Why, De, Why? (Lato Nerf)

[Kamal965]

DE's unannounced hammering on the Lato and lack of response to threads against it rather angers me

 

This is my main issue.

 

Please - DE, Rebecca, Megan, whoever - I don't care what your stance is. I just want a darn reply, as the nerf wasn't even in any update notes nor did any thread regarding the nerf get a reply.

[Fogbot3]

Lato was probably better than the MK-1 and Braton again. and we can't have that, Lato being able to hit the side of a barn and dealing okay Damage is too OP, gotta make players want to use their spraycannons that are called the Braton.

 

way back when i started, i shot the Braton like, 3 times, switched to my Sidearm to test it as well, and never used the Braton again.

because the Lato actually shot straight, while the Braton missed where i was aiming all the time, wasting lots of potential Damage.

What are you talking about? Braton and MK-1 have pinpoint accuracy. Lato's the one with bad accuracy now, even before the nerf the lex which is credits only to get played the pocket sniper role much better.

[taiiat]

What are you talking about? Braton and MK-1 have pinpoint accuracy. Lato's the one with bad accuracy now

i doubt that, but i haven't used either since uh... idk, Jan/2013.

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

Mk1 Braton accuracy is actually really good. If you don't use any RoF mods, you can pretty easily get streams of headshots from across sizable rooms while going full auto. Higher RoF will make doing that while going full auto a bit harder due to recoil, but the actual accuracy per bullet is great.

 

Heavy Caliber poops on it, though. I had originally been hoping that with the high initial 40 accuracy that I could get away with using Heavy Caliber without losing much accuracy, but nope.

[Khunvyel]

aaaaaaand I am also going to put my support into this thread as well, probably repeating myself again.

 

I will not bring real world applications for sidearms to rifles, because they are a mixed bunch. Some can be used complementary, sometimes the sidearm is just that... an auxiliary, hold out weapon. but back to Warframe:

 

In it's current state, the Mk1 is better in every single aspect than the Lato, which gives new players ZERO incentive to use the Lato by stats, but rather simply by preference and style, because the Mk1 is likely not going to run out of ammo any time soon.

The Lato deals less damage, is less accurate, has a lower clip size. The ONLY thing it is better at, is dishing out bullets faster. But you can only go so far with 15 rounds per clip and the increased fire rate is not so good that it offsets the lower damage.

 

Yes, the Lato was actually too good a weapon before. Mk1 and Skana got more or less direct upgrades, while it was more of a sidegrade with the old Lato. Lex was like... hit hard but with less accuracy and less RoF. trading kick-like-a-mule high alpha damage with sustained but low recoil and accurate moderate damage. Sicarus was an entirely different beast to begin with too. But Braton and Cronus were straight upgrades.

 

So what I say now is what I said numerous times:

The old 24 Damage of the Lato were bound to be nerfed. The gun actually was too good, stat wise, for a pure starter weapon. But halving it, and then halving the Aklato BELATED was completely doing injustice to the gun.

 

I say, buff the Lato to 18. This would then be a 50% buff from what it has now, and still a 25% nerf from what it was before. 24 -> 12 -> 18.

With 18 damage, it would be more of a complementary weapon which delivers a slightly bigger hit than the Mk1 when you need it. If you feel generous, we might even put it to 20.

[LordMelvin]

I'm throwing in my two cents as well, mostly because my Lato Vandal is now wall fodder. That pistol carried me through every piece of content until the Kunai/Despair came out, and even then remained a staple of my loadout. Then the Vasto/Akvasto released and was superior to the Lato line in every way and I unfortunately shelved my beautiful side arm. When I finally decided to take it out for a spin again I was horrified to see that it had been reduced to a tinfoil prop. 

 

I don't care about min/max damage, it's just not even fun to use anymore. Being the only recolorable Vandal weapon isn't enough of a perk to justify using it past Earth, which is a real shame.

[LegitGhosty]

WHY?

[Kamal965]

What are you talking about? Braton and MK-1 have pinpoint accuracy. Lato's the one with bad accuracy now, even before the nerf the lex which is credits only to get played the pocket sniper role much better.

 

Their accuracy used to suck.

 

Mk1 Braton accuracy is actually really good. If you don't use any RoF mods, you can pretty easily get streams of headshots from across sizable rooms while going full auto. Higher RoF will make doing that while going full auto a bit harder due to recoil, but the actual accuracy per bullet is great.

