Mag Shouldn't Be A Starter Frame

[Archistopheles]

Or...don't use powers at all. That's what this statement comes down to. And that's also what starting warframe feels like. No efficiency, no powers. The activation could just as well be worth it at least.

 

What are you talking about? Each blue orb you pick up is 1 pull, or you can save up for a stronger power. Do you not break crates since you have E siphon?

[KnightCole]

OBERON should be a starter frame.  Find another useless frame to make drop off Eximus. 

 

Oberon is a great frame, and really is a nice starter frame.  He has a ranged attack right off the bat, his 3rd ability is a HP heal, his 4th is just awesome.  Hes tanky enough, sorta.  And just a fun frame to play. 

Uhmm no ?

 

I brought MR3 and MR4 to T2D / T3D and they walk out with 2 out of 3 parts of Broberon.

That is just 1 run.

 

2 runs and he is done.

 

N

 

Uhmm no ?

 

I brought MR3 and MR4 to T2D / T3D and they walk out with 2 out of 3 parts of Broberon.

That is just 1 run.

 

2 runs and he is done.

Newer players......T2 and T3 Void are for not so newer players and ones with a lil bit of time under thier belt. 

 

Newer players, like guys who are less then MR1 or 2...

[KnightCole]

I started as Mag back when her pull was single target... And yes, we didn't have Nullifiers back then, but I still enjoy Mag and would recommend her to any starting player.

 

Being squishy teaches you to dodge. Get Mag. Get Gud.

 

 

I main Rhino and still dodge, I try to keep my 1 cast of Iron skin on as long as possible.  Wonder how many people dont abuse the 3rd person view for shooting from totally behind ccover using a hit scan weapon.  It feels like cheating, in any FPS it would look like shooting through a wall.

[GhostShip20]

Mag could use some rework. However, she is a good choice for a starter Warframe. We have Excalibur who is the balanced Warframe, Volt who has a different take at CC and damage, and Mag that allows a beginner to understand how a CC/support Warframe works.

[Archistopheles]

I main Rhino and still dodge, I try to keep my 1 cast of Iron skin on as long as possible.  Wonder how many people dont abuse the 3rd person view for shooting from totally behind ccover using a hit scan weapon.  It feels like cheating, in any FPS it would look like shooting through a wall.

 

"Cool story bro" but if you're arguing that rhino is better than Mag, then all the more reason for Mag to stay as a starting frame.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

What are you talking about? Each blue orb you pick up is 1 pull, or you can save up for a stronger power. Do you not break crates since you have E siphon?

Um...like 150 energy, 100 energy cost for a ultimate and killing to get orbs isn't that easy eather with the start loadout.

I have a pretty good memory and clearly remember the struggle back then... powers felt like wasted resources on my mag so i concentradet on melee all the time.

Pull, that's it. The only ability worth using at all. And it did nothing for me.

The first frames rly worth keeping have been valkyr and ash. Both for theyr great melee potential. Small mods had a nice impact. THAT and nothing else is what beginners need. Frames that make powers worth theyr energy.

And Rhino is definitly the best pick among them.

Edited August 21, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[taiiat]

Mag is a Warframe that fits as a starter. Pull is incredibly useful for Newer Players. it'll save their arse many a time if they use it to keep Enemies from shooting them.

a Warframe that is 'press button everything dies' at low Levels is actually a BAD starting Warframe.

because that's not how Warframe works. you're setting them up for failure.

Bullet Attractor is stupidly expensive for anyone to be casting and a waste of the time of the Newer Player, but the other Abilities have good use(Crush is useful, but won't be apparent without Mods).

Shield Polarize doesn't need to have any Shields to break - it always restores some of your Shields, which means you can survive longer.

frankly, Mag is a better starting Warframe than Excalibur is. Radial Blind is the only Ability that's really going to teach the Newer Player anything. Slash Dash, Javelin, and Exalted Blade are all setting them up for failure.

you don't get smarter Players by making their early experience teach them nothing.

