The Dominance of Slash and Hunter Munitions

[(PSN)Unstar]

The other day I took some time in the Simulacrum to do some testing and optimize the builds of some of my Incarnon weapons, with the intent of making my overall Arsenal better suited for SP Circuit — meaning each weapon needed to be entirely self-sufficient.  I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was definitely disappointed by the overwhelming amount of weapons that killed faster and more efficiently when equipped with Hunter Munitions (or Hemorrhage, when applicable).  In most builds, Heat took both more time and ammo to achieve kills.  Even Slash-weighted weapons with high status — modded with a pair of 60/60 mods to give Viral — generally seemed to be more effective when modded with Hunter Munitions than simply relying on Slash to occur via "natural" procs.

Previously I had known that Slash was easily one of the most powerful statuses in the game, but this left me feeling like Slash — and in particular, Hunter Munitions — isn't simply powerful, but that it's currently so dominant in higher-end content that it may limit build and weapon variety.  That's just my perspective based on my experiences though, so I'm curious to hear what others feel.

[-Krism-]

I don't know if you noticed, but last update brought changes to Puncture & Cold

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

Did you try comparing it to internal bleeding? 

 

Also, phenmor.

[BiancaRoughfin]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

I'm curious to hear what others feel.

Personally i hate Slash and the worshiping people do about it on the forums and youtube videos, i wish DE had done the Nerf they were going to do a wile back where the Proc would apply damage based on the Slash the weapon had and not the sum of the damage types.

I dont bother building weapons with Slash for SteelPath/Spiral simply because in SteelPath i usually just do a few missions to level up a weapon or grab some Steel Essence, i dont do lvl9999 missions as i find spending hours in the same mission something extremely tedious.
For Spiral, the Decrees give us more than enough bonus to endure long runs.

Regarding Hunter's Munition, Hemorrhage and Internal Bleeding, i really Wish DE removed those, they are bad bandaid mods, Hemorrhage and Internal Bleeding specially, to me those are example of DE's lack of capability to balance out other damage types, the lack of a spine to Nerf Slash as it should have despite community backlash and trying to make Impact more relevant.

[0_The_F00l]

Slash procs are the most effective at killing pretty much anything in the game cause it has the nasty benefit of simply ignoring the most prevalent means that enemies have to reduce damage, that is armour.

And hunter munitions triggers on another thing that has some special properties of its own - critical damage. Irrespective of the actual weapon having any slash weightage.

So you pair the two together and you have a recipe for game breaking damage output.

It definitely added more punch to weapons that were ignored before when hunter munitions was released , but it made other weapons obsolete as well.

Overall I think its ok , but i also think it's time slash got some changes.

[Tiltskillet]

AFAIC the issue is  armored ehp  more than bleeds.  In any case I'd hope that armor scaling and the fragility of unarmored units would get addressed before looking at bleeds.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Hmm... if SP Circuit is just the base. So only against Corrupted units then. I like to point to this video by someone...

 

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

"Dominant" means different things to different people so it doesn't matter. 

A lot of people use guns because it's easier, but I feel melee is still the most dominant and better than guns.

[CatboyPrincess]

bleed can be worse than gas, elec, toxin, and heat procs against unarmoured targets.

Against enemies with no armour and significant shields, slash is often worse or terrible compared to Toxin.

Against grouped enemies with no armour, Slash is potentially quadratically worse than electric and gas.

slash/bleed procs are good against armoured targets only strictly because of neutral dmg modifier (for better and worse) and armour piercing.

it's decent early and mid game, but after helminth and armour stripping abilities are unlocked, its value drastically depreciates. Notably, bleed has a 0.35x multiplier compared to 0.5x for all other DOT statuses, making it 30% weaker assuming neutral health modifier.

Because of Operator arcanes like Magus Melt Magus Accelerant that can set an enemy's hp mod up to a flat +100% (2x dmg) for heat, it's that much weaker than heat (on top of heat inherit and duration refresh mechanics). This would make bleed 75% weaker than heat across the board (without taking heat bonus mod into account).

