REMINDER: This guide is a year and a half old now, many things are not accurate anymore. A new list of the best weapons in the game can be found here.
Hello, utheraptor here, writing his very first blog on this wiki. Other blogs with similar theme were written earlier, but they mostly fell into flamewar. In order to avoid this, I will provide extensive argumentation towards each of the weapons I describe here and reasoning why I think they should be placed in that very tier. Yes, I have written the description for every single weapon in the game, as I think that they all deserve the same level of argumentation to prove or disprove my points. No, I have not tried every single weapon in the game, but I always attempted to get as much advice about those with which I have no personal experience as possible.
For the purposes of this comparison, (unless stated otherwise somewhere in the description of the argument) we will assume that every weapon discussed is leveled up to level 30, overcharged by an Orokin Catalyst and Formaed eight times, so the most powerful loadout is possible. (I am aware of the fact that actually spending eight Formas on a single weapon is a waste, as usually, four to six applications are more than enough to max the weapon out. However, as this is very weapon-specific, we shall use eight Formas on every weapon so all of them are perfectly equal in this manner.) When there is said that something falls of, it more or less means that it stops being able to instakill everything in sight at that point (only applies to damage build weps, since status builds almost never fall off). Also, please note that the weapon-specific mods from the Update 15 are not taken into consideration for the purposes of this blog, as I have not yet enough experience with them (and I don’t really think anyone does) and my thoughts regarding them are possibly fundamentally flawed.
Archwing weapons won’t be discussed in this article, mostly thanks to the fact that they work very differently than their surface brethren and the comparison would thus be very flawed. I will probably make a different paper about them at a later date, when more of them are added to the game (and the Archwing missions get balanced at least a little bit, right now it is just ultra-slappage in the low levels from you and ultra-slappage in the high levels from your enemies, with nothing in between).
Seven tiers will be presented in this blog, ranging from Tier Zero for utterly unusable and outdated weapons to God-Tier, where the powerhouses along the lines of Tysis lurk. The time estimates are just that – estimates. They are most likely incorrect and only serve to provide better way to imagine how long will the weapon remain useful. Also, they do not count with things like 4-man Corrosive Projection and similar. Weapons in the separate tiers are mostly roughly ordered by their DPS, from top to bottom, although it is not very exact.
Tier Zero: This tier is rather small and houses only the weakest weapons available in the game, which fail severely after the 30 minutes mark of a Tower IV Survival, even when absolutely maxed out.
Tier 1: Still extremely weak weapons which are not really usable in any way and also fail at the half-an-hour threshold. However, what makes them different from the Tier Zero is the fact that they can be used in some gimmicky and generally unreliable situations.
Tier 2: Weapons casually used by newer players. They are weak, but not useless. However, they are not reliable beyond early to midgame, unless heavily modded. If they are properly regarded (as we suppose in this case), they can be used in T4s to some extent.
Tier 3: Middle-class weapons, well suited for midgame content and also probably the weapons majority of us used at some point of our climbing of the Mastery Rank ladder. If used properly, they can fulfil their role rather well, even when facing very powerful enemies. They tend to fall off around the 40 minutes mark of a T4 Survival entirely.
Tier 4: Here comes the gear very powerful at fighting midgame content and still usable around the edge of endgame. When used under level 75, they will massacre everything in sight easily, if modded correctly.
Tier 5: Strongest weapons in the game, only surpassed by God-Tier weapons. They scale well into endgame and are capable of obliterating anything under the one hour mark of a Tower 4 Survival. Most of the weapons considered powerful by the community fall in this tier, as the community is generally right in what it thinks (except when discussing reliability of elemental procs, then the community is almost always wrong, because most of the people in it actually do not have any experience with true endgame).
God-Tier: The true end-game weapons belong into this ultimate tier. Although many of them are severely underpowered unless absolutely maxed out, when they are used correctly with the proper mod loadout, almost nothing can stand in their way. Either through sheer firepower or incredible amounts of utility (or both, in some cases), these weapons will annihilate entire groups of enemies by themselves, bring bosses down in merely few shots, cause constant CC lockdowns or combine all of these things into the super package of pain and destruction.
View Weapon Tiers List▾▾
View Tier Zero List▾▾
View MK1-Braton List▾▾
MK-1 Braton: We all had this weapon, we all used it for some time, and we all got rid of it as soon as we could. The only thing that truly needs to be said is that it underperforms even against level 1 enemies, or in other words, the ones you encounter in the tutorial. When you max it out and invest some entirely wasted Formas into it, it still loses to almost every other weapon in the game.Don’t get me wrong, the weapon is actually not as bad as some other in the Zero tier, as it is meant to be a very, very weak choice for the utter newbies, who we all were once. It is also somewhat funny to note that it has lower DPS than Synapse, when both weapons are unranked, which is something that should not happen in any case.
View Aklato List▾▾
Aklato: Akimbo version of the starter pistol, Lato. Wondrously, it has even lower base damage, only 12 to be exact, of which most is Slash. It has exactly zero crit chance, crit damage and status proc chance, making it absolutely useless anywhere higher than the early game unless being upgraded with several Formas. When that is done (and no again, I have not done this either), it won’t get much better, but at least will allow you go fight through the first twenty minutes of a T4 Survival. Actually, I was considering making a Tier Minus-one for this weapon, as it is so weak that it does not fulfil even the requirements for the lowest current tier.
View Machete List▾▾
Machete: Probably the worst melee weapon in the game. It has lower base damage than Skana, which alone tells something. Some people may complain that it has rather high stagger chance, but that does not really mean a lot, since its damage and proc chance are both entirely negligible, making it useless in just about every situation. When you max it out and forma the hell out of it, I am pretty certain that it will still suck (no, I have not done it, there are things which are not worth it even for me), as it simply does not have any damage or utility potential to back it up.
View Tier 1 List▾▾
View Braton List▾▾
Braton: Somewhat stronger than the starter version, but still not really suited for any higher tiered mission. However, out of all the weapons in this tier, it is probably the strongest one by a little margin. The only two real advantages of the Braton are that it has its damage split evenly between the three physical damage types, which suits best the early game it is supposed to be used in, and that it has 10% crit chance, which is sadly almost mitigated by its miserable crit damage. Otherwise, it is entirely worthless and won’t perform any good even when heavily Forma’d. You can go to T4s with it, but it will fall off really, really soon.
View Braton Vandal List▾▾
Braton Vandal: The vandalized version of the probably most well-known weapon in the game deals slightly higher damage (four more per shot than the default version) and has a little bit slower fire rate, making them nearly equal in all cases. Also, it deals more slash damage than the other physical types, so it can be used against the Infested better than against other factions.
View MK1-Strun List▾▾
MK1-Strun: With low DPS and no crit chance, the beginner version of the Strun’s only advantage (and somewhat gimmicky, thanks to its nature as a starter weapon) is a mediocre status chance among shotguns. It is subpar to the standard Strun in every way (as it should be, hence the MK1 type) and will not perform in any reliable way beyond midgame, unless extremely heavily modded. Even when it is, it still falls off hard in the Tower IV.
View Paracyst List▾▾
Paracyst: This weapon is very cool, as it features powerful looks with Infested theme of the Quanta being entirely overwhelmed. It is also utter trash. It has half the DPS of MK1-Braton. Just with this knowledge, it is clear that the weapon is merely mastery fodder. The only real thing is has is its somewhat decent status chance of 15%, which is also the only thing that saves it from the Tier Zero.
View Lato List▾▾
Lato: This starter pistol sports almost the lowest DPS in the game, both unranked and maxed out. I have met people who like to use it thanks to its accuracy, which is by the way the reason why it is here and not in Tier Zero, but there is generally no reason to do so, as there are much better choices for literally everything. As common for the weapons in the first two tiers, it has no damage, no crit chance/multiplier and no status chance.I am not saying that it is impossible to kill stuff with it, some people like to bring it to end-game missions, but when the clock hits the 30 minutes mark, the already negligible damage just poofs and leaves them with a weapon which can’t virtually do anything.
View Lato Vandal List▾▾
Lato Vandal: The vandalized version of the Lato has even lower DPS than its more standard variant. It has slightly higher crit chance, crit damage, damage and status proc chance and lower fire rate and accuracy, which takes away the already low sniping potential of the Lato. Nothing much more to say about it. Given that it was a reward weapon for participating in Closed Beta, it should be at least a little bit more powerful than its normal version, which it is not.
View Lato Prime List▾▾
Lato Prime: Although an extremely exclusive weapon, the Lato Prime does not offer anything exceptional and underperforms the same way other Lato variants do. Unreliable in both damage and utility, this Founder gun cannot truly crit or proc status, not allowing for any real use apart from midgame missions.
View Viper List▾▾
Viper: Although the dual wielding variant of the Viper is worth using in some special cases, the solo Viper is definitely not. It does not offer enough damage or status chance to justify its immense ammo inefficiency. It will start to underperform very soon in T4s, even when maxed out entirely.
View MK1-Furis List▾▾
MK1-Furis: The beginner version of the Furis auto pistol. It is almost as ammo inefficient as its normal version (thanks to high fire rate) and has 1 damage less than its predecessor. The critical hit damage is good, but since the chance for a crit to actually occur is only 5%, it cannot be really considered reliable and possible to build around. The slight upside of this weapon over the Viper is that it comes with mostly Puncture physical damage type.
View Furis List▾▾
Furis: With low base damage and high ammo inefficiency, the solo Furis automatic pistol is not suitable for prolonged fights. Instead, it should be used as a spike-of-damage type weapon, applying pressure to high priority targets when needed. However, as its DPS is still rather low (both burst and sustained), and it is almost incapable of both crits and status procs, the weapon is not really useful later into the game and will fall of very hard when enemies begin to scale up.
View Skana List▾▾
Skana: Another basic weapon. It is not exactly extremely weak, but given the amount of very similar swordish blades in the game, it is transcended in every way. As usual with earlygame weapons, it lacks any of the important stats and sports very low DPS, even with melee 2.0.
View Cronus List▾▾
Cronus: An upgrade to the Skana blade and probably the first weapon most of us has crafted in the game. Although it looks rather nice (Dakra Prime beats it by infinite percent) it is just as great thrash as Skana is. The damage output of both weapons is very similar and the Cronus comes with a 0.1 higher attack speed, which is not really worth mentioning anyway. Also, its polarity matches Crimson Dervish, but since we are considering all the weapons to be Forma’d, it does not matter.
