Mod feature request - *Please* make Equilibrium, Health Conversion, etc. work like Arcane Blessing and Synth Fiber

[CopperBezel]

TL;DR: I know it's been half a decade and we're all used to it, but can we please have Equilibrium, Health Conversion, and any other on-health-orb-pickup mods not depend on Synth Fiber to allow pickups at full health anymore? It's not that Equilibrium and Health Conversion necessarily need to be stronger in their own rights - useless mods abound - but Synth Fiber already exists and already gives them this advantage at little cost. The relationship probably wasn't intended, but either way, it's not a tradeoff, it's a box to check, and that makes it just bad QoL. The limitation reappears in very specific companion-free modes like Duviri Undercroft and Index, although those modes already have their own weird energy economies different from typical missions, and that limitation is just as arbitrary as the workaround in the first place. Meanwhile, Arcane Blessing exists and just ignores the whole mess, and these mods should really just be updated to drop it as well. 

 

I have no doubt this topic appears every three months but I couldn't find it in the search.

There are a handful of frames (Voruna, Protea, Nekros, Citrine) who are very good at producing health orbs, such that typical builds use Equilibrium as an energy source. Nekros has a years-long tradition of being used with Health Conversion. One of the advantages these four frames have is their ability to maintain energy without much upkeep or build space with builds using Equilibrium, and they're the only frames that can maintain a benefit from Health Conversion due to the short duration of the buff (or fully benefit from Arcane Blessing, which was released in the same update as Voruna.) None of these frames are wholly dependent on any of these mods - there are always other builds - but being able to benefit from these mods is a strength that these frames do presently have.  

Builds that do depend on them, however, are suboptimal without including Synth Fiber, the companion counterpart to Health Conversion, on a pet. This is because Equilibrium, Health Conversion, and similar do not allow the player to pick up health orbs while the frame and pet are at full health, but Synth Fiber allows picking up health orbs under all conditions (even allowing pickups to reset the duration of the companion armor buff while it's active.) It doesn't seem like this can have ever been the intention, since Synth Fiber is so similar to Health Conversion in concept, it seems arbitrary that their limitations would differ like this - they were just created at different times under a different meta. 

The interactions of these mods are all very longstanding and well understood - every build guide will point them out, the Warframe wiki pages of these mods all link to each other. The requirement to include Synth Fiber when using Equilibrium or Health Conversion is just an understood and accepted mechanic. In fact, the limitations on Equilibrium and Health Conversion are the only reason anyone brings up Synth Fiber in the first place in any context, because no one is using Synth Fiber for its face value, it is understood exclusively as a mod you need to make these other mods better. But it's really pointless though? Like Sentinels having once required duplicate mods for their weapons, the limitation on Equilibrium and Health Conversion is a holdover from a much older version of Warframe gameplay. And when Synth Fiber was introduced under a more mature version of said gameplay, it didn't include this restriction, and incidentally circumvented it for the other two, creating the relationship these mods now have.  

More recently, Arcane Blessing allows health orb pickups at full health until it reaches its full stack of 50, I.e. as long as they would have a beneficial effect for the purposes of Arcane Blessing. This weirdly makes it ineffective as an alternative to Synth Fiber, but also not dependent on it. In other words, it wasn't grandfathered into this weird relationship these other mods have. Ideally, all of these mods would work this way, and simply allow health pickups exactly when they're useful. 

Petless Duviri Undercroft, and earlier the existence of Voruna and Arcane Blessing, called some attention to this relationship again, but I don't think they significantly change the calculus. For 99% of the game, it still doesn't cost anything to equip Synth Fiber on your pet for every frame build that uses Equilibrium, and if that's three or four frames instead of one or two, who cares, right? But what actual positive effect on builds or gameplay does this easily circumvented limitation on Equilibrium and Health Conversion serve in the first place? Well, not one anyone would have deliberately designed in the first place.

Can these mods please, please be finally updated after all these many years to work the way their later-added counterparts do?

 

(To be very clear, I'm not interested in anyone's crack Protea builds or workarounds or whatnot because no one frame is the issue here. I'm interested in these mods specifically, just the mods, and how they presently become useful only when paired with a similar but unconnected companion mod.)

[RLanzinger]

I'd say some need Discipline, Combat Discipline.

