Can you make the Scindo prime worth collecting?

[HowlingComet]

I'm sure plenty of people know about the recent weapons in the heavy blade class. Gram prime and Paracesis coming out to easily place them next to Galatine prime as contenders for "best melee weapon". However something has been overlooked with the addition of these, obviously if you read the title it's Scindo prime (we don't talk about non primes here).
In all honesty I have for sure idea what to do with the weapon to make it unique or actually worth collecting other than fashion frame (which is why I have it). I've thought of things but nothing stands out to me.

Here are current stats:

(sorted by DE difficulty to please fans and create)
Option 1 (Easy): Make it do the most damage because it has short reach compared to the others.
Option 2 (Medium): Give it a special effect like extra head shot damage because the stance it is associated with seems to emphasize head shots. Though head shot melee weapons other than glaives sounds like a bad idea. Maybe it can just have shattering impact as a passive?
Option 3 (Hard): Make it not a heavy blade, change stances and not make them garbage. Kinda like Tatsu. Make it a heavy blade/hammer mix like how Tatsu is a heavy blade/nikana mix. 

But yeah Scindo prime is lacking in interest to more than just me certainly. I've never seen anyone use one since Gram prime and Paracesis, especially with it being vaulted.

Edited October 16, 2019 by HowlingComet

[Bostew]

DE said that the melee weapons balance will come with melee 3.0.

[LostSeeker0]

TBH, I totally agree that Scindo Prime needs a bone thrown to it in how its stats have been powercreeped over to an extent of invalidating the weapon altogether.. Concerning it has the shortest reach and is literally described as an executioner's weapon by the description, the Scindo Prime should excel in annihilating single enemies in front of you compared to the other heavy blade melee weapons.

I don't care if you give it 200 base damage to make it compete with the other Heavy Blades, give us the Battleaxe that'll make any space Viking proud.

Just now, Bostew said:

DE said that the melee weapons balance will come with melee 3.0.

True. I can only hope this does get addressed and doesn't get overlooked. Considering if we all look at the stats of Fang Prime... DE has a LOT of work cut out for them.

[Uhkretor]

Topic title is misleading.

[taiiat]

i don't have any ideas for unique traits off the top of my head, either. maybe causes a small AoE on impact or something, or a moderate Stagger/Stun AoE on impact, idk.

though breaking it out like Tatsu into different Animations but essentially same Weapon Class would be something i'd go with, sure.
and still waiting for Ack to be available standalone with its own Stance, too. where mah medium weight two handed crush/cut blade, would be such a good middleground between Heavy Melee Types and the lighter types. i want that middleground of speed and agility with sheer crushing power

1 hour ago, Bostew said:

DE said that the melee weapons balance will come with melee 3.0.

yeah but what are they gonna do? i'm half expecting a Weapon like Scindo to be 'made relevant' by... giving it something stupid like 36% Status or something. but sacrificing some other Stats for it. 
which would still leave it as functionally pointless. 

remember, that Guns got 'balanced' by making 90% of the Guns all the same Critting Status Hybrid spray throwers. which didn't hardly help at all, just made Weapons much more bland and samey because they all do the same things. and the preferred Weapons still are anyways because they're still just better and few Weapons actually do anything different from one another in the same Weapon Class. dozens of Guns in each Class yet they essentially all do the same thing, and so you use the best one because they're all nearly reskins of each other.

Edited October 16, 2019 by taiiat

[TheGrimCorsair]

1. Any stat changes won't come until after Melee 3.0, and whatever they happen to be, it won't change the fact that Scindo Prime (should it retain its current MR4 rank) is likely to forever be on the weak end of Heavy Blades.

2. This is what charge attacks already do, and crit-based weapons using Amalgam Organ Shatter with stances that don't have early hold-input combos are already pretty good at taking advantage of them.

3. This would be my preference, giving axes a unique niche where their stances emphasize swift approaches and devastating hits rather than sweeping wide areas would be a way to go that moves it out of the shadow of trying to compete in class with weapons that simply make far better use of the stances at their disposal.

That said, for now, its stats already lend it to being built along the lines of a Crit+Status hybrid weapon and with access to Cleaving Whirlwind, shouldn't really be lacking in killing power at all. Range is going to be a problem, but that just means you should be looking to use it with warframes that are good at keeping groups of enemies clustered together or otherwise able to pull large numbers of enemies together.

[LostSeeker0]

4 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

1. Any stat changes won't come until after Melee 3.0, and whatever they happen to be, it won't change the fact that Scindo Prime (should it retain its current MR4 rank) is likely to forever be on the weak end of Heavy Blades.

2. This is what charge attacks already do, and crit-based weapons using Amalgam Organ Shatter with stances that don't have early hold-input combos are already pretty good at taking advantage of them.

