agree with you. in open fire situation she is bad, but using her abilities, u can make sure, tht she doesnot get into such situation

 

[DroopingPuppy]

12 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Mag is infamous cause people who don't know a single thing about anything think that giving their own opinion matters. Volt or Excalibur are starters too and i don't see many people saying they're bad frames or anything.

Mag is one of the best frame around and shines at any level especially since she has scaling abilities such as Magnetize - her only weakness is a lack of efficiency against infested since her 3rd won't help much there. Anyway she can do a lot of things from Nuke to armor stripping and CCs thanks to her augments - Really a strong frame and not that fragile anymore since we have adaptation now (it synergizes well with shields/overshields).

Well, if she is good that much it would be shown on the stastics. But no, it is not.

Although I admit her uses, but her overall performance is only so-so level, she is a specialist against specific faction, not a generalist, and only usable with modding, means her bad reputation have enough reasons.

 

At first she is not so good in low levels. She is only useful on endgame level of grineer games, for her only advantage over the others is crack the armor easily. Against Corpus she does something but not so efficiently. We are agreed on that she is sucks against Infested, so pass.

On low levels, starting to mastery rank 0 that don't expect a mod to add, although she is not unplayable but she is a lackluster choice compared by Volt and Excalibur. And her only advantage - to crack armor - is not so viable on the low level as well. Armor is only threatening when the enemy reaches to 40+, or 30+ levels. Well, she can kill them, but with her guns, that the others are able to do as same. She don't have an advantage on the low level at all. Only for press 4 to win, Crush costs too much casting time, makes her vulnerable more badly.

 

Hey, Chroma, Trinity and Loki are even worse than Mag if all of them are unmodded. But why only Mag is blamed for doesn't work well on unmodded? That's because Mag is a starting warframe, which serves the newbie as their only warframe for days and weeks - or even months. They are need to be stick with their starting warframe for a long time before they have a chance to make a second one. And, they are not expected to have a good mod, and high ranked mods are not usable consider they are not able to afford a reactor as well. They don't afford much endo too.

Her specialized role also means she is a bad starter, for the newbie's starting frame needs to be a generalist that works well on most situations.

Then, will they say Mag as a good warframe? Not really, for their grievance during their early playtime is filled with the rant against Mag, or they knew their choice was bad when they are able to access for Excalibur or Volt.

 

Well, I don't think that Mag is a powerful one, but it is also true that her bad reputation is not directly connected to her power level - she is quite usable on endgame, actually, although she is not powerful that much. However, there is a reason why Mag is so hated.

Only if Mag was not the one of the starter choice she doesn't deserve such a hatred as that, for if Mag was not a starter picking her is only a choice given to us during the playthrough, rather than considered as a perpetrator of hype and spin against newbies. Why we are need to put the trap against the beginner? That's nonsense.

Well, maybe, perhaps the power level of Mag seems debatable. But, no, the answer of 'is she eligible for the starting warframe' is 'not really', without a doubt.

[DroopingPuppy]

On 2019-04-14 at 4:10 AM, (PS4)Kaneki9597 said:

Okay now here's how I build mag and the synergies that I use. I have 155% duration, 130% efficiency, 175% range, and 144% power strength. That's just the way mine is built, you do not need your mag to be just like mine. Mag's magnetize bubbles will deal much more damage to enemies if you use a projectile weapon. These are weapons that have travel time for the bullets such as the drakgoon, bows, the exergis, etc. Anything that walks into your bubble should almost instantly die. Using pull to get enemies inside is also pretty effective. It functions as great damage mitigation if you walk inside. If you are fighting grineer, use her Fracturing Crush augment for her 4th ability. It makes enemy armor decrease by 50% and scales with power strength to about 80%. Enemies also become unable to move so it functions well as CC. Both effects only affect enemies for 7s, but you can make the armor strip permanent by stripping armor with mag's 3. You can strip armor completely pretty fast by doing this. If you are fighting corpus or infested, your best bet is using the augment for her 3 which will make enemies unable to move for a few seconds. This is the most effective way of playing mag that I have found but that does not necessarily mean that you have to play her the same as me or even that my playstyle is the best way. What's most important is to just have fun and enjoy the game.  

Well, the topic is focused on picking Mag as the starter, I don't think that it is meaningful at all.

I do think that Mag is quite playable on endgame, but starting warframes means they are expected to be quite usable even without any mods for mastery rank 0 players. We don't talk about her endgame settings, in the first place. Also, I do use her on the endgame grineers, so don't think that I am disagrees about the settings of her against endgame grineers - I just want to ensure that endgame level is out of topic.

[DatDarkOne]

3 minutes ago, DroopingPuppy said:

Well, if she is good that much it would be shown on the stastics. But no, it is not.

That's not an accurate gauge of if a frame is good or not.  

4 minutes ago, DroopingPuppy said:

Although I admit her uses, but her overall performance is only so-so level, she is a specialist against specific faction, not a generalist, and only usable with modding, means her bad reputation have enough reasons.

This based on very old information and not correct at all now.  

7 minutes ago, DroopingPuppy said:

On low levels, starting to mastery rank 0 that don't expect a mod to add, although she is not unplayable but she is a lackluster choice compared by Volt and Excalibur. And her only advantage - to crack armor - is not so viable on the low level as well. Armor is only threatening when the enemy reaches to 40+, or 30+ levels. Well, she can kill them, but with her guns, that the others are able to do as same. She don't have an advantage on the low level at all. Only for press 4 to win, Crush costs too much casting time, makes her vulnerable more badly.

This one completely overlooks just how effective Pull is at killing enemies at lower and in some cases even higher levels.  Casting time of Crush got reduced.  Also it doesn't make her vulnerable as every enemy that is around her are all immobilized and can't do anything to attack her.  This is one of those things where actual usage shows different than those WF Builder theory crafters.  

[DroopingPuppy]

1 minute ago, DatDarkOne said:

That's not an accurate gauge of if a frame is good or not.   

This based on very old information and not correct at all now.  

This one completely overlooks just how effective Pull is at killing enemies at lower and in some cases even higher levels.  Casting time of Crush got reduced.  Also it doesn't make her vulnerable as every enemy that is around her are all immobilized and can't do anything to attack her.  This is one of those things where actual usage shows different than those WF Builder theory crafters.  

Well, most of my experience for Mag is actually AFTER the buff for Mag's 3 and 4, so it is not an old information sir.

Pull is still not a good ability to kill - for 25 energy DD killer ability many other frames are also have the same or the better one.

Crush is still slower than Discharge, and Discharge holds the enemy even after casting. Why not just pick Volt if you spam 4 then?

 

 

[MagPrime]

2 minutes ago, DroopingPuppy said:

Well, most of my experience for Mag is actually AFTER the buff for Mag's 3 and 4, so it is not an old information sir.

Pull is still not a good ability to kill - for 25 energy DD killer ability many other frames are also have the same or the better one.

Crush is still slower than Discharge, and Discharge holds the enemy even after casting. Why not just pick Volt if you spam 4 then?

 

 

You're applying standards to Mag based on your own, subjective, wants in regards to performance.  Due to that, you're not providing very good information nor objective information on Mag as a starter 'frame or general play 'frame. 

Why not pick Volt?  Same reason people don't pick Excal, Loki, Chroma, Saryn or any other Warframe when not seeking a specific playstyle or end of mission result; they find her kit fun.  No other reason is needed.