Which is the Everyone-Know-Aura-Synergy with Equilibrium, Health Conversion etc...

[CopperBezel]

Er, well no, an alternative workaround to Synth Fiber in a more costly frame mod slot helps someone whose problem is that they can't use Synth Fiber in Duviri. Which, you know, that's great, but it's not my issue. I realize I'm not leaving a lot of interesting stuff to discuss here, and that suggesting builds is an easy and fun thing to do, but like I said at the end of my last post, that's just not what I'm interested in. 

I also think the word "synergy" is reeeeeally strong for this kind of workaround, particularly when they're mods you'd never use for any other reason. Though it is a point to the credit of the Combat Discipline solution that it's at least based on something it says on the card, where Synth Fiber is a mod that, again, is only and ever used for a property that the mod description doesn't mention.

Still best to go on and add it to the wiki anyway though, they do not appear to be among the "everyone" in the know.

[DrBorris]

yes

 

I know this comment doesn't add much, but there isn't much else to add. 

Edited August 28, 2023 by DrBorris

[CrownOfShadows]

I'll echo COMBAT DISCIPLINE

That's the current solution, and it works really well.

[CopperBezel]

I mean, not as well as Synth Fiber just removing the restriction outright for free, but again, not the point, neither should be necessary. It's not like someone at DE was looking at Health Conversion when they created Synth Fiber and decided to create a workaround, it's just that no one considered it might be a valuable thing to have in the first place, because the restriction on the other two mods is just an arbitrary little leftover no one considered. 

[CopperBezel]

Oh come on, it's going to be everything getting fixed but Equilibrium? 😭

 

[Tiltskillet]

1 minute ago, CopperBezel said:

Oh come on, it's going to be everything getting fixed but Equilibrium?

My first thought is they're giving a bit of a boost to two underused mods and ignoring the one that's used a lot already.  I don't actually know the usage rates, but I have a strong impression that's how it pans out.

[CopperBezel]

If that's the intention, they gotta nerf Synth Fiber. Combat Discipline at least costs your Aura slot and can sometimes drop your health by a couple hundred when you're not paying attention. Synth Fiber costs nothing, less now. 

And since the Synth Fiber / Equilibrium interaction is still documented only on the wiki, not in the game, it feels like the kind of "trap for new players" mechanic that they're trying to correct with revision updates like this one. At least update the mod description.

[DrBorris]

1 hour ago, CopperBezel said:

Oh come on, it's going to be everything getting fixed but Equilibrium? 😭

 

/enable copium

Pablo isn't talking about the specific mods Health Conversion and Energy Conversion, but rather talking about the mechanic of converting health/energy. Therefore  as Equilibrium is a thing that converts health/energy, it will be affected. 

/disable copium

Edited October 5, 2023 by DrBorris

[CopperBezel]

🤞

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 12 heures, DrBorris a dit :

/enable copium

Pablo isn't talking about the specific mods Health Conversion and Energy Conversion, but rather talking about the mechanic of converting health/energy. Therefore  as Equilibrium is a thing that converts health/energy, it will be affected. 

/disable copium

That's also my opinion, but the problem is that the question he is answering on X mentions explicitly Equilibrium :

Pablo's anwer mentions Health and Energy Conversion, but omits Equilibrium. Was it on purpose ? I don't know. Other people on X asked about Equilibrium, but got no answer (of course, Pablo can't answer every single question, he has a life, his lovely cats 😻 and a work). So, there is a doubt about Equilibrium.

In my opinion, but it's just an opinion (I'm not sure at all), Equilibrium will get the same mechanics as Health and Energy Conversion. Why I think like this ? Because this change is being made as a part of the Companions Rework : it's to make Synth Fiber less mandatory. If Equilibrium is not affected by this change, it would be useless to make Health and Energy Conversion let us pick orbs even with full bars, as the most used Mod (Equilibrium) will still make Synth Fiber a "mandatory" mod on Companions. But this is just my opinion and I can be wrong.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

 

[CopperBezel]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[Qriist]

On 2023-10-06 at 10:39 AM, (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom said:

 

True mastery of the Tenno arsenal requires maximum pill popping.

 

[CopperBezel]

So funny story, this fix was not applied to the purple archon shard Equilibrium effect....