Damage 2.0 I Get It Now......underwhelming Fully Explained

[yggdrazzle]

 

its implied that trap options re not options. Hey here's three good options two of them suck really badly but its ok since you can choose, its called options. This doesn't not fly in the min max world only options that provide different uses for different situations can qualify as options. I went into extreme depth about every feature of 2.0 and explained what your thinking process of choosing build order might be and each time i only see limitations; of course in the min-max perspective. 

 

 

I want to stress enjoy war frame how you want to enjoy it, this is largely only a issue of min-max.

 

What you don't see is: they are not "trap options" at all. It only seems that way because right now, it's only the beginning and we only have a limited amount of weapons. But the new system allows the combinations to grow indefinitely. The real "trap option" would be before Armor 2.0 where there was only 1 way to damage an enemy, so simply the strongest weapon would do the job, meaning Soma, Acrid, Galatine on everybody.

 

 

Before, it was just a very linear progression: Mk1 Braton does xxx dps -> Braton does xxx dps -> Soma does xxx dps... done, I have the highest number from {insert dps math equation}. Every update would just continue to give +10 damage +10 damage to the next weapon, etc. That is the true "trap option." Even if Armor 2.0 opened up 2 more options for each primary, secondary, melee, I would consider it a HUGE success compared to what we had before.

 

 

Which is exactly what they have done. They've created "gradients" of weapons. Where certain types are extremely good against 1 class, or pretty good against 2 classes, or just ok against all 3. This allows you to tailor your arsenal as you like. You can have a primary that is exceptionally efficient against Infested (Flux Rifle), Secondary that is decent against the other 2 classes, Melee exceptionally efficient against something that would often get close to you like an Ancient. You can also mod them accordingly with effects that you will think work best. Obviously Ancients have high armor, you'd probably want blast or weaken on your Melee, etc.

 

But... why would I bring a Flux Rifle then, to a Grineer mission? You might ask... What if they decided to make missions with BOTH types of enemies! *Epiphany!* Or all 3 Races?! Level 300 clusters of Shield Ospreys, Fusion Moa, and Ancients, what would be the most effective way to tackle that? Etc.

 

They can take this a step further, what if weapon types worked in tandem WITH warframe abilities! *Epiphany!* Maybe an ability can convert Flux Rifle's slash damage into impact? Or deal damage based on the total of all your types? Something along those lines.

 

Not only does it add variety to your own frame, it adds new elements of squad play to effectively tackle very high level missions with combinations of enemies. One person can be sickenly good at covering this type, another that type, etc.

 

On top of this, it gives you more control on how you (personally) enjoy killing the mobs. Maybe you are tired of using Soma 100% of the time, but didn't want to switch because it was just too damn good. Now you might have a shotgun/secondary combo instead that you have more fun playing which covers Soma's strengths or even outperforms the single Soma when used together.

 

I see a bunch of people griping about Armor 2.0, and normally I would just ignore it. But I had to post, since I haven't really seen anybody yet, that mentioned all the potential I see in the new system.

 

You may complain that min-maxing is no longer one-dimensional. I really think it's a blessing.

 

I thought the founders all voted on armor 2.0, I don't know why more of them aren't trying to explain what they so passionately envisioned for everyone. I wasn't involved in any of the development process, but I can definitely see what it can grow into.

Edited November 22, 2013 by yggdrazzle

[CloudPies]

Main problem with this system is, its very hard to understand at first. But once you do, its

-Corrosive does +75% vs Armor and +50% vs Robotic. 

-Magnetic does +75% vs Shield and +50% vs Robotic.

-Heat does +75% vs Flesh and +50% vs Infested.

Not very impressed in that regard.

Good damage systems are easy to understand, hard to min/max. But because of the existing damage types on certain weapons, there is only 1 road to min/max and its comparability pretty easy to do so.

[alocrius]

You do seem to be correct that there is only a couple builds that make sense per gun.  For some reason DE want it that way.  And you are correct, that isn't what they promised.  There is more diversity maybe, but it's spread over all the guns instead of diversity of builds per gun.  The chart of damage bonuses above doesn't make much sense if it presents only several viable choices.  If only we could trust DE to listen to player feedback and balance their sheet in a timely manner.. but alas, that is not their way. 

 

The only thing about 2.0 I was actually excited for was status proc's and as it's implemented now that's a total fiasco.  Status procs should at minimum be inherently useful, more tactical and be a basis for more dynamic gameplay/enemies.  There are sooo many ways they could make this system awesome.  

