Please Add More Helminth Armor Strips

[CrownOfShadows]

1 minute ago, Keyhound said:

lets see:

shuriken.

fireblast.

pillage.

tempest barrage.(even though its not 100% it still reduces armor alot, specially with corrosive projection aura in the party)

terrify.

tharros strike.

 

6 abilities, 5 if you dont count tempest barrage. but, like i said, its not like other frames dont have armor strip besides those, for example, gauss thermal sunder can armor strip when in redline, frost avalanche can as well, nyx's had one of the best armor strips for a long time, oberon,  grendel, trinity, caliban. and so on.

 

so its not fair to just talk about armor stripping with helminth as if it was a necessity for every frame. and in some cases like zephyr or baruuk, its not like you even care about the enemy armor either... any ability that can put enemies to sleep and open to finishers is maybe even more usefull against most enemies as well.

Ok yup, we covered them all. Two are good.

Equal counterpoint to your DR request - there's technically a fair amount of DR options in helminth already - similar to armor strip though very few are good. And similar to armor strip, plenty of warframes already have plenty of DR. That doesn't erase the need in either case.

[Keyhound]

1 minute ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Ok yup, we covered them all. Two are good.

Equal counterpoint to your DR request - there's technically a fair amount of DR options in helminth already - similar to armor strip though very few are good. And similar to armor strip, plenty of warframes already have plenty of DR. That doesn't erase the need in either case.

i highly disagree with the "only 2 are good" having used most of them, i can garantee shuriken has been a great choice since forever, fireblast has even more utility if used with one of its augs,

terrify works very well, and can full strip in a single cast.

only one i have yet to play with is tharros strike. but that's because i have not played with styanax that much after getting it. and cant stand the missions to make a second one to put into the helminth.

 

so while sure, pillage is the best, its not the only valid option at all. compared with damage reduction you do not have any that is even as good as the weakest of the full strip helminth abilities. getting armor from a helminth ability is not that usefull, and the only real DR in there is nova's, which is not bad when used on her, but its a jank version of splinter storm.

 

 

[CrownOfShadows]

1 minute ago, Keyhound said:

i highly disagree with the "only 2 are good" having used most of them, i can garantee shuriken has been a great choice since forever, fireblast has even more utility if used with one of its augs,

terrify works very well, and can full strip in a single cast.

Well, suit yourself, I won't list all the problems for a 5th or 6th time. If you think they're great, whatever.

1 minute ago, Keyhound said:

and the only real DR in there is nova's

Well, counting Eclipse, Parasitic Armor, Null Star, Defy, Elemental Ward - that's 5, one less the 6 you tallied for armor strip. You saying terrify or fireblast are great and amazing choices would be a lot like me saying saying Parasitic Armor and Eclipse are great DR choices (and armor is DR).

[Keyhound]

10 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Well, suit yourself, I won't list all the problems for a 5th or 6th time. If you think they're great, whatever.

Well, counting Eclipse, Parasitic Armor, Null Star, Defy, Elemental Ward - that's 5, one less the 6 you tallied for armor strip. You saying terrify or fireblast are great and amazing choices would be a lot like me saying saying Parasitic Armor and Eclipse are great DR choices (and armor is DR).

 

parasitic armor and defy only give armor, making them subpar at best, eclipse gives you no control over it, its a gamble specially with how the game will define light and dark areas, meaning, you cant count on it, null star is useless on builds with 100%+ range, and need the augment to refresh, against infested or mid level corpus and above, its pretty useless, finally elemental ward is more of a support. as it doesnt really give much defensive ability to any frame. neither do people use it for defense.

 

that whole list is basically like all you had for armor stripping would be 3 tempest barrage, with 2 fire blast. and the second fire blast randomly turns into roar because you are 2 steps to the left than you were before.

 

its not even in the same league. hell, pillage alone, is far more defensive than most of those DR abilities COMBINED.

 

lets compare them,

                                                          armor strip

fireblast can full strip an area with  2 cast, have aug that heals.

Pillage can full strip an area with 2 casts, gives shield back.

terrify can full strip in a single cast, is temporary and doesnt affect bosses

shuriken need aug, but its incredibly cheap, can only strip 2 targets at a time.

tharros strike, never used, so i wont comment on how good it is.

tempest barrage, mediocre at best, it will gain innate corrosive proc, which will make it far better, but its stil not going to be used for armor strip by anyone besides hydroid.

 

                                                          Damage Reduction

Null Star, the more range your build has, the worse it gets, as it will lose DR from enemies getting closer to you, require mod to refresh.

