Weapon Mod Builds Have Too Few Viable Builds

[BrazilianJoe]

Basically, weapon builds boil down to:

 

Serration, Pressure Point, Point Blank, Hornet Strike to increase damage.

2 dual-elemental: Corrosive + Blast / Magnetic + Gas / Radiation + Viral.

 

That leaves 3 slots  for extra cards. Usually elemental damage can be further increased with more rare elemental mods, and one card to add damage to the highest damage type (slash/puncture/impact). 

 

I think it is too boring a system, in the sense that there are some builds which are much more effective than others. Elemental damage is basically a requirement. In terms of raw damage, you can't just do a non-elemental build. 

 

I think that Elemental damage should be calculated against the base weapon damage, before other mods. The player should have the option to either optimize for one or more of the 'basic' damage types, or elemental, or balance both systems to be effective against more varied enemy types.

 

One problem is that the 'Serration'-family of mods are basically a requirement for any build. So they are not really an option, especially because they increase the damage so much. I think that the weapon damage should scale with weapon level instead. It would free up one slot for real variety. 

 

I also think that the warframe should have an additional 'focus' slot, like an aura, but which affects only the warframe's weapons. It could increase elemental damage, or plain damage, or increase status chance, critical chance, whatever. There could be focus mods to help early-game - increase (non) elemental damage by 1% per non-polarized weapon slot - and late-game - increase (non) elemental damage by 1% per polarized slot. Corrupted focus mods would damage the warframe shields/health/stamina for extra damage for example. 

 

 

 

 

[BrotherIcarus]

I disagree on the two dual elements so that leaves 5 slots more than enough for diversity.

[Vanhline]

i probably would have waited to make this post until after melee2.0 comes out as it stands to reason that with the amount of effort they are putting into it that the mods are likely to be effected.

 

 

PS, they have already confirmed the aura slot for melee weps in melee2.0 as of the last life steam.

[Liminal]

I agree, but it's hard to get rid of it without changing/removing scaling (something I'd be behind, but I doubt DE would consider such a dramatic overhaul).

[Trouvo]

I disagree on the two dual elements so that leaves 5 slots more than enough for diversity.

Agreed, I only ever use 2 elements on any of my builds for the one dual-ele usually magnetic or corrosive

 

i probably would have waited to make this post until after melee2.0 comes out as it stands to reason that with the amount of effort they are putting into it that the mods are likely to be effected.

 

 

PS, they have already confirmed the aura slot for melee weps in melee2.0 as of the last life steam.

dat "life" stream

[notionphil]

The ways to change this are without 'scrapping everything' are:

-add a number of game changer utility mods that are so valuable/useful that people will equip them instead of elemental damage. Ex: mod that makes your shots all have a 3m AoE

-add an aura slot that does NOT give a direct dps boost bc that would again be the default choice and we'd still have 'one' build.

Edited March 27, 2014 by notionphil

[VKhaun]

...you're wrong... but the perception is so common that I still have to agree and call it a problem by default... which is sad. :/

 

DPS just dominates everything everyone talks about because we have no alternative measurement. With no end game except endless missions there is no cap. There is no "That's enough damage" where we can then judge how much space each weapon has for utility vs damage. There is no gate or restriction on gear per area where we can say "That's good for that area".

 

We need end game, and we need powerful conditional damage mods to shake things up like extra damage when you get a headshot or hit a weak point, or extra damage if your shot hits more than one target.

 

The only real problem I see in what we already have is Heavy Caliber. The differentiation between shotguns and rifles is supposed to be range. Some people say spread, but spread is really the same thing as accuracy per pellet. When you make the rifles inaccurate and give them more damage, you drag them down and essentially make them shotguns. IMO it should add recoil or lower fire rate (or both) instead of nerfing accuracy.

Edited March 27, 2014 by VKhaun

[Mickey1779]

I agree that there is very little choice for builds, Base dmg, multishot and at least two elements consumes 4 of your 8 mod slots automatically.  The only time you have a real decision is when you are making a crit or status chance weapon build.

 

Personally, until Infested return I run Corrosive and Cold on my weapons, totally leaving fire out of my weapons.

 

 

We need end game, and we need powerful conditional damage mods to shake things up like extra damage when you get a headshot or hit a weak point, or extra damage if your shot hits more than one target.

 

They had headshots in Damage 1.0 and got rid of it. (reference http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Enemy_Damage_Type_Multipliers)

Edited March 27, 2014 by Mickey1779

[notionphil]

...you're wrong... but the perception is so common that I still have to agree and call it a problem by default... which is sad. :/

 

DPS just dominates everything everyone talks about because we have no alternative measurement. With no end game except endless missions there is no cap. There is no "That's enough damage" where we can then judge how much space each weapon has for utility vs damage. There is no gate or restriction on gear per area where we can say "That's good for that area".

 

That's a great point about boundless play, but another key point is that in general - nothing else is worth building towards. Our options plainly aren't attractive.

 

Many of the 'utility mods' deal with ammo, which is a non-issue with Carrier and uniformly large ammo capacities. Only Secondary autos have an ammo issue, and the utility mods do far to little to effectively impact their usage. Zoom tends to hurt play more than help.

 

Recoil reduction and punch through are the two 'occasionally used' exceptions. I tend to sacrifice DPS for one of those.

 

Randomized procs also decreases the attractiveness of a Status build, even on those weapons where mods could make Status 'viable'. Why sacrifice 20-40% DPS for a 1 at 5 chance on the proc you want in a given situation?

