The Increase In Drain From 9 To 11 For Cold Mods Makes It No Longer Possible To Fit 3 Different Damage Type Combinations With Any 1 Set Of Polarities.

[SlytexNL]

It is true that a D polarity resolves the issue for builds that do not use IPS mods, but this is not the case on builds that do. I never mentioned a Toxin and Puncture build. I mentioned a Radiation, Puncture, and Toxin build. The difference huge. One is the most effective Grineer (and Void) build and the other is not used. No Return is not a legitimate mod either. The new event sets of IPS mods are what the old ones should have been buffed to make them a legitimate choice. Lastly, putting Pistol Pestilence in place of Pathogen rounds on Despair is ridiculous. That 2.5% status chance makes it worthless. I did not cover Corrosive build because it does not have this problem, so there is no point in mentioning it. Corrosive or corrosive and cold works out fine. Grineer build is also a Void build, so I no longer refer to corrosive build as Void build. Having both on two different weapons is the best approach now.

 

Your last line is rather condescending and unwarranted. Your solution was merely a strawman argument by changing what you choose to recognize as the problem and deliberately changing details to provide a solution.

Ah ok I missed the radiation part. Same thing then:

From left to right:

Heated Charge, Convulsion, Bore and Pistol Pestilence and you will have 1 point left.

 

And yes pistol pestilence gives less toxic damage than pathogen rounds, but hey it fits ^_^

 

And sorry for trying to help by offering a simple solution to your problem OP

 

Ow and Edit: Let's not forget the title, you want to change a polarity on a mod because you can not make different combinations with 1 set of polarities anymore right? I just gave you 8 build for 1 set of polarities. So yeah, sorry mate

Edited March 23, 2015 by SlytexNL

[TheDandyLion]

There is nothing wrong with choosing to have Pathogen Rounds over Pistol Pestilence. Any of the builds I have shown can fit and have fit just fine prior to this very recent change. I must stress again that the only thing this change has hurt is the flexibility between builds. That is why this is a problem that requires developer solution rather than an in game "solution."

 

Edit: For the record, even using Pistol Pestilence does NOT fit if you are using a maxed Primed Heated Charge.

Edited March 23, 2015 by TheDandyLion

[SlytexNL]

There is nothing wrong with choosing to have Pathogen Rounds over Pistol Pestilence. Any of the builds I have shown can fit and have fit just fine prior to this very recent change. I must stress again that the only thing this change has hurt is the flexibility between builds. That is why this is a problem that requires developer solution rather than an in game "solution."

 

Edit: For the record, even using Pistol Pestilence does NOT fit if you are using a maxed Primed Heated Charge.

Ok granted, you are right about the Primed Heated Charge, but then again I want to add the following and this involves not using an IPS mod right:

Convulsion, Primed Heated Charge, Pathogen Rounds and Deep Freeze, with the polarization I meantioned in the previous post, will still leave you with 3 free points.

 

Also a question for you: Radiation + Toxic + Puncture? Is the IPS worth it for this weapon? Because there is a reason that most people who post their builds here and on youtube use dual combo elemental builds. Puncture and other IPS mods become usefull for weapons with high innate IPS damage, like the dread with 180 slash or the Paris Prime with 116 puncture or the Opticor with 425 puncture. Why would you put an IPS mod on the despair with barely 44.55 innate puncture damage?

 

Also Radiation, fine I see no trouble with that, also Toxin with a health DOT and 25% extra damage on ferrite units... fine. And looking at the builder website the maxed build for your combination gets you 14.252,67 Burst and 10.010,16 sustained damage.

Radiation + Viral gets you 14.094,64 burst and 9.909,06 sustained (according to the builder) which is a little bit lower than your build right? But Viral will effectively do health reduction AND 75% on cloned flesh, which is ALL of the grineer units, every single one of them.

 

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but building for IPS on the despair is IMHO not the highest damage you could do.

 

Edit: I know you only took Despair as an example to show that the ice mods can be troublesome for some builds, but as far as I can tell that is only if you want to put IPS mods in. And to be fair, there are very few weapons that are worth putting IPS into.

Edit 2: Also I would change the seeker to an Expel Mod, but that's me...