3. This would be my preference, giving axes a unique niche where their stances emphasize swift approaches and devastating hits rather than sweeping wide areas would be a way to go that moves it out of the shadow of trying to compete in class with weapons that simply make far better use of the stances at their disposal.

That said, for now, its stats already lend it to being built along the lines of a Crit+Status hybrid weapon and with access to Cleaving Whirlwind, shouldn't really be lacking in killing power at all. Range is going to be a problem, but that just means you should be looking to use it with warframes that are good at keeping groups of enemies clustered together or otherwise able to pull large numbers of enemies together.

Okay, on the first point you stated with it forever being on the weak end of Heavy Blades, that would completely invalidate the purpose of this thread. Furthermore DE actually did change the MR requirements of various ranged weapons in a massive update for said weapons, so don't rule out the possibility of Scindo Prime becoming truly competitive among other heavy Blades in exchange for its MR requirement being increased.

Second, that's a given for any crit weapon with good charge attacks.

And third, this would actually be a desirable role for the Scindo Prime. What we need is for it to be a sidegrade rather than a downgrade, since people will still not use this weapon if it is inferior. And to fill that role of a sidegrade, exchanging range for raw killing potential over other Heavy Blades would definitely be ideal.

[HowlingComet]

21 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

it won't change the fact that Scindo Prime (should it retain its current MR4 rank) is likely to forever be on the weak end of Heavy Blades

It's a vaulted prime weapon, with an MR 4 rank requirement. What MR 4 is going to get this weapon let alone farm for it when they can just do the story to get Paracesis or Gram Prime parts for when they reach rank 14? I have a friend who by just playing the game got MR 10 in a month and I helped him make Paracesis for just the fact that he needed a weapon to crutch on for his first end game viable weapon. Honestly all vaulted weapons should be reviewed for balancing when they unvault and sacrificing MR requirements for them isn't a big deal, you have plenty of other weapons to get you to the MR requirement.
 

27 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

This is what charge attacks already do, and crit-based weapons using Amalgam Organ Shatter with stances that don't have early hold-input combos are already pretty good at taking advantage of them.

I don't think you even read what I said. The point was make the weapon unique in a good enough way to use it.
 

29 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

giving axes a unique niche where their stances emphasize swift approaches and devastating hits rather than sweeping wide areas

The point of making another stance set would not be to stop competition in the heavy blade category but give the great axe that is Scindo something to make it competitive. Heck make another axe weapon to introduce it because I wouldn't mind more slash hammers.

 

3 hours ago, Uhkretor said:

Topic title is misleading.

And the title topic was more a statement to DE if they are reading.

[Xzorn]

They don't need to balance melee weapons for that. When the Melee Riven Disp hit, Scindo will be the best 2hander.

Before the obscenity that is Gram Prime came out Scindo Prime was already the best 2hander with a Riven.

[Birdframe_Prime]

6 hours ago, taiiat said:

yeah but what are they gonna do?

To be fair they have actually mentioned this a couple of times, but only in broad terms connected to the rework of the Combo Counter.

Since they plan to turn the Combo Counter into a resource that you gain and expend, they know that many of the weapons would be left behind because of their low base damage and bad supplemental stats (which are currently compensated for by that scaling). The plan is actually to buff all the base stats of melee, including supplemental stats, almost universally. That way everything has a (and I cringe at the term) ‘relative MR based power’. Then with the animation updates, the input updates, the range changes, whatever new system they’re replacing the Combo Counter and Channeling with... apparently it’s all supposed to amount to something.

The bit to focus on, the bit I feel is relevant to this thread, is that weapons like the Scindo Prime should be getting better base stats, better supplemental stats, better stances and better base range. That should put it safely back on more level ground with the other heavy blades.

Will this make it unique? Probably not. Why not? Because it never really was to begin with. It’s a big axe, you hit things with it, they die.

This isn’t a weapon that ever had any cool features like the Syndicate weapons or Infested ones that make cool effects. It’s just a bland, but pretty, axe.

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Since they plan to turn the Combo Counter into a resource that you gain and expend, they know that many of the weapons would be left behind because of their low base damage and bad supplemental stats (which are currently compensated for by that scaling). The plan is actually to buff all the base stats of melee, including supplemental stats, almost universally. That way everything has a (and I cringe at the term) ‘relative MR based power’. Then with the animation updates, the input updates, the range changes, whatever new system they’re replacing the Combo Counter and Channeling with... apparently it’s all supposed to amount to something.

