Why Does Diriga Have 50 Armor?

[RealPandemonium]

With so much base health and so few shields it seemed a no-brainer to be able to actually use sentinel Steel Fiber for once to make a durable sentinel that benefits more from healing than its counterparts.  That could have made Diriga useful for something despite its poor precepts.  Unfortunately, 50 base armor is not much to work with.  Meanwhile Wyrm Prime has 150 armor despite having an average (low) health pool.  Does this make sense to anyone else?

[DaftMeat]

It's a balloon. It's a wonder it has as much health as it does.

[(PSN)Pharen]

Wyrm only has 50 armour, you can't compare Diriga to a prime.

[RealPandemonium]

Wyrm only has 50 armour, you can't compare Diriga to a prime.

It doesn't make sense either way in this case: A prime gets a buff that doesn't do much for it and still doesn't really warrant using Steel Fiber, while Diriga has a big health pool that you can't effectively augment, hurting its niche as a health tanking, non-prime sentinel.  That's why comparing an unprimed option to a primed option is called for; in both cases the design is impotent.  If anything I should be comparing it to a prime because the prime's buff isn't worthy of a prime due to the design.

[FelisImpurrator]

Wyrm Prime was badly buffed, presumably because it's an older prime - look at Glaive, with no buff other than flight speed. That probably needs a second look - well, most sentinels that aren't Carrier, Helios, or (mostly) Diriga need a second pass.

 

But I would imagine this is because A) Diriga is a sniper and a bag of gas, and neither of those things translates to tankiness, and B) Diriga is a CC sentinel, which means it should in theory be able to defend itself at close range (for long, you have the obscenely powerful Vulklok).

[(PSN)Pharen]

It doesn't make sense either way in this case: A prime gets a buff that doesn't do much for it and still doesn't really warrant using Steel Fiber, while Diriga has a big health pool that you can't effectively augment, hurting its niche as a health tanking, non-prime sentinel.  That's why comparing an unprimed option to a primed option is called for; in both cases the design is impotent.  If anything I should be comparing it to a prime because the prime's buff isn't worthy of a prime due to the design.

Diriga probably wont get a prime being that it is a grineer sentinel, but it will likely get a prisma or other variant in future, Diriga's niche is to do with its abilities and weapons not its health. And to give it an armour buff would require it to lose something in return because it must be balanced with other base sentinels.

Edited September 6, 2015 by (PS4)Pharen

[RafaelFuchs]

It has high HP. It's durable because it has enough effective HP to survive the stray blasts. Since when are sentinels commonly targeted? Worst case: You go down and it dies. That's expected to be honest... It survivability is perfectly fine. I ran a T3S (not "camping") till 60m today and it didn't die. It got to ~200 after 4 bombard missiles at one point which i dropped a health plate to fix it up so it didn't use the regen. 

[RealPandemonium]

 Diriga's niche is to do with its abilities and weapons

Its abilities which are ineffective and its weapon which can be equipped on other sentinels?

[(PSN)Pharen]

Its abilities which are ineffective and its weapon which can be equipped on other sentinels?

I can't comment too much on its shock ability because we haven't got the update with it yet, but it is a different type of ability to other sentinels which makes it unique, and all sentinels weapons can be changed to other sentinels, however they work best on the sentinel they are designed for and you can't get the sniper rifle without first making (or buying) the Diriga anyway.

[FelisImpurrator]

It has high HP. It's durable because it has enough effective HP to survive the stray blasts. Since when are sentinels commonly targeted? Worst case: You go down and it dies. That's expected to be honest... It survivability is perfectly fine. I ran a T3S (not "camping") till 60m today and it didn't die. It got to ~200 after 4 bombard missiles at one point which i dropped a health plate to fix it up so it didn't use the regen. 

Like all sentinels, AoE is the number one Diriga killer. So it will die a hell of a lot faster to Infested, and fairly quickly to bombards, but most enemies don't give a damn about the murder-jellyfish raining death and lightning on their heads.

Its abilities which are ineffective and its weapon which can be equipped on other sentinels?

Djinn is the only other sentinel with comparable range to its attack precept. 60 vs 70m at max rank. Vulklok is a sniper rifle similar to an automatic, CC-focused Lanka.

 

Also, its abilities are hardly ineffective. They form much of its survivability layer. You may not be ordering your precepts properly or using the sentinel right, because after I got enough points to throw on at least one maxed electric precept and Vitality, it had no issues surviving.

