Warframe In The Playground - The Grustrag 03

[Toastkart]

Having spent some time switching between my Raksa kubrow and my smeeta kavat, here are some observations I've noticed over the last week and a half.

My kubrow's attack animation has significant wind-up, meaning he misses frequently. It also seems to take longer to attack again than the kavat does.
My kubrow will often follow feared enemies (from his howl) without attacking them. I think this has to do with them not standing still long enough for him to complete his attack animation.
My kubrow howls more often than he attacks, even though his howl is low on the mod order compared to maul and bite.
My kavat is so much more mobile. My kubrow sometimes gets stuck on containers and doorways for a second.
My kubrow generally follows behind me and attacks enemies to my back and sides. My kavat gets out in front of me and just wrecks face.
What seems to make the kavat such a beast are swipe and sharpened claws.

I really like the way my kubrow looks, and I'd prefer to take her along. My kavat is hideous (thank you moonless kavat skin), but so much more powerful. It just seems like kubrows need some loving. Maybe the animation speed needs to be increased and animation delays reduced or eliminated. I think kubrows could use some attack mods similar to swipe. Maybe make ferocity/savagery available to all kubrows and give new unique mods to those kubrow types.

Which of the companions do you guys take with you in general? I have carrier prime, dethcube, a raksa kubrow, a smeeta kavat, and the helminth charger. In certain situations, I'll take whoever is best suited, but in general its either my kubrow or carrier prime.

[Brother Oni]

Which of the companions do you guys take with you in general? I have carrier prime, dethcube, a raksa kubrow, a smeeta kavat, and the helminth charger. In certain situations, I'll take whoever is best suited, but in general its either my kubrow or carrier prime.

While I have all the companions and sentinels, I usually only use three Sentinels:

• Carrier Prime whenever I have ammo inefficient weaponry (Gorgon family, grakatas, Supra Vandal, Lenz, etc) or need a tanky Sentinel (T4 or T5 Plains bounties)
• Helios Prime for general use (Detect Vulnerability is nice for leveling up weaker weapons and Investigator is good for catching those few remaining things that I haven't scanned yet)
• Prisma Shade whenever I'm focus grinding (just in case I screw up a sleep and need a stealth).

While I'd like to use Smeeta for its Charm, I really like Vacuum; not for the fact that it picks up stuff for me, but because it can get things through obstacles and walls (like in the Void) and other stuff that's fallen out of bounds.

[Grytorm]

I've decided to get serious about beating Sands of Inaros, which just really means actually grinding my Soma Prime to 30 and putting any credits I earn into improving a certain selection of mods. Also I potatoed Rhino, I guess because Frost doesn't seem well suited for fighting the protector and I want someone tanky for when I run out of ammo.

Edit: Progress is being made, I was able to get around half way through the fight. Got a few more ranks on my mods and switched some stuff so I'll have Corrosive damage instead of Viral.

Edit2: Actually it proved a lot easier than I expected, the damage change to Corrosive made the statues a lot easier to deal with. Like, three times as much damage.

[IFenrys]

Which of the companions do you guys take with you in general? I have carrier prime, dethcube, a raksa kubrow, a smeeta kavat, and the helminth charger. In certain situations, I'll take whoever is best suited, but in general its either my kubrow or carrier prime.

Helios Prime is my go-to, for both the hassle-free Codex completion whenever new content rolls out and for the Simaris mod that gives him a weak-point maker.

Carrier Prime is what I go with when I'm using something with ammo-efficiency problems of any kind.

When I want a stealth pet, I bring out the Huras Kubrow, but I mainly use Ash Prime so stealth is rarely a problem for me.

Stylistically, the Helminth Charger is probably my absolute favorite. That said, without Vacuum little Gravemind isn't going to bring enough to the table to offset my Helios Prime.

[McDouggal]

I've been using the Taxon primarily, because that shield boost is hella funny on Rhino. (I've gotten over 3000 shields on Rhino with the layering overshields)

[Leon]

I really like Taxon ~ i have three currently for different load outs (similarly i have 2 Carrier Ps for other load outs) being a fan of Status weapons and the wonder that Condition Overload is having a guaranteed Cold proc is very nice. Favorite Companion is still my Sahasa Kubrow

[mangosta71]

My default companion is Carrier Prime with Artax instead of Sweeper equipped. If universal vacuum ever becomes a thing I might pull my Smeeta Kavat out of stasis again, especially if they cut down the possible buffs (the only ones I consider worthwhile are crit enhancement and, if I'm trying to farm void traces, resource doubling). Helios may also become a regular if I ever manage to farm up his cerebrum.

