Warframe in the Playground 2.0

[Eldariel]

According to wiki, that Amphis crafting requirement has been confirmed. Good thing I had one already, might want to get that crafting if you don't have one already and want the Sydon. Even if you don't, the Amphis is a pretty fun weapon to level, might as well make it anyways.

Nice prediction :) Our research finished today and I had to build another Amphis since the lightning rod in my inventory is potatoed.

Completely unrelated, I did a table of all the Forma I've used thus far. The total not counting dojo stuff (I frankly don't remember how much I've invested there) came out at 774 Forma used. 221 are in primary weapons, 170 in secondary weapons, 137 in warframes, 96 in companions and companion weapons, 68 in melee weapons, 32 in archwing equipment and 50 in clan tech. I'd be interested in seeing how much plat I've invested into hurrying and buying those...

[IFenrys]

Nice prediction :) Our research finished today and I had to build another Amphis since the lightning rod in my inventory is potatoed.

Completely unrelated, I did a table of all the Forma I've used thus far. The total not counting dojo stuff (I frankly don't remember how much I've invested there) came out at 774 Forma used. 221 are in primary weapons, 170 in secondary weapons, 137 in warframes, 96 in companions and companion weapons, 68 in melee weapons, 32 in archwing equipment and 50 in clan tech. I'd be interested in seeing how much plat I've invested into hurrying and buying those...

I freely admit that I recall someone making the same prediction when we found out the Sydon was in the Chinese release, though I didn't recall that until about 20 minutes ago.

Nice Forma tally there :) I don't think I've even made HALF that many yet, and I've been playing since closed beta.

Also, I have Nezha Systems crafting now thanks to some surprising generosity from RNGesus. With that crafting, I'll be able to start Nezha proper relatively soon. I'll be sure to report my findings here for those who may be interested in getting him :)

EDIT: Almost forgot - you WON'T need a Forma for the Sydon. That's good :D

[Krade]

Thanks for the heads up about the Sydon, still need 3 more Nitain to finish research, though. At least you don't need more to build it. Probably need to actually do some invasions to procure those Injectors too.

[Eldariel]

Thanks for the heads up about the Sydon, still need 3 more Nitain to finish research, though. At least you don't need more to build it. Probably need to actually do some invasions to procure those Injectors too.

One good way to go about acquiring a lifetime supply of Detonite Injectors is the Law of Retribution Raid. One of the three maps almost always spawns at least one Grineer Rare and it's not uncommon to find multiples. Grineer rares are guaranteed to drop a Detonite Injector (and a Rare Core and a 30 min Credit/Affinity Booster), so if you hunt for Arcanes for a while, you'll end up with massive stacks of Detonites (and a lot of credits, and some plat-worthy stuff; even the worst Arcanes sell for 15p-20p each, and Avengers still easily sell over 100p). Like, as a consequence of running them for few weeks in the autumn with my clan and then a bunch during the last double credit weekend, I'm sitting at 60 right now. The best part is that with some optimization, it's quite doable to run the Raids 20 mins each.

[IFenrys]

As a note, if anyone needs anything from the right half of the Syndicate board (PS, RV, NL), I'm maxed out on standing at the moment. Just let me know what ya need :D

[Leon]

Two MR0s and a MR1 Got to see Shadow Stalker tonight as in traditional style he arrived to see me about a outstanding boss kill when i was in a Rank 12 frame and 2 weapons of similar rank and a weapon modded to infested very well

[Eldariel]

I've got a full Karak Wraith set if someone happens to want one.

Also, I finally got around formaing a second Volt Prime for the melee/bruisery Speed Only Rage/QT/Lifestrike build. I've come to quite appreciate Shocking Speed during these levelings - I kinda wanna see how far melee Volt P can solo T4S given its greatly enhanced physicals compared to the base model (200 base energy instead of 100 and 100 armor instead of 15 resulting in an astronomical EHP increase). At 3/5 Formas right now so it'll probably be done soon.

