[DELAYED] Damage 2.5 Part 1: Physical Damage

[[DE]Connor]

Hail Tenno!

I’m here to talk nitty-gritty on a large systemic change that was discussed on Devstream 101: our upcoming changes to physical damage types and status procs.

 

Setting the Stage:

Since Damage 2.0, physical damage has three types (Impact, Puncture and Slash, often referred to as IPS) brought to the forefront of Arsenals for modding and weapon diversity. There are also ten elemental damage types, consisting of four base elements (cold, electricity, heat and toxin) and the six combinations formed by modding two elements together. Each of these damage types is stronger or weaker against specific enemy types.

However, each of these damage types also have “status effects” that can be applied based on a “procedural random chance” percentage, often known as procs. Impact procs cause enemies to stagger, Puncture procs reduce the enemy’s damage output by a flat 30%, and Slash procs inflict “bleed” damage over time. Slash has long been considered the most powerful of these effects, primarily because Slash procs stack on top of one another and scale with weapon damage, while both Puncture and Impact procs could only have their flat effects refreshed.

 

Leveling the Field:

Those of you who watched our most recent Devstream will remember Khora, our next Warframe. Her powers allow players to switch between Impact, Puncture and Slash type modes, influencing the damage skew of her abilities. We saw this exciting new idea as an opportunity to revisit the various status proc types, and shake things up a bit!

In an update coming soon, we will be making changes to IPS status effects and proc damage calculation. Our primary goal was improving Impact and Puncture; both of these procs will now scale in effectiveness, based on the damage dealt. An Impact proc with a small damage output (like a single Akstilletto bullet) will still only cause a short stagger, while an Impact proc with high damage output (like a Vulkar shot) can scale all the way up to a ragdoll, temporarily immobilizing them. In a similar manner, Puncture procs will now scale in effectiveness from 10% to 75% damage reduction, based on the damage dealt at the time of proc. Slash will continue working as it does now, stacking multiple status effects on top of one another.

 

Covering our Bases:

Here’s where the math starts to get complicated - for all you stat-savvy Saryns and min-maxing Mesas out there, read on!

Our more observant theorycrafters may see a flaw in the examples given above - these new damage-scaling procs would favour weapons that can output large damage amounts all at once, like snipers. In order to help rapid fire weapons compete in this regard, we are also making a systemic change to repeating procs: additional status effects will not “reproc”, but will instead additively increase the effectiveness of the existing proc. The upgraded proc is calculated using the damage total from the original proc and the new proc added together. For Puncture, this also refreshes the duration of the proc.

We are also making a change in how a proc’s associated damage output is calculated - before, a Slash proc would scale based on the weapon’s total base damage output. Now, all procs will be calculated using ONLY the damage type of the proc that is being inflicted. Players may feel encouraged to focus their weapon builds around certain damage types in order to consistently inflict powerful procs, or go for raw damage across several damage types to inflict multiple procs at once!

To help visualize how these changes will look, let's deep dive into the physical damage types to see how they play out in-game:

Impact now serves as a great means of crowd control. Got a Corpus Tech threatening your excavator? Immobilize priority targets by unloading your Akstillettos, giving you more time to address the threat. Overwhelmed by an army of MOAs? Level entire rooms with something like a Strun!

Puncture can be used to minimize enemy lethality for frames with less survivability. Using high status puncture melees like Boltace or Endura, go blow-for-blow with Butchers and Powerfists without breaking a sweat. And if your Lex Prime can’t oneshot the Heavy Gunner rumbling towards your defense point, the enemy’s damage will be diminished long enough to safely deal the finishing blow.

Slash works the same as it ever did, stacking bleed damage over time to make short work of enemies. Your 100% status Tigris Prime will still eviscerate single targets with multiple procs, while something like a Galatine will still inflict more serious singular procs in a wider area - ‘tis but a scratch.

 

Final Intentions:

It's important that everyone understands our goals and what led us to the above changes. When designing Khora, an Impact/Puncture/Slash based frame, we knew it was time to bring up Impact and Puncture to Slash competitive levels of desirability thanks to long-term feedback. Having a frame specialize in the physical damage types is a pretty appropriate way to debut changes! Please approach all feedback with the understanding that from our end, our goal is a more interesting systemic change. Any edge case things that feel like massive nerfs should be civilly listed so we can address.

 

...And what about Elementals!?

With little time remaining in the year to properly iterate, we decided to split this into two parts. Part 1 is Physical and it is coming soon on PC. Part 2 is Elemental and coming in 2018. We didn't want to release something wholesale over the Holidays that we wouldn't be around to properly monitor. You will be seeing a new Dev Workshop in 2018 on Part 2 - Happy Holidays!

[Token-]

I'm scared

[trunks013]

Interesting we will see the result ^.^ 

No more opticore with hunter ammunition then ;)

[TrinityPrime]

Wonder how this will affect abilities like Ember WoF or Banshee Quake and doesn't this also make procs more dangerous towards Tenno as well?

What was it said to be? up to 75% reduced damage with puncture? With all the enemies shooting at your tanky builds that'll be happening more often won't it?

[OvisCaedo]

I really, really hate this direction for impact procs. Ragdolling things may be funny CC, but it makes them more annoying and time consuming to kill, especially since their heads will often end up out of targetting.

And the big problem with this as opposed to Blast is that you can generally choose whether or not you WANT to mod for blast damage and its effects on weapons; Impact having a possibly undesired effect is something you can't opt out of except by no longer using the weapon.

EDIT: And also, changing slash procs to only be based on slash damage is a massive neutering of the slash procs in many stances. Some of which are even BUILT around them, like Rapier weapons which are almost entirely puncture. From the sounds of it, a charge attack from my Dark Dagger will now inflict a bleed of 0 damage, too.

[Naftal]

Ok so slash will still be overpowered and impact and puncture are really bad compared to it?

Why?

[Voltage]

Glad to see DE sees that Impact and Puncture needs a buff, and Slash doesn't need a nerf. This is a great step in the right direction, but I feel that this directly nerfs weapons with even IPS balance instead of something like Atterax with high slash. 

[GreyEnneract]

With Impact being changed to what it will be, it will effectively be a "100%" damage reduction on enemies.
Which takes the role of Puncture completely. Any thoughts on just changing how Puncture works entirely?
Such as putting a weak spot on an enemy, or having puncture procs innately pass through enemies.
It seems more like it would be the "burst" proc, to go along with Impact's CC and Slash's DoT.

[BenThePoofle]

Please rethink punture, lowering the damage they do by 75% is not as good as killing them which reduces their damage by 100%. We all want punture to Reduce armor because it is soposed to specialize against armor when it doesn’t in reality.

[Naftal]

2 minutes ago, BenThePoofle said:

Please rethink punture, lowering the damage they do by 75% is not as good as killing them which reduces their damage by 100%. We all want punture to Reduce armor because it is soposed to specialize against armor when it doesn’t in reality.

Reducing armor is not as good as ignoring armor...

[EternalSigma]

“before, a Slash proc would scale based on the weapon’s total base damage output. Now, all procs will be calculated using ONLY the damage type of the proc that is being inflicted.”

This sounds like a nerf to me. Instead of slash procs calculating all ISP damage they now only calculate the slash damage? I could be reading this incorrectly, but it doesn’t sound good.

Edit: I’m glad that impact and puncture are scaling though, just not in the way I would hope.

[mrfluffydeath]

3 minutes ago, Naftal said:

Ok so slash will still be overpowered and impact and puncture are really bad compared to it?

Why?

Sometimes people just don't understand that Death is the ultimate in damage mitigation. What's the point in ragdolling an enemy if you can kill it? What's the point in reducing the amount of damage an enemy does if it's dead? A corpse does zero damage. Well. Unless it's a Nox.

[(PSN)Quo_Tee]

I feel that this is just going to alienate more weapons and only encourage the use of high slash damage weapons, slash procs are king and always will be as long as the ridiculous enemy armor scaling remains in this game, since slash procs are the only damage procs that ignore enemy armor.

This will also make Hunter Munitions a completely useless mod for some crit weapons like the Amprex, Synapse and Lanka as they have no slash damage at all.

[Naftal]

Just now, mrfluffydeath said:

Sometimes people just don't understand that Death is the ultimate in damage mitigation. What's the point in ragdolling an enemy if you can kill it? What's the point in reducing the amount of damage an enemy does if it's dead? A corpse does zero damage. Well. Unless it's a Nox.

Yep, I hope DE realizes that if they want IPS to be on about the same level, slash needs a pretty big nerf.

[TonnoTuna]

 

14 minutes ago, [DE]Connor said:

Before, a Slash proc would scale based on the weapon’s total base damage output. Now, all procs will be calculated using ONLY the damage type of the proc that is being inflicted.

What about stances with forced Slash procs? Some Elemental weapons have stances with forced Slash (E.g. Jat Kusar and Defiled Snapdragon)

[Synpai]

@[DE]Connor How will this affect elemental weapons with combos that have forced procs? I.E: Lacera + defiled snapdragon ?

 

(Lol @TonnoTuna same minds)

[Jabett]

Puncture should really have innate punchthrough as well as an ~80% damage reduction in an ape of the target, impact should reduce armour innately and then shattering impact can buff that.

As for slash, I believe it should take into account 50% of puncture and impact and then 100% of the slash on the base weapon 

[SSI_Seraph]

il y a 1 minute, Naftal a dit :

Yep, I hope DE realizes that if they want IPS to be on about the same level, slash needs a pretty big nerf.

justifying two bad options by nerfing the good one;..

[Drathe]

32 minutes ago, [DE]Connor said:

primarily because Slash procs stack on top of one another and scale with weapon damage

Lol, no. Slash is the strongest because it bypasses armour.

 

Imagine that...something that isn't affected by the massive scaling damage reduction. In other words, the only way other than REMOVING THAT DAMAGE REDUCTION, to actually kill high level enemies in a reasonable amount of time.

Puncture reduces enemy damage...cool, Slash kills enemies, and dead enemies deal 0 damage.

Impact staggers or ragdolls enemies. Which means you won't be able to hit headshots as easily, or may miss entirely if they ragdoll too violently. So Impact procs can literally make you take longer to kill an enemy.

In other words, Impact is now even more useless, Puncture is still just as useless, and Slash is getting nerfed.

Good to see that Damage 2.5 has managed to make everything worse.

[Ninja]

I'm looking forward on how this work & feels by myself once it goes into the game.
Thanks for the information

[Grass]

For puncture you could instead make them take more damage as a percentage. If you proc puncture they take 20% more damage from all sources and it could stack to 100% or something.

[xXDeadsinxX]

Interesting changes. Let’s hope Impact and Puncture will be as good as slash.

[--Q--uixotic]

16 minutes ago, [DE]Connor said:

before, a Slash proc would scale based on the weapon’s total base damage output. Now, all procs will be calculated using ONLY the damage type of the proc that is being inflicted

In the current system, mods with +slash damage do not increase the bleed proc damage.
Mods with +damage, +crit, and even +channeling will increase it - but not +slash.
Will this be changed in the new system?

[H8RAID]

I'm not crazy about rag-dolling enemies.  The stagger is fine.  Perhaps the stagger effect can be refreshed/prolonged and DE could add diminishing dexterity that would effect enemy's accuracy or something along those lines. 

[Aechmea]

11 minutes ago, [DE]Connor said:

Puncture can be used to minimize enemy lethality for frames with less survivability. Using high status puncture melees like Boltace or Endura, go blow-for-blow with Butchers and Powerfists without breaking a sweat. And if your Lex Prime can’t oneshot the Heavy Gunner rumbling towards your defense point, the enemy’s damage will be diminished long enough to safely deal the finishing blow.

Making holes on them affect their Weapons Woah Warframe Logic LuL