Can a Mag Main Enlighten Me

[Blade_Wolf_16]

1 hour ago, Noamuth said:

I have a high strength low duration build that I use for Grineer.  I went with the low duration because I'm pretty mobile, and recasting Polarize before its completed its timer simply cancels the first cast.

So for me, putting +duration mods is pointless.

A high strength build make Magnetize insane as well, I think I have 226% strength which gives it a 4.52 damage multiplier, which is great fun when paired with weapons like the Sancti Tigris.  (current build has 20k slash & 13k radiation) and even though the bubble doesn't last long, it still packs a punch on explosion, and the damage multiplier shortens boss fights significantly.

But lets face it, in team play everyone is going to attack everything in and around the bubble anyway, why bother with a long duration? 

For Sorties I switch things up and drop Fracturing Crush in place of Shield Transference.  Even though Polarize does a set number for damage and armor strip, F.C. does, IIRC, 50% removal no matter what.  

Before the rework, the perfect Mag build was max damage, range and efficiency with almost no duration, but it was for Shield Polarize. Now that DE changed her only good ability to Magnetize, there is no "perfect" build. She's not brainless anymore, but still, she's a lot more complicated to use now, and if you look at the other starters (Exca and Volt), Exca is still the strongest/easiest to use.

Now, I personnaly use a Range/Duration build with only 70% Strenght. This gives to my bubbles a 10m radius and they last about 20-25 sec. This way, I can trap a bunch of enemies, shoot the bubble, use Polarize 1 or 2 times and wait until they slowly dies from the DoT or from the explosion (both scaling with the damage absorbed by the bubble). It works very well on Sentients, I was able to kill them easely with an half-modded Karak Wraith.

Alone, she's not so great, since there is not a lot of enemies and they are scattered troughout the map, but with a good team, she can be extremely usefull, both for CC and damage/debuff.

[Fast_98]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)watt4hem said:

Pull isn't a 1 hand cast (even though she uses 1 hand)

1000 replenishable shield is not useless, no really

Crush pauses people, sometimes it pauses mag's life too if not carefully used

1. Really pull ain't one handed? That sorta sucks.

2. 1000 sheild sounds nice but then I remember that armour doesn't affect it and enemies like corpus techs and scorcher only need to fire a quarter second longer at you to kill you.

3. Yeah that my problem with crush, it can be used at higher levels but really for the CC it can do it too dangerous to use as it plants you in place.

[MagPrime]

2 minutes ago, Blade_Wolf_16 said:

Before the rework, the perfect Mag build was max damage, range and efficiency with almost no duration, but it was for Shield Polarize. Now that DE changed her only good ability to Magnetize, there is no "perfect" build. She's not brainless anymore, but still, she's a lot more complicated to use now, and if you look at the other starters (Exca and Volt), Exca is still the strongest/easiest to use.

Now, I personnaly use a Range/Duration build with only 70% Strenght. This gives to my bubbles a 10m radius and they last about 20-25 sec. This way, I can trap a bunch of enemies, shoot the bubble, use Polarize 1 or 2 times and wait until they slowly dies from the DoT or from the explosion (both scaling with the damage absorbed by the bubble). It works very well on Sentients, I was able to kill them easely with an half-modded Karak Wraith.

Alone, she's not so great, since there is not a lot of enemies and they are scattered troughout the map, but with a good team, she can be extremely usefull, both for CC and damage/debuff.

I actually do well solo with my Mag, even against Sentients. 

As to your Magnetize bit, please see my bit about teammates coming over to kill everything before the timer runs out.  For some reason, just about every melee or AoE user I've teamed with are drawn to my green bubble and are determined to kill everything before the ability has time to finish. It's a waste of my time and energy to cast the ability because of it, so ivgo with a 40% duration and now it explodes before they even get there.

[Jackviator]

14 minutes ago, Fast_98 said:

I have no idea how this can be reworked.

Idea 1: Change Crush to have a MUCH faster cast time (maybe 1/4 of what it is now) + enemies affected by Crush have their HUDs scrambled and are 50% less accurate after they get back up. In addition, each enemy is affected by a temporary Puncture proc, reducing their damage for 6 seconds. (This would still allow enemies to add to the damage of Magnetize explosions if trapped in one, but increase the survivability of Mag and her squad if any affected enemies aren't currently Magnetized).

Idea 2: Scrap the ability and give her something completely different.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Jackviator

[(PSN)watt4hem]

12 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

Its like I'm Pulled to them...

Touche...

