Soma Prime Update Suggestion: Thing's barely an upgrade to regular Soma at this point

[Serialkillerwhale]

Seriously. It's one MR up, and has a bigger ammo pool with a less restrictive spinup mechanic. It's barely an upgrade. Compare that to the fact that your average Primed weapon has 50-100% more damage and it's not even funny. Then again, a simple stat ramp up would also be lazy. Here's my suggestion.

Meant for the heaviest of battles, the Prime Soma's high caliber ammunition and nearly endless clip is capable of tearing apart throngs of enemies without stopping.

• Mastery Rank 15
• 24 Base Damage (2.4/9.6/12 Impact/Piercing/Slashing).
• 2.5x Crit Damage Multiplier
• 10 Rate of Fire
• 20 Accuracy
• Unique Ability: Gains 250% of normal ammo from pickups (50 from a single rifle ammo pickup)
• Unique Ability: Gains up to 100% more base damage per shot from continuous fire (reaches maximum damage at 5 seconds and decays in 10)
• Unique Ability: Gains +2.5 Punch Through at maximum overheat.

In other words, it's slower, less accurate, and has lower crit damage than the original, but has doubled damage, which is doubled again as you hold the trigger down. At low ramp-up it's only slightly stronger, but when you're really hosing things down, it gains doubled damage and eventually free punch through while offsetting the ammo wastage with it's increased ammo pickup rates.

[NinjaZeku]

7 minutes ago, Serialkillerwhale said:

slower, less accurate, and has lower crit damage

That would IMO change the weapon way too much, and also make it too similar to Gorgon & co.

I'd say a bit more Status Chance and, dunno, maybe 2 more Slash base damage
to turn it into more of a Crit Slash proc monster without needing Hunter Munitions might be all that's needed.

[TheGrimCorsair]

No point in fixin' what isn't broken. You still get faster spool up, twice the clip capacity, and a larger maximum ammo capacity over the base version, and it still does exactly as much damage as it did prior to the weapon re-balance.

[LABAL]

When there's Tenora and Prisma Gorgon, Soma Prime is just a trophy.

[Serialkillerwhale]

3 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

That would IMO change the weapon way too much, and also make it too similar to Gorgon & co.

I'd say a bit more Status Chance and, dunno, maybe 2 more Slash base damage
to turn it into more of a Crit Slash proc monster without needing Hunter Munitions might be all that's needed.

That works too, but honestly I was going for a whole revamp. Figured if I was throwing around possible numbers I might as well throw something radical.
Don't think there's a weapon in warframe where the Prime Variant has objectively worse crit stats in exchange for blunt damage yet.

2 minutes ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

No point in fixin' what isn't broken. You still get faster spool up, twice the clip capacity, and a larger maximum ammo capacity over the base version, and it still does exactly as much damage as it did prior to the weapon re-balance.

Except it is broken. When a Prime is barely an upgrade to the point where it's main gimmick is spool, and it's been powercreeped over to hell and back, what's the point of even getting it?

1 minute ago, LABAL said:

When there's Tenora and Prisma Gorgon, Soma Prime is just a trophy.

Precisely.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Serialkillerwhale

[Pancakes]

You're really undervaluing the magazine increase

[taiiat]

look for things that don't change the personality of the Weapon as is, which is low Base Damage, high Crits, basic Bullet Hose.
which also is paired with fairly low Status, as Soma is a Weapon focusing mainly on raw Damage via Crits.

an ocean of things it could do, and a way for most of those to not change the personality of the Weapon.

18 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

I'd say a bit more Status Chance and, dunno, maybe 2 more Slash base damage
to turn it into more of a Crit Slash proc monster without needing Hunter Munitions might be all that's needed.

Hunter Munitions Loadouts as it is aren't effective on Soma, it's just not really built for applying Slash Status in an effective manner even if there was Status Chance to work with.

16 minutes ago, Serialkillerwhale said:

Don't think there's a weapon in warframe where the Prime Variant has objectively worse crit stats in exchange for blunt damage yet.

it's a tough sell thesedays, as such a Weapon would need massively higher Base Damage to compete with a Crit Weapon of the same style. so in other words.... Boltor Prime.

[Sloan441]

4 hours ago, KurryB said:

You're really undervaluing the magazine increase

This appears to be why the SomaP is only one MR above the Soma. 

I'd argue that the MR of the SomaP should be higher to begin with and the concomitant stat increases then be aimed at more base damage and a touch more status. 

[KnightCole]

Soma Prime Buffs:

+30 to 35% base Crit

3x to 4x crit dmg

12 to 18 dmg. 

