sandriver

As of this posting, week 4 is about to end, and I hope everyone got their Ceramic Dagger incarnon ;) Let's look ahead to next week!

Fine people of Dormizone, I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the coming incarnons! Unlike other weeks with clear winners and underappreciated hidden gems, week 5 is basically all killer, no filler.

Week 5's offerings:

• Torid
• Dual Toxocyst
• Dual Ichors
• Miter
• Atomos

Some thoughts on the offerings:

• Torid: it's strong. Toxin Amprex, but to play it optimally you have to play Toxic by Britney Spears.
• Dual Toxies: have the strongest toxin proc in the game thanks to the Frenzy passive. Very comfy to use too due to the gargantuan incarnon battery.
• Dual Ichor: run these on a Quiver Xaku or Xata stealth frame, just trust me. Saryn in shambles. The death clouds will chase enemies back to their spawns. Limbo can heavily abuse viral or gas/electric Influence builds to assault enemies outside the rift. Non-Influence builds can enjoy combo self-charging and extremely fast combo racking. Afflictions is kind of nasty on these too.
• Miter: the big bad bubble popper, and the Justice proc from the augment is nice. Like all incarnons with a split physical-heat projectile, can run cold/blast for a mix of crowd clear and utility. There's a bug with the multishot evolution, but I don't understand if it makes the gun better or worse; someone else please comment!
• Atomos: it's the Atomos! The radial effect on the evolution is pretty massive, and the damage output is great. I have a Fortifier and an Outburst build and they both slap. Can actually achieve guaranteed blast procs, which is kind of incredible given the amount of damage this bad boy pumps out and the radius over which it does so. Try it on Biting Frost/Arcane Avenger Frost ;) Blast Atomos also works great on Xata frames. It's basically glued to my Ivara loadout, don't think any other pistol compares.

Out of all of these, Atomos is the one I use the most regularly. Stealth Xata on the Ichors is something you need to experience at least once, but it does admittedly get pretty boring... eventually. I got several hours of laugh out loud entertainment from it though. I believe overall Torid and Dual Ichor are the community darlings this week.

If anyone wants builds for any of these, please do let me know!

Wisp enjoyers, I need your help!

For context, I have 4000 hours logged in missions, and I primarily play crowd control/weapon support frames like Nyx, Limbo, Caliban, Frost, Banshee, and so on. That is to say, while I'm not a new player by any means, I think I may have some biases that prevent me from fully appreciating a frame vaunted as the "best support in the game".

I'm not here to gainsay her power as a damage frame, as frankly anyone with a blind can run Xata and propel themselves into the upper echelons of damage potential, and Wisp comes with an invisibility kit to boot. I also think she has great quality of life as a solo frame due to her ability to disengage and control enemy aggression.

Instead, I think I'm missing something about her support toolkit. Here's where I'm coming from:

• Haste Mote looks nice on paper, but in my opinion fire rate is generally less valuable than reload speed, which is hard to get and mostly only available from fairly weak mods. Wisp also needs an eye-watering 300% strength just to replicate the effects of a single speed arcane.
• Vitality mote is fine, but certain maps such as T4 void, Zariman, and Deimos Labs have enemies with severe alpha strikes, so I think health tanking is generally more situational and requires Eclipse or another DR on top to really work and be comfortable.
• I think Breach Surge is becoming less useful as the strongest weapons have shifted to conal, punchthrough, and chaining weapons that rapidly kill enemies approaching from a single tile entry point. I believe it also has a fairly significant propagation delay between when it casts and when the effect radius reaches far targets? Correct me if I'm wrong, please!

The following restrictions apply:

• Account is totally fresh
• Joining a clan for blueprints is allowed
• Every node must be done solo
• No trading, except for transferring a prime set of the frame of your choice (if a prime exists)
• Specters and Skaut are allowed, but please note if your strategy would require them for certain nodes
• Helminth abilities are allowed

Off the top of my head, my top picks for this challenge would be Nyx, Limbo, Octavia and Frost since they have good CC and objective defense, and good weapon support; "complete" frames if you will. Loki, Zephyr and Banshee would all also be good picks, although missing elements from their kit here and there.

