I am loving the "but why" series please keep going after playing this game for 5 years I finally understand why things do what they do and YES it does help thank you so very much!

"Armor can be stripped, shields can be broken, and underneath all that shields and armor is still flesh." might be the most terrifying thing I've ever heard you say.

I'm happy you're also explaining the tiers of "when/do you really need it?", makes this very easy to understand but at the same time understanding all the meta mechanics.

I really appreciate all of the videos in this series explaining why a mechanic or functionality of the game is considered to be good or bad. One thing I feel I have to point out in this video (which is already kind of said in the video but I want to further clarify for any new players), is that slash isn’t necessarily the best damage type, but rather the best status type. What’s the difference? The difference lies in another thing briefly touched upon in the video: enemy type weaknesses and resistances. We care about the differences primarily for weapons we wish to use that don’t have easy access to slash if any access at all. Physical status types cannot be added in anyway to a weapon that lacks them in the first place. So besides crit viable primary weapons (because these weapons gain access to hunter munitions), if your weapon of choice either has a low status chance, low slash percentage, or lacks slash entirely, would we consider these weapons bad? No, not at all. Most of these example weapons can partially force their way through armor using enemy damage weaknesses. For simplicity’s sake, I won’t go into considering damage type alongside status chance, as this comment would end up being 5-10x longer than it already is. In Warframe there isn’t really one singular damage type. However, we can greatly narrow down our choices to about 3: Viral, Radiation, and Corrosive. Viral simply does 50-75% increased damage to all humanoid enemies. Plain and simple. Best used against an unarmored enemy, this is a damage type that works wonders paired with any of our many options to remove enemy armor. This damage type does come with the caveat that it deals 50% reduced damage to basic infested units. However, infested don’t usually come armored in the first place, so this more often than not reads as if the infested have 50% more health. And if you are overkilling with your weapon of choice in the first place, then changing a good weapon off of the viral damage to specifically deal with infested is rarely a consideration. Radiation is probably the most dynamic option on this list especially if we are to include status types as it’s correlating status does nothing to increase your personal damage. However, against any heavily armored enemies, radiation will be one of your best friends for raw damage. Heavy armor and light armor usually refer to the type of units that usually wish to wear the 3 main armor types of the game: Ferrite, Alloy, and Infested Sinew. Most basic units with armor will wear the Ferrite armor while heavy units and bosses will more usually be wearing one of the other two depending on faction. Radiation is best used against these heavy units while they remain armored as the weakness on armor tends to have a double effect when compared to shields or health. Damage types used against armor firstly has the effect of ignoring a percentage of that armor then secondly increases the damage of that damage type by the same percentage. So if an enemy’s Alloy armor is 75% weak to Radiation, then that radiation damage will be treated as though 75% of the current armor value was removed prior to dealing that radiation damage, then that radiation damage will be increased by 75%. This serves to drastically increase damage when lacking an armor strip or when only capable or partially removing an enemy’s armor. Radiation falls off against unarmored enemies depending on the enemy, as Radiation deals reduced damage to a large majority of shields and infested units while only being neutral to any other non-robotic enemies. Corrosive as a damage type can be used for a much larger majority of the game. Like Alloy armor is weak to Radiation, Ferrite Armor is weak to Corrosive. What’s more, the only thing that resists Corrosive in the game are Proto Shields. Proto shields are mainly found on boss, boss-like, and specialized enemies with a couple exceptions here and there, such as nullifiers. Corrosive’s benefits don’t end there as heavy infested units are also very weak to Corrosive damage. Corrosive has versatility to not only deal increased damage to many enemies, without outside influence from abilities or other means, while also dealing neutral damage to much the rest.