 

Heavy Caliber poops on it, though. I had originally been hoping that with the high initial 40 accuracy that I could get away with using Heavy Caliber without losing much accuracy, but nope.

 

Accuracy-wise, it's really good, yes. Damage-wise? Meh, it'd actually be balanced if it wasn't so damn focused on Slash damage - I have a whole other thread just for that.

 

aaaaaaand I am also going to put my support into this thread as well, probably repeating myself again.

 

I will not bring real world applications for sidearms to rifles, because they are a mixed bunch. Some can be used complementary, sometimes the sidearm is just that... an auxiliary, hold out weapon. but back to Warframe:

 

In it's current state, the Mk1 is better in every single aspect than the Lato, which gives new players ZERO incentive to use the Lato by stats, but rather simply by preference and style, because the Mk1 is likely not going to run out of ammo any time soon.

The Lato deals less damage, is less accurate, has a lower clip size. The ONLY thing it is better at, is dishing out bullets faster. But you can only go so far with 15 rounds per clip and the increased fire rate is not so good that it offsets the lower damage.

 

Yes, the Lato was actually too good a weapon before. Mk1 and Skana got more or less direct upgrades, while it was more of a sidegrade with the old Lato. Lex was like... hit hard but with less accuracy and less RoF. trading kick-like-a-mule high alpha damage with sustained but low recoil and accurate moderate damage. Sicarus was an entirely different beast to begin with too. But Braton and Cronus were straight upgrades.

 

So what I say now is what I said numerous times:

The old 24 Damage of the Lato were bound to be nerfed. The gun actually was too good, stat wise, for a pure starter weapon. But halving it, and then halving the Aklato BELATED was completely doing injustice to the gun.

 

I say, buff the Lato to 18. This would then be a 50% buff from what it has now, and still a 25% nerf from what it was before. 24 -> 12 -> 18.

With 18 damage, it would be more of a complementary weapon which delivers a slightly bigger hit than the Mk1 when you need it. If you feel generous, we might even put it to 20.

 

A buff to twenty damage, and a shift of focus into Impact damage will massively help out the new players, especially when they get to Venus as their MK1 does jack-S#&$ there.

[Khunvyel]

Despite it might helping out new players, I still don't think it should be done. With slash damage, they will have an even easier time on Venus than on Mercury (or rather, it will not be a sudden jump in difficulty). Grineer take less damage from Slash all the way down, but for Corpus it doesn't change much. Zero difference on shields, more damage against flesh, and a less damage against Moas. But once you learned where to hit Moas, even that isn't an issue any more.

 

Furthermore, the theme would get a bit lost, if you look at other readily available pistols. They might - I say might - switch the Lato to evenly distributed damage. Yes, Impact damage would help out on mercury, but it still wouldn't justify the 12 damage. With 18 or 20 damage mainly impact, you would find yourself in the situation to ONLY use the Lato on Mercury, and not your Mk1 any more.

 

There needs to be a tradeoff to when using the Mk1 over the Lato and vice versa. Currently, there isn't. There might have been one in the past, but now there isn't.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Khunvyel

[Kamal965]

Despite it might helping out new players, I still don't think it should be done. With slash damage, they will have an even easier time on Venus than on Mercury (or rather, it will not be a sudden jump in difficulty). Grineer take less damage from Slash all the way down, but for Corpus it doesn't change much. Zero difference on shields, more damage against flesh, and a less damage against Moas. But once you learned where to hit Moas, even that isn't an issue any more.

 

Furthermore, the theme would get a bit lost, if you look at other readily available pistols. They might - I say might - switch the Lato to evenly distributed damage. Yes, Impact damage would help out on mercury, but it still wouldn't justify the 12 damage. With 18 or 20 damage mainly impact, you would find yourself in the situation to ONLY use the Lato on Mercury, and not your Mk1 any more.

 

There needs to be a tradeoff to when using the Mk1 over the Lato and vice versa. Currently, there isn't. There might have been one in the past, but now there isn't.

 

What?

 

 

 

Despite it might helping out new players, I still don't think it should be done. With slash damage, they will have an even easier time on Venus than on Mercury (or rather, it will not be a sudden jump in difficulty). Grineer take less damage from Slash all the way down, but for Corpus it doesn't change much. Zero difference on shields, more damage against flesh, and a less damage against Moas. But once you learned where to hit Moas, even that isn't an issue any more.

 

Please tell me you're joking.

 

I dare you to go create an alt account and use your Lato, or MK1, versus the Corpus.

