Perfect & Unusable: Astilla

[KorpNoobs]

🤩Astilla - The Perfect Weapon:
Aesthetics:
It's sounds has punch, the recoil is crisp, the reload stylish, the projectiles, staggers, explosions and gore are satisfying.
The Build:
A mix of good status, above average crit and high slash damage make for many working builds, with hybrid being the best. The high recoil, projectiles and low ammo pool
make the Eximus Mods have meaningful impact on the performance. Fire Rate fixes a rather sluggish fire rate (a lot more satisfying to shoot; use Warframe abilities to keep the slot)
The Gameplay:
A mix of projectile (with forced impact proc) and splash damage make its forgiving when missing but reward accuracy.
The AoE fits the horde meta. Empty the mag in a few bursts will take out groups easily.
The slugs with a AoE are great for Open Worlds. Well... i come back to that.


😔Astilla - The Unusable Weapon:
AMMO! AMMO! AMMO!:
That's it. An automatic shotgun that kills at a distance with the ammo pool, pick-up and transmutation rate for a 2-6 round shotgun will run out of ammo in most missions. Even with a build in Transmutation mod and a Carrier Sentinel it will not survive through 2 stages of a high level contract in the Cambion Drift. _{(A explosive weapon like the Bramma will kill faster and replenish their ammo in a single pick-up easily, a single shot leaving multiple on the ground. That's why playing one over the other feels like self restriction even when ignoring damage.)}

Also: When general gameplay with use of multiple options to solve ammo issues still leaves you dry and won't solve itself within 5 minutes of further play than AMMO PANCAKES ARE NOT A SOLUTION. They are a crutch. And not one that works well with fast paced gameplay the Astilla is theoretically awesome for.

PS: Thanks to the sound and design team behind the gun. It's super fun and i hope we see side grades with higher/lower fire rates etc. It works so well with horde enemies and is far more engaging than most of the dominant AoE weapons. Rating= Feel:10/10 Ammo:0/120

[TheGrimCorsair]

Huh, ammo hasn't been a problem in the least with weapon in my experience.

When you say "high level" contract, do you mean the Steel Path contract or just the highest level bountry that isn't Steel Path?

[Edit]

Wait, you put a fire rate mod on it?

[KorpNoobs]

I mean the non steel path highest level bounty. And i dont have a fire rate mod equiped but resently stated using Wisp to have better burst DPS against post lvl 80 and armor boosted content.
And without Carrier i even ran dry on a basic lvl 60-80 infested spy mission. I wouldn't make a threat if i wouldn't run into this problems in most of my games (excluding trash farming of course)
If it felt like a reasonable balancing choice like with the Lenz/Bramma it would be one thing. But here it just adds annoyance to a perfectly balanced weapon. "Unusable" is hyperbolic yes, but i seriously LOVE THIS DAMN GUN, and want to actually play it, even in Steel Path. I min/maxed it down to the last mod, but the ammo problem stays and turns a fun into a sobering experience.

[p_silveira]

On 2020-11-10 at 8:24 PM, TheGrimCorsair said:

Huh, ammo hasn't been a problem in the least with weapon in my experience.

Have you ever tried Akarius? That thing is unusuble because of how low the ammo reserve is.

[Hawkeye2404]

54 minutes ago, p_silveira said:

Have you ever tried Akarius? That thing is unusuble because of how low the ammo reserve is.

Yeah. Got myself an Akarius thinking it'd be cool to have Gauss's signiture secondary weapon (I have Gauss as well). Huge disappointed. Waste of inventory space. A weapon should not require you own lots of arcanes and all sorts of ammo restoration and ammo efficiency mods to make it usable. 😔

Furthermore, the Akarius relies too much on Gauss's 4th ability to make up for the rest of its downsides and weaknesses. One of the worst reload speeds make it terrible to use on any character other than Guass (unless you're willing to give up mod space for a reload speed mod). And its fire rate also doesn't feel right for how little damage it does. And then lastly there's the arming distance for the Akarius's missles, this makes it borderline unusable in close-quarters environments - which there are a LOT of in Warframe.

EDIT: I might be wrong about its damage being "little". The thing is, with the arming distance I have not been able to land many armed missle shots on enemies on most maps. There are just too many close-quarters fights - especially on Grineer tilesets with their narrow hallways that have lots of turns and twists.

[KorpNoobs]

Stacking of drawbacks (ammo reserve, reload, self-stagger) on perfectly fine weapons, not OP just fine, is something that happens alot, especially if a weapon has some AoE. Its especially sad when a gun has a somewhat unique play style. I hope, looking at their new approach to Warframe changes, that we get some weapon touch-ups along the way. Buffs. pls. Not just Rivens Dispo.

[Loza03]

On 2020-11-12 at 7:08 AM, Hawkeye2404 said:

A weapon should not require you own lots of arcanes and all sorts of ammo restoration and ammo efficiency mods to make it usable. 😔

Likewise, some kind of hyper-powered nuke shouldn't have access to infinite ammo once you get all that stuff, or even sometimes without it. You have regular weapons like Astilla struggling for Ammo, but also the OG Bramma laughing in the face of it because it got its whole supply back with every pickup. Astilla gets a magazine back but needs to spend a mag or more to get a good chance of getting it. Bramma has a strong chance to get its whole stock with every shot.

Whole system seems bit busted to me. Ammo restrictions are meant to be a balancing aid by making more powerful weapons less consistent and vice versa. As is, the system seems more like it's designed to reward more powerful one-shot kill guns rather than rein them in.