Eclipse, amazing DR... when it is in DR mode, which you have absolutely no control over. nobody uses it for defense, as its real use is the, also outside of your control damage boost. no frame in need of DR will use eclipse for its DR.

Defy, gives a few seconds of immunity and then a slap, gain armor based on how many enemies you are hit by during the immunity and how many you hit with the slap. all it really gives for DR is the immunity which locks you unable to do anything and armor, its less DR and more an "oh sht" button.

parasitic armor, the exact same as defy, but without the immunity phase. you also lose shield, and the shield gate, having only armor, you also NEED to mod for shield to make it even useable in the first place.

Elemental Ward is a great support ability, but its defensive ability is mediocre at best, HEAT fgives max health, which wont reduce damage, ELECTRIC gives max shield, which, again, is not DR, Toxic gives absolutely no defensive buff of any kind, it just poison enemies around you, COLD gives armor, it will REFLECT bullet damage, but you will still get hit first.

 

only null star and eclipse are DR abilities, and, like i said, they are not something people can use reliably. and null star DEMANDS your build to not have range to even be used as a DR ability in the first place.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Keyhound
edited to add more context for the argument of why they arent the same thing.

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 12 heures, Leqesai a dit :

How is Tempest Barrage an armor strip ability after the rework?

In the hands of Hydroid it is, but not as a helminth ability AFAIK. It only strips armor on Hydroid because of his passive paired with corrosive procs, right?

It will have innate Corrosive damage and status. Hydroid's passive and 3rd will boost Corrosive and armor strip, but this is an innate effect of Corrosive status, but, as I said before, it's even worse than the other mentioned abilities. 

[CrownOfShadows]

3 minutes ago, Keyhound said:

 

parasitic armor and defy only give armor, making them subpar at best, eclipse gives you no control over it, its a gamble specially with how the game will define light and dark areas, meaning, you cant count on it, null star is useless on builds with 100%+ range, and need the augment to refresh, against infested or mid level corpus and above, its pretty useless, finally elemental ward is more of a support. as it doesnt really give much defensive ability to any frame. neither do people use it for defense.

 

that whole list is basically like all you had for armor stripping would be 3 tempest barrage, with 2 fire blast. and the second fire blast randomly turns into roar because you are 2 steps to the left than you were before.

 

its not even in the same league. hell, pillage alone, is far more defensive than most of those DR abilities COMBINED.

Well, comparing armor strip effectiveness to DR effectiveness is like comparing apples to walnuts in the first place, not sure how we got started on this path, but yeah pillage is a god-tier subsume anyway you stack it. As far as DR goes, what standard are you looking for? DR abilities vary a lot - like you mentioned Turbulence but that's technically not even a DR ability, not any more than invisibility is, or hp regen, or status cleanse, or even cc. Like all that stuff technically helps out EHP and could be put under the DR umbrella I suppose.

Also there's a word to be said about caution, although DE isn't big on balance, giving too strong a DR ability out in helminth could be problematic and it seems like DE was careful to avoid that - and for good reason. While weak frames would love them, it could send some a lot frames into the stratosphere, so it would have to be done with caution. Like a strong DR ability in the helminth could completely erase all remaining traces of difficulty, so while I'm fine adding some because weak frames could really use them, I do think they should be limited to like 60%-75% or be somewhat circumstantial or otherwise limited if they're 'true DR'.

[Leqesai]

37 minutes ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

It will have innate Corrosive damage and status. Hydroid's passive and 3rd will boost Corrosive and armor strip, but this is an innate effect of Corrosive status, but, as I said before, it's even worse than the other mentioned abilities. 

Corrosive status effect cannot fully strip armor... At max stacks it reduces armor by 80%. It will strip armor on Hydroid but it will not strip armor on other frames... Ergo, not sure why you've included it in a list of armor strip abilities...

[Qriist]

11 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Ergo, not sure why you've included it in a list of armor strip abilities...

80% armor strip is, oddly enough, armor strip, as you yourself even said in your first sentence:

13 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Corrosive status effect cannot fully strip armor.

 

[Keyhound]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Well, comparing armor strip effectiveness to DR effectiveness is like comparing apples to walnuts in the first place, not sure how we got started on this path, but yeah pillage is a god-tier subsume anyway you stack it. As far as DR goes, what standard are you looking for? DR abilities vary a lot - like you mentioned Turbulence but that's technically not even a DR ability, not any more than invisibility is, or hp regen, or status cleanse, or even cc. Like all that stuff technically helps out EHP and could be put under the DR umbrella I suppose.

