Serrated Blade Damage's Concept Into Damage 2.0

[Casardis]

This is a focus on a single point I've brought in a previous topic:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/141655-damage-20-and-melee-not-enough-variation-in-numbers/

 

For those who were around before Damage 2.0, you probably remember the "serrated blade" damage type, which ignored armor and did the 3x damage against light infested like blade/slash damage. It was a very powerful damage type, and made weapons such as Dual Ether pretty nice, Flux Rifle very powerful, and so on.

 

What I'm asking here is to bring the idea of "slashing through armor" damage type back with some weapons that had it before.

 

As addressed in my first topic linked above (if you read it), currently many weapons, especially melee, follow the pattern of slash/impact/puncture damage distribution with one type having most of the damage. It's either impact-focused, puncture-focused, or slash-focused; and pretty much never distributed evenly for the sake of gameplay design, and therefore less exploration/risk taking (even though many projectile weapons do have that).

 

Serrated Blade weapons would focus on slashing-puncture, logically, so it does extra damage against flesh/infested and armor equally, therefore making damage reduction from armor smaller. Also, by "focus", I don't mean a mere 7 puncture damage for 20 slash damage; I'm talking about at least 12 puncture damage and 15 slash damage, as a ratio).

 

 

Example of weapons that could use a slashing-puncture formula, following their Damage 1.0 damage type

 

Dual Ether

- Was previously dealing Serrated Blade damage on normal and charge attacks

 

- From lore standpoint, it would fit its description of "cutting so cleanly that it was considered by the Tenno to be a more humane weapon for 'cleansing' infested allies."

-- Since it's made of a mysterious material, it can explain why it can go through armor more easily.

 

- Would create a bigger difference from similar weapons, like Dual Kama and Nami Skyla

-- Dual Kama is currently a direct upgrade with a different appearance, and makes me feel like it's a design choice that could have been much better. I don't mind it being better, and I care less about it being harder to build because of that. What I do question is how it's arguably better in every single way, gameplay-wise.

 

Flux Rifle

- Would make it much more versatile outside of Infested without counting on elementals too much.

 

- It's a weapon used by Elites. Most enemies the Corpus are fighting against are the Grineer. It would make sense for them to develop weapons specialized against them besides the Supra

-- In comparison, most of the Grineer weaponry are either slashing, or impact, perfect to fight the Corpus

--- Back in damage 1.0, invasions where Elite Crewmen were present, they would be able to stand ground against the Grineer much more thanks to the ability to bypass armor. Though that will be too much for the current system, a little multiplier against armor in general wouldn't be bad to give the poor Corpus a bit of a buff.

 

Hikou

- All three "basic" throwing weapons all share the same damage-focus (puncture), while in damage 1.0, the three of them had different damage-type.

-- Kunai was Physics Impact (damage 2.0 could have made it impact-puncture focused)

-- Despair was Armor Piercing (fine as it is in damage 2.0 with puncture focus)

-- Hikou was Serrated Blade (could have been puncture-slash focused)

 

- Changing that will also differentiate the three throwing knives a bit more, in the same way as the bows (Paris - Puncture / Cernos - Impact / Dread - Slashing)

 

It doesn't have to make complete sense in the realistic way, especially since it already doesn't with most things in Warframe (Twin Gremlin doing equal damage type; Hydroid's tentacle doing Magnetic; etc). It's more of a gameplay thing.

 

 

TL;DR: Make previously Serrated Blade weapons from damage 1.0 into slash-puncture focused weapons, in current damage 2.0.

Also, for the sake of variety and exploration with damage between weapons, make damage stats distribution more varied and drastic.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Casardis

[Cryp2Nite]

...which ignored armor and did slashing damage...

 

Nope, it did Serrated Blade damage. :P It was a damage type on it's own.

[Archistopheles]

Great thread, but I have a feeling that instead of changing older weapons, DE will simply make a slew of new ones that follow this slash/puncture even split.

[Casardis]

Nope, it did Serrated Blade damage. :P It was a damage type on it's own.

 

True true! I'll correct by saying that what I meant is it did the multiplier like slash damage did. Thanks for the correction.

 

 

Great thread, but I have a feeling that instead of changing older weapons, DE will simply make a slew of new ones that follow this slash/puncture even split.

 

That's what I think as well, and fear it might happen, but since DE are limiting Tenno reinforcements frequency, we will also get less saturated with weapons. Therefore, I'm still suggesting thing and be hopeful about it.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Casardis

[bejuizb]

Perfect idea tbh

 

Well thought out.

[Vyrn]

makes sense to me

 

Plus, there honestly does need to be a bit more variety in damage. Currently, it's just one stat high and the other two low (generally). Adding more variety to the weighing of physical damage would be awesome and would definitely make stuff feel/work differently.

[Vitras]

I'm a little confused here... Are you saying... 1) there should be another damage type by combining two physical damage types? or 2) do you just mean increase the slash and puncture damage values to be similar?

 

1) I don't agree, because that would be unnecessary and would require more types for each combination of physical damage types.

 

2) There are some weapons with balanced physical damage (first one that pops to mind is Burston Prime). But as long the older weapons which used to have Serrated Blade damage had puncture damage added without increasing the total damage, sure. Example of what I mean: 25 slash damage and 5 puncture damage changed to 16 slash damage and 14 puncture damage; not changed to 25 slash damage and 25 puncture damage.

[egregiousRac]

I'm a little confused here... Are you saying... 1) there should be another damage type by combining two physical damage types? or 2) do you just mean increase the slash and puncture damage values to be similar?

 

1) I don't agree, because that would be unnecessary and would require more types for each combination of physical damage types.

 

2) There are some weapons with balanced physical damage (first one that pops to mind is Burston Prime). But as long the older weapons which used to have Serrated Blade damage had puncture damage added without increasing the total damage, sure. Example of what I mean: 25 slash damage and 5 puncture damage changed to 16 slash damage and 14 puncture damage; not changed to 25 slash damage and 25 puncture damage.

 

He means 2, tweaking weapons that were previously decent against armor and flesh to be split fairly evenly across puncture and slash.

[Casardis]

I'm a little confused here... Are you saying... 1) there should be another damage type by combining two physical damage types? or 2) do you just mean increase the slash and puncture damage values to be similar?

 

1) I don't agree, because that would be unnecessary and would require more types for each combination of physical damage types.

 

2) There are some weapons with balanced physical damage (first one that pops to mind is Burston Prime). But as long the older weapons which used to have Serrated Blade damage had puncture damage added without increasing the total damage, sure. Example of what I mean: 25 slash damage and 5 puncture damage changed to 16 slash damage and 14 puncture damage; not changed to 25 slash damage and 25 puncture damage.

 

It's number 2.

 

I gave an example of a weapon which would have a total of ~27 damage, separated to 7 puncture and 20 slash, to change it to 12 puncture + 15 slash = 27.

 

Whether they should buff total damage is another thing, and not what I'm addressing here, nor would I comment on it; I'm only talking about how the numbers are distributed.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Casardis