Why damage mods aren't always top priority

[Shifty9]

I was playing around in the Simulacrum and I figured I'd share what I was doing. 

I do a lot (probably too much to be considered healthy) testing in the Simulacrum. I play around with every build I use before I take it into actual missions. I'm a pretty hardcore min-maxer because that's what I find enjoyable in warframe. To me, dealing insane damage and making the "best builds" (subjectively) is very fun.

Today's build was with the Orthos Prime and Valkyr. I used a Valkyr build I saw on aweblade4's channel about giving Valkyr crowd control. That's not the focus of this post, but I figured I'd include it. (full credit to him for the build). It involves using max range and efficiency along with the Prolonged Paralysis augment to pull in enemies for easier management. It allowed me to get ~20 Corrupted Heavy Gunner Eximus' at level 135 all on the ground and into one spot.

The second part (though arguably most important) of this loadout is the melee weapon. I chose the Orthos Prime because I have a forma on it and it's extremely fast when modded for speed. The build I used had no damage, elemental, or crit mods (besides Steel Charge on Valkyr). It consisted of status, speed, and Relentless Combination. The idea came from -N00blShowtek-, though I modified the build to my liking.

The whole goal of this run was to get a 6.5x combo multiplier, but in the process, I realized how good a weapon can be with absolutely no damage or crit mods (even with a low combo meter). The Orthos Prime dispatched the Corrupted Heavy Gunners very quickly and piling them all up increased my combo meter by around 5-7k with every ~20 enemies. It took about an hour and over 1300 Corrupted Heavy Gunners to reach 6.5x.

 

Hopefully this post will inspire more people to play around with niche and unique builds to have fun in a different way, aside from getting the highest damage per shot.

[EmptyDevil]

From what i'm gathering, this isn't practical in a normal mission setting. If it were much quicker to reach 6.5x and you didn't need a specific frame, then this would be a very good alternative, depending on how fast it kills a level 100+ enemy.

[(PSN)watt4hem]

As a person who normaly use quick melee with occasional full on melee, i find builds that rely on combo counters annoying tbh, so raw damage with crit/status is better imo

[Shifty9]

11 minutes ago, EmptyDevil said:

From what i'm gathering, this isn't practical in a normal mission setting. If it were much quicker to reach 6.5x and you didn't need a specific frame, then this would be a very good alternative, depending on how fast it kills a level 100+ enemy.

I get this idea has no real world practicality. The idea was to experiment with niche builds to find new ways to have fun. The reason I used that build was to get a high combo. Not that getting a high combo would be the ultimate goal when using a build like this in an actual mission. Combo reliant builds are too unreliable to be efficient and effective at keeping you alive and killing. 

[Voltage]

But there is maiming strike. That heavy gunner could have been killed by atterax in 2 ticks of slash damage with no elementals. This build is kind of impractical tbh.

[gunslinger20121]

1 hour ago, (PS4)watt4hem said:

As a person who normaly use quick melee with occasional full on melee, i find builds that rely on combo counters annoying tbh, so raw damage with crit/status is better imo

The combo counter applies to quick melee as well whichis why if you use quick melee then switch to full melee you have a combo counter.

[SunsetChaos]

Grab a Kestrel. Toss it. They fly. Bye bye!

[(PSN)watt4hem]

15 minutes ago, gunslinger20121 said:

The combo counter applies to quick melee as well whichis why if you use quick melee then switch to full melee you have a combo counter.

Yep, i know. But i use quick melee for those iffy moments like when you run out out of ammo and an enemy has little health so you just melee em instead of reloading. Or when there's a big group so i just slide in and melee. It's a matter of preference of playstyle tbh ._.v

[Shifty9]

16 hours ago, --Q--Voltage said:

But there is maiming strike. That heavy gunner could have been killed by atterax in 2 ticks of slash damage with no elementals. This build is kind of impractical tbh.

I think you missed the point of the post. Read my first reply.

[cookieknife]

you just dont build your weapons well..

[Midrib]

11 minutes ago, Shifty9 said:

I think you missed the point of the post. Read my first reply.

I think you misworded the title of your thread, the original post shows that you can create quirky builds without damage mods for fun, but damage mods still are 100% top priority in a build that is aimed to be effective.

Niche builds are great, but that's what they are, niche. they will never compete with a build that has damage mods in terms of effectiveness, so from my point of view, this thread shows why damage mods are always top priority.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

damage is Always priority. the point is to kill things, anything that doesn't do that has to CC, and if it does neither, it's not useful. racking up combo multipliers takes way too long, even with the Blood Rush/ Body Count combo. DE originally had plans for damage 3.0. but it was scrapped, and I guess now they're back to the drawing board.

