So... That Nova Nerf...

[Ruzu]

Reducing the explosions even more would be a "anti-chain explosion" nerf, which is the biggest thing the community hates about it, next to the kills all going to Nova. 

 

I apologize. I haven't been keeping myself up to track with every change thus far. I did not realize the explosion radius was already nerfed. I retract that comment. However, the chain explosions do add up, effectively holding the potential to one hit ancients and heavies at points where other ultimates are incapable of such a feat.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Ruzu

[TwiceDead]

tl;dr if you read it all you get a cookie.

 

Hand over that cookie! 

 

 

Now, let's go back to Mol Prime:

• If you focus on range, you're priming almost 60m of enemies, with the explosions reaching across 35m. Granted, you're lowering the damage to 320. Not enough to clear a room completely, but it'll still wreak havoc in lower levels. 
• If you don't care about energy use, you can hit 1,832 damage per explosion.

 

Could both of those areas use a nerf? Yeah, they could. However, this is where I was expecting the thread's mindset to change over the time it's been active. Damage 2.0 isn't just going to change the way weapons deal damage, it's changing how all damage is dealt. The explosions will (more than likely) either be radioactive or blast damage, which have different uses. Not only that, but the enemy levels are being compressed. Level 40 enemies will be akin to level 100 enemies now, with endless defence still raising the level. Someone in this thread said that people "screaming" that damage 2.0 will fix everything are wrong, but I honestly disbelieve that theory. Yes, in it's current state Mol Prime will obliterate low level enemies still, but for a much shorter duration than it does now. Also, depending on the damage type it does, it could be even less useful for clearing rooms depending on the faction. It's almost as if Mol Prime was built with damage 2.0 in mind. 

 

Now, as for the debuffs it deals, it's a unique ult. Yes, there's abilities that buff damage. A Roar can give up to 114% of a damage buff. If you can hit the highlited areas, Sonar can give up to 1,145% of a damage buff. While it has a much smaller range, Snowglobe gives a better speed debuff. Mind you, these aren't ultimate abilities. Looking at that it's easy to see how people say Mol Prime is a combination of abilities, but they aren't ultimates like what's being stated.

 

 

-

It's not about the damage it deals, it's it's insane utility and the range of it. You are a center with a 58m radius, and your explosions with a 38m radius, at your best. On higher levels the damage will be worth jackS#&$ anyways, your guns will more than make up for it. I am going by the assumption that people have decent leveled Serrations and a maxed Split Chamber. 

 

Roar only does that one thing though, damage boost, and for a far smaller duration than MP.

Sonar requires you to aim on weakspots that sometimes don't tick properly, and again for an a lot smaller duration. 

Snowglobe only does that at a 5m radius AT MOST. Some would argue a smaller snowglobe is more beneficial because it get's in the way of allies aiming. Anything outside that range and it completely blocks it out. 

They are not ultimate abilities, but at the same time they are hella costly to cast to get them to their prime points. Take Banshee's Sonar, in order to get it to do 1000% additional damage, the cost is increased to 70ish energy per cast. That's already taking the spot of an ultimate ability. Same case for Roar. Not for Snowglobe though.

 

MP on the other hand is at it's best when you max out it's range, and to boot that off you can decrease the cost by 75%, requiring only 25 energy to cast an ability that has an effective radius with hardly any drawback(since you're using it for the utility and not the damaging explosions if you're smart). 

 

I'll see if I get back to this... BUT I DID READ YOUR POST! So I want that cookie! It's early in the morning even! I only slept for two hours because I have to go to the dentist! WAH! 

[SanityRobot]

So 100% damage buff and 0.25% slow is leagues ahead of most other ults? It'll be outshined by non-ultimate abilities.

 

Yes.

 

Roar is considered pretty well above average and it's only a 50% bonus to damage, with a fraction of the duration, and no slow.

 

And don't say Sonar, that skill is incredibly unreliable.

[taiiat]

Nova in general doesn't need a nerf. Mol Prime, maybe. It already recieved a stealth nerf, changing the size and shape of the explosions. 

 

Now, let's go back to Mol Prime:

• If you focus on range, you're priming almost 60m of enemies, with the explosions reaching across 35m. Granted, you're lowering the damage to 320. Not enough to clear a room completely, but it'll still wreak havoc in lower levels. 

 

Could both of those areas use a nerf? Yeah, they could. However, this is where I was expecting the thread's mindset to change over the time it's been active. Damage 2.0 isn't just going to change the way weapons deal damage, it's changing how all damage is dealt. The explosions will (more than likely) either be radioactive or blast damage, which have different uses. Not only that, but the enemy levels are being compressed. Level 40 enemies will be akin to level 100 enemies now, with endless defence still raising the level. Someone in this thread said that people "screaming" that damage 2.0 will fix everything are wrong, but I honestly disbelieve that theory. Yes, in it's current state Mol Prime will obliterate low level enemies still, but for a much shorter duration than it does now. Also, depending on the damage type it does, it could be even less useful for clearing rooms depending on the faction. It's almost as if Mol Prime was built with damage 2.0 in mind. 

 

Now, as for the debuffs it deals, it's a unique ult. Yes, there's abilities that buff damage. A Roar can give up to 114% of a damage buff. If you can hit the highlited areas, Sonar can give up to 1,145% of a damage buff. While it has a much smaller range, Snowglobe gives a better speed debuff. Mind you, these aren't ultimate abilities. Looking at that it's easy to see how people say Mol Prime is a combination of abilities, but they aren't ultimates like what's being stated.

