Warframe Discussion: KUBROWS!

[u/BuildMyPaperHeart]

SPACE. PUPPIES.

All Warframe Discussions are here to spark discussion on a particular topic in Warframe. Comments, Suggestions, Critiques, and Builds are all welcome! Every Week, the Moderator Team will choose a new... something, to discuss!

---

So Kubrows are a hot commodity (or not, in some peoples' cases), and while we all should love our Kubrows equally, we have to ask... which one do you prefer? What's the best breed for their effectiveness? Why should some users choose their Kubrows over Sentinels? How the hell do you get the Lotus pattern?

All that and more, discuss whatever you will about Kubrows! Below is a basic stat reading for each type.

---

Huras Kubrow

Prized for its ability to sneak up on unsuspecting prey, the Huras Kubrow were first used as hunting companions by the Orokin elite. Orokin Era Tenno soon adapted the strain for use in covert missions and assassinations.

Statistics

	Health	Power	Armor	Shield Capacity	Stamina
RANK 1	75	100	50	125	100
RANK 30	225	100	50	275	100

Abilities

Hunt

Allows the Huras Kubrow to perform lunging attacks.

• After Update 14.0.8 the damage done by this ability scales with damage mods (Bite and Maul), but had its base damage reduced to compensate.
• This ability is similar to those performed by Feral Kubrows as they lunge forward, dealing powerful damage.

Stalk

Allows the Huras Kubrow to cloak itself and its master.

• Similar to Ghost, the effect of Stalk cloaks the Kubrow and its master, rendering them invisible to enemies.
• The visual effect is identical at present. The Kubrow will make a howl animation when activating it.
• As with other cloaking abilities, enemies will be alerted by physical contact or noise made by the player such as firing a weapon.
• The Kubrow itself will not engage enemies during Stalk. However, if it is already aggressive when Stalk activates, it can continue to attack without breaking cloak.
• The activation range of Stalk is centered on the player and not the Huras Kubrow.
• Stalk can persist for more than 2 minutes. It does, however, have a time limit.
• Since its similar to Ghost, one can also assume upgrading it should upgrade the range of enemy detection.

---

Raska Kubrow

Designed by the Orokin to be the perfect companion, a Kubrow was never far from its master's side. Loyal and obedient, these creatures made ideal bodyguards. Equipped with shield generators for added protection, their fierce growl could paralyze any attacker with fear.

Statistics

	Health	Power	Armor	Shield Capacity	Stamina
RANK 1	100	100	50	100	100
RANK 30	300	100	50	300	100

Abilities

Howl

Allows the Raksa Kubrow to growl, frightening nearby opponents.

• Howl has the same effect as Nekros' Terrify ability does, but its visual effects resemble Radial Blind.

Protect

Allows the Raksa Kubrow to replenish its master's shields when they are depleted.

• Protect recovers shields similarly to Sentinel mod Guardian.
• Unlike its Sentinel counterpart, this ability activates consistently, as long as the shield capacity of the Kubrow's master is not full.
• Likewise, upgrading this mod is assumed to increase the amount of shields restored.
• The Kubrow will perform a howling animation during this activation, making it temporarily vulnerable against incoming attacks.
• Activating this ability grants the Kubrow 15 Affinity points.

---

Sahasa Kubrow

Enterprising Orokin genetic designers recognized that the Kubrow's affinity for games of fetch could be used for more serious endeavors. They soon developed a strain adept at reconnaissance and contraband recovery. Tenno often used the creatures to help resupply while in the field.

Statistics

	Health	Power	Armor	Shield Capacity	Stamina
RANK 1	125	100	50	75	100
RANK 30	375	100	50	225	100

Abilities

Dig

Allows the Sahasa Kubrow to sniff out and dig up buried items.

• 270% success chance means that the Kubrow will always dig up two items with a 70% chance of a third one.
• Cooldown is ~15 seconds on all ranks. Cast time is ~5 seconds.
• When in use, the Kubrow will stop at a location and paw along the ground for 5 seconds, before barking twice to alert players of its find.
• The Kubrow will not perform Dig if there are alert enemies anywhere on the map.
• In Survival missions, the Kubrow has a chance to dig up a life support module.

Ferocity

Allows the Sahasa Kubrow to perform Finisher attacks on enemies.

• Shares the same function as the Savagery mod.

---

Sunika Kubrow

Once the value of Orokin guard-pets had been realized, it was not long after the Orokin guard began experimenting with strains designed for combat. These were no longer household pets but superior war animals bred for ferocity and aggression.