 

As this thread says, it's a grueling, hellish experience for the players. Having both their MK1s do jackS#&$ against the Corpus shields, along with the Lato, isn't acceptable.

 

Also, Impact is much, much more useful against the Corpus as their main survivability comes from their shields, as their health pools are utterly crap.

 

 

Furthermore, the theme would get a bit lost, if you look at other readily available pistols. They might - I say might - switch the Lato to evenly distributed damage. Yes, Impact damage would help out on mercury, but it still wouldn't justify the 12 damage. With 18 or 20 damage mainly impact, you would find yourself in the situation to ONLY use the Lato on Mercury, and not your Mk1 any more.

 

There needs to be a tradeoff to when using the Mk1 over the Lato and vice versa. Currently, there isn't. There might have been one in the past, but now there isn't.

 

You're wrong. Impact is -25% against Cloned Flesh and Flesh. The MK1 is a good weapon versus the Grineer due to its Slash damage, as you'll only really use it for a short time before upgrading.

 

The MK1 and Lato do have trade-offs at the moment; use the MK1 if you want to kill something, and use the Lato if you want to die.

 

If they buff the Lato and shift its focus into Impact, it'll be a high damage, low clip size weapon used in a pinch. The MK1 would still be suitable at mowing down crowds of enemies in a much, much more efficient manner than the Lato.

 

That being said, a shift of damage to be even I/P/S ratio would be the best solution. For both guns.

[Khunvyel]

What?

What what? I think you have gotten a few things down the wrong track, I'll try to elaborate this for you. I skip the theme thing though, I am sure you can simply look at the codex and see for yourself what I mean in terms of theme distribution.

Again I want to make the point - which is part of this topic - that the Lato serves ZERO purpose for now. There is no tradeoff, the Mk1 is in any way superiour to the Lato, there is no point in actually switching to the sidearm. Moving on;

 

 

Please tell me you're joking.

 

I dare you to go create an alt account and use your Lato, or MK1, versus the Corpus.

 

As this thread says, it's a grueling, hellish experience for the players. Having both their MK1s do jackS#&$ against the Corpus shields, along with the Lato, isn't acceptable.

 

Also, Impact is much, much more useful against the Corpus as their main survivability comes from their shields, as their health pools are utterly crap.

First, I did an alt account just recently in order to test an exploit, which I could confirm and reported it to the support team. I have ventured through Mercury and even Venus for that, so I absolutely know what I am talking about. I will not talk about the mastery test, as I agree that it is too overtuned and using Corpus units doesn't feel right, but this topic is about Lato, so I stick to that. I collected my own share of data during this period to submit my own topic about "new player experience", so I will spill my beans here a little.

 

So let us talk damage: Cloned flesh does not matter. The only thing that matters is ferrite armor. If you strip away armor through corrosive ticks until the bar turns red, THEN the resistances of the cloned flesh are used. So the 4 things we take into consideration are: Ferrite Armor for Grineer, and Shield + Flesh + Robotics for Corpus. This means:

 

           Impact: 0 Ferrite, ++ shields, - health, ++ robotics

           Slash: - Ferrite, 0 shields, + health, - robotics

 

As you can clearly see, my statement of damage dealt to Grineer being lower than against Corpus on Mercury is correct. The reason why Corpus live longer on Venus than Grineer on Mercury is NOT due to the decreased damage but higher effective health. This is an error of you perception. But since statistics like those are sometimes as useless as DPS charts, here, I have some numbers for you. I used completely unmodded guns:

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Enemy             |   Lato    -    Mk1  -   Braton  (body/head) |  Bodyshots / headshots required to kill with which weapon:

Butcher1-3  | 13/26   18/37   21/43           | Lato: 5/2    Mk1: 3/2    Braton: 3/2

            |                                 |

Lancer1-3   | 10/20   14/29   17/34           | Lato: 10/5   Mk1: 8/4    Braton: 6/3

Trooper1-3  |  9/18   13/26   15/31           | Lato: 14/7   Mk1: 10/5   Braton: 9/4

            |

Vor3Shield  | 12/24   17/35   22/44

Vor3Armor   |  7/15   11/22   13/26

            |

Moa4Shield  | 12/37   17/52   22/66           | Lato: 19/7   Mk1: 13/5   Braton: 11/4

Moa4Health  | 10/32   15/46   19/59  (MOA head = back)        

Crew4Shield | 12/24   17/35   22/44           | Lato: 19/13  Mk1: 13/10  Braton: 9/9

Crew4Health | 13/26   18/37   20/40       

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 

(( body/head with MOAs should mean body/back ))

 

What does this show us? That I wasn't wrong as I talked pure damage numbers, yet you have been. As you can clearly see, damage on shields and health is higher than on Grineer Armor. This is mostly due to the fact, that Grineer not only take less damage from slash, but also because they have armor which is subtracting incoming damage.