Edited November 22, 2013 by alocrius

[HAYABU5A]

i think the strategy for DE with this is that they know alot of these changes would piss people off and yes they could have implimented them in slower bit by bit to ease the pain

 

however they brought in all the changes at once so this is the worst it will get , now they will fix everything and make it better and it get only get better from now on out 

 

so it seems it was better to piss everyone off with everything at once quickly and in one go, then make it better , rather than slowly and painfully dragging it out over time lol

 

these are the dilemmas u face when changing a working system that everyone is accustom too to a different one, yet u yourself are not sure how the new system works in practice - do u take a long time slowly doing it hopefully better or go 100% balls to the wall and drive right in fixing it as u go?

[ClaymoreNo47]

Main problem with this system is, its very hard to understand at first. But once you do, its

Not very impressed in that regard.

Good damage systems are easy to understand, hard to min/max. But because of the existing damage types on certain weapons, there is only 1 road to min/max and its comparability pretty easy to do so.

Omg yes that's what i'm saying. Its hard to get at first but after you get it you realize there's only one and maybe possibly 2 routes; its easier to min max now. Elements are redundant when 3 does it better than the rest. Crit and damage mod effectivness are purely defined by base stats there's minimal thinking if at all.

Edited November 22, 2013 by ClaymoreNo47

[Mak_Gohae]

Well, since we have loadouts.... it's not like we need to stick to one specific combination always.

You can switch between loadouts specifically made to combat certain factions.

The only time you would have trouble would be in another faction invades and switches the enemies up.

[DHKany]

Very good analysis, and I agree completely. 

Instead of crowding us with bugfest 2.0 (and an incredibly buggy and ugly new UI and a pretty crappy frame), they could've just released an armor fix and avoided all this hassle. 

 

So far, I've encountered 10+ nigh game-breaking/EXTREMELY annoying glitches introduced with this update. Also hate how MANY of the machine pistols have just become super generic. twin vipers were SUPER fun with elemental mods, but since they do jack sh*t on it, it is basically shoehorned into a crit build. Might as well call infinity ward over and replace then with dual glocks. 

[Kylar]

Small point i think youve missed with the %s. Heat gives a 75% bonus to flesh while toxic gives 50%. But you missed that you can only get 90% (150 with hellfire) extra damage from a heat damage mod. While using toxic you can get 180% with the added 50% due to toxic's proc. Also note that the damage from the elements themselves seem to have seperate procs from the combined versions. So if your gun has a 10% chance to proc with radiation and viral as elements you would have a total proc rate at around 60% with a tiny chance at procing everything and doing massive damage. Which ive seen before with the dera with the above setup. One round without multishot hit for 4.5k on a level 25 enemy.

[Xylia]

What they need to do, is stop with the %%%%%%%%%%% on every stinking mod.

 

Why does everything have to be a % of something?

 

Are you using a weapon that has 0 puncture? Well, don't bother with stuff like No Return, Piercing Hit, or Sundering Strike, because they are 100% useless because everything has to be a % of everything.

 

These mods should always add a minimum amount of such damage to a weapon. Maybe they could do % or that minimum amount of damage, whichever is greater. That would give us a slightly better range of options, and it'd prevent weapons from being one-trick ponies (the weapons that only have 1 damage type). Now you'll never get a Flux Rifle to do awesome Impact, but if you're in a mission where you need the Flux Rifle for some enemies but yet you still need some impact, it'd be better than nothing maybe.

 

And then you have the Critical Hit mods. Are you using a weapon that has 5% critical hit chance? Well, Critical Hit Mods are useless for that weapon! Don't even bother; that 20% Critical Hit mod will only give you, what, 1%? oooo. That's helpful..... /sarcasm

 

Every mod should have a minimum benefit, to prevent mods from being 100% useless.

[ClaymoreNo47]

Small point i think youve missed with the %s. Heat gives a 75% bonus to flesh while toxic gives 50%. But you missed that you can only get 90% (150 with hellfire) extra damage from a heat damage mod. While using toxic you can get 180% with the added 50% due to toxic's proc. Also note that the damage from the elements themselves seem to have seperate procs from the combined versions. So if your gun has a 10% chance to proc with radiation and viral as elements you would have a total proc rate at around 60% with a tiny chance at procing everything and doing massive damage. Which ive seen before with the dera with the above setup. One round without multishot hit for 4.5k on a level 25 enemy.

thanks for pointing that out and you are correct. In fact im in the middle of doing practical analysis since the info i gave was only theoretical analysis which does not include what is realistically accomplish able with he available mods we have. There's going to be huge differences between gun types since rifles shotguns and pistols each have such different amounts of certain elements its going to be one huge giant jumble of analysis. 

