The Soma Solution

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

After extensive testing in both Simulcrum and open fields, I have come to a sound conclusion: The Soma Prime is mediocre.

Now normally this wouldn't bug me, as in Warframe it is only natural for some weapons to be better or worse than others. That said, the Soma family is an odd exception as it was once proudly toted as a top tier weapon with a unique mechanic; so to see it fall from grace (to the point even the Devs are confused on how to treat it) is a rather sad sight. So here are my findings on what is holding the Soma back and how to fix them:

• Poor base damage: The Soma Prime's base damage is 10. That is a horrendously low base damage, even with its abnormally high critical multiplier.
• Crit gimmick: The Soma family's main selling point is it has low base damage, but a high 3.0 crit multiplier and 30% base crit chance. With proper modding, these stats can be made quite formidable. That said, many other weapons nowadays have similar values and perform all the better due to having better general stats. HOWEVER with my personal tests I noticed that if the Soma Prime gets an orange crit (Crit X2) then it actually does a fair amount of damage. The problem with this though is that it take an extreme amount of niche modding and ability stacking to even get orange crits.
• Conclusion: The Soma prime needs a buff that can make it competitive once again, but also keep its identity as a crit fiend intact. Proposal: Buff the Soma's base crit chance to 50%. This would allow it to have 125% crit chance with a maxed Point Strike added, allowing for constant crits and a few orange crits. In doing so, its meager damage of 10 will be amplified dramatically.

Thoughts?

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

I understand that you tested this extensively, and I have no issues with my Soma whatsoever. And I also believe that the value of a weapon can be a very relative thing. So I must ask, despite all other data, how is it mediocre? Like, what level of enemies and what units was it tested against to reach that conclusion? Was it a tier most players face on a daily basis, like 1h Arbitrations or 8 Rounds ESO or Sortie enemies?  Or was it tested against the kind of enemies that you face while trying to go for Prodman's autograph or 2h Mot, Void?

Just curious, as that seems to be a great part of the Soma assessment. I do agree that it does feel quite a bit weaker than the all powerful Soma we had like 3 years back, and I do miss that old Soma, but it's still quite the good average rifle for most of the content I personally play.

[K4RN4]

13 minutes ago, (XB1)alchemPyro said:

Conclusion: The Soma prime needs a buff that can make it competitive once again, but also keep its identity as a crit fiend intact. Proposal: Buff the Soma's base crit chance to 50%. This would allow it to have 125% crit chance with a maxed Point Strike added, allowing for constant crits and a few orange crits. In doing so, its meager damage of 10 will be amplified dramatically.

Y tho? Why does the Soma Prime need to be good? It's super convenient, so you have to compensate the good handling with worse stats. I think it's fine as it is

 

[xXDeadsinxX]

The Soma Prime does not need a buff, it’s still a monster of a weapon even if other weapons out perform it. I even bring it to sorties every now and then and it’s still a 100% viable weapon that kills everything in it’s way.

[Maka.Bones]

While I appreciate your sentiment, and I definitely would love to see soma(prime) buffed to 50% CC (a rifle variant of the bow "dread" just so that I can see more red crits)

Soma is still very strong. I was just using it on ESO last night. Granted I'm also using [Argon Scope] and a riven which isn't available to many other players. But the devs might make the mental argument that "that's the point of getting stronger/better mods for your arsenal"

 

The devs might still listen to you and buff Soma, since it's not popular atm. But I'm not sure they'll do it on the argument that it's "weak" alone

Edited July 14, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[GinKenshin]

I don't see how strong a weapon was 3-4 years ago should constitute a buff to them now???

[(XBOX)An Angry Mod]

It got a dispo buff for a reason, i suggest finding and rolling stats to strengthen where it is the weakest [ms sc dmg neg zoom]

It is a very mediocre-at-best kind of weapon imo, but it looks cool as hek (same goes for aksomati) which is why i **think** about using it sometimes 😛 but then i remember i have dread with a groll so i'm all set for my 2hr mot runs 😛 

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, GinKenshin said:

I don't see how strong a weapon was 3-4 years ago should constitute a buff to them now???

