Here We Go Folks, Warframe's Mod System.

[grillv20]

any feedback is feedback sorry to burst your bubble chap

[Liminal]

I cant because it is constantly burtied by the likes of these posts 

Happens to everyone, pal. Not a good enough reason to ask someone to stop playing.

 

Every single person - 1.

 

Redirection: It depends on the frame which defensive mod is more useful.

Flow: don't use it at all. efficiency beats max. energy every time.

He surely means "overwhelming majority". Realistically speaking, in most scenarios if you don't have Redirection equipped you are handicapping yourself.

[(PSN)Bobtm0]

Happens to everyone, pal. Not a good enough reason to ask someone to stop playing.

 

He surely means "overwhelming majority". Realistically speaking, in most scenarios if you don't have Redirection equipped you are handicapping yourself.

 

There are a lot of things I'll disagree with for a variety of reasons, some more dumb and some less dumb, however this one is one I'd like to hope is less dumb.

 

Redirection is a completely unnecessary mod in almost every situation as far as I'm concerned.  Since your shield recharges naturally and every frame has enough speed to dodge bullets, building up your shield further is a very poor methodology in terms of defenses.  To further that point (even pre Damage 2.0 to a lesser extent) there are things that can directly damage our HP as well as things that either instantly destroy or hamper our shielding greatly.  Health is a commodity that is both more scarce and much more integral to our survival in a very literal and direct sense.

 

By the time foes do enough damage to even potentially warrant the use of Redirection, which is at least 30 minutes into a T3 Survival, you're already deep enough in that damage is high enough that Redirection won't make any real difference in your survivability.

 

The majority don't use Redirection because it's necessary, they use Redirection because the think it's necessary.  The majority doesn't know you can move faster on a stock speed Rhino without Arcane Vanguard to outrun enemy turn speed, thusly rendering them incapable of shooting you either.  Redirection is nothing more than a countermeasure for when a player inevitably screws up.

 

Something like Serration is a necessary mod on the other hand.

[FloraGreen]

 5 Mods slots if you're like every single other player in the game using Redirection. Next comes FLOW. Another mod that every single person will be using. 

 

10 mod slots.

-4 mod slots for abilities = 6 mod slots

-2 slots reserved for the mandatory must have mods

Flow is a waste to through into a build if you ask me. I got it in 3-4 builds (and i got 15 of the frames, all with maxed build and 2-3 builds on each). I really like to know why this mod is needed for anyone who doesn't build for 2 hour T4S with banshee, mag and nekros. and got it in a build on Valkyr in combination with quick thinking. 

For Rediraction, i can see your point. it is too much of a must-have mod in a build. I only tend to leave it out on loki and valkyr.

And i always leave out 1or 2 abilities.

(btw i usually don't write in english, so sorry for typo)

[Liminal]

By the time foes do enough damage to even potentially warrant the use of Redirection, which is at least 30 minutes into a T3 Survival, you're already deep enough in that damage is high enough that Redirection won't make any real difference in your survivability.

That's just not true. A maxed Redirection gives you +440% shields. If enemy damage is high enough that it takes your 300 unmodded shields in one shot, it needs to be 4 times higher to do the same with a maxed Redirection installed.

 

Four times more damage with the same bullet equals quite a "few" more enemy levels.

 

Can you survive without Redirection? Yes. Will you do better with it? Barring some exceptions, yes.

[Ceolrus]

That's just not true. A maxed Redirection gives you +440% shields. If enemy damage is high enough that it takes your 300 unmodded shields in one shot, it needs to be 4 times higher to do the same with a maxed Redirection installed.

 

Four times more damage with the same bullet equals quite a "few" more enemy levels.

 

Can you survive without Redirection? Yes. Will you do better with it? Barring some exceptions, yes.

 

You've got your damage/shield calculations wrong there buddy. Redirection (as well as Vitality and Vigor) only add on that percentage of your base shields to your current max.

 

IE: If your warframe only had base shields 100 at level 0 and your current max is 300, you only get another 440 shields with a max Redirection for a total of 740 shields.

 

So in reality it would only take a bit over double the number of attacks IF you're lucky enough that nothing procs for direct health damage.

[(PSN)Bobtm0]

That's just not true. A maxed Redirection gives you +440% shields. If enemy damage is high enough that it takes your 300 unmodded shields in one shot, it needs to be 4 times higher to do the same with a maxed Redirection installed.

