Working on a Battle Archer Ivara Build

[(PSN)Yes-Man-Kablaam]

The incoming deluxe skin got me more inspired to try and play with this idea. I know she's not exactly tanky but yeah more attacking and less sneaking. so far my setup (no arcanes really just a heads up) I don't use Ivara too much but I like going around to frames here and there messing around.

CP Aura

Cunning Drift

Intensify, P Continuity, Augur Message, P Flow

Empowered Quiver, P Vigor, Stretch, Fleeting Expertise

 

I wanna try out using empowered quiver i find that at the very least having the extra 130% crit damage is nice and if i'm quick on the draw the cloak can wipe status like toxin for infested and stuff so that's neat though i think to get full effect i might need to try out lenz but i'm not a huge fan of that bow. I plan to get Zhuge Prime when i can to play with that more on top of prowl damage boosting.

So far i've found that having artemis out a lot and quick firing the sleep arrows into crowds combining with some dagger melee can work out pretty nicely though i have a couple gripes with the artemis bow itself. and while i'm at it i'll post the build for that   the build I'm using I plan on having that honestly as the main weapons it's why i have fleeting on there. overall just to try and make a different feeling Ivara then the normal prowl around sneak n steal kind of deal I did before That's also why I'm using P vigor to add to her health instead of say QT since my energy is basically my ammunition.

Artemis Bow Build

Split Chamber, Serration, Point Strike, P Shred

Malignant Force, High Voltage, Heavy Caliber, Vigilante Armaments

Honestly unsure if i want teh 60/60s on there but we'll see for now since i'm unsure what would be a great element to proc. with all the multishot i can do multiple procs so i went corrosive for now. Viral is another idea but at the same time with so many bolts it feels a waste to have viral as multiple procs don't really do anything. Also it seems Heavy Caliber doesn't actually do anything to the accuracy so that's why that's on there it's basically serration number 2.

Any thoughts or tips here and there about the build would be appreciated. 

 

 

[BlindStalker]

On 2019-07-11 at 11:22 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

I know she's not exactly tanky

That's an understatement. Ivara sits at one of the lowest eHP (I don't know how to calculate the eHP, you'll have to ask someone else for that, but she's definitely near the bottom of the eHP list). Ivara is a glass cannon. 

I'm not sure what you envision for a "battle archer". To me, the first image that is conjured up, in relation to Ivara, is Ivara being reckless without prowl seldom using prowl and dispatching enemies with her Artemis bow in widespread fashion. Video in spoiler to emphasis what I think when "battle archer" Ivara is mentioned.

 

Spoiler

Not the whole video, just from 2:38 to 5:31. That's what I have in mind when one says 'Battle Archer' Ivara. I probably have a different view on Battle Archer Ivara at this point in my game time.

 

 

Ivara is a glass cannon, if you're not used to playing other glass cannons and want to be less reliant on using her prowl, then the first several hours with Ivara will feel difficult because she really will get hurt out there, even at some low levels, unless you get some more advanced gear. She is overly-reliant on her invisibility for situations where it counts though, just like most stealth frames.

But let's go over your build for Ivara. Currently to me it looks like a general build for Ivara, with the slight addition of emp-quiver. A general build for Ivara is perfectly fine, especially if you're just first starting to try and get used to Ivara. Now you mention you have no arcanes for her currently, I would recommend trying to get some arcanes if possible later down the road, but not a major issue if you don't have any now. They just allow you to be a bit more reckless or more optimized with some of her builds.

On 2019-07-11 at 11:22 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

CP Aura

Cunning Drift

Intensify, P Continuity, Augur Message, P Flow

Empowered Quiver, P Vigor, Stretch, Fleeting Expertise

I would trade out Augur Message for Constitution, simply because Constitution gives you more ability duration (28% vs 24%) but also knockback recovery too. Being able to quickly jump back up from a knockdown is a major QoL in combat I feel (when you're not at the levels where you won't get one shot).

I'm not a big fan of P. Vigor, for myself, but that's just personal choice to me. I'm not sure how much eHP of an increase it is (someone else should comment on it). One survivability mod is fine on Ivara just to help you get started with using her.

