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June 22 EDIT: Latest Information is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/o5t6cg/the_arsenal_divide_changes_follow_ups/
Tenno,
When choosing weapons for a mission, the Tenno have a lot to consider...
- Which weapons are strong enough for me to fight at this level?
- Which weapons are best against this faction?
- Which weapons are the most efficient and easy to use?
- Which weapons do I have the most fun with?
- Which Mods make these weapons perform best?
The average player will ask themselves at least one of these questions (usually more) before making a selection. Not all weapons are built equal, but ideally there are several answers to each query, so that Tenno can make their own choices from a variety of options and keep things fresh. If one category of weapons outclasses all the others, or makes them feel redundant, then we as developers want to step in to make sure choice exists for the sake of fun.
Enter melee weapons, and equally importantly, the Mods you can use on them. Tenno have spent years sharpening their blades, but as a result, we’ve seen Primary and Secondary weapons collecting rust. And the longer we avoid addressing it, the worse this divide will become.
We are changing Melee and Primary in for the singular purpose of making the combat experience more balanced, ** especially at high level play (Steel Path, etc).**
Generally speaking, we feel that gunstats are in a good place, but it's the Mods that are lacking. Inversely, some Melee Mods are too strong. We intend to address these issues in two ways: firstly, careful nerfs to a handful of Melee Mods; secondly, by offering greater strength for the rest of your Arsenal with Primary and Secondary Arcanes and new Galvanized Mods.
Our goal is to encourage you to use your entire Arsenal in-mission. Switching between Primary, Secondary, and Melee weapons should feel like valid and strategic options, in contrast to the uncontested Melee dominance that exists in the current meta. We want Melee to be fun and powerful as you rip and tear your way through the solar system but we want players to have that same level of fun and power with Primary and Secondary weapons should that be their preference.
The option to choose is key here -- one that is lessened by the current divide between Melee and everything else. Our approach to lessen this divide will be through changes to existing Mods, the addition of new Mods, as well as introducing new Primary and Secondary Weapon Upgrades.
If you’d rather watch a video going over this Workshop and the Sisters of Parvos Update at large, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4wt-4Bx3Cg
Melee Mod Nerfs
We have 5 categories of changes coming:
- Berserker
- Bloodrush
- Condition Overload
- Glaives
- Kuva Nukor
Berserker:
Attack Speed increases for Melee are part of what makes it so dominant. This is especially true when the conditions to reach animation-breaking Attack Speed are as simple as current Berserker: ‘on Critical Hit’. Infinite Attack-Speed Uptime is possible with a single Mod, and the result is animation noise with no distinction between hits, coupled with massive Damage output.
We still want to support the ability to increase your Melee Attack Speed and Damage Output, just not to the levels you currently can.
Berserker is changing from: * +30% Attack Speed (Max 75%) for 24s on Critical Hit
To: * Beserker Fury, cannot stack with Fury. * On Melee Kill: * +35% Attack Speed (Max 70%) for 10s. Stacks up to 2x.
This is important because:
- It decouples it from Critical Chance.
- Adds a more defined ramp up using ‘On Kill’ instead of On Crit (which frequently meant 0 to ‘Max’ in one swing hitting 3 enemies).
- Renamed to Berserker Fury to communicate that it can no longer be equipped with Fury / Primed Fury.
Blood Rush:
Blood Rush’s maximum value is being lowered.This changes the achievability of consistent Red Crits from just one Mod (on most Melee weapons, some High-Critical exceptions), and now additional help will be needed via Mods, Arcanes, or Warframe abilities to achieve consistent Red Crits.
One Mod alone generally delivering the best tier of Criticals felt too powerful.
Blood Rush is changing from:
+60% Critical Chance stacks with Combo Multiplier
To +40% Critical Chance stacks with Combo Multiplier
Condition Overload
Condition Overload’s maximum value is being lowered. It’s been some time since we originally changed this Mod, and in this time we’ve decided we’re still not happy with the way this goes up against other Damage Mods (namely Primed Pressure Point). We’ve reduced this to 80% to make it almost as good as Primed Pressure Point, and 3 Status Types back to where it was originally. It remains true that even though the maximum potential damage is lower now, we think it is still an extremely powerful Mod in its latest iteration.
There should now be a more meaningful choice: do you want front loaded damage or a build up from multiple Status Types?
Condition Overload is changing from: +120% Melee Damage per Status Type affecting the target.
To +80% Melee Damage per Status Type affecting the target.
Weapon Changes
Glaives
In late 2020, we reworked the Glaive melee class to be more powerful and comfortable to use. Overall, we feel these changes had their intended effect as weapons like the Glaive Prime skyrocketed from obscurity to the top of the pile with their newfound ability to inflict huge damage using heavy attacks.
However, these changes also introduced a common issue: players with high melee attack speed would sometimes accidentally throw their Glaives when trying to perform simple melee strikes, and the “catch and release” mechanic sometimes resulted in multiple unintended throws. In reviewing our Melee system, we felt it was a good opportunity to address this concern, while also doing a balancing pass to reflect the power in this newly reworked melee class.
That said, our two changes to Glaives go hand in hand:
First, the heavy attack wind-up speed is being increased from 0.6 seconds to 1.2 seconds. With more time on the wind-up, it is much harder to accidentally throw when you are trying to swing.
With this increased wind-up speed, players are also more capable of performing quick throws. Right now the damage on quick throws is very close to fully charged, so in order to encourage more meaningful choice, our second change is to reduce quick throw damage to approximately 50% of the maximum charge. Exact number changes are as follows:
Cerata
Direct Hit Damage from 366 to 201
Radial Damage from 549 to 333
Falcor
Direct Hit Damage from 460 to 250
Radial Damage from 690 to 345
Glaive
Direct Hit Damage from 210 to 116
Radial Damage from 315 to 190
Glaive Prime
Direct Hit Damage from 328 to 180
Radial Damage from 492 to 296
Halikar
Direct Hit Damage from 298 to 163
Radial Damage from 447 to 225
Halikar Wraith
Direct Hit Damage from 503 to 263
Radial Damage from 621 to 329
Kestrel
Direct Hit Damage from 168 to 92
Radial Damage from 252 to 126
Orvius
Direct Hit Damage from 390 to 215
Radial Damage from to 520 to 293
Pathocyst
Direct Hit Damage from 524 to 288
Radial Damage from 786 to 393
Xoris
Direct Hit Damage from 240 to 120
Radial Damage from 480 to 250
Kuva Nukor
We are indeed touching 1 non-Melee item in the series of Nerfs, and likely to no one’s surprise it’s the Kuva Nukor. It’s a dominant Secondary with incredible power, which is warranted given its acquisition. It’ll keep all of its signature behaviour, but the general output is being notched down slightly with the following change:
- Chains targets reduced to 2 from 4
Onward to Primary & Secondary…
With all the information about how we are lessening power in some ways, let’s move onto the way we are increasing the power available to Primary & Secondary weapon options.
Primary and Secondary Weapon Arcanes
We are going to start with the biggest change: You can now add Arcane Slots (name not final) to your Primary and Secondary weapons, and fill the Slots with new Arcanes that enhance and reward diverse gameplay.
Our entire approach to making Guns a comparable choice in your Arsenal orbits around the notion that Gunplay is fundamentally more varied than Melee: there are pinpoint accuracy guns, AOE guns, and high fire rate Guns (and everything in between). There’s reload times, magazine sizes, and more. We want to make these varied options better at what they do by rewarding you for using them well - thus, Arcanes!
Because the Gunplay falloff is more of a late-game problem, these new Upgrades will be earned through late-game content systems -- namely, the Steel Path. You’ll be able to get the Arcane Slot Unlockers from Steel Path Honors, whereas the Arcanes themselves drop from Acolytes in the Steel Path! The spawn frequency of Acolytes is also being increased, meaning you’ll get more Steel Essence, as well as more chances for the Arcane you want. All Acolytes will drop them!