 

Four times more damage with the same bullet equals quite a "few" more enemy levels.

 

Can you survive without Redirection? Yes. Will you do better with it? Barring some exceptions, yes.

 

We're operating on different trains of thought here.  You're looking at individual damage entities as single things, while I'm taking it in as a whole entity.  At low level areas enemies not only do low damage per hit, but there are far fewer of them and there are less instances of the player becoming stricken by a form of CC.  This means that Redirection generally does nothing in a low area since you shouldn't really even be getting hit.

 

Inversely, when going a good ways into endless modes you're met with much greater enemy density who do more damage per hit, and are going to have more CC options to utilize against you.  Usually when a player does something that's going to cause them to take damage, they're going to get hit like a freight train.

 

I've felt like Redirection was a waste of a mod slot after roughly 3-4 weeks of playing Warframe though, so maybe I'm just a stubborn fool in that regard.

 

Now beyond that however, you've got the calculation for Redirection completely and majorly wrong.  It calculates based off of your unmodded shielding value, which is never 300 on any frame, with some frames having laughably low base shielding.  Only the most tanky of frames get a reasonable Bonus when using the mod at its highest ranking.  Whereas basically all frames are at x2 or a little more after the calculation is done.  So yeah, between enemy damage and density both ramping up, as well as their innate survivability, it doesn't take long for them to have their potential damaging capabilities doubled.

 

Atop that, the +X% isn't a multiplicative, it's an additive.  Which means that in the event that Redirection even did calculate like you believe, it would be x5.4 rather than x4.4.

 

Redirection never gives you 4 times more shielding.

 

Barring the math thing, I still directly and completely disagree about Redirection being an overall gain.  Especially since the most dangerous forms of damage are the types that either completely disable shielding, or outright bypass it.

 

And Tenno'd.

Edited July 5, 2014 by (PS4)Bobtm0

[LukeAura]

Inversely, when going a good ways into endless modes you're met with much greater enemy density who do more damage per hit, and are going to have more CC options to utilize against you.  Usually when a player does something that's going to cause them to take damage, they're going to get hit like a freight train.

 

I've felt like Redirection was a waste of a mod slot after roughly 3-4 weeks of playing Warframe though, so maybe I'm just a stubborn fool in that regard.

You've pretty much explained why it's better to have more shields to yourself. 

Health, even with armor is incredibly limited. Ideally, you'll never want to be shot at long enough to take health damage. As enemies go up in levels, anything that hits like a freight train will wear you down way too fast without the increased shields. Because shields recharge while health requires the now fairly rare health orbs(They're less common than they used to be), the resource costing and unsatisfying health restores, or using one of the small handful of frames with healing powers, you'd much rather have the double shields to get off your own CC than ever bothering with more health. 

CC is the true survivability mechanic in late game, increased shields help you keep a CC up in the middle of a fight, increased health does not. And since the ideal of any CC spam build is maximized efficiency, and most powerful CC abilities require a duration investment, most of your slots are covering for abilities alone with usually only the room to add one or two defensive mods. 

And while the most dangerous types of damage are the ones that negate or bypass shieldings, they're considered the most dangerous for a reason; the prevalence of shield mods over health mods.

 

[Mak_Gohae]

Sorry but I had to disagree with the necessary mods here. I've not used redirection in months and very rarely do I use Flow.

 

But yes, having four slots dedicated to abilities is a slight hindrance.

 

The response from these "Required" folks is, as he said in the OP, you are hurting yourself if you dont equip these mods.

Which, of course, means that you have to play one way and if you dont play that one way you are doing it wrong. See, this whole argument is based on using one build because mathematically this build is the best in all situations. 

 

I stopped using Shield mods a looooong time ago and only do it in certain occasion and with flow i put it on if i am going to put a whole bunch of casting. If anything i think streamline would be more of requirement because it gets you casting faster. 

 

If people would just get off min/maxing math and play the game they would see what can be done in game.

[Liminal]

You've got your damage/shield calculations wrong there buddy. Redirection (as well as Vitality and Vigor) only add on that percentage of your base shields to your current max.

 

IE: If your warframe only had base shields 100 at level 0 and your current max is 300, you only get another 440 shields with a max Redirection for a total of 740 shields.

