Vitality Vs. Steel Fiber

[Gelkor]

@Wiegraf, so I'm reading that correctly that Vitality is pretty much always better than Steel Fiber if given the choice/forced to choose.

[Kaotyke]

Steel Fiber adds Frost's armor, and so raises the HP of the Snow Globe

[Wiegraf]

@Wiegraf, so I'm reading that correctly that Vitality is pretty much always better than Steel Fiber if given the choice/forced to choose.

 

Since Armor is multiplicative upon your total Health AND Steel Fiber's efficiency depends on which frame you are using, I'd say a safe best would be to use Vitality first unless you're using Valkyr or Saryn in which case, Steel Fiber might actually be worthwhile using along with Vitality for maximum durability.

 

Rhino and Frost are left out of the equation only because increasing their shields, if you happen to be quick in using cover, is much more efficient simply because it's a rapidly renewing ressource whereas health is static (unless using aura Rejuveneration a few times or a team composition with a Trinity or Oberon/Nekros).

 

Besides, at one point or another in infinite scaling, damage will come so quickly that better positionning and situationnal awareness will be more crucial than your Health and Shield since they'll literally be drained in a second or so.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Wiegraf

[Gelkor]

Since Armor is multiplicative upon your total Health AND Steel Fiber's efficiency depends on which frame you are using, I'd say a safe best would be to use Vitality first unless you're using Valkyr or Saryn in which case, Steel Fiber might actually be worthwhile using along with Vitality for maximum durability.

 

Rhino and Frost are left out of the equation only because increasing their shields, if you happen to be quick in using cover, is much more efficient simply because it's a rapidly renewing ressource whereas health is static (unless using aura Rejuveneration a few times or a team composition with a Trinity or Oberon/Nekros).

 

Besides, at one point or another in infinite scaling, damage will come so quickly that better positionning and situationnal awareness will be more crucial than your Health and Shield since they'll literally be drained in a second or so.

 

Aye.  That's the difficulty I've been finding with gearing Rhino properly.  Since Ferrite armor has actual damage resistance to certain types of attacks, gearing for max Iron Skin is the most viable, unfortunately, Iron Skin ONLY scales with power strength, nothing else.  Health and shield mods are merely stopgaps to recasting Iron Skin and getting into cover.

 

Valk, on the other hand, has such beautiful synergy between armor, health, warcry, and hysteria/life strike, she's quickly becoming my favorite tank frame.

[Archistopheles]

I've been experimenting with builds as Frost (who has the same base stats as Rhino) and I found that Fire Resistance is actually better than Armor VS Grineer for survival missions, which means Laser resistance might be a better bet VS Corpus (theory)

 

The only time I really get hurt VS Grineer is from Napalms, but with Fire-resist, they don't even seem to get through my shields.

 

Note: I run Rejuvenation as a compliment to a tanky-durable build. Max Redirection, Max Vitality, Max Fire-resist.

[RoseQuix]

This post is only about surviving against burst using the 3 common survival mods and Vigor, other factors (such as halved/no shields and effective healing) are ignored when defining "best" options. Other interesting ideas to look at would be Quick Thinking and Flow's effect on survivability against burst.

@Wiegraf, so I'm reading that correctly that Vitality is pretty much always better than Steel Fiber if given the choice/forced to choose.

If you are using a single survivability mod, then pretty much. Steel Fiber alone is never a better option for survivability. The increase to effective healing may be useful, depending on how you're planning to get your health restored in a group. Redirection is probably the better choice on Mag and Volt, depending on how much you have to worry about damage that ignores shields.

If you're using two survivability mods, Saryn and Valkyr get the most overall durability out of Vitality and Steel Fiber. Every other frame is better off with Vitality + Redirection.

If you're insane and using 3 slots for survivability, well, that gets slightly more interesting. Frost and Rhino get the most survivability out of Vitality + Redirection + Steel Fiber. Saryn and Valkyr benefit most from Vitality, Vigor, and Steel Fiber. Every other frame is best off with Vitality + Redirection + Vigor.