 

 

Also where can i find how much the procs damage. The reason elemental proc is such a nightmare right now is because alot of guns have non existent proc status percentages. So for those weapons procing should just be ignored.

Edited November 22, 2013 by ClaymoreNo47

[AngelGuardcc]

Holy....Nice guide

[ReiganCross]

Ha ha, No.

 

If you don't want to min-max then you stick in a +damage mod and whatever else you like. The reduction is armour scaling makes weapons more viable that were not min-maxed. The decision as to whether you should go crit build etc is exactly the same as before.

 

The same as before... Namely, it the weapon have good base crits, you should make it a Crit weapon... If it doesn't, you should make it a Damage build... Your only choice here is choosing the weapon, if i want a Critical Weapon, i'll go to Soma or Grakata, not exactly choosing the way you'll build it.

[DHKany]

Just wondering are shotgun procs based on the pellet or on the actual shot itself? (coming from ME3 where proc chances were based on the actual pellet count which basically gave shotguns 100% proc rate). 

[ClaymoreNo47]

Just wondering are shotgun procs based on the pellet or on the actual shot itself? (coming from ME3 where proc chances were based on the actual pellet count which basically gave shotguns 100% proc rate). 

its per pellet. However it must be noted a pellet has very little damage because the total shotgun damage was sperated 5-9 times. So for things like stun, you gain more chance to stun but for things like dot and bleed damage that are base on the shots total damage, you'll be gaining a relatively small amount for the pellets that proc it.

 

I need much more testing 2.0 has a few bugs i've noticed some procs dont work properly.

[Slayblaze]

Oh yeah and PS, Gorgon is king again. I can live with that. 

And so we've come full circle - achieving the same thing as was once spurned and discarded, only with a crap-ton of manhours involved in creating dmg 2.0 down the drain.

[Lorenzhart]

didn´t they say that was exactly what they wanted to do?

 or im i wrong? i don´t know anymore.

 

They mentioned in a livestream that it shouldn't be like it at all. Many of us opposed the rock/paper/sissors system when the elemental revamps were mentioned.

 

Apparently, I concur that this has become a min-max game, well perhaps for the better in a sense that different weapons for different situations, but that also means cookie cutters to be even effective.

[Kylar]

The procs damage seems to match with the stated damage on the equipment screen. But only for the combination. It doesnt list what the proc for the 2 seperate elements will do unless you have excess damage. I.E Hellfire and wildfre with convulsion. youd get radiation and heat left over. But it does still seem to work the same way as before. Just find your weapons physical damage total then apply the %. (Accounting for weaknesses will be a HUGE pain now as enemies have varying stats based on level and type as well as many weapons doing many different types of physical damage)

[FoxyKabam]

change the status chance mod cards to add a flat percent instead of a percent on a percent?

 

+10% status chance on a 1% status chance = 11% chance instead of what is it 1.8% now?

[Casval_Rouge]

Honestly you can't have percentage mods when all your weapons have such varying stats, IT DOES NOT WORK.  You will always end up maximizing on 1 build per weapon because it is very clear which is best.  There are no mathcraft to be done here.  If my gun has 1% of crit, or proc, avoid crit and proc mods.  If my weapon does lots of charge damage, and less spam damage, use charge mods (and it will always be obvious because of pseudo-balancing.  Where you try to reduce something and increase another to achieve balance.  Yet in reality balancing is far more complex than that.)   Either you make mods give flat bonus, or do it the MMO way where it is ratings.  As long as the mods remain the same in principle as it is right now, Damage 2.0 is far from fixing anything.  But does put out the ground work, so good job.  Now we need to tweak other things.

 

 

What I'm trying to say is - Fix the mods first, and then look at weapons and powers.  It is not balanced at all.  We need updates that is focused on balancing now.  Before we were waiting for 2.0, now that it is out, you can't put off balancing anymore, otherwise the overhaul is wasted.  Look at ALL the mods (intruder, diamond skin, warm coat, etc), look at the stats of the weapons, look at the powers.  Compare what Rhino can do and see how worthless Volt and Ember are.   