Will this make it unique? Probably not. Why not? Because it never really was to begin with. It’s a big axe, you hit things with it, they die.
This isn’t a weapon that ever had any cool features like the Syndicate weapons or Infested ones that make cool effects. It’s just a bland, but pretty, axe.

yes, i know what they say they're going to do, but whether that actually happens as well as trying to think of what could be done and how much that may (more likely not) overlap with what will be done.

right, and that means that nothing will really change then. all of the Heavy Melee since that's the subject here, currently are literally all the same Weapon except maybe for Attack Speed because that does change the feel of Melee Weapons. so either Scindo will be used by everyone because it becomes just the best, or still not used because it isn't. that's just the simple reality of only working with generic Stats especially when "Mastery balanced" and the other sort of nonsense that got our Guns to basically all have the same Stats in the first place. we already don't have mechanical difference for most Weapons, if we also hammer flat the Statistical/style differences.... do we actually just end up with like 10 Weapons and 20 or 30 Skins for each of those Weapons? we may very well.....

Edited October 16, 2019 by taiiat

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

so either Scindo will be used by everyone because it becomes just the best, or still not used because it isn't.

Yeah, you're not wrong, but what would you do differently? Aside from the stances, that's the only thing that separates any of the melee weapons in Warframe. They're just sticks to hit things with. One or two of them, at most, have anything unique about them, and the only difference between weapons in a given category is the stats.

The Heavy Blades never have had anything unique about them other than their physical visuals, and their stances. What would you do with the Scindo that doesn't do exactly what both you and I know are the results of these current stat changes? Either you introduce something unique and people use it because it's the best of them, or they don't because it isn't.

If you give the Scindo something unique, it doesn't matter to the fanbase unless it makes it more powerful as well.

[Uhkretor]

10 hours ago, HowlingComet said:

And the title topic was more a statement to DE if they are reading.

Oh no, I understood that and I'm not saying otherwise... Its still misleading though, you should change it to be about Scindo Prime or to include the Scindo Prime, since that's pretty much exactly the reason of your opening post, and not the regular Scindo... Otherwise, you would've placed screenshots of Scindo, and not Scindo Prime...

"But they're both Scindo" and you're right, but they're not even the same weapon... Otherwise, "Prime" would just be a skin to put on the regular Scindo and its not a skin, its a weapon.

[LostSeeker0]

2 minutes ago, Uhkretor said:

Oh no, I understood that and I'm not saying otherwise... Its still misleading though, you should change it to be about Scindo Prime or to include the Scindo Prime, since that's pretty much exactly the reason of your opening post, and not the regular Scindo... Otherwise, you would've placed screenshots of Scindo, and not Scindo Prime...

"But they're both Scindo" and you're right, but they're not even the same weapon... Otherwise, "Prime" would just be a skin to put on the regular Scindo and its not a skin, its a weapon.

Hmmm, gotta hand it to this comment about the word Prime not being included in the title. Then again, No idea if there's even a way to alter the title after the fact.

[Uhkretor]

There is, changed the title of one of my created topics by clicking on the title itself... But only the topic creator can do it.

[TheArcSet]

10 hours ago, HowlingComet said:

Honestly all vaulted weapons should be reviewed for balancing when they unvault and sacrificing MR requirements for them isn't a big deal, you have plenty of other weapons to get you to the MR requirement.

Very true.

[OvisCaedo]

I don't think you can, frankly! Melee weapons within a category are just about always extremely samey to each other, except some of them will just end up being numerically better. It's sort of a fundamental design issue/property of them, and the only good way to have weapons in the category stand out against each other is to have a small number of them with very distinct stat profiles or gimmicks. Chances are one of them will still end up the "best", but at least there might be SOME different feel to them.

instead of that, though, DE tends to just have a habit of overcrowding the HELL out of a few melee weapon categories with constant releases and power creep. So we've got scindo prime, galatine prime, gram prime, and paracesis all having almost the exact same profile. There's heavy zaw blades, too, but maybe those are less slash heavy? War stands out as being impact based except that's usually considered a straight negative! And coming up is Grendel's signature melee weapon: A crit/status heavy blade!! Back when melee 3.0 changes were first being discussed, DE even stated a plan to "fix" scythes by just making all of them heavy blades too. Who knows if they're still going to do that one.

Edited October 16, 2019 by OvisCaedo

[HowlingComet]

6 hours ago, Uhkretor said:

Its still misleading though, you should change it to be about Scindo Prime or to include the Scindo Prime

Okay I did.
 

1 hour ago, OvisCaedo said:

I don't think you can, frankly! Melee weapons within a category are just about always extremely samey to each other, except some of them will just end up being numerically better.

This is why they should make Scindo it's own thing. I find that Scindo Prime being vaulted and rather hard to collect while not being worth said grind is problematic. And sure it's a heavy blade but heavy blade has become "greatsword" over time. If you add Zenistar and Scindo to a new stance set called Waraxe or Greataxe or something it can make either of them more worth selecting.