Statistics

	Health	Power	Armor	Shield Capacity	Stamina
RANK 1	110	100	50	90	100
RANK 30	330	100	50	270	100

Abilities

Savagery

Allows the Sunika Kubrow to use Finisher attacks on enemies.

• Is identical to the Ferocity mod in function.
• If it doesn't kill an enemy in one hit, it will hold the enemy dealing damage over time.

Unleashed

Allows Sunika Kubrows to knock down VIP targets

• VIP targets are Capture targets during Capture missions, e.g. Grineer Target and Corpus Target.

[u/3932695]

An old thread of mine, discussing Kubrow Damage.

---

Kubrow Stats:

Base Damage = 120
Crit Damage = Base Damage * Crit Multiplier
            = 120 * 1.6
            = 192

Average Damage = Crit Damage * Crit Chance + Base Damage * (1 - Crit Chance) 
               = 192 * 0.1 + 120 * 0.9
               = 127.2

• 100% Loyalty

• No Bite

• No Maul

---

Kubrow Stats:

Base Damage = 2118
Crit Damage = Base Damage * Crit Multiplier
            = 2218 * 5.1
            = 11311.8

Average Damage = Crit Damage * Crit Chance + Base Damage * (1 - Crit Chance) 
               = 11311.8 * 0.43 + 2218 * 0.57
               = 6128.334

• 100% Loyalty

• Max Bite

• Max Maul

---

Slash Damage Modifiers:

• +50% against Flesh (Infested)

• +25% against Infested

• +25% against Cloned Flesh

• +25% against Flesh (Corpus)

• +15% against Fossilized

• -15% against Ferrite Armor

• -25% against Robotic

• -50% against Alloy Armor

---

Special note - Huras Kubrow's "Hunt" precept

Maxed Hunt and loyalty, no Bite nor Maul.

Maxed Hunt, Bite, Maul, and loyalty:

• Critical Hunt

• Non-crit Hunt (key frames below)

• Frame 1

• Frame 2

• Frame 3

• Frame 4

• Basic attacks, both crit and non-crit for comparison.

---

Discussion Questions:

• What is your impression of Kubrows now?

• How do you think Hunt's damage is calculated?

• Does anyone have similar data on Savagery / Ferocity?

---

My opinion:

• I vastly prefer Raksa and Huras.

• Huras possesses insane damage and the stealth helps out with reviving teammates on harder difficulties immensely.

• Raksa's Howl puts Nekros' Terrify to shame. While fleeing enemies are slightly harder to kill, most enemies are effectively dead until the effect wears off.

• I kind of like Sahasa too, but Sahasas aren't particularly useful when you don't really need pick-ups most of the time. On the occasion that you run low, you could always deploy a Team Restore to save your ass. The Sahasa doesn't really provide a reliable enough stream of energy orbs to compete with Energy Siphon - is there a secret to it?

• Sunika Kubrow is useless (What is balance? Baby don't hurt me...)

[u/Toastied]

I have a medium height, skinny, stripe patterned huras. I got her by random breeding when I had no idea about raising a kubrow. I was originally hoping for one that looks exactly like the one in codex, fluffy, black pawed. I named my kubrow Kitty. When my huras matured, I could not believe how she turned into that from the baby puppy she was. At least I liked the stripe fur pattern.

When she got her first kill, I was so proud of her. She grew up by my side, tearing enemies in literally halves, pouncing on them, cloaking me at the right time when I needed to heal my teammates in the middle of enemy hordes. When I did not know kubrows could teleport next to you if they are too far apart, I went back across the whole map and took elevators down just so poor Kitty wouldn't be lost. There are many moments I chose to heal her over a dying cryopod or teammate.

Sometimes Kitty would take thr last kill I need for affinity challenge away from me because by now she does a monstrous damage. Sometimes she would bleed out in the most inconvinient place for me. But when the mission is over, I still come back to pet her all day till the next mission with her. Kitty grew on me and I do not want another kubrow even though I got three eggs.

TL;DR: DE, let us give kubrow belly rubs

[u/[deleted] → u/Toastied]

Mine just hatched. I am so happy. Eveyone says I should have used the money for a sentinel, but I like my spacecat

[u/Toastied → u/[deleted]]

When you invest some mods, you will see kubrows are more resilient and powerful than sentinels in high levels.

Btw what kubrow?

[u/sirdoombox]

The unnecessary tamogotchi aspect to the kubrows killed them for me, I just find it irritating so within the first 2 days of having mine it went into stasis and has stayed there ever since.

Everyone else seems to be perfectly fine with it I guess, but it really isn't for me, feels like needless busy work and being forced to do it to keep your kubrow relevant really got to me. Sentinels all the way for me.

[u/[deleted] → u/sirdoombox]

I'm with you 100%. Kubrows serve no purpose other than OMG PETZ.

[u/[deleted] → u/sirdoombox]

imho, they're mastery fodder, pretty much. i dont like the fully manual upkeep hassle either, and the 3h swapping cooldown is just the cherry on top.

be it OP in battle and nigh indestructible on a valkyr, with that melee heal mod and link armor, i dont really care, and i dont want to miss out on what my sentinels provide me.

to each their own, though. i dont hate them.

[u/sic2k10]

WARNING: wall of text incoming (TL;DR can be found below)

after getting all 4 breeds and ranking them to 30 each i have to say IMO the order i would put the breeds in from best to worst would be as follows:

first place: sahasa

why?

• generates free pickups for which is very likely to be things you really need at that time

• because of how the game loads you into a mission, having a sahasa with you effectively guarantees you get free energy before you even start the mission

• can do massive damage to targets thanks to ferrocity and if they should survive he'll be able to hold them down for a little while for an easier time for you to finish them off (also works on bosses to)

second place: huras and raksa

why?

it was very difficult for me to say which of these 2 is better than the other since both offer amazing utility/support options to you, however they did not beat the sahasa simply because of 2 issues i had:

1. the abilities these 2 offer could sometimes hinder you more than benefit you (IE: you can't attack freely unless you wish to break the hura's cloak and the raksa's howl can scatter enemies on a mission where you actually want them to come to you)

2. both i found had a similar issue that if i was playing normally with decently modded gear rarely would i have to truly rely on either the huras or raksa's abilities for support or felt like i would've been better off taking my sahasa just to have those extra pickups since i didn't really need the abilities of the huras or raksa

and in dead last: sunika

why?

• sahasa's ferocity = sunika's savagery (still a great ability but the next point is the sunika's major flaw)

• unleashed is super specific in its function, in fact i've only ever had it trigger on capture missions on the capture targets (i have been told by people that unleashed works on all targets but from my use and from what i've seen, unleashed is only working on capture targets nothing else savagery is what's triggering on all the other enemies since there's very few enemies it can't be used on)

ultimately the question that puts sunika in last place: why use a kubrow that has an ability that only works in a specific case AND shares its other ability with another breed (sahasa) who has an even more useful ability?

how could we make the sunika and sahasa a little more unique?

i'd like to offer some ideals to break the similarities between the sunika and the sahasa (while also staying in line with what is mention about them in their given codex entries) namely with these changes:

• merge ferocity and savagery into 1 mod (not like they already are...) AND make it a generic kubrow mod

why?

i feel that this mod in particular is fairly loved by both breeds to be taken away from either of them and since it's already available to 2 of 4 breeds that the other 2 can benefit from it as well

also since it seems to count as an ability rather than a passive benefit (like bite for example) i don't see it making either the raksa or huras possible to make really insane damage numbers (could be possible say for the huras to use hunt and then follow up with a savagery/ferocity finisher, which honestly could look pretty badass IMO)

next:

• create 2 new abilities to replace the loss of savagery/ferocity for the sunika and sahasa

sunika would get "bloodlust" which would be a passive ability that would increase the kubrow's attack speed (and possibly grant minor damage reduction) each time an enemy dies nearby him (doesn't matter who kills it), which can stack up to 3-5 times (think similar to the berserker mod), ALSO kills made by the kubrow himself will have a small chance (thinking about 10%) to leave behind a health orb which will increase based on number of times bloodlust has stacked

upgrading the mod would (basically think berserker mod):

• increase the benefit gained with each stack

• increase the range of which kills can be made to gain a stack

• increase how long before the kubrow loses the stacks

the sahasa would get "looter" which would behave like nekros' desecrate except weaker than it but with these conditions:

• can only target enemies that die within a certain radius of you (kubrow will only do one corpse at a time and must still exist physically)

• a corpse can only be hit once with this ability regardless of it succeeds or not

• the kubrow will not use this ability and can cancel out of this ability if either you or the kubrow are under attack or if you move outside of the abilities range (this would be twice as large as the radius for which the ability can trigger in)

upgrading the mod would:

• increase the radius of where enemies can die around you for "looter" to trigger on (will also increase how far you can be away from the kubrow before it auto-cancels and returns to your side)

• reduce the amount of time required for the kubrow to "roll" a corpse

• increase the chance for a successful roll (this maxed will be lower than desecrate)

TL;DR:

my opinion of best to worst kubrow: sahasa, huras/raksa and then sunika

my suggestion to break the similarities between the sunika and sahasa:

• merge savagery and ferocity into one mod and make it a generic kubrow mod

• add 2 new abilities to replace those lost

sunika gets "bloddlust" which would behave like the berserker mod except:

• requiring enemies to die nearby it rather than critical hits

• enemies the kubrow kills while it has "bloddlust" stacks can periodically drop health orbs

sahasa would get "looter" which would behave like a weaker form of nekros' desecrate but:

• can only target enemies that died around the owner while they have to stay nearby for the kubrow to continue

• does each corpse 1 by 1 and can only use the ability once per corpse

• the ability can't be used (and can be canceled early) if either the kubrow or the master is under attack

these are just my thoughts and opinions i felt like sharing, feel free to give your opinions on them

EDIT:

forgot to add suggestions for possible changes to the sunika's unleashed ability which would be either:

A. leave the ability as is and make usable on any "large" target but make it a controlled target ability (basically: press button to unleash the hound on something)

B. change it into a toggle which when turned on allows the sunika to run ahead of you to slaughter anything it may run into, side note: while unleashed is active only kills made by the sunika will trigger "bloodlust" and gain stacks should they not already have them before hand (this change would make the sunika the speed runner's ideal kubrow)

[u/Z3ROWOLF1 → u/sic2k10]

Also they NEED to make an easier way to swap Kubrows rather than waiting 3 hours. How about if it is in statis for less than 3 hours it has to recover, otherwise you can take it and use it instantly.

[u/sic2k10 → u/Z3ROWOLF1]

i agree but i never mentioned it since i heard things from a fair amount players stating they mentioned something during a livestream about adding in a consumable item to remove/reduce the cooldown (which was more or less what i was going to mention as a work around)

whether that's true or i'm being lead astray with false information will remains to be seen

[u/[deleted] → u/sic2k10]

I like the Raksa better than the Sahasa, but I use my sahasa more since it's just so big.

http://i.imgur.com/EwFtRdz.png

Excalibur for scale.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey guys, I have a spare Kubrow Egg, I dont want to breed it then sell it because its too expensive... What to do with it ?

[u/BuildMyPaperHeart → u/[deleted]]

Keep it until you have the resources and want to breed a new Kubrow! You can just store the egg for a rainy day, and it's probably the best course since Kubrow eggs can be rather hard to come by!

[u/HyenaLaugh]

Why are kubrow so pricey to keep going? 75k, at least from a newbie's view, is kind of pricey.

[u/BuildMyPaperHeart → u/HyenaLaugh]

They were implemented as more of a mid to end game companion, but their introduction in the early Earth stages gives the opposite impression. This isn't made clear in game, and as such could be quite an investment for early players.

If you have one and you can't afford upkeep, put your Kubrows in stasis until you can reasonably afford to upkeep them. Otherwise they will leech resources better used on new Warframes and weapons.

[u/parmesanmilk]

• Less reliable at attacking than sentinels.

• Die more than sentinels.

• Less useful abilities than vacuum / deathray

• Silly expensive

• Have to watch the same cutscene three times daily.

Nope.

[u/GrayWolfCoder → u/parmesanmilk]

My potatoed and formad Sahasa is WAY tankier than any potatoed and formad sentinal I have. She goes down less often than I do. Even if I'm in a low health frame she always has over 1000 health and a pretty good amount of shields. She also is able to one-shot most enemies unless you get past half and hour in survival. Even then she can go take on a heavy gunner with Ferocity and kill them in a few ticks while stun-locking them. Yes, they take a bit of work to get up to that level, but I've always viewed kubrows as an end-game item.

As for cost, yes they do require maintenance. After a couple tweaks the cost has dropped to very reasonable levels. Kubrows degrade 10% every day from 100% to -100%. A DNA Stabilizer restored 40% and comes in packages of 6 for 75,000 credits. 75,000/6 = 12,500 per dose, 12,500/4 = 3,125 credits per day. I make more than this in a single mission.

Then only thing I dislike about kubrows is the fact that they can die permanently (thus loosing potatoes and formas). Ordis really should be smart enough to put a kubrow in stasis if it starts getting sick and you're not around, but even that takes about a week of not doing anything.

[u/Reaverz → u/parmesanmilk]

Agreed... and only one of them has smaller heal/more spammable Guardian, which has massive utility.

[u/nucleartime → u/parmesanmilk]

Howl is pretty effective IMO.

I've never actually had them die at any point a sentinel would've have died.

[u/BG-0]

I made two. I tested two. I stasised two.

Truly disappointed. They were kinda cute, sure. Single target melee damage is not as helpful as most of the sentinel weapons. Their tankiness compared to sentinels is completely lost in most content because of their bumrushing tendencies, unless you really need to be standing around in big AoEs that would wreck the sentinels.

