Covert Lethality needs to go, or get reworked.

[(PSN)psycofang]

4 hours ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Arson Exemi will trigger their AoE regardless of seeing you. If they see someone nearby die, they will trigger the AoE. If you bump into one, they will trigger the AoE. If you miss the finisher prompt on them and do a normal attack by mistake, they will trigger the AoE. And they can trigger the AoE even when asleep/stunned/ragdolled.

Roll through it.

[Tsukinoki]

Question OP:
If they remove the instant death effects, please tell me any good reason anyone would ever use daggers?

They have:
-Pathetic damage (even with the 100 damage from CL)
-Pathetic reach
-Universally low status and crit-chance
-Universally low critical multipliers
-Universally tiny slam attack radius
-Overall poor stances that only hit single targets

And what do they have going for them?
-Covert lethality working in a combination with some frames to be able to kill enemies
And you want to remove the only thing that they have going for them?

And further to compound how bad daggers are without covert lethalties instant death:
Daggers have a 3.0x multiplier on stealth attacks (the type of attack that triggers an instant kill with CL) to their damage, shared with Dual Daggers, Polearms, and Staves.
Hammers have a 6.0x stealth attack multiplier
All other weapons have a 4.0x stealth attack multiplier.
(stealth attack damage is calculated by: Weapon Damage × Stealth Multiplier (always 8.0) × Weapon Multiplier)
So yeah, daggers you know the stealthy weapons?  They are actually the worst stealth attack weapons in the entire game!  Coupled with their low damage means that without the instant death effect would be the worst weapon to sneak up behind someone with and cut their throat.

So please tell me: if covert lethality lost its instant-death effect why would anyone ever use daggers?

EDIT:
One last thing to drive home the point:
The highest base damage dagger in the game deals 50 damage, or 150 with Covert Lethality.
There are quite a few heavy melee weapons, such as Hammers, that have a much higher base damage, further due to their higher stealth attack multiplier they end up dealing a lot more damage in a stealth attack than any dagger could hope to accomplish.
In fact a decent number of them (not just heavy melee, but swords and whips as well) can one-shot enemies well into sortie levels with their stealth attacks, and better yet they can be used for actually fighting enemies and not just for stealth attacks.
The only edge that CL has is that it is gauranteed to work 100% of the time without build up.  For a weapon like the Arca Triton while I can one-shot into sortie 3 against the Grineer I might need to build a bit of a combo multiplier to guarantee it, after that though it can perform just as well as a CL dagger can.
So really, CL isn't even that good when you bring other weapons into the equation because at least other weapons can one-shot in sortie levels and can actually be used to fight enemies, unlike daggers.  It has a super niche use that in reality isn't that useful but makes daggers at least somewhat useful in that a 100% chance of killing a target is slightly better than hitting for over a million damage with an Arca Triton and having the enemy maybe survive when they are at absurdly high levels.

And you want to remove the small  edge that daggers have with CL that ensures stealth kills even though it doesn't even help them edge out other weapon groups?
Again, why would anyone ever use daggers if they removed the CL instant-death?

Edited October 24, 2017 by Tsukinoki

[DatDarkOne]

5 hours ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Arson Exemi will trigger their AoE regardless of seeing you. If they see someone nearby die, they will trigger the AoE. If you bump into one, they will trigger the AoE. If you miss the finisher prompt on them and do a normal attack by mistake, they will trigger the AoE. And they can trigger the AoE even when asleep/stunned/ragdolled.

I can't say that any of that has happened to me while solo in almost two years of playing Ivara and using Prowl.  Even in survivals arson have never just triggered their AoE like you are saying.  This is even while using Rakya Cernos with synd procs going off before they are killed.  

 

Now what you have said does happen in group/public missions, but for different reasons.  Reasons like teammates aggroing everything in sight.  :D

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

3 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

I can't say that any of that has happened to me while solo in almost two years of playing Ivara and using Prowl.  Even in survivals arson have never just triggered their AoE like you are saying.  This is even while using Rakya Cernos with synd procs going off before they are killed.  

 

Now what you have said does happen in group/public missions, but for different reasons.  Reasons like teammates aggroing everything in sight.  :D

DE changed syndicate AoE to not alert enemies, which is probably why it doesn't do anything.

