Nikana Prime vs Fragor Prime

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

So why is Nikana Prime valued much higher than Fragor Prime? 

Fragor P seems to be a much better crit weapon. Is it the Nikana's speed and slash damage which makes it more valuable?

 

[Monster-T]

Take the one which is more desirable for you.

[ashrah]

nikana prime have good status too witch is very important if u playing longer runs....fragor is very slow...and impact dmg fall off pretty fast...

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

2 minutes ago, Monster-T said:

Take the one which is more desirable for you.

Yeah but that's not what I'm asking. I want to know why Nikana P is so valuable compared to Fragor P. 

Edited August 11, 2016 by xXx_mtv_xXx

[SilvaDreams]

10 minutes ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

So why is Nikana Prime valued much higher than Fragor Prime? 

Fragor P seems to be a much better crit weapon. Is it the Nikana's speed and slash damage which makes it more valuable?

 

It's the cool factor of it being a katana, I personally never got the love for the nikanas.

My friends pushed for me to get them because I loved Valkyr and melee when starting, when I got them I found them underwhelming and picked my Atterax back up.

[Airwolfen]

The nikana is a Katana and so is desirable because of its weapon type.

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

Just now, Airwolfen said:

The nikana is a Katana and so is desirable because of its weapon type.

OK so what's so good about that weapon type? 

[DeFragMe]

3 minutes ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

OK so what's so good about that weapon type? 

prejudgment of weapon types, wich does not matter in WF.

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

Just now, DeFragMe said:

prejudgment of weapon types, wich does not matter in WF.

hmmm so basically there's nothing to justify the high price and reputation of Nikana P compared to Fragor P?

[Varacal]

it scales better i guess, with 4 cp, slash would deal more damage after all

[Airwolfen]

2 minutes ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

OK so what's so good about that weapon type? 

Mostly the stats on the prime are pretty good and the stances allow for very different play styles. No it is not better then the Fragor p stat wise. But the Nikanas are seen as THE tenno weapon, A Japanese style sword.

[peger]

Because it's katana and most of the gamers pee in pants when they see katana in game. Because you know katana can reflect laser beam and cut tank in half xD Right?

So for most players it's only "cool factor".

Edited August 11, 2016 by peger

[Terror-Of-Death]

RULE OF COOL

[MopUpCrewman]

It's edgier.

Literally and figuratively.

[_Iye]

Cant find many people present the facts here but I'd like to point out something here.

Its a master of slash damage which will cause the bleed proc and damage overtime

Speed and crit chance with berserker (blood rush if you wanna build crit based build) and in hands of Excalibur Buddy (passive) its more like uncatchable with bare eyes and deadly as a viper.

Damage fall off is not that much effective as slash arguably works for all factions more or less but impact has certain faction limitations which makes the fragor optional.

The current lore and thematic perspective gave Nikana a higher place in the world of Warframe for which its more demanded than any other sword.

Note: My current standard build executes 3.5K damage without any buff/proc/crit.

 

[NinjaTrainee117]

Because a giant lump of metal rubbing against your behind while jumping around would be uncomfortable. Oh and samurai power.

[DeFragMe]

11 minutes ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

hmmm so basically there's nothing to justify the high price and reputation of Nikana P compared to Fragor P?

mostly.

If you run a clean CP run (wich is literally impossible if you think locialy) , the nikana with slash is better in al cases.

If you run against corpus without Shield disruptor , Fragor P with impact is mostly better.

[Madame_Werewolf]

2 minutes ago, Terror-Of-Death said:

RULE OF COOL

Truth. XD

Also, am I wrong or Nikana is a bit harder to farm?

[gluih]

The stances are very different. There are quite a lot of slams in the curshing ruin combos. I would say that's a downside, because if I wanted to CC the enemy I would probably use a warframe power and it takes longer to kill when enemies fly across the room.
Also Tranquil cleave has a combo that can open up enemies to a finisher attack, which is great against high level enemies.
The Nikana stances give you more mobility. You can run up to an enemy and hit them right away, instead of having to wait for the combo to get going. This makes it much better for squishier frames.
Some players like combos, that lock you in place. You can't be CC while using these combos. I personally don't like it, because it restricts movement and you can't cancel out of them.