Edited March 23, 2015 by SlytexNL

[TheDandyLion]

For everyone else that sees this, now THIS is a discussion! It's okay to be wrong, it's okay to lack information, and it is okay to be misinformed. It is not okay to dismiss another person's point. The outcome of that is shown from logical discourse. SlytexNL, those are all excellent things and I will cover every single one of them extremely in depth. Everyone that reads this post will be enlightened. This will get into many things, including the nature of changing builds for different damage types.

 

First of all, for weapons that only use elemental mods, you are correct. Putting 2 dash polarities and a D polarity at the end in the damage type portion of the mod slots, resolves this issue. It may seem like this is only a small proportion of weapons with heavily weighted IPS damge, but 1/3 of my 33 weapons have this issue. However, as long as there are exceptions to this, I will not go about fixing it on the ones that are possible because any change could potentially recreate this problem if I were to forma a bunch of D polarities (with a fixable context). Still, there is that saying that goes "measure twice, cut once" and I will head it for sake of saving the time it takes to undo rash actions. An interesting point to make is that any change to a long established mod system has potential to disrupt already established polarities and in this case it has done far worse.

 

Before I get into the builds again, lets go over the nature of why we have different builds and why it is so important. To start things off, ALL 3 of my builds are Void builds. The first is either corrosive (4 elements with dual stat mods for high status change weapons like the Marelok), corrosive and cold (most things), or corrosive and heat (on shotguns due to Blaze and blast damage being worse than either cold or heat alone). The second is either radiation and viral, radiation and puncture, radiation and toxic (things that do not have high proportion puncture damage and can only fit 3 damage type mods like Soma), or radiation with puncture and toxic. I have it so that my primary and secondary use alternate builds so that I can have the corrosive and the radiation aspects between 2 different weapons. My last build is always just Viral for 4x Corrosive Projection. The key thing to take from all this is that all builds have a common enemy and that enemy is armor scaling. That one concept is the focus of all 3 builds. It is pretty clear that I do not build for Corpus, but I just use the third build with only viral for them and it works well enough for me because shields scale in size, but they do not have a damage reduction that also scales. It just so happens that the first build works well for Infested and the second build is the same thing as a Grineer build. At this point, my claim my not make complete sense to everyone. To fully understand this, we need to understand the damage calculations. At a first look, Viral and Radiation do the same amount of damage to a Bombard. Radiation has a 75% damage bonus to Alloy Armor and Viral has a 75% damage bonus to Cloned Flesh. However, Radiation will do more than 4x as much damage as Viral most of the time. That is because damage types that have a % bonus against an armor type also have what is effectively the same % armor rating ignore to that armor type when it comes to damage calculations. That means that Radiation effectively ignores 75% of armor rating on a Bombard. This is makes a pretty big difference as lvl 1, but as enemy level increases, the difference becomes absolutely enormous to the point that your damage types that do not have some percentage of armor ignore become tiny. This does not take into account Viral procs, which are the best in the game, but even Viral damage becomes minuscule. Corrosive proc reduces current armor rating by 25%. This has diminishing returns after the first proc as it will keep taking the armor value and multiplying it by 75%. I put Cold along with my Corrosive to get 25% armor rating ignore on that part of the damage to Bombards. I think it is significant to note that Corrosive has 75% on Ferrite Armor and Radiation has 75% on Alloy armor, but there is absolutely no overlap with Corrosive on Alloy Armor or Radiation on Ferrite Armor. Puncture has 50% on Ferrite armor and 15% on Alloy Armor. There is a bit of overlap, but you might be able to see where I am going with this. When it comes to covering armor scaling on both Ferrite Armor and Alloy Armor, there is no better combination than Radiation and Puncture. Toxin also gets 25% on Ferrite Armor, but also has shield ignoring properties and I will cover it more when I get into the specific build. This mechanic is also the reason that Void laser traps and the lowest level Detron Crewman will damage your 80% damage reduction armored Valkyr so much. Warframes have Alloy Armor in PvE and Radiation damage will ignore 75% of your frame's armor rating.

