Are Chroma's elements balanced?

[BloodForTheBloodGods]

Is there any reason to use anything but Ice tank Chroma? Sure electricity seems alright, with it's scaling damage, but armour trumps shields in most cases.

I really want to know if there's any redeeming qualities that I've overlooked in his other elements.

[Prof_Blocks_007]

A few quick notes on Fire, Toxin and Electric.

Fire is more effective than Ice when facing Slash Procs, as they ignore armor. Combined with Rapid Resilience (-75% status duration on self), you can survive Slash Enhanced damage sorties more effectively than Ice.

Electric Elemental Ward's electric arcs can help with some minor CC, and is pretty effective against Corpus (no armor on most units). Kinda hard to build for range without sacrificing duration, since it was changed to scale with range mods a while ago.

The reload and holster speed bonuses of Toxin scale with power duration. 282% duration boosts it to +98.7% reload/holster speed (shown as 99% on HUD, due to rounding), which is almost halved reload times. Particularly good with weapons that have long reloads or are reloaded often, such as Tigris, Hek, Strun and bows. Building for high duration leaves you with lower strength though.

[rawr1254]

Yea the other 3 elements are really more for screwing  around. Yea reload/holster speed is nice but it wont be a big factor later on, Yea more shields are nice but it has no dmg reduction, yea you can add more health but more dmg reduction from the armor of cold gives more ehp than the hp does.

But sadly iirc cold only half works. Yea you get the armor but the reflected dmg = the incoming dmg instead of being multiplied like it should be.

Edited May 31, 2016 by rawr1254

[Crowsworth]

Fire is meh, Toxic is meh, Electric is meh, with Frost being the best. His kit is oddly designed, its like two concepts of what Chroma should be, mashed into one not very well thought out Warframe. He is a brutal tank, capable of withering damage, both taken and given. But thats in 2 abilities. His 1 feels like style over substance and his 4 feels like "yeah put something in, anything, just make sure he has a 4th ability, don't care what it is *skims ideas page* yeah thats fine".

[Morphic224]

As much as it saddens me I honestly think ice needs to be changed, I've been playing chroma since the start and whilst I see the benefits of fire,toxin and elec; is the obvious go to one for higher tiers of mobs, he is almost too dependent on it.

[ZoneDymo]

I personally just use Fire, easy to escape out of dire situations that way + fire is kewl.

Sidenote Chroma needs a real passive asap >:(

[BloodForTheBloodGods]

7 hours ago, Morphic224 said:

As much as it saddens me I honestly think ice needs to be changed, I've been playing chroma since the start and whilst I see the benefits of fire,toxin and elec; is the obvious go to one for higher tiers of mobs, he is almost too dependent on it.

Woah, woah, woah. Really? At least his invincibility is more interesting, and skill based than Valkyr's. Much more satisfying playing Chroma and face-tanking 135+ enemies like nothing. I think it would be much more beneficial to buff his fire and toxin. Electric actual seems alright. Toxin's elemental ward initially had something to do with stamina and you could literally just block 100% damage forever (while blocking), and it's clear they just threw on the reload and holster rate on as a place holder. So I think toxin should get something better. Fire is just really weak in comparison to the others. It has low status chance, damage and range. Why?

[Kidkilla]

It's the health boost you get that helps. Before the last patch, that health boost would remain meaning you could potentially add another 100% boost to your max health. Equipped with steel fibre and Chroma becomes a juggernaut. personally, I've got 3 loadouts whose use is dependent on enemy faced - fire for infested, electricity for corpus and ice for grineer. I've really tried to use toxic but I can't see a use for it that the other elements can perform. Maybe if it had an overall speed boost to it - running, Melee, reload, fire rate etc it would be useful.