There are 6 Arcanes (3 Primary, 3 Secondary) that you’ll be able to rank up and put to put into the new Slots:
PRIMARY:
The first Primary Arcane is designed with Primary weapons that perform well as AOE or high rate-of-fire weapons. This Arcane will reward kills with the following stats at Max rank:
PRIMARY MERCILESS
On Kill:
+30% Damage for 6s. Stacks up to 12x.
+30% Reload Speed
+100% Ammo Max
The more you kill, the more damage you can build up. Groovy!
The second Primary Arcane is designed with high precision weapons in mind. Make your Headshots count for greater performance (excluding AOE headshots)!:
PRIMARY DEADHEAD
On Headshot Kill:
120% Damage for 24s. Stacks up to 3x.
+30% to Headshot Multiplier.
-50% Weapon Recoil
The final Primary Arcane is designed with using your full loadout in mind, enter Melee synergy:
PRIMARY DEXTERITY
On Melee Kill: +60% Damage for 20s. Stacks up to 6x.
SECONDARY:
Secondary Weapons will receive the same options as Primary Weapons for their Arcanes, but with their own version. In practice, you’d be able to equip yourself with a Precision Secondary like the Knell, a high-fire rate Primary like the Grakata, and select the Arcane that will reward each play style best!
The stats are the same for the Secondary versions of the New Arcanes:
SECONDARY MERCILESS
On Kill:
+30% Damage for 6s. Stacks up to 12x.
+30% Reload Speed
+100% Ammo Max
SECONDARY DEADHEAD
On Headshot Kill:
120% Damage for 24s. Stacks up to 3x.
+30% to Headshot Multiplier.
-50% Weapon Recoil
SECONDARY DEXTERITY
On Melee Kill: +60% Damage for 20s. Stacks up to 6x.
Ultimately each Arcane stacks up to the same amount of damage, but it’s how you choose to get there that counts. Precision? Spray and Pray? Melee synergy? Your choice!
The “Arcane Unlockers” themselves are an item you’ll need to install on the weapons you want to take further, and you can find the Unlockers in the Steel Path Honors.
Galvanized Mods
Our observation that Arsenal imbalance becomes obvious at higher level content means that we want your progression to this content to matter for your power level. We want to give you the tools to progress to optimal play with a new series of Mods: Galvanized Mods!
The general approach to these Galvanized Mods is that the unconditional upgrade is not quite as good as the non-Galvanized original, but the On Kill conditional increases them well above and beyond what is available with ‘conventional’ Mods in your Arsenal. These will be available from Teshin’s Steel Path Honors.
Login Items
As with many of our large-scale reworks and changes in the past, we want to honour the investment of time and resources our players have put into their Arsenal! Since these changes are both wide-sweeping and precise, we have a general login inbox planned for all players, with a few bonuses for those who meet certain conditions.
With the release of Update 30.5: Sisters of Parvos, players will receive the following upon login:
- All Players Mastery Rank 5 and above will receive 5 x Built Forma.
- All Players Mastery Rank 5 and above will receive a 3-Day Affinity Booster.
- Any Player who owns a Kuva Nukor will receive an extra 2 x Built Forma.
- All Players who owned ANY Lich Weapon at any point OR have a Converted Lich OR have an active Lich get 1x * Requiem Ultimatum (a new item to taunt a Lich or Sister into battle)!
- Players who have Converted a Kuva lich OR vanquished a Kuva Lich will get OULL, which is a Requiem Wildcard Mod!
In closing…
Sisters of Parvos will bring these changes on all Platforms. The delivery of these changes is rooted in our goals, and if we miss the mark we’ll be watching for what to tweak. Keep in mind what our goals and visions are when you give feedback after playing!
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