Mods that need to be adjusted (Why/How They Can Be)

[Ve1indian]

There are so many mods in this game that either go unused by the vast majority of players, or pale in comparison to others that do the same thing but better/have an additional statistic benefit. Throughout this post I'll be listing all the mods I can think of that either need to be improved, changed, removed, or replaced with skill based mechanics, why they need to be, and how it can be done without compromising other aspects of gameplay (including, but not limited to, other mods).

Physical Damage Mods

For starters, Physical damage mods only give an amount of damage taken from the specific damage type they improve, unlike elemental mods which scale based on combined total base damage. For example having 15/15/30 (I/P/S) damage on a weapon means that a +120% Impact or +120% Puncture mod will add 18 damage to their respective damage types, and a 120% Slash mod will add 36 to it's damage type. Meanwhile, a +90%  Elemental mod would add 54 damage to it's respective elemental type. This means that in order to have an equal raw statistical equivalency between these IPS and Elemental mods a weapon would have to have at least  75% of its physical damage on specific type. However, this would still not make them equal; as the majority of the time enemy armor and health types receive less bonus damage from IPS mods than they do from single, and especially double, element damage types.

Not only are +120% IPS event mods inferior in effectiveness most of the time, but the standard 30% physical damage mods behave the same way with a significantly lower raw statistical bonus. This makes the standard +30% physical mods completely pointless when compared to their 90% Elemental damage, 60/60 elemental (damage/status), and +120% IPS event counterparts in every scenario. These facts make the standard 30% IPS mods only useful as endo/credit fodder passed the first couple missions (if any missions at all) of the game.

One way to fix these mods while still maintaining mod variety and balance, would involve 3 things that would need be changed. All +120% IPS event mods would be converted to 90/60 (Damage/Status) mods that scale off of combined total base damage, all event IPS mods (now converted to 90/60 [Damage/Status] mods) would then be put onto the drop tables for spy missions (alongside elemental 60/60 mods), and Standard 30% IPS damage mods would be boosted up to +120% I/P/S damage scaled off of combined base damage (like how the current +90% Elemental Damage and 60/60 Elemental [Damage/Status] mods are).

The first change would give the event IPS mods a different use for IPS mod configurations, while still making them as viable as their respective standard damage increase IPS mods. The +90% IPS damage would allow them to remain viable relative to their 60/60 elemental counterparts as physical damage gains less bonus damage overall vs. enemy armor/health types. The second change would allow these new 90/60 mods to be available to the same degree as their 60/60 Elemental counterparts. The third change would allow for the standard physical mods to compete with Elemental ones by giving them slightly increased raw statistical bonuses to compensate for the overall lesser damage vs. enemy armor/health types and generally less useful status effects.

Standard Status Mods

Simply put, there's no reason why the standard status chance mods should have less of a bonus than 60/60 Elemental mods. It makes them pointless to use and essentially a waste of a mod slot as they only add +15%/30%/15%/15% (Rifle/Shotgun/Pistol/Melee) of the base status chance of the weapon to it. Meaning that even a 40% status shotgun only gains a 12% bonus to status, whilst a 60/60 mod grants 24% status alongside a decent damage increase of +60% in one element. 

One change that could work would be making them add a flat base status chance of at least 20% for each weapon type, similar to the Sobek and Supra syndicate mods. This bonus would not be scaled by status chance mods, but it would just add on top of whatever status you have achieved after the base status chance is modified by any status mods.

This change can allow more weapons to have decent status (and thus be a little more viable beyond level 50 enemies) and give already good status weapons more specific control over what procs can occur at high status chances. For example, having all 4 elemental 60/60 mods on a weapon grants it x3.4 the base status chance, but in return it makes little below half the procs one double element and the other almost half another.

For some players, having a base status increase mod would allow them to increase their proc rate with one specific element more. In case they don't want as much variance in what procs occur, but still want a high status chance weapon. For example a 30% status chance weapon with 4 60/60 mods would get a 99% status chance, but have ~40% of those procs be one double element (viral, gas, blast, corrosive, etc.), ~40% be another double element, and the remaining value be IPS procs. However, that same weapon with 2 60/60 mods, one additive status mod, and a 90% elemental damage mod, that matched the 60/60 combo, would end up having a 86% status chance with ~80% of those procs being only one double element proc. The rest of the time being IPS procs (a roughly 69% chance of the desired double elemental proc occuring; with one specific elemental damage type, and the sacrifice of 30% total elemental damage each shot [before considering multishot]).

Elemental Resistance Mods

The mods Insulation, Flame Repellent, Diamond Skin, and Antitoxin all give a slight resistance to the effects of their procs on your warframe. However, these are significantly worse than any other mod you could place on your warframe (with the minor exception of Antitoxin vs. high level infested). In order to make these worth taking up a slot on anyone's frame, they'd need to give a 100% proc resist for their respective elements at max rank (3 ranks of +25% proc resist chance). Additionally, their needs to be one for every single elemental proc a player can receive, and with some proc resists being combined into one mod (fire/blast, Bleed/Puncture, and Shock/Magnetic being those dual resist mods).

