Dread is a deadly hunting bow that fires bladed arrows, serving as the Stalker's signature weapon. This bow sports a large amount of 
Slash damage, the highest critical chance stat matched only by the 
Lenz and Kuva Chakkhurr, and high status chance, causing many shots to inflict bleed procs.
This weapon can be sold for 
7,500.
Characteristics[]
This weapon deals primarily Slash damage.
Advantages:
- High
Slash damage – effective against health.
- Tied with Lenz for the highest critical chance of all weapons and all bows.
- High status chance.
- Charged shots have innate 2.5 meter punch through.
- Pinpoint accuracy when aiming (RMB ).
- Silent.
- On kill, bodies will follow the arrow that killed them, damaging enemies in their path and pinning the corpse to walls.
- Can use the bow-exclusive Thunderbolt mod.
- Fire rate mods apply double their bonuses.
Disadvantages:
- Low Impact and Puncture damage – less effective against shields and armor.
- Arrows have travel time with slight arcing.
- Draws from the rare sniper ammo pool.
Acquisition
Dread's blueprint is dropped by the Stalker. It is also included in the What Stalker? bundle for 
800 in the market.
| Source | Chance | Expected | Nearly Guaranteed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Blueprint | 37.94% | 2 – 3 (Shadow) Stalker kills | 14 ± 5 (Shadow) Stalker kills |
All drop rates data is obtained from DE's official droptables.
Expected refers to total number of attempts a player can expect to need in order to receive at least one of each drop associated with the respective values.
Nearly Guaranteed refers to the total number of attempts a player needs to obtain a 99%, 99.9%, and 99.99% probability to receive at least one of each drop associated with the respective values.
For more detailed definitions and information on how these number were obtained, visit here.
| Manufacturing Requirements | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 15,000 |
 6 |
 900 |
 750 |
 900 |
Time: 12 hrs |
| Rush: 45
| |||||
 Market Price: N/A
|
 Blueprints Price:N/A
| ||||
Notes[]
- All "charge weapons" (guns) are capable of holding their charge during a sprint. As long as the user starts the charge, they are able to finish the charge while they are still sprinting. This grants more mobility for the user. An example of this is charging the weapon from behind cover, then running into a room and firing the bow as soon as an enemy is sighted.
- Using elevators and opening co-op doors does not cancel the charge; however, hacking consoles and opening lockers will.
- Sliding when you are about to hit the ground (from any height) is very useful for keeping your charge instead of losing it by rolling.
- While wall running will not cancel the charge, edge grabbing will.
- A maxed out Point Strike increases the Dread's critical chance to 125%, guaranteeing normal criticals and as of Update 13.5 (2014-05-28), a 25% chance to proc Orange criticals, approximately doubling the critical damage.
- In Conclave, Dread will apply a 2-second Slash proc to the target, each damage tick dealing 3 to 5 damage, depending on the level of charge when fired. Note that this passive isn't consistent, and can occur on near misses to targets as well as direct hits.
Tips[]
- Hunter Munitions excels on this weapon thanks to its very high critical chance. It's of questionable value, though, since the weapon will already consistently proc Slash with a high status build.
- The weapon's high status chance allows Viral procs via Rime Rounds and Malignant Force to further complement the Slash procs, although since the status changes of Update 27.2 Viral will be weighted more heavily than Slash in terms of status effect priority, necessitating reliance on Hunter Munitions taking effect.
- The weapon's high status chance allows
- Fire rate increases charge rate, so Speed Trigger helps immensely. Alternatives are Shred ( Primed Shred) or Vile Acceleration, as they will all allow you to charge your bow rapidly.
- Dread can stagger Ancients on every hit, even with uncharged shots, this is quite helpful on long Infested/Void missions, where high level Ancients become a challenge to deal with.
- Thunderbolt and Multishot can add a devastating (albeit weaker against higher-level enemies) AoE effect for fighting multiple targets.
Trivia[]
- The Dread is unique in that its 'string' glows. Light runs along the string towards the draw point.
- This light glows reddish when it is drawn.
- Unlike the other bows, the Dread, utilizing primarily Slash damage, uses arrows with a curved blade for a tip, as opposed to the pointed head of Puncture-based Paris (Prime), or the blunted mace-like head of the Impact-based Cernos (Prime).
- When drawing the bow, the arrow's blade rotates from a horizontal to a vertical position, meaning that fully charged shots are fired with their blades vertically. This clashes with the Codex description, which describes decapitating arrows, as a horizontal blade is better suited to decapitation.
- The Dread has a cylindrical object installed near the grip. While its purpose is unknown, it is possibly a laser sight, rangefinder, or other form of optical assist.
- Despite the Dread being referred to as the Stalker's calling card, it is strangely available for purchase with Darvo's rotating stock. It is never explained where he obtained this stock of the Stalker's weapons nor where the Dread, Despair and Hate are produced.
- The Dread's arms don't move when an arrow is pulled back; only the string does.
Media[]
Dread in the Codex.
Dread as shown in the Arsenal
Dread's Arrow Quiver
WARFRAME - Dread (Builds and Synergies)
Lets Max (Warframe) E45 - Dread
Warframe Dread Pro Builds 2 Forma Update 14.8.1
A maximized Dread
DEADLIEST DREAD - Sweet red crits 4 forma - Warframe
Dread Skins
Eros Arrows
Seasonal
Seasonal
Patch History[]
Update 25.7 (2019-08-29)
- Normalized quick shots to have the same critical chance/damage and status chance as charged shots.
- While reviewing Bow stats the team has also refreshed all their FX (including the Lenz)!
- Quick Shot increased from 130 to 168
- Charged Shot increased from 200 to 336
Hotfix 25.0.7 (2019-05-30)
- Fixed the Dread Energy color persisting as default on the strings.
Update 22.12 (2018-02-09)
- Mastery Rank increased from 0 to 5.
- Charge speed decreased from 1 to 0.5 seconds.
Update 8.0 (2013-05-23)
- Introduced.
Last updated: Hotfix 23.10.4 (2018-10-16)
See also[]
- Stalker, the assassin that uses this weapon.
- Hunhow's Gift, a pack of items used by the Shadow Stalker.
