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What makes slash strong and how I'm going to balance it


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As in the game currently, slash + viral is quite the meta for armor and it brings the question : What makes them really strong?

From my view there are several reasons why

1. Slash (Bleed) proc stacks

Having each slash effect dealing its own damage tick makes it really strong against most enemies compared to other damage type where the rest can only deal one instance of damage, making slash beats them with damage boosting effect

2. Slash ignores armor

Dealing true damage, slash makes armor pretty much pointless where no matter how thick enemy armor is, you can bypass it by stacking lots of slash to it

From these 2 reasons, slash is pretty superior where you can stack lots of bleed proc and deal multiple DoT tick that ignores armor, so I've been thinking about putting slash in line with others by doing a simple one change

- Makes repeated application of slash proc refresh the duration instead similar to heat

That way, slash is still strong against armor but not to the point of dealing many DoT to make enemies trivial from it

Any mistake or something I missed, let me know

 

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There's a lot of other factors at play. Just the two I can articulate quickly:

1) DE gives enemies weaknesses and resistances based on the lore, and not what would actually balance gameplay. Half of the enemies in this game are weak to Corrosive, and a grand total of ONE is weak to Blast. Corrosive/Blast is so badly balanced, that the two Grineer enemies that are supposed to be weak to Blast, Rollers and Vay Hek, are actually weak to Corrosive instead (Rollers have Iron armor which resists Blast, and the developers forgot to give Vay Hek weaknesses and resistances) So what did DE do when they added Sentients to the game? Maybe weak to Blast or Magnetic to give the underused damage types some use? Nope, they made them weak to Corrosive, because they're iron-based life forms. And what about Liches? Weak to Corrosive by default, because they wear Grineer armor. 

Edit: OK the devs apparently fixed Vay Hek back in update 27. He is now weak to Blast like he was always supposed to be

2) Gear check enemy design. I have said this many times in the past, but your success in this game is not determined by skill. It's based on "can you pass the gear check and kill thirty enemies before they surround you?" Nerfing the players' tools does very little except put more focus on this, and send the veterans into an even more intense DPS race. Because the skill the developed as vets doesn't actually matter, having millions of damage is what matters to the content they unlocked

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Slash is good against almost all base health type (https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Damage#All_)
Slash procs deals dot damage
Slash procs ignore armor and benefit from Viral

 

How to nerf slash ? the answer is kinda obvious
--> Makes slash neutral against all health type but cheap infested troops
--> Makes slash procs deal "slash damage" and not "true damage"

Will it be enough ? No, because the other physical damages are still crap, and people will probably move from slash to heat, because Heat also deals dot damage, reduce armor, and is also good against most health type.

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Slash damage isn't actually strong

Its the Bleed (Slash Status Effect) that is strong

And its only strong because Bleed deals true damage (ignores shields). A level 100 heavy gunner has 95.55% damage reduction from armor. That means Bleed damage does 1/(1-99.55%) damage = x 222 times / 22200%

 

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I had a long convo with my friend on the damage topic and here is what we came up with (this is primarily for the physical damage types although I will throw in a little detail for the elemental ones as well). So the basis here is slash has to go one of three ways, either it stays the same, the bleed status effect stops dealing true damage, or it just gets nerfed. Preferably I would like to go the first two options, but before any of that happens puncture and impact NEED to change first.

My ideas on how they will change goes like this; for puncture keep the damage reduction status but also add a flat true damage proc with it as it is PUNCTURING through the enemies armor or vitals, not this true damage can stay the same or stack up with more puncture stacks (this would be the only factor that would really need testing as stacking true damage might make it a little too strong with the dmg reduction).

For impact, either take out the stupid extra chance of a mercy kill when the enemy hits the 5% percent threshold (like come on really? 5%?) and make it so the more impact procs the higher the threshold for the mercy kill health like up to 50%. Now I know some or most might still think that's not enough and I understand, so my other idea would be to make impact status make it so the enemy takes more damage overall like if an enemy has 3 impact procs they are taking 15% more damage from all sources since they are stunned in a way and more vulnerable.