The reason why Players are having a harder time on Venus is not because of the lacking DAMAGE compared to Mercury, it is because of the increased HEALTH of the enemies due to shield+health part.

On top of that, even on the first Venus Exterminate mission, Shield drones can spawn, adding even more effective health.

An additional problem with Moas is, that they do not take double damage from headshots any more ever since U12 hit. Yet they still take half damage on the gun, and triple damage on the powerpack on their rear. If they would still take double damage on their head, then they would fall a lot quicker than regular Crewman. The protection of the head lasts for pretty much exactly 3 shots, regardless of the gun used in the tests.

The next problem is, that the enemies on Mercury do not scale in terms of health and armor. Level 1 to 3 all take the same damage and take equally long to die. I haven't checked if they actually DEAL more damage, but I kinda doubt that as well. So basically, you still fight against lvl1 enemies on Tolstoj, even if Vor summons his L3 dudes when you jump in with a fresh frame. Then suddenly, L4 Corpus knock on your door. And their scaling works.

 

But since a player gets whopping 25.000 bucks form Lotus, the most obvious choice for them nowadays would be grabbing the Braton or the Strun. HOWEVER. The problem with the Strun is, it requires Mastery R1. If you go straight to Venus, leaving out the survival and defence mission on Mercury, you do not have sufficient experience to qualify for the rank as you kill your first Corpus on Venus.

 

 

You're wrong. Impact is -25% against Cloned Flesh and Flesh. The MK1 is a good weapon versus the Grineer due to its Slash damage, as you'll only really use it for a short time before upgrading.

I think I do not need to comment much on this, as you have been proven wrong already. Impact is better against Grineer than slash.

 

 

The MK1 and Lato do have trade-offs at the moment; use the MK1 if you want to kill something, and use the Lato if you want to die.

I was actually serious with my statement, your sarcasm(?) will not change anything with that. Prior to D2.0, you used the Lato to deliver a bigger oomph when you needed it. You traded automatic fire and a bit of accuracy for it, and couldn't deliver it as constantly due to a quarter of the clip size of the Mk1.

 

 

That being said, a shift of damage to be even I/P/S ratio would be the best solution. For both guns.

Not for both. That would completely invalidate the Braton. You can't put two guns of the same type with the same IPS damage spread on the same weapon tier. I'd be up for an even (or almost even) distributed Lato though, but then again, it remains questionable since you can purchase the Braton right off the bat after beating Vor. And if not, and you take the Strun (hopefully not), then you STILL have the problem of not switching back to the Lato anyway. Because why would you?

So an even spread by keeping it a valid weapon would need to be moved to 21 for 7/7/7, which would be almost in the area again where it has been nerfed from - with reason. Perhaps 7/7/4.

The Problem with an impact damage oriented gun however is... There is already the Sicarus, readily available as the Strun, so we would have the same problem like an evenly distributed Mk1 due to the Braton. This would actually bring up another point:

If we make Lato impact damage, then I'd vote for the Sicarus to become an evenly-distributed IPS of like 10/10/10. So it would be the sidearm variant of the Burston.

 

But what does that mean for the Lato in general? Well... since impact damage is better against Grineer than Slash, and since impact is also good against Corpus, then the reverse scenario would happen.

The Mk1 becomes irrelevant. And you only run around with your Lato.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Khunvyel

[Nephero]

PLayed with it once, sold my Lato Vandal without even dropping a tear. Shows what I thought of it eh?

[(NSW)Omgwtfl9lbbl]

Want to say that (at lease at low levels of armor), Slash damage is actually better than Impact against Grineer, assuming Ferrite. At 100 Ferrite, Slash damage does 36.5% more damage than Impact damage. At 200 Ferrite, Slash is still 33.6% better than Impact. If you're talking Alloy, then yeah Slash damage gets S#&$ on by Impact. But a new player really shouldn't be seeing Alloy much until they hit Earth, in the form of the occasional Eviscerator or Bombard/Napalm in survival/defense. The negative to Ferrite that Slash has at low levels is more than made up for by the positive to Cloned Flesh in comparison to the negative to Cloned Flesh that Impact has.

