Melee builds after stealth gas fix?

[Lone_Sniper]

Now with gas damage fixed, are are status builds still viable for melee weapons, or is raw damage more preferable?

I've been thinking about using a viral build and primed mods against grineer/corpus/infected, but no matter how I mix them I can't really come up with a solid reason to use my melee over my primaries now. For weapons I was using a mixture between Ohma, Atterax, and Secura Lecta.

Any thoughts from fellow Tenno after the fix?

edit: I understand that the stealth mechanic was changed so that it now functions as intended, but my original question is whether this means primaries are utterly superior to melee weapons now. My post was not meant to whine about a "nerf," but ask about meta-builds with regards to the concurrent status quo for weapons. My apologies for any misunderstandings that came out of my poor wording.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Lone_Sniper
more information and clarifying question

[Bouldershoulder]

How was it nerfed exactly?

[Godzilla853]

Gas damage was doing multiple time per stealth so with every gas proc it was 8x multplyer and when you did a stealth kill it kept doing 8x so next it was 16x

[Guest]

For weapons with a lot of attack speed, status is still more than viable. It's excellent at halving the health or stripping armor. Even gas is really good without the stealth multiplier.

[Xardis]

Slash was untouched. Destreza is still good with its guaranteed spash procs. Armor stripping still works, i find pistols doing great job with it.

[Bouldershoulder]

48 minutes ago, Godzilla853 said:

Gas damage was doing multiple time per stealth so with every gas proc it was 8x multplyer and when you did a stealth kill it kept doing 8x so next it was 16x

No wonder I didn't know.. I usually take covert lethality dagger for stealth kills..

[THeMooN85]

Personally I don't feel any difference. Gas was OP, (and I liked it :P) but now it's simply good (and still one of my best)... good enough to knock down most enemies easily.

[Kalvorax]

i knew it was coming...but can you post where you said it was fixed from? u20 and its hotfixes dont say anything

[(XBOX)Gr8Destroyer2k]

16 minutes ago, Kalvorax said:

i knew it was coming...but can you post where you said it was fixed from? u20 and its hotfixes dont say anything

Fixed damage-over-time procs double-dipping on stealth multipliers, resulting in higher numbers than the intended 8x

first fix listed in the U20 patch notes.

[Kalvorax]

Just now, (Xbox One)Gr8Destroyer2k said:

Fixed damage-over-time procs double-dipping on stealth multipliers, resulting in higher numbers than the intended 8x

first fix listed in the U20 patch notes.

ah that explains it then...it wasnt just gas specific but also slash. thanks

[yingji]

viral + crit + slash + attack speed + range

[Celthric317]

My unranked dark dagger's slash proc is still killing lvl 95 corrupted bombards within seconds. 

[(PSN)MrNishi]

2 hours ago, Kalvorax said:

ah that explains it then...it wasnt just gas specific but also slash. thanks

Slash wasn't actually double dipping.

Gas was technically doing more than just a Double dip:

Melee gas proc instance would count as Stealth buff and then is supposed to do AoE Toxin at 50% damage.

However the Gas Cloud would cause the AoE Toxin to count as a headshot so it was Full damage Toxin DoT but it was being counted also as a separate Stealth Melee attack.

This is/was further amplified I'm how Gas produces larger Toxin ticks the more enemeis hit with the proc. Enemies that get bunched up will produce very large Toxin DoT damage. 

-Then AoE toxin combined with headshot to boost damage is what made Melee gas extremely lethal

I'm assuming from the update and players responses (People testing against single targets) that they fixed the Gas AoE Toxin counting as a separate Stealth Melee attack.

However it should still have the growing mechanic of the more enemies the larger the Toxin DoT ticks.

 

Slash was always best on a Single Target...Gas Melee was better for Mobs.

[KazeUindo]

One frame I feel like takes slash to another level is Ash. And his first ability augment is amazing in many situations, single and multi-target

[shut]

I'm gonna clarify a bit of misinformation here.

 

16 hours ago, Godzilla853 said:

Gas damage was doing multiple time per stealth so with every gas proc it was 8x multplyer and when you did a stealth kill it kept doing 8x so next it was 16x

It didn't simply add another 8x on top of the initial proc damage-- it took the whole thing and multiplied it by 8x again. This caused Slash/Toxic/Fire/etc procs to deal 64x damage, and caused Gas procs to deal 512x damage.

 

12 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

Slash wasn't actually double dipping.

Slash, Toxic, Fire, and (despite being a single tick) Electric all double-dipped. The bug was that the initial stealth hit would multiply the proc damage by 8x, but the proc damage itself was also affected by the stealth multiplier-- so you ended up multiplying by 8x twice (i.e. 64x damage).

Gas was the same thing, but with a step thrown in between. Proccing Gas creates an AoE gas cloud that does a tick of damage, which in turn lands a Toxic proc. The initial hit deals 8x damage, the AoE cloud tick takes this and has the 8x multiplier applied again, and the final Toxic DoT has the 8x multiplier applied for a third time (i.e. 512x damage).