Also there's a word to be said about caution, although DE isn't big on balance, giving too strong a DR ability out in helminth could be problematic and it seems like DE was careful to avoid that - and for good reason. While weak frames would love them, it could send some a lot frames into the stratosphere, so it would have to be done with caution. Like a strong DR ability in the helminth could completely erase all remaining traces of difficulty, so while I'm fine adding some because weak frames could really use them, I do think they should be limited to like 60%-75% or be somewhat circumstantial or otherwise limited if they're 'true DR'.

i agree. bu that's what i had to do when you said because both have the same number of skills as helminth. and my argument was never about how many there are, but how many EFFECTIVE abilities there are.

 

there are AT LEAST 2 great armor stripping abilities, but there's NO  good DR on helminth. we have abilities that give armor, and abilities that can KINDA DR but are not reliable.

 

armor stripping has reliable abilities that just work no matter what. and it also has some that either are limited in target or have a duration. but DR and armor stripping are not the same thing.

 

which is why i edited that later as an example to the argument.

[Keyhound]

1 hour ago, Leqesai said:

Corrosive status effect cannot fully strip armor... At max stacks it reduces armor by 80%. It will strip armor on Hydroid but it will not strip armor on other frames... Ergo, not sure why you've included it in a list of armor strip abilities...

agreed. thing is, its ok, because, belive it or not, some people do not want FULL armor strip. it feels counter intuitive, but they argue that full armor strip takes away the damage portion of corrosive weapons, so while i do agree TP is not a great armor stripper(you know what i mean), it does have a slot for those people who want partial armor strip to keep corrosive damage effective.

[AegidiusF]

il y a une heure, Leqesai a dit :

Corrosive status effect cannot fully strip armor... At max stacks it reduces armor by 80%. It will strip armor on Hydroid but it will not strip armor on other frames... Ergo, not sure why you've included it in a list of armor strip abilities...

That"s very simple : The OP was talking about armor stripping abilities, not full armor stripping abilities. The OP even complained about Fire Blast being capped at 75% of armor Strip. Corrosive status strips armor and any ability that can cause Corrosive status will also strip armor, but, as I said before, this is worse than any other abilities mentioned by the OP. That's why I totally agree with the OP that we need more abilities to strip armor up.

Also, Corrosive Projection with Coaction Drift exists and this can give you, depending on the squad, the possibility to reduce enemy armor to a minimum and benefit from the +75% Corrosive damage buff against Ferrite amored enemies without fully stripping their armor.

Edited September 30, 2023 by (NSW)AegisFifi

[Leqesai]

2 minutes ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

That"s very simple : The OP was talking about armor stripping abilities, not full armor stripping abilities. The OP even complained about Fire Blast being capped at 75% of armor Strip. Corrosive status strips armor and any ability that can cause Corrosive status will also strip armor, but, as I said before, this is worse than any other abilities mentioned by the OP. That's why I totally agree with the OP that we need more abilities to strip armor up.

Also, Corrosive Projection with Coaction Drift exists and this can give you, depending on the squad, the possibility to reduce enemy armor to a minimum and benefit from the +75% Corrosive damage buff against Ferrite amored enemies without fully stripping their armor.

First, IMO "armor strip" means the removal of armor. Reduction of armor =/= armor strip.
I believe TC talking about fire blast only removing 75% of armor is still relevant because two casts of fire blast completely remove armor.

 

Tempest Barrage, dealing only corrosive procs, is incapable of fully stripping armor. Therefore it is irrelevant to the conversation. Reduction of armor is not near as useful given how armor scaling works in Warframe. 80% armor reduction of steel path level enemies is equivalent to like 20-25% less damage reduction in/around the 110-130 enemy level areas...

 

Regarding the final point, yes, you can stack corrosive projection auras to mitigate like 98% of an enemy's armor but even then you're still not fully stripping armor. You're reducing armor by a hefty amount, sure, but the only acceptable reason for doing so is, like you say, to benefit from the corrosive damage bonus (which is mostly mitigated by the armor's damage reduction anyway). It may be an issue of semantics but it is important to differentiate that which people are referring. The TC is specifically talking about abilities that have the potential to fully remove armor.

Even reducing armor by 98% is not ideal in the content most requiring complete armor strip. 10,000 armor is like 97% damage reduction. 98% reduced armor results in a value of 200 which is still 40% damage reduction. It is a net gain of 57% damage to the player but cutting the armor 100% results in the target taking full damage. You're right that there is value in keeping armor insofar as corrosive gets a decent bonus against it but if you're only reducing armor by 80% on a 10,000 armor target you're really only seeing a net gain of like 13% bonus damage from corrosive (75% bonus to armor which gets reduced by the target's armor value * 25%). 