Any ideas on a weapon to use? I was thinking of something naturally a tad slow to make most out of the speed boost; Crimson Dervish Broken War and War both crossed my mind. Damage is great, but it also feels like I want status chance to stack Corrosive vs. the higher level enemies, and range to maximize the number of enemies I'm staggering at once, both of which speak against Broken War. Then again, Crimson Dervish has the finisher combo which would bypass armor entirely. Scindo Prime would be nice but War's 5% higher status chance makes me lean that way. Tonbo is another option but I'm not sure if the damage is there, and I think I want more reach than the short range crit machines like Prisma Dual Cleavers or Dual Kama Primes can provide. There's always Jat Kittag too, though I prefer Tempo Royale to Crushing Ruin.

[Krade]

I've got a full Karak Wraith set if someone happens to want one.

Also, I finally got around formaing a second Volt Prime for the melee/bruisery Speed Only Rage/QT/Lifestrike build. I've come to quite appreciate Shocking Speed during these levelings - I kinda wanna see how far melee Volt P can solo T4S given its greatly enhanced physicals compared to the base model (200 base energy instead of 100 and 100 armor instead of 15 resulting in an astronomical EHP increase). At 3/5 Formas right now so it'll probably be done soon.

Any ideas on a weapon to use? I was thinking of something naturally a tad slow to make most out of the speed boost; Crimson Dervish Broken War and War both crossed my mind. Damage is great, but it also feels like I want status chance to stack Corrosive vs. the higher level enemies, and range to maximize the number of enemies I'm staggering at once, both of which speak against Broken War. Then again, Crimson Dervish has the finisher combo which would bypass armor entirely. Scindo Prime would be nice but War's 5% higher status chance makes me lean that way. Tonbo is another option but I'm not sure if the damage is there, and I think I want more reach than the short range crit machines like Prisma Dual Cleavers or Dual Kama Primes can provide. There's always Jat Kittag too, though I prefer Tempo Royale to Crushing Ruin.

If you want high Stat Chance and range, the Lacera is a lot of fun. Since I got it, I haven't looked at any other melee weapon. 2 Dual Stat mods take the chance to 99%. I took it to the third sortie a while back that was a melee only survival. Had 4 CPs on the squad and my Viral/Radiation Lacera. It was a good time.

BUT we're talking about good weapons for a melee Volt, soo... the last time I did that, I used the ol' Jet Kitty with explosive damage on ODD. Really sends those infested flying. Great for CC, which would definitely be helpful in a solo run.

[Eldariel]

If you want high Stat Chance and range, the Lacera is a lot of fun. Since I got it, I haven't looked at any other melee weapon. 2 Dual Stat mods take the chance to 99%. I took it to the third sortie a while back that was a melee only survival. Had 4 CPs on the squad and my Viral/Radiation Lacera. It was a good time.

BUT we're talking about good weapons for a melee Volt, soo... the last time I did that, I used the ol' Jet Kitty with explosive damage on ODD. Really sends those infested flying. Great for CC, which would definitely be helpful in a solo run.

Yeah, Jet Kitty seems pretty good; high damage and status and good inherent CC. I'm prolly gonna do T4S tho so I rather need to kill enemies too. To that end, sending them flying might be a touch counterproductive. I'll have to mull over this a bit more. Kitten and War are my top options right now.

Oh yeah, the rapier thingy came out today. Seems pretty good on the surface and the stance should be affordable enough since it exists in the bundle. On the flipside, transmuted couple of millions worth of Naramon Rares and got nothing but air to show for my efforts so I'll probably have to resort to trade chat again. Given that the stance drops from Manic Bombards and Drekar Manic Bombards, farming it isn't exactly a realistic proposition.