[MagPrime]

1 hour ago, Fast_98 said:

Not a mag main but just gonna give my opinion.

Her pull is good, I believe it works when you reload and it great for giving you a little breathing room.

Magnitize is an amazing ability, great for choke points and hitting high priority enemies.

Polarize sucks. It a flat value debuff, at higher levels and it not worth the cast. It also gives you  back sheild but sheilds are useless at higher levels. If I had my way with this ability I would take it damage away and make it only do % debuff to armour and sheild.

Crush... is useless. Like even at low levels it can get you killed, way to long of cast with barely any benefits. I have no idea how this can be reworked.

Pull is a great panic button but it is also hilarious to build for it and do target practice.  (yell Pull, hit 1, zoom in and shoot them as they fly through the air)

Magnetize is indeed a good ability. My two complaints with it are that the inward pull is not effected by power strength, nor can we see how much damage it has absorbed, like we can with Nyx's Absorb bubble.

Polarize is now more effective against the Grineer and rather fun to clear a room with imo.  But, I mainly use it for the overshields augment to improve survivability.

Crush has issues, yes.  Imo it shouldn't be a "ultimate" ability and I'm leaning towards a totally new power.  It does do good CC, especially with a duration build for Fracturing Crush, but it just isn't enough, in a variety of ways.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Noamuth

[nipuna]

I really like mag, especially magnetize. 

I use her when I go lua survivals, or whenever I go stalker hunting. 

This synergy could get nerved in future but I will tell you so you could enjoy it while it lasts:

Use magnetize on lvl 200+ stalker when he uses disco ball; magnetize will keep it stuck above his head and do self damage. Its a guaranteed "don't kill thyself nuke" at least for me so far. 

Hope this will give you some fun ;)

 

[Sajochi]

Picked up mag again, am not disappointed. I use a middle duration build with 200% power strength. Use pull to set enemies up, place a bubble on one and cast polarize for shields and debuffing. Crush augment is worth getting, cast while inside a magnetize bubble or with some cover to strip armor and snare enemies. 

She's more about timing but once you get that down you will become a decimating storm of destruction. Definitely a challenging frame to play.

Side note, grab a beam weapon for added lols or take a carpet bomb zhuge. You will not be disappointed.

[Blade_Wolf_16]

1 hour ago, Noamuth said:

I actually do well solo with my Mag, even against Sentients. 

As to your Magnetize bit, please see my bit about teammates coming over to kill everything before the timer runs out.  For some reason, just about every melee or AoE user I've teamed with are drawn to my green bubble and are determined to kill everything before the ability has time to finish. It's a waste of my time and energy to cast the ability because of it, so ivgo with a 40% duration and now it explodes before they even get there.

They have the right to shoot it too, and even they are all dead inside (the bubble), it will still explode, and since the explosion scales with the damage dealt to the bubble, even a low Strength build can deal massive damage with it. Also, with a decent 250% range build, the explosion has a radius of about 37.5m, wich is not bad at all. 

With this build, I have both Damage and CC, and I'm happy with that. Yes, the duration is a problem if you just want the explosion, but it's just a matter of gameplay. At least, Mag has many possible builds that are effective, unlike some Warframes that only have one or two end-game-viable builds. 

 

As for the solo thing, I agree that she can be good even without teammates. I also personnaly prefer using her to kill Sentients over any other frame, including Exca, Rhino, Chroma, etc. I just think that, unlike many other Warframes, she does not look like she was made for solo, as she can't heal nor really tank, her 3 need the Augment to be really effective for shield recovery (since the base regen is now a flat 400) otherwise it's just good for the armor debuff and her 4 is meh for CC unless you have the Augment for it or teammates to kill the enemies while they're affected. 

[Hypernaut1]

I will say though, for as slow as crush is (and for it's name).... It should have a more devastating effect.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Hypernaut1

[(PSN)rowansprite]

4 hours ago, DxAdder said:

Polarize is Base 400 damage, even at 200% power STR that's ONLY 800 damage. a waste of energy.

You could case Magnetize instead and a few rounds from your weapon of choice and kill lvl 100 units instead.

Crush ? with that casting time you will long since dead before you even chip the paint off your enemies.

 

You're forgetting something in this post:

"A drained target produces a violent outburst of magnetic energy inflicting 1x / 1.5x / 2x / 2.5x of the enemy's drained shields or armor as  Magnetic damage. The explosion will affect all enemies within a 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 meter radius of the drained target."

