Archon Mods

[SpiritTeA]

Oh boys, here we go… I loved the Veilbreaker update and changes, and was advocating them here on forums, but here is the worst part of update that needs some tweaks, imo.

Archon mods in concept are very great and interesting layer for end-game utility builds. But unfortunately they’re just bad at this point.

First of all drain, 16 drain is very big number , not that much of an issue, but still.

Second it’s inconsistency with mods. Flow and Continuity has stats of Primed mods, while all the others no. It makes those two mods simple upgrades over Primed mods, while other feel like rip off at some point.

And now bonuses, and oh it will be a lot to write. I love specific niche bonuses, but pardon me, current realization is just… Trash. Overall each mod works only on few frames for very specific builds.

For example Archon Stretch, when you deal Electricity damage with ability, you gain energy recharge. How much frames deal electricity damage? Volt, Gyre, Wisp, Vauban, Chroma, Lavos? And I mean it’s pretty poor, and that’s the best mod out here. We kinda get bigger Warframe  access through Elemental Ward, and that exactly those niche builds, but I still have bad taste in my mouth, and that’s the best mod out there! How could it be better? For example “Hitting enemy affected by Electricity status with ability regenerates energy” Now that would really wide the possibilities, most of previously listed Frames won’t suffer, as they still get bonus (second instance of their damage will now provide the energy regen) but also will provide utilization of our whole arsenal, like really, how often  do people build for Electricity damage outside of CO procs? (Gas+Electricity builds are nice AoE, but I don’t see them at all when playing).

Archon Intensify - that’s actually pretty interesting and really good direction. At first I thought “What? On healing? So you need to take health damage? So you need to facetank? Tanking in sp without Adaptation and Umbral mods is pretty bad experience, and why would I swap Umra Intensify for this crap?” But that was only first thought, than I remembered about mod like Combat Discipline. Very unique and niche interaction between mods. It doesn’t work with all the healing abilities available however , but well, that’s at least a good mod in my opinion, wouldn’t change it. 

Archon Vitality.. I honestly don’t understand it’s usefulness, I’m not playing Ember or other listed frames that can proc heat status, but it’s completely useless on my Hildryn with blazed pillage. It’s like “what? Double damage from fire status? Not 1000 but 2000 damage  from casting pillage? + completely useless main effect? I should clear level 10 infested with it? Cool maybe..” Yeah… Unfortunately I’ve never seen insane fire procs to justify slapping useless vitality mod for caster. IF it was BLEEDING proc instead of Fire I would say that this is best mod ever so far and I need more of those. But honestly, I haven’t played Fire casting frames much, so maybe if they’re able to deal 100 000 damage fire per tic from ability to SP Eximus… Actually I have Protea with turrets, they deal heat procs, actually was very strong. Alright, solid mod.

Archon Flow, first it’s direct yodate to Primed Flow, so want it or not, that already makes this as an alternative. As for bonus… No commentary… Like at all. How much Frosr frames we gave? Frost? Gauss? Do you can reliably kill with their abilities SP enemies? And 10% with 10 seconds cooldown, unfortunately no I don’t see it great at all, could it be better? Again, simply kill Frozen enemies with ability for chance of dropping orb. That’s overkill, probably would made it mandatory mod, but you could drop its max energy numbers to numbers of normal flow and you would be great.

Archon Continuity, the worst for last. Why worst? Because there is even less abilities that can proc poison status than dealing frost damage! But well alright, with all seriousness, procking Poison status is easier than killing with frost ability, so that’s a good? Another direct upgrade to Primed Mod, and could be VERY solid on some builds. And that’s why I don’t like it. There is no reason using Primed Continuity at all with this mod. Effect? Well it’s probably the weakest side effect, that ties with 10% energy orbs.  Corrosive is overall the least useful status atm (Hello blast, I pretend you not existing at all), because it’s only useful against Armored enemies, and those are already killed by slash procs. So I can’t really comment on this mod as I see no real and significant use of its effect, outside of being another primer for conditional mods.

in conclusion. Actually while I was writing it, I change my mind from Mods being in “very bad niche state” to “niche but acceptable”. Yes, yes I didn’t mention majority of Exalted Weapons, Elemntal swapping  abilities that could fill Mod conditions, so build diversity is pretty big? Probably right, unfortunately I’m, and I’m just unlucky to get pass since it doesn’t work with my favorite Warframe. I want to encourage you, Mesa, Excalibur, Inaros, Lavos, Zephyr, Vukong, Baruuk fans to test by yourself, as you can utilize 100% of those mods and write proper feedback, to give DE better understanding if they succeed or not. For me, fan of frames like Valkyr, Ash, Garuda, Hildryn, Oberon those mods are 95% total pass. Some mods are pretty interesting, but not something I could use myself often.

