Mag: Better Than the Memes Say, But Still Needs Love

[feralknights]

All I can really say in preface is the usual:  "I play Mag, I play Mag in level 100 content and sorties and solo the LV60 bounties, Mag is not as bad as people think."

But, Mag could be better.  I'd say she's just under acceptable level right now-- she really doesn't need a lot, just a few knob-turns!  So, throwing hat in, here's a few of my thoughts:

Flat-out, give Mag Prime a secondary stat boost.  Mag is one of the only Prime Frames that does not have a secondary attribute increase like virtually any other Prime Warframe, and the one statistical boost she gets is modest, a best.  An armor (65->125) or energy pool increase (to emphasize her being a caster-type frame) would not go amiss.  It's still kind of amazing how badly her EN pool scales even with a Primed Flow.

* Adjust Polarize's armor stripping ability at high level.

  And I don't mean she needs to scale to Nidus levels of scaling, which is "absolutely insane."  However, at the 60-100 tier, Polarize is less useful than Pull as a mechanic, as Pull will actually CC enemies.

  I don't think she needs to be able to instantly strip all the armor from a level 150 Corrupted Bombard in one casting-- which seems to be the end-all, be-all benchmark-- but in content of level 60 and above I tend to use it more as a panic button to restore shields more than I use it to strip armor or shielding from enemies.

  Hell, if Polarize is going to do nothing to Infested, then it should do more to other factions:  Embrace what makes her different and better versus two factions out of four (Corpus, Grineer, Infested, Sentient), don't dilute it.

* Make the shards stripped from enemies during Polarize collectable via Mag's Bullet Jump passive, or Pull, or Greedy Pull.

  Now that 3m radius Universal Vacuum has deployed, the utility of Mag's passive has fallen off a little bit, especially since it's for her, only.  And, as it is right now, Crush just does not do enough damage even as a hybrid CC-Damage ability.

  Having the ability to move or relocate your shards would create situations where Mag can push and pull those shards around will allow her to make the Crush casts deal enough damage to make it feel more impactful.

* Damage Immunity when casting Crush, or improved CC mechanics.

  The prefire on Crush is not long, but the actual three stages of the attack are long, long, and long, and if an enemy does not get picked up in the CC of the ability, Mag is left vulnerable for at least 3 seconds.  In LV60-100 content, this puts her at an overwhelming disadvantage.

  Considering how little damage it does unless you've been spamming Polarize in one location and the shards actually land *in the radius* of Crush, this makes sense.  The thing is, Crush does have a pretty significant radius on it's own after mods, but with the ever-present motion of the game, if you have to re-position, you're going to lose out on those shards.

  On one side of the spectrum, look at Gara:  She creates a massive barrier wall that is impenetrable while also CCing most enemies in the game *while also* having options to shatter the barrier early for varying types of damage *while also* being damage immune for the entirety of the casting phase.  On another side of the spectrum, look at Banshee:  She's stationary and weak to damage, but Banshee is able to much more effectively able to CC and lock down enemies while dealing damage while her damage buffing abilities also proc while using Sound Quake.

Maybe all of these things together would be too much, but a couple of them would definitely enhance what she has on-tap without having to overhaul the entirety of her kit.

Edited December 1, 2017 by feralknights
Adjusted to note the Mag/Mag Prime discrepency, speelchurker..

[Vicsvinny]

I like Mag. I use Fashionframe on her.

I give her love.

Is it not enough? 

But she really does need some love and enhancements. I agree 100% with you on that. Hopefully DE reads this thread.

[AlphaPHENIX]

il y a 35 minutes, feralknights a dit :

  Hell, if Polarize is going to do nothing to Infested, then it should do more to other factions:  Embrace what makes her different and better versus two factons out of four (Corpus, Grineer, Infested, Sentient), don't dilute it.

Citation

* Damage Immunity when casting Crush, or improved CC mechanics.

Edited December 1, 2017 by AlphaPHENIX

[MagPrime]

I like it.

