IS argon scope HONESTLY worth?

[Golmihr]

Not worth the mod slot. Same with Maiming Strike.

[(XBOX)RedOniGod]

Everyone keeps debating whether crit chance or crit damage is better, but there is a video comparing results on both argon scope and bladed rounds on the dread

To OP, personally I love reaching higher crits on high crit weapons in general, so I love both mods equally, so I say you should keep argon scope and save up for maiming strike, then use both at the same time!

Edit: edited link to start video at dread builds and tests

Edited August 2, 2017 by (XB1)RedOniGod

[TheGrimCorsair]

Maiming Strike is pretty close to too good to pass up (except on a couple weapons if you can reliably keep a higher than 3x combo multiplier going). Some shorter reaching weapons, and weapons with extremely poor crit chance, don't get a whole lot out of it in practice, but for most pairing it with Drifting Contact, Organ Shatter, and Blood Rush is the way to go. This, plus slide attacks and weapons with long reach (especially polearms) allows for a pretty enormous out-of-the-box damage output without ever having to draw your melee weapon. You get to hit as many enemies as you can reach (as most melee attacks when drawn have a cap to the number of targets they can strike) while propelling yourself around and generally being much better off than getting bogged down in one place for any length of time.

 

Argon Scope is, as has been stated repeatedly, much more niche in its use. Pushing a weapon into 100% yellow crit+chance to orange crit (and same same again when pushing an orange crit weapon into guaranteed red crit territory) is where it's best. If it's not hitting those break points, you'll probably get better mileage out of Bladed Rounds. Also it's just not useful on weapons that you don't use for headshots, or aren't heavy into crit in the first place.

[kaliazane]

Ever since rivens came out I don't see reason to use Argon, theres just no room for it.

[moose2142]

I wouldn't trade one for the other. Argon scope on amprex is fun times, but blood rush melee builds with maiming strike leads to some very big numbers. 

If I had to say which is more useful, maiming strike can be used to guarantee invisibility with naramon, activate a berserker proc, and the additive nature stacked on a blood rush crit build gives very very high damage. I also find that on weapons that appreciate argon scope, space is already very limited, especially if you have a decent riven. 

[HalfDarkShadow]

1 hour ago, ViS4GE said:

Ever since rivens came out I don't see reason to use Argon, theres just no room for it.

Assuming you can find the Riven you're looking for (via Sortie or Trade chat) in the first place haha.
I still find it a great alternative for those critical type weapons, especially if you don't have the Riven for it to increase it's critical chance further.

But like you said, if you do end up getting a Riven with roughly the same amount (or higher) critical chance increase, I would definitely second the notion to use the Riven over Argon Scope, as it's more worth your while to have one that will guarantee crits with every hit over one that only applies when you get a headshot....for 9 seconds....when you're aiming lol.

Edited August 1, 2017 by HalfDarkShadow

[VonDodo]

12 hours ago, Epsik-kun said:

How had you come to that conclusion? I was talking about the scenario of replacing Argon Scope with Bladed Rounds and vice versa.

Bladed rounds works only when you kill an enemy.

So if you can kill enemies fast you don t need any boost.

You need boost to kill strong enemies asap instead with headshots ._. expecially in eximus sorties and long endless.

That s why argon scope > bladed rounds

[(PSN)Silverback73]

16 hours ago, XenoKatsuo said:

I've had argon scope for a while now, primarily for my dread build. But I've really been considering selling it to get maiming strike for an atterax build;

I wouldn't mind that much losing my dread build, but I'm wondering if there are any other worthwhile builds that incorporate argon scope?

FYI I land headshots all the time, so skill isn't really a problem for me when it comes to using the mod effectively, so when making a recommendation please just assume I land my shots.

Keep it and just wait for maiming strike opportunities.  I'm MR 23 and have yet to obtain either.  Acolytes...

[WrathAscending]

1 hour ago, VonDodo said:

Bladed rounds works only when you kill an enemy.

So if you can kill enemies fast you don t need any boost.

You need boost to kill strong enemies asap instead with headshots ._. expecially in eximus sorties and long endless.

That s why argon scope > bladed rounds

The Bladed Rounds boost can easily be maintained against any faction and has a more reliable uptime than headshots, especially against factions like the Infested or when Nullifiers show up in numbers.

