Titania's Ironclad Flight augment needs a change

[Zi-Sui]

Why? Look at what it does: adds 40% damage reduction when airborne, and disables vacuum (the loot range diminishes to about 1/10 of what it was).

Now, it would all be ok if, and only if, you could use that augment with Aviator mod. Aviator also gives you 40% damage reduction when airborne, but no negative symptoms. And, you cannot use Aviator and Ironclad Flight on the same build. So anyone who understands how they work will choose Aviator over Ironclad Flight.

I'll be blunt: when you add stuff to the game, you don't want it to be some sub-par thing no one with this understanding is going to use. It needs to change, even if it's just one issue.

My suggestions to change the situation:

Scenario 1 - give Ironclad Flight 45% or 50% damage reduction instead of 40%, so there's more incentive to use it over Aviator.

Scenario 2 - reduce Ironclad Flight damage reduction to maybe 20% or 25%, I don't know, but in any case low enough for it to be used with Aviator mod in builds you could consider it viable and balanced. As in, wanting to make a tankier flight build for some reason and willingness to sacrifice a mod slot.

I'd rather see scenario 1 happen, than scenario 2, because in builds every mod slot is valuable. But I'm hardly a Titania main, only used her occasionally and out of interest, so maybe people more comfortable with this frame and the Razorwing flying playstyle can comment.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

The point of the mod is to remove vacuum. That is the "positive" feature that makes it "better" than just using Aviator. If you're not a member of the anti-vac community, don't use it.

DE specifically designed Ironclad Flight to be Aviator + anti-vac. They aren't going to make it stronger than Aviator, or usable with Aviator.

[selig_fay]

It doesn't really make sense. Shields give 25% DR. The Aviator gives 40%. Aerodynamics gives 24%. We have a total of 89%, but we have a 90% cap, so anything higher just won't work. Don't build Titania for health. This is literally less protection than you will get with shields and shieldgate. 

[Dark_Lugia]

The mod got added, because some people (I only know one) didn't like the inbuild vacuum:

I would wish for a usefull mod, too. Or at least make Razorwing Blitz an exilus mod.

[selig_fay]

6 minutes ago, Dark_Lugia said:

I would wish for a usefull mod, too. Or at least make Razorwing Blitz an exilus mod.

This would be great for a full DPS build. I see no reason to use an Aviator for a glass cannon when the shields are now able to withstand 1 hit. 

On the other hand, blitz is too fast for me. I would prefer to give up speed but keep the rate of fire.

[Hellmaker2004]

2 hours ago, selig_fay said:

It doesn't really make sense. Shields give 25% DR. The Aviator gives 40%. Aerodynamics gives 24%. We have a total of 89%, but we have a 90% cap, so anything higher just won't work. Don't build Titania for health. This is literally less protection than you will get with shields and shieldgate. 

First of all, that is not how damage reduction work, at all.

The only one Additive is Aerodynamics with Aviator and Agility drift. All other type of Damage reduction stack multiplicative.

Second, there is no cap on Damage reduction, only on Airborne resistance mods, and that is due to them being additive instead of multiplicative.


You can get up to 90% with Airborne mods, and then keep stacking with other means, such as shields passive 25% for a total of 92.5% And then use her Tribute for a additional 50% for a total of 96.25% Damage reduction on her shield, or 95% on health, before calculating her armor but since she got 125 armor = ~29.4% Damage Reduction she will end up with.

96.25% Damage Reduction on her shields.
96.47% Damage Reduction on her Health 


Third, saying that you should not build her for health is misleading at best and one could consider it a lie at worst.
Not only does she have a much better base health value, 125 health vs the base 100 shield, she also have a higher base scaling on health, a +250 Health vs +200 Shield when at max rank. And base value make a huge impact on Mods, she also have more damage reduction thanks to armor than the passive value shields have.

Shields Passive 25% Damage Reduction
vs
Titania Prime 125/(125+300) = ~0.294 = ~29.4% Damage reduction


TLDR; The mod is more than fine, it is supposed to be a option for those that don't want Vaccum but don't want to lose out on Aviator, and that is it.