Beyond that, I don't know. I have had Arson Exemi go off while in Ivara Sleep, so I really don't know why you haven't.

[DatDarkOne]

4 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

DE changed syndicate AoE to not alert enemies, which is probably why it doesn't do anything.

Beyond that, I don't know. I have had Arson Exemi go off while in Ivara Sleep, so I really don't know why you haven't.

I knew about the change to synd procs when it happened.  As for your bad luck, I'm not sure why it happens to you unless you are in a group.  There is one instance solo that they have done their AoE for me which was during Crossfire/Invasion missions.  

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

You must forget this exists.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Focused_Defense

[(PSN)Crixus044]

I understand where you're coming from, but you're overestimating the need for CL daggers.  It's not like finishers are exclusive to daggers.  Finishers have existed since the game started. Crimson Dervish Uses it extensively for swords, which is what made it such a popular stance. Other weapons can do finishers quite well and get insane damage numbers. CL Dagger really doesn't become necessary until you start getting to the 4-5 hour mark of a survival. Other than that, any weapon will one hit kill an enemy with a finisher, even a heat sword. Hammers have the highest finisher multiplier, and my fragor prime can get 20-30 million damage with a radiant finish excal or savage banshee. This is enough to one shot a level 1700 heavy gunner (done the math). Jat Kittag gets the same treatment, and with Vulcan Blitz, a single finisher guarantees the death of everyone around him, thus is even faster at killing than CL Dagger. Also, with slash procs on armor or toxin/gas procs on corpus, you'll be killing enemies just as fast as CL Dagger if not faster, and can manage even level cap (9999) enemies. Don't overestimate CL Daggers. Yes, it is the most obvious and popular way to beat level cap enemies, but it is neither the only,  or the best way.

I've said my peace.

Edited October 24, 2017 by (PS4)Crixus044

[(PSN)SageHeed]

7 hours ago, Hixlysss said:

Because it gives me a reason to use them again, to use other stances and rivens. Why bother with stances or rivens for the dagger when CL is just superior? That's why it needs to change.

Alternatively, using your own argument, it's slow and ineffcient, why SHOULDN'T it be changed if it's crappy? Just make it give it's damage boost + finisher damage(making it useful on ground finishers as well).

They should change it because it's OP, also they should change it because it's crappy? 

[(PSN)SageHeed]

--

Edited October 24, 2017 by (PS4)SageHeed
Double-posted

[Almagnus1]

54 minutes ago, (PS4)SageHeed said:

They should change it because it's OP, also they should change it because it's crappy? 

This oughta be good...

How is Covert Lethality OP?

[blazinvire]

Given the state of the damage system, Covert Lethality kinda has a place in the grand scheme of things, though I will admit I pretty much only bust out a dagger when I'm tired of doing something in a 'legit manner'.
Like soloing the highest tier of Rathuum or the third Sortie because I'm apparently allergic to groups.

Ideally, all weapons would be equal and Daggers wouldn't be impractical and useless 90% of the time -or enough to require an insta-kill mod in order to make people use them.

Ideally, enemies wouldn't scale in such a weird manner as to demand cheesy tactics.

[ShortCat]

14 hours ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Arson Exemi will trigger their AoE regardless of seeing you. If they see someone nearby die, they will trigger the AoE. If you bump into one, they will trigger the AoE. If you miss the finisher prompt on them and do a normal attack by mistake, they will trigger the AoE. And they can trigger the AoE even when asleep/stunned/ragdolled.

This statement is false. Arsons do not use fire wave if you are invisible and bump into them, hit them, or anything dies near them. Same goes for Bombards and Heavies ground slams. I also thought it worked that way, but it doesn't. If you play solo they will never use it if they cannot see you. If you are in a party and there is another visible player they will use it.

Edited October 24, 2017 by ShortCat

[Volinus7]

Warframe is bloated with redundancies, red herring designs and marginal designs if you look closely. 

DE don't care about balance and won't attempt to actually balance frames and weapons because it would affect skinner box potency and their flavor of the month tactic.

You're talking about dev that took 4 years to nerf an item, turned a dedicated melee system into a fidget spinner and dropped balls in major updates 3 times in a roll, OP you shouldn't expect warframe to be anything more than a bubble wrap popping game. 

[DatDarkOne]

5 hours ago, Almagnus1 said:

This oughta be good...

How is Covert Lethality OP?

