How did recent updates alter armor/damage/formulas and how am I supposed to mod now?

[LordCasimiro]

I didn't even know how to exploit shield gating before, yet now I see videos with mods that specifically tamper with it. Furthermore the way my weapons and abilities interact with enemies seem to have changed somewhat. I feel Grineer enemies are tougher. Corpus are even more fragile than before although their weapons seem to hit me harder like glasscannons. A Voruna that could murder entire rooms at SP Axi needs to use the same skill 2~3 times this time around. My fully modded Incarnon Dual Toxocyst needed to discharge the entire mag to kill an Eximus Grineer in Steel Path Survival, yet a Ninkondi Prime I was leveling (modded for Corrosive) could easily wipe out a wave of Corpus mobs at the same level yet it took way more hits to kill Grineer mobs then even with the combo built up.

I want to understand what happened with the recent updates. At first I thought the mobs were tweaked to put more emphasis on modding to counter their health and armor, but my experiences with that Ninokondi tell me this doesn't hold

[Tiltskillet]

What does "recent updates" mean, like going back how far?

There haven't been any recent--what I'd call recent, anyway-- changes to armor or damage fomulae.   Armor mods were changed recently, but this didn't affect enemies directly.

[LordCasimiro]

23 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

What does "recent updates" mean, like going back how far?

There haven't been any recent--what I'd call recent, anyway-- changes to armor or damage fomulae.   Armor mods were changed recently, but this didn't affect enemies directly.

As recent as about a month and maybe 2~3 weeks. Possibly some update related to the mod Catalyzing Shields which I don't remember existing. I assume near it's release there was some change to how shields and armors work

[Tiltskillet]

10 minutes ago, LordCasimiro said:

As recent as about a month and maybe 2~3 weeks. Possibly some update related to the mod Catalyzing Shields which I don't remember existing. I assume near it's release there was some change to how shields and armors work

I really can't think of anything that would impact your perception of enemy damage or tankyness.

As far as how to mod for tank goes, I'm not the best person to give advice.  But if you weren't using shieldgating before, there's no overwhelming need to switch over now.  Not that you need to stay away from it either--it's still more than viable, and will be there whenever you want to experiment with it.

The biggest changes by far have been with pets, which ones are used, and how they're modded.  Although again, anything that was working for you before should still be totally fine.  It's just that more pets are viable and they have a lot more performance available once you get the bond mods.

[BroDutt]

2 hours ago, LordCasimiro said:

As recent as about a month and maybe 2~3 weeks. Possibly some update related to the mod Catalyzing Shields which I don't remember existing. I assume near it's release there was some change to how shields and armors work

It's only rework to our shield (DR 50%) with invulnerability time from 0.33 - 2.5 s base on shield number. Catalyzing Shield is basically a mod version to replace Decaying Dragon Key (Equipping the key greatly reduce shield regeneration now).

Considering enemy level, Grineer on SP had greatly increase DR due to the number of Armor based on level since the original buff for steelpath enemy (that made viral slash popular). 

The good news is Corrosive can stack faster to reduce 80% enemy armor. Although viral slash is still the efficient way to kill SP Grineer.

And the reason Ninkondi Prime effective against SP Corpus is the Impact damage (50% against Shield 15% against Proto Shield) not the corrosive damage

Edited December 1, 2023 by BroDutt

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

Ive had multiple survey questions asking "how would you rate enemy difficulty vs before" in the last couple months.

[Tiltskillet]

4 hours ago, BroDutt said:

Considering enemy level, Grineer on SP had greatly increase DR due to the number of Armor based on level since the original buff for steelpath enemy (that made viral slash popular). 

What SP Grineer DR increase?  Are you just talking about the original 2.5x SP enemy bonuses?

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

So... to preface this, I am not expecting you or people in general, to keep meticulous records of their gameplay, modding and so on, for random periods of time, but some sort of examples for comparison, would be nice. I say this because... sort of vague general by the feel examples, aren't always the best way to identify or distinguish changes. There haven't been any recent updates that should cause the results you are reporting (directly), as far as I can remember/see, beyond shield gating which shouldn't affect enemies. Maybe reference the videos you are talking about?

There could be some potential reasons that are indirect. Like companions went through some changes, but even then, you probably had to change something, like their mods, to see different results. Also if you are going by a general sense or gist, were you aware of certain interactions before hand? This is why solid examples would help, like if you compared Ninkondi results 3 months ago, against Corpus at a certain level, to now. Do you consider stuff like Impact damage, or is it even possible you accidentally left a Dragon Key on, or other such interactions. Like maybe if you changed up a Companion, one of their interactions is indirectly buffing you (various ways), or you may have removed a type of buff from a switch up. 

Warframe has so many different variables to account for, but we also do get pretty solid patch notes and lists of changes. In the last big update we had, their were some changes to Armour, Health, Shields, stats overall, but mostly for us, not enemies. I can't really think of what could be accounting for what you experience, that is a recent change at least. Oh and to be clear, when I meant specific examples, I mean before and after. Like people have different builds, one persons Incarnon Dual Toxocyst may not have been that effective against an SP Eximus 3 months ago, but also not all SP Eximus are the same either, so even if your build has stayed the same, other variables may not have, so the reason for the difference in your experience, may be multiple, and not necessarily because of enemy armour/health values, hence... 

Hope all that made sense. Voruna as well for example, is kind of a tricky example to explore, depending on your build, because for myself? The way I build Voruna, is that she is inconsistent, because I build her for her 2, because I like it, but innate to its design is randomness/RNG, which means it should be quite inconsistent. I also build her to account for that, since I can use it as a Primer as well as spam it, but sometimes it can nuke rooms, and sometimes its less effective, because certain status are different. Its not say... like Equinox, where you build up an exact set damage number and so can depend on that. Except maybe your Voruna build is very different and more consistent by design. 

[BroDutt]

On 2023-12-01 at 12:28 PM, Tiltskillet said:

What SP Grineer DR increase?  Are you just talking about the original 2.5x SP enemy bonuses?

DR is short for Damage Reduction, in this case from armor and certain element partial resistance (depend on the unit eg. Nox , Heavy Gunner etc).

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, BroDutt said:

DR is short for Damage Reduction, in this case from armor and certain element partial resistance (depend on the unit eg. Nox , Heavy Gunner etc).

Is there a patch note or a date you can cite?  I know what DR is, but if it wasn't the original SP bonus, I still don't know what "great increase to DR" for SP grineer you meant.  Especially Heavy Gunners.  Nox have gone through a few changes, although I think they are less tanky now than they were before Eximus Reborn.