What is mastery fodder and what isnt?

[ImmortalGryphon]

Now i am a veteran player and one thing i noticed throughout my warframe experience (from MR0-MR21) is that more than half of the gear that you can get your hands on is considered mastery fodder to players. Now that i have made builds for all the OP weapons like Lex prime, Soma prime, Quanta Vandal etc.. im starting to look at weapons that are really underated or have great potential in order to reduce the number of gear that are considered mastery fodder. Right now im working on a build for the prisma tetra, and most people i meet consider it nothing but mastery fodder. The ultimate goal here is to reveal the true potential of gear that people consider mastery fodder (doesnt matter if their stats are outclassed by another of the same weapon type, e.g. aklex is outclassed by lex prime). So all veteran players, please enlighten not just me but any noobs who have these weapons about their real potential before we write them off as mastery fodder. And heres a tip, the MK1 Paris may seem weak at first but with 3-4 forma and a potato cirt build i was 1-2 shotting level 50 corrupted heavy gunners so have a good think about what you say here, i only accept constructive feedback, NO pointless ranting.

Edited June 8, 2016 by GRIFFONP

[(PSN)O_o_II_II_o_O]

I'm working on a build for the Sonicor at present. I like what the weapon does in terms of clearing enemies so want to try and make it stronger. I'm not sure if this weapon is in that category but thought I'd mention it. Also I am not a vet either so my post may be deemed as fodder.

Edited June 8, 2016 by (PS4)HR_Pufnstuf_1984

[-DragonOfTheWest-]

For most people Mastery fodder is whatever they cant one shot something with and/or isn't widely popular. They just need something with godly stats or its mastery fodder. For me it is just something I personally don't like (looking at you Boltor Prime >_>).

 

There are more weapons than just the Boltor series, Soma series, Lex series etc. But people never seem to want and try them out. Some of my favorite weapons in the game are the Aklato and Snipetron series. And yes the Aklato may do awful damage bu I still love it and thus it will never be Mastery Fodder to me <3

Edited June 8, 2016 by williamsos10

[(PSN)Quo_Tee]

The only weapons I consider mastery fodder are weapons which have upgraded variants (for example, the gorgon is mastery fodder because there are superior variants which are the Prisma and Wraith gorgons).

even if a weapon is absolutely terrible (like the halikar) it is worth keeping a hold of it until a better variant comes out as you never know if an awesome augment mod is going to make it great ( the sobek is a great example, it is weak compared to the other shotguns but Acid shells made the weapon scale and it's a lot of fun to use)

[ImmortalGryphon]

11 minutes ago, (PS4)HR_Pufnstuf_1984 said:

I'm working on a build for the Sonicor at present. I like what the weapon does in terms of clearing enemies so want to try and make it stronger. I'm not sure if this weapon is in that category but thought I'd mention it. Also I am not a vet either so my post may be deemed as fodder.

Thats good thinking, the sonicor can help with not just CC but i can almost one shot the executioners in the rathuum arena with the sonicor so its not a bad weapon to use.

9 minutes ago, williamsos10 said:

For most people Mastery fodder is whatever they cant one shot something with and/or isn't widely popular. They just need something with godly stats or its mastery fodder. For me it is just something I personally don't like (looking at your Boltor Prime >_>).

Thats the primary problem with our perspective of master fodder, at first i thought weapons like the dual ichor (infested dual swords) was nothing more than mastery fodder, but after having another look at it i realised it makes a nice crit build, while it may be outclassed by the prisma dual cleavers, i try to have a broad range of weapon use rather than just one shot weapons like the tonkor or long range melee weapons like polearms. 

Edited June 8, 2016 by GRIFFONP

[(PSN)jFresh215]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)TheRainbowTurt1e said:

The only weapons I consider mastery fodder are weapons which have upgraded variants (for example, the gorgon is mastery fodder because there are superior variants which are the Prisma and Wraith gorgons).

even if a weapon is absolutely terrible (like the halikar) it is worth keeping a hold of it until a better variant comes out as you never know if an awesome augment mod is going to make it great ( the sobek is a great example, it is weak compared to the other shotguns but Acid shells made the weapon scale and it's a lot of fun to use)

This pretty much. 