EDIT: Okay, got the stance (for 100p a few hours before it was added to every droplist ever, FML) and I have to say, I'm a fan. Haven't checked the damage multipliers yet but Destreza with it feels extremely fluid and looks stylish. Significantly, it seems to attack much faster than the attack speed would suggest.

[IFenrys]

I've got a full Karak Wraith set if someone happens to want one.

Also, I finally got around formaing a second Volt Prime for the melee/bruisery Speed Only Rage/QT/Lifestrike build. I've come to quite appreciate Shocking Speed during these levelings - I kinda wanna see how far melee Volt P can solo T4S given its greatly enhanced physicals compared to the base model (200 base energy instead of 100 and 100 armor instead of 15 resulting in an astronomical EHP increase). At 3/5 Formas right now so it'll probably be done soon.

Any ideas on a weapon to use? I was thinking of something naturally a tad slow to make most out of the speed boost; Crimson Dervish Broken War and War both crossed my mind. Damage is great, but it also feels like I want status chance to stack Corrosive vs. the higher level enemies, and range to maximize the number of enemies I'm staggering at once, both of which speak against Broken War. Then again, Crimson Dervish has the finisher combo which would bypass armor entirely. Scindo Prime would be nice but War's 5% higher status chance makes me lean that way. Tonbo is another option but I'm not sure if the damage is there, and I think I want more reach than the short range crit machines like Prisma Dual Cleavers or Dual Kama Primes can provide. There's always Jat Kittag too, though I prefer Tempo Royale to Crushing Ruin.

I've been liking the Sydon as of late, maybe give that a go on this setup?

Unrelated; I've got a Greater Unairu Lens and a Greater Zenurik Lens on the way, who should I put 'em on for Focus leveling? Ash Prime got my Greater Naramon, and Excal Prime is getting my Greater Madurai when I have enought regular Madural Lenses to make one. Rhino Prime might be getting the Greater Unairu, toss-up between him and Atlas, and I have no idea who to give the Greater Zenurik to. Mesa, maybe, or Ivara?

[Eldariel]

I've been liking the Sydon as of late, maybe give that a go on this setup?

Unrelated; I've got a Greater Unairu Lens and a Greater Zenurik Lens on the way, who should I put 'em on for Focus leveling? Ash Prime got my Greater Naramon, and Excal Prime is getting my Greater Madurai when I have enought regular Madural Lenses to make one. Rhino Prime might be getting the Greater Unairu, toss-up between him and Atlas, and I have no idea who to give the Greater Zenurik to. Mesa, maybe, or Ivara?

I've kinda moved towards playing a 20 min Albedo (Ceres) with Loki + Melee Of Choice for focus nowadays - Nightmare if available, normal otherwise (higher levels with only Energy Drain being problematic is generally an advantage). Between Elite Lancers having 150 base affinity (other tier 1 enemies including Corrupted Lancers offer 50), Albedo having the highest levels in the solar system, Deception guaranteeing the spawn of a large room you can just walk around with enemies respawning & making the mission a non-issue & Grineer having no way to break stealth, that's extremely quick and efficient. Saves me the trouble of getting a bunch of lens for all my frames: I can just put one on Loki (could be Ash or Ivara too, of course) and then I can control the other 50% with which weapon I take. Since it's all the possible daily Focus too, this allows me to play whatever afterwards without having to worry about which school I'm gaining focus for.

Provided you want to do it entirely naturally tho, I'd probably go with Ivara. Stealth frames are just so incredibly convenient for focus farming, what with the 500% affinity bonus on stealth kills. Tho for natural farming, the most important factor is what you're most likely to want to play. My first lens went on Mirage for that very reason: I simply play way more Mirage than anything else. Second would be Banshee and third would be Volt P by the same logic (tho now that I have two Volt Ps for different functions, I'm not sure if that'd be sensible anymore).