 

Essentially, there's nothing else useful to build towards besides DPS/TTK, because of lack of optionality. Though the DPS/TTK is likely not needed, we can barely see/feel the benefits of building towards anything else. Numbers, we can see and feel.

 

We need far better utility mods, control over procs, and new conditional gamechanger/playstyle mods (as we've both suggested).

[Davoodoo]

My builds.

Primary:

Serration elemental elemental heavy caliber/hammer shot

split chamber elemental/cit elemental/crit shred/speed trigger/firestorm

Shotgun

Point blank elemental elemental vicious spread

Hells chamber elemental blaze elemental/rof

Secondary

Hornet strike elemental elemental lethal torrent

barrel diffusion elemental elemental quickdraw/stunning speed

Melee(swings)

Pressure point elemental elemental spoiled strike

Fury elemental/crit elemental/crit berserker/elemental

Melee(charge)

Killing blow Focus energy elemental corrupted charge

Reflex coil elemental/crit elemental/crit fury/elemental

Ye such diversity in builds.

Even if you consider weapons as having enough dps then still extra dmg will save you more bullets making utility mods useless anyway, except reload speed which works on pistols, 30% on rifles is pathetic. Also only weapon i used -recoil mods on is aklex because its only weapon which actually have recoil.

Also fun fact, in dmg1.0 my builds looked exactly the same.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Davoodoo

[BrazilianJoe]

 

We need far better utility mods, control over procs, and new conditional gamechanger/playstyle mods (as we've both suggested).

 

Yes, sure.

 

I agree that there is too much focus on DPS. I'd like to see weapons with alternate effects too. DPS is the obvious optimization target though. It should be possible to optimize from damage type procs, elemental procs, critical builds, or raw damage.

A radioactive shotgun with high proc chance perhaps? 

[notionphil]

Yes, sure.

 

I agree that there is too much focus on DPS. I'd like to see weapons with alternate effects too. DPS is the obvious optimization target though. It should be possible to optimize from damage type procs, elemental procs, critical builds, or raw damage.

A radioactive shotgun with high proc chance perhaps? 

 

100% agreed that we need more control over procs. With the new status mods coming, we will be able to get to 60% status on 10% base status weapon - at the cost of about 30% of DPS. That will be the first step towards build diversity.

 

However, the big game changer where builds will actually happen is Playstyle specific damage. Mods that go beyond DPS optimization.

 

-double damage on headshots but 25% less damage on bodyshots.

-shots chain to a second target after hit, but all shots deal 20% less damage

-if you kill a target with a headshot, it explodes dealing 2x the damage of that shot in a 3M AoE

-+10% damage for every target hit in a row, without missing a shot

 

those mods are playstyle specific - they aren't numerical DPS bonuses, but high situational damage bonuses. Mods like this would not only make builds 'unique' but also meaningful. Equip one and you'll actually have to use it to benefit.

 

Or equip none to go for base DPS, and lose the high situational damage bonus.

 

These and others from So...how About We Actually Customize Our Weapons?

 

EDIT - added status build info

Edited March 27, 2014 by notionphil

[Racercowboy]

Agree wholeheartedly with the OP.

 

 

-snip-

 

My weapon builds look almost identical. The Irony. 

 

Building damage on a weapon is not real customization. It's just making it stronger. There is no gameplay different between a Braton that does 40 damage and a Braton that does 400 damage. The only difference is that one takes 10x more bullets to kill something. Still has the same accuracy, rate of fire, ammo capacity, reload speed, and such. You could say that the game is harder on the one that does 40 damage, but since you can make it do 400 damage, why would you ever not do so?

 

Someone who came back to Warframe after not playing for awhile once asked me about the new damage system, since it appeared confusing. I summarized it for him:

 

"Use corrosive/radiation on Grineer. Use Magnetic/Toxic on Corpus. Use Gas/Fire on Infested. Viral is OP on high status chance weapons. Other than that, just build like you used to."

 

That sad part is with the aforementioned elements, you can trash everything.

[LukeAura]

One of the major flaws in the system is how damage tends to do the purpose of utility mods better. 
If you want more sustained dps, reloading faster and having more ammo in the clip should net you a better result than more damage. Rarely do they even come close.
If you need higher bursts of damage you'll want RoF buffs, Damage usually does but not always trumps these too. Usually, RoF boosts only start trumping damage once several other damage mods are already on the weapon.
Damage increases should only be king when it comes to ammo efficiency. Not everything.
The only thing you can't do with more damage is increasing sustained/continous fire time, which is probably the weakest use of a weapon as you generally never need to cover an area for that long. And it's usually way better to be able to reload more frequently or reload less often through killing more.


 

[Axterix13]

Many of the 'utility mods' deal with ammo, which is a non-issue with Carrier and uniformly large ammo capacities. Only Secondary autos have an ammo issue, and the utility mods do far to little to effectively impact their usage. Zoom tends to hurt play more than help.

Not quite true.  Many primaries have it as well, including the Soma, until you reach a point that stacking damage improving mods renders it moot.  If you gut the stats on the weapons themselves, you render the weapons useless to newer players.

 

The heart of the problem isn't ammo usage at the moment, but rather that we can multiply the base damage by over 40x on a regular weapon, and even higher on critical-focused ones.  It means a weapon will be unbalanced at one end (no catalyst or formas) or the other (fully decked out).