 

Regardless, your overall damage will typically always be lower against Grineer. A level 1 Lancer with only 100 armor already mitigates 25% raw damage, while 500 armor mitigates 62.5% of your raw damage.

 

Edit: also, the shift in their effective health is kind of big when you hit Venus, like has been said. If you trust the wiki values, a level 1 Trooper (which is among the meatier stuff you'll find on Mercury) has ~180 effective health when you factor in their armor. Of course resistances bungle that up a little, but yeah. A level 1 Crewman has ~210 overall health, but the Venus mobs don't start at level 1.

Edited March 20, 2014 by omgwtflolbbl

[Khunvyel]

So I went and grabbed a Vasto and a Magnus, and put a 30% impact damage mod on the Magnus in order to bring it almost close to the Vasto in terms of raw impact damage. 26 with the 30% mod, which I decided to use for this test, as the 20% one would have been 24. I went through low Grineer again and then went to a quick run on Saturn. The results were somewhat interesting. Apparently, somewhere along the lines, they changed how Health resistances work below armor resistances, compared to the time when Damage 2.0 was fresh out and I dug deep into damage tests throughout the system.

It seems that there is actually little difference now. This is what I got;

 

             Mag30   Vasto  ( bodyshot / headshot )

Lancer1-3    40/80   42/84
Trooper1-3   36/72   38/76

Powerfist11  50/101  53/107
Trooper11    33/67   35/70
Scorpion12   36/72   38/76
Lancer10     38/76   40/80
Lancer11     37/75   39/79
Lancer12     37/75   39/78
Scorch12     39/79   41/82
Commander11  39/78   41/82

 

Moa4 S       62/187  54/163

Moa4 H       51/153  46/140

 

Crew4 S      62/124  54/108

Crew4 H      47/95   53/106

 

When I run this through the resistance modifiers and armor mitigation, no matter which direction, it never gets close to those values. Additionally, the "12" on Impact and Puncture of the Vasto seems to be more than the "12" of the Slash and Puncture from the Magnus, when putting on Hornet strike on both to see how the numbers turn out. So this again dilutes the test a little. *sigh*

Edited March 21, 2014 by Khunvyel

[Kamal965]

 

 

 

First, I did an alt account just recently in order to test an exploit, which I could confirm and reported it to the support team. I have ventured through Mercury and even Venus for that, so I absolutely know what I am talking about. I will not talk about the mastery test, as I agree that it is too overtuned and using Corpus units doesn't feel right, but this topic is about Lato, so I stick to that. I collected my own share of data during this period to submit my own topic about "new player experience", so I will spill my beans here a little.

 

So let us talk damage: Cloned flesh does not matter. The only thing that matters is ferrite armor. If you strip away armor through corrosive ticks until the bar turns red, THEN the resistances of the cloned flesh are used. So the 4 things we take into consideration are: Ferrite Armor for Grineer, and Shield + Flesh + Robotics for Corpus. 

 

Incorrect. Cloned Flesh does matter. The armor resistance/weaknesses are factored in, and then the armor mitigates a % of the damage dealt, and then Cloned Flesh's weaknesses/resistances are taken into account. Simply because they're armored, doesn't mean that their health doesn't matter. See here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/187258-viral-vs-grineer/page-2#entry2187346

 

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Enemy             |   Lato    -    Mk1  -   Braton  (body/head) |  Bodyshots / headshots required to kill with which weapon:
Butcher1-3  | 13/26   18/37   21/43           | Lato: 5/2    Mk1: 3/2    Braton: 3/2
            |                                 |
Lancer1-3   | 10/20   14/29   17/34           | Lato: 10/5   Mk1: 8/4    Braton: 6/3
Trooper1-3  |  9/18   13/26   15/31           | Lato: 14/7   Mk1: 10/5   Braton: 9/4
            |
Vor3Shield  | 12/24   17/35   22/44
Vor3Armor   |  7/15   11/22   13/26
            |
Moa4Shield  | 12/37   17/52   22/66           | Lato: 19/7   Mk1: 13/5   Braton: 11/4
Moa4Health  | 10/32   15/46   19/59  (MOA head = back)        

Crew4Shield | 12/24   17/35   22/44           | Lato: 19/13  Mk1: 13/10  Braton: 9/9
Crew4Health | 13/26   18/37   20/40       

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 

(( body/head with MOAs should mean body/back ))

 

What does this show us? That I wasn't wrong as I talked pure damage numbers, yet you have been. As you can clearly see, damage on shields and health is higher than on Grineer Armor. This is mostly due to the fact, that Grineer not only take less damage from slash, but also because they have armor which is subtracting incoming damage.