[McDouggal]

OK. So Latron is now trash tier - took 37 shots to the head of a level 17 Grineer Eximus to down it. Takes 5 headshots to take down a level 17 G. Heavy Gunner.

It wasn't good before either, but now it's just trash.

[Wraith]

Which of the companions do you guys take with you in general? I have carrier prime, dethcube, a raksa kubrow, a smeeta kavat, and the helminth charger. In certain situations, I'll take whoever is best suited, but in general its either my kubrow or carrier prime.

My profile says that I have something like 60% use of Carrier Prime, with some ~30% being the normal Carrier. Vacuum is just so incredibly useful to most of my builds that I rarely go without it unless I absolutely have to, or am levelling up another piece of kit.

Of the other pieces, my next favourite is probably the Taxon. I'm amazed that such a useful little thing was given away for free, I find it significantly more helpful that probably all of the other companions.

I'm currently levelling up a Kavat; I like it much, much more than a Kubrow, who was slower and has no damage evasion so she died every few minutes. I very much doubt that I will keep using it though; I miss Vacuum too much, and I think the pets' AI is a big buggy in that she sometimes goes for minutes at a time without attacking anything, and if she isn't doing that then she's not actually of any use to me.

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In other news, I have *finally* rebuilt my Dojo. I had to delete and then move every room but 2, as there were originally something like 14 short corridors leading to a dead-ended room that I have replaced with less than 7 cross-junctions and now all of my workshops are within one corridor of the spawn-room rather than at the far end of 7 more corridors. feelsgoodman

Why I'm not allowed to grind resources for one room colour while researching another is a bit of a mystery, though. Everything is going to have to be yellow for a while, until I can catch up.

[Wraith]

OK. So Latron is now trash tier - took 37 shots to the head of a level 17 Grineer Eximus to down it. Takes 5 headshots to take down a level 17 G. Heavy Gunner.

It wasn't good before either, but now it's just trash.

One of the many poorly explained things about Warframe; the quality of weaponry is very definitely tiered, in that some are just clearly better than others, however the availability of those weapons is not. It means that one lucky drop or spontaneous purchase will give a new player a weapon that will still be good at the endgame, but then everything they get thereafter will be under-levelled in comparison. The Latron - even the Latron Wraith - is a distinct casualty of his process.

DE really needs, as part of it's new and returning user experience, to make better use of Mastery Level gates on their equipment. They do it already with Syndicate weaponry, which is sensible because they tend to be good weapons with useful procs, but not with Clan equipment, which vary wildly in effectiveness while being equally as easy to get a hold of.

[EDIT] Oops! Sorry about the double-post, I clicked 'reply' instead of 'edit'. Nothing more to see here, pay no attention to the man behind the screen....

[Toastkart]

I just had a thought last night. Wouldn't it be cool to have a customizable (in terms of appearance) hyena or bursa for a pet?

I also managed to get all the hunter mods I was after last night. And about ten extra hunter adrenaline. I'm going to have to forma my kubrow again before he can fit them all, though.

While I'd like to use Smeeta for its Charm, I really like Vacuum; not for the fact that it picks up stuff for me, but because it can get things through obstacles and walls (like in the Void) and other stuff that's fallen out of bounds.

That's my biggest reason for wanting a sentinel over a kubrow or kavat. I kinda wish they'd make ayatan stars act like normal drops. In the last three days alone I've had six stars spawn in and fall in unreachable locations. The default vacuum distance of three meters just isn't enough.

Charm just doesn't seem all that useful. I notice it maybe once per mission. I'd prefer an adarza kavat, and as soon as I get the plat for another stasis slot I'm going to try for it.

I really like Taxon ~ i have three currently for different load outs (similarly i have 2 Carrier Ps for other load outs) being a fan of Status weapons and the wonder that Condition Overload is having a guaranteed Cold proc is very nice. Favorite Companion is still my Sahasa Kubrow

Do you mean you've actually built three different taxons and two carrier primes? Or do you mean you use three different loadouts through the presets? I'm kinda curious what your loadouts are like, since all my sentinels are done essentially the same. I do occasionally swap out their weapon damage types.

OK. So Latron is now trash tier - took 37 shots to the head of a level 17 Grineer Eximus to down it. Takes 5 headshots to take down a level 17 G. Heavy Gunner.

It wasn't good before either, but now it's just trash.

How do you have it modded?

[mangosta71]

My profile says that I have something like 60% use of Carrier Prime, with some ~30% being the normal Carrier. Vacuum is just so incredibly useful to most of my builds that I rarely go without it unless I absolutely have to, or am levelling up another piece of kit.

They changed Vacuum a while ago; you can equip it on any sentinel now. The major Carrier-exclusive mod these days is Ammo Case (and it's fantastic).

[Wraith]

They changed Vacuum a while ago; you can equip it on any sentinel now. The major Carrier-exclusive mod these days is Ammo Case (and it's fantastic).

Ah, there we go - I meant Sentinel and not Carrier, as opposed to Pets. Thank you for correcting me

In other news, the newest update has some interesting sounding weapons in it - I have built both of the shotguns already, and am waiting to try them out. They both sound pretty cannon-like so it might be an interesting alternative to the Zarr which I eventually grew to like. And, my Operator now has a new bedroom!

....Holy crap, that glowy blue thing. What did you do, Ordis!? WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?

[Brother Oni]

In other news, the newest update has some interesting sounding weapons in it - I have built both of the shotguns already, and am waiting to try them out. They both sound pretty cannon-like so it might be an interesting alternative to the Zarr which I eventually grew to like.

The Corinth has potential to be an even sillier crit shotgun than the Vaykor Hek.

....Holy crap, that glowy blue thing. What did you do, Ordis!? WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?

Lore spoilers for The Second Dream and beyond and a nice comment on the music behind it:

Spoiler: This is What You Are

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The main theme of TSD is "This Is What You Are", which represents the course of the Old War; the Lotus is singing to first gather her children, unifying them before they fight the Orokin, their victory, and the aftermath where she's calling to soothe them to sleep.

The theme of the mini quest, Apostate, is missing the lead female vocals, the children's voices are no longer unified and discordant and there's an underlying deep hum. This is very much in keeping with the quest, with the hum representing Ballas' disruptive presence, the Lotus missing and the now lost Tenno calling out for their mother.

However with Ordis now synthesising the Lotus' voice, there is a legitimate ingame reason for these Lotus voice packs.

[Wraith]

The Corinth has potential to be an even sillier crit shotgun than the Vaykor Hek.

It sounds freaking awesome, too. I took it for a quick spin in Captura, and it made the most satisfying sound of any weapon I've picked up so far.

Spoiler

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Lotus voice packs.

....Jesus wept, but those are some kind of sacrilege. Are we sure that's not an April Fools' joke?

[thatSeniorGuy]

You know, it's oddly fitting that we're hunting the Acolytes at the moment,

Spoiler: 'Prologue' spoiler

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because right now I'm feeling angst, misery and torment over the fact that the Lotus is gone, and as soon as I find Ballas I am going to visit immense violence upon him. ^{and something something malice}
...

SPACEMOM WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME COME BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

Also excellent analysis Brother Oni, I'll have to listen for that as I watch the prologue for the ump-teenth time and try to figure out what the hell happened.

....Jesus wept, but those are some kind of sacrilege. Are we sure that's not an April Fools' joke?

Are you talking about the voice packs? Because I'm almost positive they were literally an April Fools' joke.

Spoiler: Prologue again

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If you're talking about spacemom being taken away I'm not laughing

[McDouggal]

How do you have it modded?

Once I realized I had Piercing Caliber instead of just Piercing Hit, it got better to the point where it was about as useful as pre-patch. I also don't have a fully-upgraded Serration.

Spoiler

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[Toastkart]

Once I realized I had Piercing Caliber instead of just Piercing Hit, it got better to the point where it was about as useful as pre-patch. I also don't have a fully-upgraded Serration.

Spoiler

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Ok, the first thing I would do is drop ammo drum and bane of grineer. They're not doing enough for you for their cost. I'd replace them with an elemental damage mod. Toxin or cold are both generally useful. Or if you keep their cost low, combine electric and toxin for corrosive, which will help you against the grineer. Any leftover points, use to increase serration or piercing caliber.

Also, what patch update are you talking about?

Next time I'm in game, I'll take a screenshot of my latron prime to show you how I have it set up. I had my latron set up the same way. Do keep in mind that I've got a catalyst on it and have forma'd it twice.

[thatSeniorGuy]

On an entirely random note, I'm actually impressed that DE thought of + managed to code this:

Spoiler

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[Wraith]

"Say, Ordis? Though I appreciate all the hard work that you have done, I don't suppose there's another spare room that I could use? Or maybe just a set of shelving perhaps...?"

