The Cryophon wasn't even nerfed

[TARINunit9]

6 hours ago, Reifnir said:

My Cryo went from ~15k total damage per shot after Avionics to ~6k total damage after Avionics. It was nerfed HARD, please stop claiming otherwise. 

Yes, its damage was halved. And so was enemy EHP. Or at least most of them

Non-elite Taktis and non-elite Flak units are more sturdy against the Cryophon, everything else got a huge EHP nerf and should be dieing in the same number or +1 shots

(I'd talk about non-elite Cutters but I don't think they even spawn in the Veil)

[(XBOX)tealfigment]

not to mention the zenistar(fav) that thing hits like stone add that with its ability to lock down areas probably one of best damage dealers, the weapons i like the most always gets attention sighted towards , swear with all the recent changes lately everything keeps getting better with age, trying to surpress urge to get some of that discounted plat as am returning player.

[Nezha_Rose]

While the chiropractor is still amazing, a nerf is a nerf, so by definition this threads topic is wrong... if we consider the semantics. 

Edit: You know what, I'm keeping that autocorrect.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Nezha_Rose
Erghhh Ill alow it

[Kettygon]

So... If the weapon cannot one shot everything, it is unusable? Even if it just take one more shot?

Edited January 11, 2020 by Kettygon

[LazyKnight]

17 minutes ago, Kettygon said:

So... If the weapon cannot one shot everything, it is unusable? Even if it just take one more shot?

Cryophon is the type of weapon where it needs to be able 1 or 2 shot a fighter or there is no real point in using it. If you want to keep using it go for it but I would give other weapons a chance at this point.  Zetki Apoc and Carcinnox have really good burst damage now and people might as well give them a try. 

Edited January 11, 2020 by LazyKnight

[zakaryx]

18 minutes ago, Kettygon said:

So... If the weapon cannot one shot everything, it is unusable? Even if it just take one more shot?

The zetki carcinnox is now arguably better than pre nerf cryo because it can strip crew ship armor and pop veil bubbles. 

 

You can one shot crew ships in the veil by firing at one for a few seconds and switching to artillery.

 

Long range, fast fire rate, and great damage really benefits from the armor and heat change.

 

Meanwhile cryophon now has awful range, bad damage, and can't pop crew ship bubbles. It's not "one" more shot either. Check out the video on page three.

[GrimSinner]

Yes the cryophon was nerfed even with the armor reduction on enemy ships.  I have never used Rhino or any other Warframe buff, l have the exact same avionics as pre-hotfix, and my V3 cryophon takes 1 to 2 more shots to kill than before.

Clearly DE wants to push people off the cryophon and get more people using the other weapons.  It's what they do.  You had too much fun with your cryophon, you used it too much, how dare you enjoy yourself, nerf nerf nerf.  

[Toppien]

16 hours ago, Nyllith said:

The cryophon is significantly weaker now, especially when you consider the fact that it was balanced around rhino's roar being used.
OG roared cryophon with munitions vortex took 2 shot to blow up whole squads, now you have to charge 5 shots and some ships will survive because it takes so long to fire 5 times into the vortex. That's a big nerf in my eyes.

If you use the weapon in a "classical" manner, it is still weaker than it was before.

and that nerf was well deserved, now it will take some time for people to look into the other weapons and use the one they like, but its for the best

[0_The_F00l]

After some testing , i will have to say that the Cryophon Zetki Variant sucks terribly compared to before,

The half damage could have been okay if it was paired with half the heat accretion , you can get max 2 shots without having to wait for heat gauge to reduce, which removes the advantage of the bonus fire rate (assuming no Polar coil),

the effective TTK has become 2.5x roughly compared to before for the same build, so the gun is maybe 33% as effective as before.

 

The vidar variant on the other hand is nearly 75% of its original effectiveness, 2 shot kills are possible , but 3 are kinda the average but the slightly longer falloff distance helps (only a little) this is assuming 50% bonus damage this is just slightly less than the other gun kill rate.

Build on railjack: Zetki hyperstrike, predator , section density, polar coil.

 

I really feel one of two (maybe both) should happen , half the heat accretion and double the fire rate - his would bring the gun on the same level as the other in my opinion.

Edited January 11, 2020 by 0_The_F00l

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

I am not a dogfighter; I am not a sharpshooter; I prefer autocannons, firing in the general area of enemy ships until *some* of my attack spray hits them. The Cryophon was never going to be in my arsenal, given its stats and style.
 

All that said, the change as described and shown, was unnecessary and heavy-handed, given what is required to make use of it. I don't understand the "nerf it because it's popular" train that DE is on these days... because it's not anywhere in the realm of sensible from my standpoint. (and I stand to benefit on PS4 from the future changes, and I don't think this change is good. Cryphon doesn't need to be made worse, to make the other weapons be used more... it hurts my head to think someone thinks this makes sense.)

 

 

[GrimSinner]

1 hour ago, Toppien said:

now it will take some time for people to look into the other weapons and use the one they like, but its for the best

And that will be the next weapon that gets nerfed.  It gives me anxiety trying to build something that performs well in Warframe because I know they are going to nerf it.  

[Toppien]

5 minutes ago, GrimSinner said:

And that will be the next weapon that gets nerfed.  It gives me anxiety trying to build something that performs well in Warframe because I know they are going to nerf it.  

its been the same dance since 7 years ago when people used to make rainbow elemental builds to one shot grineer on the only corpus tileset it existed at the moment

[Fallen77]

Le 10/1/2020 à 13:33, Nyllith a dit :

Straight from the patch note:

Our intent is to make Railjack weapons more effective on their own. As such, Rhino’s Roar and Saryn’s Toxic Lash no longer unintentionally affect Railjack weapons

 

It definetely was not the initial intent, but that balance patch was supposed to make weapons better so we don't need those abilities anymore. And we need them more than even before, which is completly stupid and straight up bad balance.

As other said : unintentionnaly. 

Thus, it was not balanced around roar. 

Also, wtf are you talking about ? Until I finally dropped some repair-worth gear, I've been playing for quite some time with a standard mk3 carcinox, and only the ramming combat avionic, no roar or anything, and it's already MORE than enough to take down every veil node. You don't NEED roar and stuff, at all.

It's not bad balance, you have no idea what bad balance is. You just want to blast ennemies in an instant like the rest of the game (which is pretty much already the case), that's because of that way of thinking that the base gameplay's balance is so out of wack.

You shouldn't be able to blast through the entire update in a week, it should take a little bit of time to chew through a mission. You having to encounter any form of resistance is not bad balance.

[KotoKuraken]

Cryophon was nerfed. I have Vidar Cryophons equipped on my ship with Zetki Hyperstrike and Section Density. I used to one tap Veil enemies, and now it takes 4 shots to take them down. Whether that's due to the changes to the gun or to the sheer health of the enemies, it's not that great. Cryophon is supposed to be a slow firing, close range, heavy hitting shotgun of sorts for the Railjack. Now you could probably kill a ton faster with Apoc or Carcinnox with a lot less overheat.

Edit: No, I have not used Roar or any other Warframe with my turrets before. Vidar Cryophon with Zetki Hyperstrike gave it +121% cc on top of the damage bonus. My Vidar Cryophons used to have 15k cold on them, now they only do 6k cold. That's a pretty hard freaking unwarranted nerf

Edited January 11, 2020 by KotoKuraken

[LtGreen649]

I've spent the last couple days running the math on these changes and have done some testing in game to confirm.

TL:DR Now:  Cryophons across the board are at 44.45% their previous base damages, they lost* 55% of their damage, more than half.  Enemy Armor value was halved but that did not result in damage reduction granted or total EHP being halved.  The final Damage Modifier used by units In battle, at the level I tested, did not result in twice as much damage being dealt, which would be the case of a 'true', flat halving.