By extension, weapons that were weaker 3-4 years ago should be nerfed. 🤪

Also weapons that didn't exist back then should probably just be deleted.

[Sloan441]

2 hours ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

The Soma Prime does not need a buff, it’s still a monster of a weapon even if other weapons out perform it. I even bring it to sorties every now and then and it’s still a 100% viable weapon that kills everything in it’s way.

I don't totally agree. I think there should be more separation between the Soma and Soma Prime. They're almost the same thing. 

There should be more than one MR between them and concomitant increases in stats for the SomaP. Other than that, I don't really have a problem with it. 

Keep in mind the base Soma is only MR6. That isn't much by today's standard. 

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Hikuro-93 said:

I understand that you tested this extensively, and I have no issues with my Soma whatsoever. And I also believe that the value of a weapon can be a very relative thing. So I must ask, despite all other data, how is it mediocre? Like, what level of enemies and what units was it tested against to reach that conclusion? Was it a tier most players face on a daily basis, like 1h Arbitrations or 8 Rounds ESO or Sortie enemies?  Or was it tested against the kind of enemies that you face while trying to go for Prodman's autograph or 2h Mot, Void?

Just curious, as that seems to be a great part of the Soma assessment. I do agree that it does feel quite a bit weaker than the all powerful Soma we had like 3 years back, and I do miss that old Soma, but it's still quite the good average rifle for most of the content I personally play.

The testing was done mainly against Tier 5 Plains and Vallis enemies. The Soma's TTK averaged around 1 to 2 seconds for most enemies, while tougher miniboss enemies could take up to 1 minute. This is with a riven buffing its crit chance to 112% and buffing slash damage.

Overall it has potential, but needs to be able to consistently hit orange crits to get there. I don't expect it to be the godly weapon it once was, but to see it actually used a bit more would be nice.

[Refticus]

the soma is fine; weapons with more than 30% crit should only be for more skill oriented weapons like snipers and bows, not on a rifle that has a high magazine size and rapid fire bullets.

miniboss enemies are always going to be tanky and of course only using one weapon takes longer to kill an enemy. you have to combine the weapon with abilities that boost damage, strip armour, or just plain old damaging abilities. it's simple variety and this should be encouraged instead of only needing to hold down mouse 1 and beat the entire mission (looking at you ignis wraith).

Edited July 14, 2019 by Refticus

[Tiltskillet]

11 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

I don't totally agree. I think there should be more separation between the Soma and Soma Prime. They're almost the same thing. 

There should be more than one MR between them and concomitant increases in stats for the SomaP. Other than that, I don't really have a problem with it. 

Keep in mind the base Soma is only MR6. That isn't much by today's standard. 

I honestly don't know whether the Soma Prime is undertuned or not, but this is the really striking thing to me about it: that it's not differentiated very well from the base version.

If it were to get a buff, an increase in raw damage or maybe crit multiplier would make more sense to me than giving it the proposed 50% crit.

[Maka.Bones]

40 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

I honestly don't know whether the Soma Prime is undertuned or not, but this is the really striking thing to me about it: that it's not differentiated very well from the base version.

If it were to get a buff, an increase in raw damage or maybe crit multiplier would make more sense to me than giving it the proposed 50% crit.

Base 50% crit would do both of those things (increase base damage and damage multiplier) 

You realize how red-critable it would become with a base 50% crit?

[Tiltskillet]

Just now, Maka.Bones said:

Base 50% crit would do both of those things (increase base damage and damage multiplier) 

You realize how red-critable it would become with a base 50% crit?

Yes, but like @Refticus , I believe this should be the province of crit weapons that check two or three of these boxes: slow RoF, semi-auto, projectile, small magazine or slow reload. 

IOW, weapons that need some consistency since missing shots entirely is a stronger possibility and much more punishing than it is with a hitscan bullet hose.

Since it has spool up, Soma isn't quite the quintessential bullet hose...but it's extremely close.

 

 

[Maka.Bones]

22 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Yes, but like @Refticus , I believe this should be the province of crit weapons that check two or three of these boxes: slow RoF, semi-auto, projectile, small magazine or slow reload. 

