The Assault Rifle Experience.

[Vespilan]

Keep in mind while reading the post that I am looking at mid- to endgame content, meaning Lv. 80-100 enemies. Assault rifles may be perfectly decent in early game content because literally anything dies to a single hit. Further, my definition of assault rifle is aimed towards a full-auto primary hitscan weapon and excludes shotguns like Boar (Prime) or Kohm. Think about the really classic assault rifles; Karak, Braton, Baza, but also LMGs like Gorgon and Soma since they suffer from these problems even greater.

The assault rifle is the most classic form of weapon. While "classic" might be putting it friendly, I'd say "mundane". Warframe features grenade launchers, rocket launchers, full-auto shotguns, full-auto rocket launchers, minelaunchers, spearguns, snipers and much more and it is quick to see which weapon classes pale in comparison against others. I love assault rifles. But sadly they suck when compared to other weapon classes. Here's why.

1. Burst damage? Crowd control? None.
Crowd control is king in this horde-shooter. Single-target weapons almost always suck in a regular mission environment unless specifically modded for crowd control (i.e. through gas). Thus, sniper rifles, assault rifles, as an entire group, are almost always a poor pick in a classic mission environment. The sniper rifle, however, has the advantage that it kills most enemies instantly due to its sheer damage. Shotgun-users have a similar experience. They dispose of enemies quickly and can move on to new targets quicker, thus still allowing them to be efficient.
Assault rifles, however, require to land multiple, time consuming shots onto a single target before they can swap to the next target to be efficient. This costs the player valuable time and pales extremely when seen in comparison to other classes. Since Hunter Munition scales of the base damage of the weapon, with low-damage assault rifle even its effect is marginal.

2. Lack of a system
Sniper rifles give various bonus when scoping in, scaling their damage to insane levels. They further have a combo system which, when keepen up, guarantees the player high damage and in consequence efficiency. No other primary type has a rewarding system like that (note we are talking about weapon types, not specific individual weapons). A system could be put into place to give assault rifles a slight edge over other weapon classes, similar how it did with sniper rifles.

3. Drop-off
Assault rifles have drop-off. Do I need to say more? It is painful, especially with Baza Prime, and just really unnecessary. 

My suggestions
Assault rifles need a buff. Giving assault rifles an artificial form of crowd control (see Zhuge Prime) would take away from their "nature", hence I don't see this as a built-in base option for every assault rifle. I will, however, suggest a mod later on. Here is what I do see as an option though; 
a) Innate Assault rifle counter; Every successive shot onto a target increases damage done to that target by 10%. Bosses are excempt from this.
b) Condition Overload for assault rifles and assault rifles only. It would be straight up broken on shotguns.
c) Straight up rebalance and damage buff to assault rifles. 
d) An anyhow much needed status proc rework; Impact procs, for instance, staggering the target for a brief period might redeem impact-based assault rifles. 

Mod suggestions
Some of the suggestions above can be packed into mods aswell. These should be exilus mods, however, to truly supply a buff.
a) Suggestions b) "Capitalized Torment" as a working name.
b) "Riccochet Rounds" Bullets shot against armor have a 80% chance to riccochet to nearby targets at 100% damage.
c) Your idea? 

Assault rifles are not supposed to feel powerful. I know. Yet they are not supposed to feel like pea shooters either.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Vespilan
Added "3. Drop-off". Else unchanged.

[TARINunit9]

Assault rifle stats honestly just suck across the board, disregarding archetypes. I've got an old Lex Prime, which isn't even close to the strongest pistol in the game, and it vastly outdamages every single assault rifle I own. And comparing apples to apples: automatic pistols like the AkStilleto Prime annihilate all my automatic rifles. Only the Supra Vandal manages to come close, and that's probably because it has drastically boosted base stats to compensate for being a spool-up projectile weapon instead of hitscan

Edited January 6, 2020 by TARINunit9

[(XBOX)Red Dough Boy]

I doubt the Tiberon would count as an assault rifle, it fits more into a battle rifle role since it's longer and hits harder but it's been my most used rifle throughout this game. Got the Tiberon Prime and a decent riven for it so it can one burst a lot of targets, and tougher targets don't take too much more to put down with it anyway. As far as actual assault rifles for mid/endgame I'd recommend the Zenith when you can get it; high fire rate, good status chance, 90 round magazine standard, and it has a secondary firing mode that gives it infinite punch through and really high puncture damage. I've heard the theory that in this game most weapons can be good if you mod them up to their full potential and maximize their strengths, but that only holds up so much with lower level weapons. 