 

Now to cover IPS mods. They only increase the part of the base damage of the weapon that corresponds to their damage type. Dread does 200 total damage, but Fanged Fusillade only increases the 180 Slash damage part of the total damage by 120%. 90% of the Dread's total damage is Slash damage. That is effectively adding 108% of the total damage on to the weapon as Slash damage when you multiply it out. I don't care fore Slash damage, so I personally never put this mod on my own Dread, but that is irrelevant right now. The point is that the only thing that matters is the percentage of the total damage that is in a particular damage type. Ideally, the more focused a damage type is, the better. Dread is 90% Slash. Opticor is 85% Puncture. Paris Prime is 80% Puncture. Latron Prime is 80% Puncture. Lex Prime is 80% Puncture. Despair also happens to be 80% Puncture and that is all that matters. It just so happens that an addition of 120% increase to 80% of the base damage in form of Puncture damage is effectively a 96% raw damage increase. That is what accounts for the slight increase in raw DPS that you observed between the two builds when you compared them on Warframe Builder. That is also just about as close as you can get to putting IPS mods on even ground with elemental mods. Before these new sets, IPS mods could not even hold a candle to what was dubbed "rainbow builds" that consisted of nothing but elemental mods with no reason whatsoever to use IPS mods. Now they are even. A 48% raw damage increase from No Return is not going to cross anybody's mind.

 

Now we need to take this to the next level. Most people only go so far as the raw DPS number they see on Warframe Builder. That is why most people who post their builds would use Radiation and Viral in this context. It also shows the fault in reasoning along the lines of popularity. It seems that most people lack knowledge to this level of depth and the game does not make it clear. That's not what DPS is though. It is the total damage in a second that is being done to the enemies you are hurting. This requires many other things to be considered. Is your semi automatic weapon firing at maximum fire rate? Is your reduced accuracy resulting in missed shots? Are able to consistently land critical headshots at maximum firing rate? Are you hitting 2 enemies at once with Punch Through? All of these things require a context that entails the rate at which you are actually firing a weapon, range, and the number of enemies you are hitting. Most importantly, it also requires taking into account which enemies you are damaging. Luckily Warframe Builder provides the tools for this. By clicking on "Details," it shows you faction specific damage for that build.

 

Radiation and Viral Burst DPS

-Ferrite Armor: 15089.50

-Alloy Armor: 19252.94

 

Radiation, Puncture, and Toxin Burst DPS:

-Ferrite Armor: 17104.88

-Alloy Armor: 19790.34

 

As you can see, my build has significantly more DPS against Ferrite Armor and slightly higher DPS against Alloy Armor. However, this is still not the end. These numbers only shot damage numbers against that particular armor type without taking into consideration any armor value at all. When armor value is taken into consideration for even a lvl 1 armor monster type enemy, the discrepancy in damage to Ferrite Armor becomes significantly large. When armor value is taken into consideration for a lvl 60 armor monster type enemy, the discrepancy in damage to Ferrite Armor becomes absolutely massive. As a reminder, this is due to the unmentioned armor rating ignore mechanic. Puncture caries 50% and Toxin carries 25%. To cover all bases, Despair has a 2.5% status chance. Getting a Viral proc on an enemy before dealing half of their total health in damage already has such a low probability that is almost never happens. As I have stated before, this is a void build. There is no Expel mod for the Corrupted faction and I personally dislike those mods because they are limiting to only one faction type. In addition, Toxin has the property of bypassing shields, which has a noticeable effect of taking out Corrupted Crewmen and sometimes Corrupted Moas quicker since it shield bypasses while Radiation and Puncture are resisted by their shields. To avoid confusion, I would like to clearly state that my build does more damage to Grineer as well because all of the Cloned Flesh units also have either a Ferrite Armor or Alloy Armor type associated with them.

 

 

 

In conclusion this issue is only unable to be resolved for weapons that use IPS mods. Now I have to say that I am quite serious on this point; that makes it a legitimate issue. Is it wrong to use IPS mods? I have shown that it is greatly superior. In the cases of weapons like Opticor and Paris Prime, the difference is even more large. If it is not wrong to use IPS mods then I am making the claim that it is wrong to say this is not an issue just because there are inferior alternatives. This issue did not exist before the unnecessary change and it brought about large problems due to lack of depth in consideration. These builds are still possible even. The only significant change it has brought about is that it is no longer possible to account for switching damage types across builds. This is an important issue and I have gone through massive effort to present this issue to the furthest depth in as concise and respectful of a manor as I can. I have also offered several reasonable solutions while leaving room for other solutions to be proposed. If this issue is invalid then there is nothing more I can do and will unavoidably lose faith in the developers ability to understand the issues of the the player base.

 

I have spent a very long time on this reply and my original post to refine it to what it is.

[Sh0ck-Wave]

So in summary ..

 

We need some better weapon mods to use in defense polarity slots. 

 

Cold seems to be the only that one fits the bill though since it slows the enemy.

Slowing assists you rather then damaging them, ergo it's defensive. 

 

Thing is, how can you make your weapon act defensively for you other then by having it kill the target ?

Some bad examples ..

 

- Muzzle flash : firing your weapon imposes a minor % accuracy negative on any enemy targeting you

- Pump action : (shotgun) first shot staggers target

- Cartridge shredder : (auto fire weapons) cartridges exiting the weapon offer damage reduction on one of you sides against incoming fire

- Sh0ck-wave : fully charged shots emits sonic wave that disorientates unalerted enemies from pin pointing your location 

 

Just interesting things we can add to our weapons to give us a defensive gain rather then a damage buff.

 

Hey, if they still have 'Shock Absorbers' then there's always room for some new 'interesting' mods :)

Edited March 24, 2015 by Sh0ck-Wave

[BlutAdler]

"Discrepancies" which have been around since before U9...

While I do have tons of forma I don't feel like spending the time to reforma literally a third of my weapons.

If you don't feel like doing something to adapt to a change you have official changed this into an entitlement thread. This means you and your followers have acknowledged the solution and you rejected it. This it's now your issue to deal with and I hope DE never responds

[Thebel]

If you don't feel like doing something to adapt to a change you have official changed this into an entitlement thread. This means you and your followers have acknowledged the solution and you rejected it. This it's now your issue to deal with and I hope DE never responds

 

Is it really an entitlement thread when they make a concise response to the issue, then point out the current problems with the current solution AKA cold being a D polarity instead of a Dash.

Then suggest something logic and reasonable like turning cold to a Dash like the other elements.

 

Sure it's for selfish reasons to an extent but at the same time there is a logical response instead of "It should be this way because I said so"

 

And before anyone argues how cold is "defensive", you still have to shoot the guy before it procs, hardly defensive in a way.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Thebel

[SlytexNL]

@TheDandylion

 

Very very great and indepth explanation my friend! *thumbs up*

I must say that I was not aware of the facts you have shown me in your last post and therefore stand corrected :) I also see where you are getting now with the added drain and D polarity issue. Nicely done ^_^

 

Can I show you an example of my builds?

I specially take certain weapons only for certain enemies and not for all factions with different elemental loadout. But I want to show you the build I was aiming for, for the grineer faction only. It looks like this:

(sorry I can't link the URL for some reason but...) Let's say once again Despair with Hornet strike + Barrel Diffusion + Lethal Torrent + Expel Grineer (with 4 V polarities) in the first row. Followed by Convulsion + Heated Charge (both a - polarity) + Pathogen Rounds + Deep Freeze to get Radiation and Viral in the second row. That is the build I was going for.

 

If I change the Deep Freeze to Bore (because the drain is the same), would you say my effective DPS against Grineer is higher? Or should I, in this particular Grineer case, stick with the Radiation and Viral?

 

I would like your to hear your oppinion on this.

[nms.]

So in summary ..

 

We need some better weapon mods to use in defense polarity slots. 

 

Cold seems to be the only that one fits the bill though since it slows the enemy.

Slowing assists you rather then damaging them, ergo it's defensive. 

The 90% damage it does outweighs any "slow" effect it causes. This is not a support mod, or a defensive mod, this is not chroma's elemental ward. It is a mod that does 90% damage over physical base, 90%... this is even more useful than a mod that does 90% of just slash or impact or puncture when paired against the correct faction. Have you actually looked at the damage bump 90% a weapon with nice base damage, like let's say the vaykor marelok gets? That's like saying intensify should have a D polarity because it usually increases the life/hitpoints of some defensive abilities. If anything the split damage and status mods are more defensive than this 90% D mod, and yet, go figure, they are V/Y mods, which is usually the standard for offensive.