The reason why Players are having a harder time on Venus is not because of the lacking DAMAGE compared to Mercury, it is because of the increased HEALTH of the enemies due to shield+health part.

On top of that, even on the first Venus Exterminate mission, Shield drones can spawn, adding even more effective health.

An additional problem with Moas is, that they do not take double damage from headshots any more ever since U12 hit. Yet they still take half damage on the gun, and triple damage on the powerpack on their rear. If they would still take double damage on their head, then they would fall a lot quicker than regular Crewman. The protection of the head lasts for pretty much exactly 3 shots, regardless of the gun used in the tests.

The next problem is, that the enemies on Mercury do not scale in terms of health and armor. Level 1 to 3 all take the same damage and take equally long to die. I haven't checked if they actually DEAL more damage, but I kinda doubt that as well. So basically, you still fight against lvl1 enemies on Tolstoj, even if Vor summons his L3 dudes when you jump in with a fresh frame. Then suddenly, L4 Corpus knock on your door. And their scaling works.

 

 

The damage numbers you posted match up, so you're correct. I didn't think of the fact that their health was higher, rather than our damage being too low. Thank you for posting your observations.

 

This also just further goes to show that the Lato needs a buff.

 

 

I was actually serious with my statement, your sarcasm(?) will not change anything with that. Prior to D2.0, you used the Lato to deliver a bigger oomph when you needed it. You traded automatic fire and a bit of accuracy for it, and couldn't deliver it as constantly due to a quarter of the clip size of the Mk1.

 

 

I was being serious. I'm not discussing the pre-D2.0 Lato here, so my point stands: The Lato is useless, ergo, you use it when you want to die as you'll have nothing to defend yourself with. The MK1 is better in every aspect at the moment, so... like I said, the trade-off is that you use it when you want to die (in other words, there is no advantage to using the Lato whatsoever).

 

 

Not for both. That would completely invalidate the Braton. You can't put two guns of the same type with the same IPS damage spread on the same weapon tier. I'd be up for an even (or almost even) distributed Lato though, but then again, it remains questionable since you can purchase the Braton right off the bat after beating Vor. And if not, and you take the Strun (hopefully not), then you STILL have the problem of not switching back to the Lato anyway. Because why would you?

So an even spread by keeping it a valid weapon would need to be moved to 21 for 7/7/7, which would be almost in the area again where it has been nerfed from - with reason. Perhaps 7/7/4.

The Problem with an impact damage oriented gun however is... There is already the Sicarus, readily available as the Strun, so we would have the same problem like an evenly distributed Mk1 due to the Braton. This would actually bring up another point:

If we make Lato impact damage, then I'd vote for the Sicarus to become an evenly-distributed IPS of like 10/10/10. So it would be the sidearm variant of the Burston.

 

But what does that mean for the Lato in general? Well... since impact damage is better against Grineer than Slash, and since impact is also good against Corpus, then the reverse scenario would happen.

The Mk1 becomes irrelevant. And you only run around with your Lato.

 

 

How would it invalidate the Braton? The Braton would fire at a faster rate, and still have more damage. I'm asking for a buff to the Lato only, not to the MK1, while asking for a damage redistribution for both. The Braton has 18 physical damage at the moment, distributed into 6/6/6 IPS. If the MK1's 16 damage was redistributed, something to the likes of 4/6/6, or 6/4/6, etc, would be very much appreciated.

 

The Sicarus can be considered an almost direct upgrade to the Lato that also happens to be a burst fire weapon. If DE buffs the Lato to 21 damage, as your example above shows, it would be 7/7/7 IPS. The Sicarus happens to have 21 Impact damage alone. The players would upgrade to the Sicarus for its damage.

[Vorsches]

So back in the days of damage 1.0 I remember the lato outperformed the mk-1 braton... Good memories, and less good ones of re-leveling braton and the mk-1 to squeeze the mastery out of them.

[Khunvyel]

Incorrect. Cloned Flesh does matter.

Yes, I realized that when I did the other damage tests on the second posting. Somewhere along the line this was changed, back at the start of Damage 2.0 the health resistances were only factored in if the armor is stripped clean completely by corrosive procs.

 

 

This also just further goes to show that the Lato needs a buff.