And if you're using 4 survivability mods, well, you have one choice in composition. But this is usually not a worthwhile investment. Frost and Rhino get the most with the ability to withstand 19% more damage whereas Volt on the low end gets a 2% increase. (Compared to the extremes from going one mod to two being 27% and 69%). I would personally never go beyond two survival mods since three has generally bad returns at 19% almost across the board. Not to mention is starts severely cutting into your other options.

I will have to look at Quick Thinking/Flow since the Wiki tells me it is affected by armor, which might actually make it have some very interesting potential.

Edited May 9, 2014 by RoseQuix

[Gelkor]

@RoseQuix:  Yeah, I already run with Redirection by default, given Rhino's huge shields.  And would prefer to use only one more defensive mod.  I have a 3rd D slot that I use for Quick Rest or Marathon, as I feel that having more stamina for melee and sprinting is more useful than a third defensive mod.

 

The only other thing I could thing would be to run Redirection and Vigor, but given the base high armor of Rhino, I'm pretty sure vitality is more EH.

 

I think the only remaining question, and I may be able to test this tonight, is Archistopheles' suggestion about flame repellent and laser resistance.  Do they apply pre-shields, and more importantly for Rhino: do they apply pre Iron Skin?

[Archistopheles]

flame repellent and laser resistance.  Do they apply pre-shields

 

 

I can confirm that they do.

 

I do not play Rhino, so I cannot speak for Iron Skin.

[Gelkor]

I can confirm that they do.

 

I do not play Rhino, so I cannot speak for Iron Skin.

 

Good to know, now I just need to run some tests with standing there letting corpus shoot me with IS on and timer how long it takes to disappear. I'm sure nothing will go wrong.  Given that we still can't use Block with Iron Skin, I'm not getting my hopes up though.

 

>.>

Edited May 9, 2014 by Gelkor

[RealPandemonium]

Here is a table of warframe effective health values that I made for another thread. 

 

 

Here are some survivability values for warframes of varying defense stat values, listed in order of most to least overall survivability (only Frost's stat helmets were taken into account and are noted in the tables) (Note: Frost without stat helmets is the same as Rhino) :

This table shows base effective HP without Steel Fiber equipped vs with max Steel Fiber equipped, assuming that both max Vitality and max Vigor are also equipped.

 

Valkyr 2580 | 4472

Saryn 1956 | 2689

 

Frost 1463 | 2032 (Aurora Helmet equipped)

Rhino 1404 | 2003

Ash 1569 | 1876

 

Zephyr 1354 | 1425

Excalibur 1046 | 1251

 

Nova 1046 | 1251

 

Volt 903 | 950

 

Banshee 903 | 950

Loki 784 | 938
 
 
This table shows survivability values assuming max Redirection, max Vitality, max Vigor, and max Steel Fiber are equipped (maximum possible defense barring Quick Thinking, Shock Absorbers, element resistance mods, etc.) in the first column. The second column shows how much continuous or burst damage the frames could receive in one shot, assuming that Guardian is off cooldown (same mod setup.)
 

Valkyr 4902 | 5332

Frost 3322 | 4612 (Aurora helmet equipped)

Rhino 3293 | 4583

 

Saryn 3549 | 4409

Zephyr 2715 | 4005

Ash 2736 | 3596

Volt 2240 | 3530

Excalibur 2111 | 2971

Banshee 1810 | 2670

Nova 1896 | 2541

Loki 1583 | 2228

 
 
This table is the same as the above table except it removes Redirection from Valkyr, removes Frost's Aurora Helmet, and removes Steel Fiber from all frames that have less than 100 armor to give more realistic values since those frames wouldn't usually equip those items even when building for durability.