 

Explosion damage is probably the best way to balance it, considering the damage dealt is based upon distance and armor. The flipside is if an enemy is standing at 14m from the explosion it's doubtful he's taking the full 800 before armor calculations. 

 

 

While I can hold my own as Nova, I don't exactly see how you can avoid being shot. Unless you simply mean you don't take any health damage, which I can kinda see. 

- people talk that Nova has had some changes. yet i've noticed no difference. still wiping out lv100+ Ancients for me(with an MPrime strength of 320), no problem. 

 

- not enough to clear rooms? my previous statement.

 

- i agree, there is a lot of interesting stuff in the Damage / Resistance rebuild. but we don't have it yet, so we just don't know. we can't assume it will be good or bad, we don't know.

 

- the only difference between powers, other than small casting time differences (a few a bit difference - Volt, stop floating there and get back in the fight), is Energy cost. with lots of Efficiency, and Energy super abundant, the difference in Energy cost isn't big enough to really make any difference.

 

let's say you had 0 energy entering a medium sized engagement. unlikely, but bear with me. after killing those enemies (let's call it 15 enemies), you'll probably get like, oh idunno, 5-9 Energy orbs. so now in your next engagement, you can use any power you want, and not even think about it. 

 

add on storage containers / lockers, Energy regen, and starting Energy, and well idk about you, but my Energy tank is basically always full. so in any engagement... would i rather use a 50/75E power, and possibly need to use it twice, or use that 100E power once, and be done with it. if we've got 450E to work with, and the ground is covered with a dozen or more Energy orbs, well, why not use 100E powers all the time?

i personally prefer any excuse to use Antimatter Drop on the off chance i'm playing as Nova, mostly because i think those cannonballs are sweeter than concetrated Glucose. but that's besides the point.

 

- perhaps... though the reason to keep the damage and instead decrease the range, IMO, is so that Nova doesn't fundamentally change, simply benefits from other frames helping her combo those powers and create more powerful strategies. 

as i'm not looking to fundamentally change Nova, just tweaks to keep Nova in her 'style', just keeping it in check.

 

- some Shield damage from time to time, yes. but mostly, using Hard Cover, to avoid getting shot in the first place. and from behind that Hard Cover, annihilating all of the enemies in a leisurely way, no hurry, it's not like i can't just nuke them all if i get bored anyways.

i admit, at some point, the enemy density will overcome me, and they'll destroy the objective. i'm still perfectly safe though. i normally can manage ~30 waves before that happens. really not bad, considering i have no distraction Utility, no Defense for the pod, i'm alone, etc.

 

slightly different tactics to 'Solo' Grineer Survival(basically doing everything, but others are in the match). i'm the one running to get Support pods on the far side of the map, as well as doing most of the work for my Clannies.

and i do again, take some Shield damage, but then, no time for Hard Cover, since i need to get those Support Pods, so i simply annihilate everything to avoid it killing me. 

[NullCurrent]

Alright. So after reading all nine pages here's my $0.02, some of which was already covered. Honestly, I'm slightly disappointed this thread's tone wasn't changed when Damage 2.0 was officially revealed, but I'll get to that in a moment.

 

Nova in general doesn't need a nerf. Mol Prime, maybe. It already recieved a stealth nerf, changing the size and shape of the explosions. 

 

<snip>

 

tl;dr if you read it all you get a cookie.

 

Well said, all of it. I really recommend you all to read what Colorswirl wrote.

 

Definitely agree on the point that Nova does not need a nerf, but MPrime might need some kind of change to not make it that insanely effective against grouped up enemies. But I am definitely against capping damage of any kind, be it weapon damage, ability damage, enemy damage, whatever. Because that means that an ability has a set usage, making its use be completely dictated by this damage cap.

 

In this case, say that the explosion radius of MPrime was greatly reduced, maybe the damage lowered a bit too (these two changes will actually lower the damage way more than just one or the other). Then the game should reward the players for managing to group up enemies and then detonate them, not punish them by just allowing 1k damage dealt in total per enemy. By allowing damage to stack for grouped up enemies MPrime will "force" Novas and their team to cooperate more to actually clear stuff. (This can already be seen at really high level infested defenses, where MPrime + Vortex is godly if done right, and MPrime by itself is "just" a "S#&amp;&#036;ty slow".)

 

And by keeping the slow and damage bonus it will still be able to slow enemies enough so that the Nova can get away and it will also still be useful at higher levels.

 

As for energy cost, maybe make the Molecular Prime prime duration be affected by power duration, so that if you use Fleeting Expertise it will not be as useful at higher levels when you need the debuff.

 

PS. Can I get my cookie now? :P

[Cpl_Facehugger]

And I think you're just pulling that conclusion out of your &amp;#&#33;...

I'm basing it entirely on the experience I've had with people arguing for nerfing Nova since Nova has been released. To date I have not seen a single good argument for nerfing Nova that doesn't also apply to every other frame with high damaging + secondary effect ults to a greater or lesser extent.

 

Apologies for the term used(not really), but Nova does make the game 'unfun', on lower levels, you are on rails.

I can do the same thing with Rhino, Saryn, Ember, or Volt(!!) on lower levels. Again, this is not a problem with Nova in particular. If you take a high level frame into low level content, of course you're going to dominate.

