Do You Go With The Flow?

[(PSN)Fen_Integrum]

So been playing since February, and it seems to me that Flow is utterly worthless without a supplementary mod. Equilibrium seems to fill it up well, but only if you can manage to have an abundance of Health Orbs...so basically Nekros or Oberon. Rage will fill it up pretty quickly, but using that method nearly requires a safety net (Quick Thinking), and is only good for people that can self-heal, which include Nekros, Oberon, Valkyr and Trinity.

 

With the exception of leveling up my Warframe, or having Quad Energy Siphons, I never manage to get enough Energy drops to fill my Flowed Energy pool.

 

I guess my question is, unless you are leveling with Affinity boosters, where you get a full Energy pool every other mission, is it really worth equipping on, say...Excalibur? He cant self heal, so Rage and Equilibrium are out of the question, unless I'm banking on all four people to show up with ES equipped.

 

What do you think? Is it really worth equipping? Why?

[(PSN)D-onlinekilla-4D]

For me on PS4 flow is pretty useless at the moment, I play mainly void survival and the amount of eximus leeches that are about when you start getting into high level enemies renders hitting efficiency cap a better option, 1 energy orb to cast any skill, or 1 tick from team ammo restore, or waste a mod slot that could be of better use, unless like others have said you're playing a healer

[Latronico]

If you're comparing power efficiency to power max, using only one efficiency mod is much better than using flow. Power efficiency gives you more abilities per energy gained. Flow does not.

 

Maxed Streamline (on Energy):

- 25 -> 17.5

- 50 -> 35

- 75 -> 52.5

- 100 -> 70

 

A lot of Warframes have 150 as Max Energy at rank 30. 70*2=140, 52.5*2= 105, 35*4=140, 17.5*8=140. This means that you can cast 8 first Abilities, 4 second ones, 2 third one and 2 ultimate ones in general. 

 

With Flow, you have 300 energy at rank 30 in general, that means 3 Ultimates, 4 third ones, 6 second one and 12 first ones.

An Energy lob is 25 Energy, that means that with 1 of them you can cast 1 first, with 2 one second, with 3 one third, and with 3 one ult. Nothing changes. 

What's better?

 

I don't even consider Fleeting Expertise. Power Duration is essential for a lot of Warframes and a reduction of 60% just has no sense at all. To compensate to this you have to use another corrupted mod. 

 

About Quick Thinking, it drains Energy so, what's the point in using it on a Warframe if we're so interested in its Energy?

 

A Warframe has only 10 slots for mods. 2 of them are ALWAYS used for Abilities, sometimes also 3 or all of them (4). This means that remain only from 8 to 6 free slots. 

Vitality and Redirection (or one of them plus Vigor) are a must, because on high levels everyone needs Shields and Health is always a good thing (considering how many enemies bypass Shields). 

This means that the left slots are only 6-4, and with them you have to maximize your Abilities and something else (ex: Fortitude/Fast Deflection for soloing, Steel Fiber for Valkyr/Frost and so on). 

1 of these slots is taken by Flow (or, as you are saying by a Energy Efficiency mod).

From 5 to 3 free slots remain. They're not enough to waste on Power Efficiency mod, especially when you need a lot of Duration/Power/Range (Snow Globe, Iron Skin, Invisibility, Link and so on). 

 

With flow you have generally 300 Energy at rank 30, no malus (as with QT or FE), more possibilities to cast more Abilities and more free slots for other Ability Mods. 

Edited July 22, 2014 by Latronico

[Naftal]

Maxed Streamline (on Energy):

- 25 -> 17.5

- 50 -> 35

- 75 -> 52.5

- 100 -> 70

 

A lot of Warframes have 150 as Max Energy at rank 30. 70*2=140, 52.5*2= 105, 35*4=140, 17.5*8=140. This means that you can cast 8 first Abilities, 4 second ones, 2 third one and 2 ultimate ones in general. 

