Empyrean Damage Types

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

Hey, guys!

So, Empyrean brought us new damage types exclusive to outer space combat. Like many, I'm a bit confused as to what damage types fare best against certain enemy types and how to properly mod and which Archgun is best suited for combat. I believe DE should implement tutorials in the Codex for this new damage system. Moreover, mods that are equivalent to the new damage system would be nice (obtainable through and exclusive to Empyrean, of course).

What builds are you guys running with? Archwing/gun specifically. Warframes really don't matter in Empyrean (something I love, since you can use your favorite one and not be forced to use the best one).

Also, why doesn't Archmelee lock unto enemies anymore?

[OvisCaedo]

Archmelee lock-on has been broken for a while now. Supposedly the veritux still works, but most archmelee weapons don't. It'll probably get fixed EVENTUALLY, but so far it broke weeks before railjack came out without DE acknowledging any reports.

Archwing wise, pretty much everyone is using Amesha; it's the only one with actually useful abilities, mainly the fact that it can't die and its 3 heavily slows down enemies in a big area around you. Enemy fighters are extremely fast and all of the archguns have painfully bad projectile speeds now; many of them basically unusable. Archguns also had their base damage reduced by 50-75% as part of the railjack patch, though it was only listed as "archgun rebalance".

Archguns and which damage/status types work are heavily related, because there are about three of the seven space status effects that are actually useful. Plasma and particle, which are converted from puncture and slash, debuff the enemy to take more damage in different ways. Space ice status slows things down immensely. Of these, particle (slash) is OVERWHELMINGLY the strongest currently; every application of particle damage is approximately a 1.25x damage buff, exponential with multiple procs. With how immense enemy armor is and how weak archguns were made, stacking a ton of particle procs is about the only way for them to be effective, and is also enormously effective. Plasma procs, which reduce armor, can also help, but if you want your archgun to be effective you need to build it for spamming as many slash status procs as possible.

The most popular archgun for this currently is the Cyngas, which has fairly even damage spread but SLIGHTLY more slash, and 30% base status chance. It's also supposedly very accurate. Crit stats are completely meaningless at current. An ideal build involves the multishot mod, firerate, the slash damage mod (to weight procs more), and carefully choosing status chance. Damage types actually work as normal on the railjack enemies, only procs change, but there ARE no hybrid procs, so radiation damage is best against their armor and also does not actually proc, leaving status procs to all cluster on the desired slash/particle status.

Most of this is just my quick summary of someone else's findings and tests, though, linked here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/edx81u/statuses_elements_and_your_archgun_a_primer/

as my personal speculation, particle status is probably going to get nerfed hard once DE is back from vacation, it being an exponential damage multiplier was probably not actually intended, and no railjack guns are at all capable of abusing it. Archguns will likely be left very ineffective in higher level missions once that happens.

edit: as for warframes, you can mostly use whatever you want, yeah, just be advised that space grineer have very inflated survivability compared to normal, and many people have reported them seeming to have massively higher damage as well, so be careful. Niche roles include Rhino's roar currently being able to boost railjack gunner damage, and hildryn's shield gate passive applying to Archwing. Farmsquads also have some popularity for a couple things in railjack bases or such.

Edited December 23, 2019 by OvisCaedo

[Shalath]

10 hours ago, OvisCaedo said:

Supposedly the veritux still works, but most archmelee weapons don't.

All of the sword-style weapons still lock but nothing else does. I've seen no acknowledgement from DE yet despite a lot of threads about it 🙄