Puncture Mods Are Still Not Worth It

[Wojek]

I don't know what kind of crack half of you are on, but I've been rolling with a maxed puncture mod (I'm rolling in forma keep in mind, so I have polarities for mods that cost 11 energy or more) and I have no problem shooting through any enemy, thin doors leading into other rooms

Consider this: For a regular gun without a tater nor forma, 10-15 points are a huge deal. You could probably add the manadatory dmg+ and AP mods on it and be done. This is significantly less DPS than with about two elemental or utility mods you could have put on there.

It starts getting iffy when you add a tater though. Then you can already afford multishot, dmg+, AP and about one utility and/or other elemental mod. This gun would destroy regular enemies (non-nightmare/lowlevel nightmare mobs to be clear).

Taters + Forma only exabercates the problem further, but then again it is suuposed to be high end gear.

The question how far DE is willing to buff the puncture mods is actually a question about the the 'normal' level of gear DE wants to have.

Are the mods balanced around no taters, tatered or tatered+formad gear? This is the question that has to be answered first.

(My opinion is that you just can't balance the game after you add formas to the mix, since you can make anything with it. As such there will always be broken mods, which are too costly for most players, but the ones that can afford taters + formas will break that balance)

Edited July 20, 2013 by Wojek

[Tetsmeha]

They should buff it so max for rifles is 4.5 and max for shotguns is 3. With the theme of physics weapons having armor ignore or another special trait vs hitscan guns, giving the hitscan guns the ability to penetrate multiple enemies seems reasonable as all hitscan guns(with the exception of snipers) do not have armor ignore or any special traits.

[dEEkAy2k9]

still no change... game got useless stuff in it and the devs don't care, but here guys, have the new femme fatal pack instead... gogogo

[Notso]

I want me some Pre-U7 puncture mods... 30 meters of puncture? Yes please.

[Saenol]

Puncture currently works well as is, and has since at least U 8.2.x.

 

Many of the suggestions here would actually weaken puncture from where it is now:

 

Only puncturing enemies? Being able to shoot through cover/obstructions is one of it's most potent features.

 

Reduction in damage for each layer of enemies it passes through? Full damage to two or three rows is better (and yes it can do this).

 

Another issue I see with such suggestions is that they are needlessly complex, and counting enemies, but not other factors, or otherwise tracking distance and effect separately, would likely not be worth it from anyone's perspective.

 

My vote is to leave it as is. It's easily worth the 15 points to me, and I have had it slotted on my Gorgon continually for the last 100+ hours and 25k+ kills.

 

Edit: I should state that my experience with pistol and shotgun puncture is limited, and their maximum puncture may well be insufficient to justify their cost. I think simply doubling all current puncture distances in this case would be sufficient.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Saenol

[Vaskadar]

Puncture currently works well as is, and has since at least U 8.2.x.

 

Many of the suggestions here would actually weaken puncture from where it is now:

 

Only puncturing enemies? Being able to shoot through cover/obstructions is one of it's most potent features.

 

Reduction in damage for each layer of enemies it passes through? Full damage to two or three rows is better (and yes it can do this).

 

Another issue I see with such suggestions is that they are needlessly complex, and counting enemies, but not other factors, or otherwise tracking distance and effect separately, would likely not be worth it from anyone's perspective.

 

My vote is to leave it as is. It's easily worth the 15 points to me, and I have had it slotted on my Gorgon continually for the last 100+ hours and 25k+ kills.

 

Edit: I should state that my experience with pistol and shotgun puncture is limited, and their maximum puncture may well be insufficient to justify their cost. I think simply doubling all current puncture distances in this case would be sufficient.

1.2 or 1.5 is justifiable for rifles, whereas 0.9 for pistols, 0.6 for shotguns is acceptable, and if DE dislikes it, they can always revert the change. OP values were somewhere between 5 and above. Having it at 15 mod energy maxed means that (even with polarization) that it is an incredibly costly mod for little gain. Seeing as Multishot costs 15 when maxed, puncture should be just as much as a force multiplier as multishot as opposed to a utility, thereby making the decision of loading puncture or multishot a relevant choice.

[dEEkAy2k9]

Puncture currently works well as is, and has since at least U 8.2.x.