Let's be totally clear here: Nerfing Nova will not stop the wider problem. It will not even slow it down. It will just turn the game into Sarynframe, just like it was before Rhino was buffed and Nova was released. Am I the only one who actually played in U7 and had Saryns running into the middle of waves and just maisma bombing everything just like people accuse Nova players of doing with literally every defense mission?

So nerf Saryn you say. Okay. Then players will migrate to the next most useful frame. You end up entering a nerf spiral where frames don't matter at all because they're all the same level of worthlessness. I, meanwhile, came to warframe because the trailers showed Tenno being bloody awesome and powerful, with this actually being reflected ingame. I don't want every frame to be worthless, I want every frame to be worth using.

Setting a precedent for nerfing anything deemed "too powerful" makes that goal more difficult to achieve.

 

On later levels, she is almost mandatory considering her ability to increase damage output by 100% and decrease damage taken by 50%, it makes her invaluable. Combo that with a Rhino, and suddenly you get a 200% damage boost (if the rhino specced focus). The reason is glaringly obvious.

Banshee can get up to 600% increased damage with the right build, can't she? Indeed, when people first broke the 100 wave barrier, the team didn't include a Nova. For high level content, Nova is useful solely for the debuffs that M-Prime provides. Compare Trinity, Saryn, Rhino, or Banshee, all of whom have more utility, more damage, or more CC in high level play.

 

She has Damage, Utility, CC and damage reduction all in one button.

A speed debuff is not CC except in the most general term. Actual CC is something that prevents the enemy from doing anything against you - Vortex, Bastille, Chaos, Stomp, Blind, etc. Hell's Bells, Miasma has better CC than M-Prime does since it actually staggers.

 

She moves quickly and has a high energy pool so she can keep herself protected, the enemies CC'ed, and allies powered up, all while having MP in a state of constant up-keep. The issue here is obviously that molecular prime is TOO STRONK, overshadowing all of her other abilties making people forget they even exist. Sure, anti-matter drop has the highest potential for damage out of all her abilties, but latency issues combined with it's normally 'challenging' utilization, fucks that ability right over to fall on it's face. There is no reason to bring any other abilities than MP and possibly Null Star.

Wormhole is hella useful, bro. And AMD's damage potential is actually higher than M-prime's is if handled right; the only reason it isn't used more frequently is that it takes a lot of skill to use.

still wiping out lv100+ Ancients for me(with an MPrime strength of 320), no problem.

Really? How's that, then? Because my Nova, running maxed focus and stretch starts having trouble with ancients around level 70, and corpus crewmen when you start pushing past 100. What's your build?

Edited November 20, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[ShroudedInLight]

Mprime is a very good ability, purely for the damage multiplication and slow. I could care less about the explosion.

 

Please, infact, nerf the explosion. I'd love that since I run a Maximized Range nova, the explosion could not even be there for all I care. Nova's real power all lies in Anti-Matter Drop, 4x bullet damage combined with 2x damage from M-prime; it's the single hardest hitting nuke in the game. Throw on a Roar and you're good to nuke entire waves of baddies all the way to the end game. Maximized range does not effect absorbed damage, by the way, and it boosts the range at which you can prime targets for others to help you nuke down. 

 

So go ahead, nerf Mprime's damage; Antimatter's her golden skill. We'll finally be able to separate the 1 button Nova's from the good ones. 

 

Also, Mass Effect 3's adepts aren't the best comparison IMO, since adepts combo's scaled off percentages of enemy health and were thus more useful lategame than early game, once bullets fell off. Unlike Tech's absurd wave clear with Arc Grenades, Flamer, and all the other absurd powers on Silver and Bronze. Especially since you built Adepts for combos and thus never took damage increases over utility because the damage did nothing for the combo. 

 

Honestly, I'd love it if warframe had more abilities that scaled with your enemy. Biotic Combos were a perfect example of a powerful but fair skill that scaled off your enemies health so it was always viable. Seeing more combos like that in warframe would make me smile, since so few skills actually scale. Infact, Nova is one of the few kits that never stops scaling.

 

Look at her skills, 1: Stagger tool, 2: Best Nuke in the game, 3: Massive mobility, 4: Best Debuff in the game; Nova never stops scaling. Oh sure, Null Star stops being good past a certain point since you die if you're blinked at (something else to keep in mind, Nova's scaling comes at the cost of being a marshmallow) but even then it can still save your life. As I've said, Anti-matter drop scales with your bullet damage (4x) making it one of the best skills in the game, Wormhole has unparalleled mobility rivaling Volt's speed, and Mprime is obviously an incredible skill though as I've said the 2x damage and slow is what really makes it shine later into the game once the max power builds stop being effective.

 

I'd really suggest that we look at how the other frames compare to that before passing any nerf judgments on Nova, other than base damages anyway since they don't matter. After all, how many other warframes have useless skills? Or skills that do not scale/provide any utility/defenses/mobility or any other kind of helpful attribute later into the game since they are only base damage? The only other frame in the entire game that matches Nova's scaling happens to be Rhino, who has Mobility, CC resistance, % damage increase, and the best CC in the game; respectively. 

 

So if we're going to nerf nova, we can nerf her damage since she has the utility to spare it...but if we touch that utility we're going to butcher her. I'd like to see other frames rival Nova's utility, if they did; she might not need to be touched. Also, damage 2.0 might level the playing field a bit, so we'll see how things work from there. I won't comment until we've seen how these new damage types are applied to Warframe abilities. 

