Aura Mods: Rework Amp and Scavenger alongside Primary and Secondary Ammo

[Yunjuwo]

Not too long ago, we've said goodbye to Rifle, Shotgun, and Sniper ammo, as the three came together to become universal ammunition for primary weapons. I personally think that not only was this simplification of primary weapon ammunition a good change, but that it can be extended to the Amp and Scavenger family of aura mods.

As it is, no one uses Pistol Scavenger, Rifle Scavenger, Shotgun Scavenger, Sniper Scavenger, Pistol Amp, Rifle Amp, nor Shotgun Amp. That's seven aura mods that will never see play outside of increasing mod capacity for new players. This is because these aura mods are too inflexible to be used in today's Warframe, where our arsenals are ever increasing. An example where using one of these seven would be The Circuit, as having a more flexible build on our warframes is more valuable, rather than equipping Shotgun Amp and praying that you roll a good shotgun(or any shotgun in most cases).

The one exception is Holster Amp, as its effect(granting weapon damage on switching weapons) is flexible and can be utilized in almost all content.

I propose combining all aura mods of the Scavenger family into a single aura mod that increases ammo recovery, as well as combining all aura mods of the Amp family into a single aura mod that increases gun damage. Alternatively, we could at the very least do this for Rifle Scavenger, Shotgun Scavenger, and Sniper Scavenger, renaming them as "Primary Scavenger"; and doing the same for Rifle Amp and Shotgun Amp, renaming them as "Primary Amp". Whether Holster Amp would be assimilated, buffed, changed, or whatever, could be discussed.

Hopefully, this reduction of outdated aura mods will increase players' creativity when choosing aura mods.

[Zakkhar]

37 minutes ago, Yunjuwo said:

As it is, no one uses Pistol Scavenger, Rifle Scavenger, Shotgun Scavenger, Sniper Scavenger, Pistol Amp, Rifle Amp, nor Shotgun Amp. That's seven aura mods that will never see play outside of increasing mod capacity for new players.

I see plenty of people running those. Probably due to unawarness that the %dmg is additive to other sources of %dmg. I see Mesa/Titanias with Pistol Amp left and right (which is worst of the worst because here power str also counts as %dmg). They are not inflexible, they are straight out bad, considering how more %dmg sources we got nowdays - arcanes, warframe powers, gun CO... 

37 minutes ago, Yunjuwo said:

An example where using one of these seven would be The Circuit, as having a more flexible build on our warframes is more valuable, rather than equipping Shotgun Amp and praying that you roll a good shotgun(or any shotgun in most cases).

Bad example fallacy. What do you mean equipping the Aura? You would have to know which Warframe to equip it on. And you do. And since you see the warframe selection pre-mission, you also see weapon selection pre-mission. There is no prayer involved, just pure rationality.

Why you would want to waste aura slot for 18% bonus to your already existing 600+* is beyond me.

*) with shotguns Primary Merciless is +360, Point blank is 90 (primed 165) that is already 100+360+165=625% dmg, and we did not even use any https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Galvanized_Savvy stacks. Whooping 2,7%dmg increase.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Zakkhar

[Yunjuwo]

1 hour ago, Zakkhar said:

I see plenty of people running those. Probably due to unawarness that the %dmg is additive to other sources of %dmg. I see Mesa/Titanias with Pistol Amp left and right (which is worst of the worst because here power str also counts as %dmg). They are not inflexible, they are straight out bad, considering how more %dmg sources we got nowdays - arcanes, warframe powers, gun CO... 

Why you would want to waste aura slot for 18% bonus to your already existing 600+* is beyond me.

*) with shotguns Primary Merciless is +360, Point blank is 90 (primed 165) that is already 100+360+165=625% dmg, and we did not even use any https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Galvanized_Savvy stacks. Whooping 2,7%dmg increase.

First off, all this math is unnecessary when you consider that the main principle behind this post's suggestion was drawn for the intent of promoting players to try different aura mods besides the old tried and true, as viable choices. However, if you really wish to make an issue out of the math, here's a simple solution: just make the bonuses scale multiplicatively.

Yes, I agree with your point of Mesas running Pistol Amp being a sub-optimal outcome, as we already have many sources of additive damage increases available to us. But a simple fix would be to have the reworked mods scale like the Smite and Bane family of mods; you could even reword the reworked aura mods similarly to the Bane and Smite mods post Abyss of Dagath update, where they now clearly say x?.?? instead of +?.??%.

Or, if you'd rather like to argue that we already have plenty of ways to increase damage in today's Warframe, to which I'd also agree, we could just rework/rename the aura mods away from damage increases, and towards something with more utility instead(e.g. maximum ammo, ammo efficiency, magazine capacity, whatever). The point is...

None. Of. This. Matters. Why?

Because the topic of this post, again, is to remove the redundancy of diversity of aura mods regarding guns, and to instead rework them in a way to encourage players--new and veterans--to use them with their improved ease-of-use.

2 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

Bad example fallacy. What do you mean equipping the Aura? You would have to know which Warframe to equip it on. And you do. And since you see the warframe selection pre-mission, you also see weapon selection pre-mission. There is no prayer involved, just pure rationality.

You're quoting out of context. I did say our arsenals are "ever increasing", so do remember to refer to that in the given example. I'll even give an example of my example:

~

An MR 10 player, grinds mastery fodder, does quests, has a few warframes and weapons that they invested formas/reactors/catalysts into to make decent builds with, usual stuff. They go to Navigation currently equipped with a Mesa Prime, Pistol Amp, and Lex Prime--because that's what they favor--and choose to play Circuit. Now, before going in, they see that they're selection of warframes and weapons for this Circuit run does not include any good secondaries, but they see that they will have access to Mesa and Braton Prime, of which they have a good build for. They go back to the arsenal, equip Rifle Amp on Mesa, and proceed to play Circuit.

