Ground Archwing weapons are pointless

[ZomaCaius]

Let's get right to it:
I found that the ability to use an archwing weapon on the ground to be pointless, despite that the feature is locked behind an initial Rep grind, that takes a week or two to get through thanks to the cap, to then do a mission that is still widely regarded with contempt to then use a weapon, that has different mods which you need to fram using archwing only to use it briefly before vanishing for 5 mins.
I know the intention was it to be like a "power weapon" in destiny but the fact you can equip more powerful weapons, and use them constantly renders the entire weapon, and the endeavors obsolete, why not just tune them down, and make them normal weapons? or just keep them the same and only allow archwing mods. 

When i see people coptering for 100K red crits with whips, or using ridiculous Kuva weapons what is the point in these archwing weapons being behind such an odd dense wall of flimflammery, it's not like you need to claw for every single advantage in warframe, the game never had the balanced difficulty other shooters had, which is good in my opinion, because despite there being balanced content in destiny, it's really bland. Warframe to me has always been about a single loadout that you use constantly, crazy builds, and crazy weapons.

I'm aware they're used in the orb mother fights but when ever i mention those all i hear are complains and weary sighs, so, so much for those.
This might also seem like a delayed feedback response, but i recently had a kuva lich, and despite not having unlocked the feature got the kuva archwing weapon, and I know you can trade it, but that's not the point. For something that could've been cool is arbitrary restricted because there had to be a reward after all that insistent grinding. 
For a game that lives by the motto "why not have meteor showers and ion cannons in this ship!? or why not swing a weapon that size of a warframe at light speed" to hide cool looking weapons behind weeks of grindy bollocks with limited use. seems uncharacteristic. 

[kapn655321]

The comparative damage is way off.

The Rubico Prime outpaces the Velocitus dramatically in my experience.

Having a sneaky yet super slow sniper cannon in my pocket has some advantages..
Like when I forget to bring guns, because Melee is vastly more fun to me.
It also allows you to level up your weapon outside of Archwing, which helps that grind a lot.

However, there's just something off about their damage output, and the accessibility of Orb fights.

If people start loving and spending money for archwing stuff, I could see these weapons getting new balance.
...Might also see some changes to Primary weapon damage stats once Primary Kitguns are out.

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

a arcgun can be pretty powerful if set up right an atm only the profit taker is the only thing that actually needs it so you can easily go many missions without it.

i mostly use it as thing to spice up my missions 😄 with the heavy armament so i can actually see how well it is.
i also if im power leveling a weapon an cause its not a very strong thing an i have maxed it out i can take out the arcgun  an kill with that till i can leave.

all in all arcgun is a under used feature that could use some love, but once phase 1 an 2 come to console 😄 im gonna try out using it in actual combat when invading enemy ships or fighting off enemies on my teams railjack 

[DoomFruit]

4 minutes ago, (XB1)ShadowBlood89 said:

i also if im power leveling a weapon an cause its not a very strong thing an i have maxed it out i can take out the arcgun  an kill with that till i can leave.

That there is about the sole purpose I can find for an archgun. If I've equipped a single, level 0 weapon with no mods, taken it to a spy mission to level up and suddenly New Loka jumps on me, I can pull out my larkspur to actually kill something.

This is a very unlikely scenario.

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

6 minutes ago, DoomFruit said:

That there is about the sole purpose I can find for an archgun. If I've equipped a single, level 0 weapon with no mods, taken it to a spy mission to level up and suddenly New Loka jumps on me, I can pull out my larkspur to actually kill something.

This is a very unlikely scenario.

different strokes for different blokes

[ZomaCaius]

I mean i can see some uses in it sure, but i'm just more on about the "wasted potential" they could just be permanent, having these big power weapons as a new weapon type would be cool, maybe they come with an active windup time? or maybe a movement speed decrease? i'm just saying there's a lot more they can be. 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Yeah atmosphere archguns are incredibly weak. The mods were supposed to be buffed but I guess DE forgot about them.

[Aldain]

The Velocitus ground version has no punch through without mods, which makes it less efficient than a basic Vectis.

Hopefully the stats will be adjusted once Empyrean drops for both space and ground, because HO BOY do most of these weapons suck.

[(XBOX)DarknessZeref]

22 hours ago, ZomaCaius said:

When i see people coptering for 100K red crits with whips, or using ridiculous Kuva weapons what is the point in these archwing weapons being behind such an odd dense wall of flimflammery

I agree. I do have 1 clanmate who pulls out his imperator vandal and swears he's murking things on the ground. The problem to me isn't the grind, but the reduced damage values of the archgun mods. 

Sabot Rounds has +60% Damage. Since when in the history of Warframe has +60% damage ever been worth your mod slot? And I'm supposed to be blowing up Balor Fomorians, Railjacks and Giant Sentient Spiders with it? DE needs to quit being afraid and bump those damage values to mirror other weapons. These are HEAVY weapons ffs.

Edited December 8, 2019 by (XB1)DarknessZeref
Misspellings

[DoomFruit]

22 minutes ago, (XB1)DarknessZeref said:

Sabot Rounds has +60% Damage. Since when in the history of Warframe has +60% damage ever been worth your mod slot? And I'm supposed to be blowing up Balor Fomorians, Railjacks and Giant Sentient Spiders with it? DE needs to quit being afraid and bump those damage values to mirror other weapons. These are HEAVY weapons ffs.

Sabot Rounds, I can kinda accept because it's a dual-stat mod.

Also, Archwing has a different balance than the main game. I actually like it - there are no corrupted mods to ultra min-max things with, no operator for infinite energy and nothing like scaling acolyte mods (hello, blood rush). It makes things a lot easier to balance properly when your range is more constrained. You can also see this for archgun riven mods - they have much lower values than any on-foot rivens.

The problems arise are when this system meets the main game, which does have all these legacy min-max capabilities.

Honestly, the best way to make archguns viable on land is to let them completely ignore innate damage resistance of heavy units - things like noxes, juggernauts, thumpers, lephantis, etc. Note that this is not normal armour or damage type reduction. It's the kind of enemy which, when your weapon would normally be critting for 20k per hit, ends up taking 500 damage at most. I'm assuming that this damage resistance is explained by them having heavy armour (it's not like they've provided any kind of explanation anywhere else). Well, you're using an anti-vehicle cannon. It ought to go straight through that.

[Ikserdok]

On 2019-12-07 at 8:17 PM, kapn655321 said:

If people start loving and spending money for archwing stuff, I could see these weapons getting new balance.
...Might also see some changes to Primary weapon damage stats once Primary Kitguns are out.

but people have literally no reason for this till it is so underwhelming 😐

people will start loving, spending money, for archwing stuff if it will get better balance like archguns in atmosphere for use for example, if it will stay so weaker then people will never love it and spend more money for this becasue for what? for something which is much weaker than many many many other things easied to get?

people wont blindly spending money with hope it would be funds for better update for this product 😐 people will start spending money for product when they will cleary see it is worth to use with certainly it will be good to use instead with "hope" it will get rework to be good to use

[kapn655321]

4 minutes ago, Ikserdok said:

spending money, for archwing stuff

And you're right.
There's also going to be a bunch of people getting real into Empyrean, which hopefully allows for that kind of revenue.
If Empyrean takes off and people want more of it with better archwings, then that should mean they get the perfect chance to work it out.
If say, empyrean has a sluggish reception, it's going to be yet harder to put more funding into the archwings.
I totally get that it's harder to get into Empyrean without the archwings already perfect.
They've also been a money sink, and it will take a groundswell of positive player sentiment to bolster confidence in spending what it takes on that project.
I have to imagine accounting has night terrors about getting new requests for archwing projects.
Empyrean is perhaps just another long shot at making those ends meet, finally; this might be what it would take to fund the archwing changes we want.
Sincerely hoping for all of us, DE included, that this does the trick. We all, as well as archwings, need this win.




 

[Andele3025]

On 2019-12-07 at 8:17 PM, kapn655321 said:

The comparative damage is way off.

The Rubico Prime outpaces the Velocitus dramatically in my experience.

Issue with Velocitus is that it was the only AW gun nerfed instead of buffed for its ground mode.
It wasnt just given much lower base DPS, but you cant even use it as a semi auto rifle due to DE for some ungodly reason making them CD based ammo weapons instead of keeping the original implementation and idea of them taking both gun slots to use.

[Xzorn]

Arch-guns had the potential to be something interesting. Limit-break weapons you'd use every 10 min or so that vastly outperform normal weapons till they run out of ammo. In addition they could have had unique Arcanes that were beyond simple stat bonuses. ie On-Deploy launch an Areal Assault or On-Deploy produce a frontal Shield Barrier for 15s but instead they just decided to make them like any other gun.

Its a shame and waste of development time.

[(XBOX)Calliber]

Bring a Fluctus to a defense mission and become a through-the-wall turret 😄

Actually it's a nice back-up to have when leveling weapons in endless missions when you hit the ceiling of what you were leveling (MR25, ya I can fit a few mods on but I don't bother to catalyst every new weapon I make either), I forget I have it half the time though.  That said, I'd rather then start them on the weaker end than make them overwhelmingly powerful, they are due for a tune-up but I feel like it'll just add to the overall power creep.  What should they be for ground weapons?  High burst damage weapons with limited use. If they do that (damage buff) then we have the problem of ammo, we have too much of it for non-archwing missions (recharge time is fine).  This isn't so much a problem for Vallis and the Plains (I would dread a ammo nerf in the Profit Taker fight), but for non-open-world, they'd need to do a significant reduction in ammo reserves for archwing guns else nothing else will be used.    