 

Many of the suggestions here would actually weaken puncture from where it is now:

 

Only puncturing enemies? Being able to shoot through cover/obstructions is one of it's most potent features.

 

Reduction in damage for each layer of enemies it passes through? Full damage to two or three rows is better (and yes it can do this).

 

Another issue I see with such suggestions is that they are needlessly complex, and counting enemies, but not other factors, or otherwise tracking distance and effect separately, would likely not be worth it from anyone's perspective.

 

My vote is to leave it as is. It's easily worth the 15 points to me, and I have had it slotted on my Gorgon continually for the last 100+ hours and 25k+ kills.

 

Edit: I should state that my experience with pistol and shotgun puncture is limited, and their maximum puncture may well be insufficient to justify their cost. I think simply doubling all current puncture distances in this case would be sufficient.

 

shooting through cover? no need for that as grineer lancers heads/feet just stick out of the shield, aim up or down to kill them.

enemies behind cover have too big hitboxes, you can just kill them by shooting their heads as they STICK OUT OF COVER.

puncturing more then one enemy (so hitting two) is VERY situational, maybe by aiming at grineers feet but then again, why would ANYONE aim at their feet and not their heads. ever tried puncturing infested? not happening bro.

 

puncture is just bad, that's it. needs a change.

[Tesrac]

Of note on this topic, a maxed Steel Auger will reduce your fight with the Raptor to a short duration....just bait him above the building and shoot him through the glass.

[Vaskadar]

While they may have 'fixed' the other puncture mods, they still remain largely situational, whereas multishot is far more valuable and is almost mandatory. Puncture (if the cost isn't lowered and the values aren't raised even slightly) is not justifiable as a mod. I'll keep on posting till I'm blue in the face to get the point home. It's not an immediate problem, nor is it super controversial, but, it's still a necessary thing to address.

It should be a choice between the two. Shooting through multiple enemies, or free bullets. At 0.5, metal auger cannot shoot through the torso of a grineer trooper. At 0.6, it's unlikely that there will be enough of a difference. Doubling (or tripling) the value for puncture would be an acceptable buff to justify slapping it on for the whopping 15 or 8 mod points (if using the correct polarity slot).

Edited July 23, 2013 by Vaskadar

[Wojek]

It should be a choice between the two. Shooting through multiple enemies, or free bullets.

 

The problem is, you  can't balance them around the choice of either multishot or puncture, because with Forma you just can have both.

 

Although increasing the distance to up to 2 meters is okay, but I think their cost should stay about the same. If you puncture enemies and them more than one guy, it's already kind of working like multishot, because you just did double the damage with one shot.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Wojek

[Tetsmeha]

The problem is, you  can't balance them around the choice of either multishot or puncture, because with Forma you just can have both.

 

Although increasing the distance to up to 2 meters is okay, but I think their cost should stay about the same. If you puncture enemies and them more than one guy, it's already kind of working like multishot, because you just did double the damage with one shot.

 

But you can balance rifle puncture by damage type. Physics/bolt weapons have travel time and are affected by gravity. In turn they (mostly) get armor ignore damage. All hitscan weapons (except snipers i think) do normal type damage, but can use puncture. DE can then balance the damage numbers of hitscan rifles through puncture.

[whitejackale]

The puncture mod should also make it so that your projectiles do full damage. If a projectile can go right through you, it should ignore all armour and maybe all resists.

Edited July 23, 2013 by whitejackale

[dEEkAy2k9]

The puncture mod should also make it so that your projectiles do full damage. If a projectile can go right through you, it should ignore all armour and maybe all resists.

 

that's something i said a few pages back too (and maybe on another thread too).

give puncture mods the "armor ignore" attribute, giving weapons with no innate armor ignore it's capabilities. this way, armor ignoring weapons would not benefit from puncture at all while hitscan weapons can have armor ignore at a high price (15 slots, or 8)

 

another thing would be, make puncture work like this.

100% damage to the first target, 60% to subsequent targets (and less). so you can hit multiple enemies but not with full damage. 0.6 puncture means 60% damage etc

[r0ckwolf]

good thread^^ i started something simillar awhile back without success, but we came up with a very nice solution for the puncture problem in my opinion:

 

Puncture should work on an unlimited distance, BUT the damage for each consecutive punctured enemy should be reduced.

