Mesa...

[Desperado14]

I just got Mesa, and I find her abilities considerably underwhelming compared to pretty much all other warframes. I understand the appeal of this character and her abilities, but to me, they just don't do the job they are meant to. I do not have a reactor on her, so I guess I have a few questions here... How do you best use Mesa, is it worth putting a potato on her, and do her abilities seem to "come alive" after more mods? And don't sat you need a potato for all warframes in order for that to happen.. I have a nyx prime that is not potatoes yet, and she seems to be far more effective than Mesa.

[PsychedelicSnake]

It's important to remember that just because a Warframe isn't hyper-specialized in a single field doesn't mean it's useless. I'll personally defend Oberon night and day, and it is the same with Mesa.

 

Her 1st ability is very useful for hard targets, such as heavies, ancients, minibosses, bosses, etc. That's why it is charged up based on damage, so you can save it for when you need it.

 

Her 2nd ability is good CC, and since it goes between allies it can be very useful to lock down a large area. Bonus points for the augment, which even blinds enemies.

 

Her 3rd ability is very useful in that it helps provide a defense against Mesa's somewhat squishy setup. As before, the augment is very good as well if you have the space for it.

 

Her 4th ability could use a bit of work, but in terms of aiming it's better than before, because now you can actually shoot the one enemy that is gunning for you that would have normally been ignored before.

 

Personally, I like to stay at medium-long range with Mesa, similar to Banshee. It just seems that is where she is most useful. Save 1st Ability for hardened units, use her 2nd ability when there are tons of enemies around you and allies, save the 3rd for tough situations, and use her 4th to wipe out weaker hordes of enemies so that dealing with the tougher units mixed in is made easier.

[OniGanon]

Mesa is a bulletproof turret. That's the job her abilities are meant for, and to that end they perform very well. What is it you were expecting her to do?

 

Holding Nyx up as an example of Warframes not needing Reactors is a bit absurd. That's like saying, 'Don't tell me I need Energy management on my Warframes. I have a Trinity Prime and she does just fine without energy management!' Nyx is just a freak in that she's basically functional with just Stretch and Fleeting Expertise. Most frames need a lot more before they can start doing their job.

 

At the least, I would say Mesa probably needs Intensify, Fleeting Expertise Rank 3, Streamline, and Narrow Minded (or Primed Continuity).

 

My full Mesa build is:

Corrosive Projection, Enemy Sense (Exilus)

Intensify, Transient Fortitude, Narrow Minded, Fleeting Expertise R3, Streamline, Primed Flow

Redirection, Equilibrium

[ThorienKELL]

Mesa is effective and fun frame, what the guy above me said - buletproof turret. Unfortunately her rework was one of the first and only later have developers adopted amazing tactic of scaling power strength by installed mods - mesa however wasn't that lucky as other frames (excal, atlas, ivara, wukong, valkyir...)

 

That means her damage falls off - you won't be taking her to sorties. However for normal gameplay, starchart etc She's effective. Imo properly modded mesa (180+ pwr strenght, cp aura) can retain it's effectiveness till late midgame, 40 waves to T4 defense /40 mins to T4 survival - at least that is how far I've pushed her. Is it enough for you - you decide. 

Edited January 22, 2016 by ThorienKELL

[jonnin]

mesa is pretty solid with good mods and a reactor and all.  The trouble is you want both 3 and 4 to be decent... if you push 4 too far, giving up efficiency and/or duration, 3 isn't good enough.   With both at reasonable levels, tied in with something like zen focus to keep your power full or a stacked group, she is awesome.   

 

Case in point I was just carrying a draco with a half-done mesa (no forma, missing a couple of primo mods, but with a reactor).   I left because I like to bail on teams where no one is doing anything but me, but if I wanted I could carry 4 reward cycles on her without breaking a sweat on a so-so built mesa. 

 

I don't see how you could really get her going without a reactor though.   It would be very tough.   If you don't set it up right, her 4 can cost over 5, even over 10 power / second, which isn't useful at all, and anything less than 20 seconds of #3 is also exponentially difficult to play the lower it goes.  

 

You can give up #3 entirely if you were fighting low level enemy.   You can totally own many, many waves of stuff like Saturn Helen sector for example. 

[Flameh0t]

You are right in finding her abilities to be underwhelming, cos that's exactly what they are now.
Mesa Peacemaker build is junk now that her Peacemaker was nerf'd. 100% fact. 
Mesa used to be my favourite frame to play, anywhere and everywhere. Now, I don't even look at her.

You will get a whole heap of cry babies telling you "Oh blah blah Mesa wasn't nerf'd it was an upgrade her damage gets boosted." Wrong.
Obviously they never played the oldschool Mesa, or are severely brain damaged (a good chance of both with a lot of people here who think they know everything.) - I tried every mod-combo under the sun to try and get her back to the same effectiveness as how she used to be, to see if these people were right in saying "Not a nerf" - They were wrong. No matter what combination of mods used, Mesa lacks hardcore in one way or another in comparison to the old version.

Which part of going from nuking literally everything 1-2 shots within a 50 meter radius, to 3-4 shotting 1-2 things on the map within your crosshair is considered an upgrade? I'll tell you? NONE OF IT. Slight damage increase over time or not, it's worthless.

You'll get a bunch of Super R.tard keyboard warriors here arguing with me, sitting here trying to justify it with "OH but Mesa's damage gets doubled now" No, full of crap.
Then their next argument is "Oh you must be a 4 to win player" Nah, I'm someone who likes to have fun and enjoy the game, Yes, I got enjoyment out of being able to gun down loads of stuff. It WAS fun to me, okay?

You need an almost full strength build now just to keep up with the minimum requirements of killing something (With old Mesa, I was dealing 6-12k's per shot on a Draco run. - "New" Mesa struggles to do 2k's.) Even while in full strength build, the 300 energy from Flow is drained within seconds, great, right?! Such an upgrade.. Not even nerf'd br0...

Changing the build to duration/efficiency build to compensate for that failure, your Mesa may aswell be shooting soggy tuna fish at the enemies.
And then the firing window range sucks, only having a tiny window to aim through, as opposed to nuking the whole map. What even is nerfed br0..

The frame can't move, has to shoot through needle eyes 100 times to kill anything, eats energy out the whazoo n can't replenish till deactivated..
Why would anyone play this frame again? Oh, they don't...
 

Edited January 28, 2016 by Flameh0t

[NinjaZeku]

^ You may have a point, but calling people brain damaged and super retards is not the way to make it. Just ... not cool, dood.

[ThorienKELL]

You are right in finding her abilities to be underwhelming, cos that's exactly what they are now.

Mesa Peacemaker build is junk now that her Peacemaker was nerf'd. 100% fact. 

Mesa used to be my favourite frame to play, anywhere and everywhere. Now, I don't even look at her.

Now look, I've never played old mesa, and i can understand, to a point, rage of a guy being taken away his favorite toy.

 

However and on another hand, mesa is more or less bulletproof and if she can mow down everything and anything with ease ... well then, why would we even need other frames? 

 

I'm not saying mesa is perfect now, she's not but you can CLEARLY see the danger of having invulnerable, omnipotent turret frame on field can't you...?

 

Personally I think she needs to scale better, if ivara and wukong and atlas can more or less successfully kill 70+ lvl heavy units why would mesa be different. She needs some kind of, even partial, scaling from pistol mods, also stupid targeting circle, either fully removed /either reworked to do extra damage, but she should shoot to everything she is facing. That would be a good frame. 

[jonnin]

shes not as effective as before.  That's just a fact; pre-nerf she could fire nonstop in a 360 arc with a long range and drop about 2-3 mobs/ second until very high levels.    You could solo a full round of rewards on any def/mobile/survival/others by holding down one button, or once in a great while moving to pick up an oxygen in survivals but more or less an I-win button.   I loved it,  I played it, and I think its a no brainer that it got nerfed for being too good.  Same as power pull mag (which is back in the game now, derp?) -- ppl exploit a flaw to the point that it gets nerfed then whine about it.

 

But shes fine now.   All projectiles bounce off you and you can shoot bursts that drop everything same as before, except now you have to move the mouse a little bit.   With power restores being what they are right now, you can shoot forever and just pop in and out to reset your cone back to a wider area now and then.  

[OniGanon]

Moving the mouse is haaaaaaard.

[Flameh0t]

Moving the mouse is haaaaaaard.

Yeah, especially super hard when you're dealing junk damage and only hitting 1-2 targets, whilst not being able to move and having all your energy leave out your rear like you'd had a bad curry the night before.

[Specific.Zod]

If you like her 3 and 2 then use it. Her 4? Leave it, just pretend it does not there. Her 1 is weak (yeah I'm saying that) but if you have high crit chance gun coped with new mod you can devastating ONE Target. That's it about her 1, ONE Target, ONE bullet (DE taking things too seriously here); not really worth the fuss, but good at killing boss. 2 = buff gun damage, 3 = bullet proof. She is a glass cannon, was intended to. Now after the rework fuss, she fall down super fast. DE should reconsider rework her 4th and buff 1. She is a damage frame with good kit synergy, yet now she living outside warlliwood because some noobs want more kill.

[Specific.Zod]

People think mesa shield is reduction, no its not, it deflect bullet, you can still have 0.5% eat one fatal hit on high enemy level. Her 4th need rework, she was a turret before, she is a broken turret now, has to stationary so long before deal good damage is never a buff. The actual threat come from those nulifier/ancient but you need to super aim and no bonus damage to the head to kill them fast enough before get swarmed. She need a rework for her 4th, and buff for 1. Then you can take her anywhere w/o worry about recruiting a trinity.

[Specific.Zod]

It's important to remember that just because a Warframe isn't hyper-specialized in a single field doesn't mean it's useless. I'll personally defend Oberon night and day, and it is the same with Mesa.

Her 1st ability is very useful for hard targets, such as heavies, ancients, minibosses, bosses, etc. That's why it is charged up based on damage, so you can save it for when you need it.

Her 2nd ability is good CC, and since it goes between allies it can be very useful to lock down a large area. Bonus points for the augment, which even blinds enemies.

Her 3rd ability is very useful in that it helps provide a defense against Mesa's somewhat squishy setup. As before, the augment is very good as well if you have the space for it.

Her 4th ability could use a bit of work, but in terms of aiming it's better than before, because now you can actually shoot the one enemy that is gunning for you that would have normally been ignored before.

Personally, I like to stay at medium-long range with Mesa, similar to Banshee. It just seems that is where she is most useful. Save 1st Ability for hardened units, use her 2nd ability when there are tons of enemies around you and allies, save the 3rd for tough situations, and use her 4th to wipe out weaker hordes of enemies so that dealing with the tougher units mixed in is made easier.

Hard TARGET, no 's'.