[RafaelFuchs]

Like all sentinels, AoE is the number one Diriga killer. So it will die a hell of a lot faster to Infested, and fairly quickly to bombards, but most enemies don't give a damn about the murder-jellyfish raining death and lightning on their heads.

It's a weakness all sentinels have though. Carrier prime isn't as weak to that stuff, but it's also a prime. So, it's in a different league. 

[FelisImpurrator]

It's a weakness all sentinels have though. Carrier prime isn't as weak to that stuff, but it's also a prime. So, it's in a different league. 

Exactly - sentinels need some form of damage mitigation for AoE specifically, and Wyrm Prime needs review. But overall, considering that, Diriga is not that much squishier than any other sentinel (and arguably healthtanks a lot better than over half).

[Volinus7]

Grineer based hmmm

It should have 7000 armor right?

[RafaelFuchs]

Grineer based hmmm

It should have 7000 armor right?

You're funny, but you're obviously wrong. It should be 9001 alloy armor. 

[RealPandemonium]

Djinn is the only other sentinel with comparable range to its attack precept. 60 vs 70m at max rank. Vulklok is a sniper rifle similar to an automatic, CC-focused Lanka.

That's a valid point, though Djinn's range isn't much shorter and at least its precept does something.

 

 

Also, its abilities are hardly ineffective. They form much of its survivability layer. You may not be ordering your precepts properly or using the sentinel right, because after I got enough points to throw on at least one maxed electric precept and Vitality, it had no issues surviving.

How, exactly, do they do they significantly contribute to its survivability?  Keep in mind that the Vulklok itself combined with the Vitality could have done most of the work in your case example.  

Edited September 6, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[FelisImpurrator]

That's a valid point, though Djinn's range isn't much shorter and at least its precept does something.

How, exactly, do they do they significantly contribute to its survivability?  Keep in mind that the Vulklok itself combined with the Vitality could have done most of the work in your case example.  

Djinn's precept is a suicide precept - it draws aggro to the sentinel. Consequently, Djinn actually dies a lot more often, because instead of AoE killing it, everything starts killing it. Although I imagine it would be better with the Vulklok, which is far more powerful than Stinger.

 

Also - I've been running the last ranks without Vulklok, still blazing through high level Grineer and the like without serious issues with dead. It doesn't tank like Carrier Prime, but nothing tanks like Carrier Prime - that thing soaks more damage than some warframes, it wouldn't be a fair comparison.

 

The electric precepts can effectively stunlock hordes of enemies, although I have not extensively tested Arc Coil vs. Electro Pulse - although Coil is more CC-oriented and Pulse (mostly) locks down single enemies. An enemy that's being shocked several times a second is an enemy that is not shooting at Diriga, and if you do have Vulklok on, it's going to be picking off the enemies that are far enough away to not be bathed in lightning. Otherwise, that's your job, to snipe the long-range enemies before they melt you or your sentinel.

 

Overall, it does what it does better than any other sentinel save Carrier - CC at short and long ranges, with a little extra murder at the longer end; it's like having Shocking Speed on at nearly all times in a wider radius. I'll have to test it in higher level Infested or Void runs with forma to see just how durable it really is, though.

[RealPandemonium]

Djinn's precept is a suicide precept - it draws aggro to the sentinel. Consequently, Djinn actually dies a lot more often, because instead of AoE killing it, everything starts killing it. Although I imagine it would be better with the Vulklok, which is far more powerful than Stinger.

 

Also - I've been running the last ranks without Vulklok, still blazing through high level Grineer and the like without serious issues with dead. It doesn't tank like Carrier Prime, but nothing tanks like Carrier Prime - that thing soaks more damage than some warframes, it wouldn't be a fair comparison.

 

The electric precepts can effectively stunlock hordes of enemies, although I have not extensively tested Arc Coil vs. Electro Pulse - although Coil is more CC-oriented and Pulse (mostly) locks down single enemies. An enemy that's being shocked several times a second is an enemy that is not shooting at Diriga, and if you do have Vulklok on, it's going to be picking off the enemies that are far enough away to not be bathed in lightning. Otherwise, that's your job, to snipe the long-range enemies before they melt you or your sentinel.

 

Overall, it does what it does better than any other sentinel save Carrier - CC at short and long ranges, with a little extra murder at the longer end; it's like having Shocking Speed on at nearly all times in a wider radius. I'll have to test it in higher level Infested or Void runs with forma to see just how durable it really is, though.

