New Mods: Galvanized Mods (U30.5.3)

One of the major additions in the Sisters of Parvos update (U30.5) was a new series of mods called Galvanized mods. These mods are one part of the "Arsenal Divide" section of the update, intended to reduce the power gap between Melee and ranged weapons. The Galvanized mods are all variants of existing mods, with slightly reduced base stats but a ramp-up mechanic that drastically increases their power upon kills.

These mods are all available from the Arbitration Store, for 20 Vitus Essence each. They are all Rank 10 mods, with the rank-up costs of a Rare (Gold) mod. 

EDIT 12/11/2021: DE have clarified in U30.9 that the +Damage from Galv Apt/Shot/Savvy not working on explosions is intended.

Galvanized Chamber, Diffusion and Hell

First up is the +Multishot mods. The Galvanised mods start at 10% lower Multishot than the base versions, but with each kill gain +30% Multishot for 20 seconds. The Secondary and Shotgun versions stack up four times, with the Rifle one stacking up five times, for a maximum of +230% Multishot in all cases.

The base Multishot mods are automatic includes in just about every weapon build. In the vast majority of cases, the Galvanized versions are strict upgrades. Unstacked they are only slightly weaker than the base mods, and with just a single kill they become superior, even more so with additional kills.

Galvanized Aptitude, Shot and Savvy

Next up is the +Status Chance mods. Again in each case, the Galvanized mods give 10% lower Status Chance than the base versions. However, instead of kills granting increased Status Chance, they give +Damage based on the number of unique Status procs on the target - essentially Condition Overload for ranged weapons. The Rifle and Shotgun versions stack up twice for +80% Damage per unique proc, while the Secondary version stacks up three times for +120% Damage per unique proc.

Condition Overload is one of the three main mods that give Melee weapons their insane scaling factor. For this set of Galvanized mods, two unique procs will give close to the same +Damage as the equivalent standard +Damage mod (+160% vs 165% for Rifles/Shotguns, +240% vs +220% for Secondaries). Any more and these mods will quickly eclipse the base Damage mods, to the point where it is better to drop those base Damage mods for something else.

Just as Condition Overload replaces (Primed) Pressure Point on many Melee builds, on high Status Chance weapons with multiple damage types, Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy can potentially replace their weapons' base Damage mods. There is of course one big difference between the two: Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy require kills to get started, while Condition Overload is always active.

Like with Condition Overload, the damage bonus does not apply to the shot that inflicted the Status proc. This makes Galv Apt/Shot/Savvy much less useful on slow firing weapons that don't have high pellet count to compensate.

It is worth noting that there may be issues with these mods working (or rather not working) on projectile and explosive weapons. Some weapons gain a much smaller damage bonus than they should, while others gain no damage whatsoever. EDIT 12/11/2021: As mentioned above, the +Damage bonus from these mods does not apply to explosions, and this is intentional. As such, these mods are of little use on weapons relying primarily on radial damage.

Galvanized Scope and Crosshairs

These two Galvanized mods are variants of the conditional "Acolyte" mods, giving +120% Crit Chance while aiming after achieving a headshot. Upon achieving headshot kills, this increases further by +40% to a maximum of five stacks, for a total of +320% Crit Chance while aiming.

Unlike the other Galv mods, these two gain additional benefits only from headshot kills, not just any kills. This combined with the standard trigger condition of requiring headshots and aiming means that Galv Scope/Crosshairs suit only a specific set of weapons, and require a specific playstyle and preference. For instance, explosive projectile weapons like the Kuva Bramma can have trouble actually landing headshots and headshot kills. To make the most of these mods requires the use of more precise weapons or weapons with large hitboxes, and deliberate aiming at heads for maximum consistency.

The requirement to be aiming to gain any Crit Chance can also be a limiting factor. Particularly in close quarters, aiming can make it much more difficult to fight, especially for weapons with high zoom. In Warframe where the vast majority of combat is crowd killing, the ability to quickly turn and engage multiple targets is often more useful than being able to precisely engage single targets.

