D Polarity And Ice Mods - Bring Them In Line Please

[Khunvyel]

Back in the days when status procs happened all the time it was fine and justified having it as a D polarity. Slowing enemies down was really more of a crowd control aspect, less damage done by the enemy, easier to hit them, easier to run away from them. But nowadays, with Damage 2.0, this isn't justified any more.

Currently, all cold damage mods are 2 slots cheaper than their other elemental counterparts. Melee+Pistol cold mods have less damage due to that. But Rifle and Shotgun cold damage mods still do the same damage as the other elementals, making them essentially better.

 

• I suggest to change all D Defense polarities on weapons which were meant to fit the ice theme to  -  Tactic polarities instead, and then switch the polarity of all ice mods accordingly.
• Then you adjust the damage values and rank cost to keep them in line with the remaining elemental mods (and don't forget Shocking Touch for melee. It has inferior damage to it's cost)
• Run a script to check for weapons on players which would have their capacity blown, and unequip the mod accordingly.
• Make sure you write something in the news about this, and perhaps even deliver an ingame notification per mailbox, because there are people playing the game who do not bother to read your well presented news on the top left anyhow.

 

Another thing to add on this would be availability. After months in the game, I still have only a SINGLE deep Freeze mod, and I got that pretty early as far as I remember. Yet, I have multiple copies of Ice Storm, and that is kinda sad. But this can be said for other mods as well (I remember my hunt for Stormbringer) but discussion about availability is not the purpose of this topic.

 

Please revise cold damage polarities, costs and damage modifiers to be in line with current elemental mods, and bring Shocking Touch where it belongs too, thank you.

D polarity on weapons and D polarity on ice mods are a relic of the past, and you have proven time and again that you are able to scrap things in favor for newer, better systems. I understand that base damage mods like Serration, etc, are also a problem, but they need to be tackled on a different level entirely.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Khunvyel

[CrazyCatLad]

Yeah the D polarity on most weapons is nearly useless.

[Hybridon]

If they do that, they have to release or change some polarities on other mods, we barely have D polarities on weapons, and when they come with a polarity that is a D I already think its a waste...

[Khunvyel]

Of course, all this ties to the fact that polarities on weapon mods would need a serious overhaul anyway soon. For example, I barely understand why elemental damage mods are not V polarity. D mods are making sense on Warframes. D mods make sense on Melee weapons. But simply not on guns. Even the D Polarity for Status chance should be changed to - Tactical, if we think hard enough about it. And all weapons with an innate D polarity have 10% status chance at BEST (melee weapons) and the rest has lower, so it is not even worth the diminutive increment.

 

 

This could be on pluto and the tileset

... *blinks* pardon?

[letir]

Serration - 14/165%

Point Blank - 9/90%

Hornet Strike - 14/220%

 

Split Chamer - 15/90% (???)

Hell's Chamber - 15/120%

Barrel Diffusion - 11/120%

 

 

Damage mods must be reworked and balanced someday.

[XenosInfinity]

If they do that, they have to release or change some polarities on other mods, we barely have D polarities on weapons, and when they come with a polarity that is a D I already think its a waste...

 

Total list of D-polarity mods on weapons:

 

Hammer Shot - Stopped being defensive when stun chance was changed to status chance.

Cryo Rounds - See rest of thread.

Rifle Aptitude - if you use this you are either mad, lying or extremely desperate to use that last slot on status chance.

 

Chilling Grasp - See Cryo Rounds

Shotgun Savvy - See Rifle Aptitude

Tainted Shell - I'm... confused as to why this counts as a defensive mod. Makes far more sense as tactical polarity (-).

 

Deep Freeze - Does anyone even use this over Ice Storm?

Sure Shot - see Rifle Aptitude

 

North Wind - See Cryo Rounds

Melee Prowess - See Rifle Aptitude

 

With this in mind, I'm not entirely sure why we even have a D polarity on weapons. Ice and stun stopped being defensive when stun became status and ice stopped having a 100% proc on its slowdown effect. On the other hand, I'd be extremely annoyed if half my weapons stopped being able to maintain their viral setups because the cost of the ice mods was increased, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone to forma their weapons an additional time because something's cost went up by just two points.

[Khunvyel]

Damage mods must be reworked and balanced someday.

I'm sorry, but this topic is not intending to balance base damage mods. There are enough other topics about that already. I'm strictly keeping to a simple and easy fix to swap D polarities on Weapons for - ones, and to bring Ice mods in line with the other elemental mods.

 

 

Tainted Shell - I'm... confused as to why this counts as a defensive mod. Makes far more sense as tactical polarity (-).

 

With this in mind, I'm not entirely sure why we even have a D polarity on weapons. Ice and stun stopped being defensive when stun became status and ice stopped having a 100% proc on its slowdown effect. On the other hand, I'd be extremely annoyed if half my weapons stopped being able to maintain their viral setups because the cost of the ice mods was increased, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone to forma their weapons an additional time because something's cost went up by just two points.

 

The only reason I think that Tainted shell is a Defensive mod because... well... perhaps someone thought the idea of having decreased rate of fire and decreased spread is going to "help you survive" and "going against the inherent nature of a shotgun" ...*chuckle*... But no, I am on the same boat. It should be tactical.