[TendoEnju]

Nova doesn't need a nerf, she was made as the "spellcaster" of warframe, if you get my meaning. She is SUPPOSED to be squishy and SHE IS squishy, but to make the warframe playable, you need to give her some attributes, her attributes were to be strong and fast, but squishy. If you say that loki needs a rework because he cant kill everything like nova it's because you do not know how to play loki well. the purpose to have nova strong like this is mostly for missions like... survival to 2-3hours long. i can say for a sure thing, from 35mins in apollodorus in survival, she is NOT OP AT ALL! Most people dies all the time with her cuz they cant evade! her molecular prime cannot even do a chain reaction anymore, when you kill 1, only 1 dies, maybe 2. If you're complaining about how nova is op, it's because you haven't tried the depth of the game yet, you want her to get her nerfed? first of all, try her at 40 mins survival on any grineer survival without any power mods. You will get squished if you do not know how to play well.

 

EDIT: Sorry for being so rude but i know for a fact as i have all the warframes at 30 and polarize twice each that it depends on the mission which warframe you should use. Nova is almost already useless to me now since i go further than most dare.

[DaveC]

Nova doesn't need a nerf, she was made as the "spellcaster" of warframe, if you get my meaning. She is SUPPOSED to be squishy and SHE IS squishy, but to make the warframe playable, you need to give her some attributes, her attributes were to be strong and fast, but squishy. If you say that loki needs a rework because he cant kill everything like nova it's because you do not know how to play loki well. the purpose to have nova strong like this is mostly for missions like... survival to 2-3hours long.

<bang>....just fell of my chair laughing

[TwiceDead]

Reposting this because someone pulled it down when they thought that I was being to offensive, so I have removed the offensive bits and let the main point remain. 
 

DaveC I am so sorry, had to borrow a quote from you since I have no idea how this forum system works... Just change the name DaveC with TwiceDead. 

Nova has to go into the middle of the fray of a bunch of enemies to stay effective??? Are you joking? 

That's not a valid point, that's just a player making things harder on themselves by playing the game that way.

Where do you  get the notion that Nova can only be effective if she jumps into a mosh-pit of enemies that can easily murder you in seconds to be effective? If anything that seems like a detrimental way of using her ultimate.

Her ability by default(at max) has an effective range of a whopping 25 Meters radius to it? Hell even by a normal stretch mod you increase that number by 45% getting a new number that looks fairly similar to 36 meters!

If you add Overextended to that you're running a maximized range build which gives you 58 Meters! You can effect entire rooms without even being close to enemy line of sight with that kind of range, and even still affect the enemies residing in the next room waiting for you.

Add Streamline and Fleeting Expertise to it and suddenly you have spammable ultimate with 58 meter range at the cost of 25 energy a cast. Don't see a reason not to run around the map spamming this baby. 

 

- Written by Twice Dead, not DaveC. 

Edited November 20, 2013 by TwiceDead

[SkyGoBrrrr]

 

There's some cookies. :P

 

I'm too exhausted to reply to things right now, but at this point both sides of the argument are beating a dead horse. Pretty much every argument has been covered more than once ever since the "Nerf Nova" threads started. 

[7grims]

That idea for nerf is good, even though, I'm thinking a little "ahead".

That extreme power was given to her for a reason, she is fragile as porcelain, just look at her suit, all shattered and broken.

So she need to keep being powerful, or else it would become a frame too hard to play cause of her low damage resistance stats.

My idea for this frame would be to remove the affinity gain from M prime, chain reaction explosions. (nevertheless any enemy shooted normally under M prime still gains affinity)

This way she could still be powerfull, but players would think twice before using her, since there wouldn't be all that profit from using nova.

And also this would balance Nova like other frames have been, Nyx used to be the best frame long time ago, since her nerf, ppl dont spam chaos so much cause they know it isn't a profitable power.

I love Nova, she is very good to play, but even though i have other cool frames, I end up always using her, because of how easy you can be godlike on any map.

[VentiGlondi]

Now we need somebody to study this thread and use the data to come up with an equation that will allow us to balance Nova just right.

[TwiceDead]

 

 

There's some cookies. :P

 

I'm too exhausted to reply to things right now, but at this point both sides of the argument are beating a dead horse. Pretty much every argument has been covered more than once ever since the "Nerf Nova" threads started. 

 

THANK YOU! You kept your word like an honorable decent human being!

*Noms on some real cookies while enjoying the sight of cookies*  

 

 

 

Enough cookies! (I lied, there can never be enough)

 

I'm basing it entirely on the experience I've had with people arguing for nerfing Nova since Nova has been released. To date I have not seen a single good argument for nerfing Nova that doesn't also apply to every other frame with high damaging + secondary effect ults to a greater or lesser extent.

If you haven't seen a single good argument yet, you never will. 

 

I can do the same thing with Rhino, Saryn, Ember, or Volt(!!) on lower levels. Again, this is not a problem with Nova in particular. If you take a high level frame into low level content, of course you're going to dominate.

Yet Nova continues to dominate even after level 130+. Just tested it. A Rhino accompanied me on this, and he kept using Rhino Stomp. Didn't see him one-shotting enemies past 120+, while Molecular Prime did the job. Hell even the Nekros I played with beat the Rhino in kills, but that could be player differences. 