So it could look like this:

 

Metal Auger:

0 - 80% ->damage reduced per enemy hit.

1 - 70%

2 - 60%

3 - 50%

4 - 40%

5 - 30%

 

This prevents overpowering the Mod without taking away it´s inherent function. Also it would make more sense in a logical way, since bullets loose velocity when they hit or puncture something.

 

DE make this please!^^

Edited July 25, 2013 by r0ckwolf

[CharginTarge]

I've seen many interesting suggestions here. Right now I don't really care what DE does. I'm happy with anything that makes the puncture mods more than what they are now: hyper expensive, dust-collecting paperweights.

[rksk16it]

Humbly disagree with most of the ppl here, but puncture mods arent that useless, rather very situational. A puncture mod can make huge difference when you are trying to spread your Venom spores (Saryn) among a large group of enemies. I have puncture mod on my rifle but not on my pistol. So when I venom someone in a large group and shoot with pistols, it takes a couple of seconds till the "dot explosion", whereas if I try the same with my rifle, there is a huge green flash, a slight hiccup from CPU and lots of dead bodies...

 

EDIT: Talking about very high level mobs, probably by wave 20 in the pluto defense missions. Starter mobs can be killed faster by just a miasma.

Edited July 25, 2013 by rksk16it

[Wojek]

Humbly disagree with most of the ppl here, but puncture mods arent that useless, rather very situational. A puncture mod can make huge difference when you are trying to spread your Venom spores (Saryn) among a large group of enemies. I have puncture mod on my rifle but not on my pistol. So when I venom someone in a large group and shoot with pistols, it takes a couple of seconds till the "dot explosion", whereas if I try the same with my rifle, there is a huge green flash, a slight hiccup from CPU and lots of dead bodies...

 

EDIT: Talking about very high level mobs, probably by wave 20 in the pluto defense missions. Starter mobs can be killed faster by just a miasma.

 

Well, compare puncture to another rare mod for guns, multishot. That mod is rare, too and costs about as much capacity, but it's not situational at all!

Furthermore, the rifle puncture is higher than the pistol, and as many have already pointed out, the distances only have to be slightly increased (to maybe about 2-3 meters).

And finally, is your gun tatered and formaed? Well, then of course you can stick puncture on it! On the other hand, you can put multishot even on an untatered gun and it will help much more!

[Saenol]

While they may have 'fixed' the other puncture mods, they still remain largely situational, whereas multishot is far more valuable and is almost mandatory. Puncture (if the cost isn't lowered and the values aren't raised even slightly) is not justifiable as a mod. I'll keep on posting till I'm blue in the face to get the point home. It's not an immediate problem, nor is it super controversial, but, it's still a necessary thing to address.

It should be a choice between the two. Shooting through multiple enemies, or free bullets. At 0.5, metal auger cannot shoot through the torso of a grineer trooper. At 0.6, it's unlikely that there will be enough of a difference. Doubling (or tripling) the value for puncture would be an acceptable buff to justify slapping it on for the whopping 15 or 8 mod points (if using the correct polarity slot).

 

It's situational, but many of the situations are extremely common. Groups of enemies, corpses, doors, windows, and other light cover; none are rare.

 

My accuracy, as portion of rounds fired that do damage is nearly ~50% higher with puncture than without it (the way I use my weapon, I'd probably have sub 40% accuracy if rounds weren't striking multiple targets, instead it's climbing up toward 60%).

 

So, I get about half the damage increase as I do from multishot, plus a whole lot of utility in common situations. It's more than worth it for me.

 

0.6 puncture is enough to shoot through the torso of Grineer troopers. I do so regularly.

 

shooting through cover? no need for that as grineer lancers heads/feet just stick out of the shield, aim up or down to kill them.

enemies behind cover have too big hitboxes, you can just kill them by shooting their heads as they STICK OUT OF COVER.

puncturing more then one enemy (so hitting two) is VERY situational, maybe by aiming at grineers feet but then again, why would ANYONE aim at their feet and not their heads. ever tried puncturing infested? not happening bro.

 

puncture is just bad, that's it. needs a change.

 

Not all weapons have pinpoint accuracy, and I am not advocating using puncture to shoot through cover for those that are.

