Help with Gram Prime build

[SAT-COM]

I have been out of the game for a while. I left when that Warframe that can throw down crack vials, came out. Lavos. I figured cross-progression was around the corner, but it wasn't. I come back to the game and there are archon shards, secondary arcanes, secondary exilus slots, etc, etc, etc., and I'm still playing catch up; oh, and the melee rework.

Anyway, I'm trying to see is there any way I can improve this Gram Prime build. Someone on the Warframe Discord helped me a while back and I'm wondering if I need to update anything because I don't know if there are new mods now or what the rules are regarding the melee changes, etc.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[AndouRaiton]

Honestly that build is fine

Only thing i would suggest is using a lower rank of either Virulent Scourge or Vicious Frost so that you are proccing more slash than viral

[VibingCat]

Hi! I suggest you remove viral — which you should inflict in other ways, usually with a pistol like Kompressa or Epitaph — in order to proc Bleed status effect more often, so replace those two mods with Berserker Fury and Primed Reach. Then, if possible, give your Warframe shards for melee critical damage, and infuse Roar on it if you want a very powerful build for the Steel Path. An additional Arcane Strike would be great. Don't forget about both dexterity arcanes for combo duration, maybe also Swift Momentum. 

[taiiat]

• i assume you're using Naramon with this, since there's no Hit Counter extension(Combo Duration) present here? or you're extending it with something else?
• i think Weeping Wounds is superfluous since you already have 91% at all times. when you have your Counter built up you will be able to get to roughly 200% - a matter of preference i suppose.
• Carnis Mandible may be worth considering (90% Slash, 60% Status Chance)
• i can't stand using heavy Melee without a lot more Attack Speed than that, but maybe it's okay for you. Arcane Strike as mentioned is pretty nice though.
• if you're going to use Heavies like ever at all, you should be using Amalgam Organ Shatter.

[SAT-COM]

14 hours ago, taiiat said:

• i assume you're using Naramon with this, since there's no Hit Counter extension(Combo Duration) present here? or you're extending it with something else?
• i think Weeping Wounds is superfluous since you already have 91% at all times. when you have your Counter built up you will be able to get to roughly 200% - a matter of preference i suppose.
• Carnis Mandible may be worth considering (90% Slash, 60% Status Chance)
• i can't stand using heavy Melee without a lot more Attack Speed than that, but maybe it's okay for you. Arcane Strike as mentioned is pretty nice though.
• if you're going to use Heavies like ever at all, you should be using Amalgam Organ Shatter.

I have not been using Naramon, just Zenurik. I'll make the change. Never heard of Carnis Mandible but will work on acquiring it.

Thanks to everyone who took time to reply, I'll be looking into making those changes.

I've just been gone for so long that IDKWTF I'm doing in Warframe these days.

Edited January 29 by SAT-COM

[VibingCat]

4 hours ago, SAT-COM said:

I have not been using Naramon, just Zenurik. I'll make the change. Never heard of Carnis Mandible but will work on acquiring it.

Thanks to everyone who took time to reply, I'll be looking into making those changes.

I've just been gone for so long that IDKWTF I'm doing in Warframe these days.

No need for Carnis Mandible, you have much better options. +Slash damage doesn't actually affect its status damage, which is the only thing that matters against high level armoured enemies.

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, VibingCat said:

No need for Carnis Mandible, you have much better options. +Slash damage doesn't actually affect its status damage, which is the only thing that matters against high level armoured enemies.

it makes them far more likely to actually apply Slash, and applying two Slash Status in __ time is going to be significantly more effective than one Slash Status less reliably at slightly more Damage per Tick. 34% probability to apply Slash when applying Status isn't bad, but, it could be significantly better. it's unequivocally the best Slash Mod

it'd come after more Attack Speed for me, i find heavy Melee unusably slow without a like 120%+ boost, at all times (can't be unreliable), but if one is ok using Arcane Strike or likes that speed already, then that would be a significant improvement to anything you're not oneshotting since they're already pretty saturated on +Damage and Crit Chance.
may as well lean into a fairly high Status playstyle considering their Riven, but one could certainly consider Gladiator Might instead if they wanted to lean more towards raw Damage (when uh... you're using Damage Types the Enemies are weak to). though if you add a bunch of Shards for Crit Damage then er, Gladiator Might isn't that great anymore, anyways.

