Warframe: How bad were the slam nerfs in Isleweaver?

Last month's Warframe update, Isleweaver, included an overhaul on how slam attack effects are calculated. On the whole, the couple of tweaks (and technically also a bugfix) now works out to slams being far less effective as a mob-damaging tool. Talk of an impending slam nerf has been in the air for a while; Warframe Design Director Pablo Alonso actually brought up the idea right after the Techrot Encore update.

Now that the dust has settled on two weeks' worth of Warframe hotfixes on top of Isleweaver, how bad was the slam nerf? The meta slam build is unequivocally less powerful than before, but its viability may still be there depending on who you ask.

How the Isleweaver changes affect slam attacks

The very short version would be a simple twofold answer:

The Nira's Mod set used to apply a far bigger bonus on Slams than advertised; this bug has been fixed.
Slam attacks now only cover a respectable area when you gain some elevation beforehand.

There's also some VFX adjustment to dim the exaggerated particle effects slams used to create; but the actual 'bugfix' component of the nerf is simply the Nira's Mod set calculation change.

Before, Mods in this set (Nira's Anguish, Nira's Hatred, Nira's Contempt) were meant to add +100% Slam attack damage for each part of the set equipped. Except, the math applied this bonus in two stages: a +100% bonus to Melee damage, and then a +100% bonus to Slam Damage on top of that.

The two stack multiplicatively to determine the outgoing hit. To elaborate, here's a practical example on an unmodded Arca Titron.

By default, an Arca Titron heavy slam (non-crit) would deal 1080 damage. With one Nira's Mod, it would go up to 4320. With two Nira's Mods (which is generally what a Slam build utilizes), it would deal a whooping 9720, a +800% increase rather than the expected +200%.

This has been fixed to now just add Slam damage, and the bonus for every mod is now +150% instead of +100% (but with correct calculation as the tooltip indicates). In other words, with one Nira's Mod, the same Arca Titron heavy slam will now go from 1080 to 2700, and with two Nira's Mods, it's 4320 - which is a massive damage loss post-Update 39.

In practice, one also uses at least a Pressure Point or Elemental mods to boost the modded damage before the Slam bonus is applied, so the actual difference of this mathematical damage nerf is not as high.

This is because Slam damage and Melee damage are not the only multipliers during actual gameplay. You also have a massive boost from crit damage, which is layered with faction damage multiplier, and other peripheral DPS increments like Viral status and attack speed.

Incase you were wondering how drastic the slam nerfs were byu/Umbruh_Prime inWarframe

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The much larger component is the slam area nerf. The Seismic Wave mod alone, for example, triples your Slam damage. Yet, there's no real way to increase the Slam AoE.

Previously, it was a flat value - which, for your average Magistar or Arca Titron, would easily cover the entirety of a medium-sized Grineer Galleon hallway. This supremely generous range is what would allow a player to spam the heavy slam before the jump animation barely begins.

After the Isleweaver patch, you now need to fall about 20 meters or so before reaching the same Slam area-of-effect. In other words, the animation-skipping shenanigans that some players would get up to will bear no fruit on a slam-stick now.

Worst of all, slamming is also no longer a quick way to crack open containers reliably for your loot-goblin needs. And what a time to lose his functionality indeed: you need to break a lot of containers in the new Duviri spiral to farm Temporal Dust. For the few players that still farm Infested Salvage caches, something like a box-breaker Limbo is now back in fashion.

On a final note, the slam nerf does indirectly empower weapons that have on-slam effects, such as the Drifter melee Sampotes, or the Tenet Exec. The area of these effects has not been nerfed, but they're still mathematically weaker than they used to be.

When all is said and done, a well-built and Rivened-up Arca Titron will still deal huge burst damage when you do get the drop on your target. Yet, because of usability changes, slams are now better off as purely Acolyte-killers or Demolisher-killers rather than a one-size-fits-all solution to autopilot through Warframe.

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About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal