Melee weapons that ignore armor need balance

[herflik]

NO GODDAMNIT. Stop attacking armor ignore and blunt weapons. Dont just think about it stat-wise, think how blunt weapons weapons would really work. Since they tend to be extremely heavy, hitting the persons armor slams the whole armor towards the wearer. Its only logical that weapons like furax and fragor ignore armor. Besides, even if they ignore amor, they're pretty mutch S#&$ againt bosses, since they tend to have imba-regenerating-shields. And i think that since swords and scindo get a great bonus towards infected, it in pretty good balance.

Stop crying in a fanboy way. Game need balance no matter what you like or dont, you play this beta to give feedback not to go-go-easy with abusing bugs/disbalance issues.

Anyone who know a bit of math (with is just like 10% of iternet population lol) know that totall ignore of armor is overpowered like hell.

Pluto mobs have even up to 90% dmg reduction, that means fragor gets +900% DAMAGE!!!!!!!!1111oneone more than scindo got on them.

Where scindo dont even have full infested damage boost, since the only infested that matter are elite, and fragor is still better on them.

If you say that something that got up to 900% more damage is balanced, then you must be living 5 km underground in concrete bunker eating only plaster from ceiling and unpeeled hedgehogs.

[Ced23Ric]

And you know what they say about people who eat unpeeled hedgehogs. Those people live in Alabama.

I agree. Inherent armour ignore needs some sort of leveling - or be percentual, instead of flat-out ignoring armour. Bu as it goes hand in hand with the damage reduction from armour, there is some work necessary on both ends.

[t3st]

Instead of being fixated on the words "armor ignore", start looking at the actual TTK of end-game melee weapons vs guns. Melee in general doesn't have the fraction of a gun's output, even in melee range.

Bladed weapons are simply bad - they require a gross sacrifice in utility and survability (through frame mods) to have any effect. Right now all melee weapons should have at least partial armor penetration. Giving blades more defensive options (armor/invincibility windows/parry move) as a tradeoff would also help.

[Ced23Ric]

Instead of being fixated on the words "armor ignore", start looking at the actual TTK of end-game melee weapons vs guns. Melee in general doesn't have the fraction of a gun's output, even in melee range.

I ... beg to differ, to a degree. Melee is the only damage we can push via warframe mods, and melee weapons are also pretty well-suited to consistently deal four-digits damage, if they are armour-ignore. The only rifle that lives in that neighbourhood, barring multishot mods, is the Snipetron.

[Namacyst]

Bo doesn't stagger anything except for regular mobs, ....

l2r

[t3st]

I ... beg to differ, to a degree. Melee is the only damage we can push via warframe mods, and melee weapons are also pretty well-suited to consistently deal four-digits damage, if they are armour-ignore. The only rifle that lives in that neighbourhood, barring multishot mods, is the Snipetron.

Reliance on frame damage mods is part of the reason why melee is so useless end-game (if you're going for efficiency/speed runs instead of coolness). I have a huge post on the subject here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/5287-top-5-leaderboard-player-breaking-down-the-combat-and-suggestions-to-improve-it/

In the time it takes to do a charge attack on one enemy, I'd have already cleared the room with guns. I use the Gorgon, Hek, and Snipetron. My Latron and Burston are getting up there as well.

[Ced23Ric]

Oh, I agree. Naturally, firearms have a larger threat bubble than melee, and there is currently more systems in place to reduce threat bubble range of melee (limited sprinting, issues with mobility frameset, low amount of mobility abilities) than beneficial ones. Rifles can reach out and touch someone, not a single melee weapon can do that. Naturally.

My point was simply that - it is the only damage stat we can push off of the weapon itself. With Steel Charge and +185% Melee Damage on my frame and another +100% on my weapon, my Scindo definately can score high amounts of damage. It does not enlargen the threat bubble of melee, by any means.

[t3st]

Guns don't have startup or recovery frames and are hitscan.

With a rank 30 Fragor, I can get 3 Hek shots off in the same time it takes to complete one swing.