IOW, weapons that need some consistency since missing shots entirely is a stronger possibility and much more punishing than it is with a hitscan bullet hose.

Since it has spool up, Soma isn't quite the quintessential bullet hose...but it's extremely close.

 

 

Sometimes it's good to put away the cookiecutter... otherwise the soma won't really have anything that makes it strong or unique. Might as well only use the Supra Vandal/Ignis wraith (which is already the case) 

Also If crit was determined by low RoF/small magazine/small reload/projectile, then Lanka, Corinth, Tigris, Sybaris, Tiberon, and Opticor should have a much higher crit% yet they don't... So I can't really agree with that rationale, when looking at soma--aside from the fact that every other rifle would just be a reskin of the supra, if they treated every automatic rifle like that. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Tiltskillet]

5 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

Sometimes it's good to put away the cookiecutter... otherwise the soma won't really have anything that makes it strong or unique.

 

Strong or unique?  There are lots of ways to make it strong.  Will it make it unique in any real way?  I don't think higher crit on its own will change the way the majority of people build the weapon, or change the situations it's best- and worst suited for.  Yeah, 50% crit will change how much it's used if it  comes with no nerfs to anything else, but that's not because it's more unique.  It's because it'd be doing roughly 50% more damage.

There's got to be better ways to make it unique if you're genuinely worried about that.

 

5 minutes ago, Maka.Bones said:

lso If crit was determined by low RoF/small magazine/small reload/projectile, then Lanka, Corinth, Tigris, Sybaris, Tiberon, and Opticor should have a much higher crit% yet they don't... So I can't really agree with that rationale, when looking at soma--aside from the fact that every other rifle would just be a reskin of the supra, if they treated every automatic rifle like that.  

 

Lanka- Spoiler Warning!: scope bonus

Corinth-  Uh, it's the highest crit shotgun.

Tigris- I can't say I've seen the Tigger called a crit weapon before.  😛 

Sybaris- I don't really play with burst weapons, so I don't know where to begin there.  It does look like it's just as much a status weapon as crit though. _{Damn, maybe I should give burst weapons another chance...}

Tiberon- Prime, semi-auto I assume? Honestly, this is a good one.  30% isn't low, but I wish it did have even higher crit in that mode.  (And higher base damage / lower RoF.)

Opticor- Crit is more than  respectable on this considering its combination of wide shots and explosions.  But you're right, that's another checkbox I should have added: "No AoE".

But you're assuming I think everything should be the same when I don't.  There's a lot of room between "Evil, Smelly Tiltskillet wants all weapons to be cookie-cutter." and "Wise and Benevolent Tiltskillet agrees that 50% base crit is the best idea for fixing the Soma ever."

 

[--Aegis--MR9]

Buff Soma rivens!

[Xzorn]

You don't really need or want more than 100% Crit chance. Orange / Red crits are just aesthetics. A Primary weapon needs about 50% Crit chance to outweigh Multi, CD or %Damage but that's with x2 multiplier so Crit Damage would still be better. Even then that's not Soma's problem. It's the base status. The weapon goes from 32k Burst to 22k Burst for +12% status. That's why most go pure physical Hunters or Viral Hunters cuz relying on forced Slash procs is about the best it can do against Armor and even with no Armor 32k Burst DPS isn't great. Least not with Pistols breaking 100k and melee pushing millions.

In the end Assault Rifles are the weakest gun type in the game and they need a global buff. Not just Soma.

Most the Semi-auto & Burst Rifles aren't too hot either.

My freakin' Ignis does 36k Burst.  I mean, get real DE.

[Maka.Bones]

6 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Corinth-  Uh, it's the highest crit shotgun.

Which isn't saying much... It's crit is still very low, for it's "fire rate, magazine size, projectile speed" as you mentioned

Btw, zooming in during a horde game, doesn't really help much (about the Lanka) so I would HOPE that you do get some benefit from it... The zoom bonus doesn't apply when regarding base stats, according to your "check boxes" either. 

