On Ammo Nerfs

So, part of the Veilbreaker update came with some form of balancing. For a while now, explosive weapons have dominated throughout all areas of Warframe’s PvE content, and people were getting tired of it. I can understand why, because no one likes running after someone just picking up loot. However, rather than just nerfing everything into the ground, we ended up with, well, ammo. Both in magazine sizes and how much ammo we can hold.  It’s quite interesting.

Only two types of ammo.

We used to have loads of types of ammo. Ammo for most weapon types, funnily enough. But now, with Veilbreaker, we only have two types of ammo, for primary and secondary weapons respectively. This makes getting the ammo you want much easier. However, there is a catch. How much ammo you get from one pick-up depends heavily on the weapon that you’re using. You get way more ammo for a rifle than you do an explosive bow.

Basically, if you’re using a massive weapon with a huge area of effect, you get less ammo for it. Meaning you have to actually be careful and aim well. Combined with the nerf on Wukong’s Celestial Twin, running out of ammo is a real threat. But only really with AoE weapons.

I didn’t even notice.

Despite the nerfs, I actually haven’t really noticed much. I was using the Kuva Chakurr the other day, a great weapon, and didn’t notice the ammo changes until I fought an Archon. Archons have huge amounts of health, which means they need a lot of shooting. Luckily though I had both my Twin Stubbas and my Plague Kripath melee weapon so I could still do damage.

Using ammo supplies to balance weapons does seem like a good idea, since you really need to make the most out of every shot. However, most people are doing that already.

As for Wukong’s Celestial Twin? It was pretty silly how it had infinite ammo and a ton of stats on top of it. Luckily, Wuclone does still work, it just can’t fire all the time. Melee though is fine. And, speaking of clones, Equinox and Umbra don’t seem to have this problem. But they are not as easy as Celestial Twin is.

There’s loads of ways to get ammo back.

What I find most interesting though, is that, aside from two mods, none of the ammo-related mods got nerfed in any way. The two mods that did get nerfed, Fulmination and Firestorm, they are only related to the size of explosions. And I never really used them, mostly because Fulmination doesn’t work on the Sonicor. Everything else though? They all work fine. Vigilante Supplies still works, Carrier still seems to work, and there are other ways of regaining or reloading ammo. The Synth mod set auto-reloads some of your clip and Ammo for Blood on the Parazon has found a nice little niche.

And already, players are working towards the next big things. No matter what you nerf, there are always tenacious players, working around  the clock trying to figure out how to do more damage…