I want to give a quick mention to my favorite mod set: the Carnis mods. Melee and secondaries don't have access to hunter munitions, so having high status chance and slash weighting is much more important. This doesn't just mean having low impact and puncture, it also means not having too much viral. In order to do this, I've seen quite a few builds run unranked 60/60 toxin and cold mods to have as little viral as possible, but then you run the risk of not having enough status chance. Carnis mandible and stinger are basically 60/60 mods, but for slash instead of an element (and they give 90% slash instead of 60% to compensate for being inherently weaker). Just like the 120% slash mods, it won't buff your slash proc damage, and the improvement to your direct damage is honestly negligible, but the increased status chance may end up being more valuable than the 30% extra slash weighting you lose out on. Also the carnis set bonus is a small amount of status (read: knockdown) immunity on heavy attack kill, so that's just another reason why you should prefer it over 120% slash on your melee weapon. It's a situational choice of whether more slash weighting or more procs is more important, but they're also relatively easy to farm from deimos, so I would highly recommend picking them up, especially as the 120% mods can only be obtained through either baro or eidolons... The 3rd mod in the set is a health and armour mod. Generally not worth it as it's bonuses are relatively small, unless you're trying to invest absolutely everything into health tanking, or really desperate to max out the carnis mod set. Oh yeah, then there's also the pure 90% slash mods. Rare drop from uncommon enemies. Only really worth if mod capacity is an issue, but even then the carnis mods only cost 2 more, and the slash damage scales up the exact same as you rank up the mods.

Absolutely loving this new series so far, hope youre enjoying making this content cause I adore seeing it!

Thank you so much for taking the time to make this, amazing info for returning players that have no clue wtf is going on with their used to be god tier guns

A great video, as always! Thank you for sharing it Truth be told I didn't know about the double use of faction mods, so thank you for that! Maybe I'll try it. And a little story: I got Gotva Prime from Baro the other day, and due to it being a pure Puncture weapon I gave the Puncture-Corrosive-Cold setup a shot. It was pretty cool! Then I tried the Hunter Munitions setup, and let me tell you, it blew the first one out of the water! It wasn't even a full mod specific setup!

This has been the most satisfying and informative video I've ever seen, I am doing tons of Damage now on Steel Path. Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure out a way to play through Steel path and it is a cake walk now lol thanks again love you my man

I love the "But why" series. Thank you for this work

Love that you pause when saying slash. SLLLLLASH 😊

If I find myself using a primer weapon, it's pretty much always because it happens to do that in addition to something else. Like the Grimoire giving the 10 energy regen from one of the Tome mods (I think it was Khra?) when multihitting enemies, and those hits happen to be good for applying tons of status procs.

I already knew all of this, but watched the entire video, what a great video.

Really like these explanation videos! There seem to be so many intricacies with some of these mechanics and this just made it alot easier to understand

I really appreciate the way u make videos

BEAUTIFUL video, earned a sub!

Dude i love you, its all much clearer now, damage in this game is way too weird. Thanks man

well after this video. I feel the best follow up would be best armor stripping, or best primer. (for primer I feel it's the Kuna nukor as you can get a few for different occasions, but I typically am not using the meta, so I could be missing some amazing weapon that I passed over because it didn't work well for me when I got mastery with it.

I usually never comment, but I have to say, it's great to see you doing these videos. Also the first time I understood a Warframe video without having to debug what the creator said(most of your videos are like that). Love the content 😄 keep it up!💯 Best creator, I always look up for guides/WF videos with your name at the end.👽 started playing WF back in 2016 and you're still the creator I look for.

The best damage is whatever the MIGHTY SEER graces you with

good one MC, as always

Heat is great too as it can stack indefinitely and all of the stacks get refreshed upon procing heat again. It's not as powerful as the raw damage from slash but it can be used in adition to slash on some weapons. It's also good if you don't have a good way to armor strip. I remember when the old meta was corrosive heat.

thank you, handsome McGamer! A little thing: the calculation does not really allow for "negative" riven faction damage, like "0.5x dmg to Grineer", if I read it correctly as (1+0,5)

Mixing slash with heat and viral is one of my favorite combos

Thanks for explaining this.

this is a good explanation thank you

loving it MC keep going

Ayyyeee I recommended this one:) thank you!

Viral procs unfortunately do not affect DoTs quite so directly. A DoT checks every time it ticks to see if Viral procs are present on the enemy, and then double their damage; the number of viral procs doesn't *actually* matter there, alas, so usually speaking it's fine to just run unranked viral mods to minimize how much it actually affects your status weighting, as opposed to trying to max out Viral, refreshing it when it's already at max, and getting functionally nil change in the bonus for it outside of the direct damage multiplier.

This "But Why" Series is so good. Keep it going brother! Can you also do a small series on Zaws and Kitguns and their best combinations?

