Sad state of 2020 Patched Vauban - VIDEO ATTACHED.

[DrivaMain]

4 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

And don't underestimate bullet jump velocity. It is quite significant. I know this from using Arcane Consequence and also playing Low Gravity mode nightmare missions. 

Ultimate meme combo : Arcane Consequences + Arcane Agility + Hit and Run parazon mod. I can cover 100 meters in 1 bullet jump if all effects are on.

Pls dont nerf de.

On the topic of Vauban. Just remove Vector Pad, it only serves as annoyance for me and my teammates and can be abused by trolls. No one is gonna miss this ability.

Edited March 13, 2020 by DrivaMain

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 2020-03-12 at 11:28 PM, Ravakahr said:

Mod spacing thoughts and concepts: 

• Need vitality - Base Health without vitality is 300 health with 300 shields and yes now buffed 200armor. (Not exactly game changing when you murmur farm level 90 enemies).
• Adaptation - Something that I love! Playing end game content sorties / murmur farming against level 90 enemies Adapatation is a fun perk that I like to run. Please don't touch this mod
• Streamline - Photon strike is 75 energy like omg please reduce :D. With streamline its now more usable at 50 energy. 
• Stretch + Telsa bank - they pair together. Also increases radius of Photon strike - which if your running a strength build is kinda important to hit more enemies. 7.5m Photon Strike default range would be nicer with stretch bringing it to 10m. That's not an unreasonable ask. 
• Photon Repeater - this impacts Photon Strike by refunding energy - if your running strength builds your going to use this.
• Flow - possibly optional with Photon Repeater. Maybe should be one or the other. 
• 1 slot free. Great example of why noone uses vauban strength builds. 

Innnnnnteresting...

Well...

Here's where I see your problem starting:

You're basing your concept of 'nobody uses Strength' on the twin concept that you think it's mandatory to run Photon Repeater (a good augment, but for a mediocre damage ability, especially when Tesla Bank is in there and can/does out-damage Photon Strike even without a Strength build) and that you haven't begun your Forma with the intent to run the better mods on there. You've put on five Forma, but not achieved a layout of Polarities that could actually be used for a viable Strength build.

You're also hovering there over Blind Rage because it seems to be your go-to for that V polarity and... well yeah, of course you'd need Photon Repeater in there with negative Efficiency. There are way better mods than that, though, and even Auras to help you achieve a higher Strength without the negative impact to your build.

For example, If your Vitality were an Umbral Vitality, your Aura were Growing Power and your Exilus were Power Drift, then that free slot could instead be Umbral Intensify. That would give you a base of 195% Power Strength with an extra 25% on top whenever you proc a Status (something you have a chance to do just passively with Tesla out).

Then you could do the sensible thing: ditch Photon Repeater too, use that V polarity for Primed Continuity to keep your abilities around a little longer to cut costs of recasts and that way you've also got the free spot for the strength mod.

Best thing about that build? You technically only would have needed 5 Forma for it if you had gone for it in the first place and no Umbral Forma (although you will need another 3 regular Forma to get there if you don't want to spend an Umbral one). The frame starts with a V, - and D, so you would have kept the first D for Adaptation, put on Primed Flow and Continuity on the - and V, then your Forma would have been two -'s for Streamline and Stretch, two = for Tesla Bank and Power Drift (in the Exilus) and either a V or an Aura Forma in the Aura Slot for Growing Power. (With the Aura Forma you can even swap out Growing Power for others if you're not facing super-high-level like an Energy Siphon, Corrosive Projection, Infested Impedence, heck even Brief Respite now that Shields have Shield Gating.)

(To be clear, to get to that build from yours, you'd need to Forma off the second D you have for Vitality, put an = in your Exilus for Power Drift, then a Forma in the Aura slot for Growing Power, preferably an Aura Forma so that you can switch things up later.)

The Augment can be swapped out if you'd like, Repelling Bastille is still awesome at keeping the Infested out of an area (like the cryo-pod) or for bottle-necking Grineer into a corridor, and yes you could even use Photon Repeater. This build gives it a solid 2500 damage (3125 with the Passive active) and getting free consecutive casts will mean you can apply it more consistently too, but it's not a better choice than the other two when taken in context.

It's a little difficult to say 'nobody uses Strength' when you'll immediately find that people on here will turn around and say 'Well... I do...' to disprove that statement. My Strength build not only has better survivability than yours from having much higher base Health, it also gives me those little bursts of armour from Bastille of about 1000 Armour on top of my Adaptation.