Edit:

He would be a perfect pick to learn and process.

no, Rhino is the perfect Warframe to set up all New Players for failure.

they will learn NOTHING as they're progressing. all you're doing is f...ing hurting them in the long run by giving them access to something like that at all.

blah blah blah

literally f...ing everything you just stated is with 8 Mods upgraded on your Warframe.

do you understand the difference between a New Player and one making Loadouts for Endurance Missions? literally everything you said is not available to a New Player. they do not have Mods. nothing that you just mentioned works that way.

with no Efficiency, no Range, no Strength, with nothing - try looking at those Warframes again. if you can muster an Objective viewpoint.

to me, it sounds like you are incapable of separating a New Player from one that has all of the Mods already.

Don't forget that by the time you reach Earth you probably only have some mk weapons or regular Braton, and Earth is pretty tough planet for newbies. I still remember when Interception was blocking the path and most new players could barely pass it on their own.

all of which has been addressed already.

Earth is now one of the starting Planets, and the Endless Missions on Earth have been adjusted several times to make sure Newer Players can get Mission Completion on them.

Edited August 21, 2015 by taiiat

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Frustration from getting your &#! beaten over and over again teaches nothing. Interrest does. And a game has to be fun to keep players interrested.

Throwing one of the weakest frames at them does nothing for them.

Any why wouldn't they learn? Cause they get a ability that offers PROTECTION? Is this that big of a issue for you? Cause, lets face it. The ultimate is equivalent to mags ultimate dmg wise. The buff is team utility but weak for yourself and his 1. is a simple movement ability.

You sir have clearly the wrong mindset. Beginners don't have access to fancy strength or efficiency mods. They can use abilitys but KILLING with abilitys is more or less impossible at a very early point in the game. You HAVE to play the game to progress...

The one thing rhino gives is somewhat protection, a protective layer that doesn't help you killing, that doesn't make you invincible but HELPS a lot staying alive. And THIS is very important for beginners.

Edited August 21, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[taiiat]

Frustration from getting beaten over and over again teaches nothing. Interrest does. And a game has to be fun to keep players interrested.

Throwing one of the weakest frames at them does nothing for them.

Cruise Control does not teach a Player anything. they ignore everything, and end up fighting Enemies that are now much more difficult, and still haven't learned the basics of the game.

Mag isn't 'one of the weakest Warframes'. if you're dying as Mag, you'd die as another Warframe.

Mag has above average total Durability due to having a large Shield Pool while only paying with a slightly reduced Health Pool.

Slash Status can hurt, but it hurts everyone equally.

Mag is in a better place durability wise than several others. due to the higher Shield count, being less aggressive while your Shields need to recharge allows you to passively regen a significant amount of Survivability. free EHP is a pretty good deal provided the Player knows what Sci-Fi is and knows what pretend Shields are.

yes, Volt has slightly more Health. both of them share the Shield Pool.

Excalibur has a significant chunk of Armor for his standard Health. not very relevant however, as new Players can and will still be Killed if they're taking a lot of hits - and you can't regain Health without Mods. (Pots and Lockers covers the Health a Player that knows what they're doing might lose, but the Newer Player may very well lose more than half their Health in a single Combat instance).

this is like Players complaining about Rhino's Armor Rating. complaining about the least useful Survivability aspect of a Warframe, because they're just looking at a number and saying 'hurr durr why not the highest'.

having a bit less Health than the other choices doesn't matter much when you have significantly more Shields - which Regen.

having 25 more Health would not make Players survive better using Mag. if they're Health is being eaten up, they're already dead.

- - - - -

what's really missing, is even a brief explanation ingame of what a Warframe's Abilities do. the Newer Player shouldn't be expected to go read the Wiki Article to know what their Starting Character does.

Mag's should survive much better knowing that if their Shields are low, Shield Polarize can help.

it won't help much ofcourse, because Warframe Abilities are artificially nerfed when your Warframe isn't Leveled up - and that's really where the problem comes in. reducing Damage is understandable, but reducing other Effects into useless territory just makes Abilities pointless until you have Mods and are Leveled up.

so the other half of the problem, is Warframe Abilities are artificially super nerfed when the Warframe isn't Leveled up. that hurts Newer Players far more than 25 Health does.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Volt, loki and excal have PROTECTION tho. Volt can set a shield. Excal got auto-block and loki has his invisibility.

The shields become a bandaid pretty fast. They recharge. Cool. Does waiting for them to do so help you in situations where enemys close in or even CHARGE at a location? Does pulling them behind your cover help you at all?!