[feralknights]

As an addendum to the post:

 

 

I did this on the Gift of the Lotus alert from today (12/1).  This is the second time I cast Crush on the same group of Ancients.  The build I'm running gives me 115% power strength-- it's meant for utility, bubble detonations, and creating Magnetize chokepoints.  On a map that is LV5-7, even 115% power strength should wipe out everything here with ease.  You can even see the Polarize bubble spread out and do no damage, no stagger, not even a shove in the face.  You can still use Magnetize to slow and create chokepoints in some areas, but there's not much for it to do.  Pull is okay, but not meant to be a damaging ability, so you have to usually pull them into a melee or off ledges if the tiles have 'em.

Though I want to be constructive, I also have to be honest:  I realize everyone wants their favorites to be amazing, but this is a case where it's kind of staggering it's been allowed to be this bad-- seemingly actively ignored, because I've never actually seen the issue acknowledged beyond 'lulz memes'-- for this long.  (If I'm wrong, please do correct me, I would love to be shown that that DE has acknowledged these problems.)

Edited December 2, 2017 by feralknights
Corrected on Disrupter auras, I will have to only write/record when I'm properly caffeinated.

[SenorClipClop]

7 hours ago, feralknights said:

This is the second time I cast Crush on the same group of Ancients.  The build I'm running gives me 115% power strength-- it's meant for utility, bubble detonations, and creating Magnetize chokepoints.  On a map that is LV5-7, even 115% power strength should wipe out everything here with ease.  You can even see the Polarize bubble spread out and do no damage, no stagger, not even a shove in the face

You... you did notice those are Ancient Disruptors you're hitting, right? Disruptors emit an aura that reduces Warframe power damage on targets by 90%. Crush deals 1500 damage under normal conditions, but in that situation it dealt just a shade over 150.

It helps when you know what you're doing. Cool video though.

[Anthraxicus]

Yesterday, I started using Ferrox with Mag just for fun. Magnetize a target, throw Ferrox  at the upper part of the bubble and watch enemies actually get sucked in towards the center. I started using it only because the pull effect of magnetize is kind of underwhelming and Ferrox turns magnetize into what it should have been in the first place.

 

I use polarize for the exact same reason. Panic button for shields.

[Sajochi]

 gets the pitchfork ready

Oh, an actually thought out response to the state of Mag without resorting to the dated memes?

Sets pitchfork aside

On a serious note, thank you for acknowledging that Mag is not as bad as some like to lead on. I play her pretty frequently and would appreciate any tweaks and improvements to her. I don't see any problems with your suggested changes or additions. Just here you give you my upvote and hopefully see this thread go further in discussion. 

[Anthraxicus]

Frankly, I would like to see some small changes to Polarize that doesn't include the usage of shards by Magnetize, because it is tricky to take advantage of all the shards and they don't deal a lot of damage anyway.

First, I'd change the Polarize damage type according the target. Currently, it deals Magnetic damage to enemies within a certain radius, regardless of the source, shield or armor. I'd change the damage type to Puncture or Slash when armor is stripped, keeping Magnetic when shields are stripped, with guaranteed status proc and maybe some scaling. 
Magnetic is effective against Corpus shields and that is about it. Extremely ineffective, if not outright useless, against Grineer. Puncture , on other hand, is effective against Alloy and Ferrite armor, and  Slash is somewhat effective against flesh.

Alternatively, I'd change the shards to give some much needed survivability to Mag. Shield shards providing overshields and armor shards providing armor. It would go well with her current, and somewhat useless, passive. As for her augment, I'd reinstate the bubble that existed before overshields, adding another protective layer with shield gate, so she is not one-shot as high levels.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Anthraxicus

[feralknights]

2 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

It helps when you know what you're doing.

I did say tell me if I was wrong, and I suppose that does by extension include this as a situation.  I don't remember everything about the game at all times.  I'll own up to that.

The "cool story bro" sentiment could have stayed on the shelf.  However, if this applies full spectrum from level 5 to 95 to 105-- 90% power strength reduction-- it scales better than Mag's abilities from one end to the other.

Any other input on the main post, or just wanted to point that out?