[CaptainMinty]

25 minutes ago, Vespilan said:

1. Burst damage? Crowd control? None.

 

Crowd control is king in this horde-shooter. Single-target weapons almost always suck in a regular mission environment unless specifically modded for crowd control (i.e. through gas). Thus, sniper rifles, assault rifles, as an entire group, are almost always a poor pick in a classic mission environment.

Pardon? I roll with a sniper near every mission and it wrecks all things, even in sorties.

Unless modded with gas? Pardon? I run Corrosive Heat, or Radiation as my elements and it rips through entire factions with ease. Don't be dissing those sniper rifles mate. They tear through everything, quickly too if modded right or if using the Vectis Prime.

As for assualt rifles, I've found the Tiberon Prime to shred in Sorties levels. Baza Prime works as well.

And for future reference, crowd control is not king. It is only useful in Railjack. Damage output is king in this shooter.

[Vespilan]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb CaptainMinty:

Pardon?

Pardon yourself, read the entire post before you reply.

[CaptainMinty]

3 minutes ago, Vespilan said:

Pardon yourself, read the entire post before you reply.

I did. And it's blatantly obvious you're ignoring the powerful ones.
First off, crowd control is not king in Warframe currently, damage is. Gas is arguably one of the worst status procs in the game. Not as bad as poor magnetic, but it is down there. You're pretty contradictory saying single target weaponry is pretty useless in a standard mission environment, then doubling back on that saying that those very same guns can kill quickly, and move onto the next target quickly. Innit that the point of clearing a horde is to clear quickly? Plus, a Tiberon Prime can clean house too.

Secondly, the top tier assault rifles don't need a system to bonus their supposed weakness. The only thing holding back assault rifles is armor scaling. An assault rifle is meant to do consistent damage. Snipers and Shotguns can break through the power of enemy armor or just strip it clean off in the case of some shotguns.

If I've learned anything from using assault rifles it's that aiming is far more important, and thusly recoil control, because assault rifles have lower damage values than single shot shotguns and snipers. Assault rifles are meant for sustained fire.

Also, a quick list off the top of my head for assault rifles I've rocked through the sortie with no problems:
Prisma Gorgon, Prisma Grakata, Tiberon Prime, Braton Prime, Dera Vandal, Gorgon Wraith, Burston Prime, Baza, Prisma Tetra, Telos Boltor, Sybaris Prime, Soma Prime, Karak Wraith, Braton Vandal, Battacor. All of these worked against Grineer, arguably the worst faction due to armor.  To say that assault rifles are not viable in 80-100 content isn't accurate. They very much are viable.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

Personally, I find assault rifles to be fine so long as you add (Primed) Shred to give it a boost to fire rate (thus reducing TTK per enemy) and punchthrough, which lets it deal with crowds much better.

The Kuva Quartakk is one that I have been having a lot of fun with lately while putting 5 forma into it. It has burst damage for dealing with heavy targets and sustained damage for shredding crowds. I am looking forward to eventually getting a Kuva Karak (if RNG will ever let me).

Assault rifles work fine at higher levels as long as you mod them properly. Viral + Hunter Munitions for crit rifles and Corrosive + Heat for status rifles works great against most factions (though crit and hybrid rifles do have a clear advantage).

Overall I think assault rifles make up for their lower TTK by having higher reliability and versatility. Sure, they can't one-shot at long range or short range, but they can kill effectively at both long and short range, which is more than can be said for most shotguns and snipers in this game. Sure, some shotguns can snipe, but I would say that is a problem with the shotgun, not with assault rifles.

Also, against some targets, especially nullifiers, burst damage is mostly useless. An assault rifle can burn through a nullifier's bubble with far more ease than a shotgun, even if the shotgun aims for the projector drone first.

[Vespilan]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb CaptainMinty:

You're pretty contradictory saying single target weaponry is pretty useless in a standard mission environment, then doubling back on that saying that those very same guns can kill quickly, and move onto the next target quickly.

 

vor einer Stunde schrieb Vespilan:

The sniper rifle, however, has the advantage that it kills most enemies instantly due to its sheer damage. Shotgun-users have a similar experience. They dispose of enemies quickly and can move on to new targets quicker, thus still allowing them to be efficient.

 

 

vor 3 Minuten schrieb CaptainMinty:

Plus, a Tiberon Prime can clean house too.

