Impact, Puncture, And Slash Mods Question

[Xandielm]

So i just started playing warframe again and am still learning the new damage system.  I know how elemental mods work now and that each weapon has its total damage split into 3 (sometimes 2) types of damage: impact, puncture, and slash.  I was wondering if the mods that increase impact, puncture, or slash are worth equipping?  

 

I feel like now its just a waste of mod space and elemental damage, plus damage, and multi shot mods are the only real options for increasing the damage on weapons (also reload speed/firing speed mods).

 

Am I right or do I have it completely wrong?

 

P.S. are the mods that increase damage to certain enemy types worth it like expel corpus?

Edited February 25, 2014 by Xandielm

[HellEnforcer]

The mods that increase the damage of a type is the percentage of that damage type, not total. So it is a total waste to put a +5% puncture damage to a weapon it has no puncture damage by itself. That said, it is beneficial to put a physical damage mod for the damage that it is the highest.

 

 Weapon stat example:

 

 0 puncture

 50 slash

 100 impact

 

 A mod for +10% puncture would do absolutely nothing.

 A +10% slash would make the weapon deal 5 more slash damage.

 A +10% impact would do an additional 10 impact.

 

 Elemental mods do take from the total of the added physical damage, so a +10% fire would do an extra 15 fire damage. ((100 + 50)  * 10 / 100 = 15)

 

 I am not quite sure about Serration. I think it increases all the physical attributes, but not the elemental ones.

 

 Multishot is always good.

 

 I think the specific faction damage is applied like Serration but only if the target is of that faction. However, this is a total guess, I personally have never used them at all.

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

The only I/P/S damage mod worth equipping is Accelerated Blast. It scales off of your entire base damage instead of just Puncture, which makes it unique (and even adds Puncture to Phage, which Phage has none of), and of course also has the +60% fire rate. The rest pretty much suck, and draw off a the weapon's base stat of that type (ex. normal +% Puncture mods only add based on the base Puncture stat, not total I/P/S).

 

You might be able to make an argument for the 90% melee ones since they both have much higher values than the rest of the I/P/S mods and some melees are extremely weighted in one damage type (ex. super heavy Slash weighted), but honestly they're still not very good.

 

Faction mods are worthwhile for consideration if you have multiple elementals and such already. They are factored in multiplicative of everything else; meaning, they are always a +30% damage increase. For example, unless you really want a specific double elemental combo to exploit a certain weakness or for a status proc, a faction mod + 3x 90% elementals will give you a higher raw damage than 4x 90% elementals.(1.3*3.7=4.81 vs. 4.6).

[Vortok]

They basically function like elemental mods in how they add to your damage, except they only use a part of your base damage instead of all of it (Accelerated Blast exception aside) and generally add a lower % than an elemental mod.

[Darzk]

As above, you dont generally want to use them. The exceptions are:

 

Accelerated Blast, which adds from the entire base damage,

 

Rending Strike, which adds to base charge damage as well - still only better than an element on weapons with some significant %age of puncture dmg,

 

and if you dont have the elemental mods you need to build optimally. Some of the pistol +base damage type mods in particular are useful when still leveling weapons as they generally cost less per point, and are sometimes easier to obtain than an elemental.

[Xandielm]

thanks for the help everyone!  I'll do some math to see if it really is worth it on some weapons but over all it looks like these mods are just worthless.  Sad too because I already lvled up some of them thinking I was going to need them.

 

Also, unless misunderstood, faction mods are good if you have the room but not so good you get over even elemental mods

Edited February 26, 2014 by Xandielm

[Shanicus]

The physical damage mods are only worth equipping on weapons with very high base damage in that area - so say, with the Jat Kittag, sticking a +90% impact bonus on it gets a MASSIVE boost in damage when compared to something like the Cronus. They can also be useful in pushing weapons like the Seer and Twin Gremlins into more 'specialized' roles, as the two guns have high damage in all three physical types.

 

They can be very good mods to stick in as well if you don't want to disrupt your elemental combos  - so if you want Fire + Corrosive but adding Cold will ruin your build, the physical damage mods can be useful as a replacement (but again, only in a weapon with high base damage in that area).
 

All in all - they're secondary mods, nothing more. Useless on low-damage weaponry, but incredibly useful for getting an extra 90% damage out of weapons focused in that school. Like Reload Speed mods, some weapons (Supra, Gorgon) get way more benefit out of them than others (Akstilettos, Bows), so I'd say level them anyway and use them wherever they give the biggest boost to damage.

[Wallace24]

generally they aren't too helpful, because for whatever reason, they max out at just +60%. that being said, on weapons that have a very high base damage in one physical type (someone mentioned jat kittag as an example. flux rifle might be another one I'd consider), then it gives a significant boost. regardless, if your build benefits from an extra elemental damage type mod, I'd say that should take precedent. elemental damage is calculated from the total base physical damage (impact+puncture+slash), so 60% of that is generally higher than 60% of just slash, for example

 

but this is only if you want that extra element on it. personal preference, I suppose. same with reload/fire rate mods. people who point to DPS will say use just elementals, multishot, fire rate, and base damage (unless it's a crit build), but for practicality, I'd say you generally want some punch-through and some weapons really benefit from reload speed. I'm not too big on fire rate mods, but again, personal preference

[RealPandemonium]

Mostly only ever worth it on melee weapons.  On every other type of weapon i would only use them to fill a slot if i have absolutely nothing else (which wont happen if you have a wide selection of mods.)