As for Sydon, I have to admit I haven't properly tested it out yet. I leveled it to 30 but I didn't really use it enough to be able to tell the difference between it, Orthos Prime and Tonbo. Though both, Tonbo and Orthos Prime are among my favorite melees so that's certainly an option. I'd probably have to forma it to fit the build I want though (I want to use Primed Reach). It does have decent damage and 25% status chance so it's not horrible, but the stance damage leaves something to be desired and the base attack speed is sorta slow (though Shimmering Blight helps a lot there).

[mangosta71]

Finally got around to leveling my Dread. Did DE revamp bows at some point in the past year? Because I seem to be having a lot fewer issues with arrow drop now than I did back when I was working on Cernos. My Hikou seemed to drop less than my Kunai, too.

On a somewhat related note, while Thunderbolt can be hilarious, I'm finding that it causes problems when I try to do stealth runs. If there are 3 enemies in a group and I want to snipe them one at a time for the stealth affinity, I start with the one in the back so the others don't realize that they're being attacked. The explosion isn't usually enough to kill, so all it does is alert the others (and make me annoyed that I just lost my stack of stealth affinity and won't be able to restart it until after I kill everything in this room, turn off the alarm, and kill everything in the next 3 rooms, assuming that it doesn't proc another explosion in that time).

Still, I'm loving the inherent punchthrough on Dread. Blowing through shield lancers unmodded is glorious. Watching the impaled body of the guy I was aiming at fly across the room and another guy 50 meters behind him also getting nailed to the wall is another thing of beauty.

[Astral Avenger]

Finally got around to leveling my Dread. Did DE revamp bows at some point in the past year? Because I seem to be having a lot fewer issues with arrow drop now than I did back when I was working on Cernos. My Hikou seemed to drop less than my Kunai, too.

On a somewhat related note, while Thunderbolt can be hilarious, I'm finding that it causes problems when I try to do stealth runs. If there are 3 enemies in a group and I want to snipe them one at a time for the stealth affinity, I start with the one in the back so the others don't realize that they're being attacked. The explosion isn't usually enough to kill, so all it does is alert the others (and make me annoyed that I just lost my stack of stealth affinity and won't be able to restart it until after I kill everything in this room, turn off the alarm, and kill everything in the next 3 rooms, assuming that it doesn't proc another explosion in that time).

Still, I'm loving the inherent punchthrough on Dread. Blowing through shield lancers unmodded is glorious. Watching the impaled body of the guy I was aiming at fly across the room and another guy 50 meters behind him also getting nailed to the wall is another thing of beauty.

Not sure if they've changed bows in the last year (my guess would be they have, they like fiddling with stuff), but thunderbolt is generally considered a poor mod choice for mid/high level play. Its great fun for infested defense and similar missions where you're guaranteed to have swarms of enemies to explode, but its relatively little explosion damage. I run it with 2 forma, but aside from my boltor p and my penta, I don't have more than 2 forma on anything. H3dsh0t has a pretty good video on the dread for ideas/sugestions on modding

[mangosta71]

Mine is still low level, so all I have in it at the moment is Serration and I took Thunderbolt out to make room for High Voltage and Speed Trigger.

[Astral Avenger]

i'm about to hop on for a bit, let me know if you want a hand leveling it
ign: NuclearAstral

[mangosta71]

I'll be at work for the next few hours, and then I'm going over to a friend's place for boardgaming when I get off. I usually get home from that around midnight my time, so ~14 hours.

I do appreciate the offer, though.

[Eldariel]

I recommend equipping Point Strike and Vital Sense on Dread at first opportunity. Cutting away non-crit hits, opening up redcrit option and multiplying all damage by 4.2 is a damn good use of a couple of modslots (even early on, when their impact is comparatively minimized). And both are cheap to equip too.

[Leon]

As long as ive used it Dread has had a flatter arc than the others. Thunderbolt is brilliant on the Attica.

My Dread build is centered around Redcrit as much as possible (49% chance of one)

[Mobius Twist]

I'm having quite a bit of trouble with the new Sortie defense missions.

For those who haven't heard, the Sortie version of the defense was altered in two ways:
1) Duration reduced from 15 turns to 10, with a much sharper difficulty curve past turn 5.
2) The defense target is not a static pod, but a moving NPC armed with a Lato and utterly stupid.

A new meta evolved around this, including, for once, Limbo! A duration Banish build supposedly keeps the target invulnerable forever.

Except...

Two days ago the Defense was against Eximus-heavy infested, which meant both energy drain and toxins, both of which inexplicably go through Limbo's Rift (the toxin bit got hotpatched the following day). I got into multiple public teams, none of whom had the firepower to take out eximii fast enough. The chargers and ancients crowded around the defense target and I couldn't banish him because line of sight was obscured. I ate a bunch of energy plates to keep going, but even that wasn't enough. I was downed, the target was downed, and shortly thereafter everyone decided to stop paying attention to him and ran off on their own and we failed.

Yesterday I tried as a Blessing-based Trinity to keep the target alive through damage reduction against Grineer. Surprisingly, I kept dying, even with Link up, Blessing up, and so on. This was just a two-person team with a Rhino and he did his best. Stomp made for a nice bit of crowd control, but the target decided to wonder far afield into open spaces where my partner somehow lost track of him and couldn't revive him in time.

I'm thinking of doing Radial Disarm Loki and Tonkor next time. Might as well try the cheap cop-out way if everything else fails.

[Eldariel]

*snip*

I hate the new Defenses myself. Mostly because the defense target has this inexplicable urge to run out of the defense area for sightseeing, making keeping him alive needlessly complex. Also, I've gotten fission mail twice, once while reviving the idiot and once during host migration, which is exceedingly frustrating. Probably bugs that will never get weeded out since they're hard to reproduce and low priority. Also, Restores don't work on him for whatever reason so restoring his health is a chore.

Anyways, couple of things that work:
Limbo: This is indeed easymode for Grineer. For Infested, it isn't as strong but you can run Haven to heal the operative while rifting him. For Corpus, you have to worry about Nullifiers and Combas/Scrambuses but luckily enough you can kill them before they get to him.

Trinity: Run the Blessing-build. 300% Duration, enough Power Strength to get 100% Blessing, hit yourself in the face with Toxin Glaive and get the 99% resistance for 30 secs. This completely trivializes Grineer and Infested (you'll have to be a bit careful during the recast window; take cover, start charging the Glaive at .5 seconds left, recast immediately). The resistance aura seems to ignore Operative health when determining how much resistance you get but the operative seems to get the reduction so you can make him effectively invulnerable for 30 seconds at a time (and the rest of the team too). With any decent weapons, Corpus should likewise not be a problem; you merely need to keep Nullis and certain Combas/Scrambuses at a distance and blow them up.

Loki: Two things. First, you can Switch Teleport the operative to some wall/cave or stuck anywhere where enemies don't spawn. This allows you to play this essentially as an Exterminate. Second, the Safeguard Switch augment with Duration-build can make the operative invulnerable for ~15 secs at a time. Or you can just keep recasting it and run a normal max range Irradiating Disarm build.


Other than that, stacking the team full of CC is probably the easiest since trying to keep a shield around the moron is an exercise in futility (or a team that can annihilate enemies before they even get close). Zephyr could be good vs. Corpus since ranged Corpus weapons are all deflected and you could just follow the idiot around (annoying but doable) but I haven't had to test this in practice, owing to the lack of Corpus Defenses lately.

[Mobius Twist]

trying to keep a shield around the moron is an exercise in futility

I was actually thinking that a full-sized, maxed-efficiency Frost with Chilling Globe, coupled with a Slowva, might do the trick for Infested, so long as both players follow the roamin' test dummy around.

Stacking the team with a disarming Loki could make it work with Grineer, and a Mag could improve the Corpus situation.