On 2019-07-11 at 11:22 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

Artemis Bow Build

Split Chamber, Serration, Point Strike, P Shred

Malignant Force, High Voltage, Heavy Caliber, Vigilante Armaments

Supposedly Artemis Bow's status chance works the same way like shotgun status (I've never known myself) and based off the calculations, it's actually like around 3.14% per arrow to proc a status. I've treated Artemis bow as a crit-based weapon, so I tend to favour the 90% elemental mods because of the low status chance. Stacking on raw damage is generally how I prefer to build Artemis bow. I switch mods on and off of Artemis bow depending on which elemental damage I need for the situation.

I am wondering though if you mistyped because I don't see Vital Sense on your list of mods. If you're trying to use Empowered Quiver's crit damage bonus then I want to point out, that Empower Quiver's crit buff is actually additive and not multiplicative (Vital Sense is multiplicative). So like default Artemis bow crit damage multiplier is like 2.0. With just using Empowered quiver alone, (at 130% strength), while balancing on her dashwire your crit multiplier for Artemis bow goes from 2.0 to 3.3 (200% + 130%). With Vital Sense mod on your Artemis Bow, it goes from 2.0 to 4.4. Then if you were to jump on your emp-qui dashwire (with same buff) then your crit multiplier for Artemis Bow goes up to 5.7 (440% + 130%). Assuming I did the calculations correctly (someone should double check for me just in case please).

I myself would probably trade in the 60/60 mods for 90 elemental. P. Shred is actually pretty nice to have on Artemis bow (I've been experimenting with it more recently on Artemis Bow and it actually just makes Artemis Bow feel pretty nice to use for fanning hallways with arrows).

On 2019-07-11 at 11:22 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

Also it seems Heavy Caliber doesn't actually do anything to the accuracy

 This seems to be the case. HC doesn't seem like it has ever affected Artemis Bow's shots as far as I can tell from my own playtime. 

On 2019-07-11 at 11:22 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

I plan to get Zhuge Prime

Note that Zhuge Prime has explosive self damage, so you don't want to get close to your targets and you don't want your targets accidentally running closer to you before the arrows blow up. The arrows have a delayed explosion timer. There was a person I was watching doing a video of Ivara + Zhuge Prime (but they had a riven and were trying to 'stress test' the riven and the video is in Chinese so not sure how much it helps). But it can sort of give you a ballpark idea of trying to combo using Zhuge with Ivara's dashwires in a fixed defensive position type of approach.

Spoiler

This person's video that I was talking about:

 

Ivara is like a balanced technical utility glass cannon. In a really simplistic overview, where Loki's kit is more utility based frame (really great utility), and where Ash is more of an offensive combative focused frame, Ivara is somewhere in the middle of that, where she has utility and combative offensive abilities. Note: I'm being really simplistic here and not going into a full nuance discussion, but that's just to help you understand you be can combative with Ivara, you just need to start understanding other systems/tools that will synergize well with Ivara.

Edited July 25, 2019 by BlindStalker

[taiiat]

• if you want to be aggressive with Ivara, i would suggest some EHP Mod that you like, plus Adaptation. that'll mostly cover you.
• i'll leave it up to you to decide what Strength/Range/Duration mixture you're happy with.
• if you're going to be mixing Prowl in, i might suggest very high Efficiency (without hurting Duration too much), on the premise of remembering that while Prowl is active, you lose Energy per Damage instance you receive.
• are you definitely going to only be shooting Artemis while you're on a Zipline? if not, not having Vital Sense is losing a massive amount of Damage.
• if you ask me Artemis Bow doesn't perform well with Status much at all, in the sense that it already has enough of a probability of applying 1 Elemental Status Effect per Shot that more than that doesn't feel appealing to me, vs more Damage.

[DatDarkOne]

To add to what both @BlindStalker and @taiiat said.  You should also pair her with status melee using Healing Return.  This will allow you to wade into the enemies an regain health without needing to using energy channeling for Life Strike.  If you use a elemental combo the procs AoE all the better.  