With a rank 30 Heat Sword (fastest sword swing), I can get two Hek shots off.

Each bullet capable of wiping out a crowd at any distance.

The TTK simply doesn't compare - the gun is always going to hit and kill first, even in melee (and yes, assuming it's a 1hko frame +dmg mod build). Now throw in the fact that if you only care about speed and efficiency, someone using only guns not only has higher damage output, but he gets to fill his frame slots with useful things like power efficiency and duration (invulnerability/speed up most of the time), and armor stacking (taking 1 dmg from all attacks), melee builds are left faaar behind.

Edited January 21, 2013 by t3st

[ZephyrFlow]

Katana don't slice through metal armor. They actually don't slice through flesh as easily as you would think(mostly to do with those bone things inside the meatbags).

It's very hard to aim a melee strike currently. You can hit a specific mob, but you can't hit him in the face/foot easily. This makes Grineer in general(All grineer except melee are armored. Heck, even their heads are armored, but their heads have no flat reduction like their bodies), and ancients(who have a MASSIVE flat reduction on their bodies) hard to fight with non-armor ignoring melee.

I just run a bo staff, but I feel like the Star Wars kid. I hit the floow, the ceiling, doors, enemies, everything. I hit reinforced glass(Hmmm, where's the nearest control terminal) often. I hear hits going off like crazy, and most of them aren't enemies

Though i agree with you on some points, my one gripe on melee combat is the fact that you can pass-through an enemy while spamming E and i've tried the staff too, makes me feel like im one of the ninja turtles, and yes, grineers are pain in the &#! when it comes to melee combat, its either they have super thick armor or your melee weapon is not sharp enough.

But... the katana thingy.. it makes me sad that i can't cut through meat.. well, at least it looks awesome.

[herflik]

Guns don't have startup or recovery frames and are hitscan.

With a rank 30 Fragor, I can get 3 Hek shots off in the same time it takes to complete one swing.

With a rank 30 Heat Sword (fastest sword swing), I can get two Hek shots off.

Each bullet capable of wiping out a crowd at any distance.

The TTK simply doesn't compare - the gun is always going to hit and kill first, even in melee (and yes, assuming it's a 1hko frame +dmg mod build). Now throw in the fact that if you only care about speed and efficiency, someone using only guns not only has higher damage output, but he gets to fill his frame slots with useful things like power efficiency and duration (invulnerability/speed up most of the time), and armor stacking (taking 1 dmg from all attacks), melee builds are left faaar behind.

Dont count any gun that use multishot, its most broken mod in game and should or rather will get nerfed to the ground. Go check your damage on pluto with regular mods and tell me how fast you can kill mobs.

[lamiadomina]

People seriously even bother with light attacks on targets that aren't Infested? What?

As of last I tested every weapon's heavy appears to ignore armor, and in 99% of all cases is the better option against Grineer or Corpus targets anyway. Meanwhile bladed weapons do crazy damage to infested and blunt weapons are next to useless. This might be a legit concern for Fragor vs. Scindo but... seriously? The Fragor sacrifices huge speed and mobility for an AoE knockdown attack that doesn't seem meaningfully more impressive than the jumping attack every other weapon already gets. It seems pretty underpowered from here.

[Ced23Ric]

I bother with "light attacks" of my Scindo on Grineer and Corpus. It one- if not, then two-shots them. But then again, I am leveling those weapons with a frame to support it...

[Namacyst]

Who cares about infested? I mean the normal infested that die when you enter the room.. unarmed... and blindfolded. No one cares so no one gives a crap about swords or how well scindo performs cutting "air" .. literally (if it's too dark.. here is help: Air = normal infested). Ancient's we can talk.. you know? ... the ones with 90% DR due to their heavy armor which is completely ignored by Fragor, Bo and little Brother Furax? Normal attacking an Ancient with Fragor is enough to neutralise him completely because Fragor's normal attacks stagger Elites... every.. time. Sure he's slow but what he hits.. feels it. Good thing this is beta... and balancing is still everydays agenda.