 

So in reality it would only take a bit over double the number of attacks IF you're lucky enough that nothing procs for direct health damage.

Yes, I completely forgot about that. Still, 300 shields vs 740 (or 860 with vigor) is still significant. You'll last over twice as long.

Shield bypassing damage is more common than it should be in my opinion, but it's not common enough to be the #1 cause of death vs Corpus or Grineer.

 

Without relying on stuff like Invisibility or Iron Skin I really can't see not using Redirection as anything buy handicapping yourself. Playing carefully can only get you so far in Warframe, too many attacks and situations negate player skill.

[Innocent_Flower]

Ya don't use redirection if ya use a frame with better health and armour (valkyr) and you don't use flow if you don't spam taxing powers much, but that doesn't reduce the (somewhat poorly explained) validity of the OP's argument. 

[notlamprey]

Threads like this prove that the mod system is better than detractors give it credit for.

 

I read the OP and thought right away: "Flow? When was the last time I used Flow? I don't put Redirection on anything since I picked up Rage."

 

The point is that the mod system can feel restrictive to players who still haven't found some of the different cards. That's an understandable frustration, but I think we lose something if we flatten that part of the progression slope.

 

I've played with a dozen or more combinations of Rage, Vitality, Equilibrium, Fleeting Expertise, Natural Talent, Overextended, Narrow Minded, Blind Rage, Streamline...

 

We have enough different mods to give players a wide range of points to choose from in customizing their Warframes. It happens to be true that certain builds do best for certain players using certain Warframes in certain scenarios, but how do you expect to design a system where that wouldn't be true?

 

I just don't feel the pinch of "not enough options" that some players are talking about.

[10twenty4]

 just don't feel the pinch of "not enough options" that some players are talking about.

The problem is that there are dozens of mods which are simply never going to be used.

 

Why would I take Maglev, when I could boost my efficiency or power range instead? You can't have a viable build with heavy impact, because that would cut into your power duration mods or whatever other corrupted mod you have equipped.

 

The game has a lot of mods, but only a tiny, tiny handful prove viable. And that's a problem.

[Mak_Gohae]

The problem is that there are dozens of mods which are simply never going to be used.

 

Why would I take Maglev, when I could boost my efficiency or power range instead? You can't have a viable build with heavy impact, because that would cut into your power duration mods or whatever other corrupted mod you have equipped.

 

The game has a lot of mods, but only a tiny, tiny handful prove viable. And that's a problem.

 

Of course, if you are going to make a build that doesnt use the mod it's a waste to put it on. This goes for pretty much every mod in the game.

If you are not going to put out continuous ability use there is no point in putting flow. If you want your CC powers to last longer why would you put Intensify?

 

The problem is that people just create one build and they never move from that one build ever becasue that's the only way they want to build. So people like this throwing ideas about mods are the last people that should be listened to since they are not even working with the system.

 

Intruder is a mod that is a waste of space at any level simply because there those hack boxes you can buy and there is no console puzzle difficult enough to warrant a player to be the designated hacker. Yes, this is a total waste of a mod. Heavy Impact can easily slot into Excalibur, Zephyr, and there are a couple other frames that work with it as well. Sure, there are tiles that restrict the use of the mods but can go ahead put it to use in all of the others.

[FullSupport]

Personally, I think the mod system is pretty good, but it's rather limited. As you have mentioned there are the so called "staple" mods that seem to hinder the entire system. However this happens with skill trees aswell and possibly every other skill system. there will always be X or Y thing that will be considered a staple simply because it greatly benefits a build.

 

A possible solution to this problem would be either adding more slots or eliminate the need to equip warframe abilities entirely, this would allow for more customization.

 

(On a side note, the only reason POE has a huge variety is because of their wide selection of abilities, something Warframe is currently lacking. They did promise adding general abilities usable by all warframes which seems promising!)

[AttackNitro]

Hey OP can you explain why you have focus and blindrage on a nyx? I can't understand why

[AttackNitro]

That's just not true. A maxed Redirection gives you +440% shields. If enemy damage is high enough that it takes your 300 unmodded shields in one shot, it needs to be 4 times higher to do the same with a maxed Redirection installed.

 

Four times more damage with the same bullet equals quite a "few" more enemy levels.