[ShroudedInLight]

I'd like to mention something, as he said in a small point; weapons that specialize in a single aspect are superior to their counterparts before we look at weaknesses.

 

Impact Damage: Boosts damage to robots and does less to infected

Puncture: Boosts damage to Armor and does less to infected

Slash: Does more damage to infect and less to robotic.

 

Now, basically this means "Impact > Corpus, Puncture > Grineer, and Slash > Infected"

 

However, there are situations in which specializing will screw you. Welcome to the Void gentlemen, where using a specialty weapon custom built to shred your faction of choice will do nothing. This is where your average weapon comes in handy, something like the Brakk which does 50, 50, 50 damage. These weapons will deal less damage to specific targets but more damage to all targets, vital in Towers and Derelicts in my opinion. Infact, specializing will be the death of you in those areas unless you come prepared. Thus it's going to be important to have both "pure weapons" and split damage weapons.

 

~~~

 

Now I know you're saying "How do I min-max these days?" Well, here's the truth of it. Not a whole lot has changed except that you no longer need to apply armor piercing damage in the form of a mod, you need to apply it in the form of an element. Puncture, Blast, Gas, and Corrosive are the only AP elements these days. Puncture sucks verses infected, Blast is decent, Gas does less damage to robotics...so Corrosive is the AP element of choice. Dealing a potential 125% to robots or just 75% bonus damage to armor. The highest available, made from Electric+Poison. This is how you handle Armor these days gentlemen, the days of No Return and Piecing hit are long and dead. Your other alternatives as talked about are Magnetic and Heat. Magnetic is the shield killer...not sure why you'd need to kill large amounts of shields but it could be a conclave thing; but Heat is your infected element of choice.

 

Ironically, you can have a Corrosive Heat Weapon; so Infected are now Fodder before you. Rainbow Build is back, baby, etc....

 

However, I had a point to make about how to min-max these days. Honestly, the new damage system hasn't changed a thing except what you need o know. Before the build for damage was simple, "Apply Damage, Apply AP damage, Apply Multihit, Apply Crits/Elements depending on your crit chance, win."

 

The case is similar these days.

 

To explain, it's simple, the new mods function like "Charged Chamber" used to function. It's an extra boost to base damage that doesn't matter much without FURTHER bonus damage from elemental sources. You get more bang for your buck by going Damage right into an element instead of damage with more specified damage. Only once you've applied an element (The new AP, Corrosive) should you apply one of the "Impact/Piercing/Slash" mods, at this point it will increase your damage significantly.

 

So the step to reaching true power is Damage, Corrosive, More damage.

 

Of course though, I'm lying when I say to go straight for those "3 basic damage type" mods, because they will not boost your damage as much as something else will. Multishot. As soon as you have Corrosive on your weapon, apply multishot, and your damage is going to be absurd. Just as usual, multishot is as powerful as it always has been.

 

So we have 3 steps to the process Gentlemen, Damage, Corrosive, Multishot; this takes 4 of eight mods...what next?

 

Now we come to the "weapon specific crossroads" so to speak, and what your using next will determine just what you should do. If you're using a "Focused Weapon" as I'll call them (one with a focus in just one of the 3 basic elements) then you should apply the corresponding damage mod. This will further increase your Corrosive Damage to absurd levels, and will be applied at least 2x by your mutlishot mod.

 

If your weapon does one thing well, Specialize in that damage type, then follow the steps below

 

If your weapon is "Balanced" instead of "Focused," or you have already focused...then you have a choice to make. Balanced Weapons benefit from a few things. Pick and match from the following four. 

 

1: Even more elemental damage, since you can't specialize you might as well just stack more elemental damage to multiply with Damage and Multishot. In this case, your only two left are Fire and Ice. So, you can do more damage to shields, more damage to infected...or you can go for solid blast damage to further increase your insane armor damage. This option is best for weapons that just want to stack damage, and is a variant of the Rainbow build. Certainly not dead, and probably it never will be unless they modify elemental damage multipliers.

 

2: If your weapon has a high Crit chance you can apply crit mods to it for a damage boost; if you're using a balanced weapon crits are a great way to increase your damage against everything without crippling overspecialization. 

 

3: Weapon Specific mods like Thunderbolt, Charged Chamber, and the rest are all incredibly useful once you've applied an element and multishot.

 