[ImmortalGryphon]

Also not just veteran players but noobs who have a decent idea on how damage works in warframe are welcome to comment as long as the feedback is constructive and objective. no biased points of view, weather it looks like it belongs in a dumpster or something to show off it doesnt matter, the objective here is to determine whether a weapon is really mastery fodder or not. Also the only time i would really need a weapon that can one shot kill is when im doing stealth runs, other than that i use any weapon i like as long as it can kill an enemy within a very short time like 0.5 seconds e.g. soma prime, boltor prime, quanta vandal. i use these in void survivals and they scale pretty well.

Edited June 8, 2016 by GRIFFONP

[bowiespoon]

Mastery Fodder is just a frame of mind.

I find the game gets much more fun if you use whatever weapons design or mechanics seem like fun

get a team of friends, have them all take unappreciated or unusual weapons, and roll with it.

My current group has refused to use ults at all, to make the game feel more ninja-like.

[Oranji]

I define mastery fodder as something that has:

• Below average potential to be good on higher levels (Cestra, Seer, Stradavar, Flux Rifle, Grinlok, Hind, Tetra, Sicarus Prime, Fang Prime)
• Totally overpowered by another variant or counterpart (Detron, Burston, Nikana, Quanta, Snipetron, Ballistica)
• Impractical (Viper Series, Panthera, Ogris, Fists, Machetes)

These are just some of the weapons that I think fits the description but I'm sure there's more.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Oranji

[bowiespoon]

5 minutes ago, Oranji said:

I define mastery fodder as something that has:

• Below average potential to be good on higher levels (Cestra, Seer, Stradavar, Flux Rifle, Grinlok, Hind, Tetra, Sicarus Prime, Fang Prime)
• Totally overpowered by another variant or counterpart (Detron, Burston, Nikana, Quanta, Snipetron, Ballistica)
• Impractical (Viper Series, Panthera, Ogris, Fists, Machetes)

These are just some of the weapons that I think fits the description but I'm sure there's more.

My Wraith Twin Vipers actually can do a suprising amount of damage

[(PSN)forChristsake]

For me it's any weapon that isn't as much fun as I hoped it would be. More of a title given to something after I get it to lvl 30 (or 20 something if it's real bad). If I can sell it to free a slot, it's fodder. If I agonize about it and just buy a new slot, it's good.

[FierceRadiance]

Respectfully, if you're willing to put time and lots of Forma into it, you're probably right, any weapon can be made into a respectable Terminator.  But to me, that's why some weapons are useful out of the box, so to speak, while others require a lot of work to be made into something useful.  Not everyone is willing to do that, and these are the weapons folk often refer to as Mastery fodder. 

There are a couple of weapons that DE seems to have intentionally put a poor polarity choice into.  I don't recall the weapon, but I recently leveled one that had a single polarity slot which was effectively limited to inserting a Cold-damage mod in it, or waste it/put a wrong polarity type in it's slot.  To me -IMHO- that's DE's way of telling me 'yeah, this one isn't going to be a keeper.'  Maybe I'm wrong, I dunno.  Also, some weapons seem to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to level, while others seem to go much faster.  Maybe it's just my perception, but these kinds of situations also make me think DE decides ahead of time just how useful (or not useful) a given Tenno Support offering is going to be.

[Maicael]

I'd say for most players MR fodder is anything new (or new to the player) that's not as powerful as something they already have.

I'd also say the main reason for that is items not being properly spread across the available Mastery Ranks meaning there's very little power progression. (Only needing ~15% of XP for 98% of items)

[(PSN)KwietStorm]

It doesn't really matter what is and what isn't. Although not unique to Warframe, it's very common for people in this community to play follow the leader with equipment choice and builds. That said, some weapons are just crap. There are always going to be weapons that are crap, and in this case, labeled "Mastery Fodder." You're obviously free to tweak and mod weapons at your own discretion, and that's really the biggest part of the game that too many players don't exploit, but you couldn't pay me to use the Tetra, Prisma or otherwise, because it's just not worth it, and there's no reason to go with it over something else. That 'something else' doesn't have to be one of the chosen top tier guns, but with so many others to choose from, on top of the daily grind, I'm not gonna waste my time looking for that maybe possibly bit of potential in something that isn't there in the first place, especially given how enemies scale in this game. So I guess that's what Mastery Fodder is.

