The Puncture Solution

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

So I was watching ballistic demonstration videos (as one does) and noticed a reoccurring theme in the scientific explanations: Ammunition compromises armor. To be more specific; armor, metal plate or Kevlar fabric, rapidly lose their ability to stop ballistics with repeated hits. The force of the bullets compromise the structural integrity of any ballistic protection it strikes, with armor-piercing munitions especially degrading the integrity of armors. So that made me think: why doesn't that happen in Warframe?

Puncture damage is somewhat of the black sheep among the three physical damage types. Where as Slash damage eats away enemy health and Impact opens up tough enemies to mercy kills (and can be modded to also proc Slash), Puncture is given the ability to reduce enemy damage output. This isn't a bad effect on paper, but in practice it is rather underwhelming. Enemies at especially high levels are not particularly phased by this reduction, and Warframes with exceptional survival options don't really see a point in hindering enemies when it is simply easier to kill them outright. Thus, the damage type as a whole is seen as only a modest benefit compared to other options. This can be changed, however, by changing the status effect to something more useful in eliminating enemies outright.

Thus here is my proposal: Puncture damage procs should permanently reduce enemy armor by 5%, up to 50%

Now I know what you're thinking: Why would we need this? We already have Corrosive and Heat to reduce armor! Well the trick here is that these procs need liberal application to be and stay in effect. Corrosive procs negate an initial 26% of armor, with the maximum reduction of 80% after 10 procs. Heat procs need a moment to ramp up to their temporary 50% reduction, initially starting at a 15% and ramping up to 50% after 2 seconds. That is precious time and ammo wasted waiting for either proc to go into full effect. Once both are in full effect, the target still has 10% of their armor. That may not sound like a lot, but to a level 150 Steel Path Grineer Lancer that is ~181AP, or an almost 38% average damage reduction. But if we slapped on an extra 50% armor reduction, we get only 5% Armor remaining; which is ~90AP, or ~23% average damage reduction.

That all said, the grand total of armor reduction is not the main concern. The main goal here is to strip armor quickly and efficiently. By changing the Puncture status effect, we add another tool to our weapons' arsenal for effectively tackling armor without abilities. Not every Warframe can delete armor on a whim, making especially heavy units a chore to destroy at higher levels. Having a weapon that not only gets bonus damage against armor, but also eats away consistently at it without specific elements would be extraordinarily beneficial. Plus it gives more options to weapon crafting. Now you could forgo the Heat or Corrosive mods in favor of something else if the weapon has innately good Puncture. More options are always good.

Either way, this was just a random idea. I'd love to see if anyone had a similar idea (or even thinks this is a good idea).

[TARINunit9]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Avant Solace said:

So that made me think: why doesn't that happen in Warframe?

It does, at least in theory. Puncture damage against Ferrite Armor (Heavy Gunners) ignores 50% of the target's armor and then deals an additional 50% as per elemental weaknesses rules. Alloy armor (Bombards) is the same thing but with only 15% for both numbers

The problem is enemy armor is SO freaking strong (and Steel Path SO freaking boring) that the 50% double bonus still isn't enough, to say nothing of the meager 15%

[PhiZero]

Puncture could definitely use a supplementary effect like Impact with hemorrhage/internal bleeding.

Though as stared above, it does negate half of the enemies armor as a remnant of damage 1.0 when it was 100% armor negation, it just isn't documented anywhere noteworthy from what I can tell.

Though the larger issue of it's 50% armor pen is that Puncture isn't the heaviest status weight in most builds. ie, in an average scenario 30% of the weapons damage can be Puncture, but a 50% negation on armor at best will only improve its damage marginally.

Especially when it has to compete with +180%/+270% corrosive damage that carries the same passive of armor pen.

Maybe if you gave the spare slot, you could slot in +120% Puncture on a primarily Puncture based weapon in addition to Corrosive? Though that is going to be better for pure IPS builds if you source viral and/or corrosive from elsewhere.

edit: You could consolidate the armor pen effect from Corrosive to Puncture only, which is viable on rifles and pistols as those weapon classes don't have a primed toxic/electric mod. So at best +120% Puncture only has to compete against +180% corrosive, which is 1 mod slot saved at the expense of a loss in up front damage, which can be replaced with Primed Faction damagae to edge out slightly ahead of a corrosive combo, or paired with heat damage for further armor strip and DoT to finish off targets.

