Mag Armour Stripping - Why Is It So Bad?

[Prince-of-Space]

For the love of God, can DE please do something about Mag's armour stripping capabilities. We got the DevStream and literally had Pablo talking about both altering how armour strip works AND how Mag's getting a rework, and neither of these talking points talked about Mag's armour stripping at ALL.

For those who didn't watch, Pablo, essentially said "I noticed that a lot of Warframes with armour stripping abilities are inconsistent, so if a Warframe with 50% armour strip casts it twice, it'll do 50% then 25% because its doing 50% of the remaining armour, EXCEPT for Oberon, who when he does it twice, it does 50% then 50% for 100% strip. So we're changing all armour strip abilities to the Oberon way, to make armour strip better and easier."

Which is a good change. A fantastic change!

And then literally turned around and said "Oh but this is only affecting percent-based strips, so Mag will be unchanged."

And for what reason? I'd really like to hear WHY this is the case.

Mag is the only Warframe or mod that removes a flat amount of total armour, as every single other ability strips by percent, or by base armour. You'd be better off taking Shattering Impact into Steel Path than Mag in terms of armour strip. Hell, I'd rather take anything that has Corrosive damage, that at least strips up to 80% of armour!

Mag, however, only deals 400 true damage, and takes that from the total armour value. At 200% power strength, that's 800 armour gone. If they're affected by Magnetize's 200% damage bonus, thats 1600 armour gone. And considering a heavy gunner at level 100 has 6,441.15, that's... just straight up S#&$. You'd be better off putting Hildryn's Pillage on her for all the armour and shield strip it does compared to Mag, a Warframe who's supposed to be the exemplification of magnetism.

And the fact that Mag got QoLs that DIDN'T touch this means that DE LIKES her like this. Why? Its not like she's exceptionally strong. She's definitely GOOD, if not slightly below average, but it still baffles me that Pablo said "I don't like how theres inconsistencies, so we're tightening it up" and then didn't touch the MOST inconsistent armour strip in the game.

[R4bbit0le]

I have the best tip for you if you want to armor strip as Mag. There is an augment mod for her fourth ability called Fracturing Crush that strips up to 80% of an enemies armor (at about 160% ability strength). Sadly, it is capped at 80% but it can be used together with Polarize and other methods of armor strip you have listed above.

It seems to work like Pablo described and the second cast takes less armor than the first, but if they are changing every single percent armor strip ability they will change this one too. MAGnificent! 

[Venus-Venera]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Prince-of-Space:

For the love of God, can DE please do something about Mag's armour stripping capabilities. We got the DevStream and literally had Pablo talking about both altering how armour strip works AND how Mag's getting a rework, and neither of these talking points talked about Mag's armour stripping at ALL.

For those who didn't watch, Pablo, essentially said "I noticed that a lot of Warframes with armour stripping abilities are inconsistent, so if a Warframe with 50% armour strip casts it twice, it'll do 50% then 25% because its doing 50% of the remaining armour, EXCEPT for Oberon, who when he does it twice, it does 50% then 50% for 100% strip. So we're changing all armour strip abilities to the Oberon way, to make armour strip better and easier."

Which is a good change. A fantastic change!

And then literally turned around and said "Oh but this is only affecting percent-based strips, so Mag will be unchanged."

And for what reason? I'd really like to hear WHY this is the case.

Mag is the only Warframe or mod that removes a flat amount of total armour, as every single other ability strips by percent, or by base armour. You'd be better off taking Shattering Impact into Steel Path than Mag in terms of armour strip. Hell, I'd rather take anything that has Corrosive damage, that at least strips up to 80% of armour!

Mag, however, only deals 400 true damage, and takes that from the total armour value. At 200% power strength, that's 800 armour gone. If they're affected by Magnetize's 200% damage bonus, thats 1600 armour gone. And considering a heavy gunner at level 100 has 6,441.15, that's... just straight up S#&$. You'd be better off putting Hildryn's Pillage on her for all the armour and shield strip it does compared to Mag, a Warframe who's supposed to be the exemplification of magnetism.

And the fact that Mag got QoLs that DIDN'T touch this means that DE LIKES her like this. Why? Its not like she's exceptionally strong. She's definitely GOOD, if not slightly below average, but it still baffles me that Pablo said "I don't like how theres inconsistencies, so we're tightening it up" and then didn't touch the MOST inconsistent armour strip in the game.

so i don't think so. because mag can do 2-4 mil crits at extremely long range on sp vs ranged. why is armor ignore skill needed here?

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

Maybe it is because Mag strips armour and shields, so if she got put in line with the rest of percentage strips...

[Lutesque]

Subsume Pillage/Fire Blast/Thermal Sunder.... Problem Solved ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Prince-of-Space]

2 hours ago, Venus-Venera said:

so i don't think so. because mag can do 2-4 mil crits at extremely long range on sp vs ranged. why is armor ignore skill needed here?

What? What ability of Mag's does 2-4 mil crits?

