Why is Noctua "useless"?

[NivvyPrime]

Was just looking around for Noctua builds to compare to mine, just about every build prefaces it with this being Dante's "useless ability". Is it useless in the sense that you can't go into level cap content and have it perform reliably? That it doesn't kill things as fast as other top tier weapons? I ran with Dante and Noctua through Elite Archimedia and it did just fine. I'm sure it's just a matter of perspective since I'm not into endurance runs or anything, but even compared to something like Hildryn's exalted weapon I've thought Noctua was a great weapon for the content that most people partake in.

[AndouRaiton]

It is considered "useless" because why waste energy using a mostly single target weapon when you can spam Dark Verse + Tragedy and nuke entire rooms.

It's not that the ability is bad but it just doesn't compete with the other damaging ability in his kit is all.

Additionally, in terms of helminth abilities, it is the only one you can reasonably replace as both his 2nd and 3rd are needed for his 4th as replacing one of the removes 3 potential combinations for his 4th

[NivvyPrime]

3 minutes ago, AndouRaiton said:

It is considered "useless" because why waste energy using a mostly single target weapon when you can spam Dark Verse + Tragedy and nuke entire rooms.

It's not that the ability is bad but it just doesn't compete with the other damaging ability in his kit is all.

Additionally, in terms of helminth abilities, it is the only one you can reasonably replace as both his 2nd and 3rd are needed for his 4th as replacing one of the removes 3 potential combinations for his 4th

That's fair. For the content I run, I tend not to need to nuke a whole room, as Noctua splits off and hits multiple targets, and with the tome mod for energy regen on alt fire, it never eats up enough energy for me to worry about it. Thanks for the insight!

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I mean, I don't consider it useless, so i am not really sure how to address your post necessarily. Like if your implication is that you think its underrated, then I'd probably agree, but also, I don't know whose builds you are looking up and referencing, or why I should care about their builds exactly. Its a bit like if I claim that chocolate ice cream is overrated... because a lot of my friends consider it the best ice cream flavour ever... I mean, sure, but thats just a set selection of people. They don't necessarily represent all people. 

I also don't really consider its intent and design to be a DPS/KPM, level cap style weapon (on its own). I think it works well as a utility weapon, so Dante can have a way to procc many of the Tome mods, which can compliment many builds possible around his kit. Some people frame it as being in competition/conflict with his kit, but you can also use it to compliment his other abilities. So it could have value in high end hard content, but even as a utility weapon in lower content it can kill fast (and even kill in base Steel Path decently, depending on how you build). 

(Oh and welcome to the Forums!)

[Chewarette]

It's definitely not useless. The morons only considering lvl 9999 enemies can be safely ignored, this is non-existent content.

Noctua is an awesome weapon. Not every weapon needs to be a room-clearing one.

[NivvyPrime]

9 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

I mean, I don't consider it useless, so i am not really sure how to address your post necessarily. Like if your implication is that you think its underrated, then I'd probably agree, but also, I don't know whose builds you are looking up and referencing, or why I should care about their builds exactly. Its a bit like if I claim that chocolate ice cream is overrated... because a lot of my friends consider it the best ice cream flavour ever... I mean, sure, but thats just a set selection of people. They don't necessarily represent all people. 

I also don't really consider its intent and design to be a DPS/KPM, level cap style weapon (on its own). I think it works well as a utility weapon, so Dante can have a way to procc many of the Tome mods, which can compliment many builds possible around his kit. Some people frame it as being in competition/conflict with his kit, but you can also use it to compliment his other abilities. So it could have value in high end hard content, but even as a utility weapon in lower content it can kill fast (and even kill in base Steel Path decently, depending on how you build). 

(Oh and welcome to the Forums!)

I more so thought "maybe I'm missing something", if a lot of content creators and build guides were outright calling it useless. I've been playing a long time (new to forums so thank you for the welcome <3) and I stopped taking them super seriously a long while ago outside of comparing numbers, I just thought it was odd there seemed to be such adamant opinions that it was not worth running on him over subsuming it out. I love using it on him over my usual weapons that melt rooms, and it means I don't have to spam abilities as much, which I appreciate. Seems to be just a difference in opinions, that maybe I'm noticing more now that it's on a frame that I've enjoyed more than others recently. Appreciate your response!