Lol.  He was paraphrasing the OP with a question.  

[kgabor]

16 hours ago, Hixlysss said:

Dagger rivens are completely worthless because Covert Lethality exists. It almost reaches the point of "Why use any other melee? Covert Lethality makes it so everything dies!"

You say this like it's a bad thing and no, it doesn't make dagger rivens useless, they need attack speed to complement Covert Lethality.

[Tsukinoki]

16 hours ago, Hixlysss said:

Dagger rivens are completely worthless because Covert Lethality exists. It almost reaches the point of "Why use any other melee? Covert Lethality makes it so everything dies!" 

Actually Dagger Rivens are completely worthless because Daggers are completely worthless.
They have: Universally low damage, Universally low status and crit chance (only one dagger has a 10% crit chance, and it is the slowest dagger available, all others have 5%), Universally low critical multipliers, poor single target stances, tiny reach (even with Primed Reach), even small slam attack radius.  Honestly there are no rivens, no matter how well rolled, that could make a dagger out perform other weapon types.
They quite literally have nothing else going for them aside from CL being able to guarantee a kill, which there is a large variety of other weapons that can stealth kill just as well as CL can while also be used for actually fighting your enemies, unlike daggers which aren't useful in actually fighting enemies.

And why would you use other melee weapons?
I don't know, maybe because:
-Other melee weapons can be used in actual fights and not require stealth killing everything one slow target at a time?
-Other melee weapons can stealth kill enemies just as well as a CL dagger can due to most other weapons having a higher stealth attack multiplier than daggers do?
-Other melee weapons can kill enemies much faster than going one person at a time and taking 2-4 seconds per target?
-Other melee weapons can be used without a specific setup of frames that can abuse stealth kills?

16 hours ago, Hixlysss said:

Now aside from just out right removing the mod there are fixes that can be done, simply replacing the part of the mod that makes finishers lethal with either a simple boost to finisher damage, like 200%, or have every melee hit with it have a chance to open the enemy up to a finisher. Or even both. Just remove the 100% lethality from the mod, please.

So basically: Make the mod, and by extension all daggers, utterly useless?

Lets walk through your suggestions:
-Boosting Finisher Damage by 200%: Only a few frames can abuse finishing damage and even with this 200% bonus a majority of other weapons would be able to outperform daggers in dealing finisher damage, especially in stealth attacks.  Basically your dagger would no longer be able to one-shot at high levels and would become pointless to use in stealth runs.  Might as well bring a hammer that can deal much more stealth attack damage than a dagger with +200% finisher damage could ever hope to.
-Opening enemies to finishers on hit: This would be 100% suicide.  A finisher attack takes 2-5 seconds to execute and leaves you completely open to enemy attacks while you are locked into an animation and can do nothing else.  Meanwhile with daggers you're target is very likely to survive the finisher attack meaning you'll need to go through this process multiple times in order to kill them.  Basically every time you start melee attacking an enemy you would be gambling on whether you would lock yourself into an animation or not with no control over it (after all, finisher attacks are executed with the same button for normal melee attacks).  On most frames this would be suicide, and this wouldn't even help Inaros as he only gets health on counter-attacks or stealth attacks, not ground finishers.

15 hours ago, Hixlysss said:

Alternatively, using your own argument, it's slow and ineffcient, why SHOULDN'T it be changed if it's crappy? Just make it give it's damage boost + finisher damage(making it useful on ground finishers as well).

The mod is slow and inefficient because that is currently how all daggers in this game are.  There has yet to be any good daggers introduced, they have all been placed in the niche of weakest weapons in the game, none of them are really crit viable nor are they status viable.  They quite literally have nothing else going for them aside from CL guaranteeing a kill (and even then that isn't much going for them as quite a few other melee weapons can do the same thing).

Also the reason to not give it the change you're suggesting: Is because then it would be even worse than it currently is making the entire class of weapons utterly pointless.

Until DE actaully decides to give daggers a niche and something going for them they need CL, not because CL is overpowered or even that good, but because CL is all that they really have.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Tsukinoki

[xXDeadsinxX]

Honestly, I agree with OP. The two most mods that should really be removed from the game is Maiming strike and Covert Lethality. Daggers are one of the worst melee weapon selection, by far, no one uses them unless you have Covert Lethality. DE should buff all the daggers and remove the stupid broken mod.

