Please Add More Helminth Armor Strips

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 8 minutos, Pizzarugi dijo:

It also doesn't help that DE has gone out of their way to make Corpus less desirable to fight. You wanna deal with nullifiers, bog/comba/scrambus units constantly showing up and shutting down your abilities coupled with a large number of their units having CC (shockwave moa, anti-moa, bursa, etc)? I prefer not to, the acolyte Violence is enough of a problem as is. I can bet you anything that if those units didn't exist, people would be farming Corpus instead, because toxin annihilates them.

And on that note, I don't see how viral+slash is an issue to deal with Grineer armor when toxin is the ideal mod to bypass the massive shield pool Corpus have in SP or gas mod for Infested to counter their sheer numbers. Seems like everything's working as intended.

The problem is that you can't kill the grineers with gas and toxin, but you can kill everyone with virals and slashes, although this problem would be partly due to how bad the other damage and status types are or how excessively strong they are viral and slash.

[Pizzarugi]

10 minutes ago, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

The problem is that you can't kill the grineers with gas and toxin, but you can kill everyone with virals and slashes, although this problem would be partly due to how bad the other damage and status types are or how excessively strong they are viral and slash.

Well technically you can with enough damage. Viral isn't going to do much against Corpus since viral doesn't bypass shield nor does its proc have any effect on it. Slash? Sure. But that's kind of the point for all these elemental types, isn't it? Some enemies will be strong against some, but weak to the others, and you gotta mod your weapons appropriately.

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-09-29 at 5:08 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

This is a request for more helminth armor strip abilities.

We only have Pillage, Tharros, Fire Blast and Terrify.

1. Tharros is limited by it's directionality and limited targets, but is bolstered by it's heal and for being guaranteed 100%
2. Fire Blast suffers from being capped at 75% making it the worst option.
3. Terrify suffers from being expensive at 75 energy, from being temporary, for having poor range and a limited number of targets, and for causing all your targets to run away, which is rarely desirable. You strip them because you want to kill them, not because you want them to run away get their armor back and then return lol. Also, it STILL does not work on some units it should.
4. Pillage is of course the best, it gives you shields, drains the enemies, and can fully armor strip if you get crazy power.

Typically, the choice just comes down to Pillage and Tharros.

We need armor strip available for most warframes in high content. Please provide more options.

Terrify would be too broken if it applied to eximus units and acolytes but it doesn't, which makes tharros strike a really good option. And if you need more there is pillage which is basically best ability in the game if you can get it to 328% ab strength with corrosive projection. I don't really know what they could add to give us diverse options tbh... what is there is diverse enough. Except for fire blast, they all have a place in the game.

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-10-05 at 5:50 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

You don't need to sit an hour in SP Circulus to need armor strip. Spend 20 or 30 minutes in there with any frame that isn't nuking or stripping or hiding or otherwise cheesing. Any frame that actually fights enemies needs armor strip.

With the right decrees and the right frame and the right weapons (or the right squad to carry you), yes you can breeze through the circuit. If you find yourself without that magical combo, armor strip suddenly becomes extremely valuable. Refusing to acknowledge the value of armor strip in the Circuit only tells me you haven't played it very much. You think they just added all those corrosive decrees for giggles? Pablo specifically said people needed more armor stripping tools and that's why they were added. But guess what? It's a lottery and you don't always get the decrees you want. There's a reason Xaku is the most valuable Circuit frame. There's a reason why when you play pub SP Circulus there's almost always a Xaku.

Bigger damage is not a counter to increasing armor. That's not how DR works. 🙄

I really can't believe you're really out here saying that armor stripping has no place in WF. It's a very important tool against a tremendous variety of enemies.

Like obviously armor stripping is super useful but it's not in any way required to play several hours of steel path. :O

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-10-05 at 7:48 PM, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

If we compare an elite spearman (grineer) with a level 180 elite crewman (corpus), the Corpus enemy will die with any type of damage the weapon has, but try to kill a grineer with magnetic or explosion, it eats everything the magazine and it still doesn't reach half life, the armor scales too much at the highest levels, of course this difference is not seen when you put viral and cutting on all your weapons.
All weapons are built around armor, unless you want to specialize them for a single faction.

Well some weapons if built to fight grineer are S#&$ but if built to fight corpus are super strong because how weak corpus are comparably to grineer. So I can bring a "S#&$" weapon that has some really cool mechanic to it and it will absolutely shred corpus much more effectively than a weapon you built for grineer and brought to a corpus fight. So while your weapon still destroys corpus because they are paper, my weapon that i built specifically to counter corpus, is doing it with a flair that your grineer weapon just cant match. 