[AnonNyx]

10 minutes ago, bowiespoon said:

My Wraith Twin Vipers actually can do a suprising amount of damage

Hows the ammo supply after though? :3

 

To be honest, I love leveling melee weapons and trying out the different stances for each type ,so I have a lot of those still kicking around.  I hate leveling secondaries, because I never seem to use them as much (and thus only have about 4 secondaries on hand).  But as @(PS4)forChristsake mentioned, if I can't bring myself to sell it then it's not mastery fodder and will bring it out occasionally for some fun times :)

[Drakenreiter]

I think it's all a matter of the player in question. And mastery fodder is what said player will only level up with no intention of using it again, regardless of motive. For me a lot of the popular weapons are mastery fodder, I don't think they're fun so after I got them to 30 I never touched them again.

[Rionat]

Anything that isn't meta or a prime or looks nice or event exclusives or has a cool feature/sounds nice or whatever you deem isn't mastery fodder

[bowiespoon]

3 minutes ago, AnonNyx said:

Hows the ammo supply after though? :3

 

To be honest, I love leveling melee weapons and trying out the different stances for each type ,so I have a lot of those still kicking around.  I hate leveling secondaries, because I never seem to use them as much (and thus only have about 4 secondaries on hand).  But as @(PS4)forChristsake mentioned, if I can't bring myself to sell it then it's not mastery fodder and will bring it out occasionally for some fun times :)

Eh, not that great ofc, but maxed ammo mutation keeps me from going insane.

[ImmortalGryphon]

25 minutes ago, bowiespoon said:

My Wraith Twin Vipers actually can do a suprising amount of damage

Thats true, they make a good crit build, the only problem with the wraith twin vipers is that they run out of ammo very quick and i cant for the love of god decide on using an ammo mutation mod or hydraulic crosshairs for the extra crit chance.

 

36 minutes ago, Oranji said:

I define mastery fodder as something that has:

• Below average potential to be good on higher levels (Cestra, Seer, Stradavar, Flux Rifle, Grinlok, Hind, Tetra, Sicarus Prime, Fang Prime)
• Totally overpowered by another variant or counterpart (Detron, Burston, Nikana, Quanta, Snipetron, Ballistica)
• Impractical (Viper Series, Panthera, Ogris, Fists, Machetes)

These are just some of the weapons that I think fits the description but I'm sure there's more.

While i understand where you're coming from, the objective here is to not assign the term mastery fodder to a weapon, the term mastery fodder in my opinion is when a weapon cant do any damage whatsoever no matter what situation its in, for example the seer pistol has no decent potential at all as far as i know, but weapons like the tiberon and stradavar they can do a decent amount of damage in non-endless missions like exterminate, but their damage falls off quite a bit in endless missions so i wouldnt take them into one, but other than endless missions they do some awesome damage and i would not hesitate to take weapons in to missions if that is where they do their best, for example the tonkor is an absolute monster when it comes to damage, while it has horrible accuracy it still can deal a truck load of damage to a corrupted bombard at level 100 so i would take the tonkor into defense or survival, whereas i would take something like the the tiberon or any weapon that can deal major damage depending on if it can handle itself in the situation it is put in. Most people do endless missions and while most weapons are not suited for those missions, they are suitable for other mission types like capture and exterminate as the enemies don't scale in level. Even if a weapon cant one shot kill an enemy i don't think that a weapon is mastery fodder at all, the only time i would consider something mastery fodder is when the weapon does no damage and the enemy gets more damage in to me rather than the opposite, the same can be said about archwing weapons that have a small magazine, i spend more time reloading the magazine rather than shooting when it comes to weapons like the dual decurion, so thats why i am careful about the weapons i choose as depending on the situation it may wind up getting me killed in the long run.

Edited June 8, 2016 by GRIFFONP

[protomanex14]

Mastery fodder is everything I dislike (regardless of stats) I keep what I like and trash the rest after leveling it.