 

late-game/min-maxed, Bleed's dmg potential is overshadowed by other procs.

 

for the most part, i think slash's popularity comes down to ease of modding and use.

Edited August 20, 2023 by CatboyPrincess
melt -> accelerant

[(NSW)Greybones]

I don’t get the thinking here; what do you think Steel Path is for? Is there some kind of expectation that Steel Path isn’t going to be the place for limited weapon and build variety or something and that it’s meant to be balanced? Variety is secondary consideration for the mode and is what the rest of the game is for

Edited August 20, 2023 by (NSW)Greybones

[SneakyErvin]

Currently I barely use any weapon with slash. Right now it is only when I use Burston or Bronco, other than that I use slashless Torid, Angstrum or Furis modded for viral and heat. I do get massive slash when playing Garuda obviously, or on the minor side with Protea and Citrine. But I mostly play Frost or Lavos these days, so it is full on fimbulwinter or a saga of gas and fire.

[MutoManiac]

Is multi-shot more powerful than HM? I didn’t test properly, but on my Boar Prime, replacing Galvanized Hell with HM seemed to be less effective.

[rapt0rman]

40 minutes ago, m_a_r_c_h_ said:

Is multi-shot more powerful than HM? I didn’t test properly, but on my Boar Prime, replacing Galvanized Hell with HM seemed to be less effective.

Yes, multishot by value is better than most other stats, as it just makes your weapon do everything it was already doing, just better. But THB that's potentially more of an issue of modding priority. Unless you already have at least that much multishot on your weapon from other sources, Hell's Chamber should be one of the first mods you slot. It shouldn't be competing for a slot with HM, there's likely something else that could be replaced.

[leachPrime]

You honestly don't need slash in new incarnons. I use Xata's Whisper with Telos Bolter incarnon without HM. It still one shot level 1000 enemies if you manage hit the head.

Imo, weapons with condition overload(including guns) that proc so much status in very short amount of time is still better than Viral and HM.

[(XBOX)Tanta Cinta]

2 hours ago, m_a_r_c_h_ said:

Is multi-shot more powerful than HM? I didn’t test properly, but on my Boar Prime, replacing Galvanized Hell with HM seemed to be less effective.

Multishot adds more pellets which will increase the likelihood of Hunter Munitions triggering slash procs. More multishot = more pellets, more pellets = more chances to trigger Hunter Munitions per trigger pull.

One mod adds multishot, and the other is a crit-based utility mod that adds slash damage to your attacks. Multishot alone is deadly, and Hunter munitions thrives off of multishot; the two mods go hand-in-hand.

No matter what, you always want multishot first (unless you're using Simulor) before adding your modifier attack mods such as HM or Internal Bleeding.

Edited August 21, 2023 by (XBOX)Tanta Cinta

[Tiltskillet]

47 minutes ago, leachPrime said:

You honestly don't need slash in new incarnons. I use Xata's Whisper with Telos Bolter incarnon without HM. It still one shot level 1000 enemies if you manage hit the head.

I'm forgoing HM on some Incarnon weapons too. 

That being said, Telos Boltor has a bug that's making do far, far more damage than it should.  And if you look up "overkill" in the Oxford English Dictionary, it actually says the definition  is "Telos Xata headshot, bro."

[ReddyDisco]

Armor strip abilities got a qol improvement and far easier to achieve 100% strip, some of them are even helminth abilities pillage, terrify, tharros strike to name a few. If you are sick of slash viral then why not try armor strip and gas, works wonderfully. 

[Tiltskillet]

10 minutes ago, (XBOX)Tanta Cinta said:

No matter what, you always want multishot!!! (unless it's Simulor). 

Even then!  Just...not a lot. :P

[MutoManiac]

1 hour ago, rapt0rman said:

Yes, multishot by value is better than most other stats, as it just makes your weapon do everything it was already doing, just better. But THB that's potentially more of an issue of modding priority. Unless you already have at least that much multishot on your weapon from other sources, Hell's Chamber should be one of the first mods you slot. It shouldn't be competing for a slot with HM, there's likely something else that could be replaced.