Something I've been playing with is the simple observation that crit keeps getting better the more you have of it, since the crit damage part of the damage product typically looks like this:

1+crit chance*(1+cc modifiers)*(crit damage*(1+cd modifiers) - 1)

which if we rearrange it, has a term of modified cc * modified cd. That is to say, stacking crit exhibits polynomial growth, which is better than the linear growth of stacking base damage.

Per the title, Secondary Outburst gives us a way of stacking huge amounts of crit chance and crit damage to take advantage of this.

That said, we do need to put Outburst in its proper context of different scaling techniques for secondary weapons:

• additive Galvanised Shot with Secondary Encumber = 16.6x
• multiplicative Secondary Shiver with Hornet Strike = 14.4x
• Cascadia Flare with multiplicative Galv. Shot <= 34.56x
• multiplicative Galv. Shot with Encumber and Hornet Strike = 41.6x
• multiplicative Cascadia Accuracy = ? (I need to sit down and digest this one)
• Cascadia Flare and additive Galv Shot (IPS+two element) = 10.8x
• Additive Secondary Shiver and Galv Shot (IPS+two element) = 10.5x
• Acolyte arcane and additive Galv Shot (IPS+two element) = 9.6x

You might think that Outburst is highly dependent on the weapon's base crit stats, but in fact the bonuses are so big, just over half of all weapons beat the reference "acolyte and additive gshot" multiplier. The strongest weapon in my calculations that shouldn't run raw Outburst is the Velox Prime, but note the emphasis on "raw"...

Incorporating Arcane Avenger into an Outburst build yields an overwhelming amount of power, only beaten by certain multiplicative arcane setups such as multiplicative Cascadia Accuracy, or the multiplicative Galv. Shot builds. Certain frames with flexible Arcane allocations can also afford to run Arcane Precision to push this even further.

One final note is that crit often is less attenuated than raw damage, so for instance Outburst builds will significantly outperform base damage stacking builds on the appropriate enemy types.

How do we take advantage of Outburst? I have three builds around it: the first is to use Rauta with Frostbite and a large magazine to max out Outburst before swapping to my secondary. I use this so I can keep using my Praedos for mobility. The second is to use a good Crescendo stacker, like the Venka Prime, a Zaw with a finisher riven (I use Balla and Dehtat) or a strong finisher weapon like the Innodem. The final is to just use a gunblade and the old forward-neutral High Noon loop technique; fast combo rackers like the Incarnons Dual Ichors or Sibear could also be an option. Theoretically, Rising Storm on Ash might also be an option.

Who uses Outburst well? The usual suspects with big crit buffs, naturally: Zephyr, Yareli, Ivara, Frost, Sevagoth, Harrow, Ash, Dagath, Citrine, and Gyre. I would also say base damage buffers benefit as well, so count Limbo and Chroma.

What are some of my favourite Outburst carriers? The best users are the Deathtrap Trigger incarnons: Lato, Vasto and Kunai; Dual Tox; Lex; Akarius Prime; Atomos; Synoid Gammacor; Epitaph Prime (Dystopia--not our one AFAICT--has a multiplicative Accuracy build though); Athodai; Furis; Onos. Honestly, the sky's the limit.

If anything? I feel like the scattered Limbo guides are mostly pretty comprehensive, but I am curious if there are any needs being underserved.

For a bit of context, I got back on my Limbo bullshit and I think it would be good to spread a bit of the Limbo propaganda. He's out of retirement and back in my daily driver roster, and I'd love to do a little to get people to look at the funny magic man again.

If you've been avoiding Trinity, what would entice you to play her? Alternatively, are you a Trinity main with a wishlist of buffs for the lovely lobster?