Bladed Rounds offers a massive DPS increase when you look at the numbers or put it into practice, but people love the idea of being "rewarded" for their skill in getting headshots, even when said "reward" is actually nowhere near as good as what you get from Bladed Rounds.

[VonDodo]

7 hours ago, WrathAscending said:

The Bladed Rounds boost can easily be maintained against any faction and has a more reliable uptime than headshots, especially against factions like the Infested or when Nullifiers show up in numbers.

Bladed Rounds offers a massive DPS increase when you look at the numbers or put it into practice, but people love the idea of being "rewarded" for their skill in getting headshots, even when said "reward" is actually nowhere near as good as what you get from Bladed Rounds.

Nope i already explained the problem...

If you can kill a faction easily you don t need a dps increase.

That is why argon scope is a better idea... even if it gives less it still gives what you need when you need it.

Raw numbers are useless in said comparison.

[WrathAscending]

Raw numbers translate into direct experience. Bladed Rounds is extremely easy to activate and keep in uptime, whereas Argon Scope can be stymied by enemy type, weapon accuracy, enemy movement, and the like. Bladed rounds goes off just as easily against the Infested as it will the Grineer, unlike Argon Scope. Ultimately, Bladed Rounds (and Sharpened Bullets) are the mods to go with if you're going to use crit-related Acolyte mods. Argon Scope would need a much bigger boost in crit chance to make it a viable competitor to Bladed Rounds.

[aligatorno]

17 minutes ago, WrathAscending said:

Raw numbers translate into direct experience. Bladed Rounds is extremely easy to activate and keep in uptime, whereas Argon Scope can be stymied by enemy type, weapon accuracy, enemy movement, and the like. Bladed rounds goes off just as easily against the Infested as it will the Grineer, unlike Argon Scope. Ultimately, Bladed Rounds (and Sharpened Bullets) are the mods to go with if you're going to use crit-related Acolyte mods. Argon Scope would need a much bigger boost in crit chance to make it a viable competitor to Bladed Rounds.

Except that on a weapon with lower crit values, a guaranteed crit give much more than a possible powerful crit. Unless the weapon is capable on crit-ing reliably only with point strike [70-80% crit chance], Argon Scope is much more useful by making every hit a crit with a x multiplier. Bladed rounds gives a bigger boost in damage, but if you are not crit-ing, it does exactly nothing.  Its activation is even easier than it's on Bladed rounds as long as you aim at their head, I have no problem keeping it up constantly. 

On weapons that are really close or go past 100% crit chance, yes, Bladed Rounds is a much better choice. It's not all black and white, it depends on the weapon which is more useful. 

Edited August 2, 2017 by aligatorno

[WrathAscending]

Just now, aligatorno said:

Except that on a weapon with lower crit values, a guaranteed crit give much more than a possible powerful crit. Unless the weapon is capable on crit-ing reliably only with point strike [70-80% crit chance], Argon Scope is much more useful by making every hit a crit with a x multiplier. Bladed rounds gives a bigger boost in damage, but if you are not crit-ing, it does exactly nothing. 

On weapons that are really close or go past 100% crit chance, yes, Bladed Rounds is a much better choice. It's not all black and white, it depends on the weapon which is more useful. 

Even on weapons like the Soma or Latron, Bladed Rounds gives a larger and more sustainable damage boost.

Argon Scope is a great weapon for making you feel like you're doing more damage and as though you're being rewarded for your accuracy, but if you aren't that worried about headshots Bladed Rounds gets you more damage faster.

But if you are worried about headshots? Well, Bladed Rounds' crit damage bonus scales better than the crit chance increase of Argon Scope there too.

When Argon Scope first became available I went all in on it on most of my crit rifles, but experience and a bit of math showed Bladed Rounds was the real winner.

[Autongnosis]

11 hours ago, VonDodo said:

Bladed rounds works only when you kill an enemy.

So if you can kill enemies fast you don t need any boost.

You need boost to kill strong enemies asap instead with headshots ._. expecially in eximus sorties and long endless.

That s why argon scope > bladed rounds

Yeah, in the simulacrum. In any other kind of combat situation you'll be filled with trash mobs like butchers, shield drones, ratels, maggots etc that make keeping up Bladed Rounds a breeze. 