 

Reach could be 'beneficial' in a way by taking advantage of how hard Follow Through hits Damage to let you stack more Status before the Enemy dies - but is that really actually better (kinda isn't). heavy Melee has pretty mediocre Follow Through, it's not like if they were inquiring about Dual Daggers or Fists or something.
if you're really meaning that they should lean into raw Damage because of how slow heavy Melee is and to not rely on applying Status - that could certainly be fair enough and they'll still have decent Status via their Riven anyways. it would be fair enough and quite true that one may as well just spam Block and Forward-Block regardless of Stance and just take the movement paired with big Multipliers and AoE-ish, stacking Attack Speed to turn themselves into a never ending chain explosion.

however you didn't actually like, say, that. _{but it definitely has been said, now.}
whether they can be bothered to prime things and stack Attack Speed also matters anyways - if they don't like playing like that then it doesn't matter if it's good or not.

[VibingCat]

2 hours ago, taiiat said:

it makes them far more likely to actually apply Slash, and applying two Slash Status in __ time is going to be significantly more effective than one Slash Status less reliably at slightly more Damage per Tick. 34% probability to apply Slash when applying Status isn't bad, but, it could be significantly better. it's unequivocally the best Slash Mod

I did some math, this is a comparison about Bleed DPS between Carnis Mandible and Weeping Wounds, which adds +440% status chance. The latter is nearly three times stronger, as shown below.

Gram Prime has 225 Slash damage and 300 total damage, 32% status chance. The average number of Bleed stacks per hit is equal to the percentage of Slash multiplied by the final status chance.

-Without either mod:

225 / 300 * 0.32 = 0.24

-With Carnis Mandible we get:

225*1.9 / (225*1.9+75) * (0.32*1.6) ~ 0.436

-With Weeping Wounds the score is:

225/300 * (0.32 * 5.4) ~ 1.296

Comparison Weeping Wounds vs. Carnis Mandible: 1.296 / 0.436 ~ 2.97.

 

Logically, different stats such as critical damage, attack speed and faction damage don't change the outcome of this comparison. 

Edited January 30 by VibingCat

[taiiat]

14 hours ago, VibingCat said:

I did some math, this is a comparison about Bleed DPS between Carnis Mandible and Weeping Wounds, which adds +440% status chance. The latter is nearly three times stronger, as shown below.

Weeping Wounds is obviously more effective, yes. as long as ones' playstyle conforms with Shadow Debt Mods (hence why almost everything i mentioned was open ended and a suggestion, i can't guess their playstyle nor tell them what their playstyle is).

[Graavarg]

On 2024-01-30 at 8:48 AM, VibingCat said:

I did some math, this is a comparison about Bleed DPS between Carnis Mandible and Weeping Wounds, which adds +440% status chance. The latter is nearly three times stronger, as shown below.

Gram Prime has 225 Slash damage and 300 total damage, 32% status chance. The average number of Bleed stacks per hit is equal to the percentage of Slash multiplied by the final status chance.

-Without either mod:

225 / 300 * 0.32 = 0.24

-With Carnis Mandible we get:

225*1.9 / (225*1.9+75) * (0.32*1.6) ~ 0.436

-With Weeping Wounds the score is:

225/300 * (0.32 * 5.4) ~ 1.296

Comparison Weeping Wounds vs. Carnis Mandible: 1.296 / 0.436 ~ 2.97.

 

Logically, different stats such as critical damage, attack speed and faction damage don't change the outcome of this comparison. 

If you really want to compare them you should start with 0 combo and factor in getting combo to max, as well as a way to retain it, and factor in heavy attacks as well (if used).

Of course a full combo Weeping Wounds will top the Status Chance more than anything else, but that is of little use if most enemies die to immediate damage, if you can't get it to max, can't keep it at max or use Heavy Attacks.

It comes down to playstyle, it comes down to which missions you play (and if you go multi-round Endless) and what kind of enemies you currently fight against. A blade like that (with Blood Rush and when ranking up combo) will kill most enemies in the game in one or a few hits anyway. And depending on slash procs (unless standing and whaling at some super-tanky grineer until it finally drops 🙂) is a fairly advanced melee style, as you should proc slash and move on, letting the procs kill the enemy. Continuing hitting an enemy that will die due to slash procs in a few seconds is actually fairly ineffective (even if the slash procs are).

I am not saying you are wrong, just that it is not that simple.

- - -

With a riven like that my personal preference would be to go for max crit chance/crit damage/damage (and fit Sacrificial Steel in there) and not explicitly add more status, though Carnis Mandible would fit it nicely. But then I'm a sucker for those red numbers 😀.  And add a way (mod or other mechanism) to stop the combo from draining too easily and if I use a Heavy Attacks to drop tougher enemies maybe add some Combo Efficiency. And make a "max-range fast attack speed" build for missions with "lesser enemies". And maybe a build with Primed Fever Strike for Corpus, which has Naramon polarity which just happens to be the same as Carnis Mandible (making them easily switchable between builds...). 