I'm loving this series, it adds so much context needed for New Warframe players about our confusing system Not gonna lie tho, I'm hoping a Damage 4.0 happens sometimes, and takes away the oversimplification of our overly complicated elemental system. Make it easier for newbies but keep it interesting for everyone. The combined elements where a mistake haha

as someone who plans on getting back into warframe after 2 years off and has subsequently forgotten everything, finding your vids has been a godsend

Ty for making this :3

killer series!

I had a big ooooohhhhhh moment when you did the math bit and explained the bane mods...pain in the ass to swap or switch loadouts but holy shit thats alot of dmg being missed out

I was hoping that you would explain the other status types in more detail

Are you enjoying this video type MC? Because I hope you are 😊

Thanks for this it helped me alot btw can you post the pendant build?

what about fire......can you make a explanation vidio about the heat DoT? I saw some crazy videos idealizing the heat DoT but I never understood how it can be so powerful, heat alone, no slash or other element primers

I did have a couple of Nitpics with this Video... But I'm going to Keep them to myself because this Topic is God Damn Convoluted that nobody can Cover it Comprehensively in only 7 Minutes... It's just Impossible. 😱

I have about 4k hours in Warframe, and while I wouldn't call myself a veteran by any means, I always thought I was pretty well informed. This series has put into perspective how well informed I'm not. I've learned so much through watching your "Warframe, But Why?" series. Thank you so much for taking the time to make these videos and properly educate people like myself about the game.

I had no idea Bane mods double-dipped, never used them before because they seemed too situational. Guess I should stop dissolving mine for Endo xD

I love these but why videos because of how short and sweet you break down mechanics! Do you think youll ever do one on warframes individually? If so, I'd really like to understand in a non biased way why Rhino is considered really really strong even in your most recent song lyrics.

Tbh I never use bane mods, yeah my damage isnt maxed out but I find you can get by just fine without em, if they took the exilus slot I'd be more comfortable using them but rn not a fan cuz gotta swap em out if you going up against a different faction

Nice one!!! ❤

Every damage type has their own niche. Impact does bonus to shields, puncture does bonus to armour. Magnetic may as well not exist. And Slash kills everything.

This information is correct and useful

Wait, viral doesn't half the enemies health anymore? Wasn't that what it originally did. 🤔

Slash is king until you fight something status immune.

Every yes or no question is always "yes and no"!!💯😂💯

Yknow a lot of channels talk about the slash procs, the damage over time, but then show videos of enemies dying instantly. What is the value of a high DoT if you can in general kill anything right away with other statuses like viral or using the galvanized status mod? Even steel path missions dont really get enough armor to handle the damage output of a build like that anyways. Also Im impatient, I want the enemies dead now now now.

Grendel's nourish is why i play him all day, instant 10 viral procs per/wave of nourish plus being able to use other elements on my weapons.

You ever thought about becoming a teacher, given your video a while ago about stress and burnout over YT creation? The "But why?" series is really showing your chops for the profession, and I mean that with complete sincerity. I think you could easily make your channel a side hustle while becoming a standout teacher in whichever subject you choose to specialize in.

So... I actually misinterpreted the "but why?" As being like "this is good but it doesn't matter because..." 😅

I'm waiting for the episode of this series with the title: THE BEST "THE BEST BUT WHY?" BUT WHY?

I love that your content is built more around understanding than "Here's the best, you have no reason to know why, now fuck off... YOU want to think for YOURSELF you peon? How dare you challenge MY authority on this video game?"

The best damage types are Corrosive, Radiation, and Puncture. Way too many people claim Viral and Slash are the best damage types, when they're actually among the worst. Damage is completely different from status. Viral and Slash are the best *status* types, but poor damage types.

I absolutely adore your BUT WHY series. It taught me a lot about amos even though i got 3k hours on this game.

Summary is its basically pure damage

It is a bit confusing to discuss damage types then pivot entirely to status types. Status wise, I'd generally lean to Heat or Toxin over slash. Heat also has the CC utility built in, and Toxin bypasses Shields, which have fewer available removal options. Slash is straight damage with its only utility being that armor bypass. And the armor removal is, as noted, dime a dozen.

