Game Mechanics: Status Procs Revisited - U27.3.7

U27.2 brought with it a major changeup to many aspects of Warframe. In this article I'll be covering all the changes to Status procs.

NOTE: DE have said that they are reviewing Impact and Gas procs, so they may change in the coming days.

EDIT 16/03/2020: I've added in a graph of how Corrosive and Viral compare, which displays notable intersection points of which is better when.

EDIT 01/04/2020: Updated with the changed Impact and Gas procs, as of U27.3.7.

Overall Changes:

• Every Status proc now stacks with itself in some way. Several of them now have a hard cap of how much they stack. Generally speaking, capped Status procs are limited to 10 procs. Status procs will not stack when afflicting players.
• Physical damage no longer has a 4x weighting in determining status procs, now being treated as equal to Elemental damage.
• All of the pure +Status Chance mods (Rifle Aptitude, Shotgun Savvy, Sure Shot, Melee Prowess) have been increased from +15% to +90%. The Nightmare +Status Chance mods (Hammer Shot, Stunning Speed) have also had their +Status Chance values increased.
  
• All Status procs have a limited duration, usually 6 seconds.
• True and Void damage have not been changed.
• The number of each Status proc currently inflicting an enemy is now shown.
• Greater than 100% Status Chance now gives chance to inflict multiple procs with each hit.
  

Physical Damage

Impact

Impact procs still cause the enemy to stagger. Repeated procs will further stagger the enemy, eventually causing them to fall down.

This is generally considered to be a significant nerf to the already terrible Impact. Enemies being knocked around are much harder to land precise shots on, particularly for when you want to land headshots. Plus its damage multipliers are still mediocre at best.

EDIT 01/04/2020: Stacked Impact now simply induces an extended stagger animation. Better than knockdowns, but still difficult to land headshots with.

Puncture

The first Puncture proc reduces the enemy's damage output by 30% as before. Each subsequent Puncture proc reduces it by an additional 5%, to a maximum of 75% damage output reduction.

This is a straight buff to Puncture, which previously only did 30% damage output reduction anyway. 75% is an actually meaningful amount of damage reduction, and makes Puncture slightly worth inflicting. I still maintain that it is mediocre at best, because Warframe is primarily a horde shooter, and reducing the damage output of one or two enemies is near meaningless. It's always much better to just kill the enemy where possible.

Slash

Slash procs no longer bypass Shields, dealing damage to them first. Slash is otherwise unchanged.

This is a minor nerf to Slash, though Shields tend to be very easily depleted anyway so is not much of an issue. Slash still remains quite strong as its proc bypasses armour and deals damage-over-time.

Single Elementals

Cold

The first Cold proc inflicts 25% slow. Each subsequent Cold proc increases the slow by 5%, to a maximum of 70% slow.

This is a slight nerf to any slow-firing weapons that used Cold, but a buff to anything that inflicted a lot of Cold procs. Previously, Cold procs slowed by a flat 50%. 70% slow is a reasonable increase, further reducing enemy damage output while also making headshots much easier to land.

Electricity

Electricity procs still inflict the primary victim with a short stun, and some AoE damage. The AoE effect of Electricity procs can be reapplied while an Electric proc is still active, and will stack.

This is a significant buff to Electric, making it a better anti-crowd element. It doesn't fix the fact of its relatively poor multipliers, but makes its AoE damage much more significant against weaker enemies.

Heat 

Heat was actually changed a couple of Updates ago, and untouched in this Update. However, since I haven't covered it previously, it's worth discussing here. The damage-over-time from Heat procs will now stack with one another, refreshing its duration and increasing the damage dealt. This is different to (and better than) Slash and Toxin procs, which inflict individual procs that expire separately. Additionally, Heat will temporarily reduce the enemy's armour by up to 50%.

Compared to the previous version of Heat, this version is vastly superior, arguably the best single element and better than half of the combined elements. Its scaling damage-over-time is actually more powerful than Slash and Toxin, as it refreshes in duration rather than just adding another damage-over-time instance. The added temporary armour reduction is a huge factor as well, making it the only element besides Corrosive that actually strips armour.

Toxin

Toxin procs now last for 6 seconds, from 8. Additionally, Toxin damage no longer has a bonus against Ferrite armour.

This is all of course a nerf to Toxin, however I personally don't think it's that big a deal. In particular, its primary role was anti-Corpus due to its shield bypass, which it of course retained. Even with the reduced proc duration, it is still lethal against unarmoured Corpus enemies, especially the organics who take increased damage to health from it.

Combined Elementals

Blast (Cold + Heat)

No longer deals knockdown to the enemy and nearby enemies. Instead, affected enemies have their accuracy reduced, by 30% on the first proc, increasing by 5% for each subsequent proc, to a maximum of 75% reduced accuracy.

