One thousand slash procs, or a status build for your Nikana Prime

[tnccs215]

Hello there! I am here to share an interesting build for those of you you prefer scalability to raw power, and don't mind giving up on that life strike slot for being able to kill a level 125 Balliff in only 53 hits (your usual corrosive Nikana Prime will kill one on 103, give or take).

First and foremost, the build itself:

Stance (choose the one you prefer)

Pressure Point; Body Count; Blood Rush; Point Strike; Berserker; Weeping Wounds; Virulent Scourge; Vicious Frost

Why this build?

Well, bored of the vanilla corrosive build, I recently decided to experiment with status. in particular, damaging status. Since status overall scales very poorly with mods, I decided to focus myself on slash-- in the end, very few things beat armor ignore damage.

So, in order to maximize damage, somethings were required:

High status chance (for obvious reasons)

High Critical chance (because slash procs are also affected by critical multipliers)

High base slash damage (for obvious reasons)

 

The Nikana Prime and the Prisma Dual Cleavers were the prime candidates for the place. Utilizing weeping wounds and 2 elemental status mods, you'll get 100% status chance on your 45th hit, and since slash procs ignore armor, the best element to add is, of course, Viral: Which reduces current health by 50%, greatly benefitting slash procs.

Now, there are some frames better suited for this build than others. Since you don't have space for Life Strike, Frames like Valkyr, Trinity, Inaros and Saryn (to some extent) are very well suited for it. However, I also highly advise to use it if you are going as a melee Chroma: Vex armor's Fury will buff your status damage, synergizing incredibly well with this build.

 

Needless to say, while this build is good around, it fairs substantially better than most against grineer units, since it bypasses their armor completely, a thing no other damage your is capable to.

Hope you enjoy it, and good slashing!

[DarthKadra]

Interesting build, I considered using a slash proc build after the release of Blood Rush and Weeping Wounds, but my brief tests showed that it wasn't working too well against the standard corrosive build. However it never occurred to me to add in viral damage, which might change everything. I was focusing simply on increasing base slash through Spoiled Strike to get bigger procs. Gonna try your build during the rerun of the event. I didn't pay attention to the level the enemies reached at extraction time, what was it? About 80? 

Edited March 15, 2016 by frohdoe

[RagingGrizzly]

This build killed a level 125 Baliff in 24 hits. Viral did about the same, but slightly less hits.

I even did this on 20 of them. It was pretty fun :P

Edited March 15, 2016 by PUR3K1LL3R

[tnccs215]

3 minutes ago, frohdoe said:

Interesting build, I considered using a slash proc build after the release of Blood Rush and Weeping Wounds, but my brief tests showed that it wasn't working too well against the standard corrosive build. However it never occurred to me to add in viral damage, which might change everything. I was focusing simply on increasing base slash through Spoiled Strike to get bigger procs. Gonna try your build during the rerun of the event. I didn't pay attention to the level the enemies reached at extraction time, what was it? About 80? 

I used this exact build on the event, and it worked fairly well. The slash proc scales incredibly, and I'm really enjoying using it as my main build.

 

3 minutes ago, PUR3K1LL3R said:

This build killed a level 125 Baliff in 24 hits.

I even did this on 20 of them. It was pretty fun :P

Not bad, but the lack of body count good you a lot, I think. Those 24 his were after or before the combo build up?

[RagingGrizzly]

Just now, tnccs215 said:

Not bad, but the lack of body count good you a lot, I think. Those 24 his were after or before the combo build up?

24 hits from start to finish.

Funny thing is, I actually meant to put Body Count on, and I forgot XD

[tnccs215]

8 minutes ago, PUR3K1LL3R said:

24 hits from start to finish.

Funny thing is, I actually meant to put Body Count on, and I forgot XD

thats very odd. I tried a similar Build, but with point strike instead of Prime Reach, and it gave me around 77 hits for one baliff

[RagingGrizzly]

2 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

thats very odd. I tried a similar Build, but with point strike instead of Prime Reach, and it gave me around 77 hits for one baliff

What stance did you use? The one I used or something else?

Edited March 15, 2016 by PUR3K1LL3R

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Why not just equip Tranquil Cleave and kill the target with Breathless Lunge?

[RagingGrizzly]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

Why not just equip Tranquil Cleave and kill the target with Breathless Lunge?

Ah Cwellann, we meet once more! :P

[(PSN)robotwars7]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

Why not just equip Tranquil Cleave and kill the target with Breathless Lunge?

my Favourite Stance, that one. I know Blind Justice is good, but I don't like reverse grip.

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Haha, yeah.  Been meaning to pm you about Basolk builds.  

Still though, I don't see the point in using a wearing down flurry of attacks against something that can be finished - personally, it's why I was using my Prisma Skana for Thousand Cuts - Coiling Impale wiped the Bailiffs easily (and Purity knocked out everything else, but that's a separate argument).  I suppose since it's a pause combo for the Nikana, not a block combo like it is for Dervish, you might have to give up Berserker for Fury to be able to reliably hit the combo and therefore lose a pretty substantial amount of DPS... but it still doesn't seem to me like you'd make it up with having to waste all those cuts on a high priority target that could have otherwise been finished.

