Mesa Prime

[Airu]

I recently got Mesa Prime (not via Prime Access) and i have few questions related to her;

1. How good is she in general?

2. What are her general strengths and weaknesses?

3. What's the best way to mod her and her Regulators out that (preferably) doesn't require more than 2 forma at the most and doesn't require any primed mods (expect Primed Continuity which i actually have)? I mostly play solo

4. How does playing her solo / in groups differ?

5. How is she best played? Generally speaking anyway

6. Is the health bonus large enough to be worth not having a melee weapon?

[Zackmar]

1 + 2) She's pretty good. Her strengths are that she can have up to 95% damage reduction and projectile reflection with enough power strength, and can clear waves of enemies with ease. Weaknesses is that if she runs out of energy she's really squishy.

3) Flow pretty much mandatory here. Vitality. Fill the rest of the slots with some lot of power strength mods, continuity (primed or not) and efficiency.

On the regulators, go for a crit build.

4) She can clear waves of enemies while reducing damage to herself. She can give a damage boost to allies (and herself, but it's random). Honestly having a Mesa in low level missions just makes the mission boring.

5) Find high ground with open areas around it, preferably overlooking enemy spawn sites. Press 4. Hold left click down and spin. If it's high level use your 3 for damage reduction every once in a while.

6) I find it is not worthwhile, no. I love my melee.

[jonnin]

1) very good. she ignores being shot and can hit everything without having to aim or try too hard, with powerful built in guns (not the best, but they make up for it in other ways) .

2) she is pure dps and durable against most attacks, but weak to melee and aoe. Like anything she is frustrated by bubbles, perhaps a bit moreso than most frames as you have to drop out of peacemaker to deal with them, or hope team picks them off. She requires good mods, and is near unplayable without maxed duration/efficiency to the cap or very close to it. She is not the best choice for zerks like capture missions, and is ideal for defense / survival/ nowhere to go type missions where you can camp for a bit and have enemy come to you. She can't move in peacemaker without a mod, and with the mod, you end up having to roll to move well.

3) this is a weird question. The best way to mod out is to put forma in to them. Without, its derpy. Solo or not, refusing to make her weapons good is going to hold the entire frame back severely. Either go all in, or use a different frame.

4) well, groups can cap the bubble guys and pick off stuff that gets stuck in a wall. Solo, you have to turn off peacemaker and go deal with annoyances the old fashioned way.

5) stand still and kill everything, rolling just a bit if needed to get an angle to attack or assist a teammate etc.

6) depends. She can't be shot, so most of the time, my health is fine. Solo, that may be more of an issue though, I play her in teams mostly. Comes down to whether you feel that solo you will need to do a drive-by spin to cap bubble guys or if you want to shoot them or whatever else. I like having the melee option and don't give it up, but thats just me... you could honestly give up your primary and secondary easier than melee, but thats not what they gave us.

7) Titania is like a mirror to mesa, and I would consider her more for solo play as she can move around and her guns are better (but you have to aim them). Titania isnt immortal but shes somewhat ignored by enemy, its kinda weird.

[Wazza1]

Use guns that are mostly built for Crit.when using a Mesa.

[Yuki]

1. Very easy to play and mod, relatively cheap, late game compatible from the start. A very decent (solo) frame.

2. Strength:
You will often read about her awesome damage potential. Truth to be told, its neat, but there are frames and weapons that can exceed this by far.
However her regulators are extremely nice to begin with with no investment already and innately late game compatible, so for many people this may even be the first time they get their hands on such a proper weapon. Hence the comments about awesome damage.
And while other weapons may exceed the damage of the Regulators, Mesa's 4 is an insane aimbot that directs this damage to everything everywhere just remotely visible without you having to aim. Saw that one pixel of the corpus head between the stairs and the barrel? Headshot, gone. This does indeed give her a killspeed easily exceeding players with even better weapons.
Additionally her bullet shield gives her a high survivability.

Weakness: Actually nothing extraordinary, just some general weakness may be percieved to be even more severe. Given how her abilities work you would probably want to mod her for shield, leaving her even more vulnerable than most to poison. And while others would still keep most of their survivability without energy or skills, running out of energy or jumping into a nullifier bubble can quickly be a death sentence for Mesa. No shield, you are dead, end of story.