Now, they've climbed to MR 30. They go to play Circuit. A similar issue is brought up. Do they go back to their arsenal, switch out aura mods, and proceed to Circuit? At this point, yes, I am asking hypothetically, but personally if it was me I would just jump in without changing aura mods. Because at this point, as a MR 30 player, my arsenal(just like everyone else's) has been "ever increasing". The further players progress, at some point, it becomes chore-like to keep switching out mods of our builds. You could argue against with the fact that we have three different configs to equip multiple builds/auras on, but we have much more than just three aura mods; what if they want more? Just buy more configs? What if they don't want to spend all that platinum? What's their budget? And now the whole topic has derailed into a whole new matter, which I'd rather not focus on.

~

Circuit be damned, there are other examples of the addressed aura mods either not serving for the mission at hand, or being inconvenient with their limited applicability.

However

Again, the main point I wanted to bring up, was to simplify/unify the many, outdated aura mods into a few, universally useful aura mods, that'll more easily serve players as their arsenal indefinitely grows.

[Zakkhar]

9 hours ago, Yunjuwo said:

But a simple fix would be to have the reworked mods scale like the Smite and Bane family of mods; you could even reword the reworked aura mods similarly to the Bane and Smite mods post Abyss of Dagath update, where they now clearly say x?.?? instead of +?.??%.

Your "simple fix" is making extremly underpowered mod into extremly overpowered one. Not only working as last multiplier but also squadwide (and stacking). Interesting.

[Zakkhar]

9 hours ago, Yunjuwo said:

An MR 10 player, grinds mastery fodder, does quests, has a few warframes and weapons that they invested formas/reactors/catalysts into to make decent builds with, usual stuff. They go to Navigation currently equipped with a Mesa Prime, Pistol Amp, and Lex Prime--because that's what they favor--and choose to play Circuit. Now, before going in, they see that they're selection of warframes and weapons for this Circuit run does not include any good secondaries, but they see that they will have access to Mesa and Braton Prime, of which they have a good build for. They go back to the arsenal, equip Rifle Amp on Mesa, and proceed to play Circuit.

Another bad example. Why would you need a gun on Mesa? I use my quick melee sometimes and a sniper rifle, but an AR? What for?

[Tiltskillet]

16 hours ago, Yunjuwo said:

Not too long ago, we've said goodbye to Rifle, Shotgun, and Sniper ammo, as the three came together to become universal ammunition for primary weapons. I personally think that not only was this simplification of primary weapon ammunition a good change, but that it can be extended to the Amp and Scavenger family of aura mods.

I wanted the Scavenger Auras consolidated even before that, but it did make the case more obvious.  I'll add that I'd also like the Primary ammo mutation mods consolidated into one mod.

Amps I don't want consolidated, exactly.  I'd like a new "Ranged Weapon Amp" with a low-ish bonus, and the bonus amounts reworked on the specialized Amps.  I can kind of understand why Dead Eye is so high, but why is Shotgun Amp so low compared to the others?

I certainly don't want those bonuses changed to final multipliers though.  Base damage is fine with some revision of the numbers.

[Yunjuwo]

On 2023-10-22 at 6:02 AM, Zakkhar said:

Your "simple fix" is making extremly underpowered mod into extremly overpowered one. Not only working as last multiplier but also squadwide (and stacking). Interesting.

You're still not getting the big picture, even though I stressed it out multiple times.

If you're truly that afraid about this "simple fix" making these mods "[extremely] overpowered", you could just 1) adjust the numbers to appropriate values so that the aura still gives value for a solo player while not being "overpowered" when stacked 4x, or 2) give the aura mods some other effect geared towards utility; I have literally given out some examples, of which you really shouldn't argue against either because those are merely a handful in a basket of solutions.

If you would stop getting hung up on details, you would realize the main point of this post, which I'm not going to repeat because that's exhausting.

On 2023-10-22 at 6:05 AM, Zakkhar said:

Another bad example. Why would you need a gun on Mesa? I use my quick melee sometimes and a sniper rifle, but an AR? What for?

This isn't a bad example. I could give you a whole list of enemies that Mesa would need guns for, but I'm not doing that either. Partially because that would also be exhausting, but also because now you're the one dealing in bad example fallacies(you can find it, I believe in you).

On 2023-10-22 at 10:03 AM, Tiltskillet said:

I wanted the Scavenger Auras consolidated even before that, but it did make the case more obvious.  I'll add that I'd also like the Primary ammo mutation mods consolidated into one mod.

I completely forgot to include the Ammo Mutation series, and while I agree with you I'm pretty sure it would have to come in the form of a new "universal" Ammo Mutation mod alongside removing the current Ammo Mutations we have from droptables, as I'm sure DE wouldn't want players to feel cheated out of possibly investing endo and credits into the four primed versions currently available. Or I guess they could just code it to reimburse players their endo and credits. Anyways...

On 2023-10-22 at 10:03 AM, Tiltskillet said:

Amps I don't want consolidated, exactly.  I'd like a new "Ranged Weapon Amp" with a low-ish bonus, and the bonus amounts reworked on the specialized Amps.  I can kind of understand why Dead Eye is so high, but why is Shotgun Amp so low compared to the others?

I certainly don't want those bonuses changed to final multipliers though.  Base damage is fine with some revision of the numbers.

I get where you're coming from, but if we really had to stick with base damage, the numbers would have to be pretty high to simultaneously be valuable for a solo player to consider using while also not being too high if stacked 4x by four players. I guess if you got the numbers just right, the end result in the grand scheme of things could ideally be a moderate but tangible increase in damage output for veterans, and a significant increase for newer players.

That, or we could possibly repurpose and rename the Amp series away from damage and towards utility.