Thrown Secondaries: Underpowered, Old, and Frail

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

This post has been made on May 10, 2021 during warframe update 30.1.1. This is obvious news, but it will make the next few sentences more impactful. The last time thrown secondaries have been given an update on a massive scale was on February 8, 2018 during warframe update 22.12.

You read that right, the throwing weapons have been silently suffering for 1,189 days (and counting.) Including all variants, we currently have 12 flavors of throwing stars, all of them being flawed in some way.

Mk1 and Base Kunai have pitiful base damage leaning on 75% Puncture, the new worst physical damage type thanks to the release of Hemorrhage. The only thing it has going for them are the Stockpiled Blight mod from Red Veil that gives it +200 magazine size (wow, what a game changer) and a syndicate effect that allows a flavor blast of viral in a respectable AoE. These are baby starter weapons, so I'll say that the power they expell is on par with MR0 and MR2 weapons.

However, now we look at the Hikou and Hikou Prime, weapons you flock to after you have a few more mastery ranks under your belt. And these things are pitiful. Both variants have less base damage than the Mk1 Kunai with 60% going into Puncture on the base, and 85% on the Prime. But it's okay, because it's low base damage and atrocious crit stats are balanced with higher fire rate decent status and magazine, a recipe that leads to bad ammo economy. The only thing that these things did right was boosting Vex Armor Dragons during high level content like Tridolon Farming, which is gone now because Self Stagger is kil (Don't worry, we'll talk about Concealed Explosives later).

The Despair, when you can get them with that 5.53% rate from stalker, aren't great but are a step above the Kunai, moving out of a Dumpster behind an Arby's and into a waste paper basket at an office's break room. The Despair have higher base damage (that's over 55% puncture, AGAIN,) that is held back by it's 16% status, 16% crit chance, and 1.6x crit multiplier. For a weapon that's "sharp enough to penetrate a warframe," these things are struggle at penetrating a level 50 Bombard with an endgame setup.

The Spira and Spira Prime are some really nice throwing weapons up front. 30% crit chance on both at the cost of status? That sounds very fair. A 3x crit multiplier on the Prime? Amazing! Sounds like a very balanced weapon with stats properly fitting weapons of a higher mastery rank than the previous entries on the list. At least, until you get to the damage numbers. 82 damage on base Spira with 60% in Puncture. The prime has 60 damage with 85% in puncture (have I said the word Puncture enough yet?) Not even going to discuss how the base damage on both variants is just ghastly, The Spira Prime have the corrupted mod Hollow Point built in for some reason, which makes them a side grade to the base variant, like how the Opticor Vandal is arguably a side grade of base Opticor.

The Fusilai is the mark of freedom, because it breaks free from the Puncture neighborhood on this list thus far. It comes with 60% Slash, 23% crit chance, and 29% status chance. However, these stats came at a high price; it has a 1.7x crit multiplier, only 77 base damage, 6 ammo per magazine instead of the standard 10, and a heavily reduced max ammo pool. (It also has a secondary fire mode that shoots 2 more projectiles at a time at the cost of 3 ammo. But because the base damage per knife is exactly the same but with terrible crit stats, the alt-fire is best used when it isn't used.)

The Pox are the only throwing secondaries not made by tenno hands, and thank Clem for that because us skin puppets can't seem to get it right. The pox does 50 toxin damage upon direct impact with a target, afterwards exploding into a cloud that does 20 damage per second for 4 seconds in a 3.6 meter radius. While the crit stats are non-existant and you have to rely on enemies to stay in a static gas cloud, the high status chance allows you to easily choke out trash units while stunlocking the heavier ones. It still doesn't do much without the help of different status types equipped. Also, it only has 20 max ammo and a magazine size of 4, so you need to use a lot of ammo to get results.

