Mutalist Cernos Elemental Damage

[(XBOX)Cw030303]

Hello, 

I dont understand how the Mutalist elemental damage works, it does not appear to behave like other weapons with innate toxin damage. 

For instance if I have Infected Clip in the upper left hand corner of the mod slots and a High Voltage I get corrosive damage at 33.1, this damage does not make sense. 

If I replace the Infected Clip with Hellfire and keep High Voltage I get: Toxin 13.3 and Radiation 19.9, this also does not make sense. 

However, if I then use a combo of Hellfire and Thermite Rounds I get 1,629 Heat damage, and 33.1 Gas damage. Interestingly enough If I switch the mods location it does not change the damage. 

Why is this happening, it does not follow the procedure for elemental modding. Even if the elemental combo using innate toxin damage is suppose to be a low number, with serration, any other elemental combo you use is also giving that low number, as if scaling off of the toxin damage, unless you have two mods of the same element. 

Thank you for reading, I hope its not to convoluted. 

[Andele3025]

UI is bugged/what it displays is the post combined elements only damage scaled from the cloud when in fact both arrow and cloud get modded. Dont worry its only visual (unlike gladiator/BR issues with exalteds, garuda, venka, etc).

[(XBOX)Cw030303]

Thank you!

I was concerned b/c some of the damage from the cloud procs was very low. 

[Proscriptor]

this weapon is special. you can't understand elemental combining on the example of this weapon. 

first, i will tell you the general rules of elemental combining:

1. the order in which they are placed in the build where top row of slots is numbered 1,2,3,4 and bottom row 5,6,7,8
2. bottom to top on riven (if a cold tox heat riven is slotted in slot 5, heat will have priority 5, tox 6, cold 7, and priority of the actual slots 6,7,8 will be moved down by 2 places - to 8,9,10)
3. innate element comes last (in the previous example it would have priority 11)

as with some other weapons, mutalist cernos has two basic damage instances, the direct damage instance and cloud instance; it's like a launcher that has the projectile impact damage and the explosion damage

with launchers these separate instances are separated in the UI, but not with mutalist cernos; here, they are lumped together

you need to see each damage instance separately:

1. the projectile impact (blue rectangle)

there is no innate toxin here, there is only physical damage; adding a cold mod creates only bonus cold damage, and you can see that it's the +60% cold from Rime Rounds

1. the cloud (green rectangle)

the base damage of this instance is a small amount of toxin damage. adding cold damage to this instance also adds +60% cold (a very small amount here as base damage is low)  and changes the damage type of this instance to viral

the Mutalist Cernos UI bug:

in the above example, i only added cold (this is btw how you actually build this weapon, but that's another topic)

had i added two different elements to get a combined element, the number representing the resulting bonus elemental damage for the first intance disappears

it's just the ui issue. the weapon works without problem.

  

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Cw030303 said:

Thank you!

I was concerned b/c some of the damage from the cloud procs was very low. 

damage from the cloud proc is very low because base damage of the cloud is very low (it's 5 dmg). the cloud can never deal a lot of damage. 

[taiiat]

the Arsenal is simply not setup to handle a Weapon with this many Damage stages. it calculates the numbers in the Arsenal super wrong, just do it mentally instead, and ignore what the Arsenal says.
it works the way it should in actual Gamplay, it's just the Arsenal that does it wrong.

[Proscriptor]

everything which is shown in the arsenal is correct, the only problem is if you combine elements, the bonus combined element number is not present

[(XBOX)Cw030303]

Thank you for the explanation, I think this will really help when I play with it. I really like this weapon despite having all the others, it visually looks cool. 

Its a pity that the cloud is just for aesthetics and procing CO.  

[Proscriptor]

it isn't a pity, far from it

mutalist cernos is one of the highest damage dealing non-melee weapons in the game

because of cloud delivering so many procs and this being a bow which can use split flights, mutalist cernos with a proper build can do hundreds of thousands of dmg (close to a million) on a single proc of hunter munitions, without external buffs

it's one of the most advanced but also most rewarding weapons, precisely because of the clouds

as a side note, using bows as a status dispenser for CO is not viable at all, that's too slow

[(XBOX)Cw030303]

I have never seen Baro Ki'Teer bring Split flight. Oh thats cool. 

thank you for sharing that info!!!