[kgabor]

I don't know about you all but daggers are far from useless,  Rakta Dark Dagger is one of my most used melees and i don't even need to open up for finishers most of the time to make it work: http://warframe-builder.com/Melee_Weapons/Builder/Rakta_Dark_Dagger/t_30_222200003_238-6-3-266-7-3-315-8-3-372-4-3-488-2-10-557-3-3-729-1-10-733-0-10-793-5-5_733-7-729-7-488-7-557-7-372-7-793-15-238-7-266-7-315-10/en/4-0-111

The 100% damage increase is always useful and when the instagib is needed, it's always there when i use Inaros or Savage Banshee.

It's the best mod ever created and imo. should be extended to sniper headshots.

[Nazrethim]

53 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

only one dagger has a 10% crit chance, and it is the slowest dagger available, all others have 5%),

Nitpick here: the highest crit chance is indeed 10% on Karyst, but that isn't the slowest dagger available, that position goes to the Sheev, which has 5%

Other than that, I agree on everything you say.

50 minutes ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

Honestly, I agree with OP. The two most mods that should really be removed from the game is Maiming strike and Covert Lethality. Daggers are one of the worst melee weapon selection, by far, no one uses them unless you have Covert Lethality. DE should buff all the daggers and remove the stupid broken mod.

While Maiming Strike is definetly overpowered (due to being additive instead of multiplicative) CL isn't for the reasons @Tsukinoki mentioned. I in fact used them before CL was added, and about lvl80 they stopped killing heavy enemies with finishers without at least a 3x combo counter. CL's main use is actually to boost damage and eliminate pesky enemies like Hyekka masters and Nox, other than that they are outperformed by pretty much any weapon.

If you think CL is still OP let me ask you a slightly unrelated question: Efficiency has exponential gains (75% cost reduction = 300% more abilities casted instead of 75%) while the others have linear gains (100% Strenght = +100% damage, CC potency, etc). Would you agree to have it nerfed into line with the others? Think carefully before saying something is op or not. If it has clear drawbacks attached to it, directly or indirectly, then it's balanced if they properly counter the advantage.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Nazrethim

[Tsukinoki]

1 minute ago, Nazrethim said:

Nitpick here: the highest crit chance is indeed 10% on Karyst, but that isn't the slowest dagger available, that position goes to the Sheev, which has 5%

Other than that, I agree on everything you say.

Thanks for the correction, I had forgotten the Sheev even existed.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

Ok, this is getting out of hand. Let me just say that I don't agree with the OP about covert lethality, and I've put my reason why. You wanna go see it, scroll through the comments.

BUT I'm sick of everyone saying that without finishers, daggers are useless. You guys seriously don't know what you're talking about. Don't you guys remember that stances changes EVERYTHING? Pointed Wind is one of the best stances in game for dps. In fact, the main combo Parting Edge has such a fast attack rate and 2x 400% damage per swing. I did the calculations and there's a youtube video that talks about this and did the calculations too. It turns out that parting edge multiplies dps by 9x or 906.1% due to multihits, attack rate, and damage multipliers. So everything you see on your dps simulators or whatever you've heard, it's false.

I have a karyst built with Primed Pressure Point, Condition Overload, Blood Rush, Covert Lethality, Shocking Touch, Organ Shatter, Drifting Contact, and Berserker. At a 4x combo counter (average for high level missions) with only two status effects (slash and corrosive from the dagger and stance), I get 18.6k dps on paper. This is what you guys are thinking when you say daggers suck. NOW, multiply that times 1.75x since it's corrosive damage, if you're going up against a heavy gunner or ancient (average tankiest enemy). That's 32.5k dps right there. Now the big one, multiply that 9x. Now, I'm getting 294,593 dps from my karyst, with a 21% corrosive proc chance and ignoring 75% of ferrite armor, with 2 guaranteed 2.5x damage slash procs on charge attacks and ground finishers. Pretty good deal.