Not to mention the Strength build with a consistent 220% Power will let you combo your abilities so that just by having your a Tether Coil or Vortex active for CC and a Flechette orb for damage, you can use the bonuses from his passive and Overdriver to consistently kill enemies of nearly any level in five seconds or less (armour strip from Vortex is really, really good in combination).

The key point that you may consider there is simply that my build is actually a very locked-down and single purpose build, and you'd probably be right. I have concentrated on a higher Strength and Forma'd myself into a corner until the next round of higher level mods is released (come on Umbral Streamline...). However, with the way that it maintains positive stats for Efficiency, Duration and Range and still achieves that higher Strength that I'm looking for, I never suffer for the choice. I maintain a tanky, damaging Vauban and have no loss of performance on any of his supplemental functions.

Could I have ditched Strength and gone for a better Range build to make his Tesla Bank do all the work and use his other abilities just for additional DPS where I'm not focussing? Yes. Would it have been as survivable and consistently quick to kill, which seems to be all that the game wants us to do these days? No.

But there, you see, my friend... a Strength Build is not only possible on Vauban, it's actually kind of preferable too. There are players that use it, and at no point would I ever use Photon Repeater when I have consistently better options than Photon Strike for my damage.

Give it a try if you have time, see what you think.

[Colyeses]

On 2020-03-13 at 12:28 AM, Ravakahr said:

Mod spacing thoughts and concepts: 

• Need vitality - Base Health without vitality is 300 health with 300 shields and yes now buffed 200armor. (Not exactly game changing when you murmur farm level 90 enemies).
• Adaptation - Something that I love! Playing end game content sorties / murmur farming against level 90 enemies Adapatation is a fun perk that I like to run. Please don't touch this mod
• Streamline - Photon strike is 75 energy like omg please reduce :D. With streamline its now more usable at 50 energy. 
• Stretch + Telsa bank - they pair together. Also increases radius of Photon strike - which if your running a strength build is kinda important to hit more enemies. 7.5m Photon Strike default range would be nicer with stretch bringing it to 10m. That's not an unreasonable ask. 
• Photon Repeater - this impacts Photon Strike by refunding energy - if your running strength builds your going to use this.
• Flow - possibly optional with Photon Repeater. Maybe should be one or the other. 
• 1 slot free. Great example of why noone uses vauban strength builds. 

I want to argue against this.

Vitality is a necessity, certainly. Out of the basic stat-stick survivability options, Vitality is the one that works best since shields are terrible and his base armour is too low for a % boost to it to be worthwhile. Vitality scales with the bonus armour from Bastille though, which makes it an obvious pick for defense.

Adaptation... I've never been fond of. Never bothered experimenting with it either. I understand that it can provide near complete damage immunity but I'd prefer a frame stand on its own kit. This is a personal difference of opinion though.

In regards to Streamline: Why bring up Photon Strike? It is a total waste of energy to pump out a single damage point of which the DPS is easily outclassed by most weapons due to a lengthy cast time and limited impact radius. I -never- use this skill because it does not serve a distinct purpose outside of its flashiness. 

Tesla Bank is a matter of personal preference again, but I can see the appeal. It's odd though that you're pinning the use of Stretch on Photon Strike, again, and completely ignore the much more significant impact of +range on Bastille and Vortex, which are two abilities with adequate base range to scale up on and excellent impact. A range increase means a more effective pulling effect on Vortex (Which I'd have thought would be something anyone who uses Photon Strike would remember) and more importantly, increases the efficiency of Bastille's armour sapping and increases Vauban's freedom of movement. 

Photon Repeater feels like a band-aid to an at-its-core bad ability. It's also important to note the difference between Tesla Bank and Repeater: You pick one because it makes a decent ability better, you pick the other because without it, the ability is borderline unusable. 

Flow is, in my opinion, always and forever a complete and total waste of mod capacity. Energy regeneration will always be a bigger deal than having a large reserve as having a high capacity does nothing without having the means to fill it. Arcane Energize and Zenurik are the tools of the trade for a dedicated caster frame as you need to have a constant income of energy if you actively want to use abilities.

And lastly: You are dead wrong about no one using strength builds, because I actually run a negative efficiency build on my Vauban which is designed to capitalise on the fact that he's the best caster Warframe in the game that doesn't scale with weapon mods. I think the big issue you're struggling with is that you're focused on Photon Strike, as opposed to the real hard-hitter in his arsenal: The Flechette. 

The Flechette covers a much wider radius and keeps firing for the entire duration of the grenade without any further input from the player. This allows it to work in tandem with the DPS of your guns as opposed to in competition with it, because not a single ability can win that competition. You also get four of them at max, allowing you to spread the influence or double down on a specific spot. A neat technique for an STR-build Vauban for example is dropping multiple Flechettes on a Vortex to build a meat grinder. Nothing survives being dragged into that. 