Which incidentally it's the reason why most of Distant Observer's content is debatable at best. Simulacrum testing only goes so far. 

For example that Dread build. He tests AS vs BR leaving the BR buff down for most of the test, on a single heavy unit suspended by Zenurik. Now in all honesty tell me how many times you encounter that situation in game. 

 

Anyway. As far as crit damage vs crit chance goes the reasoning is:

• If your gun is close but under 100% crit  chance there are two cases. If the gun fires slowly and you need those crit headshots (ie a snioer or a bow) then go AS. If it's a volume fire gun (soma, AoEs etc) then go BR. 
• If your gun has low crit chance it rather depends. It's more about feeling than it is about maths. 
• If your gun already has 100+% crit chance, go crit damage. The reason for that is this: from a non crit to a yellow crit a gun with 2x crit dmg gets a modded bonus damage of +340%. From a yellow to a orange crit that same gun only gets a +77% boost. IE in the dread case AS gives an average crit multiplier of about 7.5x while BR of about 8.3x

As far as argon scope vs maiming strike goes, the big deciding factor is that Argon Scope gives a moderate damage boost to some weapons and allows you to mod for crit on barely there weapons (ie Braton Prime). 

Maiming Strike gives a $&*&*#(%&ly huge damage buff to a wide variety of weapons. 

To me Argon Scope is not a mod that's significant enough that you'd change your builds and playstyle around it. Maiming Strike is though. It also depends a lot on whether you prefer melee or ranged combat and how often you use slide attacks.  

[VonDodo]

1 hour ago, Autongnosis said:

 

Yeah, in the simulacrum. In any other kind of combat situation you'll be filled with trash mobs like butchers, shield drones, ratels, maggots etc that make keeping up Bladed Rounds a breeze. 

I am quite tired of answering to this nonsense.

Shoot mob A to get bonus to shoot mob B and evaluating only mob B damage is illogic.

Saying that most situations you are filled with trash mob to kill to feed your bladed rounds is simply false...when you need a powerful weapons you need it because you have to kill something specific OR all mob are strong.

 

There are many cases in wich that happens.... sortie 3 eximus (or raids) for example ....

Ammo and reload time also takes part in the overall count.

 

Edited August 2, 2017 by VonDodo

[Autongnosis]

26 minutes ago, VonDodo said:

I am quite tired of answering to this nonsense.

Shoot mob A to get bonus to shoot mob B and evaluating only mob B damage is illogic.

Saying that most situations you are filled with trash mob to kill to feed your bladed rounds is simply false...when you need a powerful weapons you need it because you have to kill something specific OR all mob are strong.

 

There are many cases in wich that happens.... sortie 3 eximus (or raids) for example ....

Ammo and reload time also takes part in the overall count.

Me too. Apparently you've never heard of punchthrough. And before you start with the "punchthrough does nothing for damage" which i've heard so many times, punchthrough is a reliable source of between +100% and +300% DPS. 

Also, apparently at eximus sorties and raids everyone has billions of EHPs even butchers... Oh wait that's not the case. There always are softer targets that you keep killing. And if you want to keep your KPM high enough to sustain you it's not like you'll ignore them, quite the opposite. 

On top of that, i wonder what game you've beel playing all this time where youfine nothing but heavy gunners and bombards all over the map.

Oh and as a last note, how is sortie 3 eximus or raid even considered high level? Those are lv 80-100... You can kill them by sneezing with anything midtier if you know mechanics... 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Autongnosis

[WrathAscending]

25 minutes ago, VonDodo said:

Shoot mob A to get bonus to shoot mob B and evaluating only mob B damage is illogic.

Ammo and reload time also takes part in the overall count.

DPS doesn't do that though. It calculates total damage done over time, and it's one of the reasons Bladed Rounds outstrips Argon Scope for damage.

Argon Scope vs Bladed Rounds, just to show that even in cases where Scope takes a weapon into auto-crit territory, Bladed Rounds still yields better damage.

Now we'll compare Argon Scope to Bladed Rounds on a weapon that already auto-crits.

Again Bladed Rounds proves itself noticeably superior.