Basically:
- Slash/Toxic/Fire/etc double-dipped for a total of 64x damage.
- Gas procs triple-dipped for a total of 512x damage.

12 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

This is/was further amplified I'm how Gas produces larger Toxin ticks the more enemeis hit with the proc. Enemies that get bunched up will produce very large Toxin DoT damage. 

Gas doesn't produce larger Toxin ticks against bunched-up enemies, it simply produces more of them.

When you land a Gas proc, a small AoE cloud appears that does a tick of damage and causes a Toxic proc in a small radius. What happens with bunched-up enemies is that you're proccing Gas on multiple enemies at once-- which causes more of these AoE clouds to appear, each of which causes its own Toxic proc against everything nearby. Nothing buggy about this behaviour.

 

Now, I haven't tested out the headshot thing personally (nor have I heard other players mention it). But considering that AoE headshots were fixed a while back (i.e. now they'll only do headshots if the explosion is actually right above the enemy's head), I kinda doubt that Gas procs dealing headshots actually happens. If they did, we'd have seen slightly different DoT interactions against enemies with no weak points; e.g. large Ospreys.

The only thing suggesting a headshot multiplier that was the reticle flashing red with every tick-- but considering that I still get red ticks all the bloody time even if I go out of my way to not hit things in the head, I'm very unsure of how reliable that is.

Edited March 28, 2017 by SortaRandom

[(PSN)MrNishi]

5 hours ago, SortaRandom said:

I'm gonna clarify a bit of misinformation here.

 

It didn't simply add another 8x on top of the initial proc damage-- it took the whole thing and multiplied it by 8x again. This caused Slash/Toxic/Fire/etc procs to deal 64x damage, and caused Gas procs to deal 512x damage.

 

Slash, Toxic, Fire, and (despite being a single tick) Electric all double-dipped. The bug was that the initial stealth hit would multiply the proc damage by 8x, but the proc damage itself was also affected by the stealth multiplier-- so you ended up multiplying by 8x twice (i.e. 64x damage).

Gas was the same thing, but with a step thrown in between. Proccing Gas creates an AoE gas cloud that does a tick of damage, which in turn lands a Toxic proc. The initial hit deals 8x damage, the AoE cloud tick takes this and has the 8x multiplier applied again, and the final Toxic DoT has the 8x multiplier applied for a third time (i.e. 512x damage).

Basically:
- Slash/Toxic/Fire/etc double-dipped for a total of 64x damage.
- Gas procs triple-dipped for a total of 512x damage.

Gas doesn't produce larger Toxin ticks against bunched-up enemies, it simply produces more of them.

When you land a Gas proc, a small AoE cloud appears that does a tick of damage and causes a Toxic proc in a small radius. What happens with bunched-up enemies is that you're proccing Gas on multiple enemies at once-- which causes more of these AoE clouds to appear, each of which causes its own Toxic proc against everything nearby. Nothing buggy about this behaviour.

 

Now, I haven't tested out the headshot thing personally (nor have I heard other players mention it). But considering that AoE headshots were fixed a while back (i.e. now they'll only do headshots if the explosion is actually right above the enemy's head), I kinda doubt that Gas procs dealing headshots actually happens. If they did, we'd have seen slightly different DoT interactions against enemies with no weak points; e.g. large Ospreys.

The only thing suggesting a headshot multiplier that was the reticle flashing red with every tick-- but considering that I still get red ticks all the bloody time even if I go out of my way to not hit things in the head, I'm very unsure of how reliable that is.

I thought the ticks were being grouped together as a single DoT tick.

Example 1 Gas proc on a single enemy will yield smaller DoT tick.

1Gas proc on a group of enemies on PS4 would yield a larger DoT tick rather than a bunch of small DoT ticks for each enemy having an AoE Toxin cloud.

Like how Fist ground finisher would have the damage clumped together as 1 large number but Sparring Finisher (same animation and number of Melee combo count hits) would have the smaller individual damage instances.

[shut]

19 hours ago, (PS4)MrNishi said:

I thought the ticks were being grouped together as a single DoT tick.

Example 1 Gas proc on a single enemy will yield smaller DoT tick.

1Gas proc on a group of enemies on PS4 would yield a larger DoT tick rather than a bunch of small DoT ticks for each enemy having an AoE Toxin cloud.

Like how Fist ground finisher would have the damage clumped together as 1 large number but Sparring Finisher (same animation and number of Melee combo count hits) would have the smaller individual damage instances.

I decided to double-check in the Simalcrum just to be sure. My findings:

- Gas procs hitting multiple enemies at once will simply produce more DoTs on each enemy, exactly as I described above. The numbers themselves don't get larger.
- Fist finishers don't clump the damage into one large number; it's exactly 6 invididual hits just like Sparring weapons.