I'm not going to bother answering the rest of what you've said. Your argument/points has some double-standards, which makes you seem biased--which I'm not sure what reason you would have for being biased about weapon stats. Have you shot a real weapon?

I'm just gonna agree to disagree. 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Maka.Bones]

16 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Strong or unique?  There are lots of ways to make it strong.  Will it make it unique in any real way?  I don't think higher crit on its own will change the way the majority of people build the weapon, or change the situations it's best- and worst suited for.  Yeah, 50% crit will change how much it's used if it  comes with no nerfs to anything else, but that's not because it's more unique.  It's because it'd be doing roughly 50% more damage.

There's got to be better ways to make it unique if you're genuinely worried about that.

I changed my mind, I'll reply to this. (Sorry if writing so much overwhelms you, or feels bothersome to read)

Both. 

You need more than one "strong" weapon for a large game. You need those weapons to be unique. Unfortunately the only real way we have to make unique weapons (outside different weapon types like bows, rifles, shotguns) is to give them different aesthetics, and different action (full auto, semi, charge, burst, spool, reload, recoil) and different stats for different builds (status, crit, hybrid). 

Soma is a full-auto rifle (which there are many of) and the only thing that sets it appart is the crit, and brief spool. In fact, the only thing that keeps it useful is the crit chance. 

It wouldn't roughly be doing 50% more damage at 50% CC btw. With the correct mods, it could be doing more than 150% more damage than it currently can. 

Many of the specialized crit mods aren't especially useful at the moment, because Soma's CC isn't high enough to warrant anything other than a hybrid build with Hunter munitions. 

Granted, I wouldn't complain if it's base damage also increased. But the only reason/argument I can see for not increasing Soma's CC is that it would take away from Dread's relevance--which isn't Soma's fault, it's just that bows as a whole need to be better period. But I mean... guns are actually better than bows anyway. 

The way Imagine CC working IRL would be based on the effects of the bullet once it's inside. The AK-47 shoots rounds that spin, so it does a lot of "critical damage" despite being a full-auto rifle--Soma would be similar. Meanwhile high-powered shots (like a .50 Cal Barrett) might do a lot of damage, but they also carry a lot of recoil with it. 

I would honestly prefer to keep Soma's damage as it is, keep the recoil as it is, and increase the CC by itself. Increasing CD would do less than increasing CC, since CD doesn't do much if the weapon isn't criting. Meanwhile a base 50% CC will reach >180% with only two mods. Over 180%CC will orange-crit often enough to increase the CD all by itself. (And that's without a riven)

Edit: Tbh I don't think it really needs 50% CC, even 40-45%  would be plenty. At which point i wouldn't mind some more CD, so i'm not disagreeing about CD being useful. But more CC would certainly benefit it more than CD alone, since currently it's hard to make it orange crit without specialized/rare mods, or a riven... and nearly impossible to get it to red-crit otherwise. So from a non-veteran perspective, it could certainly use more crit. 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[000l000]

Il y a 4 heures, Maka.Bones a dit :

because Soma's CC isn't high enough to warrant anything other than a hybrid build with Hunter munitions

Why the hell would you build a hybrid Soma with HM ? Soma needs some viral and a full crit HM build, i did get quite good results with such a build - Along with Avenger arcane and a Kavat you're dealing really nice damages. Sure it costs bullets but that's what this kind of guns are for, spreading bullets. Plus 30% crit. is high enough to build anything critical, you can complain all day long but you seem to forget that Soma prime is only a rank 7 weapon so its critical couldn't be higher - Perhaps it could be 40 or 50% but it'll need a rank 11-12+ then. You can't blame a weapon to not be something it can't be.

With Argon scope, the right arcane and a Kavat (which are quite common gear tbh) you can deal orange crits, even red - level 120 gunners are killed in seconds with such build. Most people complaining about anything here don't have a clue about how to gear themselves, complaining is always easier than to basically ask advices.

And FyI guns aren't better than bows, i can pretty much one(or two)shot anything with a Cernos prime built the same way (viral+HM). In fact the only thing that can beat bows in this department are sniper rifles thanks to their combo mechanics. Critical auto rifles are even worse in real situations since you'll need a lot of headshots to deal bigger damages when only one or two well placed arrows can do the trick.

