Residual and Theorem arcanes need another pass. (Edit: Residuals are capped?!)

[rainy]

Theorem arcanes have far too many conditions with far too little payoff. There is no niche that actually makes viable use of them. 

• Uses
  • Elemental bonuses from Theorem Demulcent are very delicate to add due to how particular players are with elements.
    • There are a handful of synergies with abilities that use elements, but this is very niche. The already-overpowered Breach Surge benefits the most, followed by Garuda's Dread Heart, but she has other, deeper issues that demand her arcane slots.
    • Takes 15 seconds to fully build the buff. All other frame arcanes offer their full buffs immediately.
  • Theorem Contagion is a strange arcane with a mild effect.
    • After you consider the chances, Contagion has a 20% chance for 6 orbs, effectively debuffing 1.167 enemies for every 1 kitgun kill for 6 seconds each. 
    • Weapons are rarely pure elements, although elemental status damage can make a significant portion for some. 200% amplified damage is almost never 200% of your total damage because your damage is not entirely one element.
    • The limited effect could still be useful against tough enemies, however this is yet another situation on top of many conditions to activate in the first place.
      • Orbs don't always target the nearest enemy either, making this completely infeasible.
      • Bosses rarely have enough easy enemies to kill nearby. Those kills can be stolen, and they only have 20% chance to activate a residual, for a 6s debuff.
    • The debuff is not even permenant, unlike Magus Destruct and Magus Accelerant.
    • Rank 4 is bugged and only adds 100% bonus. I have not yet maxed this arcane to Rank 5, but i have a funny feeling that it's bugged too. Not bugged, just dependent on enemy starting resistance, which caps at -100%
      • No primary elements have penalties greater than 50% starting resistance so the arcane will almost always be applying only +100% bonus.
    • I don't think this would be worth using if it had 100% chance to activate when you are hit with a 2s cooldown. The amount of conditions still makes it highly impractical.
  • Theorem Infection is an incredibly strong companion buff for kavats and kubrows in particular, but also specters, Celestial Twin, and Shadows of the Dead which are more scalable than companions.
    • Suffers from the conditions to activate.
    • Suffers from companions being generally weak, but is simultaneously too strong from specters being very overpowered.
  • Residual Arcanes deal pitiful damage. Unlike pax seeker, their effects have zero scaling from mods. Kitguns therefore suffer from equipping these arcanes, rather than more useful ones such as Charge or Seeker.
• Conditions
  • 4 Total conditions to activate Theorems:
    • Equip Kitgun. You are limited to one of 12 kitguns, potentially sacrificing a weapon slot. While above-average, they are not frequently desirable weapons. They are above-average, yet many worse weapons cannot use the residuals.
    • Equip Residual. As stated earlier, kitguns suffer from equipping residuals due to residuals weak innate effects. Kitguns would prefer a stronger arcane such as Pax Seeker and pair it with a +damage frame arcane like Arcane Aracne or Arcane Rage.
    • Kill with Kitgun. Kill conditions alone are already asking for a lot. Most other damage arcanes only need a wall latch or an enemy hit, yet residuals are a 20% chance on kill. Blade and Primary chargers have a 30% chance on kill for comparison, however they provide their full buff from a single proc instantly.
    • Stand in a residual area for 15 seconds, slowly accumulating the buff. Standing still is a dangerous thing in Warframe. This causes death to the majority of frames (a broader survivability issue). It can also needlessly slow gameplay in non-turtle missions such as rescue or exterminate. Residual Shock suffers from this issue the least thanks to it's large area. You can somewhat reliably progress through a mission and maintain a demulcent buff, so long as you touch a circle every 14 seconds. Losing the buff sadly means it must be slowly rebuilt again.
      • When a buff is maxed, a bug occurs where rebuilding stacks will not refresh the buff timer. This can persist where you unknowingly have a full buff, yet no buff icon will appear.
    • Edit: A fifth condition to activating Residual Arcanes is that there can only be two active puddles at a time. This needlessly reinforces the stationary standing gameplay. Long duration residuals will prevent you from advancing the puddles in a mission. You are forced to stand wherever they spawn and cannot relocate them at will. This also artificially limits the damage potential of the residuals themselves as well as the rate which demulcent can build its buff.
      • This cap is not just specific to one kitgun. Creating two puddles with one kitgun will prevent a second kitgun (eg. secondary -> primary) from creating any until the first two are expired. This makes single player element mixing highly impractical.
• Anti-ally Conflict
  • An invisible issue due to how unpopular these arcanes are is that ally residuals have a chance to completely ruin your build. Imagine you're focusing on heat status damage, but another player is focused on toxin, accidentally touching, or standing next to an ally-killed-enemy will cause your heat damage to be reduced to pitiful non-scaling gas damage. Your entire setup (Warframe arcane slots, primary/secondary weapon slots, and the weapon or ability they're intended to buff) can potentially turn worthless for 15 seconds.
  • Kills can be stolen, causing your kill conditions to be difficult to meet.

 

If these arcanes weren't riddled with inconveniences, they'd still be average at best. You may consider Demulcent to have the value of two 90% elemental mods or slightly stronger than a primed elemental mod, whereas +damage arcanes have 180% or 300% damage on average and can be less valuable thanks to the introduced GunCO mods and CO itself.

• Suggestions, not all to be applied together,
  • Make residual damage scale with weapon mods.
  • Make residual arcanes equippable on all weapons, including melee, or make it a setting/third slot on Theorem arcanes. They do not substitute weapon damage, because weapon damage is not chance-on-kill-conditional.
  • Increase residual area sizes, or use something other than areas entirely. You could make the buffing radius unlimited, but that seems like the least fun solution. Residual Shock is the most tolerable residual for it's double-large area, relieving the standing-still-in-a-circle condition a little bit.
  • Make theorem buffs accumulate faster, if not instantly.
  • Make Demulcent 2x or 3x stronger. This gives it a relatively instant and decent buff, with a full bonus so high that it rewards standing still.
  • Give Contaigon an explosion radius, or even turn it into an aura. Also make the amplification permanent, but maybe make the strength build with time like Demulcent.
  • Buff kavats and kubrows so that Theorem infection may have more merit, or make it exclusive to an arcane slot on companions themselves.
  • Make ally residuals generic elements to solve the counter-synergy. This would just distribute the residual bonus additively to all existing weapon elements, but offset IPS with a bias to compensate slash.
    • Alternatively, make them into a toxic-lash-like instance but with status damage multipliers, or just non-combining damage like Mutalist Quanta's and Simulor's bonuses.
  • Edit: Remove the cap of 2 residual puddles.

 

Why did I write all of this?

1. Because the residual + theorem conditional thing actually has a light spirit of fun-making that I appreciate, their payoff is just too weak, slow and dangerous.
2. I want to use Viremia to make Grendel stronk, but was frustrated by both, and the annoyingly specific combo that that synergy would demand.
3. I hate kitguns, I want to use other guns.
4. I love status damage, and the potential of Demulcent.
5. I want more creative, viable options for my warframe builds. These arcanes have existed for some time, and DE apparently has a very good gameplay analytics/statistics team. I challenge you to reveal how secretly popular these arcanes are.

Thanks for reading.

[Leqesai]

Fixing this stuff has been said ever since they were released.

Throw into the "this is absolutely pointless" pool some other stuff.

Such as:

*Kdrive mods that deal damage
*Strain mod set
*Maggots spawned by the paracyst (infested glaive)
 

I'm sure there are others but these are the obvious ones off the top of my head. Residual + Theorems are totally useless as are the things I listed. DE, get it together. Don't release stuff that is progression-locked behind power that exceeds the stuff itself. This should not even be a discussion. No one is asking you to make these things super powerful, we're just asking that these things not be ABSOLUTELY USELESS

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

I will talk about this on my weapon megathread once I finish is, but I've been typing for two days so far and I've only reviewed a quarter or less of the arsenal!

Will take into account your ideas and combine them with mines and make something greater out of it, thanks for talking about this subject, thought I was the only one who liked them but considered them meme tier!

[rainy]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

I will talk about this on my weapon megathread once I finish is, but I've been typing for two days so far and I've only reviewed a quarter or less of the arsenal!

Will take into account your ideas and combine them with mines and make something greater out of it, thanks for talking about this subject, thought I was the only one who liked them but considered them meme tier!

No problem. Just a note on the wider arsenal though, there is a degree of progression and intended inferiority for low mastery rank weapons. I wouldn't argue they should all be equally viable.

I once compared the Ghoulsaw to all the melees in it's mastery rank, and determined it to initially be the weakest in its rank by all metrics. Even now it struggles and could realistically be doubled in damage and still remain fair.

 

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 4 minutos, VhwatGoes dijo:

No problem. Just a note on the wider arsenal though, there is a degree of progression and intended inferiority for low mastery rank weapons. I wouldn't argue they should all be equally viable.

I am taking this into account for all the weapons I have evaluated so far, which are all Tenno primaries, secondaries, and for melees I've stopped on the Guandao cause it is late here and I need some sleep. Will do Grineers, Corpus, Infested, Orokin, Sentient and Miscellaneous, so as you can imagine I've imposed myself quite a titanic task, but it is really fun and entertained. 

Worry not for I comprehend some weapons are meant to be weak for a veteran or advanced player, but strong or reliable for a newer one. I am indeed comparing them by Mastery rank requirements, how hard are they to obtain to the player in basis to their MR too, and also my opinion as someone who has tried them.

[Skaleek]

DE hears ya, DE don't care.