 

vor einer Stunde schrieb Vespilan:

Further, my definition of assault rifle is aimed towards a full-auto primary hitscan weapon

I am aware Tiberon Prime is strong in its burst fire mode. In it's full auto mode it is near useless.

 

vor 5 Minuten schrieb CaptainMinty:

Sybaris Prime

 

vor einer Stunde schrieb Vespilan:

full-auto

Also the part where you said gas is bad made me wheeze.
Read the posts carefully next time before posting. Seriously.

[KnightOwl_]

Yes full auto rifles suck. But if you want a good non scoped rifle, burst rifles like the Tiberon Prime, Battacor (seriously stop sleeping on this gun) and Sybaris Prime do very well.  
 

and nobody uses full auto on a Tibby P unless they are doing lith relic runs.  

Edited January 6, 2020 by OmegaDonut

[TheGuyver]

9 minutes ago, Vespilan said:

Also the part where you said gas is bad made me wheeze.
Read the posts carefully next time before posting. Seriously.

It's pretty obvious that he read your post, and it's pretty clear you didn't read his well enough or you don't want to welcome a logical counterpoint into your line of thinking here. 

Also this probably belongs in feedback or fan concepts, rather than general.

[akots]

There is quiet a few full auto assault rifles which are perfect for the content at level 80-100 and can easily outdamage any other weapon class. To name a few: Prisma Grakata, Prisma Gorgon, Stradavar-p, Braton-p, Kuva Karak, Panthera, Supra Vandal, etc. They do greatly benefit from rivens IMHO and require considerable forma investment. They all require and reward good aiming and some recoil control and once fully built really destroy everything. IMO, buffing them is absolutely unnecessary at this point. There is simply no content that requires their buffing or tweaking. Their main purpose is to keep reasonable distance between you and the enemies, which makes them perfect weapons for medium range combat using less tanky frames.

[taiiat]

yes, Assault Rifles are pretty generic and uninteresting types of Weapons. they don't do anything well, but don't do anything badly technically.
they heavily rely on Punch-Through to be useful, and similarly also rely on having strong Hybrid Stats.

i think all that's very important for an Assault Rifle is to have good handling Stats. good Magazine uptime, good Reload Speed, good Accuracy, good Ammo Pool, Et Cetera. 

 

did someone say Gas Status is bad?
this is me laughing, very hard.

1 hour ago, Vespilan said:

3. Drop-off
Assault rifles have drop-off. Do I need to say more? It is painful, especially with Baza Prime, and just really unnecessary. 

no they don't. Baza is an extremely rare exception.

58 minutes ago, CaptainMinty said:

And for future reference, crowd control is not king. It is only useful in Railjack. Damage output is king in this shooter.

in this context, Crowd Control is not Blast/Ice Status or Molecular Prime - it's AoE Damage. it's weird that we use the same term two different ways depending on context, but alas.

 

 

26 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

I am looking forward to eventually getting a Kuva Karak (if RNG will ever let me).

(you might end up a bit disappointed, Kuva Karak is only an upgrade if you get all or almost all Headshots, alas. which might be okay most of the time but it's still somewhat odd)

Edited January 6, 2020 by taiiat

[Cloudyvisage]

Assault Rifle's don't punish poor play and reward positive play, snipers and shotguns punish poor play whilst heavily rewarding proper play. As an endgame player I don't tend to worry about playing incorrectly but it also means I don't have to pay attention much, missing isn't a problem with AR's by their very nature. This means you can hit your target while you're lining up your headshots and any number of positive bonuses to having a full auto weapon with, usually, a generous magazine size.

Buffing Assault Rifle's could be useful if they were in a poor place, they aren't though, they kill things plenty quick, especially with a decent Hunter munitions or Status build. If they were to buff Assault Rifle's it would need to be an incredibly subtle one because having them be the dominant weapon feels bad and invalidates other weapons, there was a time where Soma Prime reigned supreme and invalidated everything else.

The difference between Soma Prime's reign and Tigris Primes is that Soma Prime was devoid of effort whereas Tigris Prime required you to have all the mods to make it perfect and it was still limited by it's own internal issues being a duplex trigger shotgun. I think AR's had their time in the sun and there should never again be a time where they come out on top, especially now that we have meta's around Eidolons and whatnot, that would be bad, Raids at least had low populations so judging was kinda low (Comparatively).

