Cernos Prime Feedback

[Gelkor]

1 minute ago, Qianna said:

Started using speed mods prior to TWW, and less so rely on the animation to be an indicator (that I have in the center of my screen anyway).

Ah, I have trouble seeing the indicator usually when I'm in the thick of things, lots of graphical noise, watching the arm has always been an easy way for me to see, but now I cant do it and I worry they won't ever fix the bug. 

[Synitare]

The damage of the bow is not split between each arrow, but rather split between the original three, and then duplicated for any multishot arrows. For example, with no multishot and just point strike and serration, each arrow deals ~300 damage to a level 130 arid lancer. Putting Split Chamber in, each arrow still does ~300 damage. This doesn't really change it from being one of the worst bows in the game, but it's not quite as bad as some people think.

Having split damage, damage falloff and a ridiculous charge time all on the weapon just makes it nearly unusable. The fact that the arrows split does not compensate for all of the negatives it has. Especially when a Rakta Cernos with the same mods (Serration, point strike and split chamber) deals almost as much damage (~1200 damage, vs a combined 1500-1800 for the prime), but 4 times faster, at much further range and with no falloff.

The damage falloff needs to be removed entirely. Shotguns shouldn't be able to deal more damage at longer ranges than bows. After this, either the charge time needs to be reduced, or the damage of each arrow needs to be the full amount rather than split. Otherwise this is going to be Primed Mastery Fodder, which is a real pity since it looks pretty damn great.

Alternatively you could just let me use the Cernos Prime skin on my Rakta. Then I could have an actually good bow that also looks great.

 

Edited November 23, 2016 by Synitare
Words

[Hetral]

i got a simple idea, how to improve cernos prime (could be done for artemis bow as well): charge the bow to get a SINGLE shot with the damage combined, uncharged shots do the horizontal spray. IMO, this would be the best deal.

[Gelkor]

41 minutes ago, Synitare said:

The damage of the bow is not split between each arrow, but rather split between the original three, and then duplicated for any multishot arrows. For example, with no multishot and just point strike and serration, each arrow deals ~300 damage to a level 130 arid lancer. Putting Split Chamber in, each arrow still does ~300 damage. This doesn't really change it from being one of the worst bows in the game, but it's not quite as bad as some people think.

Technically, as far as the calculated damage of "per arrow" you divide the listed damage in the arsenal by the total multishot chance. This means with no split chamber you divide by 3, with Split Chamber, you notice your listed damage goes up by 90%, this means you divide the listed damage by 5.7, the cumulative multishot you have with innate 3x multishot multiplied by Split Chamber's 1.9 multi shot.

We need to have multishot listed as an aresenal stat, it would make much of this less confusing.

[Synitare]

2 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Technically, as far as the calculated damage of "per arrow" you divide the listed damage in the arsenal by the total multishot chance. This means with no split chamber you divide by 3, with Split Chamber, you notice your listed damage goes up by 90%, this means you divide the listed damage by 5.7, the cumulative multishot you have with innate 3x multishot multiplied by Split Chamber's 1.9 multi shot.

We need to have multishot listed as an aresenal stat, it would make much of this less confusing.

Yeah that's a lot of math I didn't feel like thinking about at the time. I'm just going based on what I found in testing. I was curious how the damage was actually split on the thing, so I tested it and came to those results. The damage between 3 arrows and 6 arrows is consistently the same. But again, the bow is still terrible in its current state. It's not even a "sidegrade" as people are claiming. It's just a bad weapon.

[Gelkor]

Just now, Synitare said:

Yeah that's a lot of math I didn't feel like thinking about at the time. I'm just going based on what I found in testing. I was curious how the damage was actually split on the thing, so I tested it and came to those results. The damage between 3 arrows and 6 arrows is consistently the same. But again, the bow is still terrible in its current state. It's not even a "sidegrade" as people are claiming. It's just a bad weapon.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. Functionally, it's identical to Artemis Bow in a lot of ways, sharing its strengths and it's weaknesses.

The most important being that it is not hindered whatsoever by Heavy Caliber.

Another strength being, of course, the ability to hit multiple enemies side by side. The corresponding weakness it shares is that the arrows lack innate enemy punch through. While they have terrain punch through, they cannot be used to skewer multiple enemies in a straight line without punch through mods. This is the trade off in functionality. 

