The Problem with Base Damage Warframe Abilities

[eboomer]

Bottom line stated up front: There is an adage in making builds for Warframe, that it is bad to just stack up on one buff, and what you want is to stack up a variety of buffs.  This is why a separate multiplier will almost always be significantly better than just adding onto an existing buff.

We can get so much base damage without using warframe abilities (to the point that meta builds do not even include a base damage mod), that it dilutes the impact of base damage abilities.  +165 from Serration, +165% from Heavy Caliber, +165% from Vigorous Swap, up to 306% on your riven, +90% from arcane Rage, and up to 360% from Primary Merciless, for a max hypothetical total of +1251% damage.  Then there is the Galvanized mods, which also add to base damage (or that seems to be the design intent), which give you 40% damage per status effect.  There are a total of 3 IPS status effects, 4 base elemental status effects, 6 combined elemental status effects, void, and microwave, and technically there is also "lifted".  So 16 possible status effects, for a hypothetical ceiling of 640%!  More realistically, you would use an Impact Kuva Nukor for a max of 6 status effects for 240%, or a Cedo for 8 status effects and 320%.  A bit unrealistic to stack up ALL of that, but it is reasonable to expect something between 165+360+300=825% (a base damage mod, a merciless arcane, and a 'gun CO' mod with a meta primer), with possibly an extra 100% to 200% or so from a Riven.  So this is something like a 9.25x to 10.75x damage from just your base damage buffs from your mods alone.  Then a 331% strength Chroma build adds an extra 910% base damage onto that.

So... depending on how much base damage you are stacking up, that increases your damage by a factor of between 1.98x and 1.46x.  Currently, Eclipse can buff your damage by up to a factor of about 8x.  So by changing this to a base damage buff, you are nerfing it by a factor of something like 4x!  Granted, if you have a base damage buff on your warframe, then you build more heavily into things other than base damage, but still, this is a really big nerf!

I think that Chroma should go back to having his Vex Armor as a separate multiplier, in order to stay relevant and not be simply worse than any other frame with Roar infused onto them.  In my opinion, the recently proposed Eclipse nerf is going in exactly the wrong direction.  Now Mirage will mostly just be an AFK bot for ESO and low level defense missions, and not much more.  RIP Chroma. RIP Mirage.

[ominumi]

Mirage power comes from her clones plus Eclipse. Nerfing Eclipse isn't going to cripple Mirage.

[UnstarPrime]

28 minutes ago, eboomer said:

Now Mirage will mostly just be an AFK bot for ESO and low level defense missions, and not much more.  RIP Chroma. RIP Mirage.

In my personal experience this wouldn't really move the needle.  I rarely see Mirage outside of ESO, and I never see Chroma anywhere.

[trst]

And in the end absolutely nothing changes in her performance with how overkill our damage is before frame buffs even enter the picture.

If anything all that has happened is Mirage is less of a free pass for damage for players who lack access to SP/Arbitrations.

 

edit: Actually I take that back, this is a buff to Mirage in the end. As being able to select which buff Eclipse gives means Mirage gets constant access to up to 95% DR. Something that can actually be of use instead of more overkill damage.

Edited February 23 by trst

[LexxyRaptor]

21 minutes ago, trst said:

And in the end absolutely nothing changes in her performance with how overkill our damage is before frame buffs even enter the picture.

If anything all that has happened is Mirage is less of a free pass for damage for players who lack access to SP/Arbitrations.

 

edit: Actually I take that back, this is a buff to Mirage in the end. As being able to select which buff Eclipse gives means Mirage gets constant access to up to 95% DR. Something that can actually be of use instead of more overkill damage.

they are making it 90% DR instead of 95%. 

also, its a PVE game. why does it matter if a frame's damage is ''overkill'' 

Wisp can literally just do breach surge and all the damage the team did gets multiplied and attributed to her in the end game screen like. millions for sitting there and hitting a button once. lmao

 

Edited February 23 by LexxyRaptor

[Numerounius]

42 minutes ago, eboomer said:

Now Mirage will mostly just be an AFK bot for ESO

HAHHAAHA, Still taking Mirage into Steel Path Exterminate. Doppelgangers gives you a literal copies of your weapon.  The new-founded ability to get a 90% consistent DR is going to be overlooked as well.

Chroma on the other hand, still has some tools imo but are just too situational or not suitable for most content to see widespread usage.

 

The real problem comes from how pathetic the base damage is on some Warframe abilities. Take Shuriken, Shock or Smite for example. The base damage is super low that you would even be questioning using the base ability at low level even if you were to ultra buff it with these damage sources.

[trst]

4 minutes ago, LexxyRaptor said:

they are making it 90% DR instead of 95%. 

also, its a PVE game. why does it matter if a frame's damage is ''overkill'' 

Wisp can literally just do breach surge and all the damage the team did gets multiplied and attributed to her in the end game screen like. millions for sitting there and hitting a button once. lmao

 

At 90% it's still a more useful effect than the damage even before these changes land.

Also that's just it, it doesn't matter if a frame's damage is overkill because our damage is already overkill. Meaning there's nothing actually lost with the math on Eclipse changing. Ultimately resulting in a net buff with the added consistency in Eclipse. It's also irrelevant what any other frame does when it's all overkill for the content we actually have on offer.

So everyone acting like this is some huge nerf and/or DE just killed Mirage are being ridiculous.

[ShogunGunshow]

Additive damage blows because we have a ton of it from other sources nowadays, and we will have even more in the future as the game continues to creep and scale, and increases to guns outpaces ability strength.

Multiplicative, however, is always good.

It's kinda a bad nerf. I hope they reconsider. 

[Vryheid]

Vex Armor doesn't need a buff in my opinion, it's the one really good ability Chroma has and its going to get even more powerful with the upcoming augment. Everything else in his kit needs a buff, especially his 1 and his 4. Base damage buffing is fine if you use weapon builds which take advantage of it and if that's too much of a mental stretch to deal with you always have Roar to subsume on as a replacement. Faction damage is still a separate multiplier and the ability (as far as I'm aware) is not going to get rebalanced alongside Eclipse or Nourish.

I'm all in favor of interesting tools that encourage creativity and experimentation and Vex Armor alongside the new version of Eclipse is exactly that type of ability for many of the reasons you list as negatives. You do not need to use Hornet Strike and Secondary Merciless on every single weapon you pick up and use and for players willing to think outside the box having an external source of base damage is very helpful.

[LexxyRaptor]

4 minutes ago, trst said:

At 90% it's still a more useful effect than the damage even before these changes land.

Also that's just it, it doesn't matter if a frame's damage is overkill because our damage is already overkill. Meaning there's nothing actually lost with the math on Eclipse changing. Ultimately resulting in a net buff with the added consistency in Eclipse. It's also irrelevant what any other frame does when it's all overkill for the content we actually have on offer.

So everyone acting like this is some huge nerf and/or DE just killed Mirage are being ridiculous.

I think you should check the graph in the first post here 

 
before claiming the math "doesn't change anything" lol
 

[Xzorn]

Counter Point - Enemies are made of paper now so more than one Buff/Debuff isn't really needed.

I do agree that buffs should be multiplicative like they were back in the day. Chroma's was deemed a bug for some reason (it wasn't).
Now that enemies do not scale exponentially. Buffs/Debuff stacking Multiplicative just gets kinda silly.
Personally I would start grounding them additive with each other such as.

Weapon Damage = (Multiplicative Buff + Multiplicative Buff) * (Multiplicative Debuff + Multiplicative Debuff).

Arcanes would fall under "Weapon Damage" with it's own grouping.

[trst]

24 minutes ago, LexxyRaptor said:

I think you should check the graph in the first post here 

 
before claiming the math "doesn't change anything" lol
 

Literally changes nothing. Yet again frame damage buffs do nothing considering our weapons alone are already overkill for all the content on offer. Losing some excessive damage stacked on top of our already excessive damage results in no change to performance. Meanwhile getting consistent access to damage reduction, a stat that is still relevant, is a significant increase to the frame's performance.

Also keep in mind that we're talking about a frame that can still multiply their weapon hits/projectiles on top of being able to deal over double their weapon damage. The damage buff of Eclipse absolutely did nothing in comparison to what Hall of Mirrors does.

 

edit: Also another thing to consider is that Eclipse is already on an inconsistent sliding scale. In which you didn't even get the highest value of the buff if the environment wasn't dark/light enough. Plus the buff would be affected by local lighting such as those from getting hit by a status proc. Meaning one often wouldn't even get the full damage or DR buff if the tileset/enemies didn't allow for it.

All of which I assume is also going away with it being decoupled from lighting entirely.

Edited February 23 by trst

[Voltage]

35 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Additive damage blows because we have a ton of it from other sources nowadays, and we will have even more in the future as the game continues to creep and scale, and increases to guns outpaces ability strength.

Multiplicative, however, is always good.

That's the entire point and it's healthier for the game this way. I'm honestly glad they did this when making it a toggle.

Edited February 23 by Voltage

[Xzorn]

26 minutes ago, Vryheid said:

Vex Armor doesn't need a buff in my opinion, it's the one really good ability Chroma has and its going to get even more powerful with the upcoming augment.

 

The issue with Chroma is he did lose eHP. A notable amount. 138k down to 80k before Shards brought it back to shy of 100k again. This is only if you build Chroma like I do with QT also. Any other Chroma setup will simply have less. The other issue is counter synergy with weapon mods. If you want the most of his damage amp. Don't use typical mods which is not only awkward but rather cumbersome. I doubt anyone bothers to maximize his damage output potential.

Having it be a lower multiplicative value is just an easy fix. Eidolons were coming and DE wanted him nerf'd.

They were fine with him up till then because Armor double dips prevented him from ever getting near his damage potential.

[Xzorn]

4 minutes ago, Voltage said:

That's the entire point and it's healthier for the game this way. I'm honestly glad they did this when making it a toggle.

 

Except the Cherry Picking. Rhino has been Multiplicative since he was made. Then suddenly Additive was how it was supposed to be despite leaving Rhino and Mirage intact. Then they made Xaku in complete contradiction. Reminds me of Gun CO. It's additive except when it's not.

It also puts a little too much power in debuffs which are all multiplicative.

[Voltage]

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

 

Except the Cherry Picking. Rhino has been Multiplicative since he was made. Then suddenly Additive was how it was supposed to be despite leaving Rhino and Mirage intact. Then they made Xaku in complete contradiction. Reminds me of Gun CO. It's additive except when it's not.

It also puts a little too much power in debuffs which are all multiplicative.

It's better to address it once at a time than just making it worse over time. I won't disagree that this is a cherry picked change, but Mirage getting a toggle should be at the cost of the nature of bonus. That's the only reason people asked for a toggle, because they assumed it would be a toggle of the multiplicative bonus.

Rhino is a faction damage multiplier, so while it's not base damage, it's not its own separate final damage multiplier.

Xata's Whisper (and by extension Toxic Lash) is long overdue for standardization.

Edited February 23 by Voltage

[Aerikx]

51 minutes ago, trst said:

So everyone acting like this is some huge nerf and/or DE just killed Mirage are being ridiculous.

Yep. Just wait till Smeeta gets nerfed (which has been promised).

Folks are going to act like enemies never drop anything and like resources are only acquired from the market via plat. 

This is an extreme overreaction to a minor change. 

Heaven forbid her power not only actually work now but it's actually consistent. 

Honestly I expected folks to be more outrage over Nourish. As far too many people used it a crutch.

[Xzorn]

22 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Yep. Just wait till Smeeta gets nerfed (which has been promised).

Folks are going to act like enemies never drop anything and like resources are only acquired from the market via plat. 

This is an extreme overreaction to a minor change. 

 

To be fair DE considers players using certain farming methods and have even promoted it during the Hema incident.

Depending how they change Charm. If they don't make other alterations, it will notably impact special drops more than intended.

[Alexxandr939]

Well maybe de can make vex armor and eclipse final damage multipliers and nerf them lovering the numbers for example eclipse start 80% and vex armor 100 %

Edited February 24 by Alexxandr939

[Birdframe_Prime]

Honestly? Bad take.

Getting Mirage's damage up in an actual mission context was so arbitrary that it wasn't even funny. I had experience of trying to get to max damage and standing in what was visually a shadow, but because there was a 'light source' near me, I was at about... 90% of the potential buff I could have been getting from Eclipse's Damage side. Even with that the number of times I hit the full buff was so rare when running around in mission.

Having this be just the highest straight-up damage buff to weapons, even without the end-multiplier status that it has currently, will still be good.

The trick of using Total Eclipse to give the buffs to her Clones will still exist (because they don't actually benefit from Eclipse without this) and also Hall of Malevolence too.

Mirage won't be able to hit the damage numbers that you can currently get by standing on one foot in the corner of a room at precisely 3pm on a Tuesday. No.

However Mirage will soon be able to push a button and never, ever worry about wandering sideways by a single step and getting the Defense buff instead of the Damage buff.

Mirage won't be as potentially strong in terms of straight-up damage with weapons.

However she will be the one thing she's never been before: Consistent.

[ShogunGunshow]

34 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

However she will be the one thing she's never been before: Consistent.

Consistently average. 

[CrownOfShadows]

I'd agree if it was just raw damage and nothing else on this ability. But a 90% DR on demand is going to be what this ability is used for now, and because of that even though the damage will suck - absolutely yes - it's still overall a good change because a mostly useless ability is now a reliable 90% DR.

Would it be better if it was multiplicative? Yes, for sure. But would it then be an overpowered helminth? Honestly idk, maybe - the only reason eclipse isn't OP right now is precisely because it's completely unreliable (or straight up broken with the GI).

[DrivaMain]

I'll take 100% uptime on demand 3x base damage multiplier over an inconsistent "stand in light" mechanic which is a death wish for a glass cannon like Mirage all day. Constant movement is vital for survival especially when enemy damage get into the "one shot player" territory.

With the current "buff based on light intensity" mechanic, it's extremely difficult to maximize Eclipse damage multiplier unless you use specific methods (e.g. setting yourself on fire). 

Warframe right now has a stacking multiplier issue, where stacking multiplier after multiplier nets exponential gain without diminishing returns. This is why Hybrid setups dominate the meta. This problem forced DE's hand to implement damage attenuation. Because DE knows players lose their minds when DE touched theit setups. I hope DE is not deterred to forge on to squish multipliers going forward.

[TARINunit9]

4 hours ago, eboomer said:

but still, this is a really big nerf!

You know what they say, When everyone's nerfed, no one will be

[0_The_F00l]

i think OP just proved why the change is happening :D