Cryophons are 'nerfed' because they scaled down farther and in a different manner (flat vs curve) than ALL enemy fighters, outriders are an exception, but they are still better to kill by targeting weak points.

That being said they obviously could not have been left alone, reduction had to happen.  The additional shot to kill I found on my setup does not turn me away from using my Cryophons(Z3), and the extending range is... useful? interesting? IDK I'm still getting used to it.


Long Version: Silly amounts text and math below,
Base damage on Cryos went from went from* 900 to 400 for Base, 1620 to 720 for Mk I, 2754 - 1224 for Mk II and 4407 to 1959 for Mk III, every one of those new values calculates to 44.45% its previous, any additional calculation after that (Vidar bonus?, House Zetki's x1.5, Hyperstrike, Last stand gains, etc) should still be 55%(and change) less overall than it was before.

Enemy Armor values were flat halved, but do to the diminishing returns of armor numbers in Warframe, if armor is high enough halving base number does not half it's effect.

For my examples I will use the most common Grineer fighters, the Cutter and Elite Cutter ranging from Lvl 1 to Lvl 45, this is to compare their DR and EHP curves, not all units spawn at every level.  (I have done this math for all normal/elite fighters and outriders, but this post is already stupid long)

Before, Normal Cutter Lvl 1:  200 Health, 250 Armor, DR of 45.45%,  EHP of 366.67,
Before, Normal Cutter Lvl 45:  6,008 Health, 1,189.62 Armor, 79.68% DR,  EHP of 29,832.12

After, Normal Cutter Lvl 1:  300 Health, 125 Armor, DR of 29.41%,  EHP of 425
After, Normal Cutter Lvl 45:  9,012 Health,  594.81 Armor,  DR of 66.47,  EHP of 26,880.09

-->Normal Cutter's new EHP curve is from 115.91% its previous EHP at Lvl 1 to 90.10% at Lvl 45.

Before Elite Cutter Lvl 1:  500 Health,  300 Armor,  DR of 50%,  EHP of 1,000
Before Elite Cutter Lvl 45:  15,020 Health,  1,427.54 Armor,  DR of 82.63%,  EHP of 86,492.36 

After Elite Cutter Lvl 1:  500 Health,  150 Armor,  DR of 33.33%,  EHP of 750
After Elite Cutter Lvl 45:  15,020 Health,  713.77 Armor,  DR of 70.41%,  EHP of 50,756.18

-->Elite Cutter's new EHP curve is from 75% it's previous EHP at Lvl 1 to 58.68% at Lvl 45.

EHP is an effective tool to measure the enemies themselves and compare before and after because the unit's health is calculated out through their respective damage reductions, but it gets complicated when comparing EHP to weapon damage, I tried that, it didn't work for me, I will probably revisit those calculations at a later date.

Summing up simply (and dropping decimal remainders), all cryphon's are down to 44% of previous damage, enemy effective health pool is 115% - 90% for normal and 75% - 58% for elites.  No fighter EHP has been halved, outriders are the exception, they are not the focus of this example and are still easier to kill by targeting 'weak' points.

Enemy EHP and* took less of a hit than cryophon and the lower enemies level, the closer it is to its previous EHP.  This may have implications for other weapons, especially baseline clan weapons and sigma/lavan Mk I and II at lower levels, but that's not what this thread was concerned with. 

Instead of EHP we can also compare the curve of DR granted by the armor values (again, Cutters):
Lvl 1 Normal: 45% to 29%
Lvl 45 Normal: 79% to 66%
Lvl 1 Elite: 50% to 33%
Lvl 45 Elite: 82% to 70%
None of these damage reductions granted actually come out to half, in the testing portion I will also show how final damage modifier is not halved is not doubled*.