I'm having great success using it with this in mind, in the areas in which I would use Artemis bow, but on other frames where I may need to perform a role with that frame. I wont use it for everything, to be sure, but it's another tool of equal value IMO for different practical purposes.

One thing the bow is perfect for, is being a bow for Ivara. Artemis bow usually needs a bit of fire rate increase, and takes great advantage of maxed heavy caliber. Two mods that would otherwise be kinda terrible to put on, say, the Rakta Cernos, are necessary for the Cernos Prime. This means you don't have a discrepancy between moding for your primary and moding for your exalted weapon, which can make a big difference.

[ashrah]

we have lot cluster wepon its not first... nice xp

[Synitare]

7 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

I wouldn't necessarily say that. Functionally, it's identical to Artemis Bow in a lot of ways, sharing its strengths and it's weaknesses.

The most important being that it is not hindered whatsoever by Heavy Caliber.

Another strength being, of course, the ability to hit multiple enemies side by side. The corresponding weakness it shares is that the arrows lack innate enemy punch through. While they have terrain punch through, they cannot be used to skewer multiple enemies in a straight line without punch through mods. This is the trade off in functionality. 

I'm having great success using it with this in mind, in the areas in which I would use Artemis bow, but on other frames where I may need to perform a role with that frame. I wont use it for everything, to be sure, but it's another tool of equal value IMO for different practical purposes.

One thing the bow is perfect for, is being a bow for Ivara. Artemis bow usually needs a bit of fire rate increase, and takes great advantage of maxed heavy caliber. Two mods that would otherwise be kinda terrible to put on, say, the Rakta Cernos, are necessary for the Cernos Prime. This means you don't have a discrepancy between moding for your primary and moding for your exalted weapon, which can make a big difference.

It's similar to Artemis, but not identical. Artemis deals full damage on each arrow, has zero falloff, its damage isn't effected by charge time, and you can change the orientation of the arrow fan.

Having mods that are required to make a weapon viable isn't really a positive aspect. I'd rather just have the base weapon be useful, then be free to mod it however I like. The bow isn't even good for Ivara though, since again it's only useful at extremely short ranges. Why would I bother to even charge the thing up when I can just stay in Artemis Bow and deal actual real damage to things from further away than 4 meters?

It could be a decent bow, but like I said originally, there are just far too many negatives to it to make it worth using. Naturally there are going to be some people that will use it regardless, simply because they like the gimmick of it. That doesn't make it any less bad. This isn't even really just opinion. Raw numbers, the bow underperforms in every aspect.

[DarcnyssWolfe]

Reading comments here had a theory confirmed that I haven't had time to test yet. IF the bow truly does have actually damage drop off, it is by far the worst bow we have. The thing needs fast hands and vile for a decent rof (2), critical modding (2), add in the two staples (dmg/multi) and you have room for heavy can and riven or two elementals. After all that your only doing 1/3 damage an arrow BEFORE the damage drops off... So we have a slow firing shotgun bow meant for close range but greatly out preformed outside close range and decently out preformed in close range by most other bows.

Sound like an awesome worthwhile prime...

[hukurokuju5]

why the heck does it have fall off damage.... if status was higher i could see why.... but even then...

Edited November 23, 2016 by hukurokuju5

[Sasquatchias]

Personally I think a decent compromise would be to make the Split-Arrow thing an Alt-Fire mode or something, similar to how the Zarr transitions between a cannon and shotgun or Stradivar and it's auto / semi-auto modes, with the single arrow / shot mode having all it's damage on one arrow (like the other bows) and the multi-arrow mode functioning as it does now with damage spread between the separate arrows.

This way the Cernos Prime can keep it's unique fire mode to give it a big difference over other Bows (most of which have some sort of significant upside to them individually, like Rakta Cernos's draw speed) but can also fare just as well situations outside of crowd fights, such as trying to pick off a lone guy at a longer range (which is hard to do considering the spread and such.)

[Gelkor]

1 hour ago, Synitare said:

It's similar to Artemis, but not identical. Artemis deals full damage on each arrow, has zero falloff, its damage isn't effected by charge time, and you can change the orientation of the arrow fan.

