I've used a lot of Orthos in my early Loki soloing and found it to be unbeatable weapon especially against Infested but also against the others. One of best tactics is simply to have primary or secondary weapon selected and keep making melee attack with it. If I select Orthos as my weapon and hit melee it gets 'stuck' on some of the moves and can lead to rapid loss of life leading to instant death. My limited experience has shown that I can walk or run in a circle and constantly keep hitting the melee attack as long as Orthos is not selected. It keeps hitting up to 5 enemies in almost every direction, even enemies behind me to some extent. I hardly ever take a single hit from the enemies and this works just as well with any other warframe I've tried, (only tried Rhino but if it works on both Loki and Rhino I guess it's quite universally sound tactic). For defense and mobile defense against ranged enemies this works just as well - just find a chokepoint corner and keep walking/running in circles at it and it doesn't matter how many enemies come. But mostly it's best against infested. I don't think the weapon itself is suited for later game and so on but I thought that it was quite interesting that I could easily solo 700+ infested.
Orthos with extended melee range is pretty amazing, I put shimmering blight on and it doesn't seem to get 'stuck' like you say, it also seems to 'sweep' quite fantastically both in basic and primary modes, far more damage when charged, obviously.
Agreed. Just don't bother putting Formas into the normal Orthos... it will be a waste in the long run. The Orthos Prime is better in pretty much everyway and it isn't overly difficult to obtain.
wasn't planning on shoving the potato into anything until I better understood what why and how, I have one, but I see no reason to waste it simply because I have it.
Just used one tater like months ago because they're not *that* hard to come by when compared to me getting a prime on solo and because I really liked it. Now I'm probably going to be on the lookout for either Orthos Prime or something with just insane damage. Melee loki is quite awesome with the stealth multiplier..
Yeah, potatos are a different story. I was just talking about Formas. And yes, melee loki is out of control awesome. Still, Damion is correct in that you shouldn't put anything on a weapon if you are unsure you will continue to use it once you get it to 30.
Yea, that's a good point. I just like to take it + loki on a spin every now and then despite them having been both fully leveled. It's a shame that you can't just keep using your favorite stuff.
Agreed. It would be nice if there was an upgrade system in place that for a lot of credits you could make any weapon as good as a Boltor Prime or Dragon Nikana... sort of like "infusing" crap weapons with Orokin tech or something. The Formas will take you there to a point, but they don't improve base stats. Doesn't matter how many Forma you throw at a Plasma Sword... it is still terrible.
not sure where to stick this, so i'm posting it here as a placeholder for future reference. channeling ftw Scindo Prime http://warframe-builder.com/Melee_W...6-6-244-9-233-9-240-7-360-6-316-10/en/4-0-67/ Dragon Nikana http://warframe-builder.com/Melee_W...6-6-244-9-233-9-240-7-360-6-364-10/en/4-0-53/
The Scindo Prime supposedly has as much base damage as the Dragon Nikana, making it one of the top damage melee weapons. This means it is as nasty as the Serro (which is vicious beyond words).
I'm using one right now. The Scindo Prime seems better suited to handle hordes of Infested than the Nikana simply because it has better area coverage. By comparison, the Nikana is better against corpus and grineer; it can still handle crowds okay, but it has better stunlock capabilities when attacking fewer targets at once. The Scindo Prime really shines once you get a stance for it too; it has incredible crowd clearing capabilities. I highly recommend its use with a Rhino (works well with Valkyr, but I think something faster with higher crit chance suits her better). I tend to suck at combos so I just spam the easiest ones: Lashing Tempest or Sundering Tusk (Rending Cane & Cleaving Whirlwind stances respectively). Both are good CC combos, but I think Lashing Tempest is the better of the two because it ends in horizontal swings. However, if you can pull it off, CW's Broken Bull is crazy effective at clearing out Infested. stances: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Rending_Crane http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Cleaving_Whirlwind
Scindo Prime + Broken Bull = Spin for win. Simple as that. Against Infested it's murder. As was said, Scindo Prime has much more CC potential with both Stances than Dragon Nikana. Though I'm gonna mention crit build Atterax in this discussion as it is not to be underestimated. Crit/Slash Atterax doesn't even necessarily need extra elements. Those crits literally rip things apart and with the Burning Wasp you have excellent reach and basic comboes. Atterax is definitely top-tier melee if you ask me. It takes time to get used to as you can overextend with comboes if you are not careful, but I still like it very much. Dragon Nikana is still probably my favourite melee for more or less obvious reasons. Great stances/comboes, good stats and I've always liked curved longswords.
The atterax is a really amazing weapon, definitely my favorite so far. We ran a four man brawl to wave 40 in Akkad on Eris last night. We had a Rhino Prime using roar, Valkyr using warcry, Mirage using hall of whatever and Volt using that one power volt has, all running our best melee. Here are the results: Though I might replace reach with smite infested with another forma, here is the atterax build:
no killing blow? you are missing out on a huge damage boost there try it in place of reach/smite if you find energy management to not be an issue. smite is good too, though... except for tower runs ofc.
I had killing blow on there in one of my earlier builds for it, but I found out that I don't really like to rely on channeling. It's much easier to use when I keep my primary out, activate warcry on valkyr and then just use my melee key to walk forward. This doesn't work as well against grineer or corpus, but it will eat wave upon wave of infested.
I agree, while I like the -option- to hold and do more damage, I dislike the whole fumbling to get my rifle back out if I need to shoot something, about 50% of the time I'll tap f to draw my rifle and it'll pull my pistol instead.
Doesn't really apply to Tanedin and Damion, but more regarding melee: Channeling really comes into its own with melee based builds. Valkyr and Rhino are obvious choices, but Loki and Ash are superb for this because they get a massive boost to damage while stealthed. If you like melee... you really need to check out Loki and/or Ash. Go with Loki if you want abilities that scale better with very high level enemies (more utility and control). Go with Ash if you want more offensive abilities that will easily kill all, but the really tough enemies (more raw damage). Note: Loki has a slightly more efficient stealth ability, but I don't think it is a significant enough difference to completely discredit Ash. Ash is also completely OP in PvP... so there is also that to amuse you until they nerf him. My Loki one-swings everything with my Dragon Nikana... even high level enemies in Pluto Dark Sectors. Eventually you hit a wall when any melee becomes very hazardous to your health (ex. Toxic Ancients), but the ride up to that point is as hilarious as it is fun.