3. Damage. You dont need speed. Type of damage, crit or stat depent on your other weapons as well. Yes Mesa has other weapons too and no just standing around in peacekeeper mode all the time is NOT the proper way to utilize her. At least not in late game. However if you are planning to use her more often i can only agree with the others here: Spend more forma. Why hold her back? Personally i got 4 in here.

4. Not at all. She is a solo frame bringing little to no synergy to the team. Hence its the same in both worlds. Yea, shooting gallery bounces between team members, but its too irregular to be of any notable benefit.

5. Like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Western Hero. Run and gun. Keep your 3 and preferably 2 up at all times, enter your 4 whenever you need to. She is decent in all types of missions except spy. Your Shatter Shield gives you enough survivability to keep on moving. Enter a room, enter Peacemaker, room clear, drop Peacemaker, proceed. Ran into a whole bunch of corrupted? Watch Mesa dash jump roll-draw ger guns and gun em down.
I highly recommend Mesa's Waltz augment and rolling guard.
Or stand on top of a defense target. Yes, possible, though boring and defy not the only way to play her. In fact dropping peacemaker every now and then is even supported by its mechanic, you will want to do so anyways to reset the target recticle.
The recticle for the "aimbot" shrinks down with every hit on an enemy, requiring you to actually aim!
A new wave of enemies? Enter peacemaker, clear the area. Then deactivate, regain energy and make sure that your now smaller targeting recticle is at its max size again for the next wave.
And your bullet shield only gives you 95% damage reduction. In high level missions you WONT stand still on the most visible spot. 95% is not enough here, even worse if the enemy has some sortie enhancements like slash damage procs.

6. Just take glaive with livesteal. Why would you want to go without? Because you level other weapons? In that situation it doesnt matter anyways.

7. There was a 7? Titania is a good comparison. She also got dual guns like mesa, but exceeds Mesas damage potential by several times fold! However- with Titania you have to aim, giving her an on average slightly lower killspeed in most situations.
She also adds way more CC than Mesa and buffs, making her kind of the team version of Mesa. And while she is more mobile, she is also more fragile than Mesa while on the move. Titania's 4 does not only give her dual guns like mesa, but in direct contrast enhances her mobility by making ehr airborne! But then you will often see Titania hover over a defense target, her razorflies providing CC for survivability here, and gun down everything from above. On the move however Titania is just a fragile tiny pixie followed by butterflies that take their time to actually do something useful while Mesa still has her shield. And every ##### grineer will just slap her to the next wall.
Give her razorflies a moment to spread out however and there will simply be no one shooting at Titania anyways while flying is about the most foolproof "strategy" against melee units ;)
Wicked world, the one being bound to the ground in her 4 is better played mobile and the one being mobile is usually more stationary oO

For Solo i would recommend Mesa for her survivability while on the move and faster killing speed in defensive modes, for group Titania to bring a benefit to the team. Titania is one of my favorites for Arbitration Defense, her kind of passive Razorfly CC also protects the target! In her 4 her butterflies also spread out and attack targets, essentially keeping everyone too busy to do anything else like shooting at her. That also protects everyone else in the area. Even fools tent to survive if the enemy is only fighting butterflies.

[Airu]

There wasn't a 7. Also, any builds you can recommend for Mesa and her Regulators? As in, suggest mods and such since i don't have enough experience with modding to know what to do otherwise

Also, when to use Corrosive Projection and when can i safely swap it out for something else?

[Yuki]

For corrosive projection: always.
Back in the days when there was content that was actually tough you would really really want everyone in the team to bring it when you where facing grineer (Trials especially). Nowadays with the enemies being stuck at their meager levels while warframes and weapons got a huge buff there is no content where its really necessary.
A nice to have at most, as are about all other auras as well. Maybe keep it when you are eveling in hydron or on a grineer sortie. But generally there should be no armored target in the game that is too tough for your peacemakers to send them to hell in a second or two. Only in endurance runs, but there you would kill in another way anyways.