Now let's pick up the Broken War, said to be the most powerful single target melee in-game. Using a standard Condition Overload-Blood Rush build with 3 status effects (most likely from corrosive, slash, and puncture) instead of 2 due to the ips makeup of the weapon, then on paper, we're getting 62930 dps. using the base Crimson Dervish combo, which yields the most dps without finishers, you get a multiplier of 5.2x, calculating 2.3 seconds from the combo duration on a 1.0 attack speed. This gets you 327236 dps against the same enemy. I know you're thinking that since the dps is higher, that the case is closed, but there are other factors involved, like the B. War status chance of 20%, less than the karyst and not guaranteed to be corrosive. Also, the damage doesn't completely ignore 75% of ferrite armor, only the corrosive part. which is 60% of the damage makeup. In higher end missions, that 75% armor ignore is extremely effective, thus evening out the odds.

You gotta stop going by what you hear from idiots and dumb youtubers and go by the facts and consider all factors. Don't underestimate a weapon just because it looks bad at first. Use your head.

[Almagnus1]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

Ok, this is getting out of hand. Let me just say that I don't agree with the OP about covert lethality, and I've put my reason why. You wanna go see it, scroll through the comments.

BUT I'm sick of everyone saying that without finishers, daggers are useless. You guys seriously don't know what you're talking about. Don't you guys remember that stances changes EVERYTHING? Pointed Wind is one of the best stances in game for dps. In fact, the main combo Parting Edge has such a fast attack rate and 2x 400% damage per swing. I did the calculations and there's a youtube video that talks about this and did the calculations too. It turns out that parting edge multiplies dps by 9x or 906.1% due to multihits, attack rate, and damage multipliers. So everything you see on your dps simulators or whatever you've heard, it's false.

I have a karyst built with Primed Pressure Point, Condition Overload, Blood Rush, Covert Lethality, Shocking Touch, Organ Shatter, Drifting Contact, and Berserker. At a 4x combo counter (average for high level missions) with only two status effects (slash and corrosive from the dagger and stance), I get 18.6k dps on paper. This is what you guys are thinking when you say daggers suck. NOW, multiply that times 1.75x since it's corrosive damage, if you're going up against a heavy gunner or ancient (average tankiest enemy). That's 32.5k dps right there. Now the big one, multiply that 9x. Now, I'm getting 294,593 dps from my karyst, with a 21% corrosive proc chance and ignoring 75% of ferrite armor, with 2 guaranteed 2.5x damage slash procs on charge attacks and ground finishers. Pretty good deal.

Now let's pick up the Broken War, said to be the most powerful single target melee in-game. Using a standard Condition Overload-Blood Rush build with 3 status effects (most likely from corrosive, slash, and puncture) instead of 2 due to the ips makeup of the weapon, then on paper, we're getting 62930 dps. using the base Crimson Dervish combo, which yields the most dps without finishers, you get a multiplier of 5.2x, calculating 2.3 seconds from the combo duration on a 1.0 attack speed. This gets you 327236 dps against the same enemy. I know you're thinking that since the dps is higher, that the case is closed, but there are other factors involved, like the B. War status chance of 20%, less than the karyst and not guaranteed to be corrosive. Also, the damage doesn't completely ignore 75% of ferrite armor, only the corrosive part. which is 60% of the damage makeup. In higher end missions, that 75% armor ignore is extremely effective, thus evening out the odds.

You gotta stop going by what you hear from idiots and dumb youtubers and go by the facts and consider all factors. Don't underestimate a weapon just because it looks bad at first. Use your head.

Atterax says "Aw.... lil' brudder!  He's got the heart of the champion!" **sniff**

[(PSN)Crixus044]

13 minutes ago, Almagnus1 said:

Atterax says "Aw.... lil' brudder!  He's got the heart of the champion!" **sniff**

Atterax can go suck a @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
But yes, in essence, multihit weapons and maiming strike weapons rule the day. But slide attacks and spamming with macros and stuff are utterly broken and wrong, so concider that.

[Nazrethim]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

Atterax can go suck a @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
But yes, in essence, multihit weapons and maiming strike weapons rule the day. But slide attacks and spamming with macros and stuff are utterly broken and wrong, so concider that.

To be honest, I will laugh so hard if Maiming Strike gets changed from 'additive' to 'multiplicative'.

[Almagnus1]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

Atterax can go suck a @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
But yes, in essence, multihit weapons and maiming strike weapons rule the day. But slide attacks and spamming with macros and stuff are utterly broken and wrong, so concider that.

Who says you need a macro for the Atterax?

Works just fine mashing E once you get the combo multiplier up high enough that sliding doesn't do that much.