[ZomaCaius]

10 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Arch-guns had the potential to be something interesting. Limit-break weapons you'd use every 10 min or so that vastly outperform normal weapons till they run out of ammo. In addition they could have had unique Arcanes that were beyond simple stat bonuses. ie On-Deploy launch an Areal Assault or On-Deploy produce a frontal Shield Barrier for 15s but instead they just decided to make them like any other gun.

Its a shame and waste of development time.

I mean, yeah in a game where you'd need it, my point still stands that, Warframe doesn't really need the special weapon, the BFG or like unreal-tournaments redeemer.
The gameplay isn't hard, lets get that out of the way Warframe is not challenging when it comes to doing enough damage, it's always been Warframes greatest problem is the Damage ballance, it always led to obnoxious invul boss fights, or fights that need an operator or the archwing weapon, because overhauling the entire game number wise is going to take forever. 
but my point is just play it up a notch you know, have survival maps that eventually lead to unlimited levels, let people use or spam w/e they like, that's always been Warframes strength is that you can just crazy with any build

[Xzorn]

3 hours ago, ZomaCaius said:

I mean, yeah in a game where you'd need it, my point still stands that, Warframe doesn't really need the special weapon, the BFG or like unreal-tournaments redeemer.
The gameplay isn't hard, lets get that out of the way Warframe is not challenging when it comes to doing enough damage, it's always been Warframes greatest problem is the Damage ballance, it always led to obnoxious invul boss fights, or fights that need an operator or the archwing weapon, because overhauling the entire game number wise is going to take forever. 
but my point is just play it up a notch you know, have survival maps that eventually lead to unlimited levels, let people use or spam w/e they like, that's always been Warframes strength is that you can just crazy with any build

 

Build diversity has certainly gone down hill lately.

In the Warframe I want there would be reasons to use those supercharge weapons that have a CD and the Arcanes would add a nice bit of flavor to their use outside some mundane stats or procs. The versatility in modding comes from if you want a stronger supercharged weapon for shorter time or a less stronger for longer time which would depending on the weapon and Arcane equipped to it.

This along with the typical modding of elements, status, crit, to have punch-through which also playing into the on-reload +damage mods.

I made a list of various Arcane ideas a long time ago. Some where better to have for longer periods like creating a cone doing 50% of the weapons damage for X seconds each time you pick up a Health orb, some that function on Reload and some did their thing like the areal bombardment or frontal Barrier and were done.

[(XBOX)DarknessZeref]

14 hours ago, ZomaCaius said:

let people use or spam w/e they like, that's always been Warframes strength is that you can just crazy with any build

That's kind-of the point, though. We would assert that the idea of a BFG was something the developers introduced, so it's disappointing to see this is the results.

Velocitus is the gratata, dealing high damage per shot
Fluctus is the clearer, shooting waves
Imperator Vandal is the default tryhard min-max since it's the "only 'primed'" archgun
Kuva Ayanga is herpdederp level 40, but has limpy shooting and barely hurts

None of the damage or multishot mods even begin to significantly increase the damage since they've been so heavily reduced and the rivens are just as reasonably laughable. All I'm saying is, buff the mods like they did to the pistol mods, it only makes sense. They are meant to be powerful, and they aren't even worth using with riven mods. 

With all the nerfs making us feel less powerful and inadvertently making the game less enjoyable- it would nice to see an olive branch in the form of actual heavy weapons I could respect and want to use a gravimag on for normal missions. 

[Awazx]

(error, please mod, deleted)

Edited December 11, 2019 by Awazx

[master_of_destiny]

I believe that everyone is really asking for a complete rebalance of the archwing system.

 

Let me explain.  Archwing came out, and the immediate goal seemed to be to introduce a new game mode entirely divorced from other modes.  The reason for this was that even year ago DE saw the power creep, had a decent idea, and implemented it as a stand-alone within the game.  As such, the new mods weren't designed and scaled to regular weapons, and the enemies were also not scaled.  If you look at the mod stats they're all in the toilet, to match the stats of the weapons themselves.  

None of this even touches the stupidly long grind to get some of the archwing mods, which only drop from missions on Orb Vallis...Yeah, I wanted to run 40+ Profit-Takers to get a single Sabot Rounds.  It offers less punch through than our standard rifle variants, less damage, but requires a greater capacity.  Nope, not fun.