 

I hear where you're coming from, but I think it is a little confusing to include Tempest Barrage in a discussion of armor stripping abilities when it can only do so in the hands of Hydroid. I mean... it does have value in low and mid-range content (insofar as corrosive procs retain the most value, in general) but low to mid-range content doesn't really require armor strip to begin with. Armor strip is really needed in Steel Path content where the armor values are very high.

[Leqesai]

28 minutes ago, Keyhound said:

agreed. thing is, its ok, because, belive it or not, some people do not want FULL armor strip. it feels counter intuitive, but they argue that full armor strip takes away the damage portion of corrosive weapons, so while i do agree TP is not a great armor stripper(you know what i mean), it does have a slot for those people who want partial armor strip to keep corrosive damage effective.

I'm honestly not sure many players really search out partial armor strip as a viable gameplay option. Unless you set up for a very specific reduction in armor, 80% isn't going to make a huge difference in content that begets armor strip in the first place. I do see some value in what you and Fifi are saying but I believe most players (including the TC) specifically want 100% armor strip. This is why the TC complained of Fire Blast only removing 75% (even though they did not acknowledge it could 100% strip in two casts).

[Leqesai]

2 hours ago, Keyhound said:

Eclipse, amazing DR... when it is in DR mode, which you have absolutely no control over. nobody uses it for defense, as its real use is the, also outside of your control damage boost. no frame in need of DR will use eclipse for its DR.

Just chiming in on this. I hate Eclipse for one major reason.... It is not obvious what counts as "light" and "dark". Since its implementation the lighting engine has gone through some major overhauls, so it is really a PITA to identify light and dark areas (as interpreted by the skill). Another annoyance is the values varying based on the intensity of light/dark. So getting full DR off this ability can be finicky. 

I'm not sure why they don't just remove the variability on this thing. It would make it a lot more useful (or just let us choose the buff with hold/tap....)

[AegidiusF]

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

First, IMO "armor strip" means the removal of armor. Reduction of armor =/= armor strip.

No. It means the removal of armor, that can be total or partial. This is used everywhere. Just to give you an exemple from the wiki : 

Citation

Removing Enemy Armor (Armor Stripping)

Most armor strip effects removes a percentage of the maximum value. For  Heat and  Corrosive, it is based on the current value, and thus has diminishing returns. Warframe abilities are based on the total; for example, an ability that strips 50% armor will remove it in just two casts.

Enemies cannot regenerate armor if all or a portion of their armor was permanently stripped. However, if their armor is reduced to 0, they completely lose their Ferrite Armor/Alloy Armor/Infested Sinew, which in turn removes their vulnerability to the +75%  Corrosive / +75%  Radiation / +50%  Radiation Damage Type Modifier bonus respectively.
(https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Armor)

Also, from the game itself :

Unairu's Caustic Strike description : 

Citation

Second Ability launches an energy bomb that explodes with a 5 / 6 / 7 / 8m radius, stripping 40 / 60 / 80 / 100% of enemy armor. Tap 2  again to detonate in-flight.

So, Armor strip can be full strip or partial strip.

Corrosive status strip a portion of enemies armor, so Corrosive status strips armor.

Tempest Barrage (currently Corrosive Barrage) causes Corrosive status, so it strips armor.

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

I believe TC talking about fire blast only removing 75% of armor is still relevant because two casts of fire blast completely remove armor.

Yes, I agree. But Fire Blast strips amor at any cast, not only when it fully removes armor. Even a 75% capped single cast of Fire Blast strips armor.

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

Tempest Barrage, dealing only corrosive procs, is incapable of fully stripping armor. Therefore it is irrelevant to the conversation. Reduction of armor is not near as useful given how armor scaling works in Warframe. 80% armor reduction of steel path level enemies is equivalent to like 20-25% less damage reduction in/around the 110-130 enemy level areas...

As shown above, it is relevant, because it strips armor. It can't fully strip (unless you are Hydroid after Abyss of Dagath update), that's why I said it's worse than the other abilities. But it still strips armor.

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

Regarding the final point, yes, you can stack corrosive projection auras to mitigate like 98% of an enemy's armor but even then you're still not fully stripping armor. You're reducing armor by a hefty amount, sure, but the only acceptable reason for doing so is, like you say, to benefit from the corrosive damage bonus (which is mostly mitigated by the armor's damage reduction anyway). It may be an issue of semantics but it is important to differentiate that which people are referring. The TC is specifically talking about abilities that have the potential to fully remove armor.

I mostly agree. I didn't see "fully" strip on the OP. I was just completig the list to show how poor were the other possibilities : so bad the they were not even mentioned.