 

Can you survive without Redirection? Yes. Will you do better with it? Barring some exceptions, yes.

Um no? Redirection adds to your base shields. most frames have base 100 so 440% redirection only adds 440 shields. It doesn't quadruple your shield capacity at all.

[grillv20]

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Nyx/Abilities

It increases the base damage of the skill so you dont have to hover around in the air so long to get a lot of damage going out quickly. Most missions I can turn it on for like 4 seconds or something if I rush into a a room with a ton of enemies and obliterate everything in like 3-5 seconds and it barely costs me any energy.

[Xylia]

OP's second link looks like FFX's Sphere Grid system, lol.

 

Not that I mind that, but meh.

 

But yeah.... take any pistol...

 

Hornet Strike

Lethal Torrent

Barrel Diffusion

Element x2 (pick elements depending on what you're fighting)

Mutator (some pistols)

Gunslinger

Bane (unless doing Void)

 

And you got... what......1-2 "Utility" slots? lol. And more than likely, you're going to stick whatever the best base damage is, as most pistols are dominant in one of the 3 physical damage types.

 

So..... 0-1 slots left for "Utility" or "Choice" for Most pistols in the game. And I bet some people would use Corrupted Mods for MOAR DAMAGE especially for Brakk (you have to do close-range which means you're Probably not going to miss anyways).

 

Anything else is gimping yourself, period.

[(PSN)Bobtm0]

You've pretty much explained why it's better to have more shields to yourself. 

Health, even with armor is incredibly limited. Ideally, you'll never want to be shot at long enough to take health damage. As enemies go up in levels, anything that hits like a freight train will wear you down way too fast without the increased shields. Because shields recharge while health requires the now fairly rare health orbs(They're less common than they used to be), the resource costing and unsatisfying health restores, or using one of the small handful of frames with healing powers, you'd much rather have the double shields to get off your own CC than ever bothering with more health. 

CC is the true survivability mechanic in late game, increased shields help you keep a CC up in the middle of a fight, increased health does not. And since the ideal of any CC spam build is maximized efficiency, and most powerful CC abilities require a duration investment, most of your slots are covering for abilities alone with usually only the room to add one or two defensive mods. 

And while the most dangerous types of damage are the ones that negate or bypass shieldings, they're considered the most dangerous for a reason; the prevalence of shield mods over health mods.

 

If you somehow got "Shield mod is good" out of what I said then you seriously need to reread my post.  While we both do agree on the fact that CC is the core of surviving at higher level, we diverge pretty darn hard when the point of shielding comes up.

 

It's hard to say after a time when dealing with exact dates, but it wasn't long after I started playing Warframe (maybe a month or so) that I realized two important things;  Speed is king.  Redirection is a waste of a mod slot.  So I just stopped using that mod immediately and threw anything else on, a lot of times I'd end up with something obscure like Quick Rest and the like, but it still did help me as opposed to being a complete waste of a mod slot.  It's always good to have one "safety-net" to fall back on should something go drastically wrong, but personally I find Redirection to be the worst (second worst) common denominator of every potential defensive mod available to us.  My own ranking of them would be as follows;  Quick Thinking > Reflex Guard > Vitality > Vigor > Steel Fiber > Redirection.

 

The bolded greater than signs insinuate a large gap in their effectiveness at sustaining a player's life.

 

Now those last two are a tricky thing here, I'll outright say this, Steel Fiber is junk on practically every frame and you should pretty much never be using it.  That being said, it's actually very viable on one specific frame.  Why Redirection is lower despite that fact is simple, I find it to be useless on every frame.  The only time I think Redirection is something of merit is when a player is intent on running either mostly or completely in Melee mode.

 

Shielding is all well and good, but it's got far too many weaknesses.  Slash procs ignore it, Toxic damage and its procs ignore it, Magnetic procs vaporize it.

 

At the end of the day, were it not possible to avoid gunfire through mobility I wouldn't have such a heavy amount of disagreement with the usability of a shield mod, however such is not the case.

 

____________________

 

As per the core topic at hand is concerned directly, I'll just restate how I feel on the matter.  Warframes have a fair amount of build options which can be taken that are effective for varying playstyles.  Weapons pretty much don't.  This isn't a flaw of the mod system in and of itself not allowing diversity, it's a flaw in the balancing had between mods themselves.  On weapons, damage is always king as Xylia just pointed out (though I don't agree with the Gunslinger being on there).  Frames don't really have that limitation and you can generally roll completely without CC and abilities unless you plan to dig into something like +30 minutes into a survival or do a defense at all.