[MJ12]

Guys, all heavy melee attacks ignore armor. As someone mentioned. Light melee spam against Grineer is solely for disruption, and it does that reasonably well. You light-melee stagger them, and then you heavy melee kill them.

Now, if only you could combo from light into heavy melee more reliably.

[lamiadomina]

I carry dual skana into infested missions. The heavy attack easily stunlocks ancients and hits for full damage. My wingman Ballistic Pigeon carries a Scindo he's been levelling and reports that the light combo can ground control an ancient, which gives enough time to charge the heavy. I personally do consider the scindo at somewhat a disadvantage against infested ancients, but I'm just not a fan of the newest big, slow melee weapons to begin with. The Fragor is at a definite advantage over the Scindo if and pretty much only if you want to engage Grineer with its light but I've done fine so far hitting them almost exclusively with my Furax heavy - I have nothing but heavy charge speed and charge damage upgrades on it, in point of fact. Trying to box with them takes much too long and opens you up to fire. It's inefficient.

If you wanted to argue that Furax/Plasma Sword/Scindo/Fragor's charge damage no-sold every weapon with 75 base charge damage you might have an argument to stand on, but my experience and everybody else I've actually observed in play indicates that barring the arguable case of the Fragor, -no- other weapon even supports spamming light attacks against Grineer/Corpus as a very valid strategy to begin with.

Then again, since every weapon ignores armor on charge anyway, those of us who know how to actually use it right probably won't be effected even if you do get your way.

[herflik]

Guys, all heavy melee attacks ignore armor. As someone mentioned. Light melee spam against Grineer is solely for disruption, and it does that reasonably well. You light-melee stagger them, and then you heavy melee kill them.

Now, if only you could combo from light into heavy melee more reliably.

You must be new in game then.

I couldnt even say that my mods are "great", but my "light attack" deal 550 dmg per hit while the "heavy one" just 250 or so, thats surely light and heavy!

The heavy one just ignore armor, but the problem is, blunt weapon light attack ignore armor aswell. So heavy attack is basicaly useless for them, make armor obsolete on enemies, give superb adventage comparing to bladed weapon light attack.

And the infested bonus damage on scindo is +200% dmg. Uneccesary overkill, specialy that it dont work on elite infested anyway.

@EDIT: I am gathering mechanism datas by runing some tests, you wouldnt belive how many hidden calculations there are in the game for weapons, type of damage, type of enemy etc.

Edited January 21, 2013 by herflik

[MJ12]

You must be new in game then.

I couldnt even say that my mods are "great", but my "light attack" deal 550 dmg per hit while the "heavy one" just 250 or so, thats surely light and heavy!

The heavy one just ignore armor, but the problem is, blunt weapon light attack ignore armor aswell. So heavy attack is basicaly useless for them, make armor obsolete on enemies, give superb adventage comparing to bladed weapon light attack.

And the infested bonus damage on scindo is +200% dmg. Uneccesary overkill, specialy that it dont work on elite infested anyway.

@EDIT: I am gathering mechanism datas by runing some tests, you wouldnt belive how many hidden calculations there are in the game for weapons, type of damage, type of enemy etc.

So you specifically stack +Melee Dmg mods, ignoring Charge damage, and are surprised to see that... charge damage is weaker? This is not at all shocking. Maybe you should switch your mods to enhancing charge damage instead. Of course, you could always stack +Armor Piercing damage, and you get all the fun of ignoring armor without having to switch to a blunt weapon.

[Namacyst]

Ya.. because enhancing charge damage works so well with mods for your warframe.. or why do you think he gets 550 damage out of normal attacks... very very hard.. if not undoable with only weapon mods.

[lamiadomina]

You must be new in game then.

I couldnt even say that my mods are "great", but my "light attack" deal 550 dmg per hit while the "heavy one" just 250 or so, thats surely light and heavy!