4: Utility Mods, Fire Rate, puncture, ammo, and all the rest can be set in here depending on what you need. 

 

So, to reiterate: THE NEW COOKIE CUTTER

 

1: Damage

2: Toxic

3: Electric

4: Multishot

5-8: Choose based on your gun, Specialize, Elementize (Fire or Cold or Blast), Critical, Special, or Utlity.

[ReiganCross]

Yeah, the whole problem really lies within percentages and how afraid DE is of letting people try something different with their pet guns. They couldn't possibly want to see a Galatine with high Attack Speed or Braton firing like a Sniper Rifle. This means that everything is % increase, to guarantee that it will remain within the restrictions designed. So the whole process of modding becomes kind of like a simon says...

 

That is not to say, however, that it is Damage 2.0 that broke this. Hell, if anything, at least Damage 2.0 gave us all these numbers to go around, that is inherently great, it is more depth added to the game for more things to consider when picking guns. What is broken now is not Damage 2.0, but Mod 2.0... This idea that everything is percentually increased from a fixed base. Stat Procs, for example... 15% of whatever the base is will be abysmally low, but a flat 15% increase would be much more towards being a possibility in every build. Which means that i don't care if you increase the Stat Proc from 15% to 200%, if it is percentually tied to a base, then it will STILL mean nothing unless the base of the gun is something, a 5% proc chance will only become a 10% proc chance.

Adding a Flat 200% however would just be plain-&#! wierd, but it is possible. Hear me out here. Mainly you could use the system of excess chance becoming something else, so if you somehow surpass 100% proc chance, then maybe the excess valor could be converted towards making the Proc itself stronger (So maybe longer stun and further sickness), in a exponentially diminishing way, so even if the player somehow stacks a flat 500% proc chance, he will have 100% proc chance and +15% proc effect. If he breaks the game even further and manages to get himself 1000% proc chance, he will have 100% proc chance and +20% proc effect... But you got the idea.

 

This can be transferred to critical chance. If instead of percentual increase of a percentual chance, we get a flat value. And if we somehow reach above an arbitrary maximum point (say 75% crit chance) then all excess crit chance above 75% is added towards crit damage, again with the idea of exponentially diminishing returns.

 

What i'm stating here is that what is creating this imbalance is the percentual increases of the Mod 2.0 system, we didn't had such problems on Mod 1.0 when he had mods such as +8 Clip size that allowed our Heks to reach 12 Clip Size and become true weapons of mass destruction. Returning to Flat Value would immensely help the customization process of not making every weapon basically dictate how we mod it.

(The problem that comes with Flat Values instead of percentual progressions is that each weapon would indeed feel kind of the same. After all you would be able to get high firing rate and large clip sizes on anything. So it wouldn't much matter if you were using a Braton or a Soma, if you equipped both with viable Critical Builds, then both weapons would be basically the same, with only slight differences. This was indeed a problem that disappeared ever since Mod 2.0 showed up... I don't believe it was the ideal solution, but i can't argue that it was at least reasonable...)

 

Bottom Line, blame Mod 2.0, not Damage 2.0... Damage 2.0 is actually rather fine, because now the enemy scaling is toned down by a lot.

[GSrevolution]

Alright, so focus on magnetic, corrosive and heat damage types whenever possible... got it.

[KittenST4R]

As a side note, you guys should try busting out your Latron Prime against Grineer if you have one.

With Blast element attached, I was critting for nearly ten-thousand damage earlier.

[ClaymoreNo47]

absolutely i don't blame damage 2.0 for anything in fact it does change things for the slight better. However its underachieving hype is to blame especially when their are real solutions to their problems. Now we gotta choose the right gun for the job not base on what it is. Hey i need a sniper for this open field map....its now i need this specific gun because it has low slash and high impact. I dont care if its an automatic, submachine gun, shotgun as long as its packing high impact i need it for this boss.

[ClaymoreNo47]

Alright, so focus on magnetic, corrosive and heat damage types whenever possible... got it.

 the order of importance is corrosive > heat > magnetic.

 

corrosive deals with armor which is the hp sponges (everything else dies relatively fast regardless of element type anyways its the hp soaks that matter and it has no weaknesses) heat because it has no weaknesses and like obliterates infested because it does 75% more to flesh and 50% more to infested. Lastly magnetic if some boss's have super shields you need to deal with ( however its noted that corrosive does 50% more to robotic as well which most boss's with shields are so corrosive still better).

Edited November 22, 2013 by ClaymoreNo47