[CrownOfShadows]

4 hours ago, vixenpixel said:

Like obviously armor stripping is super useful but it's not in any way required to play several hours of steel path. :O

Well, I'm not sure about you, but every time I'm looking for an SP helminth it almost always ends up being an armor strip. Actually, let me manually go and inspect my inventory and get some hard facts, one sec....

Ok, here's a snapshot of how I look today:

• Banshee: Gloom, she already has an armor strip with her augment, which I use. Gloom is a crutch, but it's about the only thing that will keep her alive in the SP.
• Baruuk: Tharros, Pillage, Wrathful Advance - I use Tharros the most because I can rely on it as a heal if anything gets through.
• Citrine: Pillage. She shreds over time fine, but can struggle to melt big units fast enough, and I prefer Pillage over her Crystallize; more reliable and also good extra defense.
• Ember: already has fireblast. I use Nourish to help her energy.
• Equinox: Pillage & Gloom on my day builds, Tharros on my crazy fun night build.
• Excalibur: Tharros & Wrathful Advance
• Frost: don't play much Frost, I have an old Parasitic Armor build on him I was messing with but if I was to play him for something I'd update his helminth to work around Avalanche OG
• Gara: Gloom & Eclipse, don't play much Gara though, too painful keeping everything running.
• Garuda: don't play much Garuda outside of the Circuit, and is one of the rare frames which has no helminth for me as she feels pretty well-rounded.
• Gyre: Pillage, she really struggles vs armor and is still too squishy for my liking - Pillage solves both of those problems.
• Hildryn: already has Pillage, I have Elemental Ward for that melty build, and also the Rebuild Shields metamorphosis on my shield goddess build as an experiment.
• Inaros: Gloom & Blood Altar, because staying alive without shields is hard. If he could heal himself (no, desiccation doesn't do enough) I'd put an armor strip on him (Tharros)
• Ivara: Perspicacity
• Khora: Nourish (whip spam), Pillage (strip & safety).
• Kullervo: Tharros. The heal comes in clutch as his own heal is inconsistent and has a delay, he doesn't really need the armor strip, but it's handy.
• Mag: I mostly run Mag vanilla, but have two configs with helminth: Pillage and Gloom. Don't use the Gloom anymore.
• Mesa: Pillage, Blood Altar
• Mirage: Pillage, Tharros, Gloom. Don't use the Gloom anymore.
• Nekros: has Terrify. I have Blood Altar, Silence, Gloom, Ensnare and Dispensary builds for him.
• Nezha: I mostly run Nezha vanilla, but have a Pillage build on him
• Nyx: Gloom to stay alive & she already has an armor strip.
• Protea: Pillage, Terrify and Larva
• Saryn: Gloom, Nourish. Her multipliers mean she doesn't need an armor strip for anything under several hours.
• Sevagoth: Breach Surge
• Styanax: already has Tharros, but I have a Pillage build on him too
• Titania: Thermal Sunder, Gloom
• Trinity: Dispensary, only use her for Eidolons
• Valkyr: Tharros, Nourish
• Volt: Fire Walker, Gloom (don't use anymore), Tharros (been wanting to try the Terrify nuke build but haven't got around to it yet)
• Voruna: Nourish, Tharros
• Wisp: Resonator, Roar
• Wukong: Ensnare (I only use Wukong for Disruption)
• Xaku: already has the best armor strip, I have Gloom and Pull (for boxing)

All the other frames not mentioned I don't play with any regularity. Now whenever someone shows real things like this on the forum it tends to just get criticized, so don't criticize what I do with my frames or why, especially if you aren't willing to show your own. The purpose of this is just to show how incredibly prevalent armor stripping really is (at least for me) when it comes to using helminth. Armor strip is the rule, not the exception. I'm not really trying to say the SP can't be played without armor strip, I'm just saying that when it comes to helminth choices it's almost always armor strip, and the content where that matters happens to be the SP. The only frames for me that don't have an armor strip helminth are the ones that either already have it, can't fit it (Inaros) or don't need it for their playstyle (Gara, Wisp, Titania, Ivara & Wukong) or need protection more than they need to strip armor.

I'm just really tired of using Pillage and Tharros on everything. I know, I know "you don't have to do that" yeah yeah. It's just efficiency, like everything build-related it's about what works, many of these are the end result after messing around with a lot of dumb/memey helminths. we've had helminth for a long time now, and I've been using it from the start. After the fun is over, what do you put on that actually matters? Armor strip is just a fantastic tool. Please, just for variety, give us some more options.