 

Let's be totally clear here: Nerfing Nova will not stop the wider problem. It will not even slow it down. It will just turn the game into Sarynframe, just like it was before Rhino was buffed and Nova was released. Am I the only one who actually played in U7 and had Saryns running into the middle of waves and just maisma bombing everything just like people accuse Nova players of doing with literally every defense mission?

The wider problem? And what is the 'wider' problem? That Saryn is a good well balanced frame? And Nova isn't? By your logic, we should leave OP abilities as is because if we don't, another frame is going to take Nova's place as the OP frame. Well it kind of works that way when it comes to balance. When one frame get's tweaked to be not OP, but not garbage, it stops getting the attention because it's not as overpowered as it used to be. Saryn is still one hell of a good frame, even long after U7. 

 

So nerf Saryn you say. Okay. Then players will migrate to the next most useful frame. You end up entering a nerf spiral where frames don't matter at all because they're all the same level of worthlessness. I, meanwhile, came to warframe because the trailers showed Tenno being bloody awesome and powerful, with this actually being reflected ingame. I don't want every frame to be worthless, I want every frame to be worth using.

Setting a precedent for nerfing anything deemed "too powerful" makes that goal more difficult to achieve.
 

Well obviously. People will always look for the cookie-cutter builds. The point of nerfing these builds is to make other frames seem more appealing, hence increasing the variation within frames, gameplay, and possibly DE's earnings because more people want to play different frames for different reasons, other than them being OP. If you think every frame besides Nova, Frost, Rhino and Trinity are useless, then you just need to play the other frames more. They are all USEFUL, in their own ways. Nova as is just fills every frames shoes, making the other frames redundant and also makes newer players flock to her like moths to an electrified candle. . . Actually I am not sure if moths are attracted to light but whatever.

 

Banshee can get up to 600% increased damage with the right build, can't she? Indeed, when people first broke the 100 wave barrier, the team didn't include a Nova. For high level content, Nova is useful solely for the debuffs that M-Prime provides. Compare Trinity, Saryn, Rhino, or Banshee, all of whom have more utility, more damage, or more CC in high level play.
 

Banshee can get up to 1000% increased damage with the right build. Kicker is, she can't cut the damage an ally takes in half, nor slow down the enemies to a crawl. Combine that with Sonar being unreliable as rusted metal, as aiming at the weakpoints will sometimes yield no effect whatsoever, and that having to aim on weakpoints actually takes something called a certain amount of aiming ability, casual players will not flock to the frame that MIGHT increase your damage output by a 1000%, but rather to the frame that reduces enemy damage output and speed by 50%, and ally damage output by a 100%. Reliability over complexity. 

A speed debuff is not CC except in the most general term. Actual CC is something that prevents the enemy from doing anything against you - Vortex, Bastille, Chaos, Stomp, Blind, etc. Hell's Bells, Miasma has better CC than M-Prime does since it actually staggers.

 

Crowd Control definition: 
Activity of controlling a crowd

 

Slowing down a rioting crowd down to the kind of speeds equaling a turtle, is definitely landing under the category of controlling a crowd... Simply by altering their mobility significantly. Anything that takes control away from a crowd, can be considered crowd control. Some abilities do it better than others like the ones you mentioned. 

 

Wormhole is hella useful, bro. And AMD's damage potential is actually higher than M-prime's is if handled right; the only reason it isn't used more frequently is that it takes a lot of skill to use.

Wormhole is hella useful for fast-travelling, and not much else. 

Anti-matter drop is potentially one of the most damaging abilities in the game. Combined with M-Prime, it very well might be. BUT! Thanks to Molecular Prime being as awesome as it is; slowing down and decimating entire crowds within a radius of 58 meters, anti-matter drop is hardly necessary. Possibly never will be considering that whatever enemy may be standing before you after 'all-is-dust' is nothing but a mere shell of the original threat.

 

"A lone Heavygunner... With their shields stripped and malfunctioning, suffering severe injuries after surviving all it's friends spontaneously combusting right beside it, covered by it's fellow soldiers bodily parts... The gunner's mobility cut in half, and their damage output suffering the same fate thanks to some unknown Tenno witch-craft, and to top that... This honorable brave Heavygunner's miserable situation... Any bullet, or projectile that strikes against it's armor and flesh from this point on, will feel twice as painful compared to a normal situation. Yet the Heavygunner does not budge, for it knows ... It has to continue even if it means it has to draw a final breath, beside his fallen brothers in arms, now turned to ash, and squeeze that trigger... One last time."

 

Really? How's that, then? Because my Nova, running maxed focus and stretch starts having trouble with ancients around level 70, and corpus crewmen when you start pushing past 100. What's your build?

Try putting on the following: 

Blind Rage (Rank 8 in my case)

Focus (max)
Overextended (max)
Stretch. (max)

 

The result will be the following:

A Molecular Prime with an effective radius of 58 meters, with an explosion radius at 32 meters, which damage opponents for 800 damage while adding +51% additional damage. At the cost of 110 Energy.

 

I brought a Lanka with me, with a maxed Armor Piercing and Electrical Damage, Shred, Point strike, Vital Sense, Hammerstrike, and the mandatory Serration and Split Chamber mods. 

I had no trouble dealing with any opponent that came at me after level 120, and I am posting this coming fresh out of that game so that my memory does not fail me. 