 

I am not agreeing though with what you said about "the mod costs should stay." Things are constantly changing, and we need to adapt to it. And to be fair, a lot of heavily forma'd weapons have some mod slots available any way. Furthermore, adding the cost of two is going increase the extra required capacity of those forma'd weapons to 1. I am pretty sure you can afford a single step down somewhere on an unforma'd slot, or drop down to an even number on a mod sitting on a polarity. That is if you don't have spare capacity to burn any way.

Because this only affects rifles and shotguns. Pistols and melee get more damage, so they can drop 1 rank and STILL have more damage than before for the same cost, in the case of Forma.

Rifle and shotgun users - I'm almost sorry to say it - simply have to deal. This is helping to keep a system in line and fluid. Crying a river about this would just show how people are spoiled brats.

 

Final note for Status chance; Some weapons with a high status chance would actually benefit from those status chance mods... if those mods actually would offer better bonuses. I see the Grakata and Gorgon Wraith and say to myself "If only Status mods would rank higher..."

Edited March 20, 2014 by Khunvyel

[letir]

I'm sorry, but this topic is not intending to balance base damage mods. There are enough other topics about that already. I'm strictly keeping to a simple and easy fix to swap D polarities on Weapons for - ones, and to bring Ice mods in line with the other elemental mods.

And what about Electricity on Melee? It's only 60 for same cost.

[Khunvyel]

And what about Electricity on Melee? It's only 60 for same cost.

Touché! I forgot that for some reason. Yes, in this case, "while they are at it", they could up the damage for shocking touch to be in line as well. This still would be a bandaid fix, and my main concern is and remains changing the D polarity.

The base damage mods are a bigger beast to be tamed, but I get the feeling that all this is going to happen at once. Still I guess shifting polarity from D to - and at least bringing the elementals in line, is going to cause a lot less hassle and frustration and actually would benefit some weapons. From this framework, it might be even easier to bounce off the rest. Gotta start somewhere.

Many think certain guns/melees are lackluster because they cannot put the higher-damage NON-ice damage in there up front and need to level it more in order to actually see how well - or not - it performs in reality.

 

Of course, I can also hear the people say how powerful Ice is and that the lower damage is justified. I ask in return; why? Really, why? Only because Ice is good against basic Grineer and very good against shields? Spanking new players would very much appreciate this bonus. And will horribly die against infested if they rely too much on Ice damage. Which is also good! Variety shoved in your face.

The sad thing is, that the only ice damage readily available is on melee weapons, and next for shotguns, but only if you are already on Venus. Rifles and pistols? Good luck getting that as a new player.

I see no single justification why cold damage should remain lower than the rest, especially since only pistols and melee's suffer from this setback.

[Khunvyel]

*bumps again because similar topics cropped up*

[shut]

I'd rather they redid the proc system so that Ice (and procs in general) could once again be reliable and balanced across weapons. That's what Damage 1.0 had that Damage 2.0 took away; the reliability was a good feature, and needed to stay.

 

When U11 hit, I honestly thought that the proc system was something of a placeholder that would be improved in the future. It's horribly imbalanced, it's unreliable on the best of weapons, and currently serves more as a gimmick than a tactic because of how simply unreliable it is. I find it disappointing that pretty much nothing has changed in this regard in the past 4 months; not even so much as a tiny little boost to Rifle Aptitude.

[Khunvyel]

I'm not saying I am satisfied with the proc chance either, and this is also part of my yet unpublished stuff. I'd rather only have procs applied of the element that has the biggest part of all damage types on your weapon. This would mean you have to sacrifice damage for utility, if you want to have a specific proc going.

The system earlier on was way too ridiculously powerful and made procs actually irrelevant. Nowadays on weapons with high proc chance it is unreliable which one triggers, but in the end we still stack elementals for damage. Sometimes not all 4 any more, but we still do.

 

But this topic was not about addressing this, but rather the simple fix of changing D to - to give some weapons a bit more attention which would otherwise be cast away without reason, and to bring the system in line. I don't see Damage 3.0 coming up, so the changes would need to come bit by bit.

[Warriorrogue]

Until they add more D polarities, keep cold as D

And secondly, I agree with the buff pistol and melee freeze, and melee shock. It should be 15% per level on all, which brings deep freeze up to 90, and ice storm to 60.

[Khunvyel]

I've left nightmare mods out of the equation for now, but in this particular case I would agree with you, if there wasn't something else to consider: The rifle counterpart sports more damage for less magazine size. So what are you going to do with Ice Storm if you up the damage? Decrease magazine size or increase mod costs?

 

The thing with D polarity is... on guns, there is little sense. I'd like to hear reasons from people what attribute a firearm in the game could have that might be counted as "defensive."

For Melee weapons on the other hand, Defensive polarities are a lot more useful. But even there, it is not a preference, but a rather unused choice. Even if U13 hits live with the melee update, the question how these defensive mods are going to work out remains to be seen.

Warframe defense polarities are absolutely justified where they are.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Khunvyel