Having mods that are required to make a weapon viable isn't really a positive aspect. I'd rather just have the base weapon be useful, then be free to mod it however I like. The bow isn't even good for Ivara though, since again it's only useful at extremely short ranges. Why would I bother to even charge the thing up when I can just stay in Artemis Bow and deal actual real damage to things from further away than 4 meters?

It could be a decent bow, but like I said originally, there are just far too many negatives to it to make it worth using. Naturally there are going to be some people that will use it regardless, simply because they like the gimmick of it. That doesn't make it any less bad. This isn't even really just opinion. Raw numbers, the bow underperforms in every aspect.

Agreed, it doesn't have some of the perks of Artemis, which is a shame. One question, where are you getting damage falloff on Cernos Prime? I've been testing and using it since yesterday and see no damage falloff. The arrows have a slower flight speed than Artemis, more in line with regular bow flight speed, but that's all I'm seeing. Daikyu and Artemis have an insane straight line flight speed that is really accurate, but if you are used to regular bow's it's a little jarring. 

The fact that the Cernos Prime can use Heavy caliber isn't a negative, that's like saying that a crit weapon being able to take advantage of bladed rounds is a negative. You take what would have been a third element on the cernos prime, a +90% element damage, and replace it with +165% base damage (which increases the damage of the other 2 elements and the rest), I don't call that a negative. That's like saying that because all weapons need serration means they aren't viable.

Idunno, I think it already is a decent bow, and performs well at scoring headshots on multiple enemies up to and in sortie level. I wouldn't mind a slight bump in one or two stats across the board, but I think when modded well it can perform well. It just can't modded exactly like people mod the Rakta Cernos or the Dread. Just like the Daikyu can't be modded exactly like the Paris Prime or the Dread. Just like the Soma Prime and the Braton Prime can't be modded exactly the same.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Gelkor

[Xebov]

35 minutes ago, DarcnyssWolfe said:

Reading comments here had a theory confirmed that I haven't had time to test yet. IF the bow truly does have actually damage drop off, it is by far the worst bow we have. The thing needs fast hands and vile for a decent rof (2), critical modding (2), add in the two staples (dmg/multi) and you have room for heavy can and riven or two elementals. After all that your only doing 1/3 damage an arrow BEFORE the damage drops off... So we have a slow firing shotgun bow meant for close range but greatly out preformed outside close range and decently out preformed in close range by most other bows.

Sound like an awesome worthwhile prime...

Im not sure about the damage dropoff. From my feeling i would say it has no dropping damage at range. What it has is indirect damage dropoff with less arrows hitting the further the target is away.

 

2 minutes ago, Sasquatch180 said:

Personally I think a decent compromise would be to make the Split-Arrow thing an Alt-Fire mode or something, similar to how the Zarr transitions between a cannon and shotgun or Stradivar and it's auto / semi-auto modes, with the single arrow / shot mode having all it's damage on one arrow (like the other bows) and the multi-arrow mode functioning as it does now with damage spread between the separate arrows.

This is not a compromise, this is a must have.

[White_Matter]

I've been playing around for a while. Only 2 forma so far. It is definitely inferior to Rakta cernos. Unless of course you land all of your shots on a large enemy from close range, which doesn't happen very often. Most of your shots miss because the weapons accuracy and flight speed is pretty bad(making it almost completely useless in long range). You don't want to use a charge weapon in close quarters as well, so I geniunely think this weapon was poorly thought out by DE and will likely get buffed/change in the very near future.

 

[Synitare]

18 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Agreed, it doesn't have some of the perks of Artemis, which is a shame. One question, where are you getting damage falloff on Cernos Prime? I've been testing and using it since yesterday and see no damage falloff. The arrows have a slower flight speed than Artemis, more in line with regular bow flight speed, but that's all I'm seeing. Daikyu and Artemis have an insane straight line flight speed that is really accurate, but if you are used to regular bow's it's a little jarring. 

The fact that the Cernos Prime can use Heavy caliber isn't a negative, that's like saying that a crit weapon being able to take advantage of bladed rounds is a negative. You take what would have been a third element on the cernos prime, a +90% element damage, and replace it with +165% base damage (which increases the damage of the other 2 elements and the rest), I don't call that a negative. That's like saying that because all weapons need serration means they aren't viable.