 

In my opinion, Vauban is incredibly close to being perfect, and needs, primarily, two adjustments:

1) The control scheme for Minelayer needs to be improved to a new alternative that allows for better, faster control. Currently, it very strongly encourages picking one option and sticking with that, forever.

2) Vector Pad needs to be replaced with a minor, secondary defensive tool, like an overshield generator, deployable cover, or a heal dispensary. 

 

With those two changes, Vauban would be immaculate.

[--.Ravakahr.nVbs.--]

On 2020-03-15 at 4:59 AM, Colyeses said:

I want to argue against this.

I think the big issue you're struggling with is that you're focused on Photon Strike, as opposed to the real hard-hitter in his arsenal: The Flechette. 

I actually love that you like to build for the The Flechette. Fantastic!! Unfortunately Vauban has the ability Photon strike part of his arsenal - one of his ultimates. The ability should be viable by itself. And there should be builds for it. The fact that there is even 2 augment mods for the ability shows something should be viable for it. Giving the high energy cost of the ability some sort of efficiency is needed for it. 

[--.Ravakahr.nVbs.--]

On 2020-03-14 at 7:42 PM, Birdframe_Prime said:

 

Give it a try if you have time, see what you think.

Good article. Am a little disappointed noone is talking about his vector pads though. Which was the main sticking point of the article xD.

Edit: btw I did actually make a build the next day of the date the article was posted. This was the best I came up with with those polarities. For me playing end game content Adaptation is needed. 

https://imgur.com/kW8xZFd

Edited March 20, 2020 by Ravakahr

[z3us32610]

On 2020-03-12 at 8:02 PM, KitMeHarder said:

Please don't. Adding decreased effectiveness to power mods is a bad idea, needlessly complicates things, and goes against everything this "Review, Refresh, and Revise" mainline is aiming for. It's stupid on Oberon and needs to be removed, not added to more places.

Can you explain your comment on Oberon and decreased effectiveness? (might it pertain to the past Oberon rework?) Genuine curiosity here.

Edit: I just saw the formula for range and angle and now I see. I never really noticed that the math was a bit different.

Edited March 19, 2020 by z3us32610

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

Am a little disappointed noone is talking about his vector pads though.

The only answer I can give you on that is that people aren’t talking about them because everything that needs to be said has not only been said, but been said at every level of feedback, including people that the Devs themselves have acknowledged.

There’s nothing more to say, because we’re repeating ourselves. And the only one that seems to get a kick out of that is AGayGuyPlays and his crusty butt over Titania having a vacuum.

8 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

btw I did actually make a build the next day

Good attempt, but... you still haven’t cleared the real concerns I had with your build in the first place; You’re still using Blind Rage, which is negatively impacting your casts that you actually need (Bastille, Flechette Orb, Overdriver); You need to switch to the Umbral Vitality in order to get more out of Umbral Intensify (otherwise you might as well save space and put in a regular Intensify); You aren’t using the Primed Continuity to get the most out of your important casts (which are all Duration based) and improve your overall efficiency; And you’re still using Photon Repeater, which you only need on your build if you have the negative Efficiency from Blind Rage, especially when the Tesla Bank augment is so much more damage for so much less cost.

Also, I did actually tell you to keep Adaptation, so you don’t have to worry about that. With Umbral Vitality you have more health than bade Vitality, but without Adaptation you don’t have the reduction necessary to make use of it.

I’m impressed that you gave it a try, I’m just a little disappointed that the try didn’t grasp the concept I was pushing: don’t go into negative stats with Vauban. Bias towards Strength is not punished the way it might have been before his rework, in fact it benefits him, but the stats to stay positive on are (and always have been) range, efficiency and duration.

You’ll find you can cast more and cast more frequently. You’ll stay alive better, you’ll have better damage from using Tesla Bank (and for less energy, with more cases of it working thanks to The Squad being four simultaneous rollers that will even bounce that damage to the next roller if it was in range).

It’s worth the time investment if you really want to play more Vauban.

[--.Ravakahr.nVbs.--]

4 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The only answer I can give you on that is that people aren’t talking about them because everything that needs to be said has not only been said, but been said at every level of feedback, including people that the Devs themselves have acknowledged.

There’s nothing more to say, because we’re repeating ourselves. And the only one that seems to get a kick out of that is AGayGuyPlays and his crusty butt over Titania having a vacuum.

Good attempt, but... you still haven’t cleared the real concerns I had with your build in the first place; You’re still using Blind Rage, which is negatively impacting your casts that you actually need (Bastille, Flechette Orb, Overdriver); You need to switch to the Umbral Vitality in order to get more out of Umbral Intensify (otherwise you might as well save space and put in a regular Intensify); You aren’t using the Primed Continuity to get the most out of your important casts (which are all Duration based) and improve your overall efficiency; And you’re still using Photon Repeater, which you only need on your build if you have the negative Efficiency from Blind Rage, especially when the Tesla Bank augment is so much more damage for so much less cost.

Also, I did actually tell you to keep Adaptation, so you don’t have to worry about that. With Umbral Vitality you have more health than bade Vitality, but without Adaptation you don’t have the reduction necessary to make use of it.

I’m impressed that you gave it a try, I’m just a little disappointed that the try didn’t grasp the concept I was pushing: don’t go into negative stats with Vauban. Bias towards Strength is not punished the way it might have been before his rework, in fact it benefits him, but the stats to stay positive on are (and always have been) range, efficiency and duration.

You’ll find you can cast more and cast more frequently. You’ll stay alive better, you’ll have better damage from using Tesla Bank (and for less energy, with more cases of it working thanks to The Squad being four simultaneous rollers that will even bounce that damage to the next roller if it was in range).

It’s worth the time investment if you really want to play more Vauban.

Would you kindly mind keeping your replies shorter its a lot to read and very scattered just for me to read. We are still going off topic. But you didnt really link a build, and if you did it was just to much to read, I apologise. I also believe all abilities should be endgame level 100 viable in regards to Photon Strike, which I currently dont think it is. Secondly as you may (?) be suggesting I don't want to build Vauban for an all purpose build, I already have that build as you can clearly see in the photo above. And photon strike doesn't work well in that build against 100-120 enemies because the strength is to low. I would like a specific Photon Strike only build. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

Would you kindly mind keeping your replies shorter

I would mind.

But how's this:

2 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

But you didnt really link a build

No, I presumed you had a basic reading comprehension level of someone at least old enough to play the game, given its age rating.

And:

2 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

 I would like a specific Photon Strike only build.

Why in the love of all things RNGesus would you want to build for what is not only objectively Vauban's worst ability, but also an ability that cannot even deal as much damage with a max-strength build as Tesla Bank can deal with a negative strength build?

Short enough?

[--.Ravakahr.nVbs.--]

  

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

10 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

But you didnt really link a build

No, I presumed you had a basic reading comprehension level of someone at least old enough to play the game, given its age rating.

Don't be condescending. It's bad forum ettique.

 

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Why in the love of all things RNGesus would you want to build for what is not only objectively Vauban's worst ability, but also an ability that cannot even deal as much damage with a max-strength build as Tesla Bank can deal with a negative strength build?

Because initially as a side suggestion to the main article, I would have liked to have all abilities be useful in his next rework. If that was his strongest ability and Tesla Bank was his weakest ability that does nothing, and the original article was reversed with me saying it would be great if they fixed Tesla Bank surely your stance point would be different? And also the original article was about making strength builds viable. Which you just proved my point. They need to revisit that option with Vauban.

Also if you truely believe that Vauban negative strength build is the best, are you not supportive of the Vector Pad rework ideas? If you goto page 1 and watch the video, that is the experience of many players copying meta builds with vauban. It would be great if they reworked Vector Pad - maybe it even scales with range instead. If you have any great ideas please suggest them! 🙂

Edited March 20, 2020 by Ravakahr

[Methanoid]

i would just be happy playing a hydron mission without a vauban vortex glitching all mobs into the scenery slowing everything down in a major way.

[TeaHawk]

Personally I have no better suggestions than aforementioned. I'm just here to say that your video made my day.

[Birdframe_Prime]

9 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

Don't be condescending. It's bad forum ettique.

Then don't take somebody's willingness to give you detailed and thought-out replies and effectively say 'you talk too much' like a bad 90's movie extra.

9 hours ago, Ravakahr said:

If that was his strongest ability and Tesla Bank was his weakest ability that does nothing, and the original article was reversed with me saying it would be great if they fixed Tesla Bank surely your stance point would be different?

No, actually, my stance would still be to take your specific statement (that a specific build is not used) and provide you with examples of how it can be, if that were the case.

If that weren't the case, and I were instead addressing a proposed rework, I would then weigh up the pros and cons of a rework.

Are you forgetting that the entire context of my replies to you is that I'm addressing the more specific statement you made about Strength builds on Vauban not being used and that you've provided a build that is, while attempting the Strength build, a poor example of one? Which would by why I talked through the way to make that build better, giving a fully-fleshed-out Strength build that made Vauban perform better than yours would (not by virtue of raw damage numbers, but by making use of what is actually strong about Vauban right now).