 

Yes, heat should also be D as on top of damage, it causes the enemy to f*ck around and not attack for a short moment when in flames, and since when combined with cold it produces blast, which causes knockdown, it slows the enemy, therefore D for it. Impact mods should also be D since they cause stagger and hold the enemy in place. D for impact. Electricity should be moved to D also, as on top of its damage, it stuns the enemy briefly, unable to attack, and since when combined with the new D heat it causes radiation which decreases accuracy and causes confusion, therefore defense, as the enemy misses you more and hits its friends, D squared D power. Serration, should also be moved to D, since it increases attack power, and attack power kills the enemy therefore unable to attack, therefore more health points, therefore more effective horsepower, i mean health points as nobody is shooting you.

 

D for everyone. D for president.

Digital extremes

Edited March 24, 2015 by nms64

[Kontrollo]

Well-written and thorough response, The DandyLion. This should now probably be pinned somewhere in Players helping Players. ;)

 

The following is off-topic, but I figured I'd stress and elaborate on it for all of you guys who are interested in how to increase your real DPS:

 

...

Are [you] able to consistently land critical headshots at maximum firing rate?

...

 

Critical headshots have an additional free 2x multiplier on damage dealt, and that's on top of the headshot multiplier you already get. This is part of the reason why crit builds can be so mind-blowingly good (the other is that both crit chance and crit damage are multipliers, whereas IPS/elementals add to each other, but I won't go into that).

 

Keep that in mind when you plan on using the following types of mods:

• Critical Chance - even when adding less "paper DPS", crit. chance mods can be a lot better than crit. damage mods, if you're able to consistently land those headshots.
• Critical Damage - with the headshot multiplier alone, crit. damage mods can be overkill against a lot of enemies.
• Punch Through - you usually have to aim higher for headshots, and punch through may become less effective. Of course, having no punch through will prevent you from shooting through doors and railings.
• Accuracy Reduction - i.e. Heavy Caliber; think twice whether you really want to use a maxed out Heavy Caliber on a weapon. If you're good at aiming at heads, a lower rank may prove more effective.
• Recoil Reduction - does not add DPS by itself, but on certain weapons it can be as good as another elemental mod.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Kontrollo

[TheDandyLion]

@SlytexNL

 

Thank you, I appreciate that. I hope this issue gets resolved.

 

Yes, switching Deep Freeze out for Bore would result in higher effective DPS against the Grineer faction.

 

 

 

I have been getting quite off topic in some regards, but I tried to touch as much as I could.

 

I would also like to state that although I have shown the use of IPS mods to be superior in some cases, I don't think that part matters much for why this issue needs attention. They should be considered equally valid mod choices even if inferior and diversity is being hurt at the moment.

[SlytexNL]

Thank you for answering my question. And I agree with your last statement.

 

(off the record, this was a fun discussion ^_^)

[elspinaczio]

I'm not even touching my Amprex with @(*()$ 6 formas and - wait for it -    -1 capacity. This is one of the worst changes, right after synoid gammacor and S#&$tiest "fix" of all times - Radial Javelin.

[Sh0ck-Wave]

I'm not even touching my Amprex with @(*()$ 6 formas and - wait for it -    -1 capacity. This is one of the worst changes, right after synoid gammacor and S#&$tiest "fix" of all times - Radial Javelin.

 

.. I feel your pain Elspinaczio :(

[Valar.Morghulis]

Honestly the easiest solution to your problem is to not max out your Punch Through mod, you really do not need much for it to be effective.

[TheDandyLion]

Honestly the easiest solution to your problem is to not max out your Punch Through mod, you really do not need much for it to be effective.

 

To make up the deficit in a polarized slot would require a rank 2 Punch Through mod at the highest. Although that work at the moment, it should not be necessary and has half the effect of a max mod.

[CrendKing]

Does anyone ever think this solution: make the 0.5 meaningful. For example, if you have two 11 cost mods on matched polarity slot, instead of draining 6+6 = 12, it drains 5.5+5.5=11. Of course, if only odd number of matched polarity mods are installed, the last one still round up.