[lukinu_u]

il y a 18 minutes, Traubenzuckr a dit :

because of cloud delivering so many procs and this being a bow which can use split flights, mutalist cernos with a proper build can do hundreds of thousands of dmg (close to a million) on a single proc of hunter munitions, without external buffs

Unless I'm missing something, there is not reason for the cloud to provide anything special to Hunter Munitions, especially since the weapon have very low crit chance.
From my knowledge (and tests to confirm that), here is how it works :

• Hunter Munition has +30% chance to apply a slash status effect on critical hit. The damage depend on the instance that triggered the status, so in the case of the cloud, it's 5*base damage mods.
• Mutalist Cernos cloud has same critical stats as the main shot, and each cloud tick has independent chance to crit.

Based on these, Hunter Munition would have <30%*crit chance> chance to proc on the arrow, + the same <30%*crit chance> chance to proc on each tick + the main cloud but the cloud have much lower damage and the status damage will be based on it, so it's a much lower damage output even if you get more procs.

If we do the maths with Serration, Hunter Munition, Vital Sense and Point Strike (just to get base damage and crit stats correct), here is what we get :

• The arrow deal 1086.5 damage and have have 37% chance to deal 1086.5*4.4=4780.6, and 37%*0.3=11.1% to proc hunter munition for 6*0.35*4780.6=10039.26 additional damage. With the 11% chance for crit + Hunter Munition, it's a 45% damage increase.
• Each proc (including the initial cloud deal 13.3 damage and have have 37% chance to deal 13.3*4.4=58.52, and 37%*0.3=11.1% to proc hunter munition for 6*0.35*58.52=122.89 additional damage. With the 11% chance for crit + Hunter Munition, it's a 44.98% damage increase

The two value are not exactly the same due to missing decimals, but it result in the exact same 45% increase on both the main arrow and the cloud ticks. The only thing that make Hunter Munition good on Mutalist Cernos is the super high status chance + the cloud ticks + the possibility to use Split Flight that result in an insane status per second, which make the proc of 10 viral procs super fast, but outside of this, Hunter Munition damage increase percentage only depend on critical stats.
 

il y a 55 minutes, Traubenzuckr a dit :

as a side note, using bows as a status dispenser for CO is not viable at all, that's too slow

It totally is, and Mutalist Cernos is by far the best status dispenser aviable right now. It has insane status chance + 12 hits per arrow + the possibility to use split flight + a good base fire/charge rate + small AoE, I don't see what more would you want for spreading status, exept innate combined element.

With the right layout, you can spread more that 10 instance of multiple status in a single shot and don't even need to charge because it only increase the arrow damage.
Also, on top of that the way cloud deal damage instances per second make electricity a viable crowd control tool because mulitple successive procs will stun the target for a long duration instead of stagger it once.
 

[Proscriptor]

the hm viral mutalist cernos build is widely known now among powergamers, i'm not going to proselytize it, as this is not the right place for it. what the cloud does is stack 10x viral almost instantly, and the damage comes from the projectile impact portion of course, not from the cloud. 

using bows as a status dispenser is extremely unorthodox as shooting a bow is simply too slow for it only to spread around status, and the clouds are immobile, while melee is generally about mobility. once you're doing that you might as well kill with the bow, which thankfully with mutalist cernos you should have no difficulty doing. what's usually seen as a legitimate status dispenser are chaining beams. 

 

[(NSW)Blackoween]

I am just going to say it: Mutalist Cernos is bad.  Not because I don't like it or because it doesn't deal enough damage, just because I want to convince people it's bad so its riven dispo goes up.

[Proscriptor]

there's no need, only a small number of real powergamers understand it's power. 

people see it as a weapon with "very low critical chance" and just go on to use fulmin, acceltra etc.

[lukinu_u]

il y a une heure, Traubenzuckr a dit :

using bows as a status dispenser is extremely unorthodox as shooting a bow is simply too slow for it only to spread around status, and the clouds are immobile, while melee is generally about mobility. once you're doing that you might as well kill with the bow, which thankfully with mutalist cernos you should have no difficulty doing. what's usually seen as a legitimate status dispenser are chaining beams. 

"Usually seen" rarely means "most efficient". As you said yourself, most of people will under-estimate the power of a weapon by overlooking the stats (saying it's bad because is has low crit, for example), so it's important to keep in mind the same goes for everything, both stat-wise and mechanic-wise.