5 hours ago, vixenpixel said:

Terrify would be too broken if it applied to eximus units and acolytes but it doesn't, which makes tharros strike a really good option. And if you need more there is pillage which is basically best ability in the game if you can get it to 328% ab strength with corrosive projection. I don't really know what they could add to give us diverse options tbh... what is there is diverse enough. Except for fire blast, they all have a place in the game.

I don't think making Terrify work on eximus and acolytes (and demolysts) would be broken at all, I think it would barely make it competitive with Pillage and Tharros. There was general outcry about Terrify and Fire Blast not working like the other armor strips in the game when the armor strip rework happened, but DE never did anything. Why do you think that would be broken? EVERY other armor strip works, Terrify and Fire Blast just got inexplicably shafted and that's why they aren't in my builds. I don't really take armor strip to erase the mobs, I take it for the eximus and the other tough enemies - the exact things Terrify and Fire Blast don't work on. Like whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Qriist]

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I'm just really tired of using Pillage and Tharros on everything. I know, I know "you don't have to do that" yeah yeah. It's just efficiency, like everything build-related it's about what works, many of these are the end result after messing around with a lot of dumb/memey helminths. we've had helminth for a long time now, and I've been using it from the start. After the fun is over, what do you put on that actually matters? Armor strip is just a fantastic tool. Please, just for variety, give us some more options.

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Well, I'm not sure about you, but every time I'm looking for an SP helminth it almost always ends up being an armor strip. Actually, let me manually go and inspect my inventory and get some hard facts, one sec....

Ok, here's a snapshot of how I look today:

Okay, this e-peen measuring contest sounds super fun! :P

 

It's really interesting seeing how people put different builds together so I'm gonna compare my builds with yours. :) Obviously, I'm just commenting on our overlapping frames.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Citrine: Pillage. She shreds over time fine, but can struggle to melt big units fast enough, and I prefer Pillage over her Crystallize; more reliable and also good extra defense.

I put Nourish on her 1 and gave her an Incarnon'd Boltor Prime. Crystal goes haywire. I often get the most damage in Circuit run thanks to this build (regardless of rolled weapon).

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Excalibur: Tharros & Wrathful Advance

Warcry on 3 (+Eternal War), with a Chromatic Blade tuned to Heat and modded with Viral. Warcry's large armor buff combined with Equilibrium's extra heals keeps me upright.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Gyre: Pillage, she really struggles vs armor and is still too squishy for my liking - Pillage solves both of those problems.

Identical build theme! Amprex in her hands is just *chef's kiss* :D

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Hildryn: already has Pillage, I have Elemental Ward for that melty build, and also the Rebuild Shields metamorphosis on my shield goddess build as an experiment.

I mostly just use Hildryn in Orphix to give my Necramech mana so my single build features tons of shields (5035 before overshield) + Dispensary on 3.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Ivara: Perspicacity

I primarily use Ivara for non-combat stealth things like Simaris scanning and fishing uninterrupted. She's tuned for long duration plus high efficiency and not much else.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Kullervo: Tharros. The heal comes in clutch as his own heal is inconsistent and has a delay, he doesn't really need the armor strip, but it's handy.

Warcry baby, Warcry. BECOME ONE WITH THE BLENDER.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Mesa: Pillage, Blood Altar

I put Xata's Whisper on her 1 to give each bullet some slight AOE, and to perform better against Exilus. Mesa is modded with Archon Vitality, Mesa's Waltz, and Rage while the Regulators are modded with Viral/Heat (with Heat taking priority)

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Mirage: Pillage, Tharros, Gloom. Don't use the Gloom anymore.

Put Spellbind on 2 and uses Hall of Malevolence. Nothing crazy here.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Nekros: has Terrify. I have Blood Altar, Silence, Gloom, Ensnare and Dispensary builds for him.