 

Are you sure these two things behave as you describe for the PS4? Because there isn't any reason that they should behave differently from PC to console. Even the performance difference is beyond negligible.

Edited March 29, 2017 by SortaRandom

[(PSN)MrNishi]

11 hours ago, SortaRandom said:

I decided to double-check in the Simalcrum just to be sure. My findings:

- Gas procs hitting multiple enemies at once will simply produce more DoTs on each enemy, exactly as I described above. The numbers themselves don't get larger.
- Fist finishers don't clump the damage into one large number; it's exactly 6 invididual hits just like Sparring weapons.

 

Are you sure these two things behave as you describe for the PS4? Because there isn't any reason that they should behave differently from PC to console. Even the performance difference is beyond negligible.

I should have clarified:

Fist Ground Finishers had a single damage clump but had several hits for the combo counter prior to the Game Update that also changed all Stealth Finishers that dealt multiple hits into individual damage numbers rather than individual strikes.

Example: Sparring Stealth/Parry finishers

Multi-hit Animation Finishers like this

All the hits were registered as a single attack.

 

We had a recent update where the damage is dealt individually now.

 

Fist Roaring Drums differed from Sparring roaring drums at this time because Fist would have a large Ground Finisher damage number but Sparring had individual hit numbers.

(Crits favored the larger clumped number)

 

You are correct on there just being more Gas numbers and not larger numbers.

What I was seeing with Serro and Ninkondi was the combo counter making the number larger because more enemies were being hit and thus increasing the DoT tick damage number vs single target.

 

That was an oversight on my part which led me to thinking it behaved like the older multi-hit Animation Finishers that had clumped damage.

I'll try to find the Gu-patch note referencing the finisher hit change.

Edit: Update

Was easier to find patch notes in Specter's of the Rail PS4 Update:

• Improved finisher hit detection for multiple weapons. Reticles will now flash red when a finisher can be performed and with each hit for multistrike finisher moves.
• Multistrike finisher moves will have their damage split amongst each hit instead of now being delivered all at the end.

 

 

 

This update made Roaring Drums for all stance/weapons normalized in being multiple strikes.

However Launching Spring on Fists and Claws are still clumped damage rather than multi-hit like Hysteria slide-attack.

I'll have to check to see if Sparring 2nd Charge attack (Fist Flurry) was changed to multi-hit rather than clumped damage.

 

Sorry for the delay in finding that reference...Lots of patch note and Devstream overview, to sift through.

Edited March 29, 2017 by (PS4)MrNishi
Multistrike Finisher change

[(PSN)MrNishi]

On 3/27/2017 at 3:20 AM, Lone_Sniper said:

Now with gas damage fixed, are are status builds still viable for melee weapons, or is raw damage more preferable?

I've been thinking about using a viral build and primed mods against grineer/corpus/infected, but no matter how I mix them I can't really come up with a solid reason to use my melee over my primaries now. For weapons I was using a mixture between Ohma, Atterax, and Secura Lecta.

Any thoughts from fellow Tenno after the fix?

edit: I understand that the stealth mechanic was changed so that it now functions as intended, but my original question is whether this means primaries are utterly superior to melee weapons now. My post was not meant to whine about a "nerf," but ask about meta-builds with regards to the concurrent status quo for weapons. My apologies for any misunderstandings that came out of my poor wording.

Status builds are now more niche.

Best way to exploit utilize Status builds now is using the mechanics that allow for non-invisibility Stealth Melee Multiplier in addition to lenghten the Bleed Proc duration.

Maiming Strike, Blood Rush Atterax should be just as viable as before.

 

Frost is a good example of using slow/freezing to lengthen Bleed Procs which pairs well with Boosting to the Stealth Melee Multiplier without the need to go invisible.

 

 

Prolonged Paralysis being used as the Enemy Slow plus Knockdown: Allows Radiation to trigger Stealth Melee Multipliers (Vauban's Consists can do the same as the 'Confused' Radiation proc seems to grant a very small window for Stealth Melee Multiplier... Prolonged Paralysis or WarCry slow can lenghten 'Confused' state. Vauban can do the same with Bastille or Vortex when paired with Concuss : allowing a lengthened Stealth Melee Multiplier state)

Here is an example of making sure enemy is alerted before attacking:

 

Here is taking that concept a little further:

Radiation+Viral slotting in Condition Overload and using Melee stance combos for Slash procs

Ohma:

Lacera:

Did a mix of Bombard and Heavy Gunners since Radiation has no bonus against Ferrite Armor.

I think the time to kill is feasible for Sortie Tier. Just it makes Status even more niche than the OP Gas of old.

Melee Gas was basically like the Status answer to Red Crit Melee, then they took it away.

-Seeing as how half the Crit-less weapons were just given Crit buffs: I think DE views Crits as the end all be all and not 'Status vs Crit'

(Just Deconstructor(Prime) and Seer are remains Crit-less weapons, as-in no Crit-damage)*

Edited March 29, 2017 by (PS4)MrNishi