And she DEFINITLY is one of the weakest frames. That's not even for debate at this point. Her only strong damaging ability works on shields exclusive and is a onetime use. Pull relies on spamming for a short effect. Bullet attractor is strong but hella expensive, on a short duration and high limitations and her ultimate leaves you defenseless.

There was a point where she was pretty usefull...ya know, the phase where pull stacked enemys to your feet. Where you actually had somewhat controll using her. But she is USELESS as she is now. Litteraly any other frame in any category gives better results then mag. Mag is NOT a good starter. She isn't even a good frame for advanced players. She is a good frame if you look for a challenge with a maxed build but that's about it.

Edit: just got my hand on a rework document for mag that looks rly nice. If this prooves to be legit, leave her where she is. Otherwise, kick her &#! out.

Edited August 21, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Aggh]

I don't feel like Mag is bad for newcomers, yet, there is no much more choice.

 

 

We always had excalibur as a starter.

 

And Mag

 

Then we had volt, when i started playing on U7, volt was removed from starter, and Loki was added.

 

On the last 2 updates if not mistaken, Loki was removed and Volt was added back, for obvious reasons i guess, Volt requires much less strategic approach than Loki.

 

 

Rhino is Mastery Rank 2 locked for some god-knows-why-reason.

 

Mesa, Limbo, Chroma, Mirage are  locked behind quests.

 

Nekros is locked behind a decent leveled Boss.

 

Ash is LOCKED behind Manics

 

We have the rest, which any of them can be a tiny bit more, complicated to play than Mag for a starter, at least IMO.

 

The only ones i would actually even comment on the chance to get into the starter list would be Nyx and Ember.

Actually, prior to u7 the starters were Excalibur, Volt, and Loki.  So we didn't exactly always have mag as a starter.

[PsiWarp]

If hypothetically speaking Mag is swapped with another for starter frame, then ideally it should be a frame that doesn't take too much modding to be effective.

 

My top candidate is Nyx. Newbies playing Nyx can find a frienemy with Mind Control, mess with groups of enemies with Chaos, and Absorb panic button for time to think about the next move.

[xiaodenden]

My starter frame was Mag, and I loved using her.  Warframe was my first shooter type game so I was terrible at shooting things (not to mention MK- weapons are all terrible anyway and the starting mods are junk) so Mag's abilities were life saver for me.  Her pull was super useful at low levels even against the Grineers.  I hid behind a wall and pulled the enemies, and they die from hitting the walls.  Pull was also a great crowd control so even if they didn't die from hitting the wall, they were too busy trying to get up to shoot me.  Even though I now rely on shield polarize to destroy Corpus, but when I started playing, I used it as a way to restore my or teammates' shield.  I admit I didn't use bullet attractor (this was back abilities had mods so I didn't bother to slot it in Mag most of the time) except in boss fights.   I actually rarely used crush because it was expensive energy-wise and slow to cast, but I did use it when I was getting overwhelmed by the enemies.  Basically pull was my bread and butter.  I've had many frames since, but Mag still has most of the kills (around 36k) out of all my frames due to me using her so much early in game.

 

I think Mag is perfectly fine as a starter frame.  I actually pity people whose starting frame is Loki because his powers are as intuitive and his health is so low.

[Rorgal_Sina]

Mag is pretty nice for starts.

 

Ever spammed Pull on low level enemies before?

[Carl_Bar]

Taiiat if you believe what you say about rhino your an idiot with no clue. Go play another game please, or get good.

 

 

What new players need most is an environment in which they can learn. None of the starter frames provide that because without well levels redirection and/or vitality mods they don't have enough health to survive more than a few seconds of fire from low level enemies and they don't have the guns or the mods for those guns to kill large amounts of stuff in the time their effective health. Most of my memories of playing mag early levels was of running for somewhere to hide to regain my shields. That's neither fun nor a particularly good example of how the game plays out later on. If you can't take down enemies so fast at higher levels that you're getting natural shield regen periods in there you're going down no matter how much you run and hide.

 

 

Nothing about current low level mag play, or low level frame play in general teaches a new player the first thing about how the game plays because it's all about running and hiding every 10 seconds to regen your shields. Which you don't do at high levels. You use abilities to avoid, absorb, or heal damage whilst killing enemies at an extreme rate with abilities plus gunplay. 

 

Whilst Rhino's Iron skin is unarguably better than anything but a maxed trinity ult buff at damage mitigation in comparison between low and high level environment it teaches players the important trick of relying on abilities to stay alive and lets them focus on killing stuff teaching them both the kill first mentality and letting them perfect their gunplay. The CC immunity also lets them avoid dealing with a bunch of otherwise problem stuff until they've got experience under their belt. Then as they move up and it wears off in usefulness it pushes them to other frames if bordem allready hadn't, (which it probably will), where they can learn some more, eventually they'll get the corrupted mods to make other frames actually work fully and they've evolved into a high level player in frame of choice.

[RealPandemonium]

This thread is full of headaches.

 Ember would be fun for new players and feel powerful until they hit the wall.

Ember doesn't have anything resembling a wall as long as you have basic mods.

 

Thing is: rhino is only good at the beginning. Iron skin doesn't scale and even a maxed build isn't viable in endgame content.

He would be a perfect pick to learn and process.

Are you serious?  Permastunning the map doesn't work in endgame?  Not to mention that IS nullifies procs and stray bullets, covering your mistakes at higher levels of play.  Roar's damage bonus can also make things easier for everyone.  

 

On-topic, Mag's high shield pool more than makes up for her lower health, her damage powers clear rooms at early levels (and indefinitely against Corpus,) and her ability to restore shields on demand makes her even more resilient.  BA can also be used to take down heavy units during those earlier stages where you don't have good mods yet.  

[Carl_Bar]

On-topic, Mag's high shield pool more than makes up for her lower health, her damage powers clear rooms at early levels (and indefinitely against Corpus,)

 

Not at low levels they don't. Sure they can clear rooms but you can't rely on that to get you through because you don't have the energy to burn like that. Sadly entire rooms full of enemies are not reliably going to give you energy orbs, and you have other much more important uses for energy than clearing rooms because you feel like it.

 

Seriously thats one of the biggest difference between mid level and low level play. At low levels you save your energy for emergency use on things like shield polarise to keep yourself alive in a bad situation. And between energy orb drop rate's and limited max energy pool size you do not have the energy to use the rest of your abilities heavily.

 

By mid levels modest efficiency improvements, a maxed frame, and a decent level flow mod allow you to buffer much more energy and spend less, whilst higher level redirection and vitality mods mean you get in over your head less, (better weapons and weapon mods also help here), and you start being able to really utilize your abilities for things other than oh crap situations because you get in less such situations due to better base firepower and durability. And the greater energy pool and efficiency let you bank the power to use abilities modestly without leaving yourself short for when you do need a get out of jail free card.

 

As you move upto the higher levels abilities get even more dominant and you can start clearing whole rooms without even worrying about your energy income.

[RealPandemonium]

Low-level energy restores are available for purchase in the market right from the start.  Even without them, your high shield pool should be enough to sustain you through any situation.  DE should make a better movement tutorial that demonstrates how good movement can drastically reduce incoming damage.  It should also communicate that rolling gives you 80% DR and makes you immune to CC during its animation.  There are very few unavoidable situations in regular missions (outside of the missions that require you to defend a target) where you can be overwhelmed to the point where you can't win, as long as you have Redirection and have a decent understanding of the game's movement system.

[(PSN)Gaelic-_-Flame]

Seriously thats one of the biggest difference between mid level and low level play. At low levels you save your energy for emergency use on things like shield polarise to keep yourself alive in a bad situation. And between energy orb drop rate's and limited max energy pool size you do not have the energy to use the rest of your abilities heavily.

But that's why Mag is a really great starter frame, because Pull is arguably one of the best 1st abilities in the game. It deals decent damage in low levels (300 for everyone affected) and it is also a great CC power, which gets enemies out of your face for a few seconds, giving you time to restore shields or just knocks them down for you to shoot them. It's cheap and effective. And it's easy to sustain energy when you mostly use your first ability.

Edited August 22, 2015 by (PS4)Gaelic-_-Flame

[Carl_Bar]

Neither of you has played low levels in a while have you.

 

Early on you don't have redirection. And even once you do it will be awhile before it's sufficiently leveled to provide a serious boost and you've got to get the frame up in levels quite a bit before base shields become especially notable.

 

Also pull is worthless when you die 5 seconds later to a bullet because you didn't have the energy for shield polarise. Shield polarise is your bread and butter and basically consumes 100% of your energy income early on because it's the only option for surviving. Unfortunately low level frames have such low shields that your highly reliant on it to stay alive which denies you energy for anything else until your base damage output gets high enough that spawn patterns will produce natural lulls in incoming damage and your shield + health get high enough to last you between such luls without regular use of powers.

 

Also energy/shield/ammo/health restores consume far too many credits and resources to be practical for a starting player.

[Sibernetika]

the thing is rhino is good for early stages of the star chart, so why should I learn how to properly play this game if I dont need to with rhino.. and then suddenly rhino's effectiveness runs dry, and since this person never took the time to learn other skills because he never needed to, then he will stupidly hard time to proceed further 

[(PSN)Gaelic-_-Flame]

Neither of you has played low levels in a while have you.

 

Early on you don't have redirection. And even once you do it will be awhile before it's sufficiently leveled to provide a serious boost and you've got to get the frame up in levels quite a bit before base shields become especially notable.

 

Also pull is worthless when you die 5 seconds later to a bullet because you didn't have the energy for shield polarise. Shield polarise is your bread and butter and basically consumes 100% of your energy income early on because it's the only option for surviving. Unfortunately low level frames have such low shields that your highly reliant on it to stay alive which denies you energy for anything else until your base damage output gets high enough that spawn patterns will produce natural lulls in incoming damage and your shield + health get high enough to last you between such luls without regular use of powers.

 

Also energy/shield/ammo/health restores consume far too many credits and resources to be practical for a starting player.

I admit that I haven't played low level in awhile (and even if I did, I already had some Aura mods and all that stuff that helps getting your unranked frames to a decent starting level) and the game has changed since I was starting the game, but back then I remember how I was struggling with Loki and the best I could do is hide behind my Decoy, while my friend could easily run around as Mag using Pull whenever he's in danger. He didn't use other abilities at all, because they were expensive and didn't do much for him.

 

I'm pretty sure Shield Polarise is even more useless now, since the new ability leveling system is there, and I guess Shield Polarise doesn't do much until you are level 25+, so I still don't understand why you should prioritise underleveled Shield Polarise instead of Pull, which is already at max rank at level 18. Pull is basically a power to prevent you from getting damaged in the first place, and it's a pretty good one at that.

 

Lack of Redirection might be a problem, I remember when I was starting the game they gave you a free Redirection right away. Now you have to rely on damaged mods for a while, so not sure how that changes things.

[Carl_Bar]

Heh you're lucky when i started you didn't get any form of redirection, damaged or otherwise. It's a fairly ready drop, but leveling it takes quite a bit of time for credit and fusion availability reasons.

 

As far as pull vs polarise. A lot of low level content has to be done solo cos the star chart is abandoned. Even when you do have a group that's no guarantee you won't have enemies coming from lore than one direction. Pull is awesome if your only being attacked from one direction by level 1 to 3 enemies, (by level 10 even a max rank pul won't OHK), but when you've got hell incoming from 3 sides it doesn't do the job.

 

Your not wrong about low level polarise being less than awesome ethier. It's simply the best thing you've got, (which makes it even more energy intensive as until max rank you usually have to spam it twice).

 

Try running the earth defence mission in some lower level gear, and hit z, you'll usually see at least one frame with sub 700 effective halth not counting armour on every run.

 

Thats the kind of thing lowbies have to put up with.

 

he thing is rhino is good for early stages of the star chart, so why should I learn how to properly play this game if I dont need to with rhino.. and then suddenly rhino's effectiveness runs dry, and since this person never took the time to learn other skills because he never needed to, then he will stupidly hard time to proceed further 

 

Can the hyperbole please. Rhino doesn't go from hero to zero in strength overnight, it happens over time as you advance giving plenty of steadily harder lessons in damage avoidance. It's a much more gradual introduction to the concept with room for mistakes at a time when players will now have good enough mods to have a good buffer of energy EHP, and other useful stats as well as a decent gun to make doing that work without being obnoxious as it is at lower levels.

 

Low level play right now bears no resemblance to even mid level play and it dumps far too much on the player at once to deal with. Players are expected to learn damage avoidance, damage management, power usage, and weaponplay all while using massively gimped versions of all those elements. Rhino takes the damage side out of play to a moderate degree, (i'd agree he's a bit too good at it btw), allowing players to learn the rest and by the time he starts to fall off they've got access to the better mods, weapons, and frames to make everything else work letting them focus on learning damage avoidance and management without having to learn a bunch of other stuff whilst suffering under terrible mods, weapons, and frames.

 

All starter frames IMO need to do a good and effective job of the following things:

 

1. They need a fair amount of base durability and at least one good oh crap skill for when your overwhelmed and low on EHP. Not necessarily iron skin tough, just good base stats, (i.e. not loki like), and a decent self healing ability.

 

2. Some kind of capability, (probably a skill or passive), that heavily reduces the importance of one of the 3 aspects of damage management and avoidance/Skill Usage/Weaponplay so that players can focus on the other two giving them less to learn, then pick up the rest over time once they've got the rest down pat and the better mods to make it all work more effectively.

[Aesthetic_Dialectic]

Let me just give perspective of why Mag is a really great starter frame form the perspective of someone who started this game with Mag back in fall of 2013.

 

Firstly, mag is not, and was never intended to be a glass cannon. She is a support frame and was intended to be one. In fact she used to be able to pull allies to revive them, only shield polarize one target, either restore an ally or remove a shield from an enemy, and Bullet Attract shuts down a boss's ability to shoot you and increases team damage to the boss. with the change to Shield Polarize people may have forgotten that she was more like a 3.x D&D Wizard than a World of Warcraft, "mage," but at no point should a person look at an ability called, "Pull," and think it is a damage ability. no game have i ever played was it anything but CC. Mass Effect being a prime example of another game with a pull ability that was also for CC.

Now as far as her defenses, for a non armored frame you want higher shields than health simply because they regenerate. So she actually isn't squishy once you mod her, prior to that all frames feel very squishy when you're solo-ing content, and in the beginning of the game everyone is solo-ing content. However with her you can circumvent this squishy-ness with your first ability and just make every enemy's face be firmly planted int he ground so they cannot shoot you. There is a problem with Shield Polarize only working against 2 out of 4 factions, but it used to be 3 factions it worked against when the Grineer had shields. (I still recommend Grineer have shields again on some units, heavies, eximus, and special units, so that players have to swap weapons and put different elements on them to deal with the variety of defense types in any given mission. Currently Corpus and Infested have armored units in addition to their regular units. Why don't the Grineer have shields?)

 

If your friend simply does not like mag, MR 2 comes quickly and Rhino is a great easy to get, early frame who is not even the least bit squishy you can use and have a good time.

 

**EDIT**

 

Yes Crush IS and, even when I started playing, was a useless and lazily designed ability and should just be replaced entirely.

Edited August 22, 2015 by silkygoodness

[Carl_Bar]

@silkygoodness:

 

Except we ARE talking about new player experience where modding her isn't an option because you either don't have the mods or they don't have the levels on the mods. And who don;t have the ability to bank enough power, or have enough power efficiency to keep every enemy on the map face planted with pull. Again you need to play low levels again.

 

Assuming you've got the credits and a slot spare for the experiment grab a mk-1 braton, a mk-1 furis, and a skana from the market, build any frame of choice, (doesn't have to be a starter, build a duplicate if you like though), and limit yourself only to unranked mods of common and uncommon quality and try running some of the first 3 planets like that. It's a totally different experience. And that's with the benefit of your experience of knowing how to play the game, something new player's lack.

 

Sure Mag is probably one of the most durable base frames out there besides rhino. But that means very little without much better mods than newer players have ready access to. And she has few power suited to dealing with multi-directional opponents as an emergency measure that aren't shield polarise which is dammed weak and like all frames bar rhino early on the lack of persistence on any of her abilities denies much of the power of abilities to her since she can only use them sparingly

 

The problems i keep harping on about are not unique to mag. Indeed mag with her base stats probably suffers from them less than 90% of the other frame's. Unfortunately that doesn't stop them being problems.

 

It's why i said ideally we need a whole new group of starter frames designed for starters.