I took your advice and replaced Primed Point Blank with HM. It does make a noticeable difference and made me happy! Thanks

So hurray, HM/slash on everything 😉

What I had (got rid of acolytes nicely):

Final build, maybe, lol. :

Edited August 21, 2023 by m_a_r_c_h_

[leachPrime]

39 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

That being said, Telos Boltor has a bug that's making do far, far more damage than it should.  And if you look up "overkill" in the Oxford English Dictionary, it actually says the definition  is "Telos Xata headshot, bro."

I think "Overkill" is an understatement for me. I use an multishot, CD with a negative riven on it. In Circuit we have extra hit with cold and corrosive. Do you know what I can kill with one shot? Level 3000 Thrax. Bruh

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

22 hours ago, CatboyPrincess said:

bleed can be worse than gas, elec, toxin, and heat procs against unarmoured targets.

And therein lies the point. Non-armored ehp is just that much lower that Slash's lowered DoT multiplier isn't relevant; they'll just die. Hunter Munitions is simply the best catch all. Other DoT procs "need" more actions (grouping, armor strip, etc) to reach the level. If you're stripping, proc DoT isn't very meaningful as they'll just die to the initial shots.
Armor needs to be answered, and HM provides the best answer for a gun by itself.

22 hours ago, CatboyPrincess said:

Because of Operator arcanes like Magus Melt Magus Accelerant that can set an enemy's hp mod up to a flat +100% (2x dmg) for heat, it's that much weaker than heat (on top of heat inherit and duration refresh mechanics). This would make bleed 75% weaker than heat across the board (without taking heat bonus mod into account).

Magus Accelerant is extremely tedious to use. This is also overvaluing Heat Inherit. It's not much more damage unless you have a decent riven for your primer or your weapon's base damage type is heat.

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, leachPrime said:

I think "Overkill" is an understatement for me. I use an multishot, CD with a negative riven on it. In Circuit we have extra hit with cold and corrosive. Do you know what I can kill with one shot? Level 3000 Thrax. Bruh

[MaxTunnerX]

On 2023-08-20 at 8:35 PM, BiancaRoughfin said:

Personally i hate Slash and the worshiping people do about it on the forums and youtube videos, i wish DE had done the Nerf they were going to do a wile back where the Proc would apply damage based on the Slash the weapon had and not the sum of the damage types.

I dont bother building weapons with Slash for SteelPath/Spiral simply because in SteelPath i usually just do a few missions to level up a weapon or grab some Steel Essence, i dont do lvl9999 missions as i find spending hours in the same mission something extremely tedious.
For Spiral, the Decrees give us more than enough bonus to endure long runs.

Regarding Hunter's Munition, Hemorrhage and Internal Bleeding, i really Wish DE removed those, they are bad bandaid mods, Hemorrhage and Internal Bleeding specially, to me those are example of DE's lack of capability to balance out other damage types, the lack of a spine to Nerf Slash as it should have despite community backlash and trying to make Impact more relevant.

Literally someone asking for nerfs again. Have you not ruined the game enough? And still asking to race to the bottom of the barrel instead of the other way around.

[Silligoose]

On 2023-08-20 at 8:20 PM, (PSN)Unstar said:

The other day I took some time in the Simulacrum to do some testing and optimize the builds of some of my Incarnon weapons, with the intent of making my overall Arsenal better suited for SP Circuit — meaning each weapon needed to be entirely self-sufficient.  I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was definitely disappointed by the overwhelming amount of weapons that killed faster and more efficiently when equipped with Hunter Munitions (or Hemorrhage, when applicable).  In most builds, Heat took both more time and ammo to achieve kills.  Even Slash-weighted weapons with high status — modded with a pair of 60/60 mods to give Viral — generally seemed to be more effective when modded with Hunter Munitions than simply relying on Slash to occur via "natural" procs.