47 minutes ago, Anthraxicus said:

Yesterday, I started using Ferrox with Mag just for fun. Magnetize a target, throw Ferrox  at the upper part of the bubble and watch enemies actually get sucked in towards the center. I started using it only because the pull effect of magnetize is kind of underwhelming and Ferrox turns magnetize into what it should have been in the first place.

 

I use polarize for the exact same reason. Panic button for shields.

As far as I can tell, the pull strength is not affected by power strength, which means that an out-of-the-box Ferrox has a stronger magnetize pull in it's AOE than a Warframe.  That feels like a bit of a misstep, though I remember them at one point buffing the strength of the field's pull without buffing Mag's own ability.  That could use some looking at.

One of my biggest problems with using Polarize as a panic button for shields, though, is that there are so many things now-- especially in the Plains-- where your shields are either down instantly again, or they just don't matter.  If it weren't for Quick Thinking, a Flameblade I didn't even see through ridges and foliage would have one-shot me after teleporting behind me, and more than a few times they just flat-out did it anyway.  Unfortunately, that's just kind of endemic to the state of things unless you're running something like Inaros (in which case, you're running your scarab armor aug and laugh) or Iron Skin (in which case, you hit 2 again and laugh).  More than once I've had to bail out of my Warframe and panic-flee as my Operator to the edge of a fight because of fire procs; while this gives value to the anti-flame mods in the game I've had issues even long before Plains where shields just, still, Did Not Matter.

31 minutes ago, Anthraxicus said:

First, I'd change the Polarize damage type according the target. Currently, it deals Magnetic damage to enemies within a certain radius, regardless of the source, shield or armor. I'd change the damage type to Puncture or Slash when armor is stripped, keeping Magnetic when shields are stripped, with guaranteed status proc and maybe some scaling. 
Magnetic is effective against Corpus shields and that is about it. Extremely ineffective, if not outright useless, against Grineer. Puncture , on other hand, is effective against Alloy and Ferrite armor, and  Slash is somewhat effective against flesh.

I really like this!  I'd probably say puncture more than slash if armor's stripped, since the strip is in and of itself reducing "effective" HP.  Deep down I'm leery of Slash procs, but I think that's more a result of how Condition Overload has proliferated so much as end-all, be-all with slash procs and the potential that Hunter Munitions has right now.  Of course, you could also narratively spin it as "Mag is ripping the iron out of whatever blood or goo these guys have in 'em."

35 minutes ago, Anthraxicus said:

Alternatively, I'd change the shards to give some much needed survivability to Mag. Shield shards providing overshields and armor shards providing armor. It would go well with her current, and somewhat useless, passive. As for her augment, I'd reinstate the bubble that existed before overshields, adding another protective layer with shield gate, so she is not one-shot as high levels.

That's something I haven't considered.  I really like that idea-- allowing Mag to buff herself with those shards, one way or another.

[SenorClipClop]

33 minutes ago, feralknights said:

I did say tell me if I was wrong, and I suppose that does by extension include this as a situation.  I don't remember everything about the game at all times.  I'll own up to that.

The "cool story bro" sentiment could have stayed on the shelf.  However, if this applies full spectrum from level 5 to 95 to 105-- 90% power strength reduction-- it scales better than Mag's abilities from one end to the other.

Any other input on the main post, or just wanted to point that out?

Forgive me if I offended you by being coy, but I've seen too many people salty at Mag without a good reason to be that when I saw something so clearly incorrect holding up a "Mag is bad" point, I couldn't help but poke a little fun at it. I gotta say though, when an ability deals 1500 damage and it doesn't do squat to an enemy with less than that much Health, researching why that might have happened is much more prudent than going through the effort of putting up a video to show people how bad the ability is, when it isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. It's fair that you didn't realize, and maybe a little uncalled for of me to call you out quite the way I did. But come on, Tenno. It's a rookie mistake.

I mainly just wanted to point that out. But in regard to the rest of your post, I agree that Mag (or at least the Prime) could really use the next tier of Energy pool to offset her ability expenses. In terms of her Vacuum passive, I really like it, but I find one key issue with it that drives me nuts. Items are vacuumed toward her quite effectively, but only for the duration of the Bullet Jump animation. Once that ends, Mag carries on forward with her momentum, but the pickups fall straight downward before they can make contact with her a lot of the time. Allowing the items to share momentum would be swell, since I like to be constantly moving as Mag to stay alive in high-level content. And Crush needs... something. Something a little more. A Magnetic proc, a DR or invincibility during the animation,  a temporary gun jam for its Duration, something.

Edited December 2, 2017 by SenorClipClop

[Anthraxicus]

1 hour ago, feralknights said:

I really like this!  I'd probably say puncture more than slash if armor's stripped, since the strip is in and of itself reducing "effective" HP.  Deep down I'm leery of Slash procs, but I think that's more a result of how Condition Overload has proliferated so much as end-all, be-all with slash procs and the potential that Hunter Munitions has right now.  Of course, you could also narratively spin it as "Mag is ripping the iron out of whatever blood or goo these guys have in 'em."

 

The reason I like Slash also is that it is somewhat effective against all factions, which is especially true against a combination of corrupted units. Bleed effects are also nice as well, as they deal damage directly to HP.

[(PSN)Chel-El]

So I’m a Mag main learning Excal.

Excal has exalted blade with its customizations and own combo list, Mag has magnetize with its customizations and own weapon combos.

You don’t see an Excal trying to endgame with 2 or 3 alone, why expect Mag to endgame with 3 or 4?  Not mentioning the sheer power of Mag’s 2 makes it seems like she’s worse than she is. It’s like asking for radial javelin buffs without looking at extent of exalted blade’s power. 

I may sound repetitive but LifeofRio and his Mag vids are a must. He does solo survival with her and his quote Mag can make ANY room a choke point is supported by what you’re seeing on screen.

People call polarize panic button I call it self heal. Why wait for a proc use it to sustain her and others. Keep spamming it with 2 if you have the energy, it’s excal 4 spam with 2. Knowing the squad’s shield values help in healing them. 

Polarize already bursts shields into nearby enemies, heals shields of all allies and most objectives, self-heals, helps track targets with its damage display, strips armor, creates shards. People know the shards are so weak but I accept its weakness given that polarize does all these things in one cast. 

I need a tweak for her armor/health though. Mains have to resort to equilibrium or other survivability tactics. On a Kela de Thaym initial missile strike I was the only frame that fell so early, it was embarrassing to be that squishy. Void mode Operator apparently solves this just like in reviving with Mag...

 

[DeliciousDoob69]

I play a whole lot of Mag, she's my girl. One of the best suggestions I've ever heard for a mag tweak was make her pull and magnetize synergize. While a magnetize is up if you cast her pull it makes magnetize cast a 360 pull from it's center. I can't remember who suggested it, but I thought it was an amazing idea. Having her pull work on the shards created from polarize is also a superb idea, kudos.   

[Aimop95]

Her 1 needs to not pull enemies out of her 2 when you cast it on the bubble, her 3's shards should add a lot more damage to 2 (it's not significant damage really), and her 4 should bring all enemies into it's center on the last tick of damage. Plus she should get an energy base increase.

All this would help immensely in making her a much more friendly starter frame right now. As it is, unless you get streamline early, casting abilities on her is a risk, as they use up so much energy and pull has a 25% chance on KILL to drop energy orbs, it should be on pull, not kill.

[(PSN)MrNishi]

+1

 

Strongly agree with some small tweaks like Energy Or Chance on enemies affected by Pull (Heck, allow duration to scale how long enemy is marked as being affected by Pull)*

&

Other minor tweaks like Shards providing a self-buff, some Crush casting protection, and maybe changing Polarize Armor to only attacking Base Armor values like Shattering Impact.

(Example 125 damage to Base Armor would be 4 casts to remove Armor from Bombard at any enemy level.)* Even if Rank 3 Polarize was 75 damage to Base Armor it would be 7-ish at base 100% Powerstrength. At 299% it would be 224 damage to Base Armor so 2 casts to Strip a Bombards Armor at any level.) 

