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

[KnightCole]

10 minutes ago, (XB1)Young Boy HT said:

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.

more dmg should definitely not come with a faster reload.  3s isnt even that fast anyway, the Soma's up time does not make its 3s feel bad at all..

[NeithanDiniem]

On 4/20/2018 at 11:39 PM, KnightCole said:

Soma Prime Buffs:

+30 to 35% base Crit

3x to 4x crit dmg

12 to 18 dmg. 

Crit damage is exceptionally high there and you have almost doubled the BASE damage. The Prime already has a 20% damage increase over its non-prime variant, your idea brings that up to 80%.

[KnightCole]

3 hours ago, NeithanDiniem said:

Crit damage is exceptionally high there and you have almost doubled the BASE damage. The Prime already has a 20% damage increase over its non-prime variant, your idea brings that up to 80%.

Which is still like half the Gorgon and Supra's damage. 

[(XBOX)Artakka]

16 hours ago, KnightCole said:

more dmg should definitely not come with a faster reload.  3s isnt even that fast anyway, the Soma's up time does not make its 3s feel bad at all..

Normally I would agree, but the soma falls off quickly at higher levels due to it being a crit weapon and not a status. It's going to perform well regardless at lower levels (80 and down) but I'm thinking more about its comparability to others at lvl 100+

[Sloan441]

8 hours ago, (XB1)Young Boy HT said:

Normally I would agree, but the soma falls off quickly at higher levels due to it being a crit weapon and not a status. 

This isn't really true. 

The SomaP can hit 50% status without too much difficulty. Combined with its RoF, it can apply status effects pretty effectively. 

Moreover, it's most effective build at present involved HM, where innate status doesn't really matter. What it does have is more than adequate to quickly apply viral effects and after that the expected critical status effects take care of the rest--well enough to be useful in sorties. 

[Serialkillerwhale]

On 4/23/2018 at 8:25 PM, NeithanDiniem said:

Crit damage is exceptionally high there and you have almost doubled the BASE damage. The Prime already has a 20% damage increase over its non-prime variant, your idea brings that up to 80%.

Soma: 12 damage 15 rounds per second, 30% crit, 3x multiplier
Soma Prime: 12 damage 15 rounds per second, 30% crit, 3x multiplier

[NeithanDiniem]

5 hours ago, Serialkillerwhale said:

Soma: 12 damage 15 rounds per second, 30% crit, 3x multiplier
Soma Prime: 12 damage 15 rounds per second, 30% crit, 3x multiplier

Then soma was changed since last I used it, because I distinctly remember when it released the same argument being made and it was a 20% base damage increase. If that is the case then a 3 damage increase is all it needs, not 6.

[Serialkillerwhale]

To be honest, considering that the average is +50/100% Base damage or increased crit/status/whatever or some combination thereof, Soma P was always understatted, but it was okay because at that point Soma was still solidly one of the strongest guns to begin with and Soma*1.5 would have been gross power creep.

Now, we already have afforementioned powercreep (Tigris and Tiberon Prime, for example) going on so making Soma P actually about as good as an average prime weapon is compared to the original makes sense to me.

[Sloan441]

1 hour ago, NeithanDiniem said:

Then soma was changed since last I used it, because I distinctly remember when it released the same argument being made and it was a 20% base damage increase. 

It has and you did remember correctly. 

The only real difference between them now is the magazine capacity of the prime variant. This is why I maintain that MR7 for the SomaP is way too low for this weapon. It's barely more than a reskin as it presently stands. 

The gun should be raised to an MR sufficient enough to at least allow it to retain the 20% base damage boost it originally had. I don't expect it to be buffed to compete with something like the Supra Vandal, but it should be a more significant upgrade to the garden variety Soma. 

[(XBOX)Artakka]

15 hours ago, Sloan441 said:

This isn't really true. 

The SomaP can hit 50% status without too much difficulty. Combined with its RoF, it can apply status effects pretty effectively. 

Moreover, it's most effective build at present involved HM, where innate status doesn't really matter. What it does have is more than adequate to quickly apply viral effects and after that the expected critical status effects take care of the rest--well enough to be useful in sorties. 

Your absolutely right. I'm just saying "compared to other weapons" for me personally it's a little lackluster. This of course may be different for others or yourself, but I feel its bar should be raised.

[Eirshy]

16 minutes ago, (XB1)Young Boy HT said:

Your absolutely right. I'm just saying "compared to other weapons" for me personally it's a little lackluster. This of course may be different for others or yourself, but I feel its bar should be raised.

But why tho? It's MR 7, and is a go-to promo unlock since Prime for Prime handed out a ton of them- kinda like how exilus adapters are now ever since the Twitch Drops glitched out.

It's still perfectly functional for Sorties (without a riven, I might add), but it doesn't completely remove the desire for new weapons from from players who picked up a promo copy.

