Why not just run Toxin and Slash?

[nslay]

2 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

 

I am not sure what both of you are arguing about at this point , 

Guardian eximus reduces all radial damage to itself and allies , so it makes sense to Target it with single target attacks , irrespective of your elemental damage.

Slash does not bypass shields , toxin does , so it makes sense that anything with shields will be more easily dispatched with toxin compared to slash if there are guardian eximus around (assuming Armor is not an issue).

Really feels like you two are arguing pointlessly.

You're absolutely right. But there's this entrenched school of thought that modding purely for Grineer (i.e. Viral/Slash) generalizes well enough for the entire game at all difficulties. And Hexerin is of this persuasion.

I *think* Hexerin is trying to suggest that the Guardian Eximus's little rotating shields somehow makes it immune to Glaive Prime's explosion (i.e. the "radial damage"). But I observe that Glaive explosions still hit these units though. And they all die from Glaive explosions in my informal demonstration videos.

[nslay]

16 hours ago, nslay said:

EDIT: Tell you what, I'll run these tests for you tomorrow where I'll focus the Glaive in the general direction of the Guardian/Leech Eximus to see if it makes a difference for you. I don't think it will make a huge difference between Slash vs Slash+Toxin but I could be wrong! I'll post another video of the result.

OK, so I went and did this. Hopefully using Spoiled Strike in place of Primed Fever Strike is OK? Power Throw could be good too (it's multiplicative), but it's tricky to get it to work... I don't like it.

Spoiler

 

It's hard to compare because of the final straggler in the pure-Slash experiment, but the Slash+Toxin still feels significantly faster even when prioritizing Guardian/Leech Eximus. And like @0_The_F00l points out... that really shouldn't be too surprising. Finally I threw in a Cerata comparison in to show how enormous a difference it makes when the weapon and element is specialized to a faction (not even considering faction mods).

I think the pure-Slash performance in this scenario is barely practical and that blindly using Viral/Slash for everything isn't really a great idea (especially in SP content). Of course you can still make this work more practically... when faced with beefy Shielded enemies in SP Circuit with unfortunate Slash weapons (or just bad weapons in general), I was leveraging Unairu to strip the shields and make killing these units faster. It's the same with a weirdo like me using Toxin for everything (except apparently Infested) ... you can see I use the Phage and Green shards to let Toxin work way more effectively on armored enemies.

[PR1D3]

It depends. I do just that on Grendel but no one else. Not a big fan of helminth tbh.

[Silligoose]

On 2024-03-02 at 12:36 AM, (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz said:

I'm sorry, but I had to laugh when you mentioned Overframe builds

It is simply a tool that can be used to ease calculations for one's builds, like a calculator. It has some flaws though.

On 2024-03-02 at 12:44 AM, Hexerin said:

It's terrible for sourcing actual functional endgame builds (generally), but it's still a decent resource when you're learning the game.

The benefits outweigh the shortcomings, even for endgame builds imo, if one is aware of the shortcomings, otherwise test runs become... hilarious.

Edited March 4 by Silligoose

[Loza03]

18 hours ago, nslay said:

No, come on now, that's not artificial or some kind of edge case. You can easily run into this in normal SP gameplay. Guardian Eximus are pretty common Corpus/Corrupted Eximus after all! I happened to first observe pure Slash struggling in SP Void missions and figured out the Guardian Eximus were messing with the damage. That's very annoying! Then I tested it in Simulacrum... I didn't imagine this scenario in a vacuum. It's also one of the main motivators of why I dropped Glaive Prime and primarily use Cerata for pretty much everything now (along with a Phage to prime armored enemies to make Toxin work for them too).

Guardian Eximus are common. 

10 of them ganging up on you at once when you only have a Glaive Prime is not. And spawning 10 eximus in the simulacrum is absolutely artificial.

And again, they key problem I'm talking about is that the reason why the vast majority of people completely ignore shields as a factor is that shields are utterly laughable as a defence in Warframe compared to armour. Or rather, that armour is absurdly high compared to everything else, and the 'fix' DE did years back did not change that whatsoever. As I stated before, Corpus enemies in Steel Path can have, like, 3% of their equivalents EHP. That's the reason so few people care. Yes, this causes problems when edge cases arise, but in the overwhelming majority of circumstances, it's simply not the case.