Edited January 6, 2020 by Cloudyvisage

[(PSN)robotwars7]

auto rifles are generally meant to be a jack of all trades weapon, a workhorse that can handle most engagements equally, unlike other weapons which are specialized for specific encounters. they are guns that you can bring to anything, if you can't decide what else to bring.

not all assault rifles are Equal. Acceltra fills the role but is awesomely fun and very effective, especially with Gauss' 4. Tiberon prime is still top tier, and has every main fire mode possible. add in a Punchthrough Riven or primed Shred and you can handle groups pretty effectively. the main downside is they can also feel a bit drab; I think it's because there's no recoil on a lot of the Assault Rifles, which aids accuracy greatly, but makes the weapon feel dead in your hands. recoil is what makes a rifle feel like a rifle. it doesn't have to kick like a mule, it just has to do a little something more than staying still. recoil is a detriment, but also part of the enjoyment of using a rifle for me.

another aspect is the firing sound. Quellor has no recoil, and you could fall asleep firing it with that fire rate and mag size, but the sound of it makes it feel like a true Machine Gun. having an interesting alt fire helps a lot too.

[Corvid]

2 hours ago, Vespilan said:

Impact procs, for instance, staggering the target for a brief period might redeem impact-based assault rifles. 

They already do this though.

12 minutes ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

they are guns that you can bring to anything

Except you really can't. Assault rifles fall off much quicker than other weapon types once you start to approach endgame activities.

[Yakhul]

Wait, if assault rifles suck, then how is it that Tiperon Prime still stands at the top of the assault rifle charts? That thing literally shreds anything with its 3 fire modes.

I do agree that SOME rifles need a buff, but if you buff one, you have to rebalance the rest, hence, another weapon pass would be needed, and we already got like 2 of those JUST FOR PRIMARY WEAPONS. Plus, is not like Rifles are time consuming landing multiple shots on an enemy before its killed. Have you heard of the Opticor? is a Rifle, and it one shots anything up to lvl 180 properly modded.

I personally do not mind the fall off, it makes it realistic. When have you seen a real gun fire a bullet in a straight line? all real life guns have a fall off.

Personally, i believe the assault rifles are the most versatile and customizable type of gun in Warframe. You want to one shot things? you have the opticor for it. You wanna fill your enemies with bullets? theres stuff like Supra, Gorgon or Quellor for it. To each their own, but i think the idea behind an assault rifle, more specifically, an automatic rifle, is to build for status, each bullet will proc a status, While not as quick as something like the Boar Prime or Strun Wraith when it comes to removing armor with corrosive, you have the benefit of firing from a distance, i dont know, thats just me, but i do not think assault rifles are on a bad position right now, they just need the proper build, and some of them, some tweaks from DE.

[Ham_Grenabe]

I'll happily take a buff to assault rifles, since they're my favorite category of gun in this game. Bring on the buffs. BRING THEM!

I'm also happy to continue using them without any buffs, because they work just fine. 

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, CaptainMinty said:

Pardon? I roll with a sniper near every mission and it wrecks all things, even in sorties.

Unless modded with gas? Pardon? I run Corrosive Heat, or Radiation as my elements and it rips through entire factions with ease. Don't be dissing those sniper rifles mate. They tear through everything, quickly too if modded right or if using the Vectis Prime.

As for assualt rifles, I've found the Tiberon Prime to shred in Sorties levels. Baza Prime works as well.

And for future reference, crowd control is not king. It is only useful in Railjack. Damage output is king in this shooter.

Regarding sniper rifles, the only reason I agree with you and not OP is because sniper rifles were given a huge buff two years ago, giving them more base damage, innate punch-through, and the consecutive hits bonus.

And even then, OP acknowledges that despite snipers having an "archetype disadvantage" or whatever he calls it they still wreck face

As for crowd control, it sort of is still king. It's just that power creep hit us so hard that now we frames whose crowd control powers also deal tens of thousands of damage (Volt) rather than the classic archetype of non-damaging stuns (Nyx)

[schilds]

OP, your use of "crowd control" seems to be closer to "area of effect". Crowd control is typically used to refer to effects that manipulate enemy behaviour: stuns, blinds, binds, knockdowns, confusion, slows, etc.

Edited January 7, 2020 by schilds

[Diavoros]

1 hour ago, taiiat said:

3 hours ago, Vespilan said:

3. Drop-off
Assault rifles have drop-off. Do I need to say more? It is painful, especially with Baza Prime, and just really unnecessary. 

no they don't. Baza is an extremely rare exception.