 

In order to make these things feel like an amazing weapon you'd need to completely rework the "atmospheric" stats from the "space" stats, or rebuild.  DE would functionally have to link two disparate weapons, and maybe they could feel like an amazingly powerful experience.  Alternatively the entirety of archwing could be rebalanced.  That's unlikely because they're in the midst of Railjack and getting that correct with all of the mods would also mean a Railjack rebuild prior to it even launching.

 

I personally think that a decently kitted Opticor or Opticor Vandal outclass all of the archguns.  That's just in the BFG category, many standard weapons also outpace the damage.  Even if the Larkspur is fun, and the Imperator Vandal is a decent machine gun, the others are just not worth the investment after you're done getting stuff from Little Duck.  DE isn't going to fix this for months, if ever, unless it's rolled out with Railjack.  If you expect that...well, I'll be rooting for you.  I'm just going to be rational over here and never use an archgun or a k-drive.  Fortuna was kind of disappointing on the whole...

[ArcKnight9202]

It's a bunch of hoops to jump through for something that's seemingly a side grade most of the time for a lot of people's equipment. I'd rather they just let it be something totally crazy like other people suggested. Do away with the ammo box spam from heavy units while you're at it(I hate seeing these as they are meaningless to me).

The issues that kept me away from ground-archwing weapons were mostly these 2 things:

-This is, as far as I'm aware, the only item that requires an Orokin Catalyst to function. This is to equip the thing that lets us hold it. It has nothing to do with the gun itself. It's totally baffling why this roadblock is present at all except to siphon off people's potatoes for something not tangibly worth it(now(subjective)). Potatoes are currently necessary for no archwing content.

-This is only required for one mission. I could have maybe gotten over the first condition if Profit Taker was worth running. I waited and I waited for them to change it. To add new items; something. But nothing happened. It has a laughable reward table. Why would I bother with this? Sure, I miss out on the max rank of the syndicate since I can't get the penultimate toroid(not sure why they wouldn't take the Lazuline instead but whatever) and some decent arcanes, but I can easily live without them. I got more than enough standing by body slamming Exploiter Orb. /shrug

This might change and I might end up sticking a potato on some archwing gear in the future due to Railjack and rendering my first condition moot, but we'll have to see. As for right now, this is just a huge waste of potential.

Just to assuage anyone's assumptions, I need neither potatoes nor credits.

Edited December 11, 2019 by ArcKnight9202
Changed formatting a bit

[Grave.Knight]

Maybe we'll get a buff to the Archweapons during the Railjack update.

[tzadquiel]

'i don't like it, so please lets remove it for everyone'

[DoomFruit]

4 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

I personally think that a decently kitted Opticor or Opticor Vandal outclass all of the archguns. 

Oh, they do. I've already run the numbers for it - the optivandal does 1.5x the sustained DPS (including reloads) of the velocitus. That's without a riven.

 

[master_of_destiny]

1 hour ago, DoomFruit said:

Oh, they do. I've already run the numbers for it - the optivandal does 1.5x the sustained DPS (including reloads) of the velocitus. That's without a riven.

 

 

At this point in time I have a fully forma'd variant.  Focus on hitting that 60 unit cap without ever having a pexilus mod equipped.  That's Heavy Caliber, critical mods, and a Riven with enough crit to drive 100% with an elemental addition (electric) and a mix element for the good stuff (corrosive, radiation, or magnetic).  There isn't room for more forma to make the pexilus slot a thing.

That's a huge investment, and not everyone is that stupid (positive is dedicated to a weapon, negative is stupid enough to invest forma into another weapon which can easily be lined up for a nerf into irrelevance).  I cannot, in good faith, suggest then that a decent lesser setup could out pace a fully forma'd archgun.  It isn't because there's no proof, I just cannot reasonably say there isn't a build for the Opticor/Vandal that is lesser.

 

That being said, in practice the Velocitus fires slower than the Opticor Vandal.  It does significantly less (35% total) damage than the Opticor Vandal when focused on the Profit-Taker fight.  Numerically it's a bad joke.  The Vandal also has room clearing punch-through with Primed Shred and the in-built magnetic effect upon impact.  The standard Opticor focuses much more on damage, but the severe nerf to the critical chance makes it a very hit-and-miss damage source.  It's frustrating that the Vandal is nothing like the Opticor, and that they didn't restructure the base weapon before introducing the Vandal.  Right now the bonus crit just makes the standard variant too inconsistent, assuming that you've got a good riven.  It's a shame that this game's BFG has a successor that isn't a BFG in the sense that raw damage is only achieved through maximizing critical chances.