[Prince-of-Space]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

Maybe it is because Mag strips armour and shields, so if she got put in line with the rest of percentage strips...

Caliban has 50% armour/shield strip, allowing him to strip 100% of armour and shields with 200% strength. Hildryn is also likely getting buffed, likely to 50% armour and shield strip, but even so, she currently has 25% strips on both. Nyx has 80% strip on both. Xaku has 50% strip on both, so they can also get to 100% strip.

What was your argument again?

[Venus-Venera]

vor 11 Minuten schrieb Prince-of-Space:

What? What ability of Mag's does 2-4 mil crits?

serious question?

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

hace 5 minutos, Prince-of-Space dijo:

What was your argument again?

Maybe it is because Mag strips both armour and shields, so if she were to be put in line with the rest of percentage strips...

Considering things such as;

Compared to Caliban and Hyldrin she is obtained once you start and can easily be farmed for she's not behind a syndicate shop, or an open world bounty that you can only play after completing the later quests of the game.

She has an augment for her 4th that allows to strip armour by a % too.

Armour stripping becomes unnecessary when you have an ability that allows you to hit for millions of damage easily as Venus mentioned.
Formerly known as Magnetize if you ask.

I know a few other frames can strip out of all defences, such as Xaku or those two, but Mag already has more than enough going on for her.
That was my argument :)

 

[alchemystn2o]

12 hours ago, Prince-of-Space said:

What? What ability of Mag's does 2-4 mil crits?

Mag's 2nd ability.  Proper synergy weapons that interact well with her bubble can do way more than 2-4M damage. 

[(PSN)rexis12]

I think for Mag to have less Armor Strip is fine, since she compensates with the absurd damage she can put out with Magnetise. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

Yeah, so DE are technically doing something about Mag's Armour Strip.

All abilities that do a Percentage strip now do it as a percentage of Max armour, permanently. So Fracturing Crush is the way to go here, mod on a little Efficiency and cast it twice, for cheap and you have no more armour issues.

That said, thinking about Mag in terms of Armour Strip is, as many players have already pointed out to you, completely irrelevant when she has one of the most damaging abilities in the game.

Polarise is more for keeping you alive with quick restores of the Shield Gate when you need them. Augment it for some CC on non-Eximus enemies.

The real power in her update next month is the change to Pull.

Why?

Because now you can stand in front of Magnetise and Pull enemies straight into it. No more flying, tumbling enemies, you have a reliable grouping CC to literally put enemies into that ability that's so devastatingly damaging.

As a quick hint, though, here:

Spoiler

Completely ignore armour and shield strip and even Crush itself, if you want. Put Chroma's Elemental Ward on her in Cold mode.

The game's code makes Magnetise the same type of damage as Chroma's Redirected Damage from Ward. This means that having Ward active will act as an end-damage multiplier on any damage that goes into Magnetise, easily multiplying your total damage five or six times over.

If you want to see Steel Path enemies go 'boom' with an Mk-1 Lato, this is the way to do it.

That said, Mag hardly needs strip or more damage.

Just the Pull buff alone would have been enough, and now... yeah... this is going to be interesting.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

People really trying to justify a bad ability by saying Mag has other good abilities huh.

[Fireaway]

20 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

People really trying to justify a bad ability by saying Mag has other good abilities huh.

Polarize is not bad. It would benefit from a rework (which it's getting) because the shard mechanics/damage aspect of the power are basically irrelevant, but when augmented it's one of the game's most useful CCs and its shield restoration is very helpful.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

7 minutes ago, Fireaway said:

Polarize is not bad. It would benefit from a rework (which it's getting) because the shard mechanics/damage aspect of the power are basically irrelevant, but when augmented it's one of the game's most useful CCs and its shield restoration is very helpful.

So basically it goes "this ability is bad unless you use the augment."
Do people not know that Crush has shield restoration either? Arguably better too, as it's 40 + 75 x enemies hit, can generate overshields, and CCs enemies without needing an augment

[Fireaway]

31 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

So basically it goes "this ability is bad unless you use the augment."
Do people not know that Crush has shield restoration either? Arguably better too, as it's 40 + 75 x enemies hit, can generate overshields, and CCs enemies without needing an augment

I mean no, that isn't what I said at all.

[(PSN)rexis12]

6 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

People really trying to justify a bad ability by saying Mag has other good abilities huh.

It's bad due to armor strip, but there's more to it that doesn't make it complete ass.

At Kuva Survival a Polarise can, oddly enough, kill quite long into the endurance run due to how the true damage and shard works. It's different compare to like Terrify and say Fire Blast.

Should it be buffed, probably but for an armor strip on a massive damage dealing frame like Mag, it's not such a bad thing. I mean they're buffing Pull next, and we know how much of a meme that thing is.

[R4bbit0le]

7 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

People really trying to justify a bad ability by saying Mag has other good abilities huh.

Polarize fully replenishes your shields on cast and does the same for your teammates and objectives like excavators and such. It's not a bad ability.