The issue is that Armour scales differently to everything else, on a completely different curve. This means that there's actually some levels where shields are better than armour (don't worry - for Elite Crewmen/Lancers this is at like, level 16), and then as levels increase armour scales up to the aformentioned absurd levels. All guardian Eximus do is change the levels where shields scale better by giving a flat bonus. Specifically, for our test Lancer/Crewmen, that changes the respective level where the crossover happens to about 113. In other words, the Lancer, at level 113, has over ten times the EHP as the Crewman. And that difference only extends with time. And of course, this becomes even more notable on the Steel Path. At the levels where these enemies start spawning on the Steel Path, the Crewman has about 10% the EHP as the Lancer as discussed outside the Steel Path, but on the Steel Path, the Crewman has 4% the EHP. 

If we want players to diversify their loadouts, this is what needs to change. And no amount of Guardian Eximus band-aids change that.

[nslay]

8 hours ago, Loza03 said:

10 of them ganging up on you at once when you only have a Glaive Prime is not. And spawning 10 eximus in the simulacrum is absolutely artificial.

No, it's really not artificial. And no, there aren't 10 Guardian Eximus though (and actually it's 8 in all my demonstrations). You only need one Guardian Eximus to cripple Glaive Prime's Slash DoT on all other shielded enemies around it. And then, in the most recent video, you can even see how slow Slash is at dispatching just one of these Eximus. For an even more realistic scenario, throw in some Orokin Shield Drones/Shield Ospreys/Ancient Healers to add to the annoyance. On top of that, the longer you play in Endurance, the more Eximus spawn. This is a mechanic that used to be abused for Steel Essence drops before Acolytes were introduced. And to really top it off, Disruption has a conduit called "Eximus Wave" and one of the most popular SP Disruption nodes that everyone plays for Axi relics happens to be a Corpus faction Apollo, Lua... and that's also a node where a Viral/Slash kit additionally wouldn't work that well on Demolishers.

[Loza03]

13 hours ago, nslay said:

No, it's really not artificial. And no, there aren't 10 Guardian Eximus though (and actually it's 8 in all my demonstrations). You only need one Guardian Eximus to cripple Glaive Prime's Slash DoT on all other shielded enemies around it. And then, in the most recent video, you can even see how slow Slash is at dispatching just one of these Eximus. For an even more realistic scenario, throw in some Orokin Shield Drones/Shield Ospreys/Ancient Healers to add to the annoyance. On top of that, the longer you play in Endurance, the more Eximus spawn. This is a mechanic that used to be abused for Steel Essence drops before Acolytes were introduced. And to really top it off, Disruption has a conduit called "Eximus Wave" and one of the most popular SP Disruption nodes that everyone plays for Axi relics happens to be a Corpus faction Apollo, Lua... and that's also a node where a Viral/Slash kit additionally wouldn't work that well on Demolishers.

You are very confident in this trump card which I've deconstructed several times already by this point, and I'm getting quite tired of repeating myself. I would be curious to know what your response to my actual point is.

[Eneitilyn]

The reason we are not running pure

Toxin vs corpus health

pure Corrosive vs grineer's armor

Viral versus Infested

 

Is the convoluted and contradictive evolution of defensive abilities of the ascertained faction's high tier units directly countering your primary elements combinations on your weapons!! Look at the bonus damage and damage debuffs when using certain elements against the same faction! https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Damage#All_

Now take a good look at Corpus health types specifically because I think that is the most gnarly faction with all their "special exceptions" that most general average person would just feel 'oddly unsatisfied shooting at' 

Health types:

Flesh: Consists of all Corpus humanoids including bosses like The Sergeant and Alad V. Also includes Drahks, Hyekkas, the Stalker and the Tomb Protector.

Shield: Is possessed by all regular Corpus units, Regulators, Grineer bosses and Corrupted Vor. Is not possessed by Locust Drone.