Previously I had known that Slash was easily one of the most powerful statuses in the game, but this left me feeling like Slash — and in particular, Hunter Munitions — isn't simply powerful, but that it's currently so dominant in higher-end content that it may limit build and weapon variety.  That's just my perspective based on my experiences though, so I'm curious to hear what others feel.

Bleed is indeed extremely powerful, but I believe build variety is decreased to a greater extent than need be due to other mechanics in the game, as opposed to Bleed's mechanics and stats, with two issues (there are more) being:

• Damage Reduction (DR) scaling associated with armour (and armour scaling)
• Enemy HP in comparison to player damage output is too low

As one enters higher levels of content the DR scaling, together with armour scaling, leads to the EHP of armoured enemies skyrocketing in comparison with non-armoured enemies, with the vast majority of that EHP hinging on armour, to the point where it grants a lvl 140 Elite Lancer on SP just over 96,37% DR (effectively increasing HP by x27,6) or a lvl 140 SP Heavy Gunner around 98,57% DR (effectively increasing health by x70), anything that doesn't completely bypass armour, does a lot less damage. Even elements that decrease armour values and/or partially bypass armour values are severely affected by the remaining armour and associated DR. As a result, players tend to look at either using Bleed (paired with Viral), or just completely stripping armour, both of which are incredibly good options and outperform other options by far. Once armour is stripped, Slash tends to have damage type bonusses against the health type beneath the armour.

This brings us to the second point: Due to our massive damage output potential (millions of DPS) and enemy HP/Shields generally being rather pathetic in comparison (lvl 140 SP Comba EHP just below 400k, Elite Crewman below 50k), damage type doesn't matter all that much against enemies that don't have armour, which means even though something like Slash/Slash is neutral against Shields, it is still more than strong enough to get the job done extremely fast, so while players can look at increased effectiveness by way of other damage types, the practical benefit in killing a non-armoured enemy amounts to fractions of a second when wielding higher levels of player power. As such, there simply isn't much incentive to use other damage types. Some may argue that it is good that any damage type can be highly effective against non-armoured enemies or enemies that are stripped of armour, but all it really means is the variety in build options and damage types isn't all that impactful, relegating it to fluff, as opposed to impactful choices that can serve to give the game depth.

Other factors, such as enemies generally not being a threat and enemy spawn rates in endless SP missions being high. lead to the non-damage status effects of some other damage types not having much value.

It was disappointing to see DE try to monetize the imbalances by producing mods that lead to other damage types inflicting Bleed, such as Hemorrhage. It was disappointing to see the very recent changes to damage types and associated statuses, as it manages to add to power creep, but has no hope of actually addressing the root causes of lack of build diversity at higher levels of play. DE's lack of care for lategame balance remains disappointing.

Edit: It should be noted when wielding endgame power (10's of millions of DPS), the need for slash or even armour strip in encouraged content (SP up to Rot C) tends to fall away, but as noted earlier, this tends to decrease depth.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Silligoose

[nslay]

You build against weapon strengths and weaknesses... sometimes you gotta build Slash to prop up a weapon or exploit its naturally dominant Slash procs. Sometimes you need to build for Heat, Electric or Toxin because of a weapon's native damage types. Sometimes you have to build against Impact for Hemhorrage or whatever...

Personally, just based on my own experience, Slash is overrated and only really good against one type of enemy. If the enemy has lots of shields like the SP Corpus with the shield modifier, Slash is awful since it no longer bypasses shields. It's painful to watch Slash eat away, bit by bit, shields on massively shielded enemies. And it seems to be terrible at working off Overguard shields too!

When I have the option to pick my own gear, I feel Cerata (Toxin) paired with Phage and Catabolyst works better in general against all factions. It is my goto setup for all SP content because it works well enough for everything in the game. It generally one-shots Overguard shields, bypasses normal shields, and only needs marginal help for armored enemies. Compare that with Slash which only works well against armor and is terrible for shields and Overguard.