[Rathalio]

You can only consider it "useless" if you only press 3 3 4 and DPS with tragedy only. Which is a gameplay that is extremely boring to me tbh. If then you are interested in using it, it's definitely a more fun and efficient weapon to kill hordes of mobs in Steel Path as it has some AoE and also your weapon buff that gives you a flying Noctua shotting with you is very efficient with it too. The weapon itself is even slash oriented which is great. I built it with viral + electricity and with the tome mod that provides energy regeneration + archon stretch I have almost a continuous flow of 12 energy per second. So no need for energize etc, you can go for arcane velocity to make the Noctua better and you have infinite ammo anyways.

Globally Noctua has been kinda ignored because most of "meta" players just look for the most easy and automatable gameplay with tragedy and feel like it is enough and the best without sometimes even trying anything else the Warframe brings. (And then they are even more frustrated when tragedy gets touched by DE.)

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

33 minutes ago, NivvyPrime said:

I more so thought "maybe I'm missing something", if a lot of content creators and build guides were outright calling it useless. I've been playing a long time (new to forums so thank you for the welcome <3) and I stopped taking them super seriously a long while ago outside of comparing numbers, I just thought it was odd there seemed to be such adamant opinions that it was not worth running on him over subsuming it out. I love using it on him over my usual weapons that melt rooms, and it means I don't have to spam abilities as much, which I appreciate. Seems to be just a difference in opinions, that maybe I'm noticing more now that it's on a frame that I've enjoyed more than others recently. Appreciate your response!

 

Ah, makes sense. I don't actually follow too many Warframe content creators, and the few I do occasionally pay attention to, like TheKengineer, AznvasionsPlays, etc tend to be more about context and numbers. I am not sure if they referred to the Noctua as "useless", but either way, its not like there are tests or licenses involved with content creation, they are just random people with opinions and takes, which can be as flawed or well considered as your average, random anonymous forum person. 

The Cedo if only compared directly to the Torid might as well be "useless", but thats also if we ignore a lot of important context and variables, like enjoyability, utility, variety, relative performance and so on. I think you are correct in not taking them too seriously because of that, since a lot of them also may rely on hyperbole or exaggeration or a certain style of commentary because their livelihood/income rely on it. Hence Warframe stuff falls into "best thing ever", "worst useless thing", and "everything else in-between aka meh aka average"

Like in comparison to how he was on release, arguably Noctua is the "weakest part" of his kit, but eh... again, depends on how you might use it. I use mine to augment and boost his energy economy in certain situation. Thats handy. Lets me free up Arcane and Mod slots and yet still have a strong energy economy to spam a lot. 

Cheers and I appreciate your response as well. Have a good one! 

[Rawbeard]

20 minutes ago, Rathalio said:

if you only press 3 3 4 and DPS with tragedy only

"if you only do three times what every other DPS frame does" is a weird take to try and dismiss it, but ok.

[Rathalio]

1 minute ago, Rawbeard said:

"if you only do three times what every other DPS frame does" is a weird take to try and dismiss it, but ok.

I'm sure what do you mean here? Generally that's the only thing that makes the Noctua not fit in his kit. Because the rest of his kit are buffs that have a long enough duration to let you do anything else before refreshing them. And also the "tragedy spam strategy" really seems to be very popular among the vocal players of Dante. And in that context it makes sense that people tend to say that the Noctua is useless. That's just what I tried to say. But I genuinely don't understand what you are trying to tell me here.

[ThatOneGinger115]

It’s useless if you’re looking at it as a weapon. On my build, it’s a tool. There’s really no way you can mod that thing to do amazing damage even though the stats may have you believe otherwise. Where it shines is buffing Dante and keeping his ball rolling. If you throw on all 4 invocation mods that’s ~180% of extra stats plus 10 energy/s. Throw on some multi shot and fire rate and you can constantly keep it charged and ready to refresh the buffs. On top of that, Dante’s tragedy doesn’t just multiply slash procs, it also does heat and toxin. So throw on scorch for the heat and status chance and you have another pool of damage to draw from. This synergizes well with his dark verse and tragedy spam bc even when you’re buffing yourself or trying to recover energy you’re still spreading status procs to add to your nuke. 

[NivvyPrime]

12 hours ago, ThatOneGinger115 said:

It’s useless if you’re looking at it as a weapon. On my build, it’s a tool. There’s really no way you can mod that thing to do amazing damage even though the stats may have you believe otherwise. Where it shines is buffing Dante and keeping his ball rolling. If you throw on all 4 invocation mods that’s ~180% of extra stats plus 10 energy/s. Throw on some multi shot and fire rate and you can constantly keep it charged and ready to refresh the buffs. On top of that, Dante’s tragedy doesn’t just multiply slash procs, it also does heat and toxin. So throw on scorch for the heat and status chance and you have another pool of damage to draw from. This synergizes well with his dark verse and tragedy spam bc even when you’re buffing yourself or trying to recover energy you’re still spreading status procs to add to your nuke. 