As they are variants of Acolyte mods rather than the standard mods, Galv Scope/Crosshairs can be equipped alongside the standard +Crit Chance mods of Point Strike or Critical Delay/(Primed) Pistol Gambit or Creeping Bullseye respectively. Much like the discussion Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy and +Damage mods however, the +Crit Chance from Galv Scope/Crosshairs is so great that it drastically reduces the value of any other +Crit Chance mods.

Oddly enough, unlike the other Galvanized mods which lose stacks one-at-a-time, Galvanized Scope and Crosshairs lose all stacks when their timer expires. I expect this is simply a bug/oversight rather than these mods deliberately losing stacks faster than the others.

It is worth noting that kills from damage-over-time procs like Slash and Heat will not stack up these mods, even if the procs were inflicted by headshots.

Galvanized Acceleration

Instead of a +Crit Chance on Headshot mod, Shotguns instead get this combined +Projectile Speed/Beam Range mod. This is notable as it is the first +Beam Range mod for Shotguns. Galv Acceleration starts at +30% Projectile Speed, 10% lower than its base version Fatal Acceleration. This increases by an additional 30% for each kill, stacking twice to a maximum of +90%. The Beam Range side of it has no direct equivalent for Shotguns. Instead, they use Sinister Reach which gives a flat +12 metre Beam Range. Notably, Galv Acceleration is an Exilus mod.

Galv Acceleration has many good use cases. One of the main weaknesses of Shotguns is their relative lack of damage output beyond close range. This is caused partly by pellet spread, and partly by Damage Fall-Off. Increasing Projectile Speed increases the ranges at which Damage Fall-Off starts and ends, thus granting increased damage at medium ranges.

For Projectile-firing weapons, the increased Projectile Speed also makes it much easier to hit targets at longer ranges. Naturally, increasing Beam Range is a big deal for Beam weapons, which cannot hit targets beyond a certain distance.

The Phantasma, Phage and Convectrix are currently the only beam-type Shotguns. They have base Ranges of 20m, 25m and 30m respectively. As such, a fully stacked Galv Acceleration will provide more Beam Range than Sinister Reach on all three of them.

Drawbacks

There are three main drawbacks of note that apply to all of the Galv mods. The first is investment cost and drain - as Rank 10 (Rare-equivalent) mods, these Galvanized mods all cost far, far more Endo and Credits to max out than their standard versions. Additionally, with the exception of Chamber and Hell, they all take up more mod capacity even in the correct polarity. These mods are very much intended for more experienced players, with the Endo, Credits and Forma to invest.

The second drawback is that they require kills to begin ramping up and outclassing their base versions. This makes starting kills slightly more difficult, though the stat differences are not large enough to make a huge difference. Where this can be more problematic is in fights against bosses with few or no additional mobs, for instance Jackal, Lephantis, Kela de Thaym and Eidolons. For such purposes where you intend to ignore other enemies and focus solely on a single target, the base mods will be slightly better.

This is most troublesome for the Status Chance mods. When stacked up in an appropriate setup, Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy are incredibly strong and can even potentially replace the standard +Damage mods, much as Condition Overload competes with (Primed) Pressure Point. When unstacked however, they of course offer no +Damage at all, which can make the first few kills much more difficult to attain. EDIT 12/11/2021: They also offer minimal benefit for explosive weapons.

The final drawback is that the bonus from these mods will decay over time, however it is quite lenient as far as combo decay is concerned. Instead of losing the entire bonus upon timer expiry, it simply loses one stack and the timer resets. This gives Galvanized mods surprisingly decent duration outside of combat, especially the ones with a higher stack limit.

Example Builds

Below are just some examples of uses for Galvanized mods on a variety of different weapons.

This first example uses my Radiation Kuva Hind. Galvanized Chamber is a no-brainer for more Multishot. The Kuva Hind is relatively precise and I have no issue landing headshots reliably with it, and all three firing modes benefit from Crit. As such, I consider it a decent platform for Galvanized Scope. Finally, with five damage types (or even six if Primed Shred or Serration are switched for another element), Galvanized Aptitude has potential to offer a massive amount of +Damage. Both Full-Auto and Burst-Fire on the Kuva Hind have excellent Status Chance, and can quickly inflict multiple different procs for a major damage boost.

The Bubonico is one of the few Shotguns I have that was well set-up to take Galvanized Acceleration, and it can make good use of the mod. Both of its firing modes are projectile attacks, and as such the increased Projectile Speed greatly improves its usability at longer ranges. As a Shotgun with Damage Fall-Off, the increased Damage Fall-Off ranges are also beneficial for longer ranged combat. Galvanized Hell again is an obvious inclusion.

The Kuva Kohm was the first Shotgun to come to mind that could make very good use of Galvanized Savvy. Like with the Kuva Hind, with an appropriate Lich Bonus it can be granted up to six damage types. Given its absurd 90% base Status Chance and spool-up pellet count, it can easily inflict many different procs on enemies. This many unique procs makes Galv Savvy's +Damage bonus far, far greater than Primed Point Blank. Losing Primed Point Blank can make early kills more difficult to achieve, though in most missions you can find some weak enemies to kill to get the ball rolling.

On the Secondary side of things, the Kuva Nukor is a great candidate for Galvanized Shot. It has a great combination of innate Radiation, a Magnetic Lich Bonus, the Nukor family's unique "Microwave" effect (which counts as a unique Status despite having no combat effect), and a base 50% Status Chance, for up to five different Status procs. When the other mod slots are populated, this can reasonably justify dropping Hornet Strike entirely for Galv Shot.

I've used the new Tenet Spirex for an example of a weapon that can use Galvanized Crosshairs well. It has good Crit stats to benefit from it, is relatively precise so can land headshots fairly reliably, and even has a special feature that speeds up reloads after landing headshots.

Finally, it is very much worth mentioning that Galvanized mods can be installed on Exalted weapons, such as my beloved Titania's Dex Pixia. This does not include Galv Scope/Crosshairs, whose base versions cannot be equipped on Exalted weapons either.

Besides the obvious Galvanized Diffusion, Galv Shot can also be used to great effect. Dex Pixia has a high Status Chance coupled with a very high Fire Rate with Razorwing Blitz, and can stack up four or five unique procs very quickly on targets.

Conclusion

All-in-all, Galvanized mods are a major power boost for all ranged weapons, with some benefitting more than others.

• The Multishot mods Galv Chamber/Diffusion/Hell are automatic includes/replacements on practically every build barring specialised boss-killing setups.
• The Status Chance mods Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy can be very strong on EDIT: non-explosive weapons with high base Status Chance and several damage types. They take two unique Status procs to roughly match the standard +Damage mods, and will comfortably exceed them with any more procs. If used in lieu of standard +Damage mods however, they can make the first few kills more difficult. The persisting issues of lesser or no damage bonus to certain weapons is also problematic.
  
• The Crit Chance mods Galv Scope/Crosshairs can be very strong on weapons with reasonable headshot ability and good Crit. They require regular headshots and in particular headshot kills for maximum effect, and only work while aiming, so suit only a specific subset of weapons and playstyles. In their current state, they also lose all stacks at once rather than one-by-one, but I expect this is simply an oversight/bug.
  
• Galvanized Acceleration is a useful mod for many Shotguns. Increasing Projectile Speed also increases Damage Fall-Off ranges, which can greatly improve the effective range of Shotguns. Beam Shotguns have a similar benefit with the increased Beam Range. Unlike the other Galv mods, this one fits in the Exilus slot so faces much less competition for mod slots.
  

In each case, the Galvanized mods drastically reduce the value of other mods adding the same stat, as they are so much stronger than any other mods. For instance, Galv Chamber/Diffusion/Hell greatly reduce the value of other Multishot mods like Vigilante Armaments. Galv Aptitude/Shot/Savvy make +Base Damage mods like Serration and Hornet Strike far less valuable, to the point where many weapons can feasibly drop them entirely.

Galvanized mods do have several drawbacks as mentioned previously, though in the vast majority of content these are quite manageable.

It is worth comparing these mods to their (rough) Melee equivalents. Condition Overload provides +Damage based on unique Status procs, however does not require any number of kills to activate or maintain. Blood Rush gives +Crit Chance based on Melee Combo Counter, which depends only on hitting the enemy rather than needing kills. Additionally, it peaks at +440% Crit Chance with no trigger condition.