I don't know how you play, but for me a single shot done while in air provide more status and is much faster than holding a beam weapon shot, even less that half a second, and most importantly, it's a single press VS hold, so you can put your arrow and do other actions while the cloud proc.
Even if it's still viable, I think using the Mutalist Cernos with Hunter Munition for damage is a big waste when we see the insane status potential it got.

Here is a quick video as how I use it. As you can see, I'm just jumping and shoot while in air (which is basically a free action), and then hit the target when I reach the necessary melee range with a slide attack for a lift status. The bow itself do the job alone on most of enemies, but this combo is intended to scale at much higher level where ranged weapons scale poorly :
https://streamable.com/z1kxfv

[Proscriptor]

1 minute ago, lukinu_u said:

Even if it's still viable, I think using the Mutalist Cernos with Hunter Munition for damage is a big waste when we see the insane status potential it got.

this is silly talk, sorry

you are simply blind to the truth of mutalist cernos

one day you will understand

edit: i watched the clip - it's okay tbh, seems adequate, but the arrow is slow when it's not a charged shot. it still looks clunky

[Proscriptor]

@lukinu_u is this the big waste you're talking about? just took this pic in sim. no riven. no external buffs (accidental 2% naramon crit). i have 4/6 vigi set on. 

[(NSW)Blackoween]

Truly the best arrow skin, by far.

[lukinu_u]

il y a 6 minutes, Traubenzuckr a dit :

@lukinu_u is this the big waste you're talking about? just took this pic in sim. no riven. no external buffs (accidental 2% naramon crit). i have 4/6 vigi set on. 

Yeah, that's a big number, cool maybe ? Exept there are two major issues :

• You are shooting at a range where melee (which can achieve much bigger numbers) is definitely usable, and you actually need to do that because of split flight (which is also your major damage source).
• Since status DoT only scale with initial hit damage and ignore the viral multiplier from itself (bumped bin intial hit boosted by viral though), you need to shoot 2 time if you want to benefit from the viral buff on your proc, which end being like shooting and melee, exept you have lower damage and don't benefit from CO and other absurd melee mods scaling.

It's surely a way of playing that is enough to clear most of content, but it's less effecting that what could be achieved without addional drawbacks. It's good if you play only with your bow but in Warframe, not relying on your whole loadout when you can will always result in wasting potential.
You seems to be smart and will probably do tests and understand why I'm saying that, so I won't argue more.

[Proscriptor]

no big number cool definitely. big number = kill big guy

this is a common engagement range for ranged weapons, simply taht's how many of the levels are designed. you could say the same thing for most shotguns. indeed with split flights, m cernos is a shotgun style weapon. 

but the issues you bring up are legitimate

this is why the weapon is built with a riven which and spammed with primed fast hands. with a riven (just stacking damage and crit because multi is already stacked on split flights) you get these same numbers at a bigger range without charging, or way bigger numbers from range this close

you do shoot 2 times, and more and to mow everything in front of you

usually in exilus ammo mutation is slotted. depends on level. terminal velocity can work in denser levels. 

all of this is common knowledge among people who are following the meta. 

[(XBOX)Cw030303]

Hello All, 

Thank you for responding to my post.

I tired Moding and found a couple of things:

1) with HM on I can get 0-1 slash proc per cloud, rarely 2.

2) Even when moded for viral I get both viral and toxin procs from the clouds, I dont understand this but it looks like extra damage so i will take it. 

3) the procs from the cloud are independent of hitting the enemies, i.e you can hit the ground and the procs from the cloud would be the same- In fact hitting the enemies is annoying b/c they fly away and take the cloud with them. 

I dont agree with Traubenzuckr on CO. I observed 1 arrow was enough to put lots of stats on a group of enemies and it lasts for a while. Also Vauban, Mag, and to a limited extent Nidus, have excellent ability synergies with grouping and applying lots of status at once.

I also dont agree with going with the meta, playing by the meta is the opposite of this game: Instead try and see what happens, so many combinations to try out why limit yourself to what others have already found - although I do see how in some cases there is only one viable option. AND to be a hypocrite I dont have the time to test all Amp possibilities, so just made one and called it done.   

 

Thanks to all participants.