I'm not discussing the pre-D2.0 Lato here, so my point stands: The Lato is useless, ergo, you use it when you want to die as you'll have nothing to defend yourself with. The MK1 is better in every aspect at the moment, so... like I said, the trade-off is that you use it when you want to die (in other words, there is no advantage to using the Lato whatsoever).

All I was pointing out that your idea of a tradeoff was not funny to me :P And I never argued the fact that Lato didn't need a buff. It seriously does, we're just on different trains as to how this should be done without invalidating the Mk1-Braton. Because, let us face it; On one hand, the starter weapons need to cope with the first planet, and probably at least half of the second as well, because some players want to save their bucks and materials and just see how far they can get before running for an upgrade. On the other hand, those starter weapons are MEANT to be replaced so they are not to be allowed to be more powerful or equally powerful as other things coming along. Sidegrading excluded.

 

 

How would it invalidate the Braton? The Braton would fire at a faster rate, and still have more damage. I'm asking for a buff to the Lato only, not to the MK1, while asking for a damage redistribution for both.

I didn't ask for a buff of the Mk1 either, I was simply commenting on you saying. And what I meant with invalidate is not on a damage level, but on a thematic on. There would be no second guess about a difference. My reasoning was that the Mk1 should not be part of an even IPS ratio because we already have a gun that does that on the same tier. Then again, it doesn't matter if the IPS spread is even on the Mk1, because the Braton is better in either scenario. So it really doesn't matter what we are doing with the Mk1. But okay, let me withdraw my statement for the sake of the Game and say:

"Minor RoF ncrease for Mk1 by +0.4 and reducing 1 point of damage, so we can make it 5/5/5 without total damage loss - then it thematically fits better with the Braton, which runs with 6/6/6 and sports an even higher rate of fire. Smaller clip size still doesn't make though sense, but oh well, whatever."

While it would absolutely make sense, there was an ulterior motive I had to not switch damage distribution of the Mk1: Straight upgrades should not be blatantly obvious. It removes the thought process behind "what should I upgrade next". If you hop from one wagon to the next, only because it looks like the one you came before, just prettier, you're not prone to check out new things. But that might just be me overthinking it :D

 

Back to the Lato:

The question is how much of a thematic feel, or even tradeoff the Lato would have if you put it into the category of evenly distributed damage as well. If Lato happens to be 7/7/7, chance are actually high that people are going to use the Lato OVER the Mk1, exclusively. Because just on paper, it would outperform the Mk1, with or without our suggestions to change the Mk1. I'm just not sure about having another even distributed damage weapon and how it would feel as a player. Perhaps a night of sleep over this would change my thoughts on it. However, while still only 25% worse than it's previous form, I think the tradeoff might be justified. Almost.

I'd be fine to buff it even to 8/8/8 if we reduce the rate of fire. The tradeoffs need to be more visible. The player needs to feel them. Like "oh this does more damage... but I can't shoot it as fast and it is semi-auto. hmmmmmm..."

It is weird enough already, how the semi-auto Lato is capable of firing faster than the automatic Mk1-Braton. THAT was the biggest issue with the Mk1 pre 2.0 ... the Lato simply was better, on paper and practical until you upgraded your rifle. Now their roles are reversed.

 

 

The Sicarus can be considered an almost direct upgrade to the Lato that also happens to be a burst fire weapon. If DE buffs the Lato to 21 damage, as your example above shows, it would be 7/7/7 IPS. The Sicarus happens to have 21 Impact damage alone. The players would upgrade to the Sicarus for its damage.

This is completely true, and the Sicarus would rip through Corpus in no time, but here are three big things you are forgetting:

1) New players don't know about Corpus, nor what damage is better to use against them. Often, new players don't even know about the codex unless they stumble upon it.

2) Many players throughout gaming history tread lightly when it comes to burst fire weapons, as it is like buying a pig in a poke. Could be great, could be bad. You don't know how hard the recoil would be, you don't know how fast the burst is going to fire nor how many bullets the burst is going to have - also thanks to the lacking detail of the actual infopops. So someone seeing the Lato already as inferior would rather upgrade their main Rifle than compensate for deficits, if they are eager to spend their bucks.

3) Despite the Sicarus doing more damage on paper, it is less convenient to use, you have tons of reload time in between (as it essentially is a 5-shot weapon) and the majority of people would be better of with upgrading to the Braton anyway.