Edited July 15, 2019 by 000l000

[Maka.Bones]

5 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Why the hell would you build a hybrid Soma with HM ? Soma needs some viral and a full crit HM build

And how did you get the viral to proc? Hence hybrid

5 hours ago, 000l000 said:

With Argon scope, the right arcane and a Kavat (which are quite common gear tbh) you can deal orange crits, even red - level 120 gunners are killed in seconds with such build. Most people complaining about anything here don't have a clue about how to gear themselves, complaining is always easier than to basically ask advices.

Which is why I originally said that soma isn't weak. See below

On 2019-07-14 at 8:41 AM, Maka.Bones said:

While I appreciate your sentiment, and I definitely would love to see soma(prime) buffed to 50% CC (a rifle variant of the bow "dread" just so that I can see more red crits)

Soma is still very strong. I was just using it on ESO last night. Granted I'm also using [Argon Scope] and a riven which isn't available to many other players. But the devs might make the mental argument that "that's the point of getting stronger/better mods for your arsenal"

 

The devs might still listen to you and buff Soma, since it's not popular atm. But I'm not sure they'll do it on the argument that it's "weak" alone

 

5 hours ago, 000l000 said:

Plus 30% crit. is high enough to build anything critical, you can complain all day long but you seem to forget that Soma prime is only a rank 7 weapon so its critical couldn't be higher - Perhaps it could be 40 or 50% but it'll need a rank 11-12+ then. You can't blame a weapon to not be something it can't be.

Yeah that's exactly my point on it needing more crit (but yes, it could also use more CD). It honestly needs a better disparity from regular soma imo. Yes it can already be built for crit, but it's hard to get red crits without some niche setup or a riven. But I do agree with you, it's not that soma is weak by any means... just that it almost depends on niche/special mods. Tbh it doesn't even need 50% even just an increase to 40-45% CC would be plenty significant

5 hours ago, 000l000 said:

And FyI guns aren't better than bows, i can pretty much one(or two)shot anything with a Cernos prime built the same way (viral+HM). In fact the only thing that can beat bows in this department are sniper rifles thanks to their combo mechanics. Critical auto rifles are even worse in real situations since you'll need a lot of headshots to deal bigger damages when only one or two well placed arrows can do the trick.

I was talking about IRL. But ingame, yes they're better at clearing a room unless you're using a Lenz. Shotguns are even better than bows. Bows are solid for single-target, or spy missions, but other than that they're not effective at the game's current horde style of gameplay... Except maybe the Cernos Prime, or Rakta Cernos, or Ivara's Exalted bow (they're literally the only bows that can manage hordes to some degree)

If the "endgame" stages of the game start changing into fewer, tankier, more aggressive mobs, then yeah bows would be more ideal. Stealth gameplay would be more rewarded. 

 

P.S. @000l000 is that your volume turned up, or are you just happy to see me? (Your name  lol)

Edited July 15, 2019 by Maka.Bones

[Caine2112]

Actually, if you wanted to buff the Soma Prime, I'd give it an alternate fire mode to switch its fire rate to 3-round Burst fire and up the base Crit Chance another 20%.  I'd be happy with a buff like that.  Also, clean up its skin by adding better metallics.

[Maka.Bones]

1 hour ago, Caine2112 said:

Actually, if you wanted to buff the Soma Prime, I'd give it an alternate fire mode to switch its fire rate to 3-round Burst fire and up the base Crit Chance another 20%.  I'd be happy with a buff like that.  Also, clean up its skin by adding better metallics.

Holy f***k, yes please! 

[Xzorn]

6 hours ago, Maka.Bones said:

Which is why I originally said that soma isn't weak. See below

 

Except comparatively it is quite weak. Both from single target and multi-target standpoint.

When it comes to single target beam weapons, pistols and snipers put Assault Rifles to shame and there's plenty of better AoE options.

I mean players are welcome to keep using these very under powered Assault Rifles but there's no defending their poor performance.