Manics, Ash farming and the Smoking Body Ephemera

[Agent_Nine]

Farming Manics for Ash parts is probably one of the most annoying things in the game. Putting aside the whole song, dance, instrumental and reprise that it takes to get even 1 to spawn, theirs the Ash parts. It's obvious that there has to be some kind of challenge to getting Ash, because YIKES this frame is packing more destructive capabilities than a pissed off Formorian. But you can still buy Ash with platinum as per usual, and then theirs Ash Prime who has trading. So, it makes sense for the Manic farming to be a thing. You can get Ash for the least cost by farming the Manics, you can get ash for decent cost off of the market, or you can get Ash Prime for 99999999999999999999989999 Platinum per part from the trading chat.

BUT

Now theirs more. Thanks to the Smoking Body Empheira, the Manic farming part has slightly changed. When it comes to the Empheira, it's not a "fair" game in the least. Putting aside how you obtain the blueprints (because if you want to make any of them, you need 1,000,000 credits, a lot of something specific to each one, and a Vitus Essence in the first place, so you've already accepted that heavy investment will be necessary), each one includes a Warframe part. So now the idea that you can just buy Ash is less valid of an argument against changing the drop rate or who drops it, as you can't buy the entire Warframe when you specifically need one part, like when constructing Chroma. 

The way that you get the Ash Systems that stands out from the rest as the only one that seems legitimately unfair. Even comparing the closest thing to it, the Oberon systems, is an unreasonable argument because Eximus units are modifications of any regular enemy, not a specific enemy. Eximus units can spawn in every mission, and there are even Sortie missions that have nothing BUT Eximus enemies, and theirs a technical 1% chance that you can get the Oberon Systems during any mission at almost any time.

However, the way you get Ash Systems from Manics has now become completely ridiculous. Like the others you need a lot of a specific resource, 1,000,000 credits a Vitus Essence AND extensive farming to get the blueprint in the first place. But you also have to farm Manics. This is a problem because of the exorbitant increase in expected time investment in comparison to the rest. In order to get a Manic to even spawn requires far more specific requirements than any other Grenier enemy (because I can hear you thinking the word "Bursa" right now.), and than (assuming you do a defection mission) you have to make sure that they don't kill their target or they'll get away and you'll miss your chance of obtaining the part and have to wait for another one to spawn, assuming another one does spawn at all. It's too inconsistent to be reasonable when every other Empheira has a much more consistent way of obtaining them (with the possible exception of Garuda Systems but for a very different reason).

The most straight forward way to improve this would be to simply make the Manic Bombard also have the same chances of dropping the parts as the normal Manic. That way, like assassination missions, there is a straightforward method of obtaining the warframe, while at the same time not making the parts effortless to obtain.

[(PSN)zenhumphrey]

I recommend doing caracol on saturn, manic spawn early and the objective of the mission isn't that hard with a trin because she can heal the defectors

[Voltage]

I recommend checking Yursa on Neptune and taking Nekros. Stay 5 minutes and rinse/repeat. There are guaranteed Manic spawns on Defection missions.

Edited June 9, 2019 by Voltage

[(PSN)Ashagin]

Do the help clem mission.  If it's not Uranus then cancel out of mission during countdown and repeat untill you get Uranus.  A manic will always spawn before the 10 minute mission is over in the Uranis clem mission.  If u dont get the ash part u need then abort mission and repeat.   

[Asphyxiants]

The time you spent typing that out you could have done another Defection run and have it drop.

 

Stop crying. Keep grinding, or don't. We don't care. Bless RNGesus.

[selimsrm]

I ran about 20min survivals on Ophelia/Uranus to get manics to spawn when I was looking for Ash parts.

Sitting on a dozen Ash sets from manics, never saw a reason to sell them since credits are for more pedestal prime.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

Saturn Defection B...fastest farm..and I feel your pain because I went through it..but,... it does drop eventually, especially when you're like yeah' here comes the 18th Ash Helm...and then the system drops...

 

I can't even describe the relief....