As for the elemental damage (i'm talking just the damage not the status effects) I believe the negative damages like how corrosive is weak to shields and magnetic to armor, make this negatives more punishing. There is only 1 damage that has a -75% damage modifier on the wrong "armor" type which is radiation to fossilized infested. Make it more punishing to use the wrong element against the wrong armor because there are 4 or more occasions where the elemental damage gets a +75% damage modifier

I'd love to hear your opinions/critiques on my ideas and I hope this can help bring some form of change to the game (Damage 3.0 pls be good)

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6 hours ago, Guybrush88 said:

Slash damage isn't actually strong

Its the Bleed (Slash Status Effect) that is strong

And its only strong because Bleed deals true damage (ignores shields). A level 100 heavy gunner has 95.55% damage reduction from armor. That means Bleed damage does 1/(1-99.55%) damage = x 222 times / 22200%

 

I gotta say, seeing the Shadow Stalker the other day in a Steel Path mission made me a very sad panda. All that awesome status and bleed means squat when the dude was taking like 100 damage per tick and wailing on my face :P

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9 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Makes repeated application of slash proc refresh the duration instead similar to heat

 

You do know this doesn't change it's power by much right? It just make the death delayed by a second or so, my Dread with guaranteed crit and high asf slash means I usually only need 1 bleed procc for lvl90-100 enemies(takes a few second but it kills em)

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8 hours ago, HoustonDragon said:

I gotta say, seeing the Shadow Stalker the other day in a Steel Path mission made me a very sad panda. All that awesome status and bleed means squat when the dude was taking like 100 damage per tick and wailing on my face :P

You should bring a Shattering Impact melee weapon like Sarpa to Steel Path... not only for Stalker but for dozens of other types of bullet sponges.

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On 2021-04-05 at 11:56 PM, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

You do know this doesn't change it's power by much right? It just make the death delayed by a second or so, my Dread with guaranteed crit and high asf slash means I usually only need 1 bleed procc for lvl90-100 enemies(takes a few second but it kills em)

Having a few seconds delay to their death means they still have a few seconds to retaliate and put a bit of fight instead of instantly dying. I'd say it's a step to further balancing

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On 2021-04-05 at 2:12 PM, TheArmchairThinker said:

As in the game currently, slash + viral is quite the meta for armor and it brings the question : What makes them really strong?

From my view there are several reasons why

1. Slash (Bleed) proc stacks

Having each slash effect dealing its own damage tick makes it really strong against most enemies compared to other damage type where the rest can only deal one instance of damage, making slash beats them with damage boosting effect

2. Slash ignores armor

Dealing true damage, slash makes armor pretty much pointless where no matter how thick enemy armor is, you can bypass it by stacking lots of slash to it

From these 2 reasons, slash is pretty superior where you can stack lots of bleed proc and deal multiple DoT tick that ignores armor, so I've been thinking about putting slash in line with others by doing a simple one change

- Makes repeated application of slash proc refresh the duration instead similar to heat

That way, slash is still strong against armor but not to the point of dealing many DoT to make enemies trivial from it

Any mistake or something I missed, let me know

 

DE used to have this idea to balance slash which is to make it only scale to the slash physical damage, and that mean no other damage type contribute to the slash tick, only the physical slash after crit and damage mods.

I wholeheartedly believe that change would have been a good implementation for slash prod that would push it out of broken territory and balance out with other damage type in the long run. Ideally, you could still make slash builds work, by mod exclusively for slash and no other elemental, which should feel appropriated for an imba status type (goes the opposite direction you propose actually). You wouldn't use slash for every mission as raw damage usually still better. This change had so much potential.

The plan never got through though. Back then status still suck except if it's Tigris P 100% status chance. Critical primary still king alongside with maiming strike mios/atterax iirc. The player base reaction to Damage 3.0 was nasty and quite a bit unfair. Sure there were problems in DE plan at the time but the situation gave them almost no time at all to iterate with those plan and iron out the issues. I still wonder  what would warframe play like today if things went different back then.