[VibingCat]

2 hours ago, Graavarg said:

If you really want to compare them you should start with 0 combo and factor in getting combo to max, as well as a way to retain it, and factor in heavy attacks as well (if used).

Of course a full combo Weeping Wounds will top the Status Chance more than anything else, but that is of little use if most enemies die to immediate damage, if you can't get it to max, can't keep it at max or use Heavy Attacks.

It comes down to playstyle, it comes down to which missions you play (and if you go multi-round Endless) and what kind of enemies you currently fight against. A blade like that (with Blood Rush and when ranking up combo) will kill most enemies in the game in one or a few hits anyway. And depending on slash procs (unless standing and whaling at some super-tanky grineer until it finally drops 🙂) is a fairly advanced melee style, as you should proc slash and move on, letting the procs kill the enemy. Continuing hitting an enemy that will die due to slash procs in a few seconds is actually fairly ineffective (even if the slash procs are).

I am not saying you are wrong, just that it is not that simple.

- - -

With a riven like that my personal preference would be to go for max crit chance/crit damage/damage (and fit Sacrificial Steel in there) and not explicitly add more status, though Carnis Mandible would fit it nicely. But then I'm a sucker for those red numbers 😀.  And add a way (mod or other mechanism) to stop the combo from draining too easily and if I use a Heavy Attacks to drop tougher enemies maybe add some Combo Efficiency. And make a "max-range fast attack speed" build for missions with "lesser enemies". And maybe a build with Primed Fever Strike for Corpus, which has Naramon polarity which just happens to be the same as Carnis Mandible (making them easily switchable between builds...). 

As you correctly pointed out, weak enemies die with either build, any combinations of mods, therefore it is reasonable to have something able to efficiently kill at high levels too, which requires Weeping Wounds. I did mention dexterity arcanes and swift momentum for combo duration in my first message. If it's a long mission, then it doesn't matter how long it takes to get 12x combo multiplier because one is supposed to do it only once and keep it, with at least one attack every ~15 seconds. Now we got Tennokai for free heavy attacks.

And if you need a melee weapon for quick missions, consider Exodia Contagion Dokrahm and Glaive Prime.

[Zakkhar]

On 2024-01-29 at 9:01 AM, taiiat said:

if you're going to use Heavies like ever at all, you should be using Amalgam Organ Shatter.

No need with Tennokai.

Only thing I may suggest is trying the other stance (Cleaving Whirlwind) as it offers more damage at the cost of mobility. I prefer Tempo myself.

 

Edited February 2 by Zakkhar

[taiiat]

58 minutes ago, Zakkhar said:

No need with Tennokai.

that isn't available at all times, but it is something one should consider whether they're going to reliably be able to take advantage of, yes.

[Graavarg]

On 2024-02-02 at 12:36 AM, VibingCat said:

As you correctly pointed out, weak enemies die with either build, any combinations of mods, therefore it is reasonable to have something able to efficiently kill at high levels too, which requires Weeping Wounds. I did mention dexterity arcanes and swift momentum for combo duration in my first message. If it's a long mission, then it doesn't matter how long it takes to get 12x combo multiplier because one is supposed to do it only once and keep it, with at least one attack every ~15 seconds. Now we got Tennokai for free heavy attacks.

And if you need a melee weapon for quick missions, consider Exodia Contagion Dokrahm and Glaive Prime.

Yep, I was not contesting your take on Weeping Wounds, just figuring that since the OP is back after a longish break and "playing catch up" a weapon build focusing on "immediate effect" during normal missions might be as useful initially as an "endgame enemy"-build.

It's not that one is wrong and the other right, rather that they serve different purposes. A nice riven like that can buff both uses, and with a bit of "reflection" you can forma in both builds on the same blade, allowing you to switch in an instant. You can essentially eat the cake and keep it, which is a rare thing 🙂.

As @Zakkhar points out, Cleaving Whirlwind is the better stance for wiping out normal enemies in standard Tenno fashion. And both effective and fun to use, as long as your mind controls your "melee finger" 🙂.

- - -

On a totally different note, this is incidentally also why we should be allowed to have a riven for every weapon we own. There is a bunch of "big blades" in the game that have very similar specs and all use the same stances, which add certain bonuses which sort of leads to the same stance on all similar blades, which make them all "the same". But with differently rolled rivens pushing their specs in different directions they become more "unique". At one point in the game it might feel as getting your hands on "OP god-built meta-über-weaponry" is an all important thing, but a bit later (when you already have tens and tens of them in your arsenal) the diversity (and "exploring" it) is the only meaningful thing there is.