As for builds: That depends on your actual playstyle and which mods you already have (maxed).
Seeing that you just got her i assume you may not have all primed mods and especially not at max ;)
Some general guidelines because...in the end Mesa will always be stronk, you cant really mod her wrong:

Power: You will probably want to have at least 125% to max out your Shatter Shield. Thats when you get the cap of 95% damage reduction for bullets. Everything past that will indeed make your Peacemaker more powerful, however- its an additive buff. Its actual relative effect highly depends on your mods. The better, the lower, so the better your weapon mods the less you need to care about power.

Range: Can usually be negleted. Peacemaker is not affected by it, neither is your shield. 30%? Yea why not? Its nice for Shooting gallery, but thats it, and even there i even prefer lower. Because then it tents to stun the enemy the moment it attempts to strike me, not way before where i might still be unaware of that infested charger in my back anyways.

This leaves a lot of room for the other two:

Efficiency: The more mobile you are the less you will need. If you "play turret" and keep your peacemaker up all the time you will probably want to have 160+. If you are rungunning 130 or even 100 (with zenurik focus) are more than enough in most situations.

Duration: You are alive as long as your shield is up. And you will forget to cast it. I highly recommend some duration.

Additional Mods:
Mesa's Waltz: Lets you move during peacemaker. And while movement is extremely slow, quite often its all you need to look behind that damn pillar in the middle of the room! Also rolling is a nice, safe and actually quite fast movement option. Hence:

Rolling Guard. It will add a short invulnerability to your rolls. Especially nice in those moments where you roll down from the walkway to gun down those melee striking toxin spitting infested below. Invulnerable. Western Hero Style ;)

Magnum Force:
+ damage for - accuracy. A must have on your Peacemakers imho. Because...base damage, it also buffs every other elemental you pack in- without a cost! Your Peacemakers dont care about accuracy.

[Airu]

Originally posted by Yuki:

For corrosive projection: always.
Back in the days when there was content that was actually tough you would really really want everyone in the team to bring it when you where facing grineer (Trials especially). Nowadays with the enemies being stuck at their meager levels while warframes and weapons got a huge buff there is no content where its really necessary.
A nice to have at most, as are about all other auras as well. Maybe keep it when you are eveling in hydron or on a grineer sortie. But generally there should be no armored target in the game that is too tough for your peacemakers to send them to hell in a second or two. Only in endurance runs, but there you would kill in another way anyways.

As for builds: That depends on your actual playstyle and which mods you already have (maxed).
Seeing that you just got her i assume you may not have all primed mods and especially not at max ;)
Some general guidelines because...in the end Mesa will always be stronk, you cant really mod her wrong:

Power: You will probably want to have at least 125% to max out your Shatter Shield. Thats when you get the cap of 95% damage reduction for bullets. Everything past that will indeed make your Peacemaker more powerful, however- its an additive buff. Its actual relative effect highly depends on your mods. The better, the lower, so the better your weapon mods the less you need to care about power.

Range: Can usually be negleted. Peacemaker is not affected by it, neither is your shield. 30%? Yea why not? Its nice for Shooting gallery, but thats it, and even there i even prefer lower. Because then it tents to stun the enemy the moment it attempts to strike me, not way before where i might still be unaware of that infested charger in my back anyways.

This leaves a lot of room for the other two:

Efficiency: The more mobile you are the less you will need. If you "play turret" and keep your peacemaker up all the time you will probably want to have 160+. If you are rungunning 130 or even 100 (with zenurik focus) are more than enough in most situations.

Duration: You are alive as long as your shield is up. And you will forget to cast it. I highly recommend some duration.

Additional Mods:
Mesa's Waltz: Lets you move during peacemaker. And while movement is extremely slow, quite often its all you need to look behind that damn pillar in the middle of the room! Also rolling is a nice, safe and actually quite fast movement option. Hence:

Rolling Guard. It will add a short invulnerability to your rolls. Especially nice in those moments where you roll down from the walkway to gun down those melee striking toxin spitting infested below. Invulnerable. Western Hero Style ;)

Magnum Force:
+ damage for - accuracy. A must have on your Peacemakers imho. Because...base damage, it also buffs every other elemental you pack in- without a cost! Your Peacemakers dont care about accuracy.