View Tier 2 List▾▾
View Burston List▾▾
Burston: The Burston is a typical beginner weapon, most often used by new players who can benefit from the fact that it can be very easily acquired and that it feels somewhat different from other newbie weapons, giving them a peek at what they can see in the game. In the terms of late game content, its damage is negligible, it has low status chance, cannot reliably crit and punishes missed shot much more than other, non-burst weapons.
View Latron List▾▾
Latron: The most basic and weakest of all the marksman rifles, the standard version of the Latron is not really exceptional in any way. Lacking both damage and critical hit chance of its Prime version, while also sporting subpar status chance, it cannot be used reliably anywhere beyond midgame, unless modded very, very heavily. It would be generally advised to simply upgrade it into the Tiberon when it is leveled up, as the weapon by itself lacks the necessary punch.
View Braton Prime List▾▾
Braton Prime: The primed version of the famous Braton rifle is slightly superior to both the basic variant and the vandalized version. It packs more damage and fire rate, but it is still rather weak weapon, nearly impossible to be used beyond the half-an-hour mark of a T4 Survival.
View Karak List▾▾
Karak: Probably the most powerful weapon out of Tier 2, the Karak sports somewhat mediocre-to-high damage, but is almost entirely incapable of dealing critical hits. Considering the low status chance, small magazine size for an assault rifle and great ammo inefficiency and it becomes clear that this gun was not meant to perform any well in higher leveled missions.
View Kohm List▾▾
Kohm: On paper, the weapon should be pretty good, coming with a meter of innate puncture, not really that bad critical hit stats and extremely large magazine size. It also comes with its very own unique mechanic, which makes it shoot more ammo with every round fired. However, it is extremely costly for its power level and feels very, very sluggish to use, so it falls somewhere between the tiers 2 and 3.
View Sicarus List▾▾
Sicarus: The secondary version of the well-known Burston burst-fire rifle shares its weaknesses. With high recoil, the weapon severely punishes missing shots, as you will waste three rounds instead of just one. Having rather low overall damage, being almost unable to crit and with mediocre status chance, the Sicarus is suitable for newer players, but won’t perform well later into the game.
View Kraken List▾▾
Kraken: Hanging somewhere in between the tiers 2 and 3 (although much closer to Tier 2), this Grineer burst fire sidearm offers rather good damage at the cost of unreliable crits, uninspiring status chance, annoyingly high reload time and especially heavy recoil, making it almost impossible to aim the second shot properly at the weakspots. Also, the damage is mainly composed of Impact type, which is the worst of the physical damages and should be avoided in most situations.
View Seer List▾▾
Seer: Having a very high damage per shot and superior zooming capabilities, this Orokin-Grineer hybrid weapon should be well suited for taking down powerful foes from distance. However, this is totally destroyed by its inability to land a critical hit (I have said that about other weapons as well, but this one actually cannot crit. Like, ever. It has 0% crit chance. Zero! Ridiculous…), non-hitscan mechanics (although the bullet speed is on par with the Lanka) and unreliable fire rate. Slow reload speed also does not help very much.
View Plasma Sword List▾▾
Plasma Sword: This blade would actually be somewhat usable, as it has considerable critical hit stats, mediocre-to-low damage and can equip the game-breaking Crimson Dervish stance (well, the polarities don’t match, but we are assuming the weapon is Forma’d anyway), but its extremely slow attack speed makes it very hard to use with success. Although it is an elemental weapon, the damage is thrash and the status chance (although quite good for a low-tier weapon) isn’t high enough to justify its sheer lack of damage output. Not even the 100% chance to proc Electricity on jump attack is enough to do the job.
View Obex List▾▾
Obex: Not exactly a bad weapon, as it has impressive critical hit stats for a melee weapon (not that impressive when compared to the Dual Ichor). However, its damage is still rather low and its range it really bad, making it only suitable for powerful finisher strikes, relying on knockdowns from the jump attacks and slide attacks to allow for an opening. In the end, there is pretty much no reason to use the Obex, as it is surpassed by many other weapons.
View Dual Skana List▾▾
Dual Skana: Although its basic stats are not impressive in any way and are actually subpar to the normal, solo-blade variant, it comes with a powerful slide attack, which means it should be used in a similar way as the Nami Skyla dual blades: hit & run tactic (well, slide & run), revolving around its ability to take foes down quickly with the slide, but disregarding the normal attacks almost entirely.
View MK1-Furax List▾▾
MK1-Furax: This beginner weapon comes with all the advantages of other Fist type weapons, sporting high critical hit stats and a powerful finisher consisting of a flurry of fast hits, at the cost of range and mostly Impact physical damage type.
View Dark Dagger List▾▾
Dark Dagger: Very similar weapon to its sword-type counterpart, with the only real difference between them being in the jump attack damage type and slightly higher attack speed for Dark Dagger. As the shorter variant cannot slash more than one enemy at a time (without stances) and cannot use the Crimson Dervish stance, which makes it, along with the shorter range, an inferior weapon to the Dark Sword, thus putting it into Tier 2.
View Pangolin Sword List▾▾
Pangolin Sword: I really, really wished to put this beauty into Tier 3, as its looks are very pleasant for the eye, but I simply could not find any excuse to do so. Apart from its appearance, it is entirely average and not outstanding in any real way, making it a poor choice if combat efficiency is the goal you are aiming for.
View Prova List▾▾
Prova: Almost a direct downgrade of the Plasma Sword, being worse in every aspect except attack speed. Although it is an elemental weapon and deals innate Electricity damage, it cannot reliably proc it and does not deal enough damage by other means to justify it. Also, it requires a Forma to be built, similarly to other clantech weapons, which is downward insane.
View Heat Sword List▾▾
Heat Dagger: A similar weapon to Sheev, just much less useful. Although it has rather high damage per single strike and is capable of dealing Heat damage on jump attacks, it still has very low status chance on basic attacks, close to inexistent critical hit stats and typically low attack speed and range, just as other daggers.
View Tier 3 List▾▾
View Cernos List▾▾
Cernos: Despite bows are mostly considered very powerful, Cernos is not. The fact that it deals mostly Impact damage renders it very ineffective against anything but Corpus-heavy missions, where Toxin is a better damage type anyway. Don’t be mistaken, it still can be used to some extent in end-game content, but it will require very heavy modding and it will be generally extremely inferior to both Dread and Paris Prime.
View MK1-Paris List▾▾
MK1-Paris: The worst of the three Paris variants, but still actually rather usable. Like other bows, it comes with rather high charge damage and excellent crit chance and crit damage. It is also very accurate, allowing for easy headshots which further multiply with the constant critical hits the weapon will deliver. The only real downside is, like with all bows and also the Lanka, its need to be charged. When Formaed enough, it can be used successfully even against very high leveled enemies.
View Snipetron List▾▾
Snipetron: The retired sniper rifle and the basic variant of the famous Snipetron Vandal. It comes with good critical hit chance, but with weak crit damage, status chance, damage and extremely long reload time. If you can constantly score headshot on your foes, it will wreak havoc, but it will still underperform severely when compared to other sniper rifles.
View Miter List▾▾
Miter: The ripper of the WarFramer is a very, very niche weapon. It has 50% status proc chance on every strike, even the basic, uncharged ones, which is making it good for elemental builds. If it didn’t have all three physical damage types and instead had an innate elemental combination, it would be the best weapon in the game. However, it has them and thus tends to underperform, often delivering the unwanted procs at the wrong time. Damage of the charged disc is rather nice, but suffers from long charging time and incapability to crit, which makes it inferior to almost every bow in the game. Generally speaking, the Miter is a crossover between a bow and an assault rifle, and even though it is one of my most favourite weapons in the game, I have to agree that it doesn’t quite work out. Once in the past it had something along the lines of 750 charge damage, which actually made it usable, but that was merely a bug and it is gone now.
View Snipetron Vandal List▾▾
Snipetron Vandal: The exclusive version of the standard retired Snipetron, packing increased damage, critical hit chance and damage and status chance. However, as with most snipers, it will begin to underperform heavily later into the game as the enemies begin to swarm the players, making it increasingly hard to hit the weakspots and punishing the weapon’s poor fire rate even more. It still is better than its basic variant by a great margin, though.
View Hind List▾▾
Hind: The Grineer version of the Burston fires five rounds in a single pull of the trigger, offering potentially increased DPS but severely punishing missed shots. It however packs a rather large magazine, so one can fire up to thirteen bursts without the need to reload. The damage per bullet is somewhat good, but not too much, and the practically non-existent critical hits also do not really help in any way. With only 10% status chance, the baguette can still be used in T4s to an extent, but do not expect any miracles from it.
View Tigris List▾▾
Tigris: On the first sight, the Tigris certainly looks like Tier 5 material – it comes with excellent damage, critical hit damage and status chance. However, when you examine this shotgun more closely, you will realize that it is not as good as it is pretending to be. The critical damage is almost entirely nullified by non-existent crit chance and the weapons suffers heavily from its long reload time (well, two seconds are not exactly too long on their own, but Tigris empties its clip in a single second, which means that you will spend two thirds of the time reloading the weapon instead of actually firing it). The best use for Tigris is to take down heavy enemies with a massive spike of damage, relying on a powerful secondary like the Angstrum to clear crowds of weaker foes. This tactic is however somehow hindered by the fact that most of the damage is dealt as Slash type, which does not really perform well against most durable enemies in the game.
View Boltor List▾▾
Boltor: Although its Prime variant is probably the most powerful weapon in the game in the terms of sheer damage output, the Boltor by itself is subpar to it in every way and is not really that distinctive. Its stats are not that exceptional for a rifle and it is not hitscan. However, the damage spread is mainly focused on Puncture, which allows it to stay somewhat effective even late into the game.
View Dera List▾▾
Dera: Dera is an exceptional rifle in the sense that it is perfectly accurate. However, that is about the only thing it shines at. It has low damage, almost cannot crit, is very ammo inefficient, has rather long reload time and cannot really proc elemental effects reliably, making it a poor choice overall for just about everything. It actually lies somewhere between tiers 2 and 3, but firing barrages of blaster bolts at groups of enemies feels so good that I decided to put it into the latter one.