In game Testing:
I conducted my test run on Ruse War Field with Zetki Cryophon Mk III and Max Zetki Hyperstrike on a Max grid slot (+121%).  No additional damage affecting avionics such as last stand, predator, section density, etc were used 1: to keep the math as 'simple' as possible, 2: it's exactly what I was running before, 3: because I don't have all off them or capacity, and 4: others might not have them/capacity as well.

No Lvl 45 Fighter's were encountered, maybe because I was solo.  The most common Elite Cutters encountered were Lvl 43.
Lvl 43 Elite Cutters have  13,730 Health,  669.69 Armor,  a DR of 69.06% and an EHP of  44379.65. (Their EHP is 59.15% of previous.)
Their Damage Modifier to incoming damage is DM = (300/(300+AR(1-AM)))*(1+AM)*(1+HM) were AR is numerical value of armor, AM is armor modifier (Alloy +25% to cold) and HM is health modifier (robotic no change, or 0, to cold).

Calculating DM =(300/(300+669*(1-0.25)))*(1+0.25)*(1+0) gives a result of 46.77%.  I dropped the decimal on the armor because it appears the game does so as well based on my testing vs my math.

My cryophons with Max Z Hyperstrike and Grid shoot 6,495 cold damage.

6,495 x 46.77% (or .4677) = 3,037.7115 rounding up to 3038.

I confirmed this during my testing.  Every Lvl 43 Elite Cutter I shot displayed 3038 on a normal shot and 6077 on a critical hit.  Cutters with no critical hits took 4 shots at 3,038 and a shot of 1,577 against remaining health.  4 x 3,038 + 1,577 = 13,729 shown damage, only one less than the 'paper' calculated health of 13,730, I'm certain there is a decimal place not being shown on the damage indicators in game.

5 shots to kill, 4 on a crit, one Cutter was 3 on a double crit.

Now even though those days are forever gone, based upon in game confirmation of my math, I can still calculate my damage and enemy damage modifier for before.
Before Lvl 43 Cutters had  13,730 Health,  1,339.39 Armor,  a DR of 81.70% and an EHP of 75,029.3.
For a before Lvl 43 Elite Cutter the modifier would be DM =(300/(300+1339*(1-0.25)))*(1+0.25)*(1+0) giving a result of 28.75%.

Here we see that current final Damage Modifier 46.77% is not twice the previous final Damage Modifier of 28.75 (as a flat half would cause).

Mk III Cryophon base Damage was 4407, I am still running the same House Zetki guns (+50% damge or x1.5) and Z Hyperstrike/Grid (+121%)

4,407 x 1.5 = 6,610.5
6,610.5 x 1.21 = 7,998.705
Total Damge = 14,609.205

14,609.205 x 28.75% (or .2875) = 4,200.146 damage per shot (8400.292 w/ crit) to a before Lvl 43 Cutter's 13,730 Health
No crits:
First shot - 9,529 remains
Second shot - 5,329
Thrid - 1,129
Fourth - Dead

With Crits:
Crit first shot:  5,329
Second if normal: 1,129 remains
*Second if crit: Dead
Third: Dead

With no crits that's 4 shots to kill, with one crit is 3 shots, two crits in a row would be 2 shots (though at base 20% chance two in a row is a cumulative 4% chance).

1 additional shot to kill for each bracket for my setup.  Zetki Mk III are the highest damage output Cyrophons (or second highest, I don't know how Vidar's bonus work, but I'm assuming a Vidar with +51% damage or greater would out damage them?), also Lavan and Sigma will preform worse, in fact, running the same math above in a spreadsheet, without crits only; 4.9 hits to kill before patch and 6.78 hits to kill after, for those weapons with a maxed Z Hyperstrike/Grid.

Obviously the additional avionics will help , but the inverse is also true, without those avionics, or the capacity to run them, or if you have another house's inferior Hyperstirke, or a non maxed grid slot, etc etc... that will increase the shots to kill further.

In conclusion:  Cryophons were 'nerfed', their damage was not* scaled down more, and not in the same manner (flat vs curves) to the changes to fighter enemies.