This is stunning to me.  My experience has been that a properly modded Vulklok deals more CC by itself than either precept.  Arc Coil just does a pittance of damage and procs around 15% of time, and Electro Pulse stops the sentinel from firing its weapon while stunning one enemy and doing damage so weak it can't kill level 1 mobs.  The stuns don't even lock down the enemy; affected enemies get a couple of seconds to fire at you in between stuns.  How are either of those precepts protecting you in any meaningful way?  I think your findings of their efficacy can be attributed to confirmation bias.  

Edited September 6, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[LifeNine]

This is stunning to me.  My experience has been that a properly modded Vulklok deals more CC by itself than either precept.  Arc Coil just does a pittance of damage and procs around 15% of time, and Electro Pulse stops the sentinel from firing its weapon while stunning one enemy and doing damage so weak it can't kill level 1 mobs.  The stuns don't even lock down the enemy; affected enemies get a couple of seconds to fire at you in between stuns.  How are either of those precepts protecting you in any meaningful way?  I think your findings of their efficacy can be attributed to confirmation bias.  

The precepts aren't meant to do a lot damage as far as I can tell. I'm not too sure of Arc Coil's CC potential, but Electro Pulse is great for stopping an enemy. Only some enemies, like the Corrupted Crewmen, are able to shoot in that half seconds in between the stun. Heavy Gunners can only get one bullet out before they are stunned again, and that single bullet is very unlikely to hit you. Maybe it will be patched in the future to actually prevent them from attacking. Anyways, I find it useful to have even one less enemy attacking me in combat. It lets me focus on other enemies around me and kill the stunned target last.

 

Back to your original topic:

Diriga has the same health, shield, armour stat as Shade. I know armour and health synergizes well with each other, but just because something has high health, I don't think it is necessary for it to have high armour as well.

 

Shade's role is mainly to keep you in hidden. It's not meant to tank damage for you. The same is true for Diriga. It uses a sniper so it can shoot enemies from across the room. It's a sniper drone that also has the ability to stun enemies when they get close. Again, it's not meant to tank damage.

 

Wyrm Prime's armour is higher because it's the prime version of the regular Wyrm, which has 50 armour. The extra armour is something it gets as an upgrade from the regular Wyrm. If in the future, there is another version of the Diriga, it will probably get an armour upgrade similar to when the Prisma Shade got.

[RealPandemonium]

Back to your original topic:

Diriga has the same health, shield, armour stat as Shade. I know armour and health synergizes well with each other, but just because something has high health, I don't think it is necessary for it to have high armour as well.

The difference here is that DE has had several years to figure out what to do with the armor stat since Shade was released.  Armor to this day mostly serves as a slight healing multiplier for most frames and a means of tanking some additional damage (with a significant healing multiplier) for a couple of frames.  It's kind of disappointing to see armor values being set to arbirtrary numbers this far into the game's development.  Inb4 "It's Beta™."

Edited September 6, 2015 by RealPandemonium

[FelisImpurrator]

How are either of those precepts protecting you in any meaningful way?  I think your findings of their efficacy can be attributed to confirmation bias.  

What confirmation bias? I went in expecting this sentinel to suck! Can you at least try to make sense with this statement?

 

The only real issue is Arc Coil's low proc chance, but Electro Pulse is perfectly fine. Possibly bugged, but the half second matters... not at all.

[Darkmatt3r]

Diriga is not a prime fify . peace

[RealPandemonium]

What confirmation bias? I went in expecting this sentinel to suck! Can you at least try to make sense with this statement?

The bias of "this sentinel has precepts that do things so they must be doing things, which produced the result I see."  But if you test their behavior specifically you will see that they hardly do anything.  Once you set up the gun for CC you do not want the precepts to activate at all because they will lower the degree to which the sentinel protects you instead of increasing it.  This is an objective statement; not my opinion.

[MechaTails]

It's a balloon. It's a wonder it has as much health as it does.

 

rofl

 

/thread

 

I always wondered why Drifloon stats were so heavily stacked towards HP too.

Edited September 6, 2015 by DarkTails

[Tesseract7777]

Diriga is the new god sentinel. Soon people will realize this. 

[FelisImpurrator]

The bias of "this sentinel has precepts that do things so they must be doing things, which produced the result I see."  But if you test their behavior specifically you will see that they hardly do anything.  Once you set up the gun for CC you do not want the precepts to activate at all because they will lower the degree to which the sentinel protects you instead of increasing it.  This is an objective statement; not my opinion.

I have no idea how this line of reasoning is even supposed to work, but it's hardly "objective" unless you actually go and prove it. General consensus seems largely to be that Diriga is more or less fine as is; you disagree, so you should be the one bringing out proof.