[taiiat]

7 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

If you give the Scindo something unique, it doesn't matter to the fanbase unless it makes it more powerful as well.

well, that would be why unique features would be useful features, and be created knowing that functionality in Combat is what a Player in a game about Combat rates things by.
_{so obivously you don't create some pointless clones that don't do anything useful that you can only create in specific circumstances or other pointless in Warframe things like that}

 

3 hours ago, OvisCaedo said:

There's heavy zaw blades, too, but maybe those are less slash heavy? 

sure, Dokhoram or whatever it's called is "only" 50% Slash but that's a good thing if you intend to use it for more than the odd hit here and there, in the world of Condition Overload. those other Status Effects make the Weapon better (an ocean of small DoT's tends to be less effective than several strong ones).

Edited October 16, 2019 by taiiat

[OvisCaedo]

Yeah, I wouldn't really know about it, I've never built a zaw and never will. I just know that they're probably another entry into the top-tier but largely homogeneous heavy blades, since from the sounds of it zaws tended to power creep the hell out of almost every weapon category they were available for.

[Im_a_Turtle]

On 2019-10-15 at 8:33 PM, Bostew said:

DE said that the melee weapons balance will come with melee 3.0.

That is if melee 3.0 ever comes out.

[Birdframe_Prime]

9 hours ago, taiiat said:

well, that would be why unique features would be useful features, and be created knowing that functionality in Combat is what a Player in a game about Combat rates things by.

I hear you on that, but... what? What features would create enough variety? Are we talking about putting in Borderlands levels of branding difference here, where the Primes all have a red-text function, or something lesser?

[HowlingComet]

13 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Are we talking about putting in Borderlands levels of branding difference here, where the Primes all have a red-text function, or something lesser?

What would be so wrong with that? We've already got some weapons with interesting effects like Broken Staff, Venka prime, Kogake prime, Arca Titron, Mire, and Hema. I think adding them to power creep victim weapons would make them more usable, but that could just be out done by other things like stat differences. Problems is, we have a heavy blade for damage (gram), speed (galatine), and crits (paracesis) right now. Sure you could do status but galatine prime hits fast enough to do that just fine if not better because of its range and slash preference.

Edited October 17, 2019 by HowlingComet

[Tiltskillet]

On 2019-10-16 at 7:30 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Either you introduce something unique and people use it because it's the best of them, or they don't because it isn't.

If you give the Scindo something unique, it doesn't matter to the fanbase unless it makes it more powerful as well.

It doesn't have to be the best or most popular weapon to have a niche--especially for somebody who just wants some sort of excuse to use it over the usual choices.  For instance, taking inspiration from its  description...

An ancient executioners weapon, the honor of decapitation by the Scindo Prime was reserved for the Orokin's most respected enemies.

...something like a bonus to  finisher damage and an affinity buff proc on finisher kills.  Or a damage bonus versus bosses and mini-bosses.

Just a couple of examples for fun.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Tiltskillet

[Birdframe_Prime]

10 hours ago, HowlingComet said:

What would be so wrong with that?

Nothing, except the game doesn't actually have a lot of unique effects. It's the kind of overhaul needed that has left us waiting nearly 2 entire years for Melee 3.0 after they announced it in January of 2018.

While I'm all for adding things in, Warframe isn't actually a lot of 'looter' for its 'looter shooter', none of the stuff scales up over time, you only need one or two (at most) copies of any item, there is no re-farm for them and no 'lesser' loot to get along the way which will make you stronger even though it's not the perfect one you were going for.

So at that point... even if we went in for the Borderlands variety and customisation, Warframe doesn't actually have that and would need that all to be built first.

9 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

something like a bonus to  finisher damage and an affinity buff proc on finisher kills.  Or a damage bonus versus bosses and mini-bosses.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you mean you'll just go from the stat meta to the niche meta?

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, the question I asked of my debate partner up there was 'how is introducing these functions any different than just making a weapon have objectively better stats?' It will still create a weapon that is, de-facto, better at something than the others, and so when you want to do that, the majority will choose that weapon. It doesn't solve what the player wanted to solve, it just pushes it to another location.

Looking at it objectively, how many people actually use the Sancti Magistar on the regular since its release? I went back and re-forma'd it recently in prep for the upcoming melee changes, but apart from that? I haven't touched it since its release and I bet I'm not alone in that. And Healing bursts on your melee without Channelling and on frames that are typically able to cause stuns or hold enemies still, but don't have their own healing, that's pretty functional. But other weapons are straight up better, just stats wise, and I've heard plenty of players disparage it because if they ever need actual healing... Operators exist.

So you either create an underwhelming function, or you tune it high enough where it becomes good and people shift to it for the specific function. It's an either/or in Warframe, because that's the result of mistakes the Devs have made in the process of building up this game.