View Tetra List▾▾
Tetra: Coming with slightly above-the-edge damage and large magazine at the cost of being almost unable to deliver a critical hit, the Tetra rifle is only allowed to be in the Tier 3 thanks to its rather large amounts of Puncture damage. The status chance of this weapon is not really good either.
View Mutalist Quanta List▾▾
Mutalist Quanta: The Infested version of the Quanta continuous beam weapon, it come with two firing modes, each fit for different situations. During common encounters, one should use the primary fire to deal with weaker enemies, although the damage of the weapon is mediocre when used this way. If any heavy makes its way towards the wielder, it is recommended to use the secondary mode, producing a large sphere of infested tissue which explodes on contact or after nine seconds, dealing rather high damage to all enemies in a short radius and applying the Radiation elemental damage type effect to them. It is also possible to use an orb close to the ground as a small personal invincibility device, although it will still explode in a short while and damage the player, possibly downing them in the process.
View Vulkar List▾▾
Vulkar: Once regarded as one of the worst weapons in the game, the Vulkar in its current state is actually pretty similar to the pre-buff Vectis. Only major difference here is the one which makes it pretty much useless in high-end missions - most of its damage comes from Impact physical type, which is only useful against heavy Corpus flooding, and groups of enemies are not exactly what you want to encounter with a sniper rifle. Either way, punch through is a must, as with all snipers.
View Hek List▾▾
Hek: An exceptionally powerful shotgun named after the infamous Councillor Vay Hek. It has the narrowest spread of all shotguns and comes with great damage, critical hit damage and status chance. However, as the critical hit chance is rather low, the crit damage might go to waste. Hek’s main role should be taking down heavy targets, with which will help its mainly Puncture type damage output, while having a secondary like the Angstrum which will clear weaker enemies. The Grineer shotgun stands somewhere between the tiers 3 and 4, but it ultimately fell down because of its damage falloff.
View Strun List▾▾
Strun: Although the damage of this shotgun (and especially its burst DPS) is rather good and it even got buffed recently, it still suffers from low amount of crits and very long reload time, making it unsuitable for engaging anything apart from massive targets which require instant spikes in damage to be taken down. The weapon’s potential in this manner is however somewhat lowered by its spread and damage falloff, two flaws which weight down most of shotguns. Also, even though the damage is distributed, the Impact type still comes on top and that further reduces the weapon’s efficiency.
View Gorgon List▾▾
Gorgon: This Grineer machine gun once used to be the best Market rifle, before being ultimately replaced by Soma and then severely harmed by Damage 2.0. It fulfils the role of a true machine gun, with very high fire rate and magazine size, low accuracy and reduced damage per shot. In the current state of the game, it is probably best suited for defenses, since it has rather long spool time before achieving the maximum fire rate, thus making it ill-suited for Survivals and similar game modes which require inconstant fire. Also, its sound got nerfed.
View Sobek List▾▾
Sobek: The first full-auto shotgun has actually rather low fire rate of 2.5 rounds per seconds. It shares its accuracy with the Hek, which makes it somewhat useable at longer ranges, although the damage falloff still hurts greatly. It comes with great crit damage, though the chance to actually deliver a critical hit is rather low and should not be considered reliable. Same goes with the status chance, although the possibility to achieve a proc is slightly larger.
View Flux Rifle List▾▾
Flux Rifle: The fallen queen of all the rifles, once absurdly overpowered when using the rainbow elemental build. When the Damage 2.0 struck, the weapon got an extreme indirect nerf and fell from the God-Tier long way down to the Tier 3. The problem with Flux right now is that it retained the weaknesses it always had (limited range, low crit stats, high ammo inefficiency), but lost most of its once so immense damage potential. It however keeps its perfect accuracy and can still be used against infested to some degree.
View Boar List▾▾
Boar: The Tenno auto-fire shotgun is much weaker than its Prime variant, but still can be very useful for crowd control, if damage is not the main priority in the primary weapon slot, thanks to its rather high spread. The common 20% status chance among shotguns present on the weapon can and should be further boosted to support this strategy, locking the rooms and allowing powerful secondaries like the Marelok to do their job more effectively. However, the DPS of the Boar should not be underestimated as well, as it is among the greatest from most of the assault rifles, at least when shooting from point blank distance. The ultimate reason why the weapon falls short off Tier 4 is the damage falloff and the fact that most damage it deals is sported in the Impact physical damage type.
View Acrid List▾▾
Acrid: Once the absolute queen of all weapons in the game, massacring everything with its insanely high DoT a good base damage, the Acrid got butchered when Damage 2.0 went live, receiving an immense indirect nerf thanks to no longer being able to perform a full-rainbow build. It still can do somewhat good, but with low status chance and no crit, just the little-over-average base damage won’t be enough to justify its new weaknesses.
View Spectra List▾▾
Spectra: The pocket version of the Flux Rifle is quite similar to it, except for the different damage type (Spectra deals Puncture, while Flux deals Slash). Also, the smaller gun has lower DPS and slightly lower status chance, not being really suited for lategame thanks to its rather low damage output. It can be still used as a status weapon to an extent, though.
View Ballistica List▾▾
Ballistica: This gorgeous crossbow sidearm is only powerful by its looks. With subpar damage per shot (both normal bursts and charged arrows, considering the latter need to be charged in the first place), mediocre critical hit stats (actually very bad for a weapon which is supposed to a be a bow) and low status chance, the Ballistica will underperform heavily in high levels, although its mainly Puncture damage might help to stay usable a little bit longer.
View Lex List▾▾
Lex: As a powerful pistol capable of taking enemies down from long distances, the Lex can substitute a sniper rifle, although it will be less effective in doing its job. With very high damage per shot for a secondary weapon and relatively good critical hit stats (damage is great, but chance is somewhat mediocre), it still can’t compete with top-tier sniping weapons along the lines of Vectis or Lanka. Its lack of status doesn’t really help either.
View Aklex List▾▾
Aklex: A much underrated weapon, commonly considered useless, but in fact, it can be made quite viable. With great critical hit stats for a secondary weapon, high damage per shot and only a small accuracy drop in comparison to its solo variant, the Aklex can still effectively work as a pocket sniper rifle and will usually do its job rather well, except when facing groups of very powerful foes.
View MK1-Kunai List▾▾
MK1-Kunai: Ironically, the starter throwing knives are actually equal to their more common counterpart, since they possess almost entirely identical stats apart from critical hit chance and damage, in which the MK1 version triumphs. The other difference is the base damage, in which the standard version wins by mere 5 points.
View Magnus List▾▾
Magnus: Another sniping pistol, the Magnus is very similar to the Lex in terms of both use and damage output. While the damage of this weapon is slightly lower than the Lex’s, it has much greater fire rate and better crit stats, making both heavy pistols just about equal. In the end, it is the higher status chance which swings the weights in the Magnus’s favour.
View Sicarus Prime List▾▾
Sicarus Prime: Sacrificing its crit stats to up its damage, status chance, accuracy, magazine size and fire rate, the Sicarus Prime is a viable upgrade to the classical burst-fire pistol. With half of its damage shifted from Impact into Puncture and Slash (in comparison to its new-age-cousin) the weapon will perform a little better late into the game when armour starts to matter very much.
View Akmagnus List▾▾
Akmagnus: Transcending the normal solo version of the sniping pistol in every regard (except for one second longer reload speed), there is basically no reason to not use this weapon over the basic variant, as it retains all of its advantages and adds almost none disadvantages.
View Lex Prime List▾▾
Lex Prime: Very similar to the akimbo version of the standard Lex, the primed version sports higher overall stats, triumphing especially in critical hit chance, critical hit damage and status proc chance. With high accuracy and great peak damage output, the Lex Prime is well suited to dub for a sniper rifle, eliminating dangerous targets from safe distance.
View Twin Gremlins List▾▾
Twin Gremlins: Designed to be used as a pair (the solo Gremlins has not come out as of yet), these Grineer akimbo nailguns are best used from close distance, as the projectiles have travel time and thus are not hitscan. The weapon sports rather high base damage, but it cannot reliably crit and thanks to its equal damage type spread is unsuitable for faction-oriented builds, making it less useful when the lategame approaches.
View Kunai List▾▾
Kunai: With high base Puncture damage per knife and extremely fast reload speed, the Kunai can be used as an effective close-to-mid-range weapons. Their damage output tends to be rather high when modded properly and their ballistic behaviour makes them ideal for hitting enemies behind cover, even without punch through mods equipped. Also, like with all projectile weapons with momentum, the dead bodies will fly backwards for a short while, possibly damaging their allies and further reducing the need for punch through to be utilized.
View Akstiletto List▾▾
Akstiletto: These mainly Impact damage focused dual-wielding automatic pistols offer slightly higher damage output than the Twin Gremlins (less damage per shot, but twice the fire rate), while still maintaining a lot better ammo efficiency than the Twin Vipers. Basically, the gun can be considered a crossover between the two other weapons, utilizing the strengths of both, making it more flexible than either of them.
View Hikou List▾▾
Hikou: Basically the same weapon as the Kunai. While these throwing stars offer only half the damage (well, technically it is 56.6%), it has double the fire rate and magazine size, making them just about equal in most scenarios (both weapons opt for the Puncture damage type). However, even though the Hikou wins in the terms of DPS by 6.6%, they are two times less ammo efficient than the Kunai, making them ultimately the subpar choice.
View Cestra List▾▾
Cestra: Basically a minigun wielded as a secondary, this Corpus weapon is especially effective against Grineer and other armoured foes, as it deals mainly Puncture physical damage. While the damage on its own isn’t as impressive as this of other similar weapons, the high fire rate coming with it will make the weapon usable through most of the game’s content.
View Afuris List▾▾
Afuris: Coming with impressive DPS and mainly Puncture damage, the weapon should be in Tier 4, if not for its vast ammo inefficiency, very long reload time and bad accuracy. Not considering reloading, the weapon is capable of depleting its ammo in ten seconds of constant fire, making it very ill-suited for prolonged fights. Basically, the best way to use the Afuris is similar to the main use of Twin Vipers – as a provider of the peak of damage necessary to devastate more powerful targets, but useless against large groups of weaker enemies (alternatively, this can be countered by employing the punch through mechanic, although that will cost a mod slot and lower the overall damage).