I have Condemn on 1. I like the small amount of AOE CC. Pretty standard otherwise.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Nezha: I mostly run Nezha vanilla, but have a Pillage build on him

Nezha is mah MAN. I'm just gonna quote myself lol

• Pillage is subsumed over the first ability. The mod config you see allows for a 37 meter effect radius in all directions over 1.45 seconds per cast.
• Corrosive Projection drops the single-cast full armor strip of Pillage to 328 required Ability Strength. Shields drop from full to 18% on the same cast.
• Archon Vitality is there to power up Reaping Chakram.
• Companion equips Synth Fiber to always enable Equilibrium.
• Energy costs are: 77.5 per Pillage, 38.75 per Blazing Chakram, 116.25 per Warding Halo, 155 per Divine Spears
• R5 Molt Reconstruct heals the following to all Warframes in Affinity range: 465 per Pillage, 232.5 per Blazing Chakram, 697.5 per Warding Halo, 930 per Divine Spears
• R5 Arcane Blessing is there to allow me to fully absorb multiple Molt Reconstructs if I need it (such as after being caught in a Nullfier bubble)
• First few enemies are defeated after Blazing Chakram but without casting Warding Halo (to gain more energy). Afterwards, almost every encounter is Pillage>Blazing Chakram>delete with weapons.
• If I'm surrounded I may instead opt for Divine Spears>Pillage>Blazing Chakram. Reaping Chakram + Archon Vitality makes this particularly devestating. 
• The above rotations keep me topped up on overshields (max: 1350) and health (max: 2237) while destroying enemy defenses.
• Longterm*, once there are 4 Tauforged red shards in Nezha I'll swap Intensify for Hunter's Adrenaline (puts Ability Strength at 329). This will better serve the energy demands against bosses or other non-swarm encounters while incidentally strengthing the role of Molt Reconstruct in those fights.

* "Longterm" has been achieved and it freaking rocks.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Protea: Pillage, Terrify and Larva

I have a Roar build and a Coil Horizon build, each replacing the rather useless Dispensary skill. Both feature Archon Vitality, high duration and some extra range. Really liking how well Coil Horizon groups things, plus it has the tiniest synergy with Archon Stretch. I've tried Larva but it was more unwieldy in my opinion.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Saryn: Gloom, Nourish. Her multipliers mean she doesn't need an armor strip for anything under several hours.

I have the standard Saryn Gloom build, but I've also been experimenting with Breach Surge. I'm liking the results so far. More active, faster paced, and the sparks spread spores. As a bonus, the sparks seem to have crit interactions in the Circuit.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Titania: Thermal Sunder, Gloom

I have a Xata's Whisper build I use outside the Circuit (mainly for Razorwing AOE), and a Nourish build I use inside the Circuit (where you can get several AOE decrees). Archon Vitality on both for extra fire procs from the Dex Pixia. The Diwata is tuned to optimally scale her Razorflies.

I also have a silly meme config that uses Wrathful Advance while in pixie form to hilarious (if suboptimal) effect.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Valkyr: Tharros, Nourish

Wrathful Advance is SO GOOD on her. :D

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Wukong: Ensnare (I only use Wukong for Disruption)

I put Warcry (+Eternal War) on his 2. He's modded with Archon Vitality to take advantage of double heat procs from his 4.

 

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

• Xaku: already has the best armor strip, I have Gloom and Pull (for boxing)

I've got 3 mostly identical builds that each replace Xata's Whisper with Fracturing Blast, Nourish, or Roar. I found that Fracturing Blast is good for faster paced "A to B" missions like Capture or Exterminate while Roar is best for Defenses and the like.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Qriist

[CrownOfShadows]

1 hour ago, Qriist said:

It's really interesting seeing how people put different builds together so I'm gonna compare my builds with yours. :) Obviously, I'm just commenting on our overlapping frames.

I also have a silly meme config that uses Wrathful Advance while in pixie form to hilarious (if suboptimal) effect.

Wrathful Advance is SO GOOD on her. :D

It is interesting! Thanks for sharing some of yours.

Haha I was going to try that Wrathful Advance Titania for the lolz. Your enthusiasm over Nezha made me want to play him xD

Wrathful advance sounds great for Valkyr though - I'll definitely be doing that one. Also seems like it should be good on Wukong too.

[PollexMessier]

On 2023-09-29 at 9:17 AM, LittleLeoniePrime said:

If anything we need (more/better) DR on Helminth becaus we have 2 options right now and it's Defy which sucks when infused in other frames and Parasitic armor which isn't great either...

Fully agree with this. You missed three tho.

Nullstar. Which is really good.... if the warframe you're putting it on doesn't care about range, which is not a lot of them, and most of them ether already have their own DR or benefit a lot more from another helminth ability.

Eclipse.........
Yeah we all know. That ability just needs to have a toggle on it's effect cus it's worthless relying on light levels.

And elemental ward which is kinda just outclassed by Defy for armor with the cold element, and Pillage for shields with the electric element. The health bonus from heat could be interesting on regen tank builds tho but only a handful of frames can pull that off, and again run into the issue of being benefited more by other subsumes.