This change makes Blast a lot better (though still not good) as a damage type. In my rudimentary testing, the accuracy reduction did noticeably reduce the damage output of affected enemies, though as always, killing them is better. Additionally, accuracy reduction is always a bit iffy because a strong attack that hits you can still just as easily kill you.

Corrosive (Electric + Toxin)

No longer permanent, each Corrosive proc lasts for 6 seconds. The first proc reduces enemy armour by 26%, with each subsequent proc increasing that by 6%, to a maximum of 80% armour reduction.

Corrosive received an enormous nerf in U27.2, arguably justified given its prevalence, as well as the major nerf to armour scaling in the same update. It is still quite effective against very heavily armoured enemies, as at full stack it effectively gives a ~5x damage multiplier, not to mention its innate bonus against Ferrite armour. However, its impermanence, slow stack rate and inability to completely deplete Alloy armour are big nerfs to it, as is the enormous improvement to Viral.

The previous version of Corrosive (each proc reduces current armour by 25%, permanently), scales far faster and more effectively than this current version. It exceeds 80% armour strip with just 6 procs (roughly 83% removal), lasts forever and can go further to completely strip an enemy's armour. The one advantage that this new version of Corrosive has is that it preserves Ferrite arrmour, so retains its big damage bonus against it. Even then, this becomes a disadvantage at very high levels anyway, where total armour strip still beats the damage bonus.

Gas (Heat + Toxin)

Duration reduced to 6 seconds from 8. Gas procs no longer inflict Toxin damage-over-time, rather they inflict Gas damage-over-time.

Gas has essentially been nerfed into the ground. As it has terrible damage multipliers, its procs now deal very poor damage against a lot of relevant enemies, and do not bypass shields.

EDIT 01/04/2020: Stacked Gas procs now increase in radius of effect, and will linger even if the initial target dies, however this doesn't counteract the fact that Gas damage is still terrible.

Magnetic (Cold + Electric)

No longer reduces Max Shields by 75%. First proc increases damage dealt to Shields by 100%, each subsequent proc adding another 25% to a maximum of +325%.

Magnetic was niche at best previously, and isn't much better now. At maximum stacks, it is a little more effective than its previous incarnation (reduced max Shields by 75%, so effective +300% damage). Pretty much the only enemy with a heap of Shields that can't be brought down by other means is the Kyta Raknoid, which is immune to Magnetic procs anyway. The Shields of most enemies are easily brought down by any decent weapon with most damage types regardless - see everyone defaulting to Viral/Corrosive/Radiation and blitzing through Corpus units.

Radiation (Electric + Heat)

Still enables friendly fire and lasts for 12 seconds. Additional Radiation procs increase damage dealt to other enemies by +50%, to a maximum of +450%.

This is a nice buff to Radiation, though does not make it notably better. Enemies do very little damage to each other, because of how much more their health scales compared to their damage. Five times pitiful damage is still pretty pitiful.

Viral (Cold + Toxin)

No longer reduces Max Health by 50%. First proc increases damage dealt to Health by 100%, each subsequent proc adding another 25% to a maximum of +325%.

This is an enormous buff for an already very strong damage type, making Viral in my opinion unarguably the best overall proc in the game. While Corrosive is still technically stronger against extremely high level armoured enemies, the change to armour scaling means that you have to go to even higher levels to reach that point. For up to Sortie-ish levels, Viral is just as effective, if not more, depending on the weapon. And against unarmoured enemies, Viral is leagues better than Corrosive.

Yet another advantage to Viral is that it actually augments the damage of damage-over-time procs like Slash and Toxin. This makes Viral + Slash/Heat combos absurdly powerful against basically any target. Viral + Slash in particular will scale far better than new Corrosive, as it still entirely ignores armour and deals even more damage than it used to.

Viral vs Corrrosive

So naturally with Corrosive being nerfed and Viral being significantly buffed, the question becomes, which should you use? Naturally, the answer depends on what the enemy's health and armour types are, but it's no longer so clear-cut. Previously, Viral was only properly competitive when accompanied by Slash procs, and really only taken on weapons that couldn't do a Corrosive build as effectively.

Enemy with Ferrite Armour (e.g. Grineer Heavy Gunner)

• Against Ferrite Armour, Corrosive always wins at very high armour values. On top of what is essentially a 5x damage multiplier at very high levels (80% armour reduction is roughly 5x damage multiplier at very high armour values), Corrosive also deals 1.75x damage to Ferrite, and ignores 75% of the remaining armour (again, effectively another 4x damage at very high armour values). This overall results in up to 35x damage to a super-heavily Ferrite armoured enemy, but reaching this number requires an absurd amount of armour.
• Viral is no slouch either. The best case scenario for Viral is if the target has Cloned Flesh health (ie is Grineer). This gives a 1.75x damage bonus, on top of Viral's 4.25x damage multiplier at maximum, for an overall boost of up to 7.4375x damage multiplier. Worst case is something like Robotic, which just takes neutral damage from Viral, for an overall multiplier of 4.25x from the procs.
• Depending on the enemy's underlying health type, they will need at least 1250 to 3075 armour (e.g. level ~61 Heavy Gunner) for Corrosive to deal more damage at maximum procs than Viral.