Would I be far off if I posited that you've been in the game long enough to have mods grandfathered in from before the last big nerf?

ed: Actually, let's also point out that based on the numbers being quoted this is very clearly either a Fragor or Scindo, and that it has been previously acknowledged that these are probably the -only- weapons that hit hard enough on light to make it a valid tactic. So let's call this what it is; the only halfway valid argument taking place is that the Fragor beats the Scindo at tasks that aren't mowing down infested en masse. It pretty quickly breaks down when applied to the bo or furax (although the bo really, really could use a buff of some kind. I'm not sure how, but something).

Edited January 21, 2013 by lamiadomina

[t3st]

Dont count any gun that use multishot, its most broken mod in game and should or rather will get nerfed to the ground. Go check your damage on pluto with regular mods and tell me how fast you can kill mobs.

I just used a build with all 25% AP/Electric, with one 40% (combined).

Also another build with 15% crit chance, rest into crit damage (98-100% per slot, which isn't even the max you can achieve).

Both oneshot everything. TTK=instant. I'm killing guys as fast as I can fire (including across maps).

You can throw any rank 30 quality mod on guns and give them far better output than melee weapons.

[MJ12]

Ya.. because enhancing charge damage works so well with mods for your warframe.. or why do you think he gets 550 damage out of normal attacks... very very hard.. if not undoable with only weapon mods.

I'm saying the problem is that melee is not balanced. And going "NERF IGNORE ARMOR" is a terrible terrible idea when the problems are fundamentally huge and completely unrelated to ignore armor.

Problem 1: Lategame melee requires use of Warframe mod slots to remain viable.

Problem 2: Lategame melee provides comparable damage to firearms at the cost of greatly increased vulnerability to damage and reduced range. This is above and beyond the fact that a Warframe specced for melee combat will necessarily be more vulnerable to damage than one specced for range.

Problem 3: The Warframe mods only provide +Damage, not +Charge damage. It would be much easier to fix this problem by making Charge damage a multiplier for regular melee strikes and replacing +Charge Damage slots with... I don't know. "Gold Trim"? I'm sure there's something you could swap them with.

Fix these and you fix melee.

Edited January 21, 2013 by MJ12

[lamiadomina]

You can throw any rank 30 quality mod on guns and give them far better output than melee weapons.

This. Melee really only thrives when you can ambush your target around a corner or get caught reloading and need an emergency weapon. The game really isn't balanced to support it as a primary offensive strategy to begin with.

[t3st]

And since I'm not bothering with melee, Hades mobs are all doing 1 damage, so I'm literally sitting here reading the forums with 4 pet MOA next to me.

Edited January 21, 2013 by t3st

[Tetsmeha]

I'm saying the problem is that melee is not balanced. And going "NERF IGNORE ARMOR" is a terrible terrible idea when the problems are fundamentally huge and completely unrelated to ignore armor.

Problem 1: Lategame melee requires use of Warframe mod slots to remain viable.

Problem 2: Lategame melee provides comparable damage to firearms at the cost of greatly increased vulnerability to damage and reduced range. This is above and beyond the fact that a Warframe specced for melee combat will necessarily be more vulnerable to damage than one specced for range.

Problem 3: The Warframe mods only provide +Damage, not +Charge damage. It would be much easier to fix this problem by making Charge damage a multiplier for regular melee strikes and replacing +Charge Damage slots with... I don't know. "Gold Trim"? I'm sure there's something you could swap them with.

Fix these and you fix melee.

Pretty much this. Problem 2 can also be addressed with map design changes. With map changes coming up, we might see them become more viable with more places to hide without exposing yourself to enemy fire.

And with problem 3, there should be charge damage mods, or have the melee warframe mod give +melee and +charge

[Nyss]

As far as I can tell, Fragor and blunts are already perfectly functional. It's the bladed weapons that need to be uplifted to match in usefulness.

Combine these ideas and I think you'd have a fair balance.

1. Blades ignore 50% of shields

2. Blades get a higher bonus from mods than blunts, since blades are what the Tenno specialize in, supposedly.

(to be more specific, I mean mods installed in the WEAPON ITSELF, not your warframe.)

3. Blades have a higher charge damage to slightly make up for the lack of armor piercing, and cut through everything else like butter.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Nyss