View AkZani List▾▾
AkZani: These machine pistols are to Akstiletto what Hikou is to Kunai. They feature lower damage, but much higher fire rate, resulting in higher overall DPS with reduced ammo efficiency. Additionally, AkZani have higher critical hit damage, but lower critical hit chance. Also, they lack severely in status, resulting in overall similarly effective weapons.
View Twin Vipers List▾▾
Twin Vipers: The famous dual-wield machine pistols are best used for quick bursting down of the high-priority targets, letting the floods of weaker foes to be dealt with a powerful primary like the Penta or the Amprex. When modded correctly, almost nothing can withstand the full clip-sized burst, or at least not until very late into the T4 Survival. What casts the Vipers away from Tier 4 is however the fact that you will spend two times as long as firing the guns with reloading them and their mainly Impact damage output, making them good against shields but not so good against virtually everything else. They still come really close, though.
View Rakta Ballistica List▾▾
Rakta Ballistica: The weakest out of the Syndicate weapons and also almost exactly the same weapon as the standard counterpart. Rakta has higher Impact damage and less Puncture damage (which actually makes it worse than the common variant) and higher fire rate and magazine size. Also, it is beautiful.
View Fang List▾▾
Fang: Coming with multiple strikes per button hit and rather high damage output if used properly, the Fang is best suited for fighting against a single foe, as their damage shines best in 1v1. Since they don’t stagger at all, using them against multiple foes without some sort of powerful support (like Trinity) is a very bad idea, since you will be subjected to heavy fire without a way to retaliate other than attempting to kill all of them faster than they kill you.
View Ether Daggers List▾▾
Ether Daggers: These retired daggers come with almost identical stats to the Dual Skana, although with slightly less damage on slide attacks and more swings per button hit on normal strikes. Basically, the weapon is simply a crossover between slide-attack weapons and normal-attack weapons, combining strengths of both (but still remaining rather weak, mostly due to it not being meant to be an endgame weapon).
View Dark Sword List▾▾
Dark Sword: Although this weapon lacks proper damage output, it partially makes up for it with its innate Radiation damage with assured proc on finishers (the more common 10% status chance paired with it is still low though) and Toxin damage on jump attacks, which make the weapon rather versatile. It falls somewhere in between the tiers 2 and 3, but closer to the third tier, all things considered, mostly thanks to the fact that it can equip the Crimson Dervish stance and surpass its lack of damage to an extent this way.
View Kogake List▾▾
Kogake: With better base damage than its weaker cousin Obex and slightly weaker critical hit chance, the Kogake generally outclasses the Obex and can be used effectively as a finisher weapon, as using the attack causes a flurry of very rapid hits, dealing close to 230 base damage. However, as its main physical damage type is still Impact, the weapon will suffer against anything but heavily-shielded enemies and thus is generally not too good to be employed in late-game missions.
View Sheev List▾▾
Sheev: With very high base damage for a dagger-type weapon, great status chance and innate Fire proc on jump attacks, this moonblade/khopesh knife should be in a great spot. However, it is vastly hindered by its horrendously low attack speed and inability to reliably score a critical hit pushes them down to somewhere between the tiers 3 and 4. Also, a good tip is to actually only use the Sheev as a quick-melee weapon, because that way, you can partially mitigate its very slow attack speed.
View Glaive List▾▾
Glaive: The Melee 2.0 system hurt this throwing disc very hard. In the old times, it actually used to be a fairly effective weapon substituting for secondaries when they ran out of ammo (primaries, apart from Flux, suffered heavily during that period and the release of Lethal Torrent made secondaries, especially Acrid, much better than most primary weapons). With the new system, it was given some new mods to make up for its lost power and the ability for it to explode was added, but that still does not really justify the huge indirect nerf it received. However, Stealth 2.0 is upon us (well, not exactly upon us, as it will take few more updates to get there), so the disc might actually get a buff again. Maybe.
View Furax List▾▾
Furax: Like most other Fist-type weapons, the Furax comes with extremely low range, mediocre base damage and high critical hit stats. Also like other similar weapons, it is only worth using for its powerful ground finisher. Thanks to its slightly higher attack speed, the Furax beats its cousin Kogake by a small margin. It still deals Impact damage, though, making it not really all that well suited for late.
View Ceramic Dagger List▾▾
Ceramic Dagger: This dagger is unimpressive in every way, except for its incredible coptering capabilities (it’s basically just like the old Zoren), making it best used as a mobility tool. It should actually be in Tier 2, but thanks to this special added value, it made it into the higher tier. It is also worth noting that it comes with high percentage of Puncture damage and zero Slash damage, making it somewhat more effective against highly-armoured enemies than other similar blades.
View Ankyros List▾▾
Ankyros: Having all the basic advantages and disadvantages of a fist weapon, mostly great critical hit stats, it should be a decent weapon. However, it is vastly hindered by its very low range, so it falls into the Tier 3 without any doubt. Also, only 10% status chance does not really help either (it is not bad though).
View Ether Sword List▾▾
Ether Sword: Coming with only Slash physical damage type in reasonable amounts and being capable of hitting only a single target, the sword member of the Ether family should fall into the Tier 2, if not being for its ability to always proc Radiation status, meaning that it can be useful for crowd control to a limited extend.
View Venka List▾▾
Venka: The first claw weapon in the game is basically a weaker version of the Dual Ichor without base elemental damage. Venka sports slightly higher damage, but, even though it is supposed to act as a critical hit weapon, its crit stats are not optimal and cannot really reliably provided the necessary damage output. Also, as mentioned earlier, the greatest flaw of the weapon in comparison to the Ichor is its lack of elemental damage, which makes it less suited against basically everything.
View Mire List▾▾
Mire: An interesting sword, packing an additional 10% of its base damage as Toxin elemental damage type. Other than this and the fact that it has a very high chance to proc Toxin on its slam attack, the weapon is not really exceptional in any way. Despite the innate elemental damage, it has too low status chance to make a good use of it regularly, so its use is limited to standard slashing. As with every sword, it can equip the immensely powerful Crimson Dervish stance, so it can be actually useful in some scenarios.
View Heat Sword List▾▾
Heat Sword: Sporting reasonable status chance and rather high base damage for a longsword, the Heat Sword falls somewhere in between the tiers 3 and 4. Despite its ability to almost always proc Heat damage on jump attacks, it still is closer to the Tier 3, mostly due to the fact that its base damage is physical, not elemental, and thus the eventual status procs are hindered.
View Jaw Sword List▾▾
Jaw Sword: This weapon has OP looks and is often used thanks to them. Other than that, it comes with rather high base damage and its own exclusive mod, Blade of Truth (which you have to grind really hard for, as the Syndicate Standing is rather long-taking task to acquire). It used to be a whole lot better, as it dealt mostly Puncture physical damage, but that changed with Update 13, so, sadly, the weapon is now only mediocre.
View Dual Ether List▾▾
Dual Ether: Slightly higher-than-average base damage and great slide attack damage. Other than that, the weapon can actually stagger on every hit (although this might be a bit gimmicky), so it can be used successfully against heavy targets to keep them from dealing damage. Other than that, the Dual Ether swords are fairly average and due to that, even though they come close to it, they don’t reach the Tier 4.
View Dual Heat Swords List▾▾
Dual Heat Swords: With only slightly (exactly 1 point) higher damage than the solo variant of the weapon and half the status proc chance (and slightly higher stamina consumption, although that is rather insignificant), the dual variant generally loses to the single sword, except when slide attacks are employed, as that the only area where this weapon can truly shine (it still gets outclassed by Kronen like everything else).
View Nikana List▾▾
Nikana: One of the weaker weapons in Tier 3. It has somewhat good base damage and critical hit damage, but suffers from low crit and status chance. However, the greatest (indirect) strength of the weapon is that it builds into the famous Dragon Nikana, which is so much more powerful and awesome.
View Skana Prime List▾▾
Skana Prime: One of the most exclusive items to exist, only owned by the Founders who helped the game in the beginning. It comes with good base damage, but that’s about all it has. Almost every other stat is either mediocre or downright bad, making the weapon only worth it for its rarity and great looks. It is worth noting that it can make a good use of Bright Purity, the Skana-exclusive New Loka faction mod. However, the mod is very hard to acquire and does no add that much to justify Tier 4 for the weapon. It comes close though.
View Kama List▾▾
Kama: Kama has high base damage. And that’s about it. It comes with higher-than-usual attack speed as well, but that is, thanks to its virtually non-existent status and crits almost a wasted stat. Basically, Kama is just a big curved dagger with appropriately higher range, even though it actually is a machete-type weapon.
View Tier 4 List▾▾
View Paris List▾▾
Paris: The standard version of the famous bow cannot possibly race with the god-tier Primed variant, but it is still very powerful and capable of destroying almost any foe with a well-placed headshot, benefiting from the special multiplier all bows possess. It is especially useful for Nova to be the damage spike which sets off her Molecular Prime explosion chain.
View Penta List▾▾
Penta: Although the Penta is commonly regarded as one of the most powerful weapons in the game (well, not anymore, thanks to the ammo reserve nerf), it in fact is not. Its innate Blast damage type is good for crowd control, but sadly comes with only 10% proc chance. The damage is great, but not really against the end game enemies thanks to their insane armour values and the fact that Blast only deals ¾ of the damage dealt to them. The destructive force of the Penta is immense in mid to late but slowly falls off as the enemies scale higher and higher.
View Ogris List▾▾
Ogris: The very first true rocket launcher of the game is very similar to Penta in many ways. Both deal innate explosive damage with low status chance, rendering them great in mid to late game and a lot less effective in the end-game content and both sport rather large triggerpull-hit delay. Ogris packs greater punch than Penta does, but in addition to its slow projectile speed needs to be lengthily charged. However, when used against groups of weaker enemies (Corrupted Lancers and Crewmen in particular), Ogris can shine.
View Ignis List▾▾
Ignis: One of the first continuous fire weapons added to the game, the Ignis still enjoys vast popularity when fighting in Orokin Derelicts, especially in defenses. When used alongside Vauban’s Vortex, it can evaporate whole waves of Infested in a matter of seconds. It can also be modded to the Viral/Radiation elemental combo to tear down Grineer heavies quickly. However, with the addition of the Amprex to the game, the Ignis became somewhat obsolete as a CC/damage hybrid weapon, as the latter outperforms it in almost every way.