Because yes, it would be fantastic if Photon Strike were good. The thing is that it's not, and you were trying to bend it into being good by using an Augment, specifically an Augment that is only necessary because of the way you tried to place a Strength mod on there that gives you negative Efficiency, and by trying to build in for max strength in an unsuccessful way.

If it were the case that Photon Strike were good, and Tesla Nervos were a terrible ability that had no good augment or no good aspects about it at all, then my stance would probably change. If you were trying to force Tesla Nervos to be good when they weren't, I would question your logic just as I have now.

But again, the context of this is that you tried to show that Strength builds on Vauban do not work, because in your eyes you had to include Photon Repeater, ignore Duration and make use of a negative Efficiency build.

My build that I talked through does allow you to make use of Photon Strike, but with the key function being that you need the interaction from Bastille and Overdriver to get numbers out of it. Without the power boost from Overdriver, very few of Vauban's damage options deal a lot of damage. Without the boost from his Passive, granted whenever you use his CC (which is what the Duration is there for), you don't get as much damage as you could either. And without the Armour Strip from Bastille, which will allow you the time to throw your Overdriver and the activation of your Passive as a bonus, any and every damage ability you use will just... cap out and not be very effective anyway.

The idea being that you can't just build for Strength and use the one ability and expect to have high numbers. Especially not when the ability you want to use doesn't have very high numbers in the first place.

If you give it a boost by making sure you mod for and use all of his other abilities in concert, then your dream of hitting things hard with Photon Strike is far closer than it was with your original build. It still isn't as good as grabbing everything with a Vortex and using Tesla Bank, but it's far more achievable than anything you would do by trying to exploit Blind Rage and Photon Repeater.

But, I've probably lost you with this already.

tl;dr?

Because of the context of the reply, trying to start arguing 'but if Photon Strike was good' as a counter to my comments about 'here's a build that works with what Vauban has and what is good about him now', is pretty counter-productive and purposely trying to move the goalposts of the discussion.

I will also reply in kind to people, so if you start being rude and saying that you're not even reading my replies because I type too much, then I'll be rude back. You could have taken the high road, been polite or even just ended the conversation, but you didn't.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

On 2020-03-12 at 8:20 PM, Teksorbkyva said:

Personally I miss the mines that did a Radiation proc and the one that stripped armor. Never used the jump/vector pad except for dumb stunts. Would rather have something more applicable to the rest of the game. Rarely will a speed-minded person choose Vauban when frames like Nezha and Gauss exist.

Ikr? 

I used the jump pads for trolling in defense missions. If you ever played pin ball you can probably guess what i put my teammates through 😂😂😂 Longest bounce streak was  about 18 bounces that this 1 guy unable to stop it for a good 20 seconds 😂

When he finally landed, he just said "STOP" 😂😂😂 but hey highscore!

[Thrymm]

Unfortunately, there isn't much discussion to be had about velocity pads.  The short form is :  They suck, and have two total uses.

1.  To troll or play around in ways that aren't actually about doing missions, as there is virtually nothing that ever wouldn't be a better choice in any situation.

2.  To slam your face into a wall, thereby notifying you that you shorted your flechette cast, flipping the action bar to velocity pad.

That's it, that's all it does.  It's junk, and short of an augment being created that turned you into an exploding missile, replete with explosions and a heat proc trail, it'll always be that way.  There is also the small matter of sharing a loadout spot with flechette on a clumsy action bar, meaning that it's not particularly accessible.  The ability would be a thousand times better by not existing at all, that way miscasting your flechette would toss the damage buff instead.

Photon Strike is actually a much better discussion because, well, it sucks too.  Pretty much everything else in his kit is a better use of energy and more useful at any given time.  Flechettes with comparable strength will just plain outperform it for a fraction of the cost.  It should probably light the ground in its area on fire, causing heat procs on top of the blast proc.  This would give it an armor strip and CC ability as well as a bit more damage, allowing it some much needed utility.

 

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

They should just remove the velocity pad and change it so the orb you deploy with your 2 is dependent on the weapon you have equipped at the moment.

Primary-OverDriver

Secondary-Flechette

Melee-Tether

That way, they can get rid of the clunky hold 2 to cast.

[(XBOX)EoD MegaHurtz]

Vector pads are good for pissing off randoms and throwing enemies off the map for easy missions. You can also make a path, if you take the time, to push enemies to a holding point. The time to throw them will always be slower than a bullet jump tho.