DE- Buff the corrupted weapon mods! It might solve a lot of problems.

[Impulse_Nine]

I'm glad to see I'm not alone in feeling like Serration (and equivalents) are not good mods. I really hope the flat +dmg mods are either reworked or revoked- but if maybe that's not on the cards (no pun intended), to you, DE, I'd like to make a specific shout out for better and more corrupted weapon mods.

Simply put, Serration usually isn't a choice, but Heavy Caliber often *is*.

I realised the other day the reason I enjoy modding warframes so much more than weapons is because the corrupted mods for Warframes are very powerful, both in what they give and take. The usual formula tends to be that the Corrupted version of a mod is about 2-3 times as powerful as its normal counterpart, but that is paid for by a debuff of another quality at roughly 1.5-2 times its own non-corrupted type (e.g. Blind Rage is a tad over 3 Intensifies, but costs 2 Streamlines). This has the additional benefit of making them usually unhelpful if you want to use all at once- incentivising you to focus on one thing at the expense of another.

The system that comes out of it is really good I think.

So weapons have corrupted mods too but they skip this formula. Critical Delay has nothing on Point Strike. Vile Precision may allow a Grakata to reliably headshot, but so does its non-debuffing equivalent- Stabiliser. Magnum force has the aim debuff right but the +dmg buff wrong by a factor of at least 2, arguably more.

I mention the corrupted weapon mods specifically because it should be both pretty quick and easy to make good, neigh, great, changes- yet would also do a lot to open up *choice* when modding weapons. All without needing to delete existing mods. Hopefully that covers all the bases between cost of changes, benefit of gameplay, and respect to veteran players, so I really hope you consider it.

To be clear, I would like to see Corrupted Weapon mods in the same way I see Corrupted Warframe Mods. Sometimes I will run Narrow minded without Primed Continuity. Sometimes I will use Fleeting Expertise but not Streamline. I would never use Critical Delay without first adding Point strike. I would never use Heavy Caliber without already having Serration added. Through balancing (and perhaps a little more power creep, oh well!) this could stop Hornet Strike / Serration / etc... from being essentially mandatory- without deleting content.

Of course we still need easy access to powerful enemies to use these wonderful weapons on- but that's a different conversation for a different post. Hope you find this helpful.

[icecream011]

I have to disagree.

Take Heavy Caliber, a mod which increases damage while decreasing accuracy. For a mod that only decreases accuracy by 55% max, it is already unusable on a lot of weapons. Just try putting HC on the Javlok and have fun hitting enemies. Even weapons that have 100% accuracy can't use HC, because it decreases the accuracy to single digit numbers for some odd reason. So, the only weapons left that can use this are weapons that are not affected by accuracy like the Simulor and Ignis, or weapons that have a high base accuracy like the Soma (somewhere in the high 20s-30s), where the decrease in accuracy is manageable. So, what if DE "buffed" corrupted weapon mods like Heavy Caliber? What would it look like?

Lets add 5 extra levels to HC for testing sake:

One level increases the positive stat by 15% and decreases the negative stat by 5%

So, 15*5=75 and 5*5=25

With 5 extra levels, HC would have +240% dmg, and -80% accuracy. Please enlighten me which weapon would be usable with -80% accuracy besides the Simulor and the Ignis. Corrupted mods are a give and take system, you cannot take more than you give. Sure, you can increase the additional damage, but you'll also have to decrease the accuracy. DE couldn't (famous last words) lighten the load of the negative stats while increasing the strength of the positive stats, that would go against the concept of corrupted mods.

Corrupted mods work well on frames because of how each ability works. The abilities that you build for do not require all four power stats. On average, each ability only requires two stats to be useful. With weapons however, every stat is important. You can't use a Soma and expect to hit targets from far away if you only have 5-6 accuracy.

In conclusion, Corrupted mods are in a fine place and do not need to be changed. Yes, it is annoying and repetitive to assign slots for Hornet Strike, Serration, Point Blank, etc, but changing the way Corrupted mods work with weapons will only perpetuate the problem.

[Tyrian3k]

It would be great if we had to choose between a regular mod and a more powerful corrupted one, but instead, we usually can just take both.

[Impulse_Nine]

3 hours ago, icecream011 said:

So, what if DE "buffed" corrupted weapon mods like Heavy Caliber? What would it look like?

...

Corrupted mods work well on frames because of how each ability works. The abilities that you build for do not require all four power stats. On average, each ability only requires two stats to be useful. With weapons however, every stat is important. You can't use a Soma and expect to hit targets from far away if you only have 5-6 accuracy.

...

In conclusion, Corrupted mods are in a fine place and do not need to be changed.

You aren't quite consistent there, you're implying in one paragraph that most of them are unusable most of the time but then finishing by saying they are in a fine place. I agree most are unusable most of the time but a fine place would be where they are usable -right?

It's true that abilities and weapons are different however you're quite wrong in saying all stats on a weapon are important. Halving the clip size of the Soma for instance would have very little effect on its performance, however halving the clip size of the Tigris would dramatically inhibit it. Like you yourself point out, the additional damage given by Heavy Caliber often does not offset the aim debuff- but on some weapons, it does. Likewise most sensible Loki builds focus on duration- but because of Narrow Minded- that means that the question with Loki is usually "How much range do I need given what other mods/augments I want".