When you get really good at using a more attacker style with Ivara, then you won't even need that Primed Vigor or other health mods.  Although Adaptation is since a nice one to have on her.  I don't have it on any one my builds as I just haven't needed it yet with my playstyle.  

[0_The_F00l]

8 hours ago, BlindStalker said:

That's an understatement. Ivara sits at one of the lowest eHP (I don't know how to calculate the eHP, you'll have to ask someone else for that, but she's definitely near the bottom of the eHP list). Ivara is a glass cannon. 

 

I got you fam

Also for the OP, you want to stay invisible for as long as possible and a means to heal and get energy (maybe one of the rakta or Suda weapons) 

Battle archer is really not her Forte, but it could work if you are very actively using the abilities and right weapons. 

[(PSN)Yes-Man-Kablaam]

Good to know about the shotgun style artemis so might as well swap out the dual stats and at that point i can slip in a vital sense. i figured i'd use the bow on a dashwire a lot but it can't hurt now. I've already used Ivara a decent amount before this i know a decent amount of how she works I just purposefully want a different build from the others i have one as a big stealth focus and one for open world farming and fishing and i've always felt i've underutilized her artemis bow in general so I figured I'd move out of my comfort zone and see what i can work with. current primary is a Rakta Cernos so i do have ways to get energy and a healing melee wouldn't be a bad idea though i never tried out life strike with a finisher but hey can see how it works.  I know about Zhuge Prime self damage but I also hear it doesn't break Ivara Prowl though not sure if it's intentional or not.

 

It does look like Ivara can do much to really get tanky so P Vigor atm will work fine enough I just want to be able to take a bullet here or there since I'll be trying to play aggressive more. less prowl and more using the stealth and sleep arrows to hide and cc though prowl will sometimes come into play for the extra damage. I think I don't really have enough hp to really make much use of adaptation in the first place though honestly and Quick Thinking is a very iffy thing I think.

[DatDarkOne]

17 minutes ago, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

It does look like Ivara can do much to really get tanky so P Vigor atm will work fine enough I just want to be able to take a bullet here or there since I'll be trying to play aggressive more. less prowl and more using the stealth and sleep arrows to hide and cc though prowl will sometimes come into play for the extra damage. I think I don't really have enough hp to really make much use of adaptation in the first place though honestly and Quick Thinking is a very iffy thing I think.

Here's the simple trick to playing a very aggressive Ivara.  ALWAYS be aware of your surroundings and enemy position.  Having Animal Instinct on either a sentinal or pet helps with this.  The other thing is to have sleep arrow ready to cast at a moments notice to give yourself breathing room and to also completely stop enemies that could AoE your area, the Mutalist Osprey and their poison cloud comes to mind.  

Now that we have quick weapon switching.  Artemis Bow no longer locks you out of melee attacks like it previously did.  So you can switch from Artemis to melee and back again without having to deactivate/reactivate.  

You will what to use weapons that you are familiar with.  This is especially important for the melee aspect as spin2win will not always be an option for her due to how Prowl works.  So know how your melee combos work for your chosen weapon.  

With an aggressive Ivara, you will find that you won't need much duration for things like Sleep Arrow because the enemies with either be killed by you or your teammates before your duration ends.  Knowing this can give you a bit more wiggle room to possibly work with in your build.  

Regardless of build, the one stat that will stay constant even with this aggressive playstyle is the need to have high efficiency.  

my current all purpose build that I also use for aggressive style has 160% efficiency and only 95% duration.  Some will say that she needs high duration for Prowl.  That's actually not true if your efficiency is high enough or max.  This wouldn't really matter that much for you as you don't plan to be in Prowl all the time anyway.  

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

Good to know about the shotgun style artemis so might as well swap out the dual stats and at that point i can slip in a vital sense. i figured i'd use the bow on a dashwire a lot but it can't hurt now.

er, you wouldn't want to lose your Elemental Damage, that's where almost all of your Damage comes from either way.
i was thinking Vital Sense over Heavy Caliber since Vital Sense on top of the bonus from the Zipline Augment while is ~10% less Damage per Shot, means dramatically more Damage per Shot when you aren't on a Zipline. for me that puts the situation as is this slightly higher Damage in this particular scenario worth having lower Damage in any other scenario? since if at any time you forgot to get on a Zipline before you fired you'd feel the missing Damage.

[(PSN)Yes-Man-Kablaam]

20 hours ago, taiiat said:

er, you wouldn't want to lose your Elemental Damage, that's where almost all of your Damage comes from either way.
i was thinking Vital Sense over Heavy Caliber since Vital Sense on top of the bonus from the Zipline Augment while is ~10% less Damage per Shot, means dramatically more Damage per Shot when you aren't on a Zipline. for me that puts the situation as is this slightly higher Damage in this particular scenario worth having lower Damage in any other scenario? since if at any time you forgot to get on a Zipline before you fired you'd feel the missing Damage.

I mean if anything dropping only one elemental mod and using the 90% elemental instead with vital sense. yes it then limits me to base elements though isn't a huge deal so far.buuut we'll see when i hop back on warframe.

[taiiat]

16 minutes ago, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

I mean if anything dropping only one elemental mod and using the 90% elemental instead with vital sense. yes it then limits me to base elements though isn't a huge deal so far.buuut we'll see when i hop back on warframe.

it's actually a big deal! combined Elements that your target Enemy is weak to can take massively more Damage than from any single Element.

i.e. we're usually picking Elemental Types that Enemies are 75% weak to, meaning that your 1.8x Base Damage (2x 90%) Elemental Damage is actually at minimum 315% Damage (so over quadruple Damage including the Base Damage). while a single Element is looking at a best case scenario of 50% weakness meaning 135% Damage (2.35x total Damage) but would generally expect to be 112.5% Damage (2.125x total Damage.

even if the Enemy was neutral to it, it's still so much more Damage that it basically always wins. since that's just 1.8x then, which is still better than the best case scenario for a single Element (which was 1.35x)!

Edited July 27, 2019 by taiiat

[BlindStalker]

On 2019-07-26 at 1:40 AM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

It does look like Ivara can do much to really get tanky so P Vigor atm will work fine enough I just want to be able to take a bullet here or there since I'll be trying to play aggressive more. less prowl and more using the stealth and sleep arrows to hide and cc though prowl will sometimes come into play for the extra damage. I think I don't really have enough hp to really make much use of adaptation in the first place though honestly and Quick Thinking is a very iffy thing I think.

You don't have to use a mod like quick thinking. I actually don't recommend trying that mod out because it can be a real pain in the butt. It's a "blessing and a curse" type of mod that I would say. The only reason I use it is because I've been in pretty bad situations and the mod did save her life on those few occasions. But also by the same mod, I've been "staggered to death" at times as well with stagger animation at times. It's a give and take type of mod.

Primed vigor might work out better for you, so give it a try.

On 2019-07-26 at 1:22 AM, 0_The_F00l said:

I got you fam

Also for the OP, you want to stay invisible for as long as possible and a means to heal and get energy (maybe one of the rakta or Suda weapons) 

Battle archer is really not her Forte, but it could work if you are very actively using the abilities and right weapons. 

Ah thank you for linking this. I've always wanted to get a ballpark idea of where she was on the eHP calculations. I appreciate this listing, cheers!

On 2019-07-26 at 11:25 PM, (PS4)Yes-Man-Kablaam said:

I mean if anything dropping only one elemental mod and using the 90% elemental instead with vital sense. yes it then limits me to base elements though isn't a huge deal so far.buuut we'll see when i hop back on warframe.

You should follow Taiiat's advice. I myself would drop either the heavy caliber or the vigilante armament mod and replace with an elemental 90% mod instead. I constantly change mods on Artemis bow depending on the situation. If I want the arrows down the hallway, or I'm expecting a wide area group, then I would keep the VA. Or if I'm in a situation where I don't the extra arrows, then I would keep HC on.

But I switch mods a lot on Artemis bow depending on what the situation calls for.