View Synapse List▾▾
Synapse: The predecessor of the Amprex, the Synapse comes with even greater damage, which is rather formidable, given the incredible amounts of DPS the newer lightning gun can dish out. With proper critical hit chance/damage build, the Synapse will chew through even very hard enemies with ease. It can even be used as a CC weapon to some extent, but it is not as effective, given that it only has 10% status proc chance per second. It also should be noted that when both have a punch through mod equipped, the Amprex outdamages the Synapse by a huge far. Generally, the Synapse is well suited for dealing extreme amounts of damage to single targets, making it very powerful until very late into the T4 survivals where enemies begin to literally flood the entire map and ill-suited for high level defenses. It still is one of the most powerful weapons in the fourth tier, closing to the Tier 5.
View Grakata List▾▾
Grakata: This Grineer SMG is very similar to Soma in many ways – both sport high crit chance and crit damage at the cost of decreased base damage per shot. However, the Grakata delivers much less punch than Soma can, but comes with almost three times higher status chance. That would make it a better weapon, if not being its terrible damage type spread, with Impact being its main physical damage type. Either way, one could consider Grakata a crossover between the Soma and the Tysis, packing both main advantages of both the guns, but at the cost of not being perfect in any of them. In the end, the SMG will certainly destroy most foes easily, even in T4 Survivals, but will start to fall off heavily when the deeper end-game approaches.
View Drakgoon List▾▾
Drakgoon: This extremely powerful shotgun, or rather a flak cannon, features two firing modes – a standard, uncharged shot with wide spread and a much more powerful charged one with tighter spray. While the weaker hits deal the third highest damage among shotguns on their own, the true punch comes with charging the Drakgoon. The damage massively increases and the rounds gain two meters of punch through, allowing to eliminate many targets at once from relative distance thanks to the tightened spread. It should be noted that most of the damage is opted into the Slash type, making this weapon very useful when using charged shots in tandem with Vauban’s Vortex. Also, the damage falloff presented by other shotgun type weapons does not apply to the Drakgoon.
View Buzlok List▾▾
Buzlok: The Buzlok is a weird weapon. Its primary fire packs very high damage per shot and comes with high critical hit damage, magazine size and rather fast fire rate, which alone should set it somewhere between Tiers 3 and 4. However, the most interesting property of the weapon is its secondary fire, which launches a targeting beacon which can stick to an enemy, object (including walls) or ally and cause further basic shots to automatically aim and curve their flight trajectory to hit the enemy. This can be very useful especially for dangerous targets, as it is possible to mark them and then safely obliterate them from cover. On the other hand, when one happens to mark a wrong target or a wall when it is not needed, it can cost them their life and possibly make the weapon useless until retagged. Also, as most of the damage comes from Impact physical type, the weapon somewhat loses its efficiency later into the game.
View Gorgon Wraith List▾▾
Gorgon Wraith: In comparison to the standard Gorgon, the Wraith version comes with increased damage, fire rate and decreased reload time. However, its main advantage is the vastly increased status chance, allowing for constant procs on groups of enemies, if you spray with the weapon as you should. On the other hand, the major Impact damage and spool time still make the weapon somewhat inefficient and performs unreliably at high-end levels, making it one of the weaker weapons of Tier 4.
View Strun Wraith List▾▾
Strun Wraith: With rather mediocre damage, high critical hit chance and damage and very high status chance for a shotgun, the Strun Wraith still remains somewhat usable, although the recent nerfs harmed it badly. With much of its damage coming from Impact type, it loses its power swiftly in Tower 4 Survivals and should only be used a hybrid of status and damage, which is hard to perform properly thanks to its spread and damage falloff.
View Tiberon List▾▾
Tiberon: The second best of the burst fire rifles currently in the game and also the newest one, the Tiberon is unique in its requirement of a Latron and a Forma to be built, even despite not actually being a clantech weapon. It pack some serious punch, with 180 damage per burst in total, firing three shots with one pull of the trigger. It also has great critical hit damage, although its crit chance is very low. It also almost cannot proc status, making it only good for pure damage oriented builds. Because of this, the Tiberon falls somewhere in between of the tiers 3 and 4, but it ultimately made it into the fourth thanks to how good it actually feels to use the gun.
View Burston Prime List▾▾
Burston Prime: The current leader of the burst fire rifle leaderboards, the Burston Prime is better than its successor in every regard. With great damage per shot and good status chance, it competes with the Tiberon for the throne. Ultimately, it wins, because it can proc elemental effects much more reliably, making it better suited for lategame content. However, the weapon still cannot really crit and has even damage type spread, making it fall off as more and more powerful enemies begin to manifest.
View Supra List▾▾
Supra: This Corpus heavy energy-based machine gun fires non-hitscan bolts of plasma with high damage per shot and incredible fire rate, offering lots of burst DPS with only short spool. However, as the weapon is almost completely incapable of scoring both critical hits and status procs, it tends to fall off heavily when the true late game approaches. With the extremely long reload time tearing down its sustained DPS, the only reason why the Supra is not one of the weakest weapons in Tier 4 is its opting towards the Puncture physical damage type
View Torid List▾▾
Torid: The infested grenade launcher is capable of creating environmental hazards and constantly triggering status effects in an area, allowing for good defensive objective control and trap setups. The damage which can be theoretically achieved with this weapon is immense and it can even critically hit, which is strange a bit, given its mechanics. Anyway, with innate Toxin damage, the Torid can be modified to fit various support roles for the team with constant status procs and area denial. When combined with Vauban’s Vortex, it can annihilate entire waves extremely fast. It lies somewhere between Tiers 4 and 5, but it fell into the Tier 4 thanks to it being a rather niche weapon with limited uses outside of defenses.
View Opticor List▾▾
Opticor: This Corpus railgun can be best characterized as a crossover between a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. It offers incredible damage (and by incredible, I actually mean incredible, as it has 500 base damage), most of it coming in the Puncture physical type, with moderate to small AoE (which is not really significant most of the time, but it has its uses). However, it needs to be charged for full three seconds before being able to fire and cannot hold its charge, meaning that you might waste your shot if your target hides behind a cover or in other similar cases (this can be partially circumvented by utilizing punch through mods). In the end, the weapon is best suited for annihilation of high-priority targets (there are not really many things the Opticor cannot one-shot with a perfectly placed hit, even at very high levels), relying on an AoE secondary like the Angstrum to deal with swarms of weaker enemies. The main problem with this weapon is that it loses to bows in almost every way, except range (and that does not matter most of the time) and can only employ a crit build half-effectively, since its crit chance is only 15%.
View Angstrum List▾▾
Angstrum: This secondary rocket launcher packs extreme damaging capabilities, but comes with few crucial weaknesses that make it fall short from Tier 5 into the fourth one. First of all, it cannot hold its charge and attempting to do so will result in the weapon shooting its rockets, possibly damaging and killing the player in the process. Angstrum also suffers from its very small ammo pool, making it very hard to be used in prolonged fights like defenses (where it should actually shine), unless employing the Sniper Ammo Mutation mod. The last weakness is the one which makes it ill-suited for deep lategame: it has innate Blast damage, which harms Corrupted Heavy Gunners a little bit less and also the weapon cannot really proc the damage at all with its status chance, causing its possibly high CC capabilities to go to waste.
View Castanas List▾▾
Castanas: These Corpus throwing knives (?) will wreak havoc on the battlefield thanks to their powerful, perfectly time-able explosions which always proc Electricity damage type, regardless of what mods you have currently installed, and have 10% chance for triggering of additional elemental effects. With Electricity as its innate damage type, the Castanas can be easily modded into various valuable damage types, allowing for great versatility against any type of enemies.
View Despair List▾▾
Despair: The most powerful out of the throwing knives, this Stalker’s personal weapon will deliver rather high damage output, albeit it is almost unable to score a critical hit or a status proc. With mostly puncture physical damage type, it is best suited for pure damage builds, similarly to the Boltor Prime. Despair is also entirely silent, allowing for more delicate approach to combat, and wielding it will make everyone go like “Ooooooo!” because it is so f*cking hard to get (well, perhaps it is only me who the Stalker is hating… I mean, literally, dropping only Hates all the time…).
View Nukor List▾▾
Nukor: Another of the strange weapons. First off all, it is worth noting that this is the first Grineer energy-based weapon in the game, shooting blizzards of microwaves, literally frying your foes. It also has the highest critical hit damage multiplier of all weapons ingame, whooping 400%, which should be pretty incredible, if not being its 1% crit chance. Because of this, aiming for a crit build I generally ill-advised and one should instead opt for damage/status hybrid build, taking advantage of both its rather good DPS and great status chance for a continuous weapon. The innate Radiation damage will also help with this strategy, as will the weapon’s high ammo efficiency, at least for a continuous weapon.
View Embolist List▾▾
Embolist: Coming with the Mastery rank 8 requirement, for which the weapon is commonly hated, the Embolist is very similar to the Ignis in its core, albeit there still are differences. It has higher damage per second, but has shorter range and can crit less reliably (not like Ignis was a crit weapon anyway). However, its main advantage comes from the fact that it proc Toxin status even though another damage type has been modded on, making it especially effective against shielded enemies. Like Ignis, the best way to use the weapon is to pair it with Vauban and his Vortex skill, using the AoE to damage the entire wave of Infested in an Orokin Derelict Defense.
View Hikou Prime List▾▾
Hikou Prime: Transcending both its unprimed version and the Kunai (and also the Despair, but the Stalker’s weapon beats it in cool factor), the Hikou Prime comes with great DPS. Similarly to the Hikou, it trades sheer damage for fire rate. This is further helped by its extremely fast reload speed (only half a second) and extended magazine size in comparison to its successor. Also, the Prime version actually has a reliable status chance, making it suitable for more than just damage-oriented builds.
View Pyrana List▾▾
Pyrana: An auto-fire secondary-weapon type shotgun. Coming with primarily Slash physical damage type and high crit stats for a shotgun, the Pyrana is best suited as a pure-damage shredder, obliterating clouds of swarming infested and other close-combat foes. However, as with all shotguns, its damage will begin to stop being reliable as the enemies grow stronger and stronger and gain more levels.