Idunno, I think it already is a decent bow, and performs well at scoring headshots on multiple enemies up to and in sortie level. I wouldn't mind a slight bump in one or two stats across the board, but I think when modded well it can perform well. It just can't modded exactly like people mod the Rakta Cernos or the Dread. Just like the Daikyu can't be modded exactly like the Paris Prime or the Dread. Just like the Soma Prime and the Braton Prime can't be modded exactly the same.

That it can use Heavy Caliber it isn't a negative, definitely. The negative is that it requires it. The Cernos Prime not only needs Serration, but it also needs Heavy Caliber. It's not an option if you actually want the weapon to even pretend to keep up. I'd rather have the choice; do I want to use it, or would I rather go for something like more utility? The build right now for Cernos Prime is basically Serration, Point Strike, Split Chamber, Heavy Caliber, At least one fire rate mod, and a crit damage mod. That leaves only three slots open for actual choice. I'd prefer to be able to drop Heavy Caliber AND the fire rate and be able to utilize the 5 mod slots however I choose.

The weapon can be decent if you mod in a very specific way and play in a very specific way. This isn't the sign of a well balanced weapon. I like that they went a different direction with the prime weapons this time rather than just making them outright stronger than other weapons, but the Cernos Prime misses its mark entirely. Something needs to change for it to actually be able to compete with other bows. The really sad thing is that I'm fairly certain that the regular old Cernos deals more damage per shot than the Prime does. I'll have to test it when I get home.

The damage falloff thing might be incorrect, but it seemed like each shot was dealing less damage the further away I was from an enemy. Granted I tested it at 2am and I wasn't exactly entirely awake, so that might be mistaken.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Synitare

[Gelkor]

4 minutes ago, Synitare said:

That it can use Heavy Caliber it isn't a negative, definitely. The negative is that it requires it. The Cernos Prime not only needs Serration, but it also needs Heavy Caliber. It's not an option if you actually want the weapon to even pretend to keep up. I'd rather have the choice; do I want to use it, or would I rather go for something like more utility? The build right now for Cernos Prime is basically Serration, Point Strike, Split Chamber, Heavy Caliber, At least one fire rate mod, and a crit damage mod. That leaves only three slots open for actual choice. I'd prefer to be able to drop Heavy Caliber AND the fire rate and be able to utilize the 5 mod slots however I choose.

The weapon can be decent if you mod in a very specific way and play in a very specific way. This isn't the sign of a well balanced weapon. I like that they went a different direction with the prime weapons this time rather than just making them outright stronger than other weapons, but the Cernos Prime misses its mark entirely. Something needs to change for it to actually be able to compete with other bows. The really sad thing is that I'm fairly certain that the regular old Cernos deals more damage per shot than the Prime does. I'll have to test it when I get home.

The damage falloff thing might be incorrect, but it seemed like each shot was dealing less damage the further away I was from an enemy. Granted I tested it at 2am and I wasn't exactly entirely awake, so that might be mistaken.

Well, if you are far away there is a greater likelyhood that only one arrow will hit a target. Commonly at medium range I get 2 or three arrows to headshot a single target, at long range is the only time I get one arrow. That may be the source of the perceived damage falloff. I did a lot of testing of hitting things with just one arrow in simalacrum though, to determine how the damage is split, and at all ranges the damage for one arrow was the same. 

[Synitare]

2 minutes ago, Gelkor said:

Well, if you are far away there is a greater likelyhood that only one arrow will hit a target. Commonly at medium range I get 2 or three arrows to headshot a single target, at long range is the only time I get one arrow. That may be the source of the perceived damage falloff. I did a lot of testing of hitting things with just one arrow in simalacrum though, to determine how the damage is split, and at all ranges the damage for one arrow was the same. 

I meant per arrow. I'll test it again tonight. It's entirely possible that I had different mods on or some other factor was at play when I was doing the range testing.

[Kalvorax]

4 hours ago, Gelkor said:

Multishot increases your paper damage by 90% meaning each arrow does 1/5.7 of the total paper damage, or 1/3 of the paper damage if you took Split Chamber off. The damage per arrow done does not change when you equip Split Chamber.  Yes the damage gets split. But this is not a new concept in bows at all. It is exactly Artemis bow but at half power, using the same principles, this means you can use max Heavy Caliber with no drawback.

