Planned changes to gas are not enough

[lukinu_u]

In last devstream, the future changes to gas was mentionned :
"Gas AoE start at 3m and gradually grow to 10-12m and dead enemies gain lingering effects, and toxic ancients aren't immune to gas anymore"

Yeah that's better, but still not great. What made gas good and interesting was its interaction with gas toxin mods.
As you know, toxin, electricity and heat proc damage depend on elemental mods on your weapon. For these, each tick damage is <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier>/2), with the elemental modifier being 1+<added value from mod of the said elemental>.
So let's take a few examples a few examples :

• First, you have 100 base damage and add a +90% toxin mod. You have a toxin multiplier of 1+0.9=1.9 so your status tick will deal 100*(1.9/2)=95.
   
• Take another case, you still have 100 base damage but add +90% toxin, +90% electricity and +90% heat mods. You have a 1.9 toxin multiplier, 1.9 electricity multiplier and 1.9 and end up with corrosive + heat. Only proc will heat and deal 100*(1.9/2)=95 per tick. Toxin and electricity multipliers exist but are unused but still exist.
   
• So now, take the same situation as above but you add Toxin Lash on (base stats, so +30%). With the same exact setup, it add another damage instance dealing 30 base damage with 100% toxin status chance, and this toxin status will use the toxin multiplier from the weapon, so the proc will deal 30*(1.9/2)=28.5.

Saryn may sounds like a random example, but this is exactly what was happening on gas before the change. Since gas used toxin multiplier in the status damage calculation, you could maximise it through smart use of toxin mods.
Here is a good example :

• Your weapon has innate gas (like Zakti/Cyanex), and you mod it for corrosive/viral. if you put a +60% toxin mod and a +60% cold/electricity mod to get increased status chance, but you can also decide to replace the +60% toxin for a +90% to get more damage but also stronger gas status.

In comparison, current gas calculation is instead <Base damage>*0.5 which is in other word, same as elemental procs, but with no elemental mods... You're better using toxin.

Another import point is the old gas calculation compared to other elements.
While most of element damage per tick calculation was : <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier/2), the calculation for gas was <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier>/2)^2.
With this calculation, gas status are weapon that regular elements when the elemental multiplier is under 2, but when it's above it's much stronger and start growing exponentially but require more slots. It mean gas was super strong but only if you invest enough to reach high multiplier, which require 2-3 slots. It gave gas a purpose but only if used well and smartly, which is good.

TL;DR : Gas deal no damage, don't scale with toxin mods and lost all interesting synergy and build possibilities around toxin multiplier.

Edited March 13, 2020 by lukinu_u

[Tiltskillet]

Yeah, I'd prefer something closer to the old gas mechanic--smaller, more tactical, but potentially much, much more intense AoE--and honestly I think that would be a safer course for DE.   I admit I am curious though if the potential AoE scales up with status duration.

Did they say anything about changing impact or nerfing viral? 

[Scruffel]

11 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Did they say anything about changing impact or nerfing viral? 

Stacked Impact procs lead into a greater stagger and increase the chance of activating a Parazon finisher.

Pretty sure there were no mentions of nerfing Viral.

[GKP_light]

Gas should scale with Toxin and heat.

the formula should be :

0.5 * base damage * ( 1 + heat mod + toxin mod )

[TheGrimCorsair]

It's plenty.

[DreadWarlock]

5 hours ago, lukinu_u said:

In last devstream, the future changes to gas was mentionned :
"Gas AoE start at 3m and gradually grow to 10-12m and dead enemies gain lingering effects, and toxic ancients aren't immune to gas anymore"

Yeah that's better, but still not great. What made gas good and interesting was its interaction with gas toxin mods.
As you know, toxin, electricity and heat proc damage depend on elemental mods on your weapon. For these, each tick damage is <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier>/2), with the elemental modifier being 1+<added value from mod of the said elemental>.
So let's take a few examples a few examples :

• First, you have 100 base damage and add a +90% toxin mod. You have a toxin multiplier of 1+0.9=1.9 so your status tick will deal 100*(1.9/2)=95.
   
• Take another case, you still have 100 base damage but add +90% toxin, +90% electricity and +90% heat mods. You have a 1.9 toxin multiplier, 1.9 electricity multiplier and 1.9 and end up with corrosive + heat. Only proc will heat and deal 100*(1.9/2)=95 per tick. Toxin and electricity multipliers exist but are unused but still exist.
   
• So now, take the same situation as above but you add Toxin Lash on (base stats, so +30%). With the same exact setup, it add another damage instance dealing 30 base damage with 100% toxin status chance, and this toxin status will use the toxin multiplier from the weapon, so the proc will deal 30*(1.9/2)=28.5.

Saryn may sounds like a random example, but this is exactly what was happening on gas before the change. Since gas used toxin multiplier in the status damage calculation, you could maximise it through smart use of toxin mods.
Here is a good example :

• Your weapon has innate gas (like Zakti/Cyanex), and you mod it for corrosive/viral. if you put a +60% toxin mod and a +60% cold/electricity mod to get increased status chance, but you can also decide to replace the +60% toxin for a +90% to get more damage but also stronger gas status.

In comparison, current gas calculation is instead <Base damage>*0.5 which is in other word, same as elemental procs, but with no elemental mods... You're better using toxin.

Another import point is the old gas calculation compared to other elements.
While most of element damage per tick calculation was : <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier/2), the calculation for gas was <Base damage>*(<elemental multiplier>/2)^2.
With this calculation, gas status are weapon that regular elements when the elemental multiplier is under 2, but when it's above it's much stronger and start growing exponentially but require more slots. It mean gas was super strong but only if you invest enough to reach high multiplier, which require 2-3 slots. It gave gas a purpose but only if used well and smartly, which is good.

TL;DR : Gas deal no damage, don't scale with toxin mods and lost all interesting synergy and build possibilities around toxin multiplier.

But didn't they say that gas scaling would be reverted to teh old formula as well? I'm pretty sure I heard them saying that.

[DrivaMain]

I would also would like to remove the -25% gas damage penalty from cloned flesh and normal flesh because it doesn’t makes sense due to the fact that toxic gas is very dangerous to organic beings, make it neutral or a small 10-25% damage bonus. To compensate, Robotic resist gas damage by 50-75% so you can’t cheese all of the corpus with gas.

[Tiltskillet]

5 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

  I admit I am curious though if the potential AoE scales up with status duration.

To answer my own question, looking at the official overview, it sounds like AoE only scales with stacks:

Gas Status Area-of-Effect radius increases with the number of stacks, to a max of 10 stacks. 

Too bad, status duration multiplying both DOT and AOE would have been fun.

 

[eyesoffaith]

If DE is still thinking about Gas then I have an idea I'd like to throw out there.

What if Gas carried status to other enemies? I think it would encourage people to build for gas with the new interest in status and would allow for some interesting builds for slower single target weapons. The idea would be that damage and status on the target hit would work as normal. A if Gas status triggers then a Gas cloud would form like normal and deal guaranteed Gas damage to enemies with each proc having a chance to apply the other status's on the weapon in accordance with the status chance of the weapon. The new formula for Gas damage from the Warframe revised update could stay as the focus to Gas wouldn't be damage but utility and I think that would make people interested.

TLDR; I like the idea of Gas lingering after death but I think this coupled with Gas increasing in size with consecutive procs could allow for players to make a choice of going for high damage builds with Viral, armor stripping with Corrosive, or group status application with Gas. If you liked this idea share it! Pass it on and talk about it in other threads. Maybe DE will consider 😃

[lukinu_u]

Il y a 4 heures, eyesoffaith a dit :

If DE is still thinking about Gas then I have an idea I'd like to throw out there.

What if Gas carried status to other enemies? I think it would encourage people to build for gas with the new interest in status and would allow for some interesting builds for slower single target weapons. The idea would be that damage and status on the target hit would work as normal. A if Gas status triggers then a Gas cloud would form like normal and deal guaranteed Gas damage to enemies with each proc having a chance to apply the other status's on the weapon in accordance with the status chance of the weapon. The new formula for Gas damage from the Warframe revised update could stay as the focus to Gas wouldn't be damage but utility and I think that would make people interested.

TLDR; I like the idea of Gas lingering after death but I think this coupled with Gas increasing in size with consecutive procs could allow for players to make a choice of going for high damage builds with Viral, armor stripping with Corrosive, or group status application with Gas. If you liked this idea share it! Pass it on and talk about it in other threads. Maybe DE will consider 😃

It's a cool idea, but for me it fit a bit more the blast theme, and since it's not tick based, it would make a bit more balanced.

Also, status charing is cool but put it on gas (heat+toxin) would make it unusable with toxin or heat on the same weapon. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it encourage weapon swapping for maximum effiency, but it's worth considering.

[DarthIronclad]

Maybe make adding more toxic increase the DoT damage like before?

Also another addition which might be interesting: Adding more heat damage increases the max AOE.

Might create some choices when it comes to gas builds.

 

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

Gas can finally be used against it's intended targets, Infested! That's enough for me. And it means that with gas damage, I don't have to worry about the status being useless because of toxic ancients. If we went back to the old way, gas damage would only be useful against Infested while gas status would be great at everything except Infested.

[AzureTerra]

1 hour ago, Grey_Star_Rival_Defender said:

Gas can finally be used against it's intended targets, Infested! That's enough for me. And it means that with gas damage, I don't have to worry about the status being useless because of toxic ancients. If we went back to the old way, gas damage would only be useful against Infested while gas status would be great at everything except Infested.

As someone who has always used Gas vs its intended targets im glad to see its Proc finally match the base damage in type.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this change, it'd make the Ignis insanely powerful since you'd literally be spraying gas everywhere. And a heat/gas build with the ignis sounds like my idea of fun too.

[Tiltskillet]

11 hours ago, DarthIronclad said:

Maybe make adding more toxic increase the DoT damage like before?

Also another addition which might be interesting: Adding more heat damage increases the max AOE.

Might create some choices when it comes to gas builds.

 

Neat idea.  

[Orakan]

Gas damage definitely needs more damage calculation than current state