Enemy with Alloy Armour (e.g. Grineer Bombard, Corpus Bursa)

• Without the damage bonus, Corrosive will only get the up to 5x damage multiplier against Alloy Armour from 80% armour reduction, and this will only occur at very high armour values.
• On the other hand, Viral will get anywhere from 4.25x to 7.4375x, depending which health type the enemy has (e.g. Grineer Cloned Flesh). 
• Radiation deals 1.75x damage against Alloy armour, and like Corrosive vs Ferrite, ignores 75% of it, for an overall multiplier of up to 7x, but again only gets its full bonus at very high armour.
• Corrosive requires the enemy to have at least 6500 armour (level ~98 Bombard) to beat Viral against a neutral health type, and will not match it if the enemy has a Viral-favourable health type.
• Radiation cannot match Viral if the health type is Cloned Flesh, and requires absurdly high armour to match it against Flesh. It will beat Viral against a neutral health type at just 1100 armour.

Unarmoured Enemy (e.g. all of Infested) 

• At best, Corrosive gets 1.75x damage against Infested's Fossil health type, which includes units like Ancients. There is no armour to strip here. At worst, Corrosive deals 0.5x damage to Corpus Proto Shields, which is on units like Corpus Techs.
• At worst, Viral gets 0.5x damage against Infested's Infested health type, which includes things like Chargers. However, it still benefits from stacking its procs, for up to 4.25x damage. Overall, even against the Infested health type, this gives it up to 2.125x damage.
• At best, Radiation deals 1.5x damage to Infested Sinew, which is extremely rare.

Overall, Corrosive is best against Ferrite armour at very high levels. Radiation is best against very heavily Alloy-armoured non-Grineer enemies, but they need to be extremely high level. Viral is best against any Alloy Armoured Cloned Flesh enemy (e.g. Bombards), anything unarmoured, and competes very well against Corrosive and Radiation even against their preferred armour types.

This is all not mentioning that Viral boosts the damage-over-time dealt by Slash/Toxin/Heat procs, which can be a significant boost to damage. Not to mention Heat procs halving armour, which is a much bigger benefit for Viral than Corrosive or Radiation.

Additionally, Viral procs are much better early on than Corrosive procs. The first Viral proc immediately doubles all subsequent damage, and scales linearly from there. The first Corrosive proc only reduces armour by 26% (up to ~35% damage increase) and scales exponentially, but very slowly. In fact, in terms of damage multiplier from procs, ignoring the Corrosive bonus against Ferrite, Corrosive only beats Viral on the 10th (and last) proc - even the 9th proc is slightly in Viral's favour. Of course, this still only applies to heavy armour - at lower armour values, Viral is strictly superior.

What's Good?

• Slash is still very good as its proc ignores armour.
• Heat is now very good, between partial armour strip and stacking damage-over-time. It is all round a really strong secondary element to have.
• Toxin is still very good against Corpus, though weaker against other factions.
• Corrosive was heavily nerfed, but is still relevant as one of the few armour-stripping procs, and still has good damage multipliers. It is mainly best on fast firing weapons that can maintain maximum stacks reliably.
• Viral has been massively buffed and is extremely good against basically everything. Pretty much all weapon types can make good use of it.
• Radiation is still decent to have as a secondary damage type. It has good multipliers against a few key enemies, and its proc is useful for shutting down Eximus units and Ancients.

What Could Be Better?

• Impact is awful in its current iteration, with poor damage multipliers and a mediocre proc.
• Puncture has an improved (but still meh) proc, and is still hilariously outclassed by Corrosive/Viral/Radiation.
• Cold isn't terrible as it has reasonable damage multipliers and a buffed useful proc, but pales in comparison to Heat and Toxin, as far as single elements go.
• Electricity is still only useful against a small subset of enemies, and does not deal much damage with its AoE proc.
• Blast no longer hinders your ability to kill enemies, but still has poor damage multipliers.
• Gas now deals Gas damage rather than Toxin on its procs, so no longer bypasses Shields. It still has awful damage multipliers, so is far weaker than before. It is worth noting that the removal of 4x Physical Damage bias makes Gas proc much more frequently.
• Shields are still not particularly strong outside of a select few enemies, so Magnetic is still largely mediocre.