Proto Shield: Possessed by every Corpus boss (including Zanuka), Nullifier Crewman, Corpus Tech, Sniper Crewman and the Stalker.

Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Corvette, Frigate, Carrier (Enemy), Gox, Locust Drone, Humanoid Corpus bosses and Oxium Ospreys.

Alloy Armor: Possessed by Bursas, Corpus Robotic bosses.

Robotic: Refers to all Corpus robotics including robotic bosses like Ambulas and Zanuka. Is not possessed by Locust Drone.

Now take a look at a small section in the wiki that shows some exceptions against certain things you are shooting at! 

Now this is the only things most of you would be unaware off so far! The faction bosses most of the time either completely negate status type damage or they reduce it and are not weak to it at all. Another thing is damage Bane mods such as Smite Grineer or Smite Corpus practically only negate the designated faction's debuffs to specific damage type and the damage debuffs for using the wrong element against a faction returns to normal levels aka average -30% damage reduction becomes 0% again meaning you deal the amount of damage you are meant to! Unless it's a Primed Faction Bane mod which basically double dips your damage as some people like to say but that is not true either it basically increases your damage past that 0% that is already debuffed because not only are you using the wrong damage type but also using the wrong elemental combination against this specific faction! Now why do I say that? Because Bosses and higher tier units are not affected by this damage type specifically namely wait for it... Viral and Slash! Ideally what everybody wants to use is this elemental combinations versus a a specific faction! Against Corpus that would be Toxin + Magnetic + Viral + Corrosive + Electric damage! Now why is that? Because corrosive 'Strips' the Ferrite and Alloy armored modifier from Robotic health! Which explains why people started to use 2x Corrosive Tau Shards in their Warframes because this reduces the total elements required to cover all your bases against a certain faction! This includes Infested AND Grineer as well!

PS: Taking a break will edit this post further later...

Edit: Against Grineer: the ideal elements would be kind of similar! Heat + Corrosive + Cold + Viral!!

This is outstandingly impossible to achieve vs Grineer because Heat and Cold combine into Blast create the only element in the game that is only useful versus rare infested and certain unarmored machinery which makes it horrendous choice for all Warframe content! This is weird dude why did you chose cold? Because it's increasing critical damage against health by 50% additively before mods!! Meaning it's similar to how incarnon adapters increase your critical multiplier by at least 2x or even 3x depending on weapon!! Why heat damage and not slash? Slash is good because it's the only damage in the game apart of "true damage" that completely bypasses armor and is otherwise weirdly referred in wiki as "cinematic damage" Now here comes a shocking revelation!!!! Slash damage feels 'oddly unsatisfied shooting at' is because actually it's bad versus Grineer because it has a minus modified against Ferrite armor and Alloy armor by -15% and up to -50% damage against Alloy armored enemies! Why would you ever use slash damage against armored units?? Now here comes the effects of Corrosive! Corrosive element works in a way where it reduces this damage reduction to your damage by % based on how many procs it has on armored target! From 10% per proc to 100% armor reduction at 10 stacks!! And 120% armor reduction with 2X Tau Corrosive shards on your Warframes making it possible to completely remove the armored modifier and make you deal 'true slash damage! So note that if you mod extra Corrosive with Tau Shards never use Radiation damage because it does not give you the bonus damage against armored units if all of its armor is removed! Same case as Slash the only reason Slash damage got popular was because a certain player before the  elemental damage rework corrosive was not what it used to be today and this infamous Infested unit called Juggernaut and players were shocked at the fact that they could not kill this enemy no matter how much Corrosive or Heat or Gas they had build on their weapons because it had innate whopping 40% damage reduction including the elemental damage resistances it had in place!! More on that in infested enemies section!!!

Infested enemies: Slash + Viral + Cold + Heat now why Cold damage again man I can't believe the way you are playing with my emotions couldn't it be as simple as Slash Viral? Here is why Slash procs greatly benefit from Base damage and Critical Multipliers and this Cold proc delivers you this free multipllier so why the heck not!! Another thing is why Heat and not Corrosive again? Because before you stack Corrosive to max Viral+Slash is going to kill the infested monster before you even apply all that Viral and Corrosive and Heat believe it or not are anti synergistic the moment a heat proc appears on a armored enemy they lose -50 armor which makes corrosive procs reduce less Armor per proc meaning you reduce 5% armor up to 50% at 10 stacks!! Then why add Heat damage ? Are you kidding me? Did you even look at the table I have given you at the wiki or not? All infested health is weak to Heat damage including it's armored high tier units meaning it's the ultimate element against this faction! Guess what it has the same modifiers as Slash + to top it off it's better scalling linearly instead of exponentially and it's infinite scalling! Could you be talking about Gas damage and not Heat damage? Excuse me listen I am once again telling you to look at that wiki table and tell me how does Gas scale ? It doesn't 🤣  Digital Extremes has screwed us somebody call the person responsible we need to immediately call the extremists community to shut this situation down and protest and over react as hard as possible and give the developer a anxiety attack thinking that his game is going to die out from every player going on a Strike because they don't like this mechanic!!! Okay at the end of the day this <random> damage I shoot feels 'oddly unsatisfying while shooting at the enemy in this game' Why are high tier units resistant to the same damage type the weaker units of the same faction are to? Because if content in this game ever becomes too addictive and satisfying to the people they are going to play unhealthy amounts of hours and damage their health and have real life issues because once you are addicted to a game you are always addicted to a game until this day you are finished and satisfied with this game and it feels like you have completed everything you wanted to do and Reached the true endgame of reigning supreme in your air bending super powers! 

Murmur faction: Electric + Radiation + Heat  now Honorary element here is Cold and Gas elements because the slow in itself is useful against every faction the problem is "Cinematically" Cold damage is not supposed to be useful against Machinery and most of those mini mechanical units and nekramechs and even the Murmur enemies itself are quite immune to crowd control so making enemies displace or stack in close proximity is hard! The reason Heat is good is because Heat is surprisingly once again stacks very well and easily you just need a heat weapon and mod it with radiation courtesy of the new Radiation mods and you are set! Easy setup and nothing complicated. Electric damage on the other hand is simply amazing this patch not only does it work great in melee with Melee Influence Arcane. Procing electric status also makes most of the enemies that are Robotic have chance to hit and damage to the body parts of nearby enemies! Why is that useful you ask because Robotic enemies in Deimos require you to hit specific body parts in their body in order to destroy said body parts and make them explode making quick work of any nekramechs around!! And Murmur faction has similar mechanics to some of their enemies making Elements that are accompanied by AOE damage weapons like Heat beams,chains and Gas clouds made by Gas status and Electric Status chaining to body parts makes hitting these body parts easier! I know what you thinking now Equipping Ignis Wraith and modding it for Gas electric and Radiation and be like why am I lying to you all!!

I did not made this post to S#&amp;&#036;post or meme on your ignorance I made it because  I wanted to show you that these elements's status effects are useful against these specific factions for actual use case scenario to have in your Primary weapon or secondary or Melee weapons elements! Meaning you can go ahead and use this on your Primer or damage setups when I say Heat and Cold I don't mean Blast element at all same thing about other examples I have given in a ideal hypothetical environment you can have all these elements in a single weapon not in a modding setup!!

Viral is great status effect it doesn't actually increase your damage it basically reduces the total amount of health the enemy has making you kill the enemy quicker it was a solution back before the Elemental Rework to remove the "Bullet Hose enemies" from the game! 

My last edit: this is just to stick to the topic's main question! 

Remember when I mentioned Gas does not scale well! Toxin does! The problem here is again ideally what you do with Toxin is combine it into Viral which is a huge waste because it's another wonderful stacking element similar to Heat the only problem here is it's got a limit of 10 stacks! Unlike Heat which stacks linearly infinitely, Toxin damage is kinda similar to Slash damage in a way it but it does not bypass armor it only bypasses Corpus Shields and it's damage does get reduced by armor BUT gets the same similar boost from critical multipliers! It's also stacking its individual toxin procs into one big stack of 10 toxin procs in 1 damage instance unlike Slash it acts more like Heat damage in this case it lasts 6 seconds living as a single 10 stacked  Toxin proc all running out at once!! I don't think it gets boost from Base damage of the weapon or mod damage only elemental damage and faction mods and certain Warframe buffs Since I am sick of reading the wiki looking at formulas I will just say from my experience in-game from now! Basically Toxin damage works In a way where the more times you reapply the 10 stacks per status proc the more damage you end up doing!! It is also very important to have as much big Toxin proc while applying the stacks up to 10 stacks as possible meaning it varies based on "how high damage numbers the individual damage procs all the way up to 10 and their Sum is your resulted DPS meaning your total burst damage is capped but your DPS is not as long as you keep refreshing the toxin proc u will deal the accumulated 10 stacks damage! This makes it good with fast attacking weapons and hybrid weapons with both good crit chance and good status chance ideally more leaning towards Status chance because reapplication results in more DPS the most most proper way to use this would be either to use both stealth multiplier and a finisher attack to stack as much burst as possible on your initial burst flourish and sum up a big proc Or use ground finisher to boost the procs damage by like 1000% about 10 times to make one big 10 000 damage toxin proc! The problem is most ground finishers on stances force proc slash and not Toxin and it seems to be not a normal slash proc...The last way to use Toxin procs would be with a specialized Riven with -status duration which means you use high multishot with very high status weapon 200+ status chance +5 bullets or more means instantly procs 10 stacks and runs out and u roll the dice in 10 stacks again resulting in varied damage bursts of summed up Toxin damage.

Edited March 14 by Eneitilyn
Add content and even more content!

[RichardKam]

2024/3/2 AM3点20分 , Qorvex99 说:

My Alliance builds, Overframe builds and Youtube builds all share the same strategy, building for a few specific element for each faction, or build for one element and just brute force the rest.

But I don't understand, If you have the capacity to obtain a third viral source like a Panzer, Nourish or even a weapon's innate viral, why won't you just mod for Toxin Plus slash?

That's why you don't listen to these sources.

Also, the main culprit of this build mentality is Grineer, SP Grineer to be specific, because of their armor. And the laziest answer to armor is viral slash.

[Hexerin]

26 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

That's why you don't listen to these sources.

Also, the main culprit of this build mentality is Grineer, SP Grineer to be specific, because of their armor. And the laziest answer to armor is viral slash.

It's not lazy, it's just efficient (and the intelligent thing to do). If something kills SP Grineer, it kills SP [other factions] even easier. Thus, it would make no sense to build for the other factions. Additionally, since a lot of frames don't have innate access to armor strip (or in the case of some, like Speedova, literally can't use armor strip), slash is the obvious answer to any build considerations (as it bypasses armor for Grineer, while suffering no negative to anyone else).

[Berzerkules]

5 hours ago, Hexerin said:

It's not lazy, it's just efficient (and the intelligent thing to do). If something kills SP Grineer, it kills SP [other factions] even easier. Thus, it would make no sense to build for the other factions. Additionally, since a lot of frames don't have innate access to armor strip (or in the case of some, like Speedova, literally can't use armor strip), slash is the obvious answer to any build considerations (as it bypasses armor for Grineer, while suffering no negative to anyone else).

Speedva can't armor strip with helminth abilities but that doesn't mean she can't easily full strip. I use 2 forms of armor strip on one of my Nova Primes. Argonak + gas/electric dagger and 2x green shards. Dagger is 20m aoe armor strip because of influence and works on acolytes. Green shards for if I run nourish build with ocucor built for corrosive/heat. None of my nova builds rely on slash and they all have extremely high kps average and scale very well.

Viral slash is the obvious choice but there are other options. 

[shuanagi]

Poison damage is not effective against Grineer forces because it is attenuated by armor.
It is better to use corrosion and fire or cutting to make it stronger.

[CoffeeElemental]

8 часов назад, RichardKam сказал:

And the laziest answer to armor is viral slash.

*Unairu enters the chat.*

[RichardKam]

3小时前 , CoffeeElemental 说:

*Unairu enters the chat.*

We are talking about weapon mods, not focus school.

*Show Unairu the door*