See my merged post here:

 

Why would they ever? The instant vertical fire is a very useful ability for the weapon, most enemies are humanoid, meaning they have a vertical silhouette. If you need to kill something that is at close to medium range instantly, just tap the fire key while aiming at their mid-section and boom, 14 arrows into one target. 

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I mean more like hold option on 4 to choose the default charging mode...press 4 for vertical > horizontal, Hold 4 for horizontal > vertical. There are MANY times where I need horizantal fire over vertical fire and the charge time even with proper mods is still long enough that you cant just fire fire fire.

[Gelkor]

12 minutes ago, xcynderx said:

I mean more like hold option on 4 to choose the default charging mode...press 4 for vertical > horizontal, Hold 4 for horizontal > vertical. There are MANY times where I need horizantal fire over vertical fire and the charge time even with proper mods is still long enough that you cant just fire fire fire.

As long as it would be optional, I don't want to lose the ability to tap fire a vertical shot off at a bombard while still using horizontal fire on crouds, having to tap or hold 4 to change orientation would take way too long for the way I play and would just get me killed.

[Kalvorax]

Just now, Gelkor said:

As long as it would be optional, I don't want to lose the ability to tap fire a vertical shot off at a bombard while still using horizontal fire on crouds, having to tap or hold 4 to change orientation would take way too long for the way I play and would just get me killed.

maybe it could be her augment? though i would much prefer if it was added into the base ability.

[Xebov]

3 hours ago, Synitare said:

I meant per arrow. I'll test it again tonight. It's entirely possible that I had different mods on or some other factor was at play when I was doing the range testing.

I dont think that the damage per arrow is dropping at range, simply because bows dont have that trait. However the reduced number of arrows hitting at range drops the damage alot indirectly, on top of already nearly unusable headshots wich drop the damage in general.

[hukurokuju5]

the weapon the same problem that shotguns have : more spread >> moreprojectiles will miss >> actual damage wayyy lower than on paper

PLUS, there is a charge time and that 1 second reload time... 

 

someone compare vaykor hek dps vs cernos p.... 

Edited November 24, 2016 by hukurokuju5

[Synitare]

Did some damage testing. I stand by my assertion that the weapon is absolutely awful.

 

Results are as follows:

• Frame: Ivara
• Enemy: Level 130 Arid Lancer
• Modifiers: Sleep Arrow

 

• Weapon: Cernos Prime
• Mods: Serration, Point Strike, Vital Sense
• Headshot Crit: 679 (2037 potential if all hit head)
• Bodyshot Crit: 170 (510 potential if all hit body)
• Average (Head-Body-Body): 1010
  Spoiler

   

  • 
  • 

   

   

• Weapon: Cernos
• Mods: Serration, Point Strike, Vital Sense
• Headshot Crit: 1131
• Bodyshot Crit: 283
  Spoiler

   

  • 
  • 

   

   

• Weapon: Rakta Cernos
• Mods: Serration, Point Strike, Vital Sense
• Headshot Crit: 1413
• Bodyshot Crit: 353
  Spoiler

   

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  • 

   

   

 

Just for fun:

• Weapon: MK1 Paris - Unranked
• Mods: Serration Only
• Headshot Crit: 577
• Bodyshot Crit: 144
  Spoiler

   

  • 
  • 

   

   

Edited November 24, 2016 by Synitare

[Gelkor]

47 minutes ago, Synitare said:

Did some damage testing. I stand by my assertion that the weapon is absolutely awful.

 

Any word on the damage fall-off people keep reporting? I did more testing today and couldn't replicate it.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Gelkor

[Old--Dude]

Hello.

I have some idea about Cernos Prime.

In this new bow we have original fire mode. That mode very useful with infests and packs of low level enemies. But in stealth missions, or against very strong mobs Cernos Prime is uneffective.

I propose to make 3 several fire modes in this bow:

1. Current mode.

2. Fire mode with splitting arrows by Y axis. 

3. Standart mode with single shot and without splitting and lowest fire rate.

Switching between mods by pressing "secondary fire" key.

Edited November 24, 2016 by zsNULLsz