Edited November 20, 2013 by TwiceDead

[ra9una]

No?

[taiiat]

Really? How's that, then? Because my Nova, running maxed focus and stretch starts having trouble with ancients around level 70, and corpus crewmen when you start pushing past 100. What's your build?

aside from the Aura, the key is to group enemies up. i do that, i group bunches of enemies up, and then create one big explosion out of all of the trash mobs. shooting just one doesn't cut it, gotta get as many explosions at once as possible. because the damage the enemy takes will drastically increase, having one big number before armor, instead of a bunch of little numbers. 

 

 

the purpose to have nova strong like this is mostly for missions like... survival to 2-3hours long. i can say for a sure thing, from 35mins in apollodorus in survival, she is NOT OP AT ALL! Most people dies all the time with her cuz they cant evade! her molecular prime cannot even do a chain reaction anymore, when you kill 1, only 1 dies, maybe 2. If you're complaining about how nova is op, it's because you haven't tried the depth of the game yet, you want her to get her nerfed? first of all, try her at 40 mins survival on any grineer survival without any power mods. You will get squished if you do not know how to play well.

i don't know what you're doing wrong, but i can use Nova on Grineer Survival(one with a real starting level, not a terrible test like lv5 is, i mean comeon, start at like lv30 atleast, if not 45), and with a Power Strength of 320, clear rooms even when the Grineer get up to lv90+.

and the difference between MPrime and not? taking a few seconds to kill one enemy - or one second to clear enemies out in groups of 10, or an entire room if they're close enough to each other.

Edited November 20, 2013 by taiiat

[tripletriple]

There is no good arguement for nerfing nova. People on the nerf nova bandwagon have no idea how to fix the problem, they just get mad when nova does her job.

 

The problem is no matter what frames you pick the game is easy. I can wreck things just as much with a vauban as I can with nova, and better at high waves, rhino can do the same as well. You never need a nova. If you can show me a situation were nova is absolutely needed to complete than I will agree to nerf nova.

Edited November 21, 2013 by tripletriple

[EinRyu]

Do me a favor and go comment on one of the other bajillion and now one comments on nerfing Nova and kindly leave. Tired of seeing all these stupid &amp;#&#33; threads saying nerf Nova only, every other Frame is perfectly swell, just bomb that one Frame that only does good in Mid-Level spots when Armor 2.0 is gonna make current 40s the equivalent to level 100s now and act as if Molecular Prime wont change at all cause ya know, logic!

 

Honestly though learn what patience is and f'ing use it, Armor 2.0 is right around the corner and nerfing ANY or buffing ANY Frames abilities currently is just flat detrimental rather than helpful if it's done before Armor 2.0 is dropped. Make this thread after U11 and if M.Prime is somehow WAYYYY better and nuking EVERYTHING(It sure as hell aint nuking anything above 80+ in Void or Alerts for me) than we can cry legitimate nerf, but when you only have experience in using that one skill, ignoring all her others, and playing in only 20-50 range missions you honestly can't expect them to nerf her.

[EinRyu]

aside from the Aura, the key is to group enemies up. i do that, i group bunches of enemies up, and then create one big explosion out of all of the trash mobs. shooting just one doesn't cut it, gotta get as many explosions at once as possible. because the damage the enemy takes will drastically increase, having one big number before armor, instead of a bunch of little numbers. 

This is honestly almost any Nuke skill ingame if you mod it like this, and this is also more of an extreme case and I know way to many people who don't have corrosive projection(Myself included, 400 hours in too missed every alert...) so yeah.

[taiiat]

works still very well with Energy Siphon. only recently changed it out as i decided if my Energy is always full anyways, no point in having Energy Siphon.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Yet Nova continues to dominate even after level 130+. Just tested it. A Rhino accompanied me on this, and he kept using Rhino Stomp. Didn't see him one-shotting enemies past 120+, while Molecular Prime did the job. Hell even the Nekros I played with beat the Rhino in kills, but that could be player differences.

M-Prime kept one shotting enemies after level 120 you say? Yeah, I'm going to need to see evidence of this. Especially evidence of it one shotting actual armored targets like heavies.

 

The wider problem? And what is the 'wider' problem? That Saryn is a good well balanced frame? And Nova isn't? By your logic, we should leave OP abilities as is because if we don't, another frame is going to take Nova's place as the OP frame. Well it kind of works that way when it comes to balance. When one frame get's tweaked to be not OP, but not garbage, it stops getting the attention because it's not as overpowered as it used to be. Saryn is still one hell of a good frame, even long after U7.

The wider problem is that people can press 4 to kill everything around them, duh. Ult spam. Seriously, U7 was all about Saryn running into the middle of a spawn, hitting 4, and killing everything, just like the people complain that Nova does now.

...

Well, Banshee spamming sound quake was important too.

But anyway, you can't keep taking your initial premise (Nova is uniquely broken) as fact and argue from there. That's nonsense.

 

Well obviously. People will always look for the cookie-cutter builds. The point of nerfing these builds is to make other frames seem more appealing, hence increasing the variation within frames, gameplay, and possibly DE's earnings because more people want to play different frames for different reasons, other than them being OP. If you think every frame besides Nova, Frost, Rhino and Trinity are useless, then you just need to play the other frames more. They are all USEFUL, in their own ways. Nova as is just fills every frames shoes, making the other frames redundant and also makes newer players flock to her like moths to an electrified candle. . . Actually I am not sure if moths are attracted to light but whatever.