That's the sort of question I like answering, and I would like to be faced with when picking weapon mods.

You ask for an example, and I admit the maths does have to be a little different for existing weapons because of existing mods. I haven't run the maths (that would be DE's job) so you'll have to excuse me if this example horribly breaks several weapons or two but suppose something like

Critical Delay: +300% Crit Chance, -50% Rate of Fire.

This should allow many crit weapons to reliably Red Crit, which will double their end damage, but will also halve their fire rate halving their flat out end damage. This will be partially balanced by Shred, but can be completely negated by Speed trigger. Doing that uses an extra mod slot though, which are especially short on Crit-focussed builds. Halving the fire rate affects different weapons differently too. The recoil, combo counter, and small clip of most sniper rifles make high rates of fire less helpful than the maths implies. Likewise the power of an Amprex is very directly tied to how quickly it can empty its charge.

 

And this is my fundamental point- however bad my above example would actually be (do the actual maths on that at your own peril)- as we see with Warframes, Strong buffs linked to Strong nerfs make for interesting choices when it comes to mod selection. I think that's a good way of getting Serration down from a usage rate of what must be around 100% -if it isn't going to be removed as a mod, which I gather it isn't.

[icecream011]

3 hours ago, Impulse_Nine said:

You aren't quite consistent there, you're implying in one paragraph that most of them are unusable most of the time but then finishing by saying they are in a fine place. I agree most are unusable most of the time but a fine place would be where they are usable -right?

It's true that abilities and weapons are different however you're quite wrong in saying all stats on a weapon are important. Halving the clip size of the Soma for instance would have very little effect on its performance, however halving the clip size of the Tigris would dramatically inhibit it. Like you yourself point out, the additional damage given by Heavy Caliber often does not offset the aim debuff- but on some weapons, it does. Likewise most sensible Loki builds focus on duration- but because of Narrow Minded- that means that the question with Loki is usually "How much range do I need given what other mods/augments I want".

That's the sort of question I like answering, and I would like to be faced with when picking weapon mods.

You ask for an example, and I admit the maths does have to be a little different for existing weapons because of existing mods. I haven't run the maths (that would be DE's job) so you'll have to excuse me if this example horribly breaks several weapons or two but suppose something like

Critical Delay: +300% Crit Chance, -50% Rate of Fire.

This should allow many crit weapons to reliably Red Crit, which will double their end damage, but will also halve their fire rate halving their flat out end damage. This will be partially balanced by Shred, but can be completely negated by Speed trigger. Doing that uses an extra mod slot though, which are especially short on Crit-focussed builds. Halving the fire rate affects different weapons differently too. The recoil, combo counter, and small clip of most sniper rifles make high rates of fire less helpful than the maths implies. Likewise the power of an Amprex is very directly tied to how quickly it can empty its charge.

 

And this is my fundamental point- however bad my above example would actually be (do the actual maths on that at your own peril)- as we see with Warframes, Strong buffs linked to Strong nerfs make for interesting choices when it comes to mod selection. I think that's a good way of getting Serration down from a usage rate of what must be around 100% -if it isn't going to be removed as a mod, which I gather it isn't.

 

 

First of all, thank you for pointing out my inconsistencies. I completely overlooked them while rereading.

My argument was that OP wanted corrupted weapon mods to be buffed, but in doing so it would make the mods unusable. As I stated, the +damage stat on HC increases by 15% for every level, and the -accuracy stat decreases by 5% every level. For example sake, if HC could be leveled 15 times, you would get a total of +240% damage, and -80% accuracy (based off how the stats change per mod level). The extra damage would make a world of difference, but it would force you to have to get right next to your enemies to consistently hit them. The problem is, if you have to get extremely close in order to not miss the majority of your shots, why not just use a shotgun or your melee weapon? Rifles, not sniper rifles, are capable of short, medium, and long range combat. Having a mod like a r15 HC would not be interesting or fun, because it limits you to short range combat. Same thing applies to other mods like Vile Acceleration. If Vile Acceleration had 5 extra levels, meaning you could level a total of 10 times, sure, you'd get +180% firerate, but you would do 30% less damage. Sure, dumping an entire clip of Grakata in less than 2 seconds would be hilarious, but considering how low it's base damage is, it wouldn't be practical.

As I asked, what if DE were to increase the good stats but weaken the bad stats? What if, just for example, HC did +240% dmg but -25% accuracy. Obviously, this would make HC desirable on all weapons because -25% accuracy is nothing compared to -55%.

By doing this, DE wouldn't be solving the problem of every weapon having the same mods, they would just be perpetuating it. +240% damage with -25% accuracy is not interesting or unique. If anything, HC would just become another "meta tier" mod.

So, you're left with either a undesirable mod for the rifle class, or you have an unbalanced mod which only adds to the issue at hand. Going back to what I said before, I still stand by the fact all stats are needed for a weapon to be useful. Sure, halving the Soma mag size won't make a noticeable difference, but if you halve the Amprex's mag size, you enter undesirable territory. The bullets from the Soma pack a punch, therefore going from 100 to 50 or 200 to 100 would be manageable. But take the Amprex, a weapon that relies on how fast it fires (as you stated) and half it's mag size, you essentially half it's DPS.

So, just as I finished the my first post, the answers you are looking for are not in corrupted mods, but more so in the damage system.