 

I still think a complementary way is better than the "hold out weapon" one. Even in the tutorial we are told "you have to master all 3 forms to survive." Well, no use to resort to that third form being the secondary weapon, if the primary is better in any aspect :/ So early on I'd like a new player to be pushed to the idea that their secondary weapon is good for delivering a slightly bigger boom less often while the primary one is a lesser but more steady flow of damage.

[Revel72]

Reason why they nerfed Lato:

 

Wrong weeds.

[Othergrunty]

I would like to know if there is any chance i might ever get a Lato that can hold up as well as the Lex?

Why the Lex? Because it's a credit buyable weapon that can actualy hold up very well. I have allready crafted and leveled the Vasto and Magnus and they just don't feel the same as the good old Lato. Modding doesn't help because the base damage is just too damn low.

Before Melee 2.0 Scott proudly proclaimed he could fight his way into Pluto with a Skana now (i would like to see what build he used), so why doesn't he give us the same chance with the Lato?

 

Call it Lato Mk2 or Lato Kai, make it cost 75,000 credits or dojo only, but just don't waste this weapon design like that.

[Dogoframe]

Before Melee 2.0 Scott proudly proclaimed he could fight his way into Pluto with a Skana now (i would like to see what build he used), so why doesn't he give us the same chance with the Lato?

 

 

 

Off topic but I am sure most players can do an Exterminate mission in Pluto with an unranked Skana, even en before Melee 2.0. You mostly need only patience.

[Othergrunty]

Off topic but I am sure most players can do an Exterminate mission in Pluto with an unranked Skana, even en before Melee 2.0. You mostly need only patience.

 

You mean with Rhino, Loki or Ash? Because i think patience does not help when your enemies shoot you to shred while you try to kill them with a blunt feeling sword.

[SlyBoots]

crap, when did this happen? quite sure that i played with aklatos after the damage rework and they were still okay.

 

but reducing damage to less than half? on the weakest pistol? and DE answers on stuff like 2,5% per rank status chance mods to the effect that "careful balancing" would have to be done and wants people to take that seriously? really?

 

it's like: "guys we released the marelok, an insanely powerful pistol, you know what that means... let's nerf the latos into the ground!"

[Eurhetemec]

I think this is pretty clearly a case of DE nerfing something in order to get people to buy spend/plat, sadly, and I really think it's a bad, bad move.

 

I mean, we can eliminate "The Lato was overpowered!", because, no, no it wasn't. It was already a weapon you wanted to get rid of fairly soon.

 

We can eliminate "It improves the low-level experience!", because, no, it does the precise opposite.

 

Which really leaves "We'd really like you to spend RL money to get a better gun plz", because let's also be real - you're not going to have the resources to get a significantly better gun for quite while, unless you're very lucky, what with all those Neurodes etc. getting up in your face.

 

What's particularly sad is that it was pretty stylish little gun, which was very Warframe. And now it's worthless. Careful balancing my arse.

[Dogoframe]

You mean with Rhino, Loki or Ash? Because i think patience does not help when your enemies shoot you to shred while you try to kill them with a blunt feeling sword.

 

No, I mean any frame. With the current AI it doesnt really matter, and you have no ammo issues. I would have given DE_Scott SOME credit in that statement if he had said he cleared a Pluto mission with an unranked Lato. Patience doesnt help there, as you dont have enough ammo to kill more than maybe 3 enemies. With an AOE Knockdown sword? Very doable, and again, a bad BAD example of the efficiency of the game mechanic he was advertising.

[Khunvyel]

it's like: "guys we released the marelok, an insanely powerful pistol, you know what that means... let's nerf the latos into the ground!"

Lato was nerfed long before that, I think it was U11. Aklato was nerfed later in U12.

 

 

 

I mean, we can eliminate "The Lato was overpowered!", because, no, no it wasn't. It was already a weapon you wanted to get rid of fairly soon.

 

We can eliminate "It improves the low-level experience!", because, no, it does the precise opposite.

Priot to Lato nerf and Damage 2.0 , this pistol was the piece of starter gear you used the longest. At that time, the Lex was not an upgrade, but a sidegrade due to the low accuracy, and Sicarus wasn't to everyone's liking, if we just keep in the credit purchase league. This has been fixed, and the Lex has become a very viable option. The advantage of Lato simply was ( and still is) high rate of fire with high accuracy and very low recoil and a decent enough clip size for a semi-auto weapon, but the current 12 damage compared to the old 24 are straight out unfair. Now there is no way to use it over your Mk1, there is not even a situational case. It is flat out worse in all categories nowadays. Before, you traded lower rate of fire for higher damage per bullet.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Khunvyel