Do you have any idea how a metagame works in any game? Seriously? Because nerfing doesn't actually work like that in practice. It didn't work like that for ME3, it doesn't work like that here, it doesn't work like that in any game I'm familiar with.

 

Banshee can get up to 1000% increased damage with the right build. Kicker is, she can't cut the damage an ally takes in half, nor slow down the enemies to a crawl. Combine that with Sonar being unreliable as rusted metal, as aiming at the weakpoints will sometimes yield no effect whatsoever, and that having to aim on weakpoints actually takes something called a certain amount of aiming ability, casual players will not flock to the frame that MIGHT increase your damage output by a 1000%, but rather to the frame that reduces enemy damage output and speed by 50%, and ally damage output by a 100%. Reliability over complexity.

Actually, Banshee can cut the damage an ally takes down to 0. That's what happens when you have a very good hard CC power.

 

Crowd Control definition: 

Activity of controlling a crowd[/size]

 

Slowing down a rioting crowd down to the kind of speeds equaling a turtle, is definitely landing under the category of controlling a crowd... Simply by altering their mobility significantly. Anything that takes control away from a crowd, can be considered crowd control. Some abilities do it better than others like the ones you mentioned.

We're discussing crowd control in context of an online shooter. In which case CC is generally defined as something that staggers and/or knocks down an enemy, preventing them from shooting at all.

 

Wormhole is hella useful for fast-travelling, and not much else.

And getting to hard to reach locations about as well as Loki can. And redeploying around the map. It also has epic synergy with heavy impact if you use it right.

 

Anti-matter drop is potentially one of the most damaging abilities in the game. Combined with M-Prime, it very well might be. BUT! Thanks to Molecular Prime being as awesome as it is; slowing down and decimating entire crowds within a radius of 58 meters, anti-matter drop is hardly necessary. Possibly never will be considering that whatever enemy may be standing before you after 'all-is-dust' is nothing but a mere shell of the original threat.

AMD is not used as much because it takes considerably more effort and skill to use. If it was changed in some fashion so as to make it as accessible as M-Prime, we'd see it used just as often if not moreso.

 

Try putting on the following: 

Blind Rage (Rank 8 in my case)

Focus (max)

Overextended (max)

Stretch. (max)

 

The result will be the following:

A Molecular Prime with an effective radius of 58 meters, with an explosion radius at 32 meters, which damage opponents for 800 damage while adding +51% additional damage. At the cost of 110 Energy.

You're forgetting to factor in armor damage reduction. :(

 

I brought a Lanka with me, with a maxed Armor Piercing and Electrical Damage, Shred, Point strike, Vital Sense, Hammerstrike, and the mandatory Serration and Split Chamber mods.

This is your control? Oh come on man, that's like bringing an Acrid with max damage rainbow build and saying it's a fair test of Nova's damage abilities.

 

I had no trouble dealing with any opponent that came at me after level 120, and I am posting this coming fresh out of that game so that my memory does not fail me.

We're discussing the explosions created by M-prime here, not your lanka carrying your nova through the game, just FYI. Edited November 20, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[tripletriple]

The scary part is DE might acutally listen to these nerf crazy fools and actually nerf nova. Lets Hope DE is smarter than that.

[Volume]

I love how M Prime is all people care about when AM Drop is the real overpowered ability here.

[TwiceDead]

This is a Two-Parter.

 

M-Prime kept one shotting enemies after level 120 you say? Yeah, I'm going to need to see evidence of this. 

I wrote this, and didnt imply it oneshots everything:

 

 Thanks to Molecular Prime being as awesome as it is; slowing down and decimating entire crowds within a radius of 58 meters, anti-matter drop is hardly necessary. Possibly never will be considering that whatever enemy may be standing before you after 'all-is-dust' is nothing but a mere shell of the original threat.

Meaning I did in fact not imply that enemies died in one shot from MP, but when they didn't die, they were hardly the original threat they used to be. Didn't stop me, from one-shotting heavies and ancients past level 120 using my Lanka in combination with MP. You could argue "But euh! Banshee has 1000% damage increase and DEFINITELY one-shots!" Yes but at a much smaller range, a smaller duration, and the requirement for it to tick off is that it has to be actually WORKING when you aim at the weak spots, and that you actually need a certain degree of aiming skills. MP is far more reliable as a pure damage boost, and a CC power. 

 

But anyway, you can't keep taking your initial premise (Nova is uniquely broken) as fact and argue from there. That's nonsense.

Are you going to provide an actual counter argument that makes sense other than "It's not OP" or "She's a porcelain doll" to stop me? 

 

Do you have any idea how a metagame works in any game? Seriously? Because nerfing doesn't actually work like that in practice. It didn't work like that for ME3, it doesn't work like that here, it doesn't work like that in any game I'm familiar with.

Metagame in ME3? Do you have ANY idea what you are talking about? In Mass Effect 3 classes and weapons were frequently nerfed because they were too powerful in combination UNLIKE warframe, and this makes it's multiplayer a seriously enjoyable experience. Typhoon + N7 Destroyer for instance. Broke the game when the N7 first hit the fields on ALL difficulties, made all the other difficulties trivial. ME3 had examples of balance done well however. Once they released the Volus and the Geth Prime's, you'd suddenly see people running tanky builds on platinum with Voluses covering their asses with shield restore, but in order to survive the every little bit of damage reduction helped, and then we get Adept Asari Justicars dropping Biotic Sphere that decreased damage taken by 40%(which is a much better way of balancing a protective shield rather than the way frost globe works), helping out even more as long as the Geth Prime could hold aggro. Every class in ME3 and every unit had some ability that aided their teammates in some way other than killing everything in site before the other team-members got to even fire a shot. Abilities synergized better between classes in that game. Warframe is not example of class synergy done well. 

 

Actually, Banshee can cut the damage an ally takes down to 0. That's what happens when you have a very good hard CC power.

And what can she do in the meantime? How long does it last? 6 seconds at most? For 70 energy(streamlined)? What can she do in the meantime? Can she move? Can she shoot? So you efficiently take away one gun from the fight lowering the total amount of damage being dished on the field,

Instead of bringing a Nova who can slow down an entire enemy spawn to a crawl, decrease their damage output by half, and double ally damage output and still be in the fight? Is this registering to anyone? I am feeling like a parrot here repeating the same thing over and over! 

 

We're discussing crowd control in context of an online shooter. In which case CC is generally defined as something that staggers and/or knocks down an enemy, preventing them from shooting at all.

No. That's how you interpret crowd control in an online shooter. This is far from written in stone anywhere. In a competitive online shooter if somehow any developper would allow players to slow down an opponents movespeed by half for a duration of an entire minute, there would be an outrage in that game. Thankfully I have yet to see that happen. But this is beside the point you are failing to see. 

 

And getting to hard to reach locations about as well as Loki can. And redeploying around the map. It also has epic synergy with heavy impact if you use it right.

Heavy Impact is a waste of mod space though considering it's far too situational. You need to have practically no roof over your head, considering most of this game is spent in confined spaces it's usefulness drops drastically. Only class I see that synergise well with Heavy Impact are Vauban and Excalibur. I am not even taking the laggy nature of portals in this game into account. Like most of Nova's abilities, far too ping dependent. Unless you run Loki and abuse the wall-run bug... Not sure if it's around anymore. Closest you get to actual meta-gaming in this game is Tier 3 Defense. The artificial difficulty through infinite scaling this game has to offer, is not end-game content worth playing at it's current stage, because the game doesn't actually get more challenging. 

Edited November 21, 2013 by TwiceDead

[TwiceDead]

Cont. 

AMD is not used as much because it takes considerably more effort and skill to use. If it was changed in some fashion so as to make it as accessible as M-Prime, we'd see it used just as often if not moreso.

Effort and skill to use... Maybe if you're host. If you're not and your host is bad, good luck controlling that rubber-banding ball of light, or even seeing where it's going. Then again we have Mprime so we don't really need to use this baby. A real shame... Facts are a Nova won't even think of using Anti-matter drop unless they are in an absolutely safe-spot. While it does have the highest damage potential, it also takes far more time to make it competent enough to be worth it. Now in combination with the current Mprime it definitely becomes tastier, but why go through the hassle when all you need to do is press 4 and watch the pretty fireworks 90% of the game?

 

You're forgetting to factor in armor damage reduction. :(

Yeah. Realized it was really stupid of me to even bring damage increasing mods, as I am sure I could've added more survivability to my Nova rather than focus on pure damage, should've left Molecular Prime with Stretch and Overextended, and disregarded Focus and Blind Rage. Adding more survivability to her would at the same time allow me to move around a lot more, once again proving that she's no porcelain dolI and has no problems fighting on the fronts... I came to that realization during the late game when MP suddenly didn't do more than 220 on heavy-gunners... The grunts though? They didn't stand a chance. You got to understand the supposed domino effect this ability brings. For every enemy that explodes in the vicinity of another enemy, that's more damage spread across the board, and the end result will be all the same... Considering the nature of the current AI where they always feel like they have to be clustered together, exploding an entire spawn even on 120+ content becomes no sweat whatsoever. 

 

So yeah, kids, don't bother putting Focus or Blind Rage on your MP. Go for range, the explosions are not where the fun is. 

This is your control? 

No, this is not my control. 

 

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

 

My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kil me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...

 

My Rifle and I know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, but the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...

 

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

 

Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life."

 

No... Lanka is my Damage. M-Prime is my Control.  

We're discussing the explosions created by M-prime here, not your lanka carrying your nova through the game, just FYI.

Who says I can't bring something that's already in the game into the final equation? Be happy I didn't go with Vectis, Acrid or Soma, or else I would've really let you hear how I steamrolled through it. 

 

YOU are discussing the explosions created by M-prime. I have been discussing everything about this ability that breaks the gameplay since I bothered to throw myself headfirst into the discussion six pages in. Trust me, if explosions were the only issue I had with this ability, I'd be happy. I'd be smiling, I wouldn't care as much, but because this ability harbors so MUCH more than silly explosions. I wouldn't have minded if the ability had come with no explosions at all. The utility it brings in itself is GODLIKE. 

 

EDIT----------------------------

 

The scary part is DE might acutally listen to these nerf crazy fools and actually nerf nova. Lets Hope DE is smarter than that.

Once you can provide an actual legit sounding argument that doesn't include slinging ad-hominems, I am sure someone will eventually listen to you as well. 

Edited November 21, 2013 by TwiceDead