If you didn't like the Penta, then you most certainly won't like the Talons because it's the same thing but in the form of a secondary. It only has 20 max ammo, a magazine of 4, and you can only have 8 mines out at once, regardless of multishot. The decent 22% crit chance and 26% status chance sounds nice, just like the story with the Spira's, but the damage is a deal breaker. Blast damage is garbage because it doesn't knock enemies over anymore and deals reduced damage to most Grineer armor, but reduces enemy accuracy and has bonus damage to Grineer machinery (because everyone knows how damaging Seekers and Rollers are). 120 blast damage is all that's given to you at base. But it makes up for it because explosions put puncture procs on targets. Yaaaaaay...

The Castanas are essentially the same thing as the Talons, but they explode into pure electricity instead of Michael Bay movie extras. The base Castanas are worse in almost every way to the Talons except for having 40 more base damage, so I'm not going to waste time talking about those. The Sancti Castanas have the highest base damage of any throwing knives, and an Electric proc regardless of if the electricity is modded to make Radiation, Corrosive, or Magnetic if you're crazy. However, that's where things start to fall off the rails. You only have 2 shots per magazine,a max ammo count of 16, and you can only have 6 bombs out at a time, multishot projectiles included.

And finally, we come to Concealed Explosives. This mod can be applied to any throwing secondary except for the Pox, Talons, and both Variants of Castanas. It gives each projectile fired to explode on impact, dealing 250 pure blast damage in a 10-meter range without damage falloff. However, the explosion damage cannot be influenced with other mods and most damage boosting abilities. It also has no crits, no status, and falls off VERY FAST. Also, the explosions inflict self stagger and, much more likely, self knockdown.

To prove how ineffective this mod is when combined with the lackluster throwing stars, do an experiment in the Simulacrum. Take the max rank bow mod Thunderbolt (that performs the exact same function as Concealed Explosives) and put it on any applicable bow of your choosing, with any endgame mod setup of your choosing. Go against a level 55 Heavy Gunner with Invincibility On and Paused AI off, and see how long it takes to kill that Heavy Gunner. After you finish that, do the exact same process for any applicable throwing secondary with Concealed Explosives. I guarantee you, you will not have a good time.

Bows are a stealthy weapon type available to players early on as an alternative to gunplay, and they are able to perform very well in open combat thanks to high damage, very good stats, and special functions/ niches that make them viable. Thrown secondaries are a stealthy weapon type available to players early on as an alternative to gun play, and suffer at even mid level content thanks to their limited numbers, mediocre stats at best, and box standard function for the most part. If we are portrayed as god tier space ninjas, then we shouldn't be throwing around pieces of glass that do as much damage as an ant crawling on your shoe.

 

Tl;dr: Shurikens Underpowered, Pls Buff

[JimmuTanno88]

10 minutes ago, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

Thrown secondaries are a stealthy weapon type available to players early on as an alternative to gun play,

Adding to that, thrown aren't even decent as stealth weapons, because unlike bows they are far less likely to kill in one hit(at least above very low levels), so it just disrupts whatever stealth multiplier had been obtained.

[ES-Flinter]

Buff the shuriken (Especially hikou because I have a riven for it), but first fix puncture and impact damage.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

I'll say right off the bat I agree thrown weapons could use some buffs and/or a gimmic (a good one). With that said, some flaws in your arguments.

6 hours ago, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

Mk1 and Base Kunai have pitiful base damage leaning on 75% Puncture, the new worst physical damage type thanks to the release of Hemorrhage. The only thing it has going for them are the Stockpiled Blight mod from Red Veil that gives it +200 magazine size (wow, what a game changer) and a syndicate effect that allows a flavor blast of viral in a respectable AoE. These are baby starter weapons, so I'll say that the power they expell is on par with MR0 and MR2 weapons.

Puncture is actually the better damage type when you're starting out. Great vs armor and only a minor penalty on shields.

6 hours ago, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

However, now we look at the Hikou and Hikou Prime, weapons you flock to after you have a few more mastery ranks under your belt.

Base Hikou are the same MR as Kunai (MR 2). Completely agree about the prime though, as its locked behind RJ, which is the "hard" content of the game.

6 hours ago, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

120 blast damage is all that's given to you at base.

Talons actually do 250 base damage when latched. Its weird and not mentioned/hinted at anywhere.