Some people just wanna watch the world learn

"If DoT is king here, then why aren't fire, electric, and gas considered as good?" Well, electric and gas *do not* bypass armor or shields. Gas used to bypass shields by virtue of dealing poison damage, but that's no longer the case. The advantages that electric and gas have (immediate additional damage pulse for greater burst accompanied by a small AoE for both, a short stun for elec and a lingering damage cloud for gas) don't outweigh this downside in most use cases. There's a good case for fire though, as it stacks as high as you can force and each stack reduces enemy armor, which makes it a solid second place... especially as you can make room for it on a viral/slash weapon and have multiple amped DoT effects at once.

May I ask why you keep inaros' 3?

The best is probably viral instead. There are other ways of dealing with armor, but viral is NEVER bad unless enemies are straight up immune to it. The status effects just makes everything else better... the bad ok, the good strong and the best godly.

cries in old gas dmg

The only time, when i use a primer, is for SP Disruption. My guns just dont deal dmg to the demolisher otherwise. But once they are primed, im good to go

Can you explain stance mods

Explain why you like numbers in warframe. This is one reason besides just out putting damage and seeing large numbers.

best dmg type depends on enemy faction and health types like example bleeds may be good against armor but so is corrosive and radiation and armor stripping is a thing shields like corpus toxin since it ignores it

me looking over all my weapons and none of them have slash damage ".. well shit"

Video in 3 words - Slash is king

I haven't played Warframe in years. Why on earth did I watch this? The only reason I can come up with is that I miss your great voice and incredibly good theory crafting.

its a sweaty thing to do but ima show you anyways.

The answer to why is absurdly dumb armor scaling in this game. Don't skip the video though, a lot of useful information beyond the simple answer to that question.

If you do the maths right you will come to conclusion that CRIT damage is the best in warframe, its just if the base crit chance of a weapon is trash its no use building on it... same goes with slash though but there are alot more weapons that have good base slash than there are weapons with a good base crit chance

Love that he mentions that stuff like primers and bane mods are only for sweats. 99.9% of players aren't doing the 10 hour, level 9999 survivals that require these kind of things.

Galvanized and arcanes replacing serration type mods But why?

Wow i finally understand calculation of slash damage thanks to your dumbed down version. I just realised how obvious it is now when you put the actual mods instead of just numbers for better visual clarification

How was Malice armor stripped at 3:55?

Teshin as a warframe hear me out

Slash is the best bc bleed scales better than any other damage type in the game

Pro-algorithm comment 🙂

FIRST!

actually corrosive is better in most situations , especially if you not doing 9999 runs

Forgor the Anku Incarnon, but that's no biggie

Yeah, I'm one of those people who hate using primers. It's a very annoying way to play.

THANK YOU! I've heard others talk about how Bane mods "Double dip" but that's where they leave it. Then I'm left wondering WTF does "DoUbLe DiPpInG" mean? You have no idea how much you have helped my understanding.

So.... your telling me.... there's no point of slash damage mods.... but you obviously would use them over other damage types strictly so you don't add another damage type to potentially proc instead of slash... right??

this series is great, even though im confident i know most of what the game has to offer; these are like fun "revision" videos

Is slash proc damage based on base slash damage or base total damage? If first then how does this affects calculations for forced slash with hunters munition and impact conversion?

primer? i use my hound, easy

I still don't get why some weapons proc insanely strong slash procs though. Like Glaive Prime for instance. Which really matters when killing acolytes or other enemies with a cap on how many slash procs you can have.

I've been a slash/viral fan for a long time. But there seems to be a fair chunk of the community that prefers corrosive or corrosive heat. Maybe a follow up video to this one could be "Corrosive isn't as good as you think - but why?"

The fuck is cinematic damage? It is called finisher damage and is used in more areas than just slash procs

Whoever at DE called this damage type "cinematic damage" needs to be fired, because it makes as much sense as Loki

Boost

THE BEST DAMAGE TIPE IN THE GAME IS TRUE DAMAGE. SLASH IS JUST A WAY TO GET THAT

Slash is quite weak compared to other elements if you strip armour. Saying slash is the best is like saying: we cant armour strip easily. Not true, now we have emerald shards.

TIL that the term 'cinematic damage' exists. We normally just call that 'bleed procs'. You, sir, manage to explain things very well. keep the series going.

I honestly didn't like slash. Viral i like like That doesn't mean i don't use slash based builds And now i know why slash is preferred a lot. Also them faction mods. I guess its time to make use of that racist riven mod i have been saving for a long time and take a shot of that slash proc builds and let it soak for a bit.