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On 2021-04-06 at 12:56 AM, (XBOX)Apoll0 666 said:

You do know this doesn't change it's power by much right? It just make the death delayed by a second or so, my Dread with guaranteed crit and high asf slash means I usually only need 1 bleed procc for lvl90-100 enemies(takes a few second but it kills em)

If you don’t think infinitely scaling true damage isn’t stronger than a single static value, then perhaps you should have the “blue noob hand.”

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On 2021-04-05 at 10:12 AM, TheArmchairThinker said:

Any mistake or something I missed, let me know

Yes, instead of "balancing"(read nerfing) things in the game give other weapons/frames/mods/mechanics a fair chance to compete.
More options will make the game more fun, not less.

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il y a 34 minutes, vegetosayajin a dit :

Yes, instead of "balancing"(read nerfing) things in the game give other weapons/frames/mods/mechanics a fair chance to compete.
More options will make the game more fun, not less.

One real question is does the game have to be played solo or with a team. With current level damage output, specifically with melee + viral + slash + condition overload, i can pick a tank frame without any buffing power and still be overkill for most content (including 40min survival in steel path against all factions).

So there is little to no need of buffing frames, I have a banshee that can remove armor and give insane damage buff, but what for ? (Appart from self satisfactions of BIG numbers), i have a Nezha with roar and chakram, but it's not even needed.

Tank / support / nuke ain't even a standard team

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16 minutes ago, MonsterOfMyOwn said:

One real question is does the game have to be played solo or with a team. With current level damage output, specifically with melee + viral + slash + condition overload, i can pick a tank frame without any buffing power and still be overkill for most content (including 40min survival in steel path against all factions).

So there is little to no need of buffing frames, I have a banshee that can remove armor and give insane damage buff, but what for ? (Appart from self satisfactions of BIG numbers), i have a Nezha with roar and chakram, but it's not even needed.

Tank / support / nuke ain't even a standard team

If we are talking about slash/bleed I though we were talking about lv1000-2000 and above.
The topic talks about how slash damage is op, but it's literally the only way to deal with high level opponents(except viral+snow globe frost, viral+trinity and a few exceptions that also deal true damage).
40 min is a warm up even in sp.
If you go above there are few frames that are...litteraly bad, like inaros(pure trash on high levels). That's why I mentioned frames.
I assumed this topic is for high level content, because if we are discussing something bellow a threshold it doesn't matter as much(it's still superior but it's not the only way to deal with enemies).
For example I did an hour yesterday with a corrosive weapon on sp, never used slash+viral the whole survival.But if I did 2 or 3...I would have struggled to kill.


tl;dr I proposed buffing other things because of this now the one thing that makes slash/bleed boring and spawning such topics is because it's the only meta. It's not a problem with the slash/bleed, it's a problem with everything else absolutely useless making it the only meta.


And for the solo or with a team - currently it doesn't matter, so I guess solo is the answer.

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il y a 27 minutes, vegetosayajin a dit :

If we are talking about slash/bleed I though we were talking about lv1000-2000 and above.
The topic talks about how slash damage is op, but it's literally the only way to deal with high level opponents(except viral+snow globe frost, viral+trinity and a few exceptions that also deal true damage).
40 min is a warm up even in sp.
If you go above there are few frames that are...litteraly bad, like inaros(pure trash on high levels). That's why I mentioned frames.
I assumed this topic is for high level content, because if we are discussing something bellow a threshold it doesn't matter as much(it's still superior but it's not the only way to deal with enemies).
For example I did an hour yesterday with a corrosive weapon on sp, never used slash+viral the whole survival.But if I did 2 or 3...I would have struggled to kill.


tl;dr I proposed buffing other things because of this now the one thing that makes slash/bleed boring and spawning such topics is because it's the only meta. It's not a problem with the slash/bleed, it's a problem with everything else absolutely useless making it the only meta.


And for the solo or with a team - currently it doesn't matter, so I guess solo is the answer.