Valkyr 4682 | 4892

Saryn 3549 | 4409

Rhino 3293 | 4583

Frost 3228 | 4453 (Squall Helmet Equipped)

Zephyr 2644 | 3934

 

Volt 2193 | 3483

Ash 2429 | 3289

Excalibur 1906 | 2766

Banshee 1763 | 2623

Nova 1691 | 2336

Loki 1429 | 2074

 

 

This table is the same as the table above it except it removes Steel Fiber from all frames (even Valkyr.)  Note that Frost's Aurora helmet is also absent.  Most frames don't have a slot to spare for Steel Fiber most of the time so this gives an even more accurate picture of effective health values (except for Valkyr, who benefits too much from Steel Fiber to go without it.)

 
Saryn      2816 | 3676
 
Rhino      2694 | 3984
 
Frost      2629 | 3854 (Squall Helmet equipped)

Zephyr     2644 | 3934
 
Volt       2193 | 3483
 
Ash        2429 | 3289

 

Valkyr     2790 | 3000
 
Excalibur  1906 | 2766
 
Banshee    1763 | 2623
 
Nova       1691 | 2336
 
Loki       1429 | 2074
 

 

 

This might help you get an idea of how much Steel Fiber helps (compare the values for the top frames in the 3rd  and 4th tables.)

Edited May 9, 2014 by RealPandemonium

[CryoClaw]

Don't use steel fiber... Vitality is much better

[RoseQuix]

So I got some time to play around a bit with using Quick Thinking and Flow for survivability, it turns if you only take a single survivability mod, Quick Thinking wins out for the frames with 150 base energy (Banshee, Ember, Loki, Nova, Nyx, Trinity, Vauban) over the others by around 10-11% (28% in the case of Loki).

 

From 900 to 1156 for Loki.

From 1077 to 1182 EHP for Banshee, Ember, Nyx, and Trinity.

From 1088 to 1205 for Vauban.

From 1125 to 1257 for Nova.

 

This trend also holds true for two mods as well when those two are Quick Thinking and Flow. A 15% increase in survivability for Banshee; Ember; Nyx; and Trinity (1517 to 1749), 29% for Vauban (1418 to 1835), 31% for Nova (1455 to 1904), and an amazing 47% for Loki (1230 to 1813). It blows the worst option for two mods (Steel Fiber + Vigor) out of the water with a minimum 98% survivability improvement. Depending on how often you find yourself casting with these frames, Quick Thinking + Flow may be your best choice in survivability for them just based on the bonus utility you get out of Flow. (That is, to lose tons of energy while carrier ruins everything when you get disrupted and die because your no longer have any extra survivability).

Edited May 10, 2014 by RoseQuix

[Kaokasalis]

Really dont get why people use Vitality or Steel Fiber. The exstra health or armor is nice but a maxed redirection have always cut it for me in all the time i have played Warframe.

[Darzk]

I use just Vital on Rhino, and pair it with Rage for some emergency energy regen.

 

Valk gets Vital and SF, Frost gets Redirect, Vital AND SF on Snow Globe builds.

 

Just about everything else gets Vital and Redirection (when they get anything at all). Sometimes just Redirection.

 

Another thing to consider when calculating ehp granted from these mods is the Sanctuary mod on sentinels. Basically, shields are worth ~2x as much. In game, they're worth even more practically, as they regenerate. But for the purposes of ehp calculations I generally go with 2x.

 

I have a hard time seeing the value in the new QT. Basically, I tend to never use Flow, and I've almost never died when I have energy left, on most frames I tend to go down when I run OOE, so it'd be useless for my playstyle anyways. 

[RoseQuix]

Guardian, not Sanctuary. My spreadsheet has a toggle for that :P

 

But yes, with a maxed out Guardian mod it definitely tips thing in Redirection's favor. You also have to keep in mind everything I'm saying is theory crafted nonsense! The key word is theory :D

Edited May 10, 2014 by RoseQuix

[RealPandemonium]

QT is definitely worth it on Loki since his shield and health pools are both low and he doesn't really use much energy in an Invisibility build.  Also worth it on Trinity for emergencies since she doesn't really use energy unless you're spamming Link.  There's also the Rage+QT combo that some people swear by for health tanking (especially with the new Life Strike option) but I haven't tested it. 

Edited May 10, 2014 by RealPandemonium