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-10-09 at 11:27 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Don't think making Terrify work on eximus and acolytes (and demolysts) would be broken at all, I think it would barely make it competitive with Pillage and Tharros. There was general outcry about Terrify and Fire Blast not working like the other armor strips in the game when the armor strip rework happened, but DE never did anything. Why do you think that would be broken? EVERY other armor strip works, Terrify and Fire Blast just got inexplicably shafted and that's why they aren't in my builds. I don't really take armor strip to erase the mobs, I take it for the eximus and the other tough enemies - the exact things Terrify and Fire Blast don't work on. Like whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Well I don't know why, but I figured it is because terrify hits in such a big area and tharros strike is more targeted. Personally, I don't put armor strip on all frames mostly because I don't use all frames for all content and it's not needed. 

Mirage: I use her for corpus missions and bring a cyanex with faction damage + toxin, very high strength on mirage, riven with multishot on the gun. It's fireworks and beautiful. :)

Volt: I use him for rescues or sabotages and sometimes capture or when i want it to go fast and i dont want to leave squad people behind. Also defection on rare occasions when I actually do defection. I put roar on him for some extra oomph. Don't need armor strip.

Saryn: I have four builds. One has tharros strike. I bring the Roar saryn for archon hunt and bosses in steel path because she one-shots most stuff.

Mesa: Roar. I don't really super love mesa. I don't do eclipse because I don't like having to stand in light to trigger it.

Gyre: Definitely pillage. It's so good on her and without it, shield gate is pain! Use her for exterminate mostly.

Inaros: I don't remember what i put on him, because i only use him for hijack.

Voruna: Nourish. The build I use on her is somewhat helped by the energy increase. The viral pulse on her getting hit is nice and somewhat synergizes with her 2's element application because it doesnt always trigger viral on it's own. Mostly survival frame tbh.

Xaku: Has an amazin kit and needs nothing. Survival frame. The evasion has incredible shield-gate synergy. The strip doesn't work on eximus units for some reason but it's okay, everything constantly dying around makes singling out the eximus quite easy and the xata whisper + those stolen floaty weapons help keep dmg output high, if your weapons arn't doing their job - which honestly i dont see how they wouldn't be. The new incarnon weapons are kinda OP. XD

Frost: 4's an amazing armor strip and I put breach surge on him as well. A ballas with the zaw arcane that leeches energy and Max efficiency for spamming abilities. 5 tau shards. He's a beast. :) I use him for mobile defense, excavation.

Citrine: Doesn't need anything. All of her kit is amazing. Her 4 makes my soma incarnon one-tap demolysts and acolytes. I basically just charge it vs normal mobs and switch to roomclear gun and melee, then when i need to one-tap something, i do her 4, which freezes acolytes and demos, and one-tap. Armor strip is unnecessary. I havent taken her to levelcap or anything though so you will have to test it yourself - I use a tank citrine build with health conversion, arcane blessing and molt reconstruct. Also put 3 archon mods because of some minor synergy with her crystal.

Ember: Fireblast is okay. It's somewhat sketchy to use her though, imo. I feel like fireblast should trigger 100% strip abit earlier than it does maybe. The system where her other abilities increase the rate at which her heat increases is dicey as hell.

Wukong: I use him for spy and rescue. I put perspicacity on him for sortie/archon hunt. Max duration.

Kullervo: Man this guy is a beast. After DE fixed overguard to give a tiny little shieldgate, it's just enough to let him shine. I use a tenet livia with a cc/cd riven. The combo pauses and you know, it's flashy with 2handed nikana, plus the heavy attack force applies slash. Plus the 2h nikanas have a really cool heavy attack that hits 360 degrees. I use a low duration, high effiency/strength/range build. The 4 brings combo up high and somewhat maintains it, 3 primes the map and the 1 heavy destroys everything. Damage is measured in billions. Doesn't need armor strip because the damage is so high and if it somehow didnt kill the enemy (although I literally never see that happen) the bleeding does.