Don't forget that the ~2% of remaining armor will be reduced by 75% when taken into consideration to reduce the corrosive damage (Ferrite armor).

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

Even reducing armor by 98% is not ideal in the content most requiring complete armor strip. 10,000 armor is like 97% damage reduction. 98% reduced armor results in a value of 200 which is still 40% damage reduction. It is a net gain of 57% damage to the player but cutting the armor 100% results in the target taking full damage. You're right that there is value in keeping armor insofar as corrosive gets a decent bonus against it but if you're only reducing armor by 80% on a 10,000 armor target you're really only seeing a net gain of like 13% bonus damage from corrosive (75% bonus to armor which gets reduced by the target's armor value * 25%). 

Against Ferrite armor, only 25% of the 200 remaining armor will be taken into account to mitigate the Corrosive damage : this means only 50 armor points to mitigate Corrosive damage (about 14.28% DR) and the damage value will be then increased by 75%. That's why, if you know how to use it, Corrosive Damage and Status (paired with high critical chance and multiplier) can be very effective against most Grineer units, even if they have 10,000 armor points.

il y a 26 minutes, Leqesai a dit :

I hear where you're coming from, but I think it is a little confusing to include Tempest Barrage in a discussion of armor stripping abilities when it can only do so in the hands of Hydroid. I mean... it does have value in low and mid-range content (insofar as corrosive procs retain the most value, in general) but low to mid-range content doesn't really require armor strip to begin with. Armor strip is really needed in Steel Path content where the armor values are very high.

I agree. But as I said, I was including two worse abilities on the OP's list just to show how poor are our options. I totally agree with the OP, by the way.

(P.S.: sorry for the long text).

Edited September 30, 2023 by (NSW)AegisFifi

[CrownOfShadows]

20 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

I'm honestly not sure many players really search out partial armor strip as a viable gameplay option. Unless you set up for a very specific reduction in armor, 80% isn't going to make a huge difference in content that begets armor strip in the first place. I do see some value in what you and Fifi are saying but I believe most players (including the TC) specifically want 100% armor strip. This is why the TC complained of Fire Blast only removing 75% (even though they did not acknowledge it could 100% strip in two casts).

Yeah for tough SP enemies we need full strip, partial strip just doesn't work well, and like you say this is why corrosive isn't a good option, besides taking the time to stack it in the first place which nobody has time for. You can really feel the difference when you try to use fire blast - it just never feels like its doing anything until you spam it, and at 75 energy 2 casts is 150, 3 is 225... that really hurts. Compare that to the 25 energy - YES 25 (wtf) - for tharros, with a 100% guaranteed strip, there's just no choice there.

If Fire Blast scaled up to 100% (using ability power), it would be a decent option, although as someone pointed it out it also doesn't work on a lot of enemies it's supposed to and that would also have to be fixed for it to be competitive. Alternatively, if it at least scaled up to 82%, then we could use corrosive projection to get to 100%, but as it is currently even with corrosive projection it still needs 2 casts to fully strip, which is just not cool.

Edited September 30, 2023 by CrownOfShadows

[Leqesai]

3 minutes ago, (NSW)AegisFifi said:

No. It means the removal of armor, that can be total or partial. This is used everywhere. Just to give you an exemple from the wiki : 

Also, from the game itself :

Unairu's Caustic Strike description : 

So, Armor strip can be full strip or partial strip.

Corrosive status strip a portion of enemies armor, so Corrosive status strips armor.

Tempest Barrage (currently Corrosive Barrage) causes Corrosive status, so it strips armor.

Yes, I agree. But Fire Blast strips amor at any cast, not only when it fully removes armor. Even a 75% capped single cast of Fire Blast strips armor.

As shown above, it is relevant, because it strips armor. It can't fully strip (unless you are Hydroid after Abyss of Dagath update), that's why I said it's worse than the other abilities. But it still strips armor.

I mostly agree. I didn't see "fully" strip on the OP. I was just completig the list to show how poor were the other possibilities : so bad the they were not even mentioned.

Don't forget that the ~2% of remaining armor will be reduced by 75% when taken into consideration to reduce the corrosive damage (Ferrite armor).

Against Ferrite armor, only 25% of the 200 remaining armor will be taken into account to mitigate the Corrosive damage : this means only 50 armor point to mitigate Corrosive damage (about 14.28% DR) and the damage value will be then increased by 75%. That's why, if you know how to use it, Corrosive Damage and Status (paired with high critical chance and multiplier) can be very effective against most Grineer units, even if they have 10,000 armor points.

