The Akarius are Gauss's signature burst-fire dual launchers that fire a pair of homing rockets with high status chance and a large 7.2-meter explosion radius. Uniquely, this weapon reloads faster while sprinting, and reloads even faster when wielded by Gauss.
Characteristics[]
- This weapon deals primarily
Blast damage.
- Rockets homes in on enemies within 15° degrees.
- Homing mitigates
Magnum Force's accuracy penalty.
- Homing mitigates
- Rockets explode in a 7.2 meter radius after impacting a surface or enemy.
- Initial hit and explosion apply status separately.
- Explosion does not need direct line of sight to deal damage and will penetrate walls.
- Can benefit from
Fulmination (
Primed).
- Reloading while sprinting gives a +50% reload speed bonus (+100% when used by
Gauss).
- Innate two
polarities.
Advantages:
- High accuracy.
- Rocket Impact
- Above average damage
- Above average status chance
- Rocket Detonation
- Third highest damage behind
Balefire Charger
- Above average status chance
- Third highest damage behind
Disadvantages:
- Explosions have 0% critical chance.
- Projectiles have travel time.
- Explosion inflicts self-stagger, and the guaranteed 2-round minimum bursts make these more severe than other launchers.
- Explosion has linear damage falloff from 100% to 30% from central impact.
- Limited turning rate; fast airborne enemies like Dargyn may outrun the shots.
- High recoil, although mitigated by its homing capabilities.
- Homing targets the enemy's body, making it difficult to achieve headshots unless aiming upward.
- Small magazine; being a 2-round burst weapon carrying 10 bullets it only has 5 bursts per magazine.
- Linearly less efficient – sometimes a target may only die with three bullets, which requires an entire second burst to be fired.
- Extremely low ammo capacity; requires just 2 reloads to fully deplete all ammo reserves.
- Rocket Impact
- Low crit chance
- Below average magazine
- Below average effective fire rate
- Very low max ammo
- Very low reload speed
- Low disposition
- Below average crit multiplier
- Rocket Detonation
- Low crit chance
- Below average magazine
- Very low max ammo
- Very low reload speed
- Low disposition
- Below average crit multiplier
Acquisition
Akarius's main blueprint can be obtained from defeating Demolisher Infested on the Dark Sector mission Ur, Uranus.
Item | Source | Chance | Expected | Nearly Guaranteed |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() |
Demolisher Charger | 1.25% | ~ 80 Kills | 549 ± 183 Kills |
![]() |
Demolisher Juggernaut | 1.25% | ~ 80 Kills | 549 ± 183 Kills |
![]() |
Demolisher Thrasher | 1.25% | ~ 80 Kills | 549 ± 183 Kills |
![]() |
Demolisher Boiler | 1.25% | ~ 80 Kills | 549 ± 183 Kills |
All drop rates data is obtained from DE's official drop tables.
See Mission Rewards#Standard Missions for definitions on reward table rotations.
Drop chances are rounded to two decimal places, following the official drop tables repository.
Expected means a player can expect to obtain at least one of a drop every N attempts on average.
Nearly Guaranteed refers to the total number of attempts a player needs to obtain
a 1 in 10^2,3, and 4 probability not to have recieved a single drop (99%, 99.9%, and 99.99% probability to have received at least one drop).
The combined probability of multiple drops is 1 - ((1-A%) * (1-B%) * ...)
(add drops in same rotation)
For more detailed definitions and information,
visit here.
- Demolisher Infested are unaffected by
Nekros'
Desecrate,
Hydroid's
Pilfering Swarm,
Khora's
Pilfering Strangledome,
Atlas's
Ore Gaze,
Ivara's
Prowl, or Chesa Kubrow's
Retrieve.
Manufacturing Requirements | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() 20,000 |
![]() 3 |
![]() 150 |
![]() 1,600 |
![]() 7,500 |
Time: 24 hrs |
Rush: ![]() | |||||
![]() ![]() |
Notes[]
- While sprinting, reload speed is increased by 50%, or 100% when used by
Gauss. Without other mods, sprinting reload speed is 2.27 seconds, or 1.7 seconds with Gauss.
- Reload speed bonus while sprinting is additive with other reload speed mods.
- The rockets this weapon fires home towards the center of enemy hitboxes. In the case of humanoid enemies, this often means the rockets will target the groin region, making it difficult to achieve headshots with the projectiles. However, the area of effect blasts can also count as headshots if they happen above the enemy, which the initial arcing of shots via
Magnum Force can actually make easier to achieve.
- Though the description states that rockets arm after reaching a safe distance, this refers to the old behavior of the weapon prior to Update 29.5 (2020-11-19). Currently, rockets will detonate at any range, damaging enemies and staggering the player as normal.
