How To Effectively Kill Ancients...

[Lucilius]

Which weapons are "designed" from the start (their un-modded state) to deal with Infested? Am specifically talking about primary and secondary.

 

I always aim at Ancients' legs hoping to critically hit. But some info states that you got to hit them on the head...Where the heck is it? (With Grineer its definitely their heads. Corpus confuses me too because their helmets should be bullet-proof or something.)

 

In any case, I cannot win against mobs. Even with my lvl 30 Excal, could not spam a fully upgraded Slash Dash enough to kill Ancients efficiently.

[BigBadHunkyDaddy]

I can't hear you over my enemies being vaporized by my Acrid.

 

Acrid. The answer.

[Lers]

Depends on what you have access to. Snipetron Vandal, Paris Prime and Lanka seems to be the most efficient dmg per bullet wise. Headshots with them really sting. Boltor, Akbolto, Despair/Kunai are also quite useful if you don't have access to the stuff above.

 

Honorable mention also goes out to Acrid and the Flux Rifle. Because they are always the answer to everything. They are just that good.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Lers

[honeybadger]

DE is planning to change how armor works, so that may not be tha case in the future any more.

Correction, they are changing how DAMAGE works. They have stated they are fine with the current armor scaling system.

[honeybadger]

*Actually* an Acrid will do less DPS than the throwing weapons if you're shooting them in the unarmored knee/thigh, because the DoT component will be treated as body damage and thus the elementals attached to the DoT will take full armor reduction. Unsure which would preform better with headshots.

I believe the elemental damage from the original bolt is converted to Poison damage as it ticks. So it does not take armor reduction.

[Llokii]

Hek and Kunai/Despair if you don't have access to clan weapons.

 

Flux Rifle and Acrid if you do.

[PeeWizard]

Just shove a ton of Despairs on his face...

[msterforks]

*Actually* an Acrid will do less DPS than the throwing weapons if you're shooting them in the unarmored knee/thigh, because the DoT component will be treated as body damage and thus the elementals attached to the DoT will take full armor reduction. Unsure which would preform better with headshots.

The only element that scales to endgame is AP, which is the only elemental mod you should be using towards the later levels (besides ice storm, but that's more for mag cap than the ice). With the proper build and keyboard/mouse adjustments, the Acrid will outdamage every weapon in the game, simply because of its sheer fire rate. The only problem is that most people can't click that fast and don't look to other means to do so.

 

@other posts about armor

Armor ignore is probably the biggest piece of the game. I also vaguely recall a quote from a livestream, "...armor is working as intended, but we'll keep it in the back of our heads". I wouldn't expect changes any time soon.

 

@OP

If you're looking to kill the small stuff, any weapon that fires quickly should do the job for most levels. The Boltor, which ignores armor, is a good choice since it's also somewhat effective against Ancients. The Sobek, while it does not have innate armor ignore, can be modded up to have a total of 150% Armor Piercing damage, more than enough to take Ancients down up to level 100 or so.

If you're a sidearm kind of person, the Akbolto fire quickly and ignore armor, but is semi-auto. Many players choose the Despair/Hikou as their sidearms, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both ignore armor, but the Despair deals Armor Piercing damage, which damage is halved when fighting light infested. The Hikou deals Serrated Blade damage, which deals 3x damage to light infested, but is extremely ammo inefficient, especially against Ancients.

[Darzk]

I would argue tho, if you were looking specifically only to hunt Ancients, that a max DPS weapon with a rainbow elemental build would perform better than any crit/ap build for an armor ignore weapon, simply because Ancients have no armor on their thighs.

 

Something like the Twin Vipers or Bronco Prime have ~2/3rds the DPS of the Acrid, and deal full elemental damage (~+400%) while 3/4 of the Acrid's damage cannot hit weakpoints (~+130%).

Edited August 22, 2013 by Darzk

[Tyrian3k]

Correction, they are changing how DAMAGE works. They have stated they are fine with the current armor scaling system.

 

What does that change about my statement?

[Lucilius]

Kunai, Hikou, and Despair. On Ancients, they make bows look like NERF guns.

 

Aim for face.

Will do.

[Lucilius]

There are weapons that do high damage to ancients. For people starting out there is:

 

Boltor

Kunai/Despair

 

As these weapons ignore armour you can go for the head rather than the buggy leg hitbox.

 

Also weapons such as Snipetron.

 

The only element that scales to endgame is AP, which is the only elemental mod you should be using towards the later levels (besides ice storm, but that's more for mag cap than the ice). With the proper build and keyboard/mouse adjustments, the Acrid will outdamage every weapon in the game, simply because of its sheer fire rate. The only problem is that most people can't click that fast and don't look to other means to do so.

 

@other posts about armor

Armor ignore is probably the biggest piece of the game. I also vaguely recall a quote from a livestream, "...armor is working as intended, but we'll keep it in the back of our heads". I wouldn't expect changes any time soon.