Edited April 21, 2018 by KnightCole

[Ernestasx]

47 minutes ago, KnightCole said:

Soma Prime Buffs:

+30 to 35% base Crit

3x to 4x crit dmg

12 to 18 dmg. 

Sounds about right, i think this should work.

[fluffysnowcap]

On 20/04/2018 at 10:29 AM, LABAL said:

When there's Tenora and Prisma Gorgon, Soma Prime is just a trophy.

Dang it I need another 12 forma now, any build ideas? As I need a new bullet hose after my last two golden faucet are a bit week now.

 

21 hours ago, KnightCole said:

Soma Prime Buffs:

+30 to 35% base Crit

3x to 4x crit dmg

12 to 18 dmg. 

That's stupidly powerful a 4x CD

[Vengerz]

One MR difference is kinda low yeah, should probably be MR 9 with ~2 extra damage and 33% crit. And its riven shouldn't be 0.5, in fact no riven should be below 0.75 imo.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Vengerz

[Serialkillerwhale]

To be honest, the top of my wishlist would be that 250% ammo pickup thing. It'd be perfect for a bullethose primary like Soma so it can afford to spew out the bullets it's supposed to.

[ParadoxMusic]

On 4/21/2018 at 12:39 AM, KnightCole said:

Soma Prime Buffs:

+30 to 35% base Crit

3x to 4x crit dmg

12 to 18 dmg. 

4x is a bit too high imo. I rather have 40% Crit, 3.2 multiplier and the added 6 damage (1 extra puncture an impact each, 4 more slash)

[KnightCole]

On 4/21/2018 at 9:48 PM, fluffysnowcap said:

Dang it I need another 12 forma now, any build ideas? As I need a new bullet hose after my last two golden faucet are a bit week now.

 

That's stupidly powerful a 4x CD

On a gun that does 12 dmg?  Thats what? 60?  Meanwhile other guns deal like 30+ and get 2 and 3x which is as much or more.  You even mod up the Soma and it gets maybe 200 dmg, while other guns are rockin 300-400 dmg and in some cases, those big guns, dealing thousands of dmg a pop.

[DrBorris]

1 hour ago, KnightCole said:

On a gun that does 12 dmg?  Thats what? 60?  Meanwhile other guns deal like 30+ and get 2 and 3x which is as much or more.  You even mod up the Soma and it gets maybe 200 dmg, while other guns are rockin 300-400 dmg and in some cases, those big guns, dealing thousands of dmg a pop.

Don't forget that mods multiply base values. Comparing weapons based on unmodded stats is pointless. 

[KnightCole]

12 hours ago, DrBorris said:

Don't forget that mods multiply base values. Comparing weapons based on unmodded stats is pointless. 

I didnt, but even modded the Soma gets what? 200 dmg if you include elemental? My Soma P is sitting on something like 8, 11 and 21 + 150 elemental..or somewhere around there, its not that high.  I have every mod maxed except for Hvy Cal cuz I dont dig the idea of having 5 accuracy...

Other guns modded get 400-500-600+.  Shotguns get into the many thousands.  My Sobek, its sitting on like 10k, my bro had his Tigris at like 30k.  But other guns now have more status, just about as much, or more in the ballpark, crit and similar or better crit dmg. 

[Eirshy]

Why?

It's MR 7 and in a good place for MR 7. It's also a significant upgrade to the Soma since it retains the "iconic" 3s reload of doom but *doubles* the clip size (and bumps the max ammo up by 260). On bullet hoses, both of those changes are very significant.

 

As for moving it... In the Spooled Bullet Hose category (aka "Support Weapon" or "MG"), we have:
- 03 Gorgon (crit)
- 06 Soma (crit)
- 07 Gorgon Wraith (hybrid (status pref)) (LA:Event)
- 07 Soma Prime (crit) (LA:Vault)
- 10 Tenora (hybrid (crit pref)) (hybrid (charged light sniper)) (unique: Hyperion Stabilizing)
- 11 Prisma Gorgon (hybrid (crit pref)) (LA:Baro)
- 12 Supra (status) (projectile)
- 14 Supra Vandal (hybrid (status pref)) (projectile) (LA:Baro) 

But if we strip out all the limited-access ones...
- 03 Gorgon (crit)
- 06 Soma (crit)
- 10 Tenora (hybrid (crit pref)) (hybrid (charged light sniper)) (unique: Hyperion Stabilizing)
- 12 Supra (status) (projectile)

There's no hole for it, either including limited access, or excluding it. And even then it's still a pretty sizeable improvement.
I would suggest we just knock the Soma down to MR5, but then it'd be a 5-MR dry spell for an "upgrade", which is bad.