 

With Flow, you have 300 energy at rank 30 in general, that means 3 Ultimates, 4 third ones, 6 second one and 12 first ones.

What's better?

 

I don't even consider Fleeting Expertise. Power Duration is essential for a lot of Warframes and a reduction of 60% just has no sense at all. To compensate to this you have to use another corrupted mod. 

 

About Quick Thinking, it drains Energy so, what's the point in using it on a Warframe if we're so interested in its Energy?

 

A Warframe has only 10 slots for mods. 2 of them are ALWAYS used for Abilities, sometimes also 3 or all of them (4). This means that remain only from 8 to 6 free slots. 

Vitality and Redirection (or one of them plus Vigor) are a must, because on high levels everyone needs Shields and Health is always a good thing (considering how many enemies bypass Shields). 

This means that the left slots are only 6-4, and with them you have to maximize your Abilities and something else (ex: Fortitude/Fast Deflection for soloing, Steel Fiber for Valkyr/Frost and so on). 

1 of these slots is taken by Flow (or, as you are saying by a Energy Efficiency mod).

From 5 to 3 free slots remain. They're not enough to waste on Power Efficiency mod, especially when you need a lot of Duration/Power/Range (Snow Globe, Iron Skin, Invisibility, Link and so on). 

 

With flow you have generally 300 Energy at rank 30, no malus (as with QT or FE), more possibilities to cast more Abilities and more free slots for other Ability Mods. 

The situations that you are describing are not real situations though. Do you only use energy from full energy to 0 and not any other way?

 

If you have 300 max energy instead of 150. You don't magically get that 150 energy for free, you have to get it through pick ups or something.

 

If you get total of 1000 energy during a mission from pickups, energy siphon etc. With Flow, you can use your fourth skill 10 times during that mission. If you have Streamline instead, you can use it 14 times and have 20 energy left.

[Darzk]

I don't even consider Fleeting Expertise. Power Duration is essential for a lot of Warframes and a reduction of 60% just has no sense at all. To compensate to this you have to use another corrupted mod. 

There's actually very few frames where the loss in duration is critical, or can't be made up with other mods. While Flow vs. Streamline might be competitive, using 75% efficiency blows away all other options when looking at effectiveness/energy.

 

In addition, simply casting another ability after the first ends will more than make up the lost duration. Being able to cast something twice or 3-4 times for the same energy will give you a LOT more effective duration. The ONLY times I can think of where using FE would be less effective than leaving it out is for a squishy WoF Ember build (long, vulnerable WoF cast means reducing the number of casts is ideal over better duration/energy) or a 99% DR Trinity build (where energy is irrelevant due to EV), and a max range MP Nova for debuffing (although I think a smaller range but more efficiency would be better).

Edit: *I'm not familiar enough with Mirage's mechanics yet to pass judgement on the frame*

 

Increased energy pool does not allow for increased ability use. You are limited to the abilities you can cast for the energy you pick up/restore. And Efficiency lets you cast more for the same pickups.

 

About Quick Thinking, it drains Energy so, what's the point in using it on a Warframe if we're so interested in its Energy?

QT is an emergency buffer, rather than something that should be activated frequently. Ideally it should never be activated, but it's nice to know it's there.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Darzk

[Latronico]

If you have 300 max energy instead of 150. You don't magically get that 150 energy for free, you have to get it through pick ups or something.

 

You get it in the same way you get your orbs to cast you 14 ults in a mission. Pick ups. 

 

With only one difference. Your way force to continuously pick up Energy orbs, having 300 or more Energy allow to just save Energy for when you need it, for example when you need to cast 6 times in a row Snow globe. 

 

Can you see the difference? With your build you cast only if you pick up Energy orbs and, however, it has a limit. If you don't, you haven't enough energy and however that limit does not allow you to cast continuously.

With Flow you have not this problem. The only problem is the Energy drain, but it seems to be removed from Ancients (don't know about Magnetic damage). With Energy Leech Eximi, there is a difference between having 300 Energy or just 150. 