[selig_fay]

@Hellmaker2004 Passive DR of shields is considered as a strong side of shields under the old system. It adds up with adaptations and similar mods. Only the armor and DR abilities are separate from this.

The second point is that Titania benefits more from shields, because she doesn't have to take a lot of damage, and shield gate will save her more than health. Trust me, I tried to make it a big tank with a health conversion. Shields are better.

[Duality52]

On 2020-07-11 at 12:10 PM, Dark_Lugia said:

The mod got added, because some people (I only know one) didn't like the inbuild vacuum:

What's baffling is that people were asking for vacuum to be added into Razorwing for more than two years since Titania got released back in August 2016, which then got added in at December 2018.

Fast forward to this year, some people including a particular person who complained about the loss of energy efficiency, managed to convince DE to add in this mod in under a month.

[selig_fay]

31 minutes ago, Duality52 said:

What's baffling is that people were asking for vacuum to be added into Razorwing for more than two years since Titania got released back in August 2016, which then got added in at December 2018.

Fast forward to this year, some people including a particular person who complained about the loss of energy efficiency, managed to convince DE to add in this mod in under a month.

Because there was a new useless mod for pistols that requires shooting at energy orbs. But Titania violates this gameplay.

But the funny thing is: You cannot install it in Dex Pixia.

[taiiat]

i'm sure people have already said it, but this Augment is one in a group of Augments where the entire purpose is to remove something Players don't like about a Warframe. and to make that not cost you something, the Augments also come along with Stats that Players commonly choose for those Warframes anyways.

 

On 2020-07-11 at 6:37 PM, selig_fay said:

The second point is that Titania benefits more from shields, because she doesn't have to take a lot of damage, and shield gate will save her more than health. Trust me, I tried to make it a big tank with a health conversion. Shields are better.

hmm, the math doesn't necessarily support this.

unmodded, Titania Prime has:
375 effective Shields
531.25 effective Health

unfortunately, there isn't a Modding scenario where it's possible for Shields to have higher EHP than Health(partly because we always have some of both so the features bleed over a bit no matter what we Mod for). i would love for there to be one, but everything you can spec into that gives more effective Shields also gives the same amount of effective Health.
for vanilla Titania though, i would accept that both are close enough to be thought of as the same.

 

now, if that was mentioning Shields can be a relevant choice so as to not need to worry about Healing yourself as much since it's Shields and they can regen, i could certainly see opting for less EHP to survive vs extreme spikes much better while hoping that the less EHP won't be needed for big groups of other types of Enemies.
though in such a case, Modding for more Shields is neither here nor there, moreso Modding for Shield Regen so you can reset gating more often.
should be able to do both though in that sense, putting on some Shield Regen and still leaving room for having a Health Mod plus the usual Multiplicative Mods.

this is just talking about the pros/cons of one or the other, to show why the less popular choice can have value and should be considered alongside that more popular choice.

[selig_fay]

@taiiat Yes I agree. And before the shields became good and the aerodynamics didn’t exist yet, I used health and health conversion because Titania usually doesn’t take damage often like facetanks do, but I noticed that many things make me die because I don’t have eyes behind. In particular, invisible grenades. They annoyed me.

But now this is a standard feature of shields. And I really notice that even level 150 doesn't remove the 300 shield quickly. The only problem is the toxin, but in fact it is not a problem unless you kiss the toxic ancient. I mean, even a passive ability works to ensure that you have little health. I think that DE in vain gave Titania more health than shields because there are so many facts about using shields now. Although, up to a level of 100, hp may well be better than a shield.

[nooneyouknow13]

On 2020-07-11 at 2:51 PM, Hellmaker2004 said:

First of all, that is not how damage reduction work, at all.

It absolutely is.

All current damage reduction mods stack additively. All frame skills stack multiplicatively. Shield just happen to be included in the mods stack.

 

As for shields vs health - you should build either outside of niche situations. With just Aerodynamic, Aviator and Thorns, she has 5,455 effective shields and 2952 eHP. The only time health mods are necessary is if you're spending prolonged time on the ground.

On 2020-07-12 at 10:31 PM, taiiat said:

375 effective Shields

25% damage reduction is equivalent to a 33% increase in effective shields(300/.75=400). So a frame with 300 shields, and no other sources of damage reduction has 400 effective shields, not 375. As mentioned above, with Aerodynamic and Aviator you achieve 89% damage reduction to shields, Thorns brings that down to shields only taking 5.5% of incoming damage. Health would still be taking 18% of incoming damage, further reduces by her 125 armor, to a final value of 12.7% of incoming damage. 375/.127=2952. Even if you compared 2 pc Umbral Vitality vs Redirection, 740 shield becomes 13,455 eS, and 1063 health becomes 8,370 eHP.

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 2020-07-11 at 11:37 PM, selig_fay said:

The second point is that Titania benefits more from shields, because she doesn't have to take a lot of damage, and shield gate will save her more than health.

As a little note here, Selig, if the mechanic of Shield Gating is what will save her, then the actual numerical value of her shields means almost nothing. I can go through the practices with you, if you'd like, but the short of it is simply that when you want the Shield Gate, then it doesn't matter if you have 400 or 1000 Shields, they'll function exactly the same in situations where you're taking high amounts of damage.

It's still logically more sound to mod in a Health mod, or even a Quick Thinking mod, than a Shield mod simply because the second your Shield Gate ends, and you haven't regenerated your shields through abilities, mods or companions, you rely on Health.

Yes, Shield Tanking is a viable option for many frames, like Gauss, Mag, Protea, Harrow and Hildryn, and that's because they bypass the limitations of Shields so easily.

On other frames that do not have those little buffs to regen delay, regen speed, restoring chunks of shield instantly and so on, putting on a Health mod is still the better option, simply because after the Shield Gating fails, you can still take that little extra beating, and when your Shield Gate is back working again, you have that ability to restore your underlying buffer.

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, nooneyouknow13 said:

25% damage reduction is equivalent to a 33% increase 

you're right, i have a tendency to forget this and thusly forget to inverse one extra time, when dealing with values lower than 50%.

however due to the nature of the type of discussion here, i did assume 3/3 Umbral.
and ultimately in the Modded calculation (that i didn't show, so no harm no foul), i inversed the correct number of times since it was always over 50%.

so combined, 7768(Shield focus) vs 10,970(Health focus). truncated. 
or exclusive, 6727 vs 8243. truncated.
that is Redirection, or 3/3 Umbral.
i don't bother to include layers which apply to Health and Shields equally, since the Delta would be the same, so Thorns, or any Multiplicative form of protection excluded for brevity.

this is ofcourse because, of Titania Prime having an escalated Health value. as i mentioned, on vanilla Titania they're essentially within margin of error whence Modded, and could be considered the same.

 

but it's perfectly okay that one technically has more Health than the other, because ofcourse regenerating features are worth taking into consideration, especially if one were to use Fast Deflection (or Vigilante Vigor if one would be into that).

4 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

then it doesn't matter if you have 400 or 1000 Shields, they'll function exactly the same in situations where you're taking high amounts of damage.

technically there is a difference, as larger Capacities take longer to fully Recharge compared to lower Capacities, so if only the gate is desired, a lower Capacity means getting the full Duration gate more often.

[selig_fay]

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

technically there is a difference, as larger Capacities take longer to fully Recharge compared to lower Capacities, so if only the gate is desired, a lower Capacity means getting the full Duration gate more often.

It all depends on the goals of the shields. In fact, shields very well survive small damage, not only due to EHP, but also due to the regeneration of shields, the delay of which is 1 second, if you do not use shieldgate. Thus, even small shields with high DR can withstand a lot of damage without shieldgate. Shields will never compete with health in terms of ehp. But the volume of shields also increases regeneration. 

If we are talking about Titania, then I think that shields are better for her, since she is not a facetank. On the other hand, I use aviator and aerodynamics without increasing shields or health, and I say that even 300 shields hold damage well.

[Hellmaker2004]

6 hours ago, nooneyouknow13 said:

It absolutely is.

I stand corrected, i even ran some test and some numbers and it definitely does look like Shield damage reduction is additive included in the maximum 90%.

It was even more interesting to see that armor is not.

Still, i stand corrected on the shield part.