Why do Damage Mods Exist

[Birdframe_Prime]

Something I didn't see in this thread is that this exact topic was actually discussed on a DevStream under an umbrella of 'mandatory mods'.

See, unlike Crit versus Status modding, where the base stats of the gun actually promote choosing one, the other, or compensating with a hybrid, many mods on Primary and secondary are just straight damage buffs.

With rifles it's Serration and Split Chamber, with Pistols it's Hornet Strike, Barrel Diffusion and Lethal Torrent, with Shotguns it's (Primed) Point Blank and Hell's Chamber.

Having basic mods that just create raw damage or multi-shot is really something that was put into the system to allow weapons to scale up in the early years of Warframe, where it was quite possible to cap out damage at surprisingly low levels. Back then a level 30 Heavy Gunner was a genuine threat.

So I do agree that these mods have kind of outlived their usefulness.

However.

Making that damage increase innate to, say, ranking up the weapon, then reducing the mod slots... that actually is a nerf. But not in the way that an earlier reply says (they believe it's a nerf just because there are some uses for weapons as priming tools to make Condition Overload melee work better), more in the way that it limits growth of the system.

DE have claimed that they're going to bring up the viability of Guns at the high end, and they've started that with a few mods.

And I think it needs to be taken even further.

Guns need the same treatment that Melee has. Add in a system that gives guns the equivalent of both Stances and a Combo Count. Give guns an innate way to hit multiple enemies the way Follow Through does for melee (if this stat didn't exist on melee, then wailing on a group of enemies would damage one at a time, rather than the whole group) because Punch Through barely helps at all since it relies on directly lining up enemies.

Stances for melee aren't just cool animations, they give the player variety for pressing the melee button. Blocking and attacking, moving and attacking, blocking and moving, or standing still, all create different functions. DE has balanced them so that moving forward generally does less damage than standing still, using multipliers and forced status procs on them to give benefits to either, but generally hits more enemies to build the combo faster.

Why shouldn't guns have similar bonuses for hip-fire, aiming, moving or not moving? Accuracy increases, or builds their equivalent of 'combo' faster, or much like some existing guns (Quartakk and Quatz) changes the fire mode with different bonuses and deficits for each.

Not only would this provide variety and gameplay choices, it would increase capacity on guns the same as it does on Melee, allowing more expensive builds, compensating for the extra Exilus slot. It would also increase mod interactions.

Melee is powerful because it has mods that interact with all of the following; crits, status, raw damage, elemental damage, attack speed and even range (all of which guns have) but also with this extra function, the Combo (which guns do not have) meaning you can create builds that focus on even more specialised concepts. Heavy attack builds focus on up-front damage, using the Stance's heavy attack to inflict guaranteed results like a bleed. Light attack builds focus on quickly ramping up the combo for scaling mods. You can crit-focus, or you can status-focus and hybrid builds are far less limited because of the scaling mods.

Now, I'm not saying to just give guns the Acolyte mods in the same form as melee, give them all Condition Overload, and just be done with it.

There needs to be an in-depth look at how we deal damage with guns, and make that 'point and click' interaction be actually variable and based on decisions we can make in how and when we click. The same as we have with Melee.

But I am saying that when DE adjusted Condition Overload to work the same way as Pressure Point, but stacking with number of Status types, it definitely became a choice players made. Do they go for a flat damage increase that makes the first hit deal the most damage, and only ramp up with the combo-counter mods, or do they put on CO and have minimal damage on the first couple of hits, but much higher damage on the third, fourth and so on that can out-damage the other mod over time.

On Melee, the raw damage mod (Primed) Pressure Point is not mandatory. You can swap it for something else. Status and Crit are variable, and you can scale them in different ways.

And even without any of that, Stances offer damage increases by means of double-hits for a button press, straight damage multipliers for a hit (up to 6x damage, depending on the stance), and forced procs.

So we need that flexibility of build on Guns too.

Don't pitch removing a mod slot, when we're going to need that if they actually do that kind of in-depth fix ^^

[Reitrix]

My preferred update to the mod system would be to be have 12 total mod slots broken up into Raw Damage, Utility and Exilus.

So you'd have specific slots that could be slotted with things like Serration while we also have dedicated slots for things like reload, elements, status types and ammo.

We would end up being able to customize the weapon in every aspect, from damage to bullet behaviour. 

I'd also quite like to see Elemental mods changed to convert the base damage into the Element rather than adding a new number on top.

Would love to see Viral and Gas etc become mods themselves rather than combinations of existing elements. 

Should probably also have bullets do only one damage type from IPS instead of splitting the total damage across multiple. Certain weapons aside of course, where it makes sense for a gun to have bullets with multiple types. 

[bad4youLT]

Any mod that increases DPS can be considered as "damage mod"

Spoiler

crit chance , crit damage , status chance ( as some status provide DoT ) , elemental damage , fire rate , reload speed , clip size , punch through , multishot , IPS mods , rivens .

Removing damage mods wont solve the core issue , DE would need to rework entire damage and moding system from the ground up .

[0_The_F00l]

I am a supporter of the "bake some of the mods into the level up progression of the weapon" philosophy.

There are many mods in the game that made sense at the time they were created (more than 5 years ago), but are currently either mandatory or useless , there are more useless than mandatory though but neither state is healthy for variety and balance.

Damage mods fall into the mandatory camp in most cases , and i would like them to be removed/ made intrinsic / be part of level up.

However this cannot be done in Vaccum.

The other mods which are most commonly used ,would also have to be edited accordingly so it is not a pure powercreep where other mods become the new mandates.

My suggestion was to split the mods and their functionality.

So the serration mod would still exist , but the weapon would also gain damage through level ups.

currently serration is 165% bonus damage at max rank,

i would split it into 75% damage growth with leveling (5% every even level) and 75 % damage though serration mod,

BUT the mod would only apply to the Rank 0 damage of the weapon , same way vitality & health works,

and every odd level up would be a weapon class specific QoL boost , like recoil for auto guns , reload speed for semi , flight speed for thrown, area for AOE etc.

The otehr mods as mentioned will also change , but thats a discussion for a different time.