Spoiler

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On an entirely random note, I'm actually impressed that DE thought of + managed to code this:

I was curious whether or not they would do something like that.... but not so curious as to bother defrosting my Kubrow to test it.

On ANOTHER random note, I'm pretty sure that the Corynth is probably my new favourite shotgun. I'm going to have to forma it 2 or even 3 times to make full use of it, but I'm honestly quite happy to do so. It's got great damage, decent range (though a specifically notable 'drop-off' point at about 50m) and it sound incredible; even with just Serration equipped at level 1, I was one-shoting some level 30 enemies with it. It's pretty easy to get, two - in two Bounty runs I had 5 blueprints for it....

[mangosta71]

The Corinth BP comes from the Market.

I happened to score a pair of Maiming Strikes today. Does anyone have a spare Argon Scope they'd be willing to trade for one of them?

[Grytorm]

Question, I have finally encountered a sentient and I am having trouble. I have read up on the damage resistance thing and chose a set up to hopefully combat it. But then it gained resistance to a damage type I hadn't used (Slash). So is all Physical/normal damage the same thing for damage resistance? Or did I deal Slash somehow without noticing.

[Wraith]

All weapons do an amount of Slash, Puncture and Impact; most will do significantly more of one than the other. This is the 'primary' damage type to which a Sentient will usually adapt, but they'll sometimes pick one of the others - especially if the values are about the same.

See here; this is my Vaykor Hek (Shotgun, left) next to my Dread (bow, right). Notice how the Hek does over 2,000 damage just in Impact, whereas the huge majority of the Dread's damage is in Puncture? The game differentiates between those as well as the fact that one of them does Blast damage and the other only does Electricity.



So when fighting Sentients, the ideal setup is a Primary weapon that focuses on three types of damage (eg: Slash, Blast, Toxin) and a Secondary weapon that focuses on three more (Impact, Magnetic, Heat). Alternatively, purchase a high-damage weapon like a Kulstar and spec it to do ridiculous amounts of damage, then just Blast them out of the air before they have chance to adapt.

[mangosta71]

All weapons do an amount of Slash, Puncture and Impact; most will do significantly more of one than the other. This is the 'primary' damage type to which a Sentient will usually adapt, but they'll sometimes pick one of the others - especially if the values are about the same.

See here; this is my Vaykor Hek (Shotgun, left) next to my Dread (bow, right). Notice how the Hek does over 2,000 damage just in Impact, whereas the huge majority of the Dread's damage is in Puncture? The game differentiates between those as well as the fact that one of them does Blast damage and the other only does Electricity.



So when fighting Sentients, the ideal setup is a Primary weapon that focuses on three types of damage (eg: Slash, Blast, Toxin) and a Secondary weapon that focuses on three more (Impact, Magnetic, Heat). Alternatively, purchase a high-damage weapon like a Kulstar and spec it to do ridiculous amounts of damage, then just Blast them out of the air before they have chance to adapt.

Well, not ALL. There are weapons whose base is an elemental type, and there are a handful of physical damage weapons that don't do any of one of the three; for example, the Vulkar (Wraith) doesn't do any slash damage. Also, your Vaykor Hek does primarily puncture, while the Dread is a slash weapon.

Still, in general it's good advice. When I need to kill Sentients, I usually run with a Sancti Tigris modded with radiation and toxin and Twin Grakatas modded with fire and corrosive. Also, if you've unlocked spoiler mode you can use void beam to clear any resistances they've built up.

[Wraith]

Well, not ALL. There are weapons whose base is an elemental type, and there are a handful of physical damage weapons that don't do any of one of the three...

Details, details. It's easy enough to see what a weapon does and doesn't do, I was just using those because they were the first I clicked on when screen-shotting the image.

Also, your Vaykor Hek does primarily puncture, while the Dread is a slash weapon.

....But I have no idea where I did that. For some reason I always think that the order goes Slash - Impact - Puncture and just didn't bother to read it properly as I posted The point is the same, though!

Twin Grakatas modded with fire and corrosive.

I find this to be a very good way to start fighting them; use as much corrosive as you can before they adapt in order to get rid of as much armour as possible, and that makes the second stage all that much easier. I prefer the Vaykor Hek because I prefer the rate-of-fire to the Tigris variants, but that is just a matter of taste.

