Give Lato family a quirk to help beginners

[BrazilianJoe]

So we have the Lato, a starter weapon, with us since the beginning of the game. Sadly, it's relegated to mastery fodder, as it's overpowered by the vast majority (all?) weapons.

I'd like to propose a little change, adding to it a secondary effect which will help out beginner players. 

Proposed changes: 

Rename current Lato to MKI-Lato. No changes necessary to weapon stats, it's already a wet noodle weapon. It also fits the Vor's Prize quest, all other weapons are MKI.
 

Reintroduce a new Lato.

All Lato family weapons would get a buff to crit damage multiplier, while retaining low crit chance. Every now and then a shot would go boom.
All Lato family would get a chance to have an enemy drop health orb on kill. Lato Prime would also get a small chance to drop energy orb. Health orb drop chance would scale, with the lowest chance being on MKI-Lato. 

Add Lato Vandal in the login rewards at 365 days!

Why these changes?

1. As said already, Vor's Prize's weapons are MKI, except for the Lato. Lato is arguably on MKI level of power. 

2. More crit damage multiplier makes it interesting that the weapon sometimes destroys an enemy, which never gets old.

3. The health orb drop chance doesn't exist on any weapon (so far). It would be a great asset for beginner players, which are ususally on low level and don't have many leveled-up weapons. Lato with health orb drop chance on kill would be a helping hand for beginners. 

4. It would be nice to give us access to the Lato Vandal, I feel a 1-year reward would be a good fit. 

 

[Insizer]

why? The Lato was not intended to be weapon people used for long. The crit damage buff is one thing, but the health orb thing is way too much and makes no sense.

[ArcticMantis]

If anything the health orb drop chance should be higher on the MK1 imo.

Besides that I think crit chance might not be the stat to buff on a beginner weapon. A starting player will think the weapon is very inconsistent and might not be aware of being able to increase the crit chance via mods. Heck I've met a Mastery rank 14 player who has been using "auto-install" for all his weapons/frames until I managed to convince him that it did not optimize his builds at all. Maybe something more logical to a fresh new player.

Something like an equal amount of damage for each dmg type: puncture, impact, slash. Making it viable to all factions a new player will come up against

On the other hand the whole idea of Warframe and its progression system is trying out new weapons and I don't think new players will hold on to the (MK1)Lato for very long anyway

Edited November 20, 2016 by ArcticMantis

[RunningTree3]

My opinion on the starter weapons having a "quirk" is that they can already be bought with credits fully-built from the market. This certainly helped me when I first started to quickly experience different weapons and their play-styles.

I would foresee that the expansion and development of the Riven mod system might also revivify the entirety of the game's arsenal.

[NinjaZeku]

23 minutes ago, ArcticMantis said:

Besides that I think crit chance might not be the stat to buff on a beginner weapon.
A starting player will think the weapon is very inconsistent and might not be aware of being able to increase the crit chance via mods.

Crit multiplier.
Rewarding new players for (not just Bow) headshots seems like a good idea to me,
and having damage spikes from rare "regular" crits might show them how potent Crit builds can be.

[AlphaPHENIX]

Just a reminder.

The Lato AND the Skana are the only starting weapons not named ''MK-1''

Edited November 20, 2016 by AlphaPHENIX

[Zookes]

Sometimes I desire reasons to use my potatolato seriously, but it becomes less of a funny joke like this...

Difficult decision.