So imagine that 800 damage is inflicted upon an enemy that has a group of, lets say six enemies around him. You suddenly do 800 damage to him and all his allies, but he also receives (800x5x6)+800 with the same build, dealing a total of 24800 damage. That's quite a lot. Polarize can be DEADLY against clustered enemies even at lower strength, and the extra damage it will apply to Magnetize via the shards doesn't hurt either (I've managed to one-shot Sentients several times with this combo.)

Admittedly, I haven't taken Mag into much higher levels than 50, but with all that she can do, I don't see her as being a one-trick pony by any means.

Crush though... yea, Crush is just bad without its augment, and even then it's just okay. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by (PS4)rowansprite

[MagPrime]

14 minutes ago, Blade_Wolf_16 said:

They have the right to shoot it too, and even they are all dead inside (the bubble), it will still explode, and since the explosion scales with the damage dealt to the bubble, even a low Strength build can deal massive damage with it. Also, with a decent 250% range build, the explosion has a radius of about 37.5m, wich is not bad at all. 

With this build, I have both Damage and CC, and I'm happy with that. Yes, the duration is a problem if you just want the explosion, but it's just a matter of gameplay. At least, Mag has many possible builds that are effective, unlike some Warframes that only have one or two end-game-viable builds. 

 

As for the solo thing, I agree that she can be good even without teammates. I also personnaly prefer using her to kill Sentients over any other frame, including Exca, Rhino, Chroma, etc. I just think that, unlike many other Warframes, she does not look like she was made for solo, as she can't heal nor really tank, her 3 need the Augment to be really effective for shield recovery (since the base regen is now a flat 400) otherwise it's just good for the armor debuff and her 4 is meh for CC unless you have the Augment for it or teammates to kill the enemies while they're affected. 

Where did I ever post that they dont have a "right" to fire at the bubble?  I've been consistently saying that they go out of their way to invalidate the abilities purpose, so I simply operate on a much lower duration to get some rewarding use out of it.

And I'm well aware of how Magentize works, I have several builds that work around varying use of it.

[SenorClipClop]

6 hours ago, (PS4)Akuma_Asura_ said:

What is mag good at ? I don't wanna just disregard her & call her useless because obviously I just don't know how to play her, soo what does a mag main do ?

First off, points to you Tenno, for not trashing and disregarding a Warframe just because they are unclear to you. I know far too many players that are dismissive like this. Mag is my most-played Warframe (initially my starter, left her alone for awhile, picked her back up after the rework and fell in love all over again), and I'm always happy to talk about her to those who are curious.

The big consideration with Mag is that her damage is potent, but pretty stationary. For this reason, I basically never take her on constantly moving missions like Exterminate and prefer to play her when I can hunker down, in missions like Survival, Interception, Defense etc. (Exception: Hijack, as Polarize will excuse the squad from needing to stop the payload to recharge shields.)  She functions as a "control mage", locking down and damaging specific zones on the map. When playing Mag, what I'm damaging is often surpassed in importance by where I'm directing my damage. My common plays revolve around tagging a target with 2 when they're in a good spot, then directing my damage and enemy damage into the bubble. I wait for the timer to hit zero, then ensure (with use of 1 and 4) as many enemies are in range as possible, then 2 explodes for massive damage. I use 3 as a support move for the squad, or as a proactive measure against a new wave when I have the blue stuff to spare.

One of Mag's biggest weaknesses is her high dependence on Energy: all her costs are fairly high, though there are some workarounds. In the early levels, killing things with Pull will net you back some Energy. In later levels when this is no longer viable, you can either A) stack on the energy regen tactics, or B) become more careful with power usage. If you're frugal, you almost never need to spam with Mag. (Though in Corpus Excavation Sorties, your squad might end up asking you to.) I personally never hit Polarize more than once in a while unless I'm feeling really bold. In crazy levels it's meant to weaken defenses, not strip them entirely. In regard to 2, it become very easy to tag too many things and wear down your energy without trapping many enemies. To solve this, I usually build for Duration and weaken enemies with the DoT effect (which scales upward on longer-timed bubbles). Also, I am very considerate about the sphere's location whenever I can be, and I rarely ever have more than two of them going at once. Often where is my most important decision when I play Mag, and good ability placement can save me a lot of energy.

My favorite thing about Mag is how versatile her build can be. I regularly change around my Duration and Range stats based on how tanky the enemies in a mission are and how big the rooms in a mission are, respectively. That and the playstyle I've grown accustomed to, always moving, hopping into, out of and around my Magnetize zones to ensure all kinds of CC and damage.