I agree. But as I said, I was including two worse abilities on the OP's list just to show how poor are our options. I totally agree with the OP, by the way.

(P.S.: sorry for the long text).

Hmmm. I guess I was mistaken in my interpretation of "armor strip".

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[AegidiusF]

Il y a 6 heures, Leqesai a dit :

Hmmm. I guess I was mistaken in my interpretation of "armor strip".

Thanks for the clarification.

 

Your point is valid though😇. 

Thanks for this nice discussion. 👍

[Keyhound]

On 2023-09-30 at 6:34 AM, Leqesai said:

I'm honestly not sure many players really search out partial armor strip as a viable gameplay option. Unless you set up for a very specific reduction in armor, 80% isn't going to make a huge difference in content that begets armor strip in the first place. I do see some value in what you and Fifi are saying but I believe most players (including the TC) specifically want 100% armor strip. This is why the TC complained of Fire Blast only removing 75% (even though they did not acknowledge it could 100% strip in two casts).

yep, i agree with you there, but like i said, some people actually defend that, as for armor strip completely, i dont get the complain about fire blast, as it, like most other armor stripper abilities now, can full strip in a couple cast, and them being area and having a usefull support mod makes it not an issue.

 

On 2023-09-30 at 6:40 AM, Leqesai said:

Just chiming in on this. I hate Eclipse for one major reason.... It is not obvious what counts as "light" and "dark". Since its implementation the lighting engine has gone through some major overhauls, so it is really a PITA to identify light and dark areas (as interpreted by the skill). Another annoyance is the values varying based on the intensity of light/dark. So getting full DR off this ability can be finicky. 

I'm not sure why they don't just remove the variability on this thing. It would make it a lot more useful (or just let us choose the buff with hold/tap....)

EXACTLY. its too variable to make use of it, which fits on mirage, with her being all joker themed. so it doesnt feel out of place in here, but for other frames it just doesnt work as well. specially because you can force light with her 4th.

 

On 2023-09-30 at 6:54 AM, CrownOfShadows said:

Yeah for tough SP enemies we need full strip, partial strip just doesn't work well, and like you say this is why corrosive isn't a good option, besides taking the time to stack it in the first place which nobody has time for. You can really feel the difference when you try to use fire blast - it just never feels like its doing anything until you spam it, and at 75 energy 2 casts is 150, 3 is 225... that really hurts. Compare that to the 25 energy - YES 25 (wtf) - for tharros, with a 100% guaranteed strip, there's just no choice there.

If Fire Blast scaled up to 100% (using ability power), it would be a decent option, although as someone pointed it out it also doesn't work on a lot of enemies it's supposed to and that would also have to be fixed for it to be competitive. Alternatively, if it at least scaled up to 82%, then we could use corrosive projection to get to 100%, but as it is currently even with corrosive projection it still needs 2 casts to fully strip, which is just not cool.

but fireblast fully strips in 2 casts, same with a few other armor strip abilities. which is a no issue today, and those "special cases" are very few, and mostly specific enemies. the vast majority of armored foes will get full strip in 2 casts. which is not as negative because it means you dont need to go as heavy on str as with other abilities that do cap at 100. so, like i said, versatility and the idea of certain abilities being usefull for diferent situations.

 

BUT, and this again, we have multiple flavors of Armor Stripping, some are better, others are worse, but at least we have multiple viable armor strip abilities. that's not the case for damage reduction, we barely have 2 that kinda work, except they are extremely finnicky at best. or downright completely useless at worst.

[CrownOfShadows]

34 minutes ago, Keyhound said:

yep, i agree with you there, but like i said, some people actually defend that, as for armor strip completely, i dont get the complain about fire blast, as it, like most other armor stripper abilities now, can full strip in a couple cast, and them being area and having a usefull support mod makes it not an issue.

but fireblast fully strips in 2 casts, same with a few other armor strip abilities. which is a no issue today, and those "special cases" are very few, and mostly specific enemies. the vast majority of armored foes will get full strip in 2 casts. which is not as negative because it means you dont need to go as heavy on str as with other abilities that do cap at 100. so, like i said, versatility and the idea of certain abilities being usefull for diferent situations.

What Fire Blast does in two casts Tharros does in one cast for 1/6th the cost, and Tharros/Pillage works on everything while Fire Blast conveniently forgets some important targets (acolytes, demolysts) how do you not see the problem? I'm not saying it doesn't work on the mobs, I'm just saying it's objectively worse. Terrify shares these same problems, and even though i was hyped for Terrify when the armor strip rework happened, and even though it did make Nekros 10x better to play, I've since taken it off of almost everything else because of these things, and same for Fire Blast. If I played Ember on the regular I'd seriously just helminth Pillage or Tharros (or Gloom) in over Fire Blast because it's annoying at controlling her Immolation anyway.