[Grytorm]

All weapons do an amount of Slash, Puncture and Impact; most will do significantly more of one than the other. This is the 'primary' damage type to which a Sentient will usually adapt, but they'll sometimes pick one of the others - especially if the values are about the same.

See here; this is my Vaykor Hek (Shotgun, left) next to my Dread (bow, right). Notice how the Hek does over 2,000 damage just in Impact, whereas the huge majority of the Dread's damage is in Puncture? The game differentiates between those as well as the fact that one of them does Blast damage and the other only does Electricity.



So when fighting Sentients, the ideal setup is a Primary weapon that focuses on three types of damage (eg: Slash, Blast, Toxin) and a Secondary weapon that focuses on three more (Impact, Magnetic, Heat). Alternatively, purchase a high-damage weapon like a Kulstar and spec it to do ridiculous amounts of damage, then just Blast them out of the air before they have chance to adapt.

I understand all of that, but my main point of confusion was how it was adapting to slash/bludgeon/piercing all at the same time, when I was not dealing all three types of damage*. I think, Novas abilities primarily deal radiation but some other bits could be mixed in... Just confused about how it works.

*I have been trying Kohm/Cestra/Lecta. Lecta has two types of elemental damage, I have it as electric and viral. Cestra lacks slash and has Cold. And Kohm provides Slashing alongside electric. But it picks up all three physical resistances at once. I have killed the Sentient once then lost in the second half of the level. Guess I will keep trying, if it takes long enough I might unlock my Riven.

[Grif]

All weapons do an amount of Slash, Puncture and Impact; most will do significantly more of one than the other. This is the 'primary' damage type to which a Sentient will usually adapt, but they'll sometimes pick one of the others - especially if the values are about the same.

See here; this is my Vaykor Hek (Shotgun, left) next to my Dread (bow, right). Notice how the Hek does over 2,000 damage just in Impact, whereas the huge majority of the Dread's damage is in Puncture? The game differentiates between those as well as the fact that one of them does Blast damage and the other only does Electricity.



So when fighting Sentients, the ideal setup is a Primary weapon that focuses on three types of damage (eg: Slash, Blast, Toxin) and a Secondary weapon that focuses on three more (Impact, Magnetic, Heat). Alternatively, purchase a high-damage weapon like a Kulstar and spec it to do ridiculous amounts of damage, then just Blast them out of the air before they have chance to adapt.

Goodness. This is making me wish I had the time to farm more elemental shotgun mods. But the only one I have so far is Toxin (which does extraordinarily well against Corpus), and they seem to be rarer than the equivalent pistol/rifle mods.

[thatSeniorGuy]

So, I had to do the last two parts of today's sortie alone as I assume everyone was farming the acolytes*. After getting through the Eximus Stronghold Hyena Pack assassination (with only one death even ) I got a nice little surprise

Spoiler: Image

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I assume I have reached my pinnacle in Warframe, and henceforth will be moving onto other games

* I missed out on Torment's and Angst's rare mods; Torment because of, you know, Christmas and family and Angst because I couldn't really be bothered after I got his other mods.

"Say, Ordis? Though I appreciate all the hard work that you have done, I don't suppose there's another spare room that I could use? Or maybe just a set of shelving perhaps...?"

Spoiler

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Show-off

I was curious whether or not they would do something like that.... but not so curious as to bother defrosting my Kubrow to test it.

To be honest the only reason my Kavat's roaming around the ship is because I like having a pet around. I never take her out on missions because I value Vacuum too much.

[FireJustice]

came back to Warframe just in time

Dropped two Maiming Strikes and two Argons Scopes

Fell free to add me

SteamID: FireJustice
Clan: SomethingWeabu no Tenno (we're Canadian, and like Canada, we're open to anyone)

and this weekend its Baro time... I wonder what primed mods will he bring this time.

[mangosta71]

I was not able to get an Argon Scope, but if someone has one that they want to trade for a Maiming Strike I still have a spare one of those. I also haven't acquired a Nano-Applicator yet, but that's a significantly lower priority.

Anyway, while the Vaykor Hek is a great weapon...

Spoiler

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I personally prefer the way the Sancti Tigris clears the whole room with a single pull of the trigger:

This thing is a violation of the Geneva Convention regarding weapons of mass destruction.

Or, when I want to be a sneaky assassin, I'm a big fan of my "one shot, one kill" Vulkar Wraith setup:

Not sure what to take out to make room for a Scope assuming I can find someone to take me up on that. May have to sacrifice Hush, as loathe as I am to do that.