View Bronco Prime List▾▾
Bronco Prime: Packing an extreme punch, the Bronco Prime is a brutal, close-combat weapon best suited for blasting someone’s face off with a sudden peak off damage. This secondary-type shotgun has no damage falloff, meaning that it can stay (to a limited extent), effective at greater ranges than just point blank, and features a somewhat reliable status chance, allowing for even greater devastation.
View Bolto List▾▾
Bolto: Coming with very high damage per shot and good fire rate, the Bolto is similar to the Boltor Prime in terms of usage – pure damage oriented build focusing on tearing foes down as fast as possible with little to no utility. This is further supplemented by the fact that the weapon is almost entirely incapable of inflicting a status proc, making damage its only real choice. As the main physical type for Bolto is Puncture, it will remain effective long into the game, shredding everything in sight.
View Akvasto List▾▾
Akvasto: Although it might not seem like it, the Akvasto fulfils once more the same task as the Twin Viper, just more effectively. They provide a huge burst of damage instantly, but lack in prolonged combat thanks to the fact that you will spend half the time reloading instead of firing the guns. Their damage comes mainly in the Slash type and can crit rather well, making them best suited against heavy Infested targets such as the Ancients.
View Wraith Twin Vipers List▾▾
Wraith Twin Vipers: Surpassing their standard variant in magazine size, allowing for a bit greater sustained DPS, the Wraith version of the akimbo machine pistols is best used in the same way as their predecessor – dealing high spikes of damage to powerful targets, but underperforming against crowds. Also, the crit stats and the status chance are slightly upgraded with this variant, allowing for greater versatility in some situations
View Detron List▾▾
Detron: Coming high damage per shot and impressive DPS, the Detron hand cannon is best suited for close range combat, allowing all of its pellets to hit a single target for a massive spike of damage. Its innate Radiation damage type makes it possible to mod for up to three different combined elemental damage types, although the only 10% status chance will make it hard to actually attain any reliable procs. It is important to note that the weapon has zero damage falloff, thus it is still somewhat usable at medium ranges.
View Dex Furis List▾▾
Dex Furis: Probably one of the weakest weapons of Tier 4, the first Dex variant weapon in the game comes with rather great punch, however at the cost of ammo efficiency and status chance. It either beats or equals the standard Afuris in every way, offering better magazine size, reload speed, critical hit chance and status proc chance. Also, the weapon design is cool.
View Sancti Castanas List▾▾
Sancti Castanas: Same properties as the common Castanas, meaning an assured Electricity proc on each detonation, up to 6 charges can be ready to be exploded and rather high base Electricity damage. However, thanks to the higher status chance, this version is much more suitable for status-focused builds, allowing for heavy CC chains of entire areas with few well-timed activations.
View Mara Detron List▾▾
Mara Detron: The first weapon to be sold by Baro Ki’Teer in the Tenno Relays. It is an alternate variant of the Corpus clantech weapon, as the name suggests and very similar to it. In fact, it only differs in the magazine capacity and fire rate, which means that it can deal a little bit more DPS for a little bit longer time.
View Kestrel List▾▾
Kestrel: The Kestrel is very niche weapon. While it can act as a powerful CC machine, it lacks any reliable damage or status, making it very hard to employ effectively later into the game (as crowd control will be mainly provided by frames opting into this field, such as Nyx or Limbo). It is a sort of last-stand weapon, which you will only use in the direst situation (like a Corrupted Heavy Gunner [137] attacking your pod and threating to destroy it in a short moment) and otherwise you will not really employ it, relying on your other weapons to do the job. It has its very own Syndicate mod, Entropy Flight, which allows it, in cooperation with Whirlwind, to fly quite fast.
View Dual Cleavers List▾▾
Dual Cleavers: These Grineer dual-wielding cleavers come with excellent critical hit stats and are quite similar to the Dual Ichor. However, they come with slightly less status chance and significantly lower attack speed. This, paired with their mainly Slash damage (Ichors come with pure Toxin) makes them inferior to their Infested counterpart and puts them down to the Tier 4, as they do not have the range to compete with Atterax in Tier 5. They do come very, very close though.
View Nami Solo List▾▾
Nami Solo: Coming with exceptionally high status chance among melee weapons (and actually the highest one among single-handedly wielded weapons), not so bad damage and somewhat decent critical hit stats, the Nami Solo is best used as a mixed utility/damage weapon, slashing through weaker enemies such as Lancers and relying on status procs to chain CC heavies and other high priority targets.
View Silva & Aegis List▾▾
Silva & Aegis: Despite being hated by many, the first sword & shield combo in the game is actually pretty usable. It has rather high (20%) status chance, and deals full innate Heat damage, allowing for very easy acquisition of the powerful Corrosive + Blast elemental damage combination, well suited for combination of both crowd control and damage. It falls somewhere in between the tiers 3 and 4, but I decided to place it in 4, partially thanks to its distinctive design and feel when using it.
View Dual Zoren List▾▾
Dual Zoren: Basically a little bit weaker Dual Clevers, in terms of raw damage. However, its lack of effective DPS (don’t get me wrong it is still very, very high if modded properly) is perfectly substituted by the excellent slide damage it has and immense coptering capabilities. This weapon is actually the original copter, and was once the most used melee, just for the sheer amounts of mobility it gives.
View Fang Prime List▾▾
Fang Prime: Sporting the highest base damage of all light melees in the game (when counting in its ability to strike a target multiple times per attack), mostly Puncture physical damage type and excellent slide damage, the primed version of the Fang dual daggers can pack quite a punch and is especially effective when used with melee-focused frames like Loki (not Valkyr though, since it lacks reliable crit for Hysteria). However, the major disadvantage of these ornate blades is its extremely low range, which remains very poor even if max Reach is equipped, and its lack of any real status and crit chance.
View Karyst List▾▾
Karyst: The poison dagger, deriving most of its strength from the fact that it deals pure elemental damage, paired with fair status chance, making it rather well-suited for elemental-damage-focused builds. Its attack speed is very low, but that can be avoided by using quick melee (this limits the weapon to only hitting one target a time, though). It also has extremely low stamina consumption, which means that you can keep hitting with it for virtually forever.
View Glaive Prime List▾▾
Glaive Prime: Coming with greater attack speed and much faster flight, the Glaive Prime shines the best when used with the boomerang-exclusive mods, especially Whirlwind and Power Throw. As with regular Glaive, it might be better to opt for reduced bouncing, as it will allow the weapon to return to your hand faster and thus increase your DPS.
View Fragor List▾▾
Fragor: With very high base damage and decent critical hit stats, the Fragor will shine in scenarios where brutal power is required. Additionally, its slam attacks come with five meters wide AoE, which is perfect for crowd control. However, unmodded, the hammer is very, very slow and drains loads of stamina per attack, so it is best suited for burst damage, instead of prolonged fights.
View Nami Skyla List▾▾
Nami Skyla: Not so long ago the best spin weapon in the game. However, when Kronen came out, Nami Skyla was made completely obsolete and now, there is not really any reason to use it. However, it still packs the highest base damage among all dual swords (not counting critical hit, where Dual Ichor wins, of course). Still, this is somewhat hindered by its low attack speed.
View Magistar List▾▾
Magistar: Weaker than the Fragor in almost every regard, except for Magistar’s higher attack speed (by 0.2 attacks per second). However, the difference is minor enough to not grant the mace higher DPS than its hammer counterpart, meaning that the weapon still loses to the old-school beatbag. What is worth noting, though, is that the Magistar has innate 10% Blast proc chance.
View MK1-Bo List▾▾
MK1-Bo: First off all, I would like to say that it is actually pretty impressive that a weapon meant for beginners made it to the Tier 4. Despite its supposed state, the starter variant of the Bo is very powerful and should not be dismissed. Its only real flaw is that the main portion of its damage is delivered in the Impact type, meaning it will be less effective against enemies without shields. Other than that it comes with good damage and decent critical hit stats (high damage but rather low chance) and very good status chance.
View Lecta List▾▾
Lecta: Once one of the weakest weapons in the game, now one of the better melees for status-focused builds. It was the first whip weapon to be introduced and it was buffed several patches after it release into its current, quite viable, state. It is possible to reach 103,75% status chance during channelling with it, so it can be used as a powerful CC machine (albeit there are better choices, thus the Tier 4). It can be thought about as the spiritual successor of the clantech Prova.
View Orthos List▾▾
Orthos: Another of the weapons which used to be very, very powerful before the Melee 2.0, but got hit hard by the change. It still remains as elegant and beautiful as ever, but not as good as it was. Now, its main strength is the possibility to combine somewhat good status chance and rather high damage into a powerful hybrid damage/status build which can be universally used in various situations.
View Prova Vandal List▾▾
Prova Vandal: With good base damage, great status chance and innate Electricity damage, the vandalized version of the Corpus clantech machete is well-suited for status builds (and even for damage-focused builds, although there are much better alternatives). The only thing it really suffers from is its lack of effective range, meaning that you will have to be very close to your enemies in order to deal with them properly. It also cannot reliably crit, but that is not the focus of the weapon anyway.
View Ankyros Prime List▾▾
Ankyros Prime: Coming with higher damage, attacks speed, and most importantly status chance than its successor, it is still the same critical hit focused weapon. However, as with every other crit weapon, it loses to both Atterax and Dual Ichor in terms of raw DPS. With this in mind, it might be better to take advantage of its high attack speed and opt for a status focused build, making the weapon more of a CC machine than a damage dealer.
View Machete Wraith List▾▾
Machete Wraith: With double the damage of its standard-issue counterpart and slightly higher attack speed, paired with the ability to stun targets, the Machete Wraith falls somewhere to the bottom of the Tier 4. It is definitely not weak, but there are many other weapons which can do its work better, plus it is very exclusive, meaning that it is only worth owning for its rarity.
View Bo List▾▾
Bo: Only slightly better than the MK1-Bo starter variant, featuring slightly higher base damage (the relative split of Impact/Puncture remains the same – 9:1). With this knowledge, both weapons should be built in a similar manner, focusing on powerful hybrid builds, incorporating both pure damage and status chance.