I'm all for niche builds, but I still make sure to pile on whatever damage I can, because I want to be effective in combat.

[Shifty9]

1 hour ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

damage is Always priority. the point is to kill things, anything that doesn't do that has to CC, and if it does neither, it's not useful. racking up combo multipliers takes way too long, even with the Blood Rush/ Body Count combo. DE originally had plans for damage 3.0. but it was scrapped, and I guess now they're back to the drawing board.

I'm all for niche builds, but I still make sure to pile on whatever damage I can, because I want to be effective in combat.

I feel like people are missing the point of my post. The idea was not to say "the combo meter is more important" or that it can even out dps literally any other high tier build in the game (because let's face it, it probably wouldn't). The idea was to not worry about damage as a first priority and experiment with niche builds to have fun without being so concerned with base stats. As a heavy min-maxer, I can say this is something most of us lose sight of.

[Madway7]

7 minutes ago, Shifty9 said:

I feel like people are missing the point of my post. The idea was not to say "the combo meter is more important" or that it can even out dps literally any other high tier build in the game (because let's face it, it probably wouldn't). The idea was to not worry about damage as a first priority and experiment with niche builds to have fun without being so concerned with base stats. As a heavy min-maxer, I can say this is something most of us lose sight of.

If you want to try out something different I had an idea, but forgot to test it. 

Jat Kittag built for cold status, range (of course) and the rank 10 melee status duration mod. 

Just for the heck of it. Cold proc the enemies then slam the hammer. The cold proc should last for 12.6 seconds if the status duration mod is maxed.

The point is that they take longer to get up from the knockdown and so it works as some better cc. Though 12.6 seconds at max might not be worth it.

Could also test it with gas, fire, or viral to see if its something that's fun to use.

[tsoa]

I can understand where you're coming from because I recently experimented myself with getting the highest status for my Ignis Wraith as possible and even left out Serration. Got it to 285% status per second. It procs really fast but runs out of ammo extremely quickly. Still, I'm using it in Sorties to CC and give teammates (or my WF abilities) the chance to take advantage of all the nice viral procs. Combining it with Equinox's Maim is really nice.

The build: Malignant Force - Rime Rounds - High Voltage - Thermite Rounds - Hammer Shot - Speed Trigger - Vile Accelaration - Continuous Misery

For a blast/corrosicve build I'd replace the latter one with Primed Fast Hands since the reload time is a bit high for my liking.

[Arezael]

2 hours ago, Shifty9 said:

I feel like people are missing the point of my post. The idea was not to say "the combo meter is more important" or that it can even out dps literally any other high tier build in the game (because let's face it, it probably wouldn't). The idea was to not worry about damage as a first priority and experiment with niche builds to have fun without being so concerned with base stats. As a heavy min-maxer, I can say this is something most of us lose sight of.

Unfortunately you'll come across this a lot on the forums - it's best to just stick with people you have a vested interest in (friends and family for example) when it comes to out-of-the box type ideas. You're seeing why in this thread.

It was hard enough to convince people of the benefit of status builds, or conditional mods like Berserker which don't directly add damage. As soon as you add in 100%status-before-multishot, Primed Bane of x or other such examples - you'll find you're just wasting your time.

Oddly enough people seem to understand the situational uses of a mod like Lifestrike though, particularly before the Hema and Hirudo were released. Funny how that works out eh?

[DeMonkey]

On 16/04/2017 at 7:28 AM, Shifty9 said:

Combo reliant builds are too unreliable to be efficient and effective at keeping you alive and killing. 

So what you're saying is...Damage mods are in fact top priority?

It's all well and good suggesting niche builds and less narrow-mindedness in the community, but if you say that Damage mods aren't top priority and then fail to prove that there's something better for actual gameplay, then your thread title is inaccurate.

I agree with Midrib, people aren't missing the point of your thread, you misrepresented the point of your thread with a misleading title.

[Kuestenjung]

This build is focused around paralysis? Then why do you need 175% efficiency?

Once I get my Vigor P I will try a build that is focussing on prolonged paralysis too.

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

7 hours ago, Arezael said:

Unfortunately you'll come across this a lot on the forums - it's best to just stick with people you have a vested interest in (friends and family for example) when it comes to out-of-the box type ideas. You're seeing why in this thread.

It was hard enough to convince people of the benefit of status builds, or conditional mods like Berserker which don't directly add damage. As soon as you add in 100%status-before-multishot, Primed Bane of x or other such examples - you'll find you're just wasting your time.