I'm getting the sense all the people trying to defend Fire Blast have never actually tried to rely on it as an armor strip and are just reading numbers. Yes, it's radial and hits more targets. No, that doesn't matter a whole lot, because usually your weapons can handle the mobs fine and you are saving your armor strip for the really chonky enemies. Specific targets. Is it nice? Is it better than nothing? Sure. Have I used it to decent effect? Yup. Is it great for fighting the real tanks? No, definitely it is not. Every time an eximus or a bombard shows up you want to use Fire Blast twice? It's not godawful, it's just sub-par, uncompetitive, substandard, expensive. Yes, Pillage also takes multiple casts unless you have high strength, but Pillage's other benefits make it a multitool, whereas Fire Blast has one job.

The Fire Blast augments are not a selling point either, not any more than the Eclipse augment is a selling point for Eclipse - nobody has room for a nonessential augment in a SP build and there are WAY better ways of healing. (And worth noting on Healing Flames - like so much of Ember it's tied to her immolation level which nobody has on helminth so it's never max, making that augment rather worse for any helminth use).

Is Fire Blast perhaps a better option for negative-strength high-range high-energy armor-tanking builds with other sources of healing? Yeah that's probably a solid case. For everything else I can't see why anyone would use it after having tried it, it's a whole tier below Tharros and Pillage.

Fixing Fire Blast to be a good option would NOT be hard. Make it a little cheaper or let it go to 82% or 100% to save a cast. Make it work on everything it's supposed to. Maybe even throw in a secondary effect to spice it up (like reduce the cost of the next ability cast by 25% or something since it's not reducing anyone's immolation). Voila: suddenly a great ability and a solid choice for anyone looking for armor strip. Fixing Terrify would be a lot harder.

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1 hour ago, Keyhound said:

BUT, and this again, we have multiple flavors of Armor Stripping, some are better, others are worse, but at least we have multiple viable armor strip abilities. that's not the case for damage reduction, we barely have 2 that kinda work, except they are extremely finnicky at best. or downright completely useless at worst.

I'm here about armor strip specifically, and there are a lot of helminth refinements that could also be made in general to a lot of different things (I want more cleanse and cc), but again I'm not opposed to more DR helminths, although it depends what you mean by DR and some caution there would be good too. IMHO blindly dropping a 90% DR ability into helminth is a balance disaster in the making, for example.

What's your dream helminth DR and what do you intend to use it on?

[Keyhound]

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

What Fire Blast does in two casts Tharros does in one cast for 1/6th the cost, and Tharros/Pillage works on everything while Fire Blast conveniently forgets some important targets (acolytes, demolysts) how do you not see the problem? I'm not saying it doesn't work on the mobs, I'm just saying it's objectively worse. Terrify shares these same problems, and even though i was hyped for Terrify when the armor strip rework happened, and even though it did make Nekros 10x better to play, I've since taken it off of almost everything else because of these things, and same for Fire Blast. If I played Ember on the regular I'd seriously just helminth Pillage or Tharros (or Gloom) in over Fire Blast because it's annoying at controlling her Immolation anyway.

I'm getting the sense all the people trying to defend Fire Blast have never actually tried to rely on it as an armor strip and are just reading numbers. Yes, it's radial and hits more targets. No, that doesn't matter a whole lot, because usually your weapons can handle the mobs fine and you are saving your armor strip for the really chonky enemies. Specific targets. Is it nice? Is it better than nothing? Sure. Have I used it to decent effect? Yup. Is it great for fighting the real tanks? No, definitely it is not. Every time an eximus or a bombard shows up you want to use Fire Blast twice? It's not godawful, it's just sub-par, uncompetitive, substandard, expensive. Yes, Pillage also takes multiple casts unless you have high strength, but Pillage's other benefits make it a multitool, whereas Fire Blast has one job.

The Fire Blast augments are not a selling point either, not any more than the Eclipse augment is a selling point for Eclipse - nobody has room for a nonessential augment in a SP build and there are WAY better ways of healing. (And worth noting on Healing Flames - like so much of Ember it's tied to her immolation level which nobody has on helminth so it's never max, making that augment rather worse for any helminth use).

Is Fire Blast perhaps a better option for negative-strength high-range high-energy armor-tanking builds with other sources of healing? Yeah that's probably a solid case. For everything else I can't see why anyone would use it after having tried it, it's a whole tier below Tharros and Pillage.