The fragor prime has a really strong damage stats, but it has very low attack speed and low range. Primed fury feels too slow overall and berserker is a pita to get going. Having valkyr with her warcry and going with berserker works well, but that's only on 1 frame. Yes volt also has an attack speed bonus, but he is quite squishy, so not that great for melee.
Using both fury and berserker also doesn't work all that well, because then you are sacrificing a lot of damage (usually organ shatter would be the mod that has to be dropped) or lifestrike.
I don't know exactly how attack speed in general compares between the weapon types, I wouldn't be surprised if Nikanas already made up a bit by faster compared to hammers and then the nikana has a higher than modifier and the fragor prime has a very low attack speed modifier.
The low attack speed affects both the general usability of the weapon and the DPS.

And then the Nikana deals a lot of slash damage. So when enemies don't have armor, obviously the slash damage is going to be better, than the impact.
What a lot of players don't realize however, is that against enemies with a lot of armor, slash is also better , because fof the bleeding damage. At soome point the bleed procs will be the majoriy of your damage. In an organized group you can mitigate this by using corrosive projection. For soloing and public groups, this is very relevant.

Edit: I see a lot of players arguing, that the fragor is great against shields. Often ignoring shields completely is better, especially when you are in an augmented shield sortie. You can completely bypass shields by using toxin damage and bleed procs also ignore shields. Corpus will die easily anyway, so outside of sorties, you really don't have to worry about dealing enough damage.
The basic damage isn't that important overall, unless you have slash (because of the bleed procs), because when you have the best elemental combo, that will be the majority of the damage.

Edited August 11, 2016 by gluih

[Bolis1802]

First of all, comparing Fragor P (heavy hammer) to Nikana P (katana) is pointless as those two weapons represent totaly diffrent weapon categories.

Nikana P is dealing in majority Slash damage, that is effective vs many Flesh targets. On top of that it can make target Bleed, doing even more damage. It has high critical chance and status chance. All this pros make nikana one of the strongest melee weapon now.

Fragor P is dealing in majority Impact damage, effective vs Shields. It can also stagger or knockback enemies. Has highest critical chance of all melee weapons, what makes equiping it with Blood Rush + Body Count mods very powerful. Disadvantage of this weapon is slow attack speed, but players counter this with Berserker mod.

All in all, it comes down to your preference, as well as enemies you will be fighting with. 

Check warframe wiki for more info, and decide yourself.

 

[Emeki]

Playing Fragor Prime with Speed Volt is so much fun :)
And it's crushing everything

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

9 minutes ago, Emeki said:

Playing Fragor Prime with Speed Volt is so much fun :)
And it's crushing everything

Yes it's a great red crit weapon. 

[ShortCat]

1 hour ago, ashrah said:

...and impact dmg fall off pretty fast...

 

1 hour ago, Varacal said:

it scales better i guess, with 4 cp, slash would deal more damage after all

This is not entirely true. Our weapons deal most portions of their damage with elemental combos. Two 90% elemental mods alone add more specific damage type than weapons base damage provides. Also, elemental damage usualy has higher damage multipliers. Thus, R Cernor will outdps P. Prime against armored targets, if they moded for corrosive and in the same way, because it has more base damage and possible elemental damage will overshadow its Impact nature. 

The really important numbers are total base damage, as elements will scale of it, and swing speed.

[Varacal]

44 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

 

This is not entirely true. Our weapons deal most portions of their damage with elemental combos. Two 90% elemental mods alone add more specific damage type than weapons base damage provides. Also, elemental damage usualy has higher damage multipliers. Thus, R Cernor will outdps P. Prime against armored targets, if they moded for corrosive and in the same way, because it has more base damage and possible elemental damage will overshadow its Impact nature. 

The really important numbers are total base damage, as elements will scale of it, and swing speed.

even with the appropriate elemental combos, slash would do 25% more damage to flesh while impact will do 25% less to flesh, so it would still deal more damage

[(PSN)robotwars7]

2 hours ago, xXx_mtv_xXx said:

Is it the Nikana's speed and slash damage which makes it more valuable?

you pretty much answered your own question there.

while the Fragor prime is a heavy hitter, no doubt about it, it is also dreadfully slow. most people despise slow Melee weapons, because 9 times out of 10, it's quicker to reel back and shoot them than it is to use a slow melee. only way people will usually get around this is with either Primed Fury + Berserker combo, or with a Speed Volt.

the Nikana on the other hand can be built for Crit or Status, is a slash weapon, and has higher attack speed. it's just way more versatile than the Fragor. but these two weapons are completely different in behaviour, and I'm not sure the comparison can be considered fair. ultimately I would say experiment with both and decide which you prefer. I like my two-handed Melees a lot, but IMO, Nikana is more favourable than Fragor Prime.

[SpeedOfLightPuncher]

you seem not to understand the power of the slash combined with finishers from tranquil cleave 

I love hammers but I like my nikanas and broken war too