I would even be for Polarize explosion damage coming down to the same 75 damage if it meant her armor stripping were changed to damage base Armor levels. 

[(PSN)DBR87]

On 12/2/2017 at 2:54 PM, (PS4)Chel-El said:

So I’m a Mag main learning Excal.

Excal has exalted blade with its customizations and own combo list, Mag has magnetize with its customizations and own weapon combos.

You don’t see an Excal trying to endgame with 2 or 3 alone, why expect Mag to endgame with 3 or 4?  Not mentioning the sheer power of Mag’s 2 makes it seems like she’s worse than she is. It’s like asking for radial javelin buffs without looking at extent of exalted blade’s power. 

I may sound repetitive but LifeofRio and his Mag vids are a must. He does solo survival with her and his quote Mag can make ANY room a choke point is supported by what you’re seeing on screen.

People call polarize panic button I call it self heal. Why wait for a proc use it to sustain her and others. Keep spamming it with 2 if you have the energy, it’s excal 4 spam with 2. Knowing the squad’s shield values help in healing them. 

Polarize already bursts shields into nearby enemies, heals shields of all allies and most objectives, self-heals, helps track targets with its damage display, strips armor, creates shards. People know the shards are so weak but I accept its weakness given that polarize does all these things in one cast. 

I need a tweak for her armor/health though. Mains have to resort to equilibrium or other survivability tactics. On a Kela de Thaym initial missile strike I was the only frame that fell so early, it was embarrassing to be that squishy. Void mode Operator apparently solves this just like in reviving with Mag...

 

Shield Polarize only restores shields and can grant over shields, where as you make it sound like it heals. Excal can focus on Radial Blind alone and be endgame viable. He can focus on Exalted Blade and be end game viable. He can use a balance build and be end game viable. And he can do this against all faction comfortable. Magnetize doesn't have as much freedom as Excalibur's Exalted Blade. You can change the damage type from physical to pure elemental. Magnetize is at it's best when paired with a projectile based weapon with punch through.

I like  Shield Polarize. I think it's a good ability. It's not great, but it can take out armor very well. It sucks that they nerfed it's damage to shields, but it's still a good ability. However, the way Health and Armor interact, Shield Polarize will always be more of a debuff skill then a usefully buff skill. If you have a Harrow or a Blue Chroma in you squad I am sure they will like Mag...if Harrow doesn't max his own shields. Buf Nidus doesn't care about shield polarize, neither does Rhino, or Trinity, or Nyx, or Loki, or Ash, or Frost, or Inaros. Shields are inferior protection when put against Armor at this point because of slash and toxic procs and shields have no damage reduction. Shield Polarize is a great skill for all that it does, but lets not act like it's an amazing skill. Only a few frames that actually focus on having high shields like it and it's only other merit is removing armor and shields.

Aside from all that, she should get more energy definitely. I would like if her Prime had the same base 300 energy as Saryn P and Volt P. I would also like her base form to get a boost to 250 energy at max. I would also like to see the Magnetize Discharged changed so that the manual detonation would be in the base skill and not require the augment. The augment can still disarm enemies.

Here's an idea: Say you cast Shield Polarize on armored targets and the shards are laying on the ground. If you then stand over some shards and cast Magnetize on yourself/at the ground, those shards attached to Mag and give her either A) Some straight damage resistance like Mesa's Shatter Shield or B) Give her a layer of health like Rhino's Iron Skin/ Frost's Icy Avalanche.

Also think her 1 should be a tap to Push and a hold to Pull. Would go well with the idea of Shards interacting with her 1 to better aim them at enemies and set them up for more damage with Crush and Magnetize.

[(PSN)Chel-El]

Magnetize can snipe up to 100m if you scope in to specific targets, how is that limited? Granted exalted blade can phase through walls but it won’t reach that level of precision. 