Mag is not fun for everyone, but some of us really dig how she works. If you don't dig Mag, no hard feelings. If you're into it though, I happily welcome you to a new "frame" of mind (sorry).

Edited February 21, 2017 by SenorClipClop

[FreezerFlare]

She Camps hallways with Magnetise in one build and provides CC (That Frost and Rhino Provide Better may I add) In another build.

[MagPrime]

5 minutes ago, FreezerFlare said:

She Camps hallways with Magnetise in one build and provides CC (That Frost and Rhino Provide Better may I add) In another build.

There is always a 'frame that does something better, what's your point?

[DatDarkOne]

5 hours ago, aligatorno said:

She's the best at creating chock point. You can easily secure doorways, hallways, and on with her by applying Magnetize on an enemy. She can also use the bubble for defense being immune to anything but melee while she's in there most of the time. 

With her polarize she's quite powerful against shielded corpus because not only does she drain their shield, but it also makes them explode damaging enemies near them. For Grinner she stripes their armor, allowing for better damage.  Its augment works best against corpus because the bonus shields that you get are affected by the shields you destroy. 

Her pull is really nice for quick CC, its force is determined by powerstrenght,  so low power strenght Mag only puts them on the ground, a high power strenght mag ragdolls them providing a bit more time to get out of the situation before they recover .

Her Crush with a bit of range is a decent enough CC, but it can easily kill you if you cast it in the wrong place because of its long cast time. I should invest a forma in her to be able to put an exilus as well, but i`m too lazy for that atm. 

 

This is the build that I use most of the time + max Zenurik regen

It gives me a pretty decent balance between her powers, Polarize travels just enough, Magnetize is big enough for doorways  and doesn't last too long. Pull cc-s decent enough, and Crush is quite ok. 

Your build is very close to mine. I gave her a bit more power str while sacrificing some more duration. Pair her with the Galatine Prime and utilize her Pull and Crush to just cause havok. LifeStrike and/Healing Return to heal while meleeing. My method for Mag isn't like others but it works for me and is very satisfying. :D

[MagPrime]

16 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

Your build is very close to mine. I gave her a bit more power str while sacrificing some more duration. Pair her with the Galatine Prime and utilize her Pull and Crush to just cause havok. LifeStrike and/Healing Return to heal while meleeing. My method for Mag isn't like others but it works for me and is very satisfying. :D

Interesting, mind giving me some pointers some time?  

[(PSN)AllOrNothinDays]

She can be fun to fool around with. Sitting between two large magnetize bubbles is a gameplay change that can help shake things up a bit if you get bored. 

[DatDarkOne]

12 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

Interesting, mind giving me some pointers some time?  

lol. It's not anything complicated. Think Life Strike melee fighter being augmented by powers that brings enemies closer to the blade of death.  Crush for the extra insult before doing blade whirlwind in a crowd. Hehe. Shotgun for those few times that I want to splatter something. Very simple. :D

[MagPrime]

Just now, DatDarkOne said:

lol. It's not anything complicated. Think Life Strike melee fighter being augmented by powers that brings enemies closer to the blade of death.  Crush for the extra insult before doing blade whirlwind in a crowd. Hehe. Shotgun for those few times that I want to splatter something. Very simple. :D

I understand the melee build part, I'm interested in learning how they make a melee Mag work.

[Fifilona]

7 hours ago, (PS4)Akuma_Asura_ said:

What is mag good at ? I don't wanna just disregard her & call her useless because obviously I just don't know how to play her, soo what does a mag main do ?

Mag is good at a hell of a lot of things lol. Lots range cc, lots range zone control, large range damage.

On top of that she can single target focus important enemies and most bosses with Magnetize which was better named Bullet Attracter. This ability trivializes alot of boss/mini boss fights. They cant shoot out of the bubble unless they have a missile type weapon like the bombard for some reason who can shoot thru the bubble. And it doesnt matter how mobile they are (like those acolytes were or manics for example) because as long as you can hit that big &#! bubble you can hit them.

Another thing I haven't seen anyone else mention is that the bubble scales off of enemy damage and then multiplies it. Twice! First it multiplies for the dot aoe bubble damage and then it multiplies again for the explosion. So Mag's damage output scales infinitely as it scales with enemy level. There aren't too many frames who do that. Yea you can strip their armor and shield with Polarize with also increases the damage of Magnetize but you don't even have to. You can still run a full corrosive projection squad and find yourself a nice spot to hold and use the enemies to boost your damage and use your Polarize for replenishing shields. When you go full range on that bubble the explosion radius is pretty big. Just make sure you cast another bubble to keep yourself protected before the first one explodes. I don't worry to much about duration because I want my bubbles exploding while there are still enemies for the explosion to kill.