 

To help you see it easier:

 

One 11 cost mod: 6

Two 11 cost mods: 11

Three 11 cost mods: 17

Four 11 cost mods: 22

 

This will fix the Cryo Rounds problem (most guns already have the 3 stand V mods formaed). This also makes mods with odd cost more fair to forma. Only problem is DE will not be happy because forma will be less desired.

[TheDandyLion]

Does anyone ever think this solution: make the 0.5 meaningful. For example, if you have two 11 cost mods on matched polarity slot, instead of draining 6+6 = 12, it drains 5.5+5.5=11. Of course, if only odd number of matched polarity mods are installed, the last one still round up.

 

To help you see it easier:

 

One 11 cost mod: 6

Two 11 cost mods: 11

Three 11 cost mods: 17

Four 11 cost mods: 22

 

This will fix the Cryo Rounds problem (most guns already have the 3 stand V mods formaed). This also makes mods with odd cost more fair to forma. Only problem is DE will not be happy because forma will be less desired.

 

This is an interesting solution. It might get a bit messy with mismatched polarities though.

[Sh0ck-Wave]

Yes, heat should also be D as on top of damage, it causes the enemy to f*ck around and not attack for a short moment when in flames, and since when combined with cold it produces blast, which causes knockdown, it slows the enemy, therefore D for it. Impact mods should also be D since they cause stagger and hold the enemy in place. D for impact. Electricity should be moved to D also, as on top of its damage, it stuns the enemy briefly, unable to attack, and since when combined with the new D heat it causes radiation which decreases accuracy and causes confusion, therefore defense, as the enemy misses you more and hits its friends, D squared D power. Serration, should also be moved to D, since it increases attack power, and attack power kills the enemy therefore unable to attack, therefore more health points, therefore more effective horsepower, i mean health points as nobody is shooting you.

 

 

You kind of kept the train rolling on that one :)

 

.. but I agree with you on the proc effects aspect.

Many of the effects cause the enemy to become immobile or otherwise 'removed from combat' for a short period, so if the D polarity is from the effect then this doesn't really make any sense.

 

But that said I've never understood why Cryo Rounds is a 'D' polarity yet Rime Rounds is a 'Y' polarity.

In effect Rime Rounds offers cold damage and an increased status .. both of which on their stand alone mods are 'D' polarity (?)

 

Likewise Ice Storm is also a 'Y' polarity yet it adds cold and increased magazine .. which is 'D' and a ' - ' on the stand alone mods.

Ice Storm is more utility then it is pure damage, so would be better off as a 'D' or a ' - ' (?)

 

I think an underlying issue over all is that :

1) pure cold mods are a different polarity to everything else, and 

2) there are very few other 'D' polarity mods for weapons

[TheDandyLion]

Sh0ck-Wave, that is a very good point. From one point of view, this issue with switching damage type builds only exists due to inconsistencies with which polarity certain pods have.

[JustAn0ther]

I think a lot of people who have responded here are missing the core issue of the OP, which is that with the change of ice mods going from 9 cost to 11 cost it is now impossible to have certain builds on the same weapon due to conflicting mod polarities. Regardless of whether or not you personally feel that a build should be used is irrelevant, because the fact that we are now limited in what builds we can use on the same weapon is the problem. And also, yes, the builds being limited are very important. If you want to put the punch through mod on a secondary, you now cannot have a loadout with all four pure elemental mods and two pure elemental/dual mods on the same weapon. A two pure/two dual setup is very important if you only want to be proccing a single status on an enemy, or otherwise stacking one damage type, like corrosive or viral.

 

There are three solutions to this problem. First, we use lower ranked mods. This solution is out of the question, because we should not have to ever be doing that. Hell, primed mods are basically DE's way of letting us take our power level one step FURTHER once you're capable of doing so. Second, we don't use the conflicting builds on the same weapon. This solution is again out of the question, because the entire point is that we are being limited in our options solely based on a change to the mod system that didn't need to happen, or could have happened differently. If I want to mod my weapon for pure fire rate and magazine size, I should be able to do so freely. The thing that holds me back should be how willing I am to invest in my weapon with forma and time. I should not be being held back from modding a weapon a certain way simply because it's impossible to do so. Why have options then? Which brings me to solution 3. DE takes a hard look at the current state of these mods and adjusts mod drains, polarities, how the positive/negative drain of matching polarities functions, or perhaps even potentially a solution where more slots are added to specially fit these otherwise mostly unused "utility" mods (something that's been suggested many times over warframe's life), or whatever it takes so that the only thing that prevents a weapon from being able to put on any combination of mods is you the player.