Technically Baza/Prime could be classified as SMG and that's why it gets the damage fall off stat. (DE isn't making a new category just for Baza, so that)

The classification for Assault Rifle in Warframe is quite loose, as sorties with such weapon type restriction allow the use of Ignis/Wraith for example.
What are the real "assault rifles" in Warframe? I can think only of the Braton series, Tiberon, Zenith, Stradavar, Argonak, Karak. 
Ideally primary and secondary weapons get a revisit like it was with melee recently, whenever we get damage 3.0.

[taiiat]

37 minutes ago, Diavoros said:

The classification for Assault Rifle in Warframe is quite loose, as sorties with such weapon type restriction allow the use of Ignis/Wraith for example.
What are the real "assault rifles" in Warframe? I can think only of the Braton series, Tiberon, Zenith, Stradavar, Argonak, Karak. 

for Sorties and Mission restrictions that's just because of by 'Assault Rifle' it means 'not a Launcher or a Shotgun or something that's a special Category". hehe.

[Vespilan]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb Cloudyvisage:

I think AR's had their time in the sun and there should never again be a time where they come out on top

The intend is not to make ARs the dominant weapon type but rather to make all weapon types equally viable. Right now, we have a sniper /shotgun meta, as is with many games, while ARs are, in my opinion, the type most furthest behind.

vor 8 Stunden schrieb Trapkin:

I personally do not mind the fall off, it makes it realistic. When have you seen a real gun fire a bullet in a straight line? all real life guns have a fall off.

Are you sure you know how real guns work? Real shotguns do not loose 80% of their velocity over 5m. Similarly, assault rifles may loose on accuracy over distance, but not on velocity.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb schilds:

OP, your use of "crowd control" seems to be closer to "area of effect". Crowd control is typically used to refer to effects that manipulate enemy behaviour: stuns, blinds, binds, knockdowns, confusion, slows, etc.

Acknowledged. I will try to avoid confusion in the future, I guess the damage is already done for this topic though.

vor 7 Stunden schrieb Diavoros:

What are the real "assault rifles" in Warframe?

Just to avoid this question I included my definition in the original post. Yet it seems hard to read for people and they come up with Tiberon Prime (burst fire) and Opticor (charge) when I explicitly narrowed it down to full-auto hitscan.

 

[divi_india]

I recommend you do some target practice and then try to hit enemy weak points. Assault rifle handling in this game takes some skill but not a lot like other games

[0_The_F00l]

I don't think they need any drastic changes, 

They are rather boring is pretty much the major downside to them. 

Regular headshots, some punch though and some controlled bursts instead of hosing a wall with heavy caliber will benefit greatly. 

They don't stand out, but they are more than capable for handling lvl 100 content. 

Hybrid builds are usually the better bet, 

But Crit+HM, or faction specific status builds also work great. 

[Test-995]

10 hours ago, Cloudyvisage said:

Assault Rifle's don't punish poor play and reward positive play, snipers and shotguns punish poor play whilst heavily rewarding proper play. As an endgame player I don't tend to worry about playing incorrectly but it also means I don't have to pay attention much, missing isn't a problem with AR's by their very nature. This means you can hit your target while you're lining up your headshots and any number of positive bonuses to having a full auto weapon with, usually, a generous magazine size.

Buffing Assault Rifle's could be useful if they were in a poor place, they aren't though, they kill things plenty quick, especially with a decent Hunter munitions or Status build. If they were to buff Assault Rifle's it would need to be an incredibly subtle one because having them be the dominant weapon feels bad and invalidates other weapons, there was a time where Soma Prime reigned supreme and invalidated everything else.

The difference between Soma Prime's reign and Tigris Primes is that Soma Prime was devoid of effort whereas Tigris Prime required you to have all the mods to make it perfect and it was still limited by it's own internal issues being a duplex trigger shotgun. I think AR's had their time in the sun and there should never again be a time where they come out on top, especially now that we have meta's around Eidolons and whatnot, that would be bad, Raids at least had low populations so judging was kinda low (Comparatively).

Assault Rifle does punish poor play, if you can't headshot pretty much entire magazine you can't reliably kill things.

Snipers and shotguns on the other hand, you don't even have to aim head, just shooting bodies will OHK pretty much everything in game.

Honestly, i want to see reign of assault rifle if it can actually happen, shifting meta is still better than infinite meta of explosive/snipers.