I'm going to respectfully disagree to your first sentence. Like I said, I was able to use it into Elite Archimedia and have it perform just as well as many other weapons. With my build its less effective at killing Murmur than other enemy types but still chews through them anyways. I can fully agree it's probably more efficient if you just use it as a tool to encourage your 3 3 4 spam but, for most non endurance content, it is also perfectly serviceable as a weapon. 

[Tiltskillet]

I'm not sure.  It's hard to get inside the collective heads of buildmakers you haven't even linked to or anything.  But I'd speculate it comes down to a few things:

 - It's not a nuke.

 - As a dps tool, I think it's going to suffer in comparison to some of the best weapons in the game. 

 - It's potentially got lots of utility with Tome mods, but is still not essential to the rest of Dante's kit, and is the only ability that can reasonably be replaced.

 - Meanwhile, there are a few ability infusion options that help the rest of Dante's kit a lot, and do it in ways that hit you over the head and make you notice.

So, less "it's useless" and more "there are even more useful tools available".

[ThatOneGinger115]

4 hours ago, NivvyPrime said:

I'm going to respectfully disagree to your first sentence. Like I said, I was able to use it into Elite Archimedia and have it perform just as well as many other weapons. With my build its less effective at killing Murmur than other enemy types but still chews through them anyways. I can fully agree it's probably more efficient if you just use it as a tool to encourage your 3 3 4 spam but, for most non endurance content, it is also perfectly serviceable as a weapon. 

I’m not gonna claim I have the perfect mods or the best ones either, but I at least have the base ones needed to go through steel path levels like the galvanized mods and imo it’s…. Okay? Like it definitely does damage but imo there’s better weapons out there. I don’t even have good secondaries to begin with but I just farmed the onos and I’d much rather use that for deleting eximus and other higher EHP enemies than the noctua. Like yea it can kill a lancer pretty quick but atp just use his abilities. At least the way I see warframe and like to play it is the warframe abilities are for everything eximus and below (steel path) and weapons are for those harder eximus variants and anything tougher. 

[ShavoPrime]

On 2024-04-08 at 3:02 AM, NivvyPrime said:

Was just looking around for Noctua builds to compare to mine, just about every build prefaces it with this being Dante's "useless ability". Is it useless in the sense that you can't go into level cap content and have it perform reliably? That it doesn't kill things as fast as other top tier weapons? I ran with Dante and Noctua through Elite Archimedia and it did just fine. I'm sure it's just a matter of perspective since I'm not into endurance runs or anything, but even compared to something like Hildryn's exalted weapon I've thought Noctua was a great weapon for the content that most people partake in.

people dont want to use it even tho early on in missions it works out better when you have augmented molt arcane on him use the book to help build up your stacks of aug molt an then could use 3+3+4 to nuke.

in all honestly Dantes kit is quite perfect an everything works well togather

[Th3bl4cksm1th]

im using noctua mainly as something to buff dantes abilities although i dont have problems using it to kill enemies in sp. 

[Gaxxian]

I find that Noctua is pretty good as a weapon, tbh.

My 2 only concerns are:
1. It lacks an exilus slot, making it harder to build as a support/dps hybrid.
2. The special ability from Noctua (being able to place a lot of Tome mods) fights directly with Wordwarden, since that ability doesn't activate ANY Tome mod and its actively asking you to build Noctua for raw dmg. So it kinda makes you choose which thing wants to preserve (if you want Noctua as a buff tool).

Other than that, i like it a lot and i find it powerful.

[_COY_]

Noctua is not useless imo.
Most players rely on 334 only, so they subsume some additional damage to the 1.

I like the idea of a sorcerer spelling from the book, so my build is to support this more.
Max STR, with augment Cascadia flare on the secondary (the noctua counts as secondary, so it works there too)
Wyrm to give fire rate bonus and 2xtauforged yellows for cast speed.
Noctua build for heat status and the pistol damage aura to push it a bit.

This setup is good enough to kill SP enemies without using the 3 once.
But this is me, I am weird :)

-c0y
 

[helioth137]

l solod elite archimedea with noctua: 
 

I'd say it's far from bad, it's actually quite a lot more powerful than mesa's peacemakers with all the right mods in place:
5 to 10 mil alt fire aoe crits, 50 to 500k average rapid fire chain linking.
 

 

[-AncientWarrior-]

Hell I wish i could put Noctua on other frames, easy codex scanner :)