But!:  My setup is still viable, and fun, in my opinion.  Better setups (and maybe House Vidar versions with good rolls) should still be viable.  Your millage may vary.

Edit: I should add, yes I run Rhino, but I'm built for Max Strength at the sacrifice of Duration and Efficiency, so I can use Ironclad charge to have stupid bonuses to my survivability on Iron Skin.  My roar only lasts 21 seconds and costs more than normal (i wanna say over 100), it was utterly impractical for my to use it for anything but buffing the forward artillery* 4 to 6 times a mission (and even that was not suitable for Veil) and thus I was not using or counting on it for my guns before.

Edit 2,3,4 and 5:  OMG I've re-read this so many times and I keep finding sentences I fat fingered or messed up the grammar/context on.  I'm sorry.

Edited January 12, 2020 by LtGreen649
Missing info and corrections

[Diangelius]

People should give mister @LtGreen649 an A+ on his huge "assignment". His result matches my own case.

For now I still set Vidar Cryophon for pilot because it hits much better than other guns, thus less DPS loss. I'm not sure whether Gunnery lvl 10 can fix missed shots (I'm not there yet) supposed it worked as intended after future hotfix.

Vidar Cryophon has highest crit chance among the 3 houses, so Predator + Section Density are temporary "treatment medicines" for now.

[FataL-Flaw]

On 2020-01-10 at 7:31 AM, Reifnir said:

My Cryo went from ~15k total damage per shot after Avionics to ~6k total damage after Avionics. It was nerfed HARD, please stop claiming otherwise. 

Truth

Every other zetki gun got a heat reduction and no damage reduction.  Cryophons across the board were hit with something like a 60% damage reduction with mods.  It is plainly obvious just looking at the card damage in drydock.

Pre-nerf Cryophon Mk3 with max damage mods could one-shot most veil fighters from closer range.  It's the railjack version of a shotgun and you get very few shots, and it took up a ton of your avionic capacity to do this. I'm not sure if it's even possible to one-shot with cryos now, even with the maxed damage avionics.  Maybe if you are drifting too, but that is a clunky method of increasing damage.  

[FataL-Flaw]

3 hours ago, LtGreen649 said:

  Zetki Mk III are the highest damage output Cyrophons (or second highest, I don't know how Vidar's bonus work, but I'm assuming a Vidar with +51% damage or greater would out damage them?

A Vidar above 50% is more damage and more crit chance than a Zetki, while also having less heat accretion.  The zetki is still more burst DPS with the fire rate bonus, but post nerf I think the crit and lower heat of the vidar makes it a bit more reliable.

[(PSN)DidacoJack]

"it was balanced around rhino's roar" 

Lmao, this community, I swear... 

[DoomFruit]

On 2020-01-10 at 6:51 PM, TARINunit9 said:

(I'd talk about non-elite Cutters but I don't think they even spawn in the Veil)

Try NSU Grid. If I ever go to veil proxima, it's because I'm there seeing absolutely zero trace of this mythical zekti predator thing (which supposedly drops from non-elite exo taktiseseses).

[LtGreen649]

@Diangelius Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad my case/math matches others.

@FataL-Flaw Thank you for the confirmation on Vidar Cryo.  I'm now confident saying a Vidar III with +51% or greater would have better damage per shot than a Zetki III and be the 'best' Cryophon, since I was specifically focusing on per shot damage for my math/comparison.  As you point out burst DPS skews a bit with Zetki's fire rate but Vidar's better crit chance will benefit more from a crit chance avionic (Predator?) for those with said avionics and the capacity to run an optimal build.

I'd also say Vidars in the +55%-60% damage range, at first glance/gut feeling, not actually running the math, would be the only Cryophons to weather the 'nerf' and scale down correctly?  Idk part of me wants to say that's accurate but a little voice in the back of my head is saying no, those are still higher than where an even scale down 'could' have been.
For curiosity sake tonight I may try to run the math on what % reduction to Cryophons, instead 55% vs half armor being curved, would have resulted in no change to shots to kill, at least for my setup/test mission.