Ok i understand your point. But I don't have the time to play 2~3h in the same mission, and I think that the devs don't want to balance thing for level cap, as I think they didn't even expect players to go that far.

There should be a lvl slider for steel path or another game mode and allow us to play at whatever lvl we want, at least in the simulacrum.

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12 minutes ago, MonsterOfMyOwn said:

 I think that the devs don't want to balance thing for level cap

The thing is (like my example above) for lower levels you can go with anything, not using viral+slash. 
If they want to balance that by nerfing slash they will kill the gameplay for those few who want to go above.
There are two ways imo:
1. make a level cap lower(maybe 500?) and make everything be viable for it as long as you mod good, but then you have to rework the whole scaling of enemies, etc. and make it still dangerous but more user friendly.
2. buff every other element/mechanic so people who don't want do go hours are happy, at the same time people who want to go to level cap are happy as well

But only nerfing slash/bleed won't make any of those people happy and you will still have less choice like it is now.


edit: there is a 3 option - rework the whole damage mechanic in such a way that is interesting and rewarding(ttk is still fast) at the same time
how I have no idea :D

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Slash being strong is just the symptom of enemy armor scaling. At low levels, IPS is fairly balanced until armor levels inflate.

Against a Level 8 Heavy Gunner with 500 ferrite armor, which is 62.5% Damage Reduction.

  • 100 Neutral will deal 37.5.
  • 100 Impact will deal 28. 
  • 100 Puncture will deal 82.
  • 100 Slash will deal 42.
  • 100 Base damage, Bleed ticks for 35 each.

The IPS triangle works as it should early game until armor scaling puts everything in favor of Slash which is neutral against Shields and has a DoT that ignores Armor completely.

In sorties, against a Level 100 Heavy Gunner with ~6000 ferrite armor, which is 95% Damage Reduction the very same damage has much different results:

  • 100 Neutral will deal 5.
  • 100 Impact will deal 3.75.
  • 100 Puncture will deal 13.5.
  • 100 Slash will deal 5.
  • 100 Base damage, Bleed ticks for 35 each.

Slash circumvents armor scaling, so every other damage type gets comparatively worse as armor keeps getting higher until everything else approaches 0.

Armor >> Infinity, Damage >> 0 except for True Damage

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3 minutes ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

Slash being strong is just the symptom of enemy armor scaling. At low levels, IPS is fairly balanced until armor levels inflate.

Against a Level 8 Heavy Gunner with 500 ferrite armor, which is 62.5% Damage Reduction.

  • 100 Neutral will deal 37.5.
  • 100 Impact will deal 28. 
  • 100 Puncture will deal 82.
  • 100 Slash will deal 42.
  • 100 Base damage, Bleed ticks for 35 each.

The IPS triangle works as it should early game until armor scaling puts everything in favor of Slash which is neutral against Shields and has a DoT that ignores Armor completely.

In sorties, against a Level 100 Heavy Gunner with ~6000 ferrite armor, which is 95% Damage Reduction the very same damage has much different results:

  • 100 Neutral will deal 5.
  • 100 Impact will deal 3.75.
  • 100 Puncture will deal 13.5.
  • 100 Slash will deal 5.
  • 100 Base damage, Bleed ticks for 35 each.

Slash circumvents armor scaling, so every other damage type gets comparatively worse as armor keeps getting higher until everything else approaches 0.

Armor >> Infinity, Damage >> 0 except for True Damage

Corrosive and heat exist and while heat is popular for it being versatile and dealing insane damage corrosive is taking the backseat when it comes to armor. Not because corrosive isn't good, but because slash with viral is just better.

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41 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Corrosive and heat exist and while heat is popular for it being versatile and dealing insane damage corrosive is taking the backseat when it comes to armor. Not because corrosive isn't good, but because slash with viral is just better.

It takes the backseat because at the end of the day corrosive does damage to the armour. When the armour goes to insane levels you will still have bonus damage, but bonus damage to 500 armour and bonus damage to 5 million armour with the same damage output it's significantly worse, same with heat
True damage(bleed is true damage) works completely different.
True Damage

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