You can proc the bubble with impact to knock them down and suck them in the middle, radiation proc adds dps from confused fire, gas proc to penetrate shields and so on. Weapon status effect is her version of chromatic blade. This vid will help you see just how versatile it can be it’s not just for Lanka’s punch through

 

 

On void or corpus maps when you see clumped targets with shield drones that’s when you do polarize, the more clumped and shielded they are, the more cascade of bursts. This is its strength not the shards. Youtuber x3lp makes fun of its in game description shards aren’t really deadly. 

Unfortunately people mock shields in the forums but what happens when you go on nightmare missions with no shields?

Polarize instantly refills shields so I call it self-heal. When I go from 7hp to 1007hp because shield polarize I call that healing. Same for squad mates taking chip damage. Some people still don’t use void Operator for reviving you can help buff their shields. 

The plains has so many magnetize procs with the teralyst,  and so many light armored grineer I can’t emphasize the utility and beauty of 3. If you add up the utility of a single cast and not just one part you’ll see its true value.

This guide helps but the takeaway tip I got here is that duration lengthens your 3.

With the new augur mods you don’t need to sacrifice anything polarize can have a big radius and big burst range! 

https://m.imgur.com/a/1hZR9

Edited December 4, 2017 by (PS4)Chel-El

[Bratty_Child]

On 03/12/2017 at 8:42 AM, deliciousdoobmaster69 said:

One of the best suggestions I've ever heard for a mag tweak was make her pull and magnetize synergize. While a magnetize is up if you cast her pull it makes magnetize cast a 360 pull from it's center. I can't remember who suggested it, but I thought it was an amazing idea. Having her pull work on the shards created from polarize is also a superb idea, kudos.   

Holy, why don't we bave this in game now? 

 

I still think Polarize need a buff, maybe can affect same enemies few times and shards giving buff damage reduction sounds good as other suggestion

[Jax_Cavalera]

I actually like the way mag works right now for the most part, she's come leaps and bounds from some of the terrible nerfs we've had to endure. There are 2 things that could do with a minor tweak:

► Greedy Pull
- Allow drops to be pulled through walls and solid objects
- Allow them to be picked up by the entire squad

The main argument against the above has been it facilitates camping, as we all know.. sentinel (vacuum), vauban (vortex), nidus (larva), Simulor (vortex effect), etc.. all facilitate this same play style.. which I personally enjoy.. it's cathartic to watch items rain down in a pile.. like watching raindrops run down a window or something.

I'm not advocating pull deal damage to enemies through walls or even stun them, just that the greedy pull augment can do the above 2 things.

► Magnetize
- Drag nearby enemies into it once the targeted enemy been killed before it explodes

I read that this already happens to some extent by stacking magnetizes onto an enemy, but believe the effect could do with significant amplification that scales with ability range properly.  I don't understand the need for stacking the ability to increase effectiveness, just make a single magnetize more effective and simplify the process reducing ability spam as a side-effect.

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Jax_Cavalera

[DroopingPuppy]

Actually Mag is pretty bad. She lacks a quality for a starting warframe, which should be easy to use, not mission dependent, and usable though early to late game(althogh they are not a single best choice). Both Excalibur and Volt are meet the requirement, but not Mag. That's already enough reason to say her bad. Also while Mag is quite playable if modded and use it well on a right situation, she doesn't have sure advantage either, meaning that she doesn't have good place for the late game contents too.

Hard to use, not so powerful, not a generalist nor a good specialist on a specific position means she is plainly bad. Yes, the memes are exaggerated, sure, but the bad reputation on her is not without a reason. And actually the bad reputation on her will makes the newbies to avoid her, which is all we can do for the beginners right now too. I concur that Mag is playable, but she must not the first warframe the newbies got, at least for now.

 

'It is good if you give some love' have no meaning at all. Every single one can has its day if you put soooooooo much loves only for it. Even MKI weapons are viable if you put enough formas, potato, riven mod and correct warframe buffs&party member. YOU may play Mag well, but it only applies to you, who loves Mag, and cover her weakness by the resources you spend and the experience to use her, but most warframes are better only if you put the smaller efforts than your Mag got. Everyone else are just think no more than 'it sucks' to 'mediocre'. If such insistence is right, we can't ask for a buff at all because 'everything is good if you can use it well' so it is our matter to make it better - and in the reality only the most better solution would be picked and the lessers are simply discarded, which proves that it is false.

 

Anyway, everyone will agreed that Mag needs some love, at least. We don't expect and don't want Mag would be dominate the game all the times. We just need her as as viable choice through the game.

 

Crush needs some love, really, need to reduce the time to cast or at least immune to damage as OP suggested.

[(PSN)Chel-El]

So, to avoid any form of subjectivity- forum backlash, personals bias, experience as a main and starter etc 

I added:

iflynn, mogamu, tactical potato, gayguyplays  to my list of youtubers who covered Mag 

This is because I endorsed LifeofRio and x3lp for their excellent mag guides and don’t wanna be blinded by their brilliance

In general:

>None of these guys say Mag is bad.

>Some are hinting on nerfs (especially on 3).

>Some are aware that she is polarizing in the community. 

>Most know what they’re doing (moving from her 3 to 2) and show it on screen via tests, plays, builds. 

My conclusion is that a simple Youtube search will give you a neutral, workable, entry level info for Mag.

The upgrade that’s similar to mine is to forma (-) for energy siphon. But formas and max leveling is not a big deal for anyone is it? We do it routinely now but a noob can figure it out on his own just as I did with energy siphon. 

She introduces these skills to new players: manual farming with her bullet, intelligent energy management because caster, and surviving (through modding or maneuvering) because squishy. 

She is a good starter in that regard. If I had a tanky, press to 4 frame as a starter would I be as engaged? I’ll just keep pressing that 4, and skip modding and maneuvering skills or research (looking at Trinity or Saryn).

Steep learning curve is actually good for a starter frame so it remains engaging in the end. It teaches the skills, modding & understanding required to meet different enemies. 

On plague star I brought my Mag and got kicked in the butt for complacency. I got so used to her power against the grineer that I was humbled and had to rebuild for an infested boss type battle. Does that make Mag or my load out weak? 

[(PSN)DBR87]

On 12/3/2017 at 7:19 PM, (PS4)Chel-El said:

Magnetize can snipe up to 100m if you scope in to specific targets, how is that limited? Granted exalted blade can phase through walls but it won’t reach that level of precision. 

You can proc the bubble with impact to knock them down and suck them in the middle, radiation proc adds dps from confused fire, gas proc to penetrate shields and so on. Weapon status effect is her version of chromatic blade. This vid will help you see just how versatile it can be it’s not just for Lanka’s punch through

 

 

On void or corpus maps when you see clumped targets with shield drones that’s when you do polarize, the more clumped and shielded they are, the more cascade of bursts. This is its strength not the shards. Youtuber x3lp makes fun of its in game description shards aren’t really deadly. 

Unfortunately people mock shields in the forums but what happens when you go on nightmare missions with no shields?

Polarize instantly refills shields so I call it self-heal. When I go from 7hp to 1007hp because shield polarize I call that healing. Same for squad mates taking chip damage. Some people still don’t use void Operator for reviving you can help buff their shields. 

The plains has so many magnetize procs with the teralyst,  and so many light armored grineer I can’t emphasize the utility and beauty of 3. If you add up the utility of a single cast and not just one part you’ll see its true value.

This guide helps but the takeaway tip I got here is that duration lengthens your 3.

With the new augur mods you don’t need to sacrifice anything polarize can have a big radius and big burst range! 

https://m.imgur.com/a/1hZR9

Shields will not stop Bleed or Toxic procs from killing you because they bypass shields and hit health directly. If you have 7 HP and do Shield Polarize you do not now have 1007 HP, you have 1000 Shields and 7 HP. If your team can go invisible on a whim (Loki, Ash, Ivara) become immune to damage whenever (Limbo, Nyx, Hydroid, Valkyr, Rhino, Wukong, Harrow) have some form of damage reduction (Mesa, Equinox, Gara, Inaros, Chroma, Nekros, Zephyr, Oberon, Trinity, Nexha) can put up a barrier (Frost, Volt, Atlas) or just don't have shields (Nidus, Inaros) then they won't find Shield Polarize that useful. So that leaves Vauban, Excalibur, Titania, Ember, Mirage and Saryn who might actually care about getting shields. Just a handful of frames and most of those remaining have CC options. What would help is shield gatting. If we had some form of smart Shield gatting Shield Polarize would be much more useful. But as it stands, shields have no damage reduction on their own and Toxin/Gas and Slash ticks/damage can bypass them and kill a player with over shields.

Radiation procs in Magnetize and redundant and pointless. Enemies in the bubble shooting will have all their damage increased and drawn to the bubble's center anyway. On top of that, damage enemies do to themselves is weak, it's Magnetizes damage multipliers is what make those friendly fire shots hurt so much. About the only synergy status procs have with Magnetize is that it keeps them in gas clouds and and, with punch through, allows that one bullet to keep proccing. And that's if enemies don't glitch out of the Magnetize bubble like they sometimes do and just walk out of it. (Wish that wasn't the case)

But I am a believe that Mag is not a bad frame but she could use some buffs like a larger energy pool. Crush needs to have a faster cast animation of something because enemies outside of her crush range will fillet her. Would really like to see the shards she creates be able to become absored by her to add a layer of damage reduction but yeah....

I mostly want an energy pool increase more than anything.

[(PSN)DBR87]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)Chel-El said:

So, to avoid any form of subjectivity- forum backlash, personals bias, experience as a main and starter etc 

I added:

iflynn, mogamu, tactical potato, gayguyplays  to my list of youtubers who covered Mag 

This is because I endorsed LifeofRio and x3lp for their excellent mag guides and don’t wanna be blinded by their brilliance

In general:

>None of these guys say Mag is bad.

>Some are hinting on nerfs (especially on 3).

>Some are aware that she is polarizing in the community. 

>Most know what they’re doing (moving from her 3 to 2) and show it on screen via tests, plays, builds. 

My conclusion is that a simple Youtube search will give you a neutral, workable, entry level info for Mag.

The upgrade that’s similar to mine is to forma (-) for energy siphon. But formas and max leveling is not a big deal for anyone is it? We do it routinely now but a noob can figure it out on his own just as I did with energy siphon. 

She introduces these skills to new players: manual farming with her bullet, intelligent energy management because caster, and surviving (through modding or maneuvering) because squishy. 

She is a good starter in that regard. If I had a tanky, press to 4 frame as a starter would I be as engaged? I’ll just keep pressing that 4, and skip modding and maneuvering skills or research (looking at Trinity or Saryn).

Steep learning curve is actually good for a starter frame so it remains engaging in the end. It teaches the skills, modding & understanding required to meet different enemies. 

On plague star I brought my Mag and got kicked in the butt for complacency. I got so used to her power against the grineer that I was humbled and had to rebuild for an infested boss type battle. Does that make Mag or my load out weak? 

I would also argue she is a terrible starter. She has a high learning curve and is far more mod reliant then Excal and Volt. Even if a protege new player mastered the mechanics in two days, they wouldn't have the mods to make her work as effectively. I think Nyx or Rhino would make a better starter. They have ways to protect themselves but they can't nuke the map with 4. Mag requires good mods and a understanding of mechanics, two things that won't reach new players for a while.

Edited December 9, 2017 by (PS4)DBR87

[DroopingPuppy]

Ha, only some experts of a bad thing doesn't solve an issue at all. We can't become them and able to spend enough resource like them, and it only proves that Mag is bad for it needs much care and skills to run. Mag in the hands of such expects are indeed good, even better than the typical gamers with most frames, but that's because of their own skills and efforts, rather than Mag's raw potent. With the same amount of experience and resources they can do much better with the better warframes. I don't blame this because that's their choice and they enjoys the game, but don't make the people fool by compare with them; they plays Mag just because they like them, not because Mag is actually good or overpowered for anyone.

 

As I said, everything can quite playable if you put the efforts for it. The problem is, bad things needs too much care than the others while does not so better than the others.

Edited December 9, 2017 by DroopingPuppy