Talk:Acid Shells/@comment-88.150.6.187-20160504144527

Did some testing trying to maximize the effect of this mod. From what I've found the explosion is smaller than 15m but still deals full damage at max range and chains if it results in further kills. To make this and thus the augment worth using I tried to figure out ways to make it chain between identical enemies by increasing the base 45% to atleast 100%. You'll have to avoid enemies with high shields or almost anything with armor. Against Infested this should work the best, but AncientHealers and SwarmMutalists will cause problems. Luckily the explosions bypass the Disrupter aura despite being weapon based AoE. For Void and Grineer 4xCP is absolutely mandatory if you want to make this augment work.

Things that work well:

- global damage buffs like Roar

- total weapon damage buffs like Eclipse, VexArmor or Equinox's Duality Augment(specter has to kill)

- debuffs that increase damage taken like MolecularPrime or Rest&Rage

- AoE viral procs, especially from Spores

Things that don't work:

- additive bonus weapon damage like RiftSurge or ShootingGallery

- clones from HallofMalevolence don't proc the explosions when killing an enemy

I haven't tested the elemental buff augments yet. If they work Ember will totally dominate the competition when buffing Sobek users with FireballFrenzy and Accelenrant. Against Corpus VenomDose could be helpful as it bypasses the shields, acting as a reversed ShieldPolarize. Arcane enhancements could be another source for extra damage.

I really tried hard to make this augment viable for end game. As it turns out you will still need a group of competent players as this mod just does not work well in your average group from recruiting chat(I never understood why a grind-heavy game like Warframe attracts casual zombies like flies, but that's how it is unfortunately). And even if you do you have to ask yourself if it's really worth investing in a mediocre weapon just to get some crazy %health based Explosions. In the end you still need to funnel enemies into one place with things like Vortex and that's when killing your first enemy with a Sobek becomes the actual challenge. This would probably be much better if weapons like Kulstar, Tonkor, Torid, etc didn't exist already as they combine AoE with brutal single target damage(right now Tonkor has the highest dps of all weapons, go figure). That being said you can make a squad that builds around using Sobeks and stomp lvl 1000+ enemies with ease, it just takes a lot more effort and planning compared what people usually do. So picture this T4S pipe camp squad for example:

- Nekros, Vauban, Nova, Mag, 4xCP, Nekros uses status Torid, everyone else goes with Sobeks, everything modded for viral

Nekros, Vauban and Nova do their usual business. Nekros fires into the Vortex once in a while to half enemies current life. Mag is modded for high strength and alternates between ShieldPolarize and BulletAttractor. The first ability does some decent damage on its own but the BulletAttractor is what makes the Sobek come into play because everyone will be hitting the same target now and quickly kill it. The following explosion is amplified by the viral proc and MP and should wipe out any enemy within its radius no matter the level. When there's a CorruptedHealer in the bunch you may have to repead the process a few times until everything is dead.

As you can see this augment requires competent users and careful planning, or else it's but a better CombustionBeam. I would neither call this mod overpowered nor useless, it's just a really neat piece of equipment that can be used to push the limits of what's possible in this game. It won't turn the Sobek into a cure-all top tier weapon like the Tonkor or what Sudacore used to be.

tl;dr

Sobek is still mediocre. This mod has its uses. 99% of all owners will never understand its true potential.