Oddly enough people seem to understand the situational uses of a mod like Lifestrike though, particularly before the Hema and Hirudo were released. Funny how that works out eh?

^^ pretty much 

[Shifty9]

20 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

So what you're saying is...Damage mods are in fact top priority?

My title is not misleading if you stop to consider that the point of every thread on the forums is not related to getting max dps. I have stated that three times already and if one were to read the thread before commenting, they'd understand that. To address the part I quoted; top priority for what? Top priority for getting the max dps out of a weapon? Well then yes, they are top priority. But relevant to the point of this post (which has been clearly stated three times) they are not "top priority". Let me quote my OP, "Hopefully this post will inspire more people to play around with niche and unique builds to have fun in a different way, aside from getting the highest damage per shot". I said to have fun in a "different way" /aside/ from getting the highest dps. One more thing, (an excerpt from your reply) "but if you say that Damage mods aren't top priority and then fail to prove that there's something better for actual gameplay", "better for actual gameplay" is where you lost me. Gameplay is whatever you want it to be in warframe. 'Better' gameplay is whatever makes it more fun for the person playing, right? So if using a niche build to do something you find to be 'fun' makes it better for that person, how have I mislead anyone? You jumped to the conclusion that I was going to claim damage mods are not top priority for attaining the most 'efficient' build pertaining to dps. Maybe I didn't prove the point you thought I was going to try to prove, but I made a valid point pertaining to my OP and that justifies the title pretty well I think. Step back from min-maxing for dps and think outside the box to have fun in other ways. That was my point. And for that, damage mods are not of top priority. If you don't agree with me because you don't find that fun then there was no need to reply in the first place.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Shifty9

[Shifty9]

19 hours ago, Kuestenjung said:

This build is focused around paralysis? Then why do you need 175% efficiency?

Because I didn't bother to tweak the build I found and I spammed it a few hundred times throughout the testing. Stopping to get energy takes up combo counter time when you need to re-simulate enemies as well. The efficiency makes Paralysis only cost 1 energy. Not entirely necessary, but for the purpose I was using it for, it was a nice convenience.

On 4/16/2017 at 11:23 PM, Arezael said:

Unfortunately you'll come across this a lot on the forums

Fair point, but I tried, eh?

[gunslinger20121]

On 4/17/2017 at 9:12 PM, Shifty9 said:

My title is not misleading if you stop to consider that the point of every thread on the forums is not related to getting max dps. I have stated that three times already and if one were to read the thread before commenting, they'd understand that. To address the part I quoted; top priority for what? Top priority for getting the max dps out of a weapon? Well then yes, they are top priority. But relevant to the point of this post (which has been clearly stated three times) they are not "top priority". Let me quote my OP, "Hopefully this post will inspire more people to play around with niche and unique builds to have fun in a different way, aside from getting the highest damage per shot". I said to have fun in a "different way" /aside/ from getting the highest dps. One more thing, (an excerpt from your reply) "but if you say that Damage mods aren't top priority and then fail to prove that there's something better for actual gameplay", "better for actual gameplay" is where you lost me. Gameplay is whatever you want it to be in warframe. 'Better' gameplay is whatever makes it more fun for the person playing, right? So if using a niche build to do something you find to be 'fun' makes it better for that person, how have I mislead anyone? You jumped to the conclusion that I was going to claim damage mods are not top priority for attaining the most 'efficient' build pertaining to dps. Maybe I didn't prove the point you thought I was going to try to prove, but I made a valid point pertaining to my OP and that justifies the title pretty well I think. Step back from min-maxing for dps and think outside the box to have fun in other ways. That was my point. And for that, damage mods are not of top priority. If you don't agree with me because you don't find that fun then there was no need to reply in the first place.

Ok so I can see your point about the title, but you have to see that from our perspective to. It is a very misleading title when you go into the post thinking along the lines of something completely different than what you were actually trying to represent it as. The title is what is supposed to draw people to the post and while it did do that, it looks pretty clear to me that it ddn't draw the people you wanted in because of the way it was worded. I think a better title could have been "Why Damage Mods aren't Necessary to have fun" or "Why Damage Mods Aren't Top Priority to Have Fun". I think something along those lines would have reached a more openminded audience more easily. Those are just my thoughts on it though.

[Arniox]

On 4/16/2017 at 6:08 PM, Shifty9 said:

I'm a pretty hardcore min-maxer

+1

agree :P

[Arniox]

On 4/16/2017 at 6:08 PM, Shifty9 said:

To me, dealing insane damage and making the "best builds" (subjectively) is very fun.

+2

also me, also agree :P

[Potato]

Huh, you're like the Limit Breakers (dark souls youtuber) of Warframe!