Not enough of a Trinity player to dream up cool stuff, but for example here are some of mine.

• Mild: base duration and maybe animation speed improvements
• Wild: one of her augments generates Overguard for the squad. Some kind of buff for Champion's Blessing that makes it easier to stack, and makes the buff permanent until downed or something?

This is quickly becoming my favourite secondary arcane. Giving up Secondary Encumber (and Surge in a few cases) was hard, but it's fairly easy to compensate nowadays.

So what's so great about Fortifier? It performs two roles: it gives overguard to frames that can't generate it but enjoy useful synergies with their native defenses, and it also rapidly strips overguard from affected enemies with a x8 damage to overguard multiplier, opening them to CC. CC might have died for a bit, but Fortifier has kind of brought it back.

I'll cover two points in this post: frame synergies, and my favourite Fortifier weapons. Let's start with the synergies.

Frame Synergies

Stealth frames benefit hugely from Fortifier for two reasons. The first is that they typically enjoy running Molt Efficiency, and the extra layer of overgating ensures Molt Efficiency is always running at max power. The second is that overguard broadly cancels almost all negative effects on the frame, including Conduit debuffs in disruption, Netracell debuffs, Archimedea debuffs, Eximus effects etc. One of my banes on Ivara was getting hit with Arson waves while I was on my dashwire and not able to react, or the punishing energy drain conduits working against Prowl. No longer, I am free! The same can be said for Loki for Disruptions and if choosing to run Irradiating Disarm or using Decoy.

Revenant benefits from Overguard for similar reasons, as some negative effects still apply to him even through Mesmer Skin.

Zephyr, my favourite frame of all time and the core of my Warframe addiction, became very clunky to play after Zariman and Overguard, but Fortifier, especially on a good rad weapon, means Turbulence can do its job and keep her very safe again.

Finally, and credit to the wiki for this, damage redirect frames, notably Yareli and Nezha, and to a lesser extent Nekros and Trinity, hugely extend the effective overguard provided by Fortify, up to 150k for Yareli, Nezha and Nekros, and 60k for Trinity.

Favourite weapons

Grimoire goes without saying. The pulsing AoE and chaining property means this rapidly strips overguard in a wide area. Tome mods provide great utility. Without Surge, I only use the Fortifier config on frames that can compensate the damage, like Zephyr and Yareli.

Akarius Prime is a nice hybrid pistol with a massive radius, easily spreads radiation and other statuses while shredding overguard.

Hystrix Prime remains my staple for Disruptions. Still primes well without Encumber due to the puncture and forced element mechanic.

Twin Graks are an incredible hybrid weapon. High single target damage so they shred easily, and absolutely enormous proc per second rate for priming.

Tenet Cycron with magnetic progenitor. Beam weapon so procs rapidly, and very high damage output. Can do mag/viral for priming. Magnetic rapidly shreds overguard. Mag beam so rapidly pops bubbles.

Lex Prime Incarnon. Has enough damage to spare that it can afford to use a utility arcane. Easily oneshots eximus, and the punchthrough and large projectile can deal with Ancient Healer overguard balls.

Tenet Plinx. Lex but radial instead of columnar.

Awaiting testing

Epitaph (waiting for Prime), has higher status and an even IPS spread, as well as two guaranteed elements before modding. Charge shot might be good enough for oneshotting Eximus overguard. Probably not enough damage on the radial tapshot for Archimedea AoE strip.

Synoid Gammacor Incarnon. If you're not running a Contagion Verglas robo buddy, has the nice utility of forced Cold procs. Does spicy AoE hits a la the Tenet Plinx. Un-carnon form has innate mag. The lovely space cubes restore your energy <3

Calculations for my extreme turbo tank build:

• Base health with Umbral Vitality R8: 763
• Health with Arcane Blessing R5: 1963
• Armour with 5x Tauforged Azure: 1230
• Armour with 3 stacks of Health Conversion: 2580
• Base EHP = 1963/(1-2580/2880) = 18844.8
• EHP with Merulina = 188,448
• EHP with Eclipse = 753792

Bombard rocket does 65 damage at base, which oneshots Yareli at around level 6300, or around 3100 with the +200% T4 Void damage multiplier.