Edited June 10, 2023 by PhiZero

[Qriist]

Why not just have whichever hits proc Puncture totally bypass (ie, puncture) current armor?

If that's too strong, then how about the same idea but it bypasses 10% of armor per stack. (Puncture already caps at 10 stacks.)

This gives a reason to actually give a little weight to puncture in your elemental ratios. In this model, Slash remains a consistent damage dealer while Puncture allows for better burst damage.

[RobWasHere]

To make it distinct from Heat and Corrosive, it could be flat base reduction like Shattering Impact.

[PhiZero]

40 minutes ago, Qriist said:

Why not just have whichever hits proc Puncture totally bypass (ie, puncture) current armor?

If that's too strong, then how about the same idea but it bypasses 10% of armor per stack. (Puncture already caps at 10 stacks.)

This gives a reason to actually give a little weight to puncture in your elemental ratios. In this model, Slash remains a consistent damage dealer while Puncture allows for better burst damage.

That's practically how Corrosive worked initially, and you'd lose the bonus damage against ferrite armor at 100% negation. So realistically it should be 8-9% armor reduction per stack, but it would make Corrosive inferior as it doesn't carry a damage debuff. With heat as a supplementary effect, Puncture can theoretically reach 75% armor pen but no further without armor strip or Corrosive.

21 minutes ago, RobWasHere said:

To make it distinct from Heat and Corrosive, it could be flat base reduction like Shattering Impact.

I can picture the shenanigans already, that would be OP with Corrosive and turn its temporary armor reduction into permanent armor strip, and I'd be all for it.

 

Though honestly, rather than outright increasing its armor pen or armor reduction to compete, I'd like to see a stripped down version of Arcane Shiver. Either as a base effect for all Puncture or as a mod.

ie, +2% ~ +4% "faction" damage per stack of Puncture, so it caps out at +20% to +40% "faction" damage at max stacks.

It would be like a mini Roar, doesn't outright invalidate Primed Faction mods, and would suffer from diminishing returns if it's introduced as a mod so you'd either pick Primed Faction or Puncture for universal damage.

That's just up front damage alone. With DoT effects double dipping on this type of damage, we could shift the DoT meta away from Innate/Forced Slash procs, making Puncture a viable secondary stat for Heat/Gas builds.

Edited June 10, 2023 by PhiZero

[(XBOX)Avant Solace]

44 minutes ago, RobWasHere said:

To make it distinct from Heat and Corrosive, it could be flat base reduction like Shattering Impact.

Kinda what I was going for. The main problem with Shattering Impact is simply that it can strip armor outright with enough hits. That's a bit much for one damage type. Perhaps have the reduction cap be 75%? That way the armor left over is tiny and can be made almost nonexistent with either heat or corrosive.

[Enxchiol]

This made me wonder, what if DE has made the Incarnon Latron as a testing ground for the puncture-reduces armor effect.

 

The only issue i would see is that then it would be functionally identical to Corrosive status.

 

An idea I had: puncture procs can stack infinitely now, each with an independent stack. The status effect would increase the puncture damage an enemy takes by 10% each. This would still probably be a quite niche option but it could make for some funky builds on some weapons.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

On 2023-06-09 at 6:06 PM, RobWasHere said:

To make it distinct from Heat and Corrosive, it could be flat base reduction like Shattering Impact.

That would be more than Distinct from heat corrosive; it would outright make them Obsolete.

since heat/corrosive remove a percentage of Current armor, they can never fully remove armor (diminishing returns).

if puncture removed Base armor, and thus could Fully Strip, I'd have no reason to even bother with the others.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Idea for a fun perk, and an issue that's always bugged me.

what if Puncture allowed you to shoot Grineer Heads from the backside; through that giant hood they wear?

 

-of course, in a perfect world Any Punch-Thru ought to do that..., but since it doesn't, and since puncture is lacking; how about we make a special case just for this?

Edited June 14, 2023 by (PSN)haphazardlynamed