[Highlord83]

The screaming over their unintended oneshot meta getting slapped back into balance are exactly the kind of people I love to see disappointed.

[(XBOX)TheRosenBones]

On 2020-01-10 at 1:24 PM, SenorClipClop said:

The Cryophon was nerfed. Its damage was reduced.

It was also buffed, as its falloff range was increased.

And the nerf to damage should be viewed in the context of the Armor of all enemy Fighters being cut in half. [DE]Megan said right in the patch notes that this Armor reduction allowed the Cryophon to one-shot every enemy, so the damage nerf was something they felt necessary to give the other newly-buffed guns a chance to compete against this one.

She also said the devs are "actively watching player stats and collecting feedback, and are willing to iterate on balance", so nobody go jumping on the Karen train demanding refunds because these numbers ain't necessarily final.

I feel like with it being more to the tune of Arca Plasmor-esque shotgun, it would make more sense to nerf the range and keep the damage. Higher risk being closer to enemies, but higher damage reward. It plays well for gunners picking off things that fly close, or pilots that ram the crap out of things for the hell of it.

On 2020-01-11 at 1:42 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

I am not a dogfighter; I am not a sharpshooter; I prefer autocannons, firing in the general area of enemy ships until *some* of my attack spray hits them. The Cryophon was never going to be in my arsenal, given its stats and style.
 

All that said, the change as described and shown, was unnecessary and heavy-handed, given what is required to make use of it. I don't understand the "nerf it because it's popular" train that DE is on these days... because it's not anywhere in the realm of sensible from my standpoint. (and I stand to benefit on PS4 from the future changes, and I don't think this change is good. Cryphon doesn't need to be made worse, to make the other weapons be used more... it hurts my head to think someone thinks this makes sense.)

 

 

It’s a huge trend in game dev that honestly irritates me to no end. Instead of fixing the stats that aren’t as effective as others, it’s more likely to see things that work too well nerfed instead to “balance”. 
 

Take Borderlands 3 for instance. It’s another looter-shooter with lots of weapons to chose from. Players naturally gravitate to the most efficient builds and weapons. Devs nerf it because it’s Too Popular, and they want people to use other weapons. From when I was playing, little effort was put into actually making said Other Weapons viable. 
 

To a player, it almost feels like getting punished as a class when it’s just one kid causing the problems. There are so many ways to make each gun unique, (just look at all that juicy weapon design we have!-unf. So much potential in just the art side of things alone), but nerfing the best ones to make the not-so-great ones “better” feels like a cop out. 

[SenorClipClop]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)TheRosenBones said:

Players naturally gravitate to the most efficient builds and weapons. Devs nerf it because it’s Too Popular, and they want people to use other weapons.

That may be how it comes off player-side, but the design intent is... a lot more nuanced than that.

In a game with multiple options and emphasis on the player customizing their own experience, it's natural for players to gravitate toward the options that are statisistically best (let's call these Type 1 options), and options that are preferred by the player personally (let's call these Type 2 options). I use the Gram Prime because it has amazing damage (Type 1); I use the Daikyu because it looks cool and I like Bows in this game (Type 2).

What provokes the nerf of certain options in-game is when there's a Type 1 outlier that outperforms other options so much, that the vast majority of players use it over anything else, even their personal favorites. This majority is where we get the misconception "it's nerfed cuz Too Popular", but it's not that simple. Players are efficiency-minded, and when something significantly stronger is available, they'll tend to pick that option even at the cost of their own personal preference and customization. A Type 1 can start invalidating Type 2s in a player's head if the power disparity is significant enough. If the difference between two sets of Armor is a just a few points and I like the Brass set a lot more, I'll take the stat hit to customize my character in a way that suits my personal preference. However, if the Smelter Demon Armor is far-and-away stronger than the Brass set, I'm a lot more likely to dress like the Smelter Demon, even though I prefered the Brass set. While the issue can be seen as "DE wants people to use other weapons", I think a more accurate way to describe this is "DE doesn't want obvious power outliers to force/obligate players into removing their own customization and freedom of choice in the name of optimization". Because players will do that.