It's a little sad that I have to stack the deck just to scrape by on this mission type. Then again, it's meant to be a challenge.

[Eldariel]

I was actually thinking that a full-sized, maxed-efficiency Frost with Chilling Globe, coupled with a Slowva, might do the trick for Infested, so long as both players follow the roamin' test dummy around.

Stacking the team with a disarming Loki could make it work with Grineer, and a Mag could improve the Corpus situation.

It's a little sad that I have to stack the deck just to scrape by on this mission type. Then again, it's meant to be a challenge.

Stacking CC works certainly. Any combination of Vauban/Mirage/Nova/Loki (Irradiating Disarm)/Nyx/Rhino with max range (Duration in the case of Nova, of course) builds should be able to do those Defenses vs. any faction. Basically, the kind of group you'd take to Law of Retribution Trial is the idiotproof option; as long as everyone casts their stuff, you really just would have trouble even having it get downed. Frost can serve as a fine CC frame too (not to mention, few shields can help against the stray shots), and many others. I just picked out the ones with massive range and hard, long duration CC effects that make life easy. Nova needs something else to help her out of course but given she slows down enemy animations, she makes many other forms of CC even more brutal. The downside of this approach is that enemies are stunned/slowed/blinded/confused near their spawns and you have to hunt them down around the map if you ever want to progress waves, which is why I prefer not to do it.

One decent option is modicum of CC and lots of superior firepower: add some AOE weapons/powers (Torid, Synoid Simulor, Tonkor, Kulstar, Sancti Castanas, Talons, Atomos/Amprex are all pretty good) and damage amplification and you can kill most enemies pretty soon after they spawn. Mag falls under this paradigm and as ever, shines vs. Corpus. Should be able to restore the Operative's shields too for what little that's worth. Properly playing such a group would probably require a premade team already tho. I played yesterday's Defense in a pub group and just couldn't make it work with Banshee, though I failed both times due to bugs; she doesn't offer enough CC for a team with subpar equipment to clear the enemies effortlessly. In the end I used Limbo since that's absolutely unassailable vs. Grineer (and with Haven + Restores, almost unassailable vs. Infested).


I wouldn't mind if the difficulty were because the enemies are so tough but as the difficulty is because the defense target is a blithering moron (and squishy as all hell compared to enemies of equal level), that kinda grinds my gears. Even after they supposedly "fixed" the defense target roaming, I saw him die in the side platforms during Primetime - so clearly not fully fixed. They should at least give him armor or something.

[Mobius Twist]

Ooh, they should make him a Grineer Bailiff Defector with tons of armor and a Jat Kittag. I don't care that he'd die all the time; at least it would be awesome to watch.

...Interesting. I didn't remember them making him unaffected by Banish and Switch Teleport for the event. Maybe they better not bring him back.

[Rain Dragon]

Well, that's bad news for me. I stopped doing sorties that annoy me because I want to have fun playing a game and running around for an hour trying to down bullet sponges is just tedious. Defense I found ok, but now the target is an NPC? I don't trust this game's AI enough to try even without all of the warnings here.

ION, I admittedly haven't been trying too hard, but it's not so easy to trade the Unairu Lens at the moment. Does anyone need one? I don't mind if I get anything in return for it or not.

[Mobius Twist]

ION, I admittedly haven't been trying too hard, but it's not so easy to trade the Unairu Lens at the moment. Does anyone need one? I don't mind if I get anything in return for it or not.

Yeah, I'm looking for Unairu lenses to collect. I only have one from all the sorties I've done recently. Assuming you're on PC, are you looking for anything specific in exchange? Kubrow imprints, syndicate stuff, random mods? I haven't traded in a bit, so platinum is running low right this second.

[Rain Dragon]

Yeah, I'm looking for Unairu lenses to collect. I only have one from all the sorties I've done recently. Assuming you're on PC, are you looking for anything specific in exchange? Kubrow imprints, syndicate stuff, random mods? I haven't traded in a bit, so platinum is running low right this second.

Awesome. I'm on PC yeah, but at work atm so won't be able to be online for about 8-9hrs. I don't mind if it's free, as I couldn't think of things around the same price as a lens. But now I think about it, are syndicate mods a similar price? It'd save me time if I could get chilling globe. (I think that's the name for it...)

I use Naramon lenses, but don't really need another right away (and they seem very popular). If you have one, it'd be a good trade.

[IFenrys]

Hmmm...

...Would Ivara help any? She could keep him cloaked effectively enough. Would be better to have a shield to stick on him, but it might help.

Also, very disappointed with the Lato armament. The Bailiff Defector basically defended his own ass, they should have brought him back. Or at least let us give the target our guns when we don't need them.

[NEO|Phyte]

Also, very disappointed with the Lato armament. The Bailiff Defector basically defended his own ass, they should have brought him back. Or at least let us give the target our guns when we don't need them.

Unless it got patched out, I was able to give the guy my Atomos.

[Eldariel]

Hmmm...

...Would Ivara help any? She could keep him cloaked effectively enough. Would be better to have a shield to stick on him, but it might help.

Also, very disappointed with the Lato armament. The Bailiff Defector basically defended his own ass, they should have brought him back. Or at least let us give the target our guns when we don't need them.

You can give him your secondary. Of course, NPCs don't use mods on your weapon so your weapon's level doesn't really matter. Out of weapons to give him, I've personally seen Sonicor do good work on him. It's very convenient that he can CC nearby enemies himself. There are probably plenty of good options though; NPCs have traditionally shined with semi-automatic high RoF stuff too (Telos Akbolto, Akjagara, Brakk, etc.) since they essentially have a macro. Of course, since the weapon levels with NPC level instead of mods, base damage is heavily emphasized; thus, vs. Grineer, it would make sense to give stuff like Stug (if he knows how to fire it, haven't tested), Mara Detron, Lex Prime, Rakta Ballistica (again, dunno if he can use it), Spira & Hikou Prime. Or, if the group has 4 Corrosive Projections, probably stuff like Pyrana, Akjagara, Kohmak, Atomos & co. instead. Tho Atomos without Ruinous Extension is probably fairly sad.

And yeah, I'm almost certain Ivara would be fine. As long as he doesn't get caught in crossfire, he'll stay alive enough and it would be easy to revive him if he did somehow get downed.

[IFenrys]

You can give him your secondary. Of course, NPCs don't use mods on your weapon so your weapon's level doesn't really matter. Out of weapons to give him, I've personally seen Sonicor do good work on him. It's very convenient that he can CC nearby enemies himself. There are probably plenty of good options though; NPCs have traditionally shined with semi-automatic high RoF stuff too (Telos Akbolto, Akjagara, Brakk, etc.) since they essentially have a macro. Of course, since the weapon levels with NPC level instead of mods, base damage is heavily emphasized; thus, vs. Grineer, it would make sense to give stuff like Stug (if he knows how to fire it, haven't tested), Mara Detron, Lex Prime, Rakta Ballistica (again, dunno if he can use it), Spira & Hikou Prime. Or, if the group has 4 Corrosive Projections, probably stuff like Pyrana, Akjagara, Kohmak, Atomos & co. instead. Tho Atomos without Ruinous Extension is probably fairly sad.

And yeah, I'm almost certain Ivara would be fine. As long as he doesn't get caught in crossfire, he'll stay alive enough and it would be easy to revive him if he did somehow get downed.

Oh, good. I was afraid that you guys meant that the guy was stuck with a Lato. I still wish we could give the doofus a melee weapon, though - would be great to bring back fond memories of the Bailiff Defector launching heavy units across the map with a single one-handed swing of his mighty hammer, hitting so hard that their corpses split in twain as they hurtle through space.