I could see giving it like 1 more MR (so MR 8) so it can have a little higher stats, but even then.... why?
They literally gave out a *ton* of these for free, if they made it suddenly an endgame-tier gun they'd have just shot themselves in the foot with it.

 

MR 13/15 is probably gonna go to the Tenora Prime whenever that happens, btw. Which is good, as the Tenora is a significantly better gun, and not just because of damage stats.

Edited April 23, 2018 by TheBlueJelly
added a note about prime-for-prime making the SomaP significantly less "rare" with newer players.

[True_Naeblis]

@TheBlueJelly I like your reasoning, and I'm all for the Tenora P falling there, I just hate the way it looks =(

[Eirshy]

Wanted to actually emphasize the fact that DE gave out a *TON* of Soma Primes for their Prime-for-Prime promotion with Twitch. As such that's probably part of why it's very comparable to the non-Prime version, as there's a ton of people with it who need a reason to grind for other guns.

I had a good laugh actually stopping to read the OP beyond just having my eyes lock onto the "MR 15" line and reeeeee-ing away.

Also @taiiat not sure why you think it doesn't work in Hunter Munitions. Baza does wonders with HM with a much lower orange rate (something like 2% vs 15%), even past its -50% falloff distance, and SomaP's got the same damage profile as the Baza if you were always at a -25% falloff point.
... I may have misread what you meant by that post tho.

 

15 minutes ago, True_Naeblis said:

@TheBlueJelly I like your reasoning, and I'm all for the Tenora P falling there, I just hate the way it looks =(

Really? I actually adore the current design. it almost feels like a super long-barrel revolver instead of a rifle.

'Course I have a thing for f***off-length barrel revolvers, so...

Edited April 23, 2018 by TheBlueJelly

[taiiat]

19 minutes ago, TheBlueJelly said:

Also @taiiat not sure why you think it doesn't work in Hunter Munitions. Baza does wonders with HM with a much lower orange rate (something like 2% vs 15%), even past its -50% falloff distance, and SomaP's got the same damage profile as the Baza if you were always at a -25% falloff point.

it's okay for both but compared to Weapons that have a better balance of high Crits while retaining good Base Damage perform a lot better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Ozamchist]

Never thought I'd see the day where people would be asking to give the soma prime a buff.
My how opinions change.

[motorfirebox]

DE isn't in the habit of retouching old weapon stats, unless they're reworking an entire class of weapon.

[(PSN)LoisGordils]

On 4/20/2018 at 5:17 AM, Serialkillerwhale said:

Seriously. It's one MR up, and has a bigger ammo pool with a less restrictive spinup mechanic. It's barely an upgrade. Compare that to the fact that your average Primed weapon has 50-100% more damage and it's not even funny. Then again, a simple stat ramp up would also be lazy. Here's my suggestion.

Meant for the heaviest of battles, the Prime Soma's high caliber ammunition and nearly endless clip is capable of tearing apart throngs of enemies without stopping.

• Mastery Rank 15
• 24 Base Damage (2.4/9.6/12 Impact/Piercing/Slashing).
• 2.5x Crit Damage Multiplier
• 10 Rate of Fire
• 20 Accuracy
• Unique Ability: Gains 250% of normal ammo from pickups (50 from a single rifle ammo pickup)
• Unique Ability: Gains up to 100% more base damage per shot from continuous fire (reaches maximum damage at 5 seconds and decays in 10)
• Unique Ability: Gains +2.5 Punch Through at maximum overheat.

In other words, it's slower, less accurate, and has lower crit damage than the original, but has doubled damage, which is doubled again as you hold the trigger down. At low ramp-up it's only slightly stronger, but when you're really hosing things down, it gains doubled damage and eventually free punch through while offsetting the ammo wastage with it's increased ammo pickup rates.

I'm totally down for Primes having unique abilities, love these! Especially the punch through one, very nice 😎

[(XBOX)Artakka]

Ehhhh, I personally don't agree with the suggestions, as I'm not a fan of spin up weapons, and while the perks are unique, it brings it too close in line with other weapons (tenora, gorgon, etc). The soma prime could use an increase in damage however, along with perhaps a faster reload time and greater status chance (as well as an increase in MR to counterbalance). For me, it gets beat out by the Boltor Prime in almost every case, which is unfortunate due to them both being similar in terms of function.