Talk:Simulor/@comment-73.158.131.241-20150827173810/@comment-73.231.141.41-20150829184322

I was hoping someone might ask...

It actually has nothing to do with the stats on the gun, and everything to do with the functionality. Everybody seems to be looking at this gun very one sided. But what if there's two sides, or even three? This thing is not for every day use. But that doesn't mean situationally... This thing is a BEAST.

Let's break it down piece by piece.

First downside of the gun? The short range of missile travel. It doesn't go too far which in some situations can be a detriment, but if they flew much further, wouldn't it be difficult to merge the balls together?

Second downside of the gun is the Vortex. No, it doesn't Ragdoll enemies. It just collects loot together and doesn't do very much damage. Kind of useless right? Right.

Third downside of the gun is trying to merge the balls together while moving. Wether it's your movement or the enemies, it can greatly hinder your damage output.

Fourth downside of the gun is the complexity. Now granted this is only half a downside, because maybe you have to be a bit creative to make it work.

Into my first example! Take this thing into an exterminate. Doesn't matter the level. It's kind of crappy, it's hard to do damage and It has poor ammo economy. Enemies move around a lot and so do you. Vortex doesn't even ragdoll them.

Easiest way to fix those downside? Loki. Loki can stay stealthed for 30 seconds, which means that you don't need to move while firing, and enemies barely move while patrolling. Suddenly, the damage output is greatly increased, and on top of that you're getting stealth kills usually. Is it ideal? No, but it works! Creative!

Now for my second, shining example. We're going to remove every single downside of the gun. Let's take this thing into a defense. For Simplicity, let's say it's a DSD. Sechura. On most of the maps for Sechura there's a safe spot to stand and just fire at the core without enemies attacking you. Here's why this is amazing.

First Downside? Short range of missile travel no longer matters if the missiles you're firing land directly on, or on top of the core. Suddenly they fly the perfect distance.

Second downside? The vortex doesn't ragdoll. But it doesn't need to, The enemies are in once place. gathered together.

Third downside? Movement. What movement? You're standing still, the enemies are moving TOWARDS the damage zone.

Fourth downside? Complexity? There's nothing complex about firing at the same spot over and over and killing everything instantly.

For this to make much sense I want to go into the mechanics of the gun. First off is HOW to deal damage with it. You have THREE ways of dealing damage. But you just need 1, and maybe 2 situationally. Let me start by saying that yes, the vortex is a bit silly and doesn't do much damage, and it really doesn't do anything useful at all.... So why not ignore it completely? Get the vortex out of your brain! Don't EVER bother TRYING to make a vortex! It couldn't matter less!

Your primary source of damage is merging one ball with another. It deals INSANE amounts of damage with any amount of mods on this weapon. You can detonate the balls, which situationally I recommend doing. It deals moderate damage, and it does stun the enemy, but honestly you can fire a ball into a ball, watch it instantly kill everything around it, and fire another ball, and instantly kill everything around it again! It could matter less if you fire 10 balls into the vortex, or 50, or 110. If they all go into the same spot, instant death. So on that DSD when all enemies are at the core, two balls, all dead, 3, all dead, 4 all dead, etc etc etc. It even kills Ancient healers fairly quickly.

'Which leads me into why Split Chamber is a damage decrease. If your primary source of damage comes from spamming balls, it doesn't make sense to merge two of them together out of the barrel, they deal 0 damage from that. Heavy Caliber on the other hand doesn't affect the accuracy even sligtly, even maxed out. It's a much better damage increase to just mod for elemental damage.'

So there you have it, merge balls together, enjoy massive damage.

Oh? Is that too situationally useful for you? Alright I understand that. Let's fix it!

In solo play this can be harder to accomplish. Playing Vauban would be my recommendation because his vortex ragdolls and absorbs all enemies... So if you fire into the middle of your vortex, any enemy inside it dies. The issue with this is that Vortex seems to bug out pretty badly with the balls. In both a good and bad way. It somewhat seems to dramatically increase the damage of balls 1-4. It might be my imagination but on earlier waves simply firing one ball and detonating is enough to instant kill enemies. But fully merged at 5 balls in the vortex things get wonky. It seems to reduce the damage to nearly zero... So I recommend detonating at 4 and restarting your cycle.

If you have friends this suddenly gets truly amazing.

Go into a ODD With a Disarm Loki, Speed Nova, Vauban, and honestly any 4th frame you choose. Have Speed nova keep all enemies primed, Disarm loki will get MOAs to move to the center and Vauban keeps them ragdolled at the core so your simular can one shot everything (As an added bonus, even more damage from Simulor due to Primed!)

This strategy also works for Orokin void, or really any defense mission. your Loki simply needs enough range and timing to disarm any new enemies.

So there you have it, situations in which this gun becomes a death machine. I agree it's situational, and I'm not saying it's the best gun ever made. But when it does something well holy crap does it do something well!

A few other fun facts;

1.) Being as the explosion is an Area Attack, it has a HUGE headshot rate. (Seriously 99% of the time the damage is headshots.

2.) A general rule of thumb is if it doesn't increase "Damage per stack" it doesn't increase damage.

3.) Punch through will help in pushing balls together so that they don't bounce random places.

'Here's my build for anybody interested! It took 4 Formas and I'd happily do it again. Very worth it. Assume all mods are maxed'

-Serration

-Heavy Caliber

-Wildfire

-All 4 90% Element damage increase mods

-Shred