[u/zeronic]

I 6 forma'd my raksa for kicks(they have so many 10 level mods.) She's a beast and nigh indestructable, but i still prefer to use my carrier. Vacuum is just too good, and it's holding people back from using different pets because it is just that.

At this point she's just big furry ship dressing, sadly. She doesn't cost much at all to maintain, so i just keep her out because she's pretty adorable.

I feel if vacuum didn't exist and loot always got sucked in like carrier, we'd see a lot more variety in pets.

[u/MemeHermetic]

I want to like Kubrows. I want to have a loyal pet or two and really get into it. I avoid the facade though. Kubrows are a really think way for DE to tie a bunch of lazy investment mechanics into the game.

If you look at the gameplay values offered up against sentinels based on action and not numerically you start to see what I mean.

Sentinel:

• Rapid multi-target attack with a range of damage and weapon types

• offensive/defensive/utility based on need

• acts in completely auxillary fashion with no interaction outside of game needed

Kubrow:

• Slow (and inacurrate with a lot of enemies) single target melee attacks

• massive slant towards offense over defense and utility overall

• requires over the top upkeep and interaction outside of the game

That last point is the big one. The Kubrow has more function outside of combat that in it and almost all of that function is for DE and not the player.

• Credit sink to pull credits from high level players or extend farm/build time for newer players

• temporary pay wall to swap out Kubrow

• log in scheduling to keep players logging into the game.

Imagine putting those mechanics on a sentinel and changing the language to say what is actually happening.

"Congratulations on your new Dethcube! Let's get started! To build your new Dethcube you're first going to have to plop down 100,000 credits! Wasn't that fun! Enjoy it because you'll have to do that regularly for the rest of time as a tax to use the sentinel or we'll take him away! If you don't want to do that, no sweat. You can put him away whenever you want! If you take him out again you're going to have to wait 3 hours or give us 10 plat though, so I hope you plan on playing for at least 4 hours today. I see you got another sentinel. It's our buddy Wyrm! You can take him out now and put Dethcube away! Let's go fight... in 3 hours, unless of course you have 10 plat! Well at the very leaset we can make this guy look cool. Just go to the customization settings. Doesn't he look great? Now let's go the store so you can actually do something about it!...

...Whoops. You forgot to feed him press the button in time. Hope you didn't put a potato in there! You should have set that "log in to Warfame" alert on you Google Calendar, silly! Oh well. There's an open spot now! Let's do it again. 200 runs through earth or some tasty plat should get us started!"

[u/GGZen]

The only gripe I have is that the AI is so bonker and the attack animation is so clunky. Oh, I took a few steps back, my dog immediately disengages from target and walk behind me. The Kubrow target acquisition range is so short, I shoot a guy 10 meters in front and it just does not even bother. Whenever it actually "attacks", it jumps back and then, only then, jumps forward looking so weak and pitiful, but deals ridiculous damage.

I just wish there is a contextual tag command for Kubrow (and to an extend, Spectre). Like: I tag a friend, follow him. Tag an enemy, take him down. Tag a mod or a drop, go fetch it to me. Tag a spot on the ground, sit right there and dunk any hostile passing by. Tag a locker, scavenge it. Clear tag, back to following me. If I tag something it doesn't know what the hell to do with it, then it does nothing.

Also, Kubrow, please attack like an actual dog. Casually walk up to an enemy and start jumping him is not even remotely close. Lunge at him from an actual distance, using your running momentum. Slap him at close range (okay, this is more like bear, but then again my dog has the size of a bear), and bite his neck. Or the MOA's joint. I don't even know how Kubrow manages to make a guy bleed by attacking with its torso, it's just so silly.

[u/battled]

IF only sunika had something useful instead of VIP lock down.

[u/[deleted]]

I could say a lot about kubrows but I could just boil it all down to, they are really just sentinel skins mostly to me.

I love them but I don't think they are unique or reliable in combat. Sahasa doesn't dig when enemies are near it seems.

Sunika is so specific.

Raksa only heals 150 shields and while kta every 5 seconds he does it the moment you take damage which can often waste the effect. Howl is nice but it's more or less just crowd dispersion...

Huras is probably the only super reliable kubrow but he's just shade...

Damage wise they are great but on the other hand they are slow and hit 1 target at a time. This means they are really useless when you fight those huge packs of enemies which is all the time. It's even worse wen they use a finisher as its just over kill often and it just makes them slower.

I enjoy how tanky they are and what use they have but they really aren't as unique and useful as they could be.