The New Arcanes already sound terrible

On Nov 11, 2020 11:30 pm, by Gamer

DISCLAIMER: First off, yes, I know they are not out yet and I know, and hope, that they still can get changed at any time, but not every one of us will be lucky enough to hit the test cluster and be able to give feedback that will be heard.

The new Deimos Arcana kitgun and Warframe arcanes have been announced, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but they already look terrible in comparison to arcanes we already have, unless what was posted were R0 versions.

First off the Warframe arcanes;

Name	Trigger	Effect
Theorem Infection	Stand in Residual zone	Damage by friendly AI +4%*stack (max 15 stacks) within 60m.
Theorem Contagion (not to be confused with the once-useful Exodia Contagion)	Stand in Residual zone	Create "globe" every 2s that shoots at enemies within 5m for 100 damage (Nova 1 recycled but worse?).
Theorem Demulcant	Stand in Residual zone	Increase weapon damage for 4%*stack (max 15 stacks). Hold effect for 5s after leaving zone. So maximum of 60% damage boost.

I have been playing Warframe for quite a while now and can prophesize that Infection will die on launch. People use their pets as stat sticks and utility, they scale poorly and do not have damage potential worthy building on. The post implies that this arcane also works with summons like Nekros' 4 or Wukong's 1, but even those are not particularly strong or worth building for except in a few very niche builds.

Likewise, Contagion will die on launch. When will you learn, DE, that fixed damage numbers get you nowhere? We need scaling damage. The only way I could see this being useful is paired with the toxin Residual since toxin procs deal damage in %, but even then there are much, much more effective ways to spread procs that do not require you to sacrifice an extremely useful arcane slot.

Demulcant has the most potential, which unfortunately isnt saying much. Compare the 60% from Demulcant, or just these arcanes in general, to better options currently already available:

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Name	Trigger	Effect
Arcane Avenger	Taking damage	Flat +45% crit chance (ADDITIONAL, not multiplicative!)
Arcane Fury	Critical hit (any weapon)	+180% melee damage
Arcane Awakening	Reload	+150% bonus damage (secondaries)
Arcane Precision or Arcane Rage	Headshot (not Headshot-kill)	+300% bonus damage (secondaries) +180% bonus damage (primaries)

And these are only the offensive options that amplify weapon damage like Demulcant. I could not imagine replacing high utility arcanes like Guardian, Energize or Grace in favor of any of these. Further, in comparison, these arcanes have following upsides;

You are not tied to a (very most likely) relatively small AoE in a game about mobility and speed
When it procs, you always get the full effect and do not need to stack 15 enemies within said AoE (which might be easy for frames like Vauban but Vauban has much much better options).
You are not reliant on a combo with a secondary arcane
You can use your kitgun arcane slot for better damaging abilities like Pax Seeker or utility like Pax Bolt

Once we have ruled out using the Warframe arcanes, the kitgun arcanes loose their main purpose and already seem drastically worse compared to kitgun arcanes already available. The patch notes talk about four arcanes corresponding to the four base elemental damage types but make no mention of status procs, only damage in an AoE, creating a zone on which Theorem arcanes build.

Here, again, we see fixed damage numbers. Keep in mind; No procs (mentioned). Electricity damage is also drastically higher than the other damage types, even DE sees the vs. armor build meta.

The idea of having synergizing arcanes is kinda cute, but it did not work out here. Please, everyone in the testcluster do careful testing on those arcanes so that DE can ship them in a useful state. Because right now, I would not touch these.

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