 

Look, here's a potential solution no one's mentioned so far: let us forma a slot multiple times to fit multiple polarities. It can look like V/- or something in the upper right, maybe glow a little to signify the power put into it, idk they can figure that out. Bam, problem solved, everyone's happy. You want the build? You put even more forma into your weapon and work for it, but it's still possible with enough forma.

Edited March 30, 2015 by JustAn0ther

[Educated_Beast]

I've also ran into this problem and feel your pain. However, there is another logical solution to the problem this "D" mod modification created.

There real problem is build flexibility and I've ran into it myself. You cannot forma your way out of it and have max damage mods because once you swap to a different load out for different elemental effect (to maximize damage versus particular faction), they will not fit. Simple solution and please edit first page to include this idea:

Allow weapon load out options (A, B, C) to have independent polarity locations. For example, on A I can have V,V,V, , -,-. Then on B, I have the same amount of forma, but I can put my "-" polarity in a different order.

Now different load outs can have different elemental combinations. I do not need different ranked versions of the same elemental mod. No new D polarity mods are needed (would be cool though). No need to change mod polarity of D to -. And I do not need to forma 2 versions of the same weapon for different damage types. The underlying problem is the weapon load out of polarity changes together (swap one polarity and swaps on A,B, and C). Fix that and all problems go away. You may need another forma to fit a D, but you get 30% more damage. Don't want to do that, use 60% damage / status or nightmare mod instead.

This is the best solution and honestly should be in the game already. Why have all these different damage types if we cannot use them?

This is also true for warframe slots, especially in old pvp system where you gained mods in order they were on warframe. Still true on sentinals (order they cast in priority)

Edited March 31, 2015 by Educated_Beast

[Flowen231]

I love how many people replied without even reading the OP lol. NO MATTER HOW MANY FORMA YOU USE, YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if DE increased the drain on cold mods just to force players to farm second copies of weapons to forma up 5 times again. Nobody can deny that the grind has just gotten worse and worse, and this may just be more fuel for the fire.

[Educated_Beast]

I love how many people replied without even reading the OP lol. NO MATTER HOW MANY FORMA YOU USE, YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if DE increased the drain on cold mods just to force players to farm second copies of weapons to forma up 5 times again. Nobody can deny that the grind has just gotten worse and worse, and this may just be more fuel for the fire.

Your comment is equally as useful. Read my post right above yours for simple solution.

[JustAn0ther]

Allow weapon load out options (A, B, C) to have independent polarity locations. For example, on A I can have V,V,V, , -,-. Then on B, I have the same amount of forma, but I can put my "-" polarity in a different order.

 

I'm not entirely sure how this resolves the problem. If I had the patience to, I could just switch around where the polarities are located on my weapon every single time I wanted to mod the weapon. Yet no amount of switching around WHERE the mods are being placed is going to change the fact that certain mod combinations (ones that are arguably quite useful) are straight up, 100% not possible on the same weapon.

 

Go ahead and put Hornet Strike, Barrel Diffusion, Lethal Torrent, and Seeker on the top row of your gun. Now, try to put all four pure elemental mods (radiation and viral/corrosive and blast, both considered the best elemental damage combinations for two of the three factions), just one element using both pure elementals and dual mods (such as pure viral for 4x Corrosive Projection, pure radiation/corrosive to concentrate those procs), then maximizing one damage type while having a bit of the second (three pure damage elementals with one dual mod, two pure damage elementals one IPS mod one dual mod, such as three for corrosive and one for heat). It's not possible, because putting an eighth polarity as D prevents you from doing the third case (as mentioned in the OP, a weapon like Despair would be better with radiation, puncture, and toxin which are four - mods and wouldn't fit), and not putting a D prevents you from doing a pure viral loadout.