 

Puncture dramatically increases the number of shots that my Gorgon lands at medium range and beyond. At 40m plus I cannot reliably place shots on the feet of a Grineer Shield Lancer, nor on the heads of Grineer crouching behind cover. With puncture, I don't have to, and my Gorgon remains effective out to much greater ranges (at least 60-70 meters).

 

Many times I do not need to see my target at all, I just need to know they are there.

 

Well, compare puncture to another rare mod for guns, multishot. That mod is rare, too and costs about as much capacity, but it's not situational at all!

Furthermore, the rifle puncture is higher than the pistol, and as many have already pointed out, the distances only have to be slightly increased (to maybe about 2-3 meters).

And finally, is your gun tatered and formaed? Well, then of course you can stick puncture on it! On the other hand, you can put multishot even on an untatered gun and it will help much more!

 

Yes, I slot multishot first. Does this mean puncture is too costly, no it does not.

 

Not everything needs to be perfectly balanced. Not everything can be balanced. Not everything should try to be.

 

Puncture can do things no other effect can. If it's utility does not outweigh it's cost for you, do not use it. There are dozens of rifle mods and eight slots on your weapon. Not every mod can always be as useful to everyone in every situation.

 

Improve puncture to the point where everyone wants to slot it, and you have broken it.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Saenol

[Wojek]

Improve puncture to the point where everyone wants to slot it, and you have broken it.

 

So by this standart, Serration, Hornet Strike, Point Blank, Barrel Diffusion, Hell's Chamber and Split Chamber are broken?

[InsomniacOvrLrd]

Hey DE when you going to fix this mod so it isn't totally useless? Been playing since update 7, had it since update 7, used it twice. Maxed, only to verify that it is, indeed, useless.

[Saenol]

So by this standart, Serration, Hornet Strike, Point Blank, Barrel Diffusion, Hell's Chamber and Split Chamber are broken?

 

Not necessarily, but two mandatory mods per weapon is already plenty. I do not think the game needs a third.

 

Two slots is 25% of them, and the more slots that no one ever has reason to swap, the less diversity, variety, and flexibility we have.

 

Everyone takes the base damage boost and everyone takes multishot. You'd have to be a fool not to. Make pentration mods able to kill enemies through multiple layers of thick, hard, cover; down down five enemies at a time; or effectively quadruple your damage against any Grineer/Corpus/Ancient over rank 30, and you put it in the same category of must have for everybody.

 

I do not feel it's remotely necessary, or good for the game, to have more than a quarter of your mod slots already decided for you.

[Wojek]

Not necessarily, but two mandatory mods per weapon is already plenty. I do not think the game needs a third.

 

Two slots is 25% of them, and the more slots that no one ever has reason to swap, the less diversity, variety, and flexibility we have.

 

Everyone takes the base damage boost and everyone takes multishot. You'd have to be a fool not to. Make pentration mods able to kill enemies through multiple layers of thick, hard, cover; down down five enemies at a time; or effectively quadruple your damage against any Grineer/Corpus/Ancient over rank 30, and you put it in the same category of must have for everybody.

 

I do not feel it's remotely necessary, or good for the game, to have more than a quarter of your mod slots already decided for you.

 

Do you really think that upping the puncture to 2 to 3 meters would affect the mod that much?

[HexCaliber]

The design for puncture changed with the new mod system, it is not designed to allow you to shoot through multiple enemies, now its sole purpose is to allow you to shoot enemy behind cover. Sadly players are confusing the old puncture with the new one and expect it to do the same as it used to.

[Mohavon]

No need for anything but a straight buff. Not a massive buff, but a definite and clear increase in the effectiveness of what it does. About three times its current penetrative abilities will allow you to hit 2-3 clustered mobs with one shot at max level, and I think that would be perfect.

[Saenol]

Do you really think that upping the puncture to 2 to 3 meters would affect the mod that much?

 

People have been suggesting far more profound changes, like armor ignore.

 

Even a simple 2-3m penetration value would be a dramatic increase in power of a mod I already find useful enough to slot 95% of the time.

 

No need for anything but a straight buff. Not a massive buff, but a definite and clear increase in the effectiveness of what it does. About three times its current penetrative abilities will allow you to hit 2-3 clustered mobs with one shot at max level, and I think that would be perfect.

 

1.8m total penetration would let me hit more than 3 of most light/medium enemies, and they don't need to be clustered.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Saenol