So I just did some tests on Telos Boltor vs Boltor Prime

[squirrel_killer-]

So before we go forward let me offer the builds I used so you can critique these.

 

Boltor Prime (3 Forma):

 

 

Telos Boltor (2 Forma):

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So when I build a weapon it is my habit to build to its strengths and to try and do a task that I feel it will do well in. For the Boltor Prime I looked at it and I saw a damn good status weapon, and I built it to handle such. The Telos Boltor is a pretty clear critical weapon.

I also tend to build around their starting Polarities whenever I feel it will do best, in both cases they start with  and  polarities. One each. So that is why Primed Cryo Rounds got onto both.

So since Telos Boltor was what I got first, I am fairly familiar with it. In fact the normal Boltor was one of my favourite early weapons and finding out there was a stronger variant was exciting for me, the Telos Boltor is one of my favourite weapons and these days the one I pull out the most. I looked at it, saw it was a damn good critical weapon so I added on Hunter Munitions and made it a viral weapon, which is an insanely powerful combo against all factions and enemy types regardless of armour, shields, or lack of either. It performs great even after hanging out in Mot for over an hour. It performs longer than I can really keep my HP or squad going for in a lot of cases.

 

The Boltor Prime I only just got it with this unvaulting. I am familiar with its reputation as being a godly weapon and once upon a time being one of if not the best weapon in the game. So getting it was kind of exciting. As soon as I got it my eyes narrowed in on three things, a rather disappointing critical chance (12% base) which killed any hopes of a powerful crit or hybrid build, a rather nice looking status chance (34% base) this lead me to build it as a status weapon, and unfortunately there was the third thing which was the total lack of Slash damage and therefore total lack of slash procs. Now the Telos Boltor lacks slash as well, but it is a crit weapon and can get these from Hunters Munitions, the normal Boltor has slash on it, but is so low tier (It is a MR 2 weapon after all) it can't really scale. The Boltor Prime however did, as I said, have amazing status chance, so I built it as such. I figured it might be at the very least a side grade or fill a different niche in my arsenal.

First forma was used to fit on Split Chamber, the second was used to squeeze on initially Vital Sense, but after some testing I put on Shred to help it get that status on fast before pulling out a secondary to finish the job, while also being able to shoot through trash units stepping in the way to keep layering those corrosive procs on the heavily armoured units such as Bombards and Heavy Gunners. Now the third forma was used on Heavy Caliber. I personally don't like this mod, I like to maintain my accuracy whenever possible, it is a play style thing, but I felt I needed it to get it to have the killing power I wanted.

Now here is a thing, I never felt like I needed a secondary to go with my Telos Boltor. It tears through armoured and unarmoured units alike, and does the damage to get the kill. For Boltor Prime all it really felt like it did was soften them up, I found myself often feeling like after long runs of Survival I needed to swap out to my secondary to finish the job. This is all in the heat of the moment however, it was all just how it "felt". So I took it off to Simulacrum and loaded up some tests.

Now I have a method to testing. I test a weapon with no abilities or companions based on its own merits alone at 70, 100, and 150. I do this when trying to fine tune a build and make sure that the numbers are matching what felt like was happening to make sure that short of something dependant on a lot of enemies everything is working as it should be.

What I use for my test is two each of the following units:

• Corrupted Ancient
• Corrupted Bombard
• Corrupted Crewman
• Corrupted Heavy Gunner
• Corrupted Lancer
• Corrupted Moa
• Corrupted Nullifier

This covers all health and shield types except for Machinery (roller balls and the like) Infested and Infested Flesh (found on infested trash mobs like Chargers or Runners and is seemingly random between them). It also covers both types of armour. It also lets me see how good a weapon is at killing nullifier bubbles and picking off ancients healers.

So I took the Boltor Prime through this test at 70, 100 and 150. It blew through 70 nicely enough, it felt a bit bumpy at 100, but 150 I really saw it struggling, but that is some insanely high level content so no big deal. I then took the Telos Boltor through the same tests, and redid them multiple times to make sure that I wasn't just doing 70 twice and 100 once. It honestly didn't feel like the enemies were gaining power through this.

The Telos Boltor at all levels felt very much like I could say "you are already dead" and move on as things just collapse a few moments later due to all those slash procs. It honestly does not seem to struggle at any point. I felt Boltor Prime struggle the entire way through starting at 100 and at 150 I was having ammo issues.

On a corrupted bombard at 150 it took around 100 shots to kill with the prime, the telos killed it in around 50.

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To cast a verdict on these weapons, I have to say it is almost sad to see how much Telos Boltor out classes the Boltor Prime these days. The Boltor Prime will do you fine for level 70 content and maybe a bit further, so it isn't complete trash. I want to stress that it isn't a bad weapon per say, and maybe a few more forma it could match the Telos Boltor a bit longer, but compared to the Arbiters variant it is just so much weaker. It is a (un)vaulted prime, it has a higher MR requirement (13 vs 12), smaller magazine (60 vs 90) and when compared to the easier to access Telos Boltor it needs more forma before I felt comfortable really putting it through its paces.

So if you can get a Boltor Prime it will do you well if you need a status weapon and you like how the Boltor series handles pick it up, but if you want things dead, it is cheaper on your plat and forma to get a Telos Boltor.

[Dragazer]

26 minutes ago, squirrel_killer- said:

 

 

 

Your problem is you don't know how to build for the Prime's stats

Remove point strike, its not crit weapon so don't bother with halfassed crit builds. Replace the Primed Cryo rounds as well. The cold dmg is skewing your procs in favor of cold instead corrosive. You do not want that when dealing with heavy armored targets.  .

Replace those two mods with 90% toxin and electric mods that way corrosive procs are much more likely to proc and you are not wasting a mod slot on a worthless mod for the weapon (point strike)

Plus to maximize the build use primed shred

Edited August 5, 2018 by Dragazer

[Get_Singed]

If you're going to put Shred on the Boltor Prime, you have to be testing how both weapons deal against a group of enemies instead of enemies one at a time, since you've now added punch through to the Boltor Prime that the Telos Boltor doesn't have. 100 shots on the Boltor Prime will also take less time than 100 shots on the Telos Boltor would due to the increased fire rate. If trying to shoot through a group of enemies, the two weapons would probably have similar kill times with the big determining factor being where you are trying to shoot through them to get the most out of that punch through. It might also help the Boltor Prime if you replaced Vital Sense with Vigilante Armaments, and Primed Cryo Rounds might actually be better replaced with a heat damage mod since heat procs do damage that cold procs don't do and heat damage is better overall than cold damage.

Edit: the above suggestion for going pure Corrosive over heat is probably better to increase corrosive proc chance. Vigilante Armaments might beat out having two 90% mods but not sure.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Get_Singed

[squirrel_killer-]

1 minute ago, Dragazer said:

Your problem is you don't know how to build for the Prime's stats

Remove point strike, its not crit weapon so don't bother with halfassed crit builds. Replace the Primed Cryo rounds as well. The cold dmg is skewing your procs in favor of cold instead corrosive. You do not want that when dealing with heavy armored targets.  .

Replace those two mods with 90% toxin and electric mods that way corrosive procs are much more likely to proc and you are not wasting a mod slot on a worthless mod for the weapon (point strike)

Yes, I guess I could sink the additional two forma needed for that, but it doesn't help help the fact that is some rapidly rising forma investments to get on par.

 

2 minutes ago, Get_Singed said:

If you're going to put Shred on the Boltor Prime, you have to be testing how both weapons deal against a group of enemies instead of enemies one at a time, since you've now added punch through to the Boltor Prime that the Telos Boltor doesn't have. 100 shots on the Boltor Prime will also take less time than 100 shots on the Telos Boltor would due to the increased fire rate. If trying to shoot through a group of enemies, the two weapons would probably have similar kill times with the big determining factor being where you are trying to shoot through them to get the most out of that punch through. It might also help the Boltor Prime if you replaced Vital Sense with Vigilante Armaments, and Primed Cryo Rounds might actually be better replaced with a heat damage mod since heat procs do damage that cold procs don't do and heat damage is better overall than cold damage.

Honestly the Telos was doing fine against groups without it, as for the heat mod, yeah I did consider it, but at that point I am sinking more forma into a weapon to not get much more of it. Cryo Rounds being a D polarity while every other 90% is a - is a bit annoying TBH. That ups the forma cost the moment you see one of those. Maybe in two days when I have another few forma to use I might try that and report back.

[Get_Singed]

You can test pretty simply by removing Primed Cryo Rounds outright and putting on a 90% mod or Vigilante Armaments instead of Point Strike. The cold procs you're getting will be significantly reducing the damage dealt by the Boltor Prime due to how effective Corrosive Procs are at high levels. Even with a mod missing it will probably perform better when modded that way.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Get_Singed

[squirrel_killer-]

41 minutes ago, Get_Singed said:

You can test pretty simply by removing Primed Cryo Rounds outright and putting on a 90% mod or Vigilante Armaments instead of Point Strike. The cold procs you're getting will be significantly reducing the damage dealt by the Boltor Prime due to how effective Corrosive Procs are at high levels. Even with a mod missing it will probably perform better when modded that way.

So I tried as you suggested with a 90% (Stormbringer), left enough left over to slip in a Hammer Shot on the D slot (Might as well squeeze out the +60%CD and +40%SC).

It is a bit better, but nothing too drastic. Still feels a bit short in performance. Here is a good comparison between the Prime and Telos post changes, maybe another forma (bringing it to double the forma cost of the Telos, which for me is NOT a selling point) might bring it up.

Against 6 Bombards with their AI running (but player invulnerable) the times from start to finish of the fight for each was:

Telos 35
Prime 34

Based on time stamps on a video you can see here:

Now this is useful for against armour, I will be going into a one hour Mot tomorrow with it, see how it performs there. Note at this level the Telos is shredding shield and health units like paper. The prime was not doing so great, but I did not run that test before uploading, but as we all know armour is the main concern in this game as is.

 

EDIT: This does put it on about par against C.Bombards with Telos however. Which is a bit concerning considering the much less diverse capabilities of the weapon in comparison to the Telos. This is before we start talking Syndicate proc as well, which is a healing and mobility buff. Also note the Telos did not have punch Through so I was gunning each enemy down on its own. 

Edited August 5, 2018 by squirrel_killer-
An afterthought.

[Get_Singed]

Pure killing time also doesn't determine the pure worth of a weapon, especially if you're considering extreme high level content where utility becomes much more useful. A status weapon modded for pure corrosive grants valuable armor stripping which not only lets you kill highly armored enemies more quickly, it also increases the damage of your entire squad by removing the armor. you could also go for a Corrosive/Heat or Corrosive/Blast build for crowd control options, as heat procs cause enemies to panic and stop attacking and blast procs ragdoll enemies. You can't kill anything if you're dead, so nullifying damage with crowd control becomes more useful the higher up you go in levels. All in all, the Telos Boltor will perform better in low level scenarios as most crit weapons will, but the Boltor Prime is going to be much better and safer in high level content. And frankly in anything star chart level, it doesn't matter which you bring as enemies are basically paper in all star chart missions anyway.

[squirrel_killer-]

1 minute ago, Get_Singed said:

Pure killing time also doesn't determine the pure worth of a weapon, especially if you're considering extreme high level content where utility becomes much more useful. A status weapon modded for pure corrosive grants valuable armor stripping which not only lets you kill highly armored enemies more quickly, it also increases the damage of your entire squad by removing the armor. you could also go for a Corrosive/Heat or Corrosive/Blast build for crowd control options, as heat procs cause enemies to panic and stop attacking and blast procs ragdoll enemies. You can't kill anything if you're dead, so nullifying damage with crowd control becomes more useful the higher up you go in levels. All in all, the Telos Boltor will perform better in low level scenarios as most crit weapons will, but the Boltor Prime is going to be much better and safer in high level content. And frankly in anything star chart level, it doesn't matter which you bring as enemies are basically paper in all star chart missions anyway.

Exactly why I want to see how this does in an hour of Mot. Though that will likely mean a solo run because of how hard it can be to find someone ready to go for an hour with pubs.