View Dual Kamas List▾▾
Dual Kamas: Being really similar to the Nami Skyla in its essence, Dual Kamas trade sheer power for attack speed, meaning they are better fit for a status build. However, this is almost entirely hindered by the weapon’s low status chance, meaning its main power comes from the damage it deals. In this regard, it is again similar to the Nami Skyla, as both can deal tremendous amounts of damage when used for slide attacks. However, Nami Skyla wins in this contest, although not by that much (both lose to Kronen, of course).
View Hate List▾▾
Hate: Despite it being the weapon of the vengeful Stalker, the Hate is actually one of the weaker weapons in Tier 4, mostly thanks to its effort to be good at everything, which inevitably results in it not being great in anything. It comes with high base damage, slightly lower attack speed (although that is not really significant) and somewhat reliable critical hit and status stats. It also has a low range, but very wide AoE knockdown on jump attacks. All things considered, it is probably the best to build the Hate a mix between pure damage and status, disregarding critical hits completely.
View Ether Reaper List▾▾
Ether Reaper: Possibly the unprimed version of the Reaper Prime, although this is merely a speculation and, unless I am mistaken, has never been confirmed by DE. It suffers from the same issues as other scythe weapons, meaning it tries to be good at multiple things at once and fails to do so. In comparison to the Stalker’s blade, it offers less critical hit damage and slightly less base damage, but comes with higher attack speed. This actually makes it slightly better than the Hate, as it can proc status more reliably (still by far not as reliably as other weapons).
View Reaper Prime List▾▾
Reaper Prime: Extremely similar to Hate, equal to it in every way except for the fact that it trades 3% from status chance for 0.2 additional attack speed. As with the Ether Reaper, the increased ability to hit enemies more times in a short times makes it better than the Stalker’s weapon by a small merit, as it is able to output status procs better (only slightly though).
View Tier 5 List▾▾
View Lanka List▾▾
Lanka: The best sniper rifle in the game in terms of actually sniping stuff, thanks to its insanely high innate punch through of five, five meters when fully charged. In addition to this exceptional feature, it packs incredible base damage, excellent crit chance and damage and good status chance. The only real downside of Lanka is that it needs to be charged, but that is not really an issue, as you should be using it to tear down the entire wave with sheer damage and status procs. As the enemies approaching are devastated, it buys you just enough time to charge the weapon again or to reload it. The innate electricity damage is also a huge advantage, allowing you to opt for the desired elemental damage types much more easily and avoiding unwanted physical procs.
View Dread List▾▾
Dread: The Stalker’s personal bow is an utter monster when facing almost any enemy. It provides perfect accuracy and damage along with excellent critical hit damage and the highest crit chance in the game (tied with Synapse and Amprex), surpassing Paris Prime by a tiny little bit. The Dread really shines in Orokin Derelicts, especially in defenses when used with Vauban’s Vortex to destroy the entire wave in a single perfect hit. In T4 Survivals and Defenses, it stays behind Paris Prime thanks to the different damage types, but it still is a perfect weapon for most situations.
View Quanta List▾▾
Quanta: The newer version of the Flux Rifle transcends it predecessor in every regard, be it the excellent DPS in the form of Electricity damage, modable to various useful elemental types, perfect ammo efficiency, which is something unseen on continuous weapons, or the extraordinarily powerful secondary fire. While the basic beam offers high damage (although not as high as the Synapse or the Amprex), the explosive cubes created by the alt fire mode offer great damage spikes when triggered as a chain reaction. Also, the tesserae do not harm the user on explosion, making them extremely useful when swarmed by hordes of enemies which need to be eliminated quickly.
View Glaxion List▾▾
Glaxion: Ironically, even though this weapon is described as a “photon gun”, it in fact deals Cold damage, allowing for pure elemental builds. Paired with the weapon’s extremely high status proc chance for a continuous fire weapon, the main role of the Glaxion should be as a CC supporting firearm, relying on a powerful secondary like the Marelok to annihilate the enemies once they are locked down. Also, even though the ammo efficiency is very bad, the enormous magazine size of three hundred rounds and even greater ammo supply allow it to keep firing for quite a while. However, once the Glaxion is out of ammunition, it might be very difficult to refill it effectively, as Rifle Ammo Drops only add 20 ammo per pickup, which is not really that much in comparison to the huge magazine size.
View Grinlok List▾▾
Grinlok: The lever-action rifle is similar to both Latron variants and the Sybaris in function, but behaves a little differently than the rest. It has the highest damage per hit out of them (well, technically, Sybaris deals more damage per pull of the trigger since it fires two shots instead of just one), but the slowest fire rate by a rather large margin. Like the rest of the marksman rifles, it comes with decent crit chance, high critical hit damage and good status. However, what makes it weaker than the rest of its cousins is its severe lack of Puncture damage, more so that most of its damage is actually done in the Impact physical type, which is not suitable for anything but immense Corpus flooding. However, when opted for a status build, the Grinlok can serve as a Primary substitution for Tysis, in case you like to bring a heavy-damage Secondary into the brawl.
Sybaris: This weapon combines the properties of a marksman rifle and a burst fire weapon into a very powerful tool capable of barrage of critical hits. With above-the-edge damage and negligible recoil, paired with its excellent crit stats, it only suffers from its rather small magazine size, but that can be worked around if used properly.
View Attica List▾▾
Attica: With excellent damage per shot, highest of all automatic weapons, good critical hit chance (though coming with low crit damage) and mostly Puncture damage output, the first primary crossbow of the game performs well at all levels. Additionally, the Thunderbolt bow-exclusive mod can be equipped to it, making it especially effective when used alongside Mirage and her Hall or Mirrors ability, allowing to constantly barrage the enemies with storms of explosive arrows.
View Phage List▾▾
Phage: With extremely low ammo consumption for a continuous weapon (only one unit per second) and impressive innate Viral damage, the Phage can be modded for up to three different combined elemental damage types, allowing for extreme versatility and reliability against all manners of enemies. As the spread is perfectly manageable thanks to the focus/zoom function, this unique continuous shotgun will tentacle rape everything in sight.
View Boar Prime List▾▾
Boar Prime: Firing almost six rounds per second, the Boar Prime takes the first spot in terms of burst DPS among all primary weapons, surpassing even Boltor Prime. With great critical hit damage and critical hit chance, and especially excellent status proc chance, this beast will tear through groups of weaker foes and heavies alike with ease. The only real disadvantage is the Impact damage and increasing damage falloff typical for shotguns, but the weapon is meant for the times when things get personal and somebody needs their face blown off anyway.
View Stug List▾▾
Stug: This gel gun is capable of either quickly covering a large area with explosions or powering up towards one enormously powerful blast at a time. With explosions triggering status effects, high innate Corrosive damage and sticking capabilities, the Stug will annihilate anything in its way up until very high levels, where it starts to fall off with damage but its utility will remain intact. It is also possible to kill oneself with this weapon, so caution should be taken when using this beast.
View Akbronco Prime List▾▾
Akbronco Prime: Surpassing their unprimed variant for highest burst DPS ingame by a small measure, they pack extreme punch, devastating any foe coming close. This makes them best suited for obliterating heavy enemies coming at you, leaving it to a powerful primary like the Penta or the Soma to deal with swarms of weaker foes. As with all Bronco variants, despite being a shotgun, the Akbronco Prime comes with zero damage falloff, allowing for extended effectiveness even at longer ranges. It also sports high status chance for a shotgun, allowing for a hybrid build if one wishes to opt for such a thing.
View Akbronco List▾▾
Akbronco: Coming close to the highest burst DPS of any weapon ingame, only transcended by their Primed ancestor, the Akbronco should be used in pretty much the same manner as the other weapon, only with higher focus on damage and less on status, as the Prime version has double the status chance, making it much more fit for such role.
View Dual Cestra List▾▾
Dual Cestra: The dual-wielding version of the hand-hold machine gun Cestra offers a lot of DPS in a relatively accurate package of barrages of bullets. With extreme magazine size of 100 shots per clip (coming with similarly extreme reload time), it can keep its damage on for quite a while. With mainly Puncture damage output, it will remain effective even late into the game. Even despite the high recoil the weapon has after it has been fully spooled, it still remains quite accurate.
View Akbolto List▾▾
Akbolto: The akimbo version of the Bolto pistol is really similar to the Boltor Prime in terms of use. Both weapons offer loads of pure, puncture-based DPS, lack any Slash damage, and cannot reliably score critical hits or status procs (although the Akbolto is less powerful than the Boltor Prime). Thanks to this, the builds should be similar (with the mods regarding their weapon types, of course) and their use in tandem with other weapons as well. Just as the Boltor Prime should be used with a support of high-utility secondary like the Tysis, the Akbolto is best employed alongside a CC monster like the Amprex.
View Gammacor List▾▾
Gammacor: Even though its Synoid counterpart is one of the (if not the) most powerful secondaries in the game, its basic version packs a lot less of a punch. However, it still is extremely strong and capable of out-DPSing the Dual Cestra (only in terms of sustained DPS, not burst DPS) by a small merit. Also, it is an elemental weapon, meaning it can be modded easily for pure elemental build if needed.
View Telos Akbolto List▾▾
Telos Akbolto: With slightly higher damage and status chance than the standard issue Akbolto, the Arbiter of Hexis weapon offers even more offensive power for your carnage. The Truth effect is not that good, as it only adds more stamina (the health-restoration effect still occurs, of course), but still can be useful at some situations. Other than this, there is not really any difference, compared to the normal version.
View Secura Dual Cestra List▾▾
Secura Dual Cestras: Very similar to the standard clantech variant, only being different by slightly higher base damage and crit and status chance. It of course comes with the innate Sequence ability, making it capable of restoring health and adding bonus shields for half a minute.
View Scoliac List▾▾
Scoliac: Combining long range with high attack speed, the Scoliac can serve both as a powerful close- to mid-range weapon and a brilliant mobility tool, transcending even the Dual Zoren itself in coptering capabilities. Other than that, the weapon can output great damage at wide range, allowing for slashing and hacking through crowds of infested before they can even approach you.
View Halikar List▾▾
Halikar: The example of a thrown weapon done right. With it being able to knock weapons out of the hands of your enemies, it features a very unique mechanic (only Loki and syndicate-modded Nyx possess it) and can act as a partial replacement of the aforementioned frames if they are not present in the squad (do not expect it to beat them though, it is still but a one weapon and Overextended Nyx or Loki can hit the entire map, more or less). With the incredible utility it sports, the Halikar falls somewhere in between tiers 4 and 5, but ultimately falls into the higher one thanks to the coolness factor (it’s a throwing mace) and the slight homing capabilities it has.