P.s. I keep all frames though. Never know when you might need the right frame for the job.

[Kevrex97]

Honestly with what DE has been doing (like the Rathuum Mods) they have been trying to erase the line between whats MR fodder and what isnt. I would say just play around with some weapons and wait till they buff underperforming weapons along with fixing enemy scaling.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Kanlor

[7grims]

Anything that haves a prime version is mf, both weapons, and frames. (specially the frames, sad it is that way)

Same goes for everything that has an alternative versions, as wraith, vandal, prisma, dex, etc

 

 

 

[BiancaRoughfin]

For me Mastery Fodder gear are the ones that even after properly modded and/or formed wont stand up for the difficulty level of the missions im used to.

I test them, see if their worth even as some sort of support or utility, try using the Builder to see how its performance is when maxed out and if its still not up to the job i just master it and put it into a box where its not coming out for a wile.

[Oranji]

3 hours ago, GRIFFONP said:

-snip-

Tiberon and Stradavar are both MR Fodders. Yes, they deal decent damage as with all weapons even Seer when modded correctly.

You already mentioned yourself how impractical they are on endless missions while being okay on non-scaling ones(but then again what isn't?)

[ImmortalGryphon]

29 minutes ago, Oranji said:

Tiberon and Stradavar are both MR Fodders. Yes, they deal decent damage as with all weapons even Seer when modded correctly.

You already mentioned yourself how impractical they are on endless missions while being okay on non-scaling ones(but then again what isn't?)

Ok this is starting to get a bit off topic, the objective here isnt to see what is useful in just endless missions as that is why more than half the weapons are considered mastery fodder because of how they cant scale well in endless missions, the objective here is to open people to the real potential of weapons rather then instantly writing them off as mastery fodder because their stats aren't high enough to do crit or status builds, sure to some people both the tiberon and stradavar don't scale well in endless missions, but does that really mean theyre just mastery fodder? i have seen some youtube users make some pretty nice builds for both weapons and they scale reasonably well up to say wave 30 in t4 defense. Ultimately what should be seen as mastery fodder is weather they would be a burden in the long run, and both the stradavar and tiberon can scale enough to kill level 50-60 enemies with reasonable ease but after that then it would be time to either switch to another weapon or extract. Granted people want to stay in endless missions as long as possible, that doesn't mean we should go out of our comfort zone in terms of our preference in weapon types just so we can get through the game, and that is just not fun for not just me but most of the people in the game as well. If people consider them mastery fodder, that's fine but that's not the point of this post, the point here is to make us ask "is this really mastery fodder or not?", and to properly answer that question people really need to put some effort into it and not just write it off after seeing what it can do with just a potato on. Take the Mk1 Paris for example, at first its stats couldnt kill any enemy past level 10 and i was on the brink of writing it off as mastery fodder, but after a few forma that really started to change very dramatically, it didnt take long before it was wiping out level 50-60 enemies with ease. 

If all you want to say is that it is pointless, then this isnt the post you should be stating your opinion on. All i want is to reduce the number of weapons the community see as mastery fodder because as new weapons come out, people dont pay as much attention to the older weapons to the point that they just write it off as mastery fodder when in fact it scales very well in endless missions or is useful in other situations. Also i did say to use constructive feedback, just saying things like "tiberon and stradavar is mastery fodder" that isnt constructive or objective. If you said something like "tiberon and stradavar are mastery fodder because i tested it and it ultimately didn't help" then that would have a greater effect, its the same in life, no one wants to hear whiners. If you want to say that a weapon is mastery fodder, put some forma and actually use it for a while rather then use it once then sell it when its maxed out, then your opinion would have some weight and evidence behind it

.

Edited June 9, 2016 by GRIFFONP

[Wopel]

In a nutshell, you want to single handedly redefine the term "Mastery Fodder" ? Good luck with that lol.

What you are asking for has been done with the various tier/god tier weapon lists, forum posts about "best weapons" and numerous videos out. Some weapons are "late bloomers" and require multiple forma to reach potential, those are well documented for the most part if you look.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Wopel