 

@OP

If you're looking to kill the small stuff, any weapon that fires quickly should do the job for most levels. The Boltor, which ignores armor, is a good choice since it's also somewhat effective against Ancients. The Sobek, while it does not have innate armor ignore, can be modded up to have a total of 150% Armor Piercing damage, more than enough to take Ancients down up to level 100 or so.

If you're a sidearm kind of person, the Akbolto fire quickly and ignore armor, but is semi-auto. Many players choose the Despair/Hikou as their sidearms, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both ignore armor, but the Despair deals Armor Piercing damage, which damage is halved when fighting light infested. The Hikou deals Serrated Blade damage, which deals 3x damage to light infested, but is extremely ammo inefficient, especially against Ancients.

Info much appreciated.

[honeybadger]

What does that change about my statement?

It changes the target of DE's re-balancing. Will it have the same end effect? Probably. I was just being specific. Misinformation spreads like wildfire on this forum.

:)

[Tyrian3k]

It changes the target of DE's re-balancing. Will it have the same end effect? Probably. I was just being specific. Misinformation spreads like wildfire on this forum.

:)

 

It's not really misinformation... If armor mechanics change, damage mechanics change accordingly as well.

[MageMeat]

Throwing knives, a selection of clan research weapons, most sniper rifles, Akboltos/Twin Gremlins, Hate/Orthos/Prime with Loki/Ash+Invisibility/Smoke Screen, and much more are easily capable of destroying even Void Ancients in short notice with the right build.

[CitizenV]

Correction, they are changing how DAMAGE works. They have stated they are fine with the current armor scaling system.

 

Do you mean this topic? https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/91501-august-6th-communtiy-hot-topics/#entry1018394

That was actually miscommunication. They meant that the current system was not buggy, not that they were fine with it. See DE_Steve's correction on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1juir1/de_does_not_intend_on_changing_how_armor_works/cbj32ng

 

Or do you mean something they said on the last livestream? I didn't watch it and don't recall what was in the recap thread :s.

[KrAyZy]

The leg is the best place to shoot them. I personally use a dera with wildfire and hellfire. Doesn't take too long to mow down like 60+ ancients. 

[honeybadger]

Do you mean this topic? https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/91501-august-6th-communtiy-hot-topics/#entry1018394

That was actually miscommunication. They meant that the current system was not buggy, not that they were fine with it. See DE_Steve's correction on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1juir1/de_does_not_intend_on_changing_how_armor_works/cbj32ng

 

Or do you mean something they said on the last livestream? I didn't watch it and don't recall what was in the recap thread :s.

 

Nope, you pinpointed it.  I hadn't seen that thread on Reddit...despite being the Resident A** hole...that's good to hear they may revisit Armor

 

However, I was referring mainly to a post/comment on them reworking how damage (elementals?) work.  This may have been the last livestream, but I cant remember :(

 

Thanks for the clarification!

Edited August 23, 2013 by honeybadger

[Forran]

One weapon to destroy them all, (Ancients that is, and most other things) the kunai. Those throwing knives are the best thing for ancient infested. Put a speed mod and hornet strike mod in there and you will kill them with no problem. I used 6 knives at lvl 30 to kill a lvl 40 or 45(can't remember exactly). Those things are beast.

[BigBadHunkyDaddy]

It takes like half a second to vaporize lvl62 ancients with the Acrid when shooting them just in the bodies(I counted). And the best thing is, it does the same to everything else in the game (it takes despair twice as long as acrid to kill Kril for example) so yes Acrid>all because you can take it anywhere with the same results.

Other weapons might be able to match Acrid in certain situations, but I don't think anything can kill them faster than Acrid.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Balerion84

[Lucilius]

One weapon to destroy them all, (Ancients that is, and most other things) the kunai. Those throwing knives are the best thing for ancient infested. Put a speed mod and hornet strike mod in there and you will kill them with no problem. I used 6 knives at lvl 30 to kill a lvl 40 or 45(can't remember exactly). Those things are beast.

Interesting.

[Shifty_Shuffler]

Yeah, me too. But thing is, you cannot melee a Toxic Ancient!!!! That's the thing!

 

Yes you can - Orthos Prime.

[Llokii]

Yes you can - Orthos Prime.

Even normal Orthos, just put maxed reach on it.

[Procession]

Best weapon I've used against ancients (I had to potatoe and forma it x3) is the Gram. That weapon shreds level 100 ancients rather quickly.

[litlit]

Here's the stats on ancients. Shows unarmored parts and weak spot https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au6mBXle3cFtdHBYUzVJaDJfdkIzSEN1cUh5UlRvckE#gid=11

[Llokii]

One weapon to destroy them all, (Ancients that is, and most other things) the kunai Acrid. Those throwing knives are It's the best thing for ancient infested. Put a speed mod and hornet strike mod in there and you will kill them with no problem. I used 6 knives one shot at lvl 30 to kill a lvl 40 or 45(can't remember exactly). Those things are It's beast.

Fixed your typos ;)