 

So?

[Darzk]

With only one difference. Your way force to continuously pick up Energy orbs, having 300 or more Energy allow to just save Energy for when you need it, for example when you need to cast 6 times in a row Snow globe. 

The point is you're much more likely to need to cast 15 snowglobes over the course of a mission than to cast 6 at once. And Efficiency helps with the latter while Flow doesn't appreciably help with sustainability.

 

Can you see the difference? With your build you cast only if you pick up Energy orbs and, however, it has a limit. If you don't, you haven't enough energy and however that limit does not allow you to cast continuously.

Flow still has that limit; it's a bit higher, but it takes twice as long to get back to full energy before you can do that again.

[Naftal]

You get it in the same way you get your orbs to cast you 14 ults in a mission. Pick ups. 

 

With only one difference. Your way force to continuously pick up Energy orbs, having 300 or more Energy allow to just save Energy for when you need it, for example when you need to cast 6 times in a row Snow globe. 

 

Can you see the difference? With your build you cast only if you pick up Energy orbs and, however, it has a limit. If you don't, you haven't enough energy and however that limit does not allow you to cast continuously.

With Flow you have not this problem. The only problem is the Energy drain, but it seems to be removed from Ancients (don't know about Magnetic damage). With Energy Leech Eximi, there is a difference between having 300 Energy or just 150. 

 

So?

With your build you are just as forced to pick up the orbs as I am. If you don't, you will be casting even less abilities...

 

I don't know what you play but I have never seen a situation where you NEED to spam an ability so much you MUST use double your normal max energy at one go. However, if you for some reason often find yourself in this situation, you should be using more power efficiency than just streamline.

 

You're also insisting that you have to use for example 6 globes right after each other. They have 4 sec invulnerability time that absorbs them more hp based on damage, basically making them last 8 seconds + the rest of the globe hp. The minimum time these globes could guard one position would be 6*8 seconds = 48 seconds. If you can't get more energy in 48 seconds (or lets say 4*8=32 seconds since streamline lets you use Globe four times with full energy), you are doing something weird...

Edited July 22, 2014 by Naftal

[Latronico]

...

 

Ash (invisibility), Banshee (Sonar and the crow control Ability), Ember (Accelerant and all the AoE), Excalibur (Radial Blind that is essential, Slash Dash), Frost (Freeze and Snow Globe), Loki (Decoy, Invisibility), Mag (Bullet Attractor), Nekros (Terrify and SoD), Nova (ult and 1st), Nyx (Mind Control Chaos), Oberon (healing, same effect of Natural Talent), Saryn (all), Trinity (all), Valkyr (Warcry, Hysteria), Vauban (Bastille, Vortex), Volt (shield), all of them affected by power duration and you say it's not essential? Come on.

 

Try to cast SoD several times, for example. 

[Naftal]

Ash (invisibility), Banshee (Sonar and the crow control Ability), Ember (Accelerant and all the AoE), Excalibur (Radial Blind that is essential, Slash Dash), Frost (Freeze and Snow Globe), Loki (Decoy, Invisibility), Mag (Bullet Attractor), Nekros (Terrify and SoD), Nova (ult and 1st), Nyx (Mind Control Chaos), Oberon (healing, same effect of Natural Talent), Saryn (all), Trinity (all), Valkyr (Warcry, Hysteria), Vauban (Bastille, Vortex), Volt (shield), all of them affected by power duration and you say it's not essential? Come on.

 

Try to cast SoD several times, for example. 

You missed the point. Most of those abilities are better when used with fleeting expertise. Because that -60 or -50% duration doesn't matter much when you use +duration mods. You get much more duration per energy used that way because you have better power efficiency.

[Darzk]

In addition, most of those abilities you listed have a long enough duration even with FE. And Chaos, Miasma, Blessing+EV. and arguably Hysteria (weapons lockout), Renewal (long constant heal more efficient), SotD (health orb farming) are better with less duration.