[taiiat]

the only one that isn't a direct upgrade at all times is Vitality. Intensify lets you spend less Mod slots for Strength than you would with Umbrals, that's pretty huge - but - you can't take advantage of it on all Warframes.

obviously Vitality you'd use only on Warframes which apply Fire Status from their Abilities and you want to boost that. seems pretty straight forward.

[chaotea]

1 hour ago, SpiritTeA said:

First of all drain, 16 drain is very big number , not that much of an issue, but still.

I agree on this point, if only because most builds that the secondary effect are good for, if former'd as much as is possible and for most newer frames or primes ive umbra forma'd. So theres just no space for a replacement that costs 50% more.

6 minutes ago, taiiat said:

the only one that isn't a direct upgrade at all times is Vitality. Intensify lets you spend less Mod slots for Strength than you would with Umbrals, that's pretty huge - but - you can't take advantage of it on all Warframes.

obviously Vitality you'd use only on Warframes which apply Fire Status from their Abilities and you want to boost that. seems pretty straight forward.

None of them that have an umbra varient are upgrades really. Sure, Intensify gives you a 30% power strength + an additional 30% after you heal something, but umbra intensify with 2 other umbras is 55% perminantly, with no conditions. In addition if you have all 3 your also benifiting from the incomparable health and armor increases.

Yea, i can see archon intensify being useful in builds, but really only on accounts who havnt compleated the sacrifice. And as its a pre-requisit to archon mods they're far less valuable as is.

[SpiritTeA]

1 hour ago, chaotea said:

 

None of them that have an umbra varient are upgrades really. Sure, Intensify gives you a 30% power strength + an additional 30% after you heal something, but umbra intensify with 2 other umbras is 55% perminantly, with no conditions. In addition if you have all 3 your also benifiting from the incomparable health and armor increases.

Yea, i can see archon intensify being useful in builds, but really only on accounts who havnt compleated the sacrifice. And as its a pre-requisit to archon mods they're far less valuable as is.

Well Umbra set is 3 mods, which are pretty useless by itself in steelpath or high lvl content, so you need to slap adaptation and it’s better to do on frame with already  good Armor-HP stats, so it’s 4 mod slots, meaning you have very little space to maximize your abilities. And if you planing to abuse shield-gating… It’s totally not worth 3 slots. But Archon intensity is only 1 mod, and I could put it on frame like Hildryn (to make some junk build with healing helminth and combat discipline) that has no reason using whole umbra set at all. 

[PhiZero]

Chipping in as well,

 

For Archon Intensify it's understandable that it's drain is 16, maybe even Archon Flow to an extent compared to the lower drain Primed Flow.

Meanwhile, in my personal opinion, Archon Vitality MUST remain at 16. It's not just a health mod, but can be a flat 2x power strength multiplier for Fire DoT builds for 1 slot. Meanwhile, the Umbral set is an additive 40-70% power strength depending on how many slots we dedicate to the set.

 

But Archon Stretch and Continuity, as for niche options they really shouldn't be their drain cost.

Stretch has Energy Siphon attached to it, and it basically increased in cost by 77% for a measly 2 energy per second with no extra increase to its base effect.

If it had a max drain of 12-14, it would be more in line as a niche side grade.

Im torn on Archon Continuity on the other hand, 1 corrosive proc per ability toxin proc is nice on paper, and could be decent for adding additional primers into live gameplay; but, corrosive functions best in multiple stacks as an armor strip, and toxin abilities very rarely create multiple procs at once. In some cases 16 is fine, but really it should match prime continuity.