I'm aware that Argon Scope makes the user feel that they are doing something more skillful and active to get the buff. In practice, however? Damage, even factoring in repeated headshots for both weapons, very much favours Bladed Rounds. If you want to go for precise headshots, you get better damage from Bladed Rounds. If you just want to go for body shots- or can only get body shots- Bladed Rounds is also superior.

If you really want to use Argon Scope, nobody can or will make you stop. But it causes a lot of confirmation bias in the user that isn't borne out if you take a step back and actually compare the performance of a weapon modded the same way but for one of those two mods, whether you do that comparison using DPS calculations or take a weapon out for a spin for proper testing.

[VonDodo]

It doesn t feel i explained you why.. you never answered a single point... 

As said aim to guy A and kill B time VS aim and kill B time....

 

 

I won t answer anything else nor arguments like "it make you feel that....." its the opposite... its bladed rounds that makes you feel you do more damage because you forgot to take in account lot of stuff...and you didn t even motivate that.

 

The part about punchthrough is again a void argument....How many builds/weapons that could use argon scope would actualy waste a mod slot for  punchthrough?

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2017 by VonDodo

[WrathAscending]

4 minutes ago, VonDodo said:

It doesn t feel i explained you why.. you never answered a single point... 

As said aim to guy A and kill B time VS aim and kill B time....

I won t answer anything else nor arguments like "it make you feel that....." its the opposite... its bladed rounds that makes you feel you do more damage because you forgot to take in account lot of stuff...

I literally just posted mathematic proof that Bladed Rounds delivers more damage than Argon Scope.

Even allowing that Argon Scope makes killing Target A faster for that weapon than Bladed Rounds before either move on to Target B (which is not supported by either the math or practical application, but just for the sake of the argument) Bladed Rounds still gets through both A and B before Argon Scope does. This is why it's the superior option.

[Autongnosis]

43 minutes ago, VonDodo said:

The part about punchthrough is again a void argument....How many builds/weapons that could use argon scope would actualy waste a mod slot for  punchthrough? 

Anybody who actually knows about spawn flow and DPS and KPM. Which is apparently not you :) 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Autongnosis

[XenoKatsuo]

9 hours ago, WrathAscending said:

 

Argon Scope is a great weapon for making you feel like you're doing more damage and as though you're being rewarded for your accuracy, but if you aren't that worried about headshots Bladed Rounds gets you more damage faster.

 

I'm not asking if it feels good, I'm here to discuss which one is more effective overall.

 

[WrathAscending]

1 hour ago, XenoKatsuo said:

I'm not asking if it feels good, I'm here to discuss which one is more effective overall.

 

The math and practice clearly shows that Bladed Rounds is the run-away winner there.

[XenoKatsuo]

6 hours ago, WrathAscending said:

The math and practice clearly shows that Bladed Rounds is the run-away winner there.

Math? what math? not to sound ungrateful, but could you provide some evidence?

also for example if I'm dealing with several level 135 corrupted bombards, I wouldn't even be able to get bladed round's effect up until I kill one of them, because in higher level sorties there won't always be a weak enemy to 1-2 shot. 

[WrathAscending]

3 hours ago, XenoKatsuo said:

Math? what math? not to sound ungrateful, but could you provide some evidence?

also for example if I'm dealing with several level 135 corrupted bombards, I wouldn't even be able to get bladed round's effect up until I kill one of them, because in higher level sorties there won't always be a weak enemy to 1-2 shot. 

Check the links above comparing Argon Scope to Bladed Rounds over time with both the Soma and Paris Prime. Each has a build where the only change is a swap from Argon Scope to Bladed Rounds.

If you've got the buff up and refreshing it should stay in effect quite easily because the more powerful crits will result in more damage to targets, therefore more kills, therefore the buff stays up.

TL;DR: Even assuming Argon Scope kills target A faster so you can move on to targets B and C, Bladed Rounds will kill targets B and C so much faster that you more than make up for the deficiency on target A and wind up ahead in kill rate as a result.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but the math is solid and I can attest to its accuracy in practice. Argon Scope makes it feel as though you're accomplishing more for your effort because you see more crits more often. Ultimately though, bigger crits less often can make up that difference and then some in DPS.

[(PSN)watt4hem]

Of course it is, i've made 240 plat with just 2 of those in a mere 5 minutes in trade chat