I've seen a lot of people saying they think you have to use a punch thru weapon on Magnetize. That is one way to do it but you don't have to. I run the Quanta Vandal with Mag. Just always pumping extra damage into the bubble and never running out of ammo. I just hold down that beam and then scroll around to get a better look of my environment  while the bubble sucks it in for me. If there is a big enemy that doesn't want to die quick like an ancient smack him with the alt fire and he dies. I never have any trouble with enemies getting past the bubble. They just disintegrate as soon as they walk into it as long as there isn't an ancient around.

I don't use Pull too much but when I do it's usually to pull an enemy into the bubble. Mostly pull melee enemies since they aren't going to shoot it anyway and at higher level they can one shoot people if they get a chance to crack em over the head. Same with Crush I don't use it super often but it still has its purpose. Say your squad gets overwhelmed with heavies. A bunch of ancients spawned or something and your bubble/squad mates just need a little extra time to take them out. That's when I use Crush to provide that big CC to give a little extra time to kill when needed.

She may be squishy but when you use your bubble well and pay attention to your environment, no one gets to hit you. When I play her I usually end the mission with the most damage without even trying very hard to do so. The biggest problem I have with Mag is that my squad mates don't know how to play with the bubble and either get themselves killed by it or get frustrated trying to compete with it for kills instead of killing things in a different area.

PSA: The enemy bullets sucked into a Mag bubble can still hit you on their way to the center. When there is a Mag is your squad you don't have to kill things in or around the bubble, you can cover the other side of the room. Also shooting a self damaging weapon into the bubble at point blank will probably kill you.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Fifilona

[OkamiMilo]

Mag is love, Mag is love she was my first Warframe... maybe her abilities are not the best.. But it feels so good when u crush the enemies and u feel their bones crushing

[DxAdder]

1 hour ago, (PS4)rowansprite said:

You're forgetting something in this post:

"A drained target produces a violent outburst of magnetic energy inflicting 1x / 1.5x / 2x / 2.5x of the enemy's drained shields or armor as  Magnetic damage. The explosion will affect all enemies within a 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 meter radius of the drained target."

So imagine that 800 damage is inflicted upon an enemy that has a group of, lets say six enemies around him. You suddenly do 800 damage to him and all his allies, but he also receives (800x5x6)+800 with the same build, dealing a total of 24800 damage. That's quite a lot. Polarize can be DEADLY against clustered enemies even at lower strength, and the extra damage it will apply to Magnetize via the shards doesn't hurt either (I've managed to one-shot Sentients several times with this combo.)

Admittedly, I haven't taken Mag into much higher levels than 50, but with all that she can do, I don't see her as being a one-trick pony by any means.

Crush though... yea, Crush is just bad without its augment, and even then it's just okay. 

Lvl 40 and under Mobs you can have some fun with Pull but after that Magnetize is the most efficient means of killing anything.

Pop the bubble, Fire the highest punch through weapon you have and enjoy the show. 

 

 

[DatDarkOne]

6 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

I understand the melee build part, I'm interested in learning how they make a melee Mag work.

it's not really just limited to Mag. I had first set up my melee weapons like this to help keep Ivara alive when playing in groups. Mag just utilizes the style better because she can bring enemies to her. Once I found out about Healing Return, I started using status builds more.

The whole idea is based around getting health back by attacking. The Frame being used just changes some dynamics on how it's being applied. In Mag's case, she doesn't have to worry about enemies being too far away to melee. So I can go full on melee and not worry about ranged attacks.

[MagPrime]

4 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

it's not really just limited to Mag. I had first set up my melee weapons like this to help keep Ivara alive when playing in groups. Mag just utilizes the style better because she can bring enemies to her. Once I found out about Healing Return, I started using status builds more.

The whole idea is based around getting health back by attacking. The Frame being used just changes some dynamics on how it's being applied. In Mag's case, she doesn't have to worry about enemies being too far away to melee. So I can go full on melee and not worry about ranged attacks.

Never said it was limited to Mag, but...context yo.  We're in a Mag thread and after 3 years of maining Mag, I think a decent portion of the forum community knows I'm a Mag fan. I know she's not the only one it works on, but she's the only one I'm interested in playing.  .-.

And again, I understand the basics, but I'd rather see it in action because I'm one of those people that have a difficult time translating written word into action.  I'm a kinetic learner.