Bleed/Puncture resist would be really good to use vs. grineer on glass cannon frames, Shock/Magnetic resistance would allow for immunity to energy and shield sapping traps/Auras (useful against Corpus/certain eximi combinations), Toxin immunity would make fighting infested at close range more viable at high levels/with low hp frames, Blast/Fire resistance would make Bombards, Napalms, Scorches, etc. less of a threat by negating DoT effects and enemy specific knockdown. So each resistance mod will have benefits that warrant the mod slot, and specific instances when they can be a better choice other defensive mods (but not always better).

Knockdown Resistance and Handspring Mods

Instead of having knockdown resistance mods, there should be a timing based mechanic tied to each knockdown effect. At higher level missions in Warframe, you face a situation with enemy knockdown that falls under one of these categories: (1) Use Handspring or knockdown negating abilities and have enemy CC never be on your mind (invalidating the mechanic's existence), or (2) the moment you get hooked by an enemy or take a bombard rocket to the face and die almost instantly by every other enemy in the room (basically making any slight mistake cause instant death).

This is a major problem with the design of CC in Warframe overall. The outcomes are so binary leaving little room for small gradients of player skill to have any effect on what happens. It's either CC your enemies relentlessly, or receive that same treatment yourself. Making fights boring when you're winning and feel really unfair when you're losing due to their being no middleground. What would assist in making this feel better is to introduce more risk/reward ways of countering enemy CC, dependent on player reaction/timing proficiency.

Manic's Ground Pummel: The player will have the option to parry the Manic's swings by using the button tied to their melee block. if timed right, they will knock the Manic off and make them dissapear for a short period of time (like when they reach their damage threshold). If timed wrong, the player will receive a little extra damage and be locked out from parrying for roughly half of the animation's duration. They can attempt again to throw the manic off after that time passes. What this does is it gives the player the ability to: prevent the majority of damage (by parrying successfully early), preventing extra damage (by failing first parry and then landing the second [negating their mistake while still receiving the standard damage overall]), or likely dying by taking a lot of damage (if they take the risk and fail both parry attempts).

Scorpion/Ancient Hook: Once the player is hooked they can fire their secondary (potentially shooting the enemy who hooked them), hit their quick melee key to cut the rope (with a ui element bouncing back and forth on a bar that the player has to time correctly) and escape, or press their use key at any point to expend a small percentage of their energy (while locking out energy regen/restoration for a short period of time) to send a surge of power knocking down the enemy hooking them (freeing the player in the process).

Standard/Blast Knockdowns: Once knocked down the player can hit their roll button right as they hit the ground to recover at handspring mod speed. Additionally, they will roll in the direction they are pressing (if any). If they use their quick melee as they recover, they will do a weapon sweep (causing an impact proc to nearby enemies around them [the range effected by the weapon's size/range mods installed]).

Still more things to add, will do so in time.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Vougue
Adding new material

[NinjaKitsune56]

Every event +element/+status chance mod, besides the Cicero Crisis set, is available in Spy missions. The Cicero (toxin/status) set drops from Corrupt Vor.

[Ve1indian]

1 minute ago, NinjaKitsune56 said:

Every event +element/+status chance mod, besides the Cicero Crisis set, is available in Spy missions. The Cicero (toxin/status) set drops from Corrupt Vor.

Thanks for the info.

[NinjaKitsune56]

Just now, Vougue said:

Thanks for the info.

No problems... I had the distinct displeasure of having to farm for them... the Toxin set is positively simple in comparison.

[Skaleek]

Retribution needs to be all melee attacks, not just shield bashes. Theres one mob that shield bashes in all of warframe. Warm Coat needs innate health regen baked into it so that theres a reason to use it besides the crappy crappy bonus it gives now. The old status chance mods should be changed to additive status, like flat +15%, so you can turn low status weapons into status weapons with them. That's all that comes to mind right now.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Skaleek

[Kalvorax]

Auto-parry (the warfarme mod with the auto block chance) should be a melee D mod not a warframe mod...would be far better imo, even if its breaks attacking alot...would be great against those demented hookshot spammers. and would also add another D polarity mod :P

 

The status chance mods should all be 100% (x2 weapon base status) and cost 9 points..would be decent to use with IPS weapons if only going for a specific type (like..slash bleeds)

Edited November 24, 2016 by xcynderx

[Ve1indian]

The status chance mods should all be 100% (x2 weapon base status) and cost 9 points..would be decent to use with IPS weapons if only going for a specific type (like..slash bleeds)

Changing the cost for these mods i'll have to think about for a bit, as all changes i propose are supposed to work with one another. I don't want to change the cost values, without taking into consideration all mod adjustments before hand. I think that having a additive status would be a bit better than a 100% bonus status mod as it wouldn't give enough benefit compared to the additional extra damage 60/60 mods give. Also, having it do the same thing makes it exponentially less desirable as more 60/60 mods are added. Lessening the range of use for the mod, while also rendering it relatively useless on non-status weapons.

Edit: Added section regarding standard status mods.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Vougue

[Ve1indian]

Edit: Added 2 sections. One regarding elemental resistance mods, with the other addressing Knockdown Resist and Handspring mods.