And even comparing it to the regular Soma, it has quite literally double the uptime per clip- and with both having an absurdly slow 3s reload, that's a major boon.

Edited April 25, 2018 by TheBlueJelly

[(XBOX)Artakka]

11 minutes ago, TheBlueJelly said:

But why tho? It's MR 7, and is a go-to promo unlock since Prime for Prime handed out a ton of them- kinda like how exilus adapters are now ever since the Twitch Drops glitched out.

It's still perfectly functional for Sorties (without a riven, I might add), but it doesn't completely remove the desire for new weapons from from players who picked up a promo copy.

And even comparing it to the regular Soma, it has quite literally double the uptime per clip- and with both having an absurdly slow 3s reload, that's a major boon.

Well, since you ask. I just personally feel that while it is of course viable in sortie+ content (I got it through the twitch prime access about 6 months back) and it carried me through most of the star chart, it just doesn't kill things quite as fast as say the opticor, or theTigris, or the Boltor. I'm not saying it's not a great weapon, but I think perhaps an decrease in reload time and a slight damage buff would help it fall in line with other damage dealers. 

[Eirshy]

40 minutes ago, (XB1)Young Boy HT said:

Well, since you ask. I just personally feel that while it is of course viable in sortie+ content (I got it through the twitch prime access about 6 months back) and it carried me through most of the star chart, it just doesn't kill things quite as fast as say the opticor, or theTigris, or the Boltor. I'm not saying it's not a great weapon, but I think perhaps an decrease in reload time and a slight damage buff would help it fall in line with other damage dealers. 

You're comparing it to a bunch of significantly higher MR weapons and finding it lacking (note: the weapon rebalance changed MR requirements to be directly proportional to weapon power level).... The whole point of this game is, similar to MonHun and other looters, to lust after bigger sticks or ways to make the smaller ones viable.

Considering you're wanting to use other weapons still, yet it had no problem carrying you through the star chart, I'd say it's at the exact right level for both MR 7 and for a weapon you got for free from a promotion- potentially even way before you normally could have accessed it (given its Vaulted status and new MR 7 requirement). Very much so on the latter- it gets the job done but leaves you wanting more. That is an *ideal* position for a promo weapon.

 

Essentially, I get you want a gun you like to be "even better", what I'm asking for is a justification for why it should be higher than MR 7 beyond "I like it." Because it's on-par with its contemporaries (such as the Baza at MR8), and is legitimately Sortie-viable when fully built sans-riven (as anything above MR6 really should be).

[BrazilianJoe]

Rather:

Buff ammo clip.

Give it a slowdown speed once you stop firing, so it can ramp up firing speed faster.

Each kill grants additional %status chance and crit chance, and replenishes clip by X ammo. 

[Serialkillerwhale]

12 hours ago, TheBlueJelly said:

You're comparing it to a bunch of significantly higher MR weapons

And that's just the problem isn't it?
Soma Prime is arbitrarily held at a ridiculously low MR level of 7, 1 more than regular Soma, for no good reason.

Prime Weapons in general, are typically 50-100% more powerful than their original counterparts, either through simply raising their base damage parameters by that much, or a variety of other factors, such as crit multipliers. Soma Prime is......0% more powerful in any situation that 100 rounds is enough, and a blistering 15% more when counting it's magazine size for dumping multiple mags end after end at a target, which, need I remind you, is incredibly impractical since machine guns like Soma and point and click adventure games like Latron both pick up 20 rounds per rifle pickup and have the same value from ammo mutation.

Boltor Prime, Burston Prime, Tiberon Prime, Sybaris Prime, even Latron Prime is MR 10+. Braton Prime, which is based on the literal starter gun, is MR8. So why, is Soma Prime MR 7?

Edited April 26, 2018 by Serialkillerwhale

[NinjaZeku]

Yeah, it's kind of a shame that Soma Prime is so comparatively mediocre.
By which I don't mean bad, mind you, it's still a strong weapon, it's just, powercreep is real and it passed by good ol' SP.

Soma is one of the iconic weapons that easily come to mind when I think "Warframe"
so its Prime version being just a "middle of the road" thing rather than a high-end monster is weird to me.

[Sloan441]

On 4/26/2018 at 6:05 AM, NinjaZeku said:

By which I don't mean bad, mind you, it's still a strong weapon, it's just, powercreep is real and it passed by good ol' SP.

 

The hell of it is, it wasn't powercreep. Before the MR weapons revamp, the SomaP was one of the very best of autotrigger primaries. 

Then, at the wave of the magic rebalancing hand, it was rendered MR7 in a world of MR14 rifles and was demoted by omission when most of its peers received very substantial buffs. 

It really shouldn't be MR7. That's the real argument here. It wasn't in that relative position before and now it is for no good reason.