Yareli is truly a "Metal Slug". We're so close, sea slug fans!

On a more serious note, if you don't want to invest so heavily in stacking armour, Eclipse shield tanking is a good alternative: Primed Redirection gives her 62,160 effective shields, more than enough for anything EDA can throw at you aside from the Mech Mines.

That all said, I think Pillage or Condemn + Primed Redirect is the most ideal way to tank nowadays, as the 2.5s shield gate from shield healing works nicely with the chunky Merulina shields for a good mix of active and passive defenses.

If you know, you know: Xata Ivara is an absolute powerhouse of damage output due to Xata's weird spaghetti code mechanics, and now we can finally use that potential to N U K E.

Video is captured footage of the end result, although I hadn't begun labbing things at the time. You can also freeze frame and spot a whopping ~8x Xata hit coming off a Blast death detonation.

Basically, Xata will trigger a second hit off Blast detonations, and be scaled massively off the big death blast detonations. I've been having the most luck with the hybrid snipers like Lanka, Sporothrix, and Komorex to place big blast procs. Komorex is in a class of its own with the elemental boost, high rate of fire, and AoE though.

I plan to continue testing this with blast beam secondaries, due to Arcane Precision's capabilities in setting large Blast detonations quickly, as well as good status and hybrid Blast spreaders like Akarius Prime. Epitaph is also potentially an option, since the tapshots do both Blast and self-prime a multiplicative Shiver and Galvanized Shot with forced Cold...

If anyone else wants to test some weapons, please do let us know here.

Final note, I did a quick test on my Xata Loki and it seems to work just fine on regular Xata users. Blast is already silly, this just makes it sillier.

Quick maffs to compare it to Secondary Encumber+Galvanized Shot:

Hornet Strike/Secondary Surge: (1+2.2)*8 = 25.6. Encumber/GShot: 1+1.2*13=16.6.

In fact, your Surge multiplier only needs to hit 5.19x to reach parity with Encumber/GShot.

Now, there are two big caveats here, of course. The first is that you will need to build for max energy on your frame, which some people won't want to do. The second is that this is an altfire build, which is fine since the primary fire is adequate for killing weak enemies and charging the altfire.

I'll do a quick rundown of my "greatest hits" builds that I've tried so far:

• Banshee: affinity range fullstrip and an extra 3x multiplier on Sonar with Vome Invocation. I just change my rhythm to double-casting Sonar before doing an altfire nuke.
• Mirage: the clones also shoot their own altfire, although it doesn't benefit from Secondary Surge.
• Inaros: the living grouping ability strikes again! Ball 'em up, zap 'em down.
• Yareli: Crit buffs, and a ragdoll grouping ability. Can spam Sea Snares to charge Surge. Natively high energy pool.
• Zephyr: I finally have a use for Airburst Rounds. Not sure what the interaction with tornadoes is, and hard to test because everything is dead immediately.
• Ivara: Natively high energy pool, can set up for a big Navigator shot with just one extra cast beforehand. Haven't tested if it's even possible to exploit Piercing Navigator.
• Harrow: occasional headshots have kept Lasting Covenant rolling on my 155% duration build. The bullet hose effect from Penance is quite nice for using the primary fire too.
• Equinox: book rips off armour, so I can just Maim to my heart's content and run a more defensive Eclipse build.
• Gyre: more power strength! And a bit of armour strip, not that she needs it. Coil Horizon naturally sets up for the altfire. Electric ticks from Cathode Grace can keep Arcane Precision rolling passively.

I'd love to hear esoterica or historical curiosities or fun synergies; or whatever else you can think of!