You'll always have minmaxers who squeeze options for every last point of power (and make themselves look ridiculous in any game that ties stats to cosmetics), and that's fine, but generally minor stat discrepencies give us an open playing field to not feel like we're falling behind when we play things we personally prefer over whatever has the best stats. But when the best stat thing imhas a huge advantage, and this advantage overshadows player customization and playing to their own preferences, it's time to look at rebalancing.

[(XBOX)TheRosenBones]

1 minute ago, SenorClipClop said:

That may be how it comes off player-side, but the design intent is... a lot more nuanced than that.

In a game with multiple options and emphasis on the player customizing their own experience, it's natural for players to gravitate toward the options that are statisistically best (let's call these Type 1 options), and options that are preferred by the player personally (let's call these Type 2 options). I use the Gram Prime because it has amazing damage (Type 1); I use the Daikyu because it looks cool and I like Bows in this game (Type 2).

What provokes the nerf of certain options in-game is when there's a Type 1 outlier that outperforms other options so much, that the vast majority of players use it over anything else, even their personal favorites. This majority is where we get the misconception "it's nerfed cuz Too Popular", but it's not that simple. Players are efficiency-minded, and when something significantly stronger is available, they'll tend to pick that option even at the cost of their own personal preference and customization. A Type 1 can start invalidating Type 2s in a player's head if the power disparity is significant enough. If the difference between two sets of Armor is a just a few points and I like the Brass set a lot more, I'll take the stat hit to customize my character in a way that suits my personal preference. However, if the Smelter Demon Armor is far-and-away stronger than the Brass set, I'm a lot more likely to dress like the Smelter Demon, even though I prefered the Brass set. While the issue can be seen as "DE wants people to use other weapons", I think a more accurate way to describe this is "DE doesn't want obvious power outliers to force/obligate players into removing their own customization and freedom of choice in the name of optimization". Because players will do that.

You'll always have minmaxers who squeeze options for every last point of power (and make themselves look ridiculous in any game that ties stats to cosmetics), and that's fine, but generally minor stat discrepencies give us an open playing field to not feel like we're falling behind when we play things we personally prefer over whatever has the best stats. But when the best stat thing imhas a huge advantage, and this advantage overshadows player customization and playing to their own preferences, it's time to look at rebalancing.

Of course!-but a long term fix instead of putting out spot-fires as they go would be to make type 2 players feel that their equipment is just as good as type 1. There will always be a meta, but swinging a nerf hammer shouldn’t be the first response to a problem of statistics. That’s why I was so excited for the initial discussion of Rivens being introduced into WF. I knew my type 2 phage would get a fantastic boost because no one uses spaghetti shotgun. But even with a riven and prime mods, and more forma than I’d like to admit, it is always outclassed by whatever glorious new shotgun comes out. 
 

The reason why I think WF could really benefit from bringing older weapons/war frames to current level of gameplay is because even though it’s essentially an MMO, there are no true “tiers” of items other than prime and umbra. It’s not like the armor example where min-maxers will have item sets specifically for stats. (I’m looking at you, slimecrawl’s visage. Nothing sillier than wearing an actual alligator head in Elder Scrolls). 
 

Take the Braton Vandal for instance. There was a thread discussing how it and the Lato, despite its rarity, are pretty low damage. On paper because of its rarity, it should be at least better than decent, if not top of the line if we are following MMO logic. But some of the newer weapons in the same class of weaponry easily outperform them. Yes, content is getting harder and guns are doing more damage, but it feels like DE forgets about their older content until they look at the statistics of most-used weapons.