 

Calling either Flow or Redirection mandatory is pretty much laughable in my opinion.

[Xylia]

Calling either Flow or Redirection mandatory is pretty much laughable in my opinion.

 

Suspicious Shipments/T4 Void... no Redirection = One Hit and you're dead just about. Your teammates have better things to do than to pick your butt off the ground every few seconds.

 

When we talk about "Required" mods, we're talking about T4 15-Wave Defense or 20min-Survival.

 

(though I don't agree with the Gunslinger being on there).

 

Many guns, Gunslinger radically increases DPS, especially in fast-paced battles where you need to drop stuff FAST. It depends on the weapon, though. Something like Aklex obviously doesn't want or need Gunslinger, but then something like a Brakk would benefit from it fairly highly. Sticking Gunslinger on instead of stuff like zoom, gives you way more damage output.

[Sev7n]

Suspicious Shipments/T4 Void... no Redirection = One Hit and you're dead just about. Your teammates have better things to do than to pick your butt off the ground every few seconds.

 

 

 

You will only go down in 1-2 hits on squishy frames such as nova and loki. But aside from that there are builds out there that benefit better from other mods such as a natural talent over a redirection. The shield / hp mods are not useless but they are not required and in some cases can even hamper your potential. 

[Xylia]

You will only go down in 1-2 hits on squishy frames such as nova and loki. But aside from that there are builds out there that benefit better from other mods such as a natural talent over a redirection. The shield / hp mods are not useless but they are not required and in some cases can even hamper your potential. 

 

Eh... a Loki -with- Rank7 Redirection died in a split second on Suspicious Shipments. Literally, one guy ran in front of me and in a split second, BOOM, I'm on my @$$. I was invisible, but the enemies' shots which were meant for teammate hit me instead. I very literally had ZERO time to react. WHAM. Just like that. Later on in the same match, I got hit with -1- projectile and it left me with 80 health left (I had Rank7 Redirection and Rank 5 Vitality or thereabouts).

 

Loki with Rank7 Redirection has about what, 450-500 shields? I forget. Excalibur with no Redirection has 300 IIRC. You do the math.

Edited July 7, 2014 by Xylia

[_Rue_]

You do not need all 4 skills. Most my builds only have 1-2.

 

Those are mods that you think are mandatory.

 

We need better options; better alternatives.

 

I have builds that do not have skills even (Valkyr) thanks to melee 2.0.

 

So players think they need those mods? It's the fault of all the people making builds and guides then.

 

Some people think flow or rush are mandatory.

 

Some people think 2-3 shield/vit mods are necessary.

 

Some people think they need 4 skills when they play.

 

Well some people don't.

 

I'm not gonna say the system is perfect. It needs more.

 

If you look at it you have specific things that you do when you play.

1) Survive

2) Deal Damage

3) Move

 

Regardless of the kind of customization you want (skill tree vs mod slots) if all it does is change values, it'll all be the same.

 

So i read the first post and i really do not understand what you want to happen?

 

If it has to do with skill trees though I going to say NO because it is restrictive.

 

The current system has people thinking they need certain mods.

 

Skill trees just take that decision away from you.

[Xylia]

My suggestions having to do with mods have always been to make "MOAR DAMAGE" less powerful, because seriously when you are adding damn near 3x damage to your pistol... how can you justify any utility mod over "3x damage"?

 

Oh, and add Hornet Strike ontop of that, Of Course you will. Who wouldn't?

 

The problem with these mods is that they completely and wholly overshadow everything else, AND they make the game nearly impossible to balance properly; weapons do far more damage than Warframe Powers, which make Pure Damage Powers useless in "Endgame" (T3/T4) because said enemies are balanced around obscenely overpowered tricked out weapons (no Warframe Power is going to hold a candle to a weapon doing 150k damage per second avg).

 

I think Warframe Mods are OK; yeah there are "Essentials" and "Important Mods" but there's enough choices between power strength, power efficiency, duration, and range mods that they vary enough.

 

Weapons, however, need balancing and fast.

Edited July 7, 2014 by Xylia