View Gram List▾▾
Gram: After the buffs in 15.1 most of the heavy weapons became pretty powerful, actually closing to the God-Tier, since their damage is quite brutal. Gram is no exception. With very high damage, decent critical hit stats, jump and slide attack damage and good status chance, the heavy blade is a good all-around weapon suited for most situations. Also, the path the weapon walked on during time is rather interesting. Back at the early stages of WarFrame, it used to be the close combat weapon, before being substituted by Fragor and later Galatine. When Melee 2.0 struck, it became entirely obsolete, until Update 15.1 brought it back to glory.
View Scindo List▾▾
Scindo: While a lot less powerful than its Prime variant, the huge Tenno battle axe still packs incredible punch, mostly thanks to it being able to equip the Cleaving Whirlwind stance, which is capable of its infamous spin-to-win combo. The Scindo can still crit to some extent, so its damage output can be even higher than of other weapons with similar base damage. When building Scindo, one should focus mostly on pure damage, as mere 10% status chance is not enough to justify utility build.
View Serro List▾▾
Serro: This staff is a beast. Not only it has very high base damage, it also comes with the highest status chance of all melee weapons in the game and sports full innate Electricity damage. As a polearm weapon, it also has really high range, making it able to hit many enemies at once and lock them in the CC chain it constantly creates. Also, it can proc Blast damage when a jump attack hits.
View Amphis List▾▾
Amphis: The greatest value of this polearm comes from its insane innate stunning capabilities paired with high attack speed (1.3 strikes per second) and its perfect ability to zorencopter. Actually, it copters even better than the weapon which gave the strategy its name, and along with Scoliac it is the best coptering weapon in the game (and with Valkyr’s Hysteria claws, but it’s not like anyone else can actually acquire those).
View Kronen List▾▾
Kronen: One of the most powerful melee weapons in the game. It surpasses Nami Skyla in every way and comes with high enough status chance and attack speed to justify an elemental proc build. Also, it has incredible spin attack damage, the highest of all weapons to exist, closing to whooping 400. Even its base damage is rather high and capable of delivering quite the punch. Also, the blades look great when they are holstered on you Waframe’s back.
View Orthos Prime List▾▾
Orthos Prime: Standing on the borderline between tiers 4 and 5. It comes with high damage, great attack speed, somewhat decent crit (good damage but low chance) and not that bad status chance. Its main advantage are its incredible looks, which allow the Orthos Prime to clear entire rooms very quickly and without any real threat. Especially against Infested, this ancient Orthos variant will be devastating.
View Bo Prime List▾▾
Bo Prime: Coming just a tiny bit short of the God-Tier due to its damage consisting from two physical types, the originator of the Bo know to us today is extremely powerful in every way. Its attacks deal a lot base punch and can crit at least decently. In terms of status chance, it stands at the very top, being paralleled only by Serro and Jat Kittag, both of which are incredibly powerful on their own. As I stated earlier, the only reason why the Bo Prime is not in the God-Tier is its damage split between Impact and Puncture (Jat Kittag suffers from the same problem, but makes up for it with almost double the damage of Bo Prime).
View Redeemer List▾▾
Redeemer: Somewhere in between the tiers 4 and 5, landing in the higher one thanks to uniqueness of its design. It comes with good damage per swing, although with rather low attack speed, and cannot really reliably crit or apply status. However, what it can do, is blast people for 750 Blast damage, which is incredible. What is even more incredible is that this charged shot from the gunblade actually benefits from stealth bonuses, meaning that on an attack from invisibility, it will deal not 750, but 3000 base damage. Also, since the Redeemer is not a gun, it has unlimited ammo, meaning you can fire as much as you wish without any real limitations. The shots have damage falloff, though, and perish entirely after reaching the 30 meters hard range (at the time I was writing this, there was a bug which was making it being able to ignore the range limitation.
View God-Tier List▾▾
View Paris Prime List▾▾
Paris Prime: The king of all bows, the unsurpassed sniping tool of WarFrame. Almost every stat it holds is excellent, losing only in critical hit chance to Dread, and only by five percent, which does not really make all that great difference (it still can be felt though). With proper modding it is possible to one-shot heavies at the one hour mark of a T4 Survival with a headshot, utilizing the special bow multiplier for it. The charged shots have innate penetration, which allow to destroy entire waves with a single well-placed shot. Also, as arrows have immense momentum, making it possible to pin the last few enemies in defenses to the closed doors. When new wave approaches, the doors open and the impaled enemies fly towards them, possible destroying most of the wave instantly, since the momentum is not lost when closed doors are hit.
View Vectis List▾▾
Vectis: Apart from the Lanka, this is probably the best sniper rifle in the game (in terms of actual sniping, otherwise it is much better than the clantech weapon, as will be shown lower). It packs excellent damage, crit chance and crit damage, but lacks punch through which makes its older Corpus sister a better choice. The damage this weapon can peak is exceptional, but, like with all sniper rifles, it won’t be enough when level 100 enemies start to swarm you in dozens. Noteworthy is the fact that, unless modded (which will be really pointless anyway), it has only one bullet in the clip, which makes it synergize extremely well with Primed Chamber, if one can get their hands on it. What is also worth noting is that the Vectis has about the same DPS as Boltor Prime when using Heavy Caliber, making it possible to serve as an assault rifle replacement, although it will still burn through ammo very quickly if used this way. If Shred is substituted for the aforementioned Primed Chamber, the Vectis will have the highest sustained DPS of all weapons in the game, more than two times as much as the Boltor Prime.
View Amprex List▾▾
Amprex: Hands down the best CC weapon in the game. With punch through equipped, the main damage line has the potential to hit the entire wave at once, while every enemy hit will produce the additional arcs, theoretically increasing your damage and crowd control capabilities exponentially as more enemies are present. Also, the damage this weapon deals should never be underestimated, as the red crits it can produce are capable of destroying even extremely high-leveled enemies in matter of seconds, given that you use the correct elemental damage setup, even more so when utilizing the aforementioned Shred/Metal Auger trick.
View Soma List▾▾
Soma: The famous Tenno assault rifle, deemed underpowered on its release by many, only to be identified as the most powerful weapon in the game (back at that time) few weeks later. It has damage. Lots of it. With unparalleled crit chance and crit damage amongst rifles, paired with the pinpoint accuracy it sports, the Soma is best used to land constant headshots on your enemies, devastating lines of foes if used with punch through (which almost every weapon should be anyway). However, the one major downside which makes the Soma probably the weakest out of the God-Tier is that the damage is mostly dealt as Slash physical damage type, instead of the favoured Puncture. This doesn’t play any role when used in conjunction with the Tysis or a similar secondary with a way to corrode the enemy armour, however. Funny thing is that when unmodded, Soma has slightly less DPS than MK1-Braton.
View Latron Wraith List▾▾
Latron Wraith: This version of the Latron modified by the Grineer is superior to the standard Latron in every way and outdamages the Latron Prime by a small merit. It is an extremely powerful marksman rifle capable of obliterating entire groups of enemies quickly if aiming at the weakpoints, as it comes with excellent critical hit stats. Also, the status proc chance of this gun should not be underestimated, as it is only slightly lower than that of the Latron Prime, allowing it to function as either pure damage monster or a damage/status hybrid.
View Latron Prime List▾▾
Latron Prime: An excellent variant of the standard underperforming Latron marksman rifle, the Latron Prime offers much higher damage, critical hit chance, critical hit damage and status proc chance. The weapon is almost perfect in everything it does, but still loses to its Wraith brother thanks to the Grineer modified version’s higher amount of crits. When used as a hybrid between a sniper and an assault rifle, the Latron Prime will rain destruction on high-priority targets and groups of weaker enemies alike.
View Boltor Prime List▾▾
Boltor Prime: Boltor Prime isn’t a complex weapon, really. You pull the trigger and everything dies. It doesn’t get simpler than that. With 550 unmodded burst DPS consisting almost entirely of Puncture damage, this God-Tier nailgun will obliterate anything it faces, be it a flood of smaller enemies or a single huge target. The shots have great momentum and will make dead bodies fly back, possibly severely damaging everything in their path. This makes punch through especially effective, since it will theoretically double your damage. Being able to take down even the heaviest enemies with just a few shots, the Boltor Prime will only fall off after literally hours of T4 survivals, making it one of the best weapons of the game and definitely the best assault rifle in existence.
View Tysis List▾▾
Tysis: Arguably the most powerful weapon in the game, the Tysis trades offensive power for incredible amounts of utility it brings to the team. Although it comes with low damage output and is unable to crit, its status proc chance is excellent, which, paired with its innate Corrosive damage, makes the Tysis is very suitable for status-oriented builds disregarding destructive capabilities entirely in favour of heavy CC chains and utility procs. Up to three different combined elemental damage types can be modded onto this weapon, allowing for combinations successful in fulfilling their targets against any and all factions. Tysis has a single greater downside, and that is that leveling it up after it is Forma’d is just about the greatest pain in the ass in the entire game.
View Marelok List▾▾
Marelok: Although this extremely powerful pistol deals mainly Impact damage, its sheer power and damage output, paired with almost unparalleled utility, will justify its placement in the God-Tier. With near to 160 base damage per shot and 30% status chance, the weapon is excellent for damage/status hybrid builds, utilizing both its devastating offensive power and its high possibility to trigger status effects. The weapon is rather accurate, allowing for safe sniping of valuable targets from distance (one shot should be enough, if a weakspot is targeted). Overall, Marelok loses to Boltor Prime in terms of raw damage and to Tysis in term of utility, but it beats both in engages requiring combined approaches.
View Brakk List▾▾
Brakk: Offering the highest DPS in the game (it can theoretically be surpassed by an Amprex with a pure-DPS build and a punch through mod equipped and hitting two or more enemies at once or by a Vectis with a Prime Chamber mod utilized) and the third highest burst DPS in the game (surpassed by Akbronco and Akbronco Prime), the Brakk is a devastating hand cannon capable of annihilating any foe. Basically, the only downfall of the gun is its wide spread and damage falloