The zhuge prime

[(XBOX)An Angry Mod]

The zhuge prime initial fire is silent, its the secondary explosion that's deemed alarming.

[jmthebigman]

firing it doesnt break ivara's stealth.

you can hit 100%sc easily. so with multishot you can proc 4 status in 1 shot, which is nice.

[jmthebigman]

its good at spreading status though.
Initial hit and explosion will apply status thats on the weapon.
so firing 1 bolt (with multishot = 2 hits) becomes 4 hits.

 

Havent had any problems in ESO with a viral slash build without HM.

[jmthebigman]

What people seem to overlook is that the Zhuge prime double procs.

1 shot = 2 bolts with multishot
a hit can cause 2 procs 1 with the impact and 1 with the explosion.

1 shot = 4 procs when you hit 100% SC.
Ofc it could proc the same element 4 times.

[MirageKnight]

42 minutes ago, vaarnaaarne said:

Well I was joking regarding the importance of a reason that was basically just "aesthetics of giblets".

Understood 🙂

[birdobash]

Although yes this is true, it also means theres 2 instances of damage to apply status rather than one, while not super useful for slash it is more useful if you build corrosive.

Still, I'm kinda on the edge for something like this.

[IceColdHawk]

5 hours ago, Oreades said:

Waaaait so the damage of the Zhuge Prime is split between the base impact of the arrow and the delayed explosion? 

So the explosion isn't even an added "bonus" it's required to get the base damage out of your crossbow? 

Sadly, yes. I was also hyped about the Prime since i kinda liked the normal version already. And when i playtested Zhuge Prime, despite the self damage since it doesn't bother me too much personally, i had lots of fun. It felt like a great weapon. Though through all the leveling i was wondering why my damage numbers seemed so low. I had them way higher in memory when i leveled my standard Zhuge and the difference seemed more than just 10% less base damage. So i headed to the simulacrum and found out the disappointment of the month...

I'm aware that it can proc status quite a bit easier due to each shot, practically hitting twice. But the damage seems lacking for a prime upgrade over the Zhuge. I'd be happier if DE just released a whole new crossbow instead which comes with a built-in thunderbolt instead of making a whole new weapon and labelling it as "Zhuge Prime". It feels like Opticor Vandal all over again 😕

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, jmthebigman said:

its good at spreading status though.
Initial hit and explosion will apply status thats on the weapon.
so firing 1 bolt (with multishot = 2 hits) becomes 4 hits.

 

Not to mention  the  higher rate of fire.

I'd like to see some simulacrum tests before worrying too much about the raw damage per shot.

[vaarnaaarne]

Albeit puncture and impact getting some ultraviolence giblets of their own would be very welcome. It's always a tiny sliver of disappointment when things don't explode in a shower of blood.

[jmthebigman]

3 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Not to mention  the  higher rate of fire.

I'd like to see some simulacrum tests before worrying too much about the raw damage per shot.

Start at 8:15 for a general build without riven
13:30 with a riven
NOT MY VIDEO

[ThePredicament]

Damage being split between the initial hit and the delayed explosion makes the gun very unreliable especially during forward momentum situations (which is most of the game). Making the explosions instant or buffing the initial damage to even 80% of the vanilla version would balance it out better, hell even a secondary mode that toggles between this mode and then non-explosive bolts would be a better qol change.

Yes, it technically DOES proc status twice but that is very situational, so there really isn't any point except for the aoe spread.

[Cenebrion]

DE plz make one of the follows:

- explosion on impact

- remove explosions at all

- add explosions to an alternative fire mode

Zhuge was created with Wukong and by adding delated explosion you gave a player-self-damage-weapon to Wukong's clon. Current Zhuge is horrible. I'm done. Thank you.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Cenebrion

[crackbeard]

2 hours ago, Cenebrion said:

DE plz make one of the follows:

- explosion on impact

- remove explosions at all

- add explosions to an alternative fire mode

Zhuge was created with Wukong and by adding delated explosion you gave a player-self-damage-weapon to Wukong's clon. Current Zhuge is horrible. I'm done. Thank you.

i think it should get even more of a buff than what you suggested but one thing is wukongs clone doesn't damage you when he shoots, its actually one of the only real uses for it but there are muuuuch better weapons to give to the clone lol.

[TKDancer]

self dmg needs to be removed from the game, it doesnt matter if it doesnt make complete sense to not be harmed by our own explosions, its just not fun, specially when the self dmg scales with mods(hey self 1-shots) or are on super fast firing weapons(zhuge and hikou with the explosive mod)

DE is also pretty inconsistent about making weapons have self dmg, some do, some dont, whether or not they have it is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, which only makes it more frustrating when a weapon that would be fun or even actually good has it

[BlachWolf]

Firstly let me say this, The self dmg doesnt really disturb me, I find it okay for an AOE weapon to have self dmg. Now that this is out of the way, lets talk about the two things I dont like about the weapon:

1. Explosion delay: I find a one second delay to be way to long, especially in warframe. In my opinion the arrows should explode on impact or at max have a delay of 0.5s. Also I think this is why many players are having issues with self dmg, since they might fire upon an enemy who's running towards them and the 1s delay gives the target enough time to become a suicide bomber and take the player with them.
2. Reload "passive": This passive is more of a punishment, it punishes the player for actually managing their resources. Change the reload speed to always be 1.5s and replace the passive with something like this: Reloading from an empty magazine gives the zhuge prime an additive 15% critical chance buff for 6s. This would at least give the player something worth while for emptying their mag without punishing them actually playing smart.

Those are my only two gripes with the weapon, other than that I find it to be a good fun weapon.

[Oreades]

The problem with the self damage is that while it is fine for AoE weapons ..... the Zhuge was NEVER an AoE weapon. The Zhuge Prime just magically became an AoE weapon with no method for opting in/out. If it has been an alt fire mechanic, not a huge issue but it wasn't. 

Additionally the problem with the enemy getting hit with the arrow and exploding later after running towards the player is in part a problem with the fact that the Zhuge Prime splits it's base damage between the initial impact and the explosion. If the Arrow was doing the full damage in all likelihood the enemy would have been dead before they would have had a chance to run the arrow back to you. Not so much a timing on the explosion issue. 

[IceColdHawk]

The only problem i have is the damage seems missing. Something that the standard Zhuge wasn't. Tiberon Prime unmodded does just 5 damage less per shot tested on an ancient than Zhuge Prime (excluding the delayed self dmg explosions) but with higher fire rate, magazine size and crit stats.

Edited July 13, 2019 by IceColdHawk

[ShadowFel]

While I'm generally alright with self damage weapons, the idea of uncontrollable delayed explosions combined with self damage has done very poorly so far in this game.  When that happened to Tonkor, Tonkor's usage vanished.  Stug is very widely disliked.  High fire rate self damage weapons have similarly been either unpopular, or quickly changed to not deal self damage.  The recent Cyanex comes to mind.  So I do not understand why the combination of high fire rate, delayed explosions, and self damage were all combined on this weapon.

The reload passive is also awful, since it essentially punishes the muscle memory many players have to reload when there's a slight lull in the action.  I agree with a base reload of 1.5 and a different sort of bonus for reloading from empty.

[xMarvin732]

The one thing i am confused about the Self damage is, why is it that only Zhuge prime has it and not Zhuge aswell??
it was causing so much confusion because i ended up suddenly dying as a normal Nova with a Zhuge Prime almost everytime in Void when i used it.

[--Aegis--MR9]

What a coincidence, I entered the forum now to exactly say what OP said, and it's here! 

I too, am, perfectly fine with self damage. But that blast duration is way to high. For a fast paced game like Warframe, it doesn't work. 

Zhuge can be a potentially good weapon, I like the looks and the concept of an automatic crossbow. But it's not practical. 

I don't know who designes these at DE now, way to kill something fun.

Edited July 14, 2019 by MR9BCI

[xMarvin732]

On 2019-07-10 at 3:51 AM, sharkstrangler said:

1. Completely remove self-damage, it has no 0 reason to exist in WF.

 

Chroma self damage builds.

[Teridax68]

On 2019-07-10 at 2:51 AM, sharkstrangler said:

1. Completely remove self-damage, it has no 0 reason to exist in WF.

Agreed. Every time self-damage makes itself felt, it generates significant negative player feedback, and in the case of the Zhuge Prime it's coming close to making players abandon the weapon completely after ranking it up. Giving self-damage to a weapon with a delayed explosion in a game that mostly encourages us to continually advance from one end of the map to the other, and thus go through enemies, is not a smart idea, and from the looks of it just leads to players blowing themselves up when trying to play normally (and playing around the explosion would likely require slowing oneself down, or just not firing at all).

[sharkstrangler]

11 hours ago, xMarvin732 said:

Chroma self damage builds.

These only exist because of Eidolon Hunts. As an occasional hunter, we can live without this.

[BlachWolf]

On 2019-07-14 at 4:19 AM, MR9BCI said:

What a coincidence, I entered the forum now to exactly say what OP said, and it's here! 

I too, am, perfectly fine with self damage. But that blast duration is way to high. For a fast paced game like Warframe, it doesn't work. 

Zhuge can be a potentially good weapon, I like the looks and the concept of an automatic crossbow. But it's not practical. 

I don't know who designes these at DE now, way to kill something fun.

Not only that, since you're dealing less dmg with the actual bolt, you'll be wasting ammo since most people fire till the enemy is dead, which just happens to only take 3-5 seconds to kill a high level enemy and unless you hold you're fire, you'll be missing out on 1s worth of explosive dmg which is bad in my opinion. This is especially true in lower levels, were the enemy often dies before the arrows explode, which causes the enemy to fly away and explode somewhere where there are no enemies.

[--Aegis--MR9]

7 minutes ago, BlachWolf said:

Not only that, since you're dealing less dmg with the actual bolt, you'll be wasting ammo since most people fire till the enemy is dead, which just happens to only take 3-5 seconds to kill a high level enemy and unless you hold you're fire, you'll be missing out on 1s worth of explosive dmg which is bad in my opinion. This is especially true in lower levels, were the enemy often dies before the arrows explode, which causes the enemy to fly away and explode somewhere where there are no enemies.

Yeah I noticed it too, a very poorly designed weapon.