Fixing Fire Blast to be a good option would NOT be hard. Make it a little cheaper or let it go to 82% or 100% to save a cast. Make it work on everything it's supposed to. Maybe even throw in a secondary effect to spice it up (like reduce the cost of the next ability cast by 25% or something since it's not reducing anyone's immolation). Voila: suddenly a great ability and a solid choice for anyone looking for armor strip. Fixing Terrify would be a lot harder.

---------------------

I'm here about armor strip specifically, and there are a lot of helminth refinements that could also be made in general to a lot of different things (I want more cleanse and cc), but again I'm not opposed to more DR helminths, although it depends what you mean by DR and some caution there would be good too. IMHO blindly dropping a 90% DR ability into helminth is a balance disaster in the making, for example.

What's your dream helminth DR and what do you intend to use it on?

 

lets go there one at a time.

1- i said multiple times, i have not played with styanax much, so i genuinely do not know much about his skills,

2- its cool that there are some armor stripper abilities that can full strip in 1 cast, terrify is another one that can do that, so is shuriken. BUT, and here's the detail, you need to invest in str to get that, and sometimes, it comes at the cost of other stats that your current build for the warframe you want to use on to get that 100%, in which case, its a choice you can make to go with an ability that can full strip in 2 casts, but have almost no need to invest into str to get there.

3-"Yeah that's probably a solid case. For everything else I can't see why anyone would use it after having tried it, it's a whole tier below Tharros and Pillage." that's literaly a selling point there. people have to stop this logic of everything being good for every case. you can only have 1 helminth skill, and if you cant have enough str to pull off a 1 cast like tharros or terrify, OR you dont want to cast 4+ pillage, fire blast is probably the best choice.

builds are all about choice, having more choices to get at the same place IN DIFERENT WAYS is better than having all choices being the exact same. if you have a build with 100% str, pillage require 4 casts, terrify 2 but has a limit on the targets, tharros is a cone in front, and is 2 casts as well. even shuriken cant full strip at 100% and requires the mod. in that case fire blast is the best choice. it also has the biggest range, at base 25, which is also pretty good.

4- the augment is not important, but its there for people who ant to use it. like all things, its an added bonus. builds are all about what YOU THINK you need in that specific build. for example, i build my volt for melee speed only, i could care less about range, so i added aquablade in one, and warcry in another. many people build volt for his 4th. that's the beauty of warframe, you are not stuck on what's the best. its all about what you need, and how you think you can get there.

5- i do think fire blast should be cheaper, but that's because i feel like fireblast and immolation should've been swapped around, as a side note, i also think it should be a full on sustained ability, instead of kinda turning into one at max immolation, which, im not gonna lie, costs too much. i also think it should lose immolation instead of gain it, so the player would need to focus on burning things to keep it and the DR high.

6- for DR, i said a few times, i think we should've gotten Shatter Shield from mesa as opposed to her shooting gallery. it could even get a drop in max DR to 80% or even 75%. being a skill that only works on ranged damage it would give alot of frames a good, survivability against damage they cant really defend against. another good choice would be null star being recastable without the need for a mod.

[Leqesai]

7 hours ago, Keyhound said:

EXACTLY. its too variable to make use of it, which fits on mirage, with her being all joker themed. so it doesnt feel out of place in here, but for other frames it just doesnt work as well. specially because you can force light with her 4th

Thematically yeah it fits mirage, but I will argue that such variability has no place in this Era of warframe. It is cumbersome to use. 

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Adding more strip options I'm not against, but what exactly?

So far, all the options for armor stripping are coming off subsumed Warframe abilities, not the Helminth itself. Maybe more metamorphosis levels then? With completely new Helminth-only abilities?

Removing armor out from targets is a significant increase to one's damage and that plays a big role in some frames' role.

[CrownOfShadows]

4 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Adding more strip options I'm not against, but what exactly?

So far, all the options for armor stripping are coming off subsumed Warframe abilities, not the Helminth itself. Maybe more metamorphosis levels then? With completely new Helminth-only abilities?

Removing armor out from targets is a significant increase to one's damage and that plays a big role in some frames' role.

Yeah more metamorphosis is where I was leaning, waiting for a frame to release with an armor strip and for that ability to be chosen for helminth would take years.

The metamorphosis abilities are not as neat or unique or as intuitive as the warframe abilities which is unfortunate, but it's the best way to help fill voids like these.

[Pizzarugi]

Do we really need more defense strip options, though? If you're not doing something like endurance runs, SP enemies barely have enough defenses that you need to remove them if you're using modern weapons like Kuva/Tenet/Incarnon variations.