There's other frames I also play cuz the loadout section has room for 53 frames currently. Not nearly enough imo, but it is what it is. I feel like you get the gist of it. I don't use every loadout for every content so having an armor strip on every frame would be kinda dumb for me. If you are indeed looking to optimize, having an armor strip on every frame wouldnt be the way to do it, from my pov. The optimal way would be to use different frames for different missions since they are mostly all, capable in different ways. If anything, I'd like to add to the conversation that armor strip is kindof a cheese in this game. DE should keep looking into alternative ways to provide killing potential or rework how armor strip works maybe. It's kindof ridiculous to me that a 90% armor strip barely affects enemies at high levels because of how armor scaling works. So you have to have a 100%. Additionally, corrosive status can't strip armor, which makes no sense. having to apply 10 hits to strip armor down by 80% makes no sense because frames can one-tap to armor strip 100%. The low effort wins vs the high effort. I know why that is, actually, it's a dated system that ties into the whole system. We play by these rules and game is fine and also great and amazing at times, so we're used to it working like this. But if you think about it, they just recently reworked to make the frame armor strips much stronger, and the corrosive 80% strip doesn't even scale into high levels. It might be useful in low levels but mostly at this time, corrosive is not wanted for it's status, but for it's dmg multiplier. Viral is wanted for it's status but not for it's damage. Heat is wanted for it's damage if you procc the status. It's kindof messy, tbh. It's another conversation though, but it ties into the armor strip talk and just heaping more armor strips onto the players is abit of a cop-out. I think we need more varied ways to play, not just a complete capitulate to the one way to play that is named armor strip. 

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-09-29 at 6:17 PM, LittleLeoniePrime said:

If anything we need (more/better) DR on Helminth becaus we have 2 options right now and it's Defy which sucks when infused in other frames and Parasitic armor which isn't great either...

Yeah we really do. If Defy didnt force you to be stationary for however long, it would be much better. I use null star on mirage to beef her up for base steel path exterminate missions but you really have to use the augment for it not to suck, so most of the time it's not worth it.

[vixenpixel]

On 2023-10-09 at 11:27 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

I don't think making Terrify work on eximus and acolytes (and demolysts) would be broken at all, I think it would barely make it competitive with Pillage and Tharros. There was general outcry about Terrify and Fire Blast not working like the other armor strips in the game when the armor strip rework happened, but DE never did anything. Why do you think that would be broken? EVERY other armor strip works, Terrify and Fire Blast just got inexplicably shafted and that's why they aren't in my builds. I don't really take armor strip to erase the mobs, I take it for the eximus and the other tough enemies - the exact things Terrify and Fire Blast don't work on. Like whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

At a guess, it's probably because terrify applies a fear and eximus are immune to the crowd control aspects of the ability and the strip is tied into the fear. Technically, I think that's how it works. Fear also doesnt apply to acolytes so there you have it. I wouldn't be opposed to more armor strips in the game, but I think armor strip is a bit of a cop out. Think about it. It means a complete capitulization to the one way to play the game. Armor strip or get the f. out. I don't think that's the way to go about things. There should be a more varied way to play the game. Additionally, Styanax is a relatively new frame so they did add an armor strip not that long ago. It'll happen again. :)

[Pizzarugi]

Right, so I'm curious: What weapons are you all using that you feel like you need to have armor strip? Not want, but need. As it stands currently, you don't need armor strip unless you're running endless missions for incredible lengths of time which DE doesn't balance the game around, you're using older primes and non-kuva/tenet/incarnon weapons with some exceptions, and/or not using modern mods like Galvanized mods as well as arcanes which significantly boost damage.

Another problem with increasing accessibility and availability of armor strip is that, while it may make weaker weapons more viable, it's going to be exploited with much stronger ones to 1shot everything. Say goodbye to ever having a balanced game if that happens, because there'd be almost nothing DE could do to keep the game challenging without slapping on more Archon-style damage attenuation so you can't instantly kill everything, or nerfing all modern weapons to being just as bad as the older ones which then makes armor strip a necessity.

Let's also remind ourselves that DE nerfed corrosive damage so it no longer fully strips armor and there's no signs they have plans on reversing this. And make no mistake, they almost certainly have their eyes set on viral and slash which has replaced the old corrosive+heat meta. What are they odds they want to make armor strip more commonplace?

I feel like you might have better odds of asking DE to buff older and outdated weapons than you would having them expand on a mechanic that all weapons could make use of and even exploit.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Pizzarugi

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, vixenpixel said:

At a guess, it's probably because terrify applies a fear and eximus are immune to the crowd control aspects of the ability and the strip is tied into the fear. Technically, I think that's how it works. Fear also doesnt apply to acolytes so there you have it.

The strip does work on Eximus through Overguard though, so it's inability to strip bosses and some mini-bosses isn't strictly tied up with immunity to the fear effect.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Tiltskillet

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Pizzarugi said:

Another problem with increasing accessibility and availability of armor strip is that, while it may make weaker weapons more viable, it's going to be exploited with much stronger ones to 1shot everything.

I don't see this as inevitable.  We already have access to powerful armor strips, and the OP is just asking for more variety.   DE just needs to avoid adding overpowered abilities to Helminth that strip armor and do other powerful things.  Just another strip or two that carves out an interesting niche from the other ones.

Personally I think this would be easier if injected Pillage got nerfed.  Which is already OP IMO, but still not picked universally over options like Terrify,  Tharros, and Unairu.  However unless DE is already planning something along these lines, Pillage will stand out even more with the shield changes arriving soon.

[Qriist]

4 hours ago, vixenpixel said:

At a guess, it's probably because terrify applies a fear and eximus are immune to the crowd control aspects of the ability and the strip is tied into the fear. Technically, I think that's how it works. Fear also doesnt apply to acolytes so there you have it.

17 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

The strip does work on Eximus through Overguard though, so it's inability to strip bosses and some mini-bosses isn't strictly tied up with immunity to the fear effect.

This is true. Piallge does nothing to the Overguard itself but you can see the little shield icon by the health bar drain.

If you use pillage enough (which can be just a single time with enough strength) you'll see the shield go away and the health bar turn from yellow to red - this is a universal sign that the enemy has 0 armor.

You'll notice that most Infested have red bars, and that the non-shield portion of most Corpus health bars are red, but Grineer are generally yellow until armor is fully stripped.

Once you chew through the Overguard you'll discover that there is a massive difference between armor and no-armor, even -especially- at level cap. The latter practically poofs when given a stern look.

[Pizzarugi]

19 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

I don't see this as inevitable.  We already have access to powerful armor strips, and the OP is just asking for more variety.   DE just needs to avoid adding overpowered abilities to Helminth that strip armor and do other powerful things.  Just another strip or two that carves out an interesting niche from the other ones.

Personally I think this would be easier if injected Pillage got nerfed.  Which is already OP IMO, but still not picked universally over options like Terrify,  Tharros, and Unairu.  However unless DE is already planning something along these lines, Pillage will stand out even more with the shield changes arriving soon.

Then I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what is considered overpowered. In my opinion, armor strip is overpowered going by DE's logic. As I mentioned in my previous post, they nerfed corrosive procs for a reason and it's tied to the fact it used to be a meta armor strip. I think if they were content with how much armor strip contributes to player power, they would've left it alone. By adding more variety, or going by what others consider to be good which is Tharros and Pillage, easy armor strips, that contradicts DE's reason behind nerfing corrosive.

And also as I said before, if we add more strong armor strips that are on par with Tharros and Pillage, strong weapons can also exploit them to trivialize the game.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Pizzarugi

[Qriist]

1 hour ago, Pizzarugi said:

Right, so I'm curious: What weapons are you all using that you feel like you need to have armor strip? Not want, but need. As it stands currently, you don't need armor strip unless you're running endless missions for incredible lengths of time which DE doesn't balance the game around, you're using older primes and non-kuva/tenet/incarnon weapons with some exceptions, and/or not using modern mods like Galvanized mods as well as arcanes which significantly boost damage.

I prefer armor strip to sitting around waiting for status procs to kill things. I feel like it's a more rewarding play style. I'm aware it's basically the same amount of time to strip->shoot versus shoot->bleed.

[Pizzarugi]

1 minute ago, Qriist said:

I prefer armor strip to sitting around waiting for status procs to kill things. I feel like it's a more rewarding play style. I'm aware it's basically the same amount of time to strip->shoot versus shoot->bleed.

I still have to ask what your weapon is in that case. You don't need to wait for procs to kill things if you use kuva/tenet/incarnon weapons, modern primes, and some older weapons that remain exceptionally strong today (ex. Amprex) along with Galvanized mods and weapon arcanes.

[Qriist]

Just now, Pizzarugi said:

I still have to ask what your weapon is in that case. You don't need to wait for procs to kill things if you use kuva/tenet/incarnon weapons, modern primes, and some older weapons that remain exceptionally strong today (ex. Amprex) along with Galvanized mods and weapon arcanes.

Some of my most used weapons are those you listed.

The Tenora and Trumna are tuned for headshots while the ATF Defunder and Amprex are more spray and pray. I generally don't bother armor stripping when going for headshots.

[Tiltskillet]

8 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Then I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what is considered overpowered. In my opinion, armor strip is overpowered going by DE's logic. As I mentioned in my previous post, they nerfed corrosive procs for a reason and it's tied to the fact it used to be a meta armor strip.

Are you actually invested in what you imagine to be DE's balance logic in a feedback thread?  It doesn't seem like you share the same (hypothetical) opinion, based on other things you've said here.