[RagingGrizzly]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

Haha, yeah.  Been meaning to pm you about Basolk builds.  

Still though, I don't see the point in using a wearing down flurry of attacks against something that can be finished - personally, it's why I was using my Prisma Skana for Thousand Cuts - Coiling Impale wiped the Bailiffs easily (and Purity knocked out everything else, but that's a separate argument).  I suppose since it's a pause combo for the Nikana, not a block combo like it is for Dervish, you might have to give up Berserker for Fury to be able to reliably hit the combo and therefore lose a pretty substantial amount of DPS... but it still doesn't seem to me like you'd make it up with having to waste all those cuts on a high priority target that could have otherwise been finished.

I <3 Twin Basolk :P

Decisive judgment does have finishers in it though :L

Edited March 15, 2016 by PUR3K1LL3R

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Well yeah, but it never wants to work for me.  Allow me to generalize then :p.

Why not just finisher the dang thing, and then set the benchmark as maximum level that a trash mob (say, Scorpion) can be one shotted at.

[(XBOX)Grihaly]

Of course it uses Shadow Debt mods...

[taiiat]

i'll note that 3 Status Elementals achieves this normally so long as you have ANY Stance on your Katana.
it's a very strange result - that doing exactly as i state, results in ~90% effective Status Chance. randomly swinging your Katana will apply Slash basically constantly.

Viral to effective double the Slash DoT is good - i'll also note something neat. DoT from your Melee Weapon benefits from Stealth Multipliers. Parry is interesting then, as you walk up to the super high Level whatever, whack it several times to apply many Slash and probably a Viral, then Block it's Melee Attack when you walk up right next to it, and it will stagger them, this stagger causes them to forget you exist and Stealth Multiplier is applied to your Slash DoT.

this used to work a lot better, but nowadays a lot of Enemies seem to not bother using their Melee Attack when an Enemy gets right up next to them - even though they logically should do that. which makes application of this difficult in most Missions, since the Heavies are generally the only thing with enough EHP for a few swings of your Melee to not just outright Kill before you can apply the Stealth Multiplier.

 

using the stacking Status Chance Mod would work too though, to reduce the number of Damage Types you end up with.

55 minutes ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

just use Finishers

i mean, yes, you could just cast Blind or Paralysis and then press one button and have the Enemy instantly die.
that's not worth talking about though, there's no creativity, Skill, or risk involved in doing that. so you're not going to see Threads posted about it, because there's nothing worth sharing.

[(PSN)Cwellann]

1 minute ago, taiiat said:

I mean, yes, you could just cast Blind or Paralysis and then press one button and have the Enemy instantly die.

I was referring to using the appropriate combo to initiate the finisher, not an ability.  Slightly different.  Especially with the Nikana, as judging by the feedback about pause combos, they do actually require some skill (I'll concede holding block on Dervish is the same level of cheese as Radial Blind though)

[RagingGrizzly]

Just now, (PS4)Cwellann said:

I was referring to using the appropriate combo to initiate the finisher, not an ability.  Slightly different.  Especially with the Nikana, as judging by the feedback about pause combos, they do actually require some skill (I'll concede holding block on Dervish is the same level of cheese as Radial Blind though)

Yeah, it's difficult to get the finisher opener from Judgment, but when I do.

NUMBERS!

[tnccs215]

To be quite honest, I care not for the multipliers on the stances. On testing, I find them to be "cheating". All my testing was done using the quick melee attacks, in order not to use combos. Testing is only effectiv on a controlled environment, and introducing all the stance variations would only complicate the whole deal. Ence, my logic was, if something goes well without a combo, it will go better within a combo. It as worked fairly well so far.

51 minutes ago, taiiat said:

i'lParry is interesting then, as you walk up to the super high Level whatever, whack it several times to apply many Slash and probably a Viral, then Block it's Melee Attack when you walk up right next to it, and it will stagger them, this stagger causes them to forget you exist and Stealth Multiplier is applied to your Slash DoT.

I noticed that During my testing. it was one of the reasons why I changed to quick melee. Interestingly, another way to take advantage on it is to feel an enemyy with the procs and than cast Equinox's Rest on them. The stealth multiplier will also apply.

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, (XB1)A Frikn Grizzly said:

Of course it uses Shadow Debt mods...

Unfortunetly, if you want melee to even compare to gunplay, you have to use them.

[DarthKadra]

As for the stances, I find the Blind Justice's block combo to work incredibly well, since it is very fast, has pretty good damage multipliers, propels you forward allowing you to close the distance and has a final knockdown, which opens enemies up for finishers and affects even heavy units like bombards. And it's also very easy to perform, cause you just have to toggle your block on. I personally think it is hands down the best combo available among the three stances.