While i didn't get Mesa Prime via Prime Access, i did get the weapons that way; not sure what to think of Redeemer Prime yet, but Akjagara Prime is really powerful if ammo inefficient, hence why im wondering if it would hurt my damage output too much to use Pistol Scavenger

Playstyle? Run & Gun unless i run into a (large enough) group of enemies which is when i use Peacemaker. a lot of the time i just stop in a place with of lots of traffic so to speak and just gun down everything that enters the room with Peacemaker

As for stats, i don't care about range, i only want just enough power str to get the maximum benefit from Shatter Shield and i want all the ability duration and efficiency i can possibly get and then some

Current Mods (warframe and regulator ones are mostly placeholders until i can find info on the best ones to use, ones on other weapons are final unless otherwise stated, info on which ones to replace, with what and why would be highly appreciated):

Mesa Prime: Corrosive Projection, Mesa's Waltz, Streamline, Narrow Minded, Vitality, Vigor, Flow, Intensify, Power Drift, Primed Continuity (all maxed out expect for Narrow Minded, Vitality and Primed Continuity. They're missing 3, 1 and 3 upgrades respectively

Akjagara Prime build: https://i.imgur.com/scZRUmZ.jpg (primed mods replaced with regular versions, all maxed out expect for Hornet Strike which is two upgrades away from max)

Redeemer Prime build: https://i.imgur.com/Db4OII7.jpg (High Noon instead of Bullet Dance because i don't have the latter, Berserker instead of Condition Overload since i don't have it and Shocking Touch instead of Voltaic Strike since i don't have it. All maxed out)

Regulators Prime: Hornet Strike, Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Concussion Rounds, Pistol Gambit, Target Cracker, Frostbite, Pistol Pestilence (all maxed out expect Hornet Strike which is two upgrades away from max)

[Ghost / ngus2angus]

Originally posted by Flamew1ng:

Regulators Prime: Hornet Strike, Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Concussion Rounds, Pistol Gambit, Target Cracker, Frostbite, Pistol Pestilence (all maxed out expect Hornet Strike which is two upgrades away from max)

I'd assume you don't have 2x R3 Arcane Velocity .... so, I'd change Concussion Rounds to Anemic Agility / Gunslinger if you have it, or 90% elemental damage mod.

Also, it might have different approach to Hornet Strike, depends on Ability Strength (155%, I think) and mods equipped .... someone made a vid on Youtube explaining Peacemaker, so, might want to check that one out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdrqTzDrTz4

[Yuki]

Originally posted by Ghost / ngus2angus:

I'd assume you don't have 2x R3 Arcane Velocity .... so, I'd change Concussion Rounds to Anemic Agility / Gunslinger if you have it, or 90% elemental damage mod.

Or magnum force for even more damage.

Originally posted by Ghost / ngus2angus:

.... someone made a vid on Youtube explaining Peacemaker, so, might want to check that one out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdrqTzDrTz4

A perfect example of what i meant with run and gun vs stationary! Imho this is how Mesa is meant to be played ;)
I would still recommend rolling guard for this play style, at least in higher missions (80+).

[Airu]

Originally posted by Yuki:

Originally posted by Ghost / ngus2angus:

I'd assume you don't have 2x R3 Arcane Velocity .... so, I'd change Concussion Rounds to Anemic Agility / Gunslinger if you have it, or 90% elemental damage mod.

Or magnum force for even more damage.

Originally posted by Ghost / ngus2angus:

.... someone made a vid on Youtube explaining Peacemaker, so, might want to check that one out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdrqTzDrTz4

A perfect example of what i meant with run and gun vs stationary! Imho this is how Mesa is meant to be played ;)
I would still recommend rolling guard for this play style, at least in higher missions (80+).

I've been thinking about replacing Intensify with Augur Secrets (only 1% away from 125% power strength that way), replacing Streamline with Fleeting Expertise (Constitution, Narrow Minded and Primed Continuity combined should help compensate for the loss in ability duration) and replacing Power Drift with Constitution. Should i do that? I want to be able to use Peacemaker as much as possible

I'd love to be able to fit Rolling Guard there too, but i have no idea how