But as far as that argument goes, keep in mind this is the same DE that buffed most ability armor strips a year ago.  Long after they nerfed Corrosive.

[Pizzarugi]

8 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Are you actually invested in what you imagine to be DE's balance logic in a feedback thread?  It doesn't seem like you share the same (hypothetical) opinion, based on other things you've said here.

But as far as that argument goes, keep in mind this is the same DE that buffed most ability armor strips a year ago.  Long after they nerfed Corrosive.

I'm pretty sure I've been consistent on my opinion regarding armor strip. It isn't necessary, and in worse case scenario, making them more available will completely destroy any attempts DE has made at balancing the game if they were to add stronger enemies.

Do you have any patch notes you can refer me to regarding the armor strip buffs? If that's the case, I have to ask why they even bothered nerfing corrosive procs if this is what they were going to do. It's like nerfing Valkyr's 4 then later adding Revenant whose Mesmer Skin is pretty much a better invulnerability, nerfing Trinity's 4 to no longer be invulnerable and then giving Revenant an augment that effectively does the same thing.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Pizzarugi

[Qriist]

2 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Do you have any patch notes you can refer me to regarding the armor strip buffs?

Here you go. Came in the Veilbreaker update.  

On 2022-09-07 at 11:00 AM, [DE]Megan said:

ARMOR CHANGES

Armor is a fundamental part of Warframe’s balance, but the act of stripping armor has always been somewhat hard to gauge. Currently, when an armor stripping Ability is cast it uses the target’s current armor as the base for its calculation. This means that you may have to cast that Ability several times on the same enemy in order to strip their armor completely.

Players have adapted to this system by maximizing Ability Strength to the point where the armor stripping effect is as close to 100% as possible - thus reducing the number of casts required to strip armor to one. 

In the effort of encouraging build diversity and streamlining the way that armor stripping abilities work, we are making the following changes:

ALL Armor Stripping Warframe abilities now apply to the TOTAL armor value.

How it worked before: You cast an ability that strips 50% Armor. The first cast will reduce the foe’s Armor to 50%, the second cast will reduce the armor to 25%, taking half of the existing 50%. This was the case for every ability except Oberon’s Reckoning, and special exceptions like Shattering Impact.

How it works now: Casting an ability that strips 50% Armor will reduce their Armor to 50% on the first cast, and 0% on the second cast. 
 

This applies to every single Armor removal ability in the game. We have also buffed a few of these abilities in the process to bring them up to a usable level in light of these changes: 

• Increased Frost's Avalanche armor reduction from 40% to 60% and changed the armor reduction to be permanent.
  • Frost’s Avalanche can also now reduce armor from targets even if they are immune to crowd control abilities. 
• Increase Nekros' Terrify armor reduction from 20% to 60%.
• Increase Oberon's Reckoning armor reduction from 30% to 50%.
• Changed Banshee's Sonic Fracture (Augment) armor reduction to be permanent.
• Increase Mag's Fracturing Crush (Augment) armor reduction from 50% to 75%, remove the 80% cap per cast and change the armor reduction to be permanent.
• Increase Trinity's Abating Link (Augment) armor reduction from 45% to 60%.
   

 

[Pizzarugi]

7 minutes ago, Qriist said:

Here you go. Came in the Veilbreaker update.  

 

Huh, must've missed it.

Then I'm even more puzzled by DE's decisions. What was the point of nerfing corrosive procs if they were gonna do a 180 and just make armor strip abilities stronger? You can argue that by making corrosive+heat the meta, you ultimately keep player DPS low. Now? Helminth Tharros/Pillage into your kit (every frame except Nidus has at least one bad ability you can replace) and give your weapon viral+slash and just instantly melt everything.

I feel like there's a conflict of interest internally within DE, where someone wants to keep the game slow and challenging, but someone else wants it fast and easy.

[Tiltskillet]

22 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Do you have any patch notes you can refer me to regarding the armor strip buffs?

 

Qriist already answered, but I'll mention it also happens to be the same patch when they introduced Tharros Strike, another powerful, injectable armor strip.  I think the case that DE is categorically allergic to more armor strips is not well supported.

 

22 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

If that's the case, I have to ask why they even bothered nerfing corrosive procs if this is what they were going to do.

Well I'm not going to defend it, as it's offtopic and would take a lot of energy, and I don't find it completely defensible anyway.  But I'll just note there is big time gap between those.  I doubt in 2020 DE had any idea what they were going to do with ability armor strips more than 2 years later. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Tiltskillet