I think people were just pointing out how Mag's kit can be positively crushing as it is often underrated and misunderstood. 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

2 minutes ago, R4bbit0le said:

Polarize fully replenishes your shields on cast and does the same for your teammates and objectives like excavators and such. It's not a bad ability.

Crush has shield restoration properties that are on par or even better than Polarize.

[PhiZero]

If I remember correctly, Polarize was a percentage shield strip a veeeery long time ago.

 

Word vomit warning, tldr at the bottom.

Back then, her Polarize was completely oppressive and could reach 70-100% shield strip on top of restoring ally shields by the same amount, instantly across the listed range...in addition to effectively converting said shield and armor into a substantial true damage AoE against the now unprotected enemy health pool. As some bonus trivia, at this time Mag was considered only viable against Corpus, and was otherwise mainly a shield battery for Grineer and Infested.

After her first rework, it was converted to a flat value that now depletes both shields and armor as a pulse similar to Molecular Prime, which was effective for the base star chart, requiring 1-4 cases to full strip in addition to Magnetize becoming a persistent effect. The biggest nerf was to her team utility, as the Polarize shield restore was converted to a flat value as well, going from a ~1000 shield restore with redirection to a 600-700 shield restore with similar ability strength.

Mags rework left her in a better place against all factions, but her durability was severely hampered, as she has to spread stats from power strength into duration and range as well. Polarize now restoring a flat value had become an issue, which is where we see the change to Crush not only restoring shields, but granting overshields to offset its insane animation duration.

As enemy levels increased, Polarize and it's flat strip values were quickly becoming irrelevant; which is where we see her Crush Augment come into play as a means to deal with scaling. Though this was still ineffective as it requires committing to too many stats across the board. Meanwhile, we also got Counter Pulse to push Polarize into CC territory.

Now it feels like a colossal misunderstanding, as yes Polarize was designed as an armor strip ability, but in SP and beyond it can't pull its weight as an armor strip option; where, it's augment and shield restore play a crucial role in stun locking enemies and restore her shield gate.

 

tldr; Polarize was once a percentage shield strip and proved to be severely overpowered against one faction, and was toned back to the current flat values to allow for Mag to see some use across all factions. Overtime, feature creep, augments, and shield gating pushed Polarize away from an Armor Strip ability to an on demand Stun + Shield restore ability.

The current iteration feels like it lacks a defined identity, and is largely inconsistent in usage between the Star Chart and Steel Path, and honestly...it could use a review to solidify its identity across all content.

[R4bbit0le]

7 minutes ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

Crush has shield restoration properties that are on par or even better than Polarize.

Agreed. Also costs a lot more energy and requires enemies in range instead of duration (which increases polarize expansion radius) so I wouldn't compare the two

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

7 hours ago, R4bbit0le said:

Also costs a lot more energy

It’s 25 more energy. That’s not a lot more.

7 hours ago, R4bbit0le said:

requires enemies in range

You say this as if it’s a realistic drawback. Mag’s main stat to boost is range anyway, and 18m base range is fairly high.

[PhiZero]

5 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

It’s 25 more energy. That’s not a lot more.

You say this as if it’s a realistic drawback. Mag’s main stat to boost is range anyway, and 18m base range is fairly high.

It's more matter of perspective. At base energy and efficiency, that's 1/7 extra of Mags energy pool being spent, max efficiency and/or energy would bring down the extra energy cost significantly.

 

As for Crush requiring enemies in range for shield restore, it's mostly an ease of use issue. Quite often in low density missions, you can misjudge the distance to an enemy and cast Crush, just to realize they're out of range as you commit to a 2 second animation. Where Polarise sits at 2 seconds and has no conditions for the shield restore.

That and from testing it for years, Crush does indeed have superior shield restore and can provide overshields, the issue is it can be inconsistent outside of high density missions and either whiff or heal less health than you expected.

Though I'll still use it here and there in survival after Polarize, just to get an overshield buffer going while stacking Adaptation; but, only if I'm standing in a freshly cast magnetize bubble full of targets.

[Fireaway]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

It’s 25 more energy. That’s not a lot more.

You say this as if it’s a realistic drawback. Mag’s main stat to boost is range anyway, and 18m base range is fairly high.

Polarize doesn't get boosted by range, it scales with duration. 

Edit: nevermind, you were mentioning that in relation to Crush.

[PhiZero]

10 minutes ago, Fireaway said:

Polarize doesn't get boosted by range, it scales with duration. 

Technically Polarize scales with both range and duration, range affecting the initial cast area, and it just scales better with duration in a similar fashion to Pillage and Molecular Prime.

 

Building duration is good for Polarize itself and various other Helminth options, as it can expand its CC further through the tile.

Building range for Magnetize and the upcoming buff to Pull is equally viable, as they'll provide more zone control with the side benefit of boosting Crush's shield restore consistency.

 

In reality, we still need a balance of both range and duration on Mag, along with a splash of power strength if you want to abuse shield gating without a Corrupted Key; which, has the side benefit of boosting Magnetize's Damage Multiplier and disarm chance with the augment.