1 hour ago, chaotea said:

I agree on this point, if only because most builds that the secondary effect are good for, if former'd as much as is possible and for most newer frames or primes ive umbra forma'd. So theres just no space for a replacement that costs 50% more.

None of them that have an umbra varient are upgrades really. Sure, Intensify gives you a 30% power strength + an additional 30% after you heal something, but umbra intensify with 2 other umbras is 55% perminantly, with no conditions. In addition if you have all 3 your also benifiting from the incomparable health and armor increases.

Yea, i can see archon intensify being useful in builds, but really only on accounts who havnt compleated the sacrifice. And as its a pre-requisit to archon mods they're far less valuable as is.

Correct, in some builds only Umbral Intensify will fit. Off the top of my head, Khora is one as she's really strapped for slots and can at best afford 2 umbral mods IF she isn't running a helmith ability with an augment like Spectro Siphon.

Though what really peeved me was needing repolarize the Umbral Polarity to Madurai on all of my casters that benefit from Strength but not Health/Armor...still feels bad to have to lose a rare forma.

24 minutes ago, SpiritTeA said:

Well Umbra set is 3 mods, which are pretty useless by itself in steelpath or high lvl content, so you need to slap adaptation and it’s better to do on frame with already  good Armor-HP stats, so it’s 4 mod slots, meaning you have very little space to maximize your abilities. And if you planing to abuse shield-gating… It’s totally not worth 3 slots. But Archon intensity is only 1 mod, and I could put it on frame like Hildryn (to make some junk build with healing helminth and combat discipline) that has no reason using whole umbra set at all. 

Never thought I'd see the 4-Slot-Syndrome from competitive pokemon in Warframe...were getting an 8-Slot-Syndrome with all of these new mod side grades and sets.

Dating my age at this point, this wouldn't have been an issue if we still had the same 10-mod slots for Warframes, but 2 slots were eventually removed, with 1 restored as the Exilus slot.

With the new focus on SP as the standard for gameplay, some of these builds such as an Umbral Nezha or Guruda could use an extra mod for diversity...or a better alternative for Umbral Vitality, Fiber, and Adaptation. 

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

None of them that have an umbra varient are upgrades really. Sure, Intensify gives you a 30% power strength + an additional 30% after you heal something, but umbra intensify with 2 other umbras is 55% perminantly, with no conditions. In addition if you have all 3 your also benifiting from the incomparable health and armor increases.

Intensify is an upgrade if your Warframe is able to make use of the activation requirement. less Slots for the Strength is pretty valuable. it's not always better but if your Warframe can make use of the activation requirement those Slots can let you grab stuff you otherwise couldn't. potentially more Strength, but also just more flexibility.

the EHP reduction obviously is there, but as it is Players are often going for glass cannons, so for a lot of Players it's highly appealing.
not if you would already have 3/3 Umbral and you're sure you want the EHP, but that's a given.

2 hours ago, PhiZero said:

still feels bad to have to lose a rare forma.

yeah that's uh
well, mixed, to say the least. maybe someday we'll get Universal Forma. it'd probably cost a Forma and Umbral Forma and maybe some other stuff to Craft, so it wouldn't be removing choices or anything.

[PhiZero]

11 hours ago, taiiat said:

yeah that's uh
well, mixed, to say the least. maybe someday we'll get Universal Forma. it'd probably cost a Forma and Umbral Forma and maybe some other stuff to Craft, so it wouldn't be removing choices or anything.

I really hope so...even if it's capped at 1 Universal Polarity per frame, would make a pretty big difference.

Currently:

Spend 1 Forma for any polarity > Sure, why not?

Does this build need the Umbral Polarity > Yes > Can it use the full Umbral Set? > Yes > Spend the Umbral Forma

Does this build need the Umbral Polarity? > Yes > Can it use the Umbral Set > No > Can it use Umbral Intensify > Yes > (pre-vielbreaker) Spend the Umbral Forma as there is no downsides/(Post-Vielbreaker)No a normal forma is better with Combat Discipline.

Great to know moving forwards, still painful to have to select an Umbral Polarity to be overwritten, hurts my soul to do it 3 times in one day to take advantage of a login affinity booster.