- Punch Through does not function properly with Akarius. The projectiles explode on contact with any surface even if Akarius was modded with punch through.
- When used by Rescue and Defense NPCs, the reload frequency of the NPC does not predictably follow the magazine size of the Akarius, and may reload after having fired anywhere between just over half of to nearly double the magazine size of the weapon.
Tips[]
- Although the Akarius reloads faster while sprinting, it's recommended to install
Quickdraw (
Primed) to improve its reload speed.
- Due to its low ammo reserves and faster reload while sprinting, the player should always be on the move to keep the weapon firing at a consistent pace, or install
Pistol Ammo Mutation (
Primed).
- The Akarius benefits very greatly from use of the Energized Munitions ability available from the Helminth.
Magnum Force can be used to enhance this weapon's damage potential, as the homing rockets and their AoE splash damage makes the accuracy penalty minimal when shooting.
Arcane Pistoleer is very powerful when paired with the Akarius; it can be toggled by enemies killed by an AoE blast above them, so as long as there are enough enemies a maxed Arcane Pistoleer will trigger quite frequently.
Trivia[]
- The mechanics of both the Akarius and the
Acceltra are similar to Gyrojet firearms, which were developed in the 1960s and also fired small rockets that armed themselves as they traveled out of the gun. In real life, accuracy and reliability issues meant that the Gyrojets never entered mass production.
- With the visual and audio mechanics around how the Akarius reloads, the weapon appears to be at least semi-organic. The Tenno does not reload a clip; from all appearances the Tenno instead feeds energy into the weapon and the ammunition is "grown" back onto it, with the 5 base rounds per gun visible on the upper "arms" of the guns, which have also been seen moving.
Akarius Skins
Media[]
Patch History[]
Update 31.6 (2022-06-09)
- Fixed the Akarius explosion FX defaulting to its original blue color when not Hosting. As reported here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1283536-akarius-explosion-fx-color-does-not-follow-energy-color-if-you-are-not-host/
Update 30.7 (2021-09-08)
- Fixed the Akarius causing a parried reaction (knock back) versus certain enemies.
Update 29.10 (2021-03-19)
- Fixed Akarius’ projectiles detonating on Volt’s Electric Shield instead of passing through it.
Hotfix 29.5.2 (2020-11-20)
- Fixed the Akarius dealing self-damage with multishot projectiles.
Update 29.5 (2020-11-19)
- Removed Akarius arming distance from projectiles.
Update 27.4 (2020-05-01)
- Fixed Akarius’ projectiles not homing onto enemies for Clients, as reported here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1125338-akarius-homing/
Hotfix 27.2.2 (2020-03-06)
Reduced the following AoE weapons Radial Damage Falloff from central impact that were all previously 90%:
- Akarius: 70%
Update 27.2 (2020-03-05)
- Self Damage Changes
We are getting rid of Self Damage and replacing it with something else: instead of Self Damage, it’s now ‘Stagger’. This change completely removes the chance of killing yourself, and instead now creates scenarios where you will interrupt yourself - or ‘Stagger’ - to varying degrees if you aren’t careful.
The degrees of Self-Interrupt start with a small stumble all the way to full knockdown depending on how close you are to the center of explosion. Any Mods referring to Self Damage will be converted to acknowledge Stagger.
With this Self-Interrupt system, we have added dozens of new recovery animations that harness a ninja-like recovery experience. By pressing ‘Jump’ at the correct time, you can execute a ninja-skill-based knockdown recovery to ALL in-game knockdowns. This ninja recovery window is indicated by a glowing FX on your Warframe.
In the original Dev Workshop, we said:
As a result of this overall systemic change, Weapons with Stagger will be getting approximately a 20% buff in Damage, with any weapons with AOE receiving a 50% Radial Damage Falloff from central impact.
This is no longer accurate after continued testing. What we are doing now is:
No damage buffs have been added, but any weapons with AOE are receiving ~20% increase in Radius. Additionally, AOE weapons are receiving a 90% Radial Damage Falloff from central impact. This means on the very outer section of the explosion Radius 10% of the Damage will be dealt. Tactics will be deadly - aim true, Tenno.
Why: Several players brought up the history of the Tonkor and we want to make sure we ship this change in a place that’s conservative in its starting point from a balance perspective. The complete removal of Self Damage does change the pace of destruction with some of the game’s most powerful weapons, so we want to make sure we can iterate upwardly instead of releasing a bonanza of explosions with no other choices.
Hotfix 25.7.4 (2019-09-05)
- Fixed Akarius ammo parts not hiding with invisible frames (Loki, Ivara, etc).
Hotfix 25.7.2 (2019-08-30)
- Fixed Akarius FX particles perpetually lingering, thus also affecting performance.
Update 25.7 (2019-08-29)
- Introduced.