But yea, most throwing weapons aren't really good, especially when you compare to newer weapons that are similar. See: Epitaph
Giving them increased base stats would be appreciated.

Edit: Some ideas for Concealed Explosives

• +100% chance to explode (explosion inherits base stats of the weapon and are affected by all mods)
• +4 blast radius (explosion has 50-60% falloff)
• -60-80% ammo maximum (84-42 ammo max for 210 base ammo max)
• -50% magazine capacity

This would ideally be accompanied with an increase to base stats of throwing weapons.

[Tiltskillet]

The obvious and low-key fix is for them to get a stat review similar to what bows did in 25.7.   Overall, much like they admitted about bows at that time, it seems to me like DE is not weighting their DPS properly, particularly considering their other limitations.  (The throwable mines might be ok,  although I would love buffs anyway and they could use some QoL / bugfixes.)

Bigger picture though, they'll still suffer the same relevancy problems other single target weapons do.  Buffs to Concealed Explosives or an upgrade mod would help with that in their particular case.

[ES-Flinter]

vor 10 Minuten schrieb Tiltskillet:

Bigger picture though, they'll still suffer the same relevancy problems other single target weapons do.  Buffs to Concealed Explosives or an upgrade mod would help with that in their particular case.

No, big No! Don't give DE ideas that they can fox things with mods. If something is underperforming they have to fix it and not use a band aid. Or do you want the same problem like with some warframe augments? (Rhino, Nekros& Ash say hello)

vor 18 Stunden schrieb (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom:

I'll say right off the bat I agree thrown weapons could use some buffs and/or a gimmic (a good one). With that said, some flaws in your arguments.

A higher damage multipler on weak spots would be fitting and useful. On this way are they weaker compared to normal guns when they are used in a without aiming, but the (stealthy) Assasin who focus on the enemies weak points will greatly benefit of it.

[Prexades]

When I started WF a few years ago, I loved to use the Hikou (Prime) with Concealed Explosives and Saryn, because the explosion triggered a Saryn spore pop. But that synergy was nerfed.

[Tiltskillet]

16 minutes ago, ES-Flinter said:

No, big No! Don't give DE ideas that they can fox things with mods. If something is underperforming they have to fix it and not use a band aid. Or do you want the same problem like with some warframe augments? (Rhino, Nekros& Ash say hello)

It'd be far better if there were more content that made single target damage more relevant, absolutely, yes.    But in the meantime, I'm not terrified by mere mention of the word "band-aid" if a mod can enhance gameplay while the bigger solutions are just lovely dreams in the heads of Weapon Feedback forum users.

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

Just came back from doing some Hikou Concealed Explosives runs on Hydron. I did more backwards somersaults during the self knockback animation than I did actual killing during the 10 waves I was there.

With how low a drop chance this mod has, and how it can only be equipped on 8 weapons in the entire game, this mod should be way more beneficial that it currently is. But it doesn't even perform well at low level content. So who/what is Concealed Explosives made for?

You shouldn't put Concealed Explosives on anything but the Hikou and its Prime because the fire rate on every other throwing knife is less than 3.75 per second, and the magazines are less than 14 . Viral seems to increase the damage the explosions do, but that doesn't make Concealed Explosives work, it just makes Viral work (and everyone here knows that Viral has been king for months with no signs of stopping).

I just don't understand why some weapons of a high mastery rank requirement perform a order than weapons of a lower mastery rank requirement. You could put 8 forma and a riven on the Spira Prime (an MR10 weapon), and kill a high level corrupted bombard in at least 10-15 seconds with several magazines. But for less effort, you can put just 2 forma on the Epitaph (an MR8 weapon), and kill the same exact enemy in one shot as they succumb to the bleed procs.

[JimmuTanno88]

On 2021-05-11 at 7:59 PM, (XBOX)HollowCube987 said:

Just came back from doing some Hikou Concealed Explosives runs on Hydron. I did more backwards somersaults during the self knockback animation than I did actual killing during the 10 waves I was there.

Concealed explosives does also seem to have a much larger knockdown radius than is visually indicated by the blasts themselves, it's very frustrating to be knocked down every 5 seconds