Weapon Types

Disclaimer: The following classifications are player made, and may not reflect how DE classifies each weapon.

In Warframe, there are three main categories of weapons: primary, side arm and melee weapons. Within those categories, we can further group weapons based on their stats and attack style.

Rifle
Includes a wide variety of weapons. These weapons share a few traits:


 * Most deal Bullet Damage.
 * Boltor deals Physics Impact damage.
 * Dera deals Laser Damage.
 * Most fire bullets.
 * Boltor fires bolts that have travel time and diminished accuracy at long range.
 * Dera fires lasers with short travel time and 100% accuracy.
 * Relatively high ammo capacity and good ammo efficiency
 * A few have bad ammo efficiency due to high rate of fire

Shotgun
Includes the shotguns Boar, Hek, Sobek and Strun. These weapons share the following few traits:
 * Deal either Impact (Hek and Sobek) or Bullet Damage (Boar and Strun).
 * Relatively small magazine size.
 * Damage falloff at long range.
 * Fire a number of pellets in a cone. Spread depends on the shotgun.
 * Semi-automatic
 * Boar and Sobek are automatic.

Sniper
Includes the sniper rifles Lanka, Snipetron, Snipetron Vandal, and Vulkar. These weapons share the following few traits:
 * Accurate at long range.
 * You have to adjust for Lanka's projectiles because they have travel time.
 * Slow rate of fire.
 * High base damage.
 * Deal various damage types.
 * Lanka deals Serrated Blade damage.
 * Snipetron and Snipetron Vandal deal Armor Piercing damage.
 * Vulkar deals Bullet Damage.
 * High critical chance.
 * High zoom.
 * Sniper ammo is hard to find.

Bow
Includes the bows Dread, Paris, and Paris Prime. These weapons share the following traits:


 * Capable of high accuracy at long range.
 * Have to adjust for the arrow's travel time and arc.
 * Slow rate of fire due to charge time
 * Medium base damage
 * High charge damage
 * Deal various damage types.
 * Paris and Paris Prime deal Physics Impact damage.
 * Dread deals Blade Damage.
 * Charged attacks have high critical chance.
 * Silent weapon.
 * Capable of hitting multiple enemies when they're in a line.
 * Dead bodies can block arrows.
 * Uses sniper ammo.
 * Sniper ammo is hard to find.

Launcher
Includes the launchers Ogris and Torid. These weapons share the following traits:


 * Slow rate of fire.
 * Torid has an innately slow rate while Ogris needs to be charged before each shot.
 * Projectiles have travel time.
 * Torid's toxic grenades also have heavy arcing.
 * Projectiles deal Explosion Damage.
 * Torid's grenades create clouds that do Poison damage.
 * Extremely high ammo capacity and efficiency.
 * High risk of injuring or killing yourself.
 * Silent weapon.
 * Capable of killing multiple enemies with one shot.

Not categorized
These special weapons are currently not categorized because they do not share many traits with other weapons: Ignis, Supra, Dera, Flux Rifle.

Single
Includes a wide variety of weapons. These weapons share a few traits:
 * Most are semi-automatic pistols.
 * Furis and Viper are automatic pistols.
 * Bronco and Bronco Prime are hand cannons.
 * Most deal Bullet Damage
 * Bolto deals Physics Impact damage.
 * Most fires bullets.
 * Bolto fires bolts.

Dual
One of single side arm weapons equipped in each hand.

Thrown
Silent alternative to the traditional sidearm. Perfect for stealth. This includes Hikou, Kunai and Despair.
 * High fire rate.

Special

 * Spectra

Dagger
Inlcudes Heat Dagger, Dark Dagger, Ceramic Dagger, Dual Zoren (despite being short axes, they share many characteristics with daggers), Fang and Fang Prime. Daggers generally share the following traits:
 * Limited attack range.
 * High rate of fire.
 * Low to medium base damage.
 * Most deal Armor Piercing damage.
 * Dual Zoren deals Blade Damage.
 * Normal attacks generally only hit 1 enemy.
 * Dual Zoren can hit multiple enemies.
 * Certain attacks in the attack sequences of Fang and Fang Prime may hit multiple enemies.
 * Relatively high critical chance.
 * a few daggers for example Fang Prime can use its jump charge attack to knock down enemies it is farely useful

Dual Wield
Includes the non-dagger dual wielded weapons such as Dual Cleavers, Dual Ether, Dual Skana, Dual Heat Swords, and Ether Daggers (despite being daggers, they are closer to dual wielded long swords). Dual wielded melee weapons generally share the following traits:
 * Medium range.
 * Medium rate of fire.
 * Low base damage.
 * Deal Blade Damage.
 * Low critical chance.
 * Hits multiple targets (unlike dual wield daggers).

Hand to Hand
Includes hand to hand weapons like Ankyros, Furax, and Kogake. These weapons generally share the following traits:
 * Very limited range.
 * Slow to medium rate of fire.
 * Medium base damage.
 * Deal Physics Impact damage.
 * Relatively high critical chance.
 * Normal attacks only hit 1 enemy.
 * Medium AoE jumps attacks that will stagger or knock down enemies.

Heavy
Includes the heavy weapons: Fragor, Gram, Hate, Orthos, Orthos Prime, Reaper Prime and Scindo. These weapons generally share the following traits:


 * Medium to long range.
 * Slow to medium rate of fire.
 * High normal and charge base damage.
 * Most deal Blade Damage.
 * Fragor deals Physics Impact damage.
 * Low critical chance.
 * Attacks hit multiple enemies.
 * Medium to large AoE attacks that either stagger or knock down enemies.
 * Most have momentum during normal attack.
 * Orthos, Orthos Prime and Reaper Prime do not.

Long sword
Includes Cronus, Dark Sword, Ether Sword, Heat Sword, Jaw Sword, Machete, Mire, Pangolin Sword, Plasma Sword, Prova, Skana, and Skana Prime. These weapons generally share the following traits:
 * Medium range.
 * Medium rate of fire.
 * Normal attacks have medium base damage.
 * Charge attacks have medium to high base damage.
 * Most deal Blade Damage.
 * Ether Sword deals Serrated Blade damage.
 * Mire applies additional poison damage on each hit.
 * Prova deals Electrical damage.
 * Normal and charge attacks generally only hit 1 enemy.

Staff
Includes the staves Amphis and Bo. These weapons generally share the following traits:
 * Medium to long range.
 * Medium rate of fire.
 * Medium base damage
 * Deal Physics Impact damage.
 * Attacks hit multiple enemies.
 * Normal attacks stun enemies

Thrown
Includes the throw-able melee weapons Glaive and Kestrel. These weapons generally share the following traits:


 * Normal attacks have limited range.
 * Medium rate of fire.
 * Medium base damage.
 * Deal a variety of damage types.
 * Glaive's charge attack deals Serrated Blade damage
 * Kestrel's normal attack deals Physics Impact damage.
 * Kestrel's charge attack deals Forcefield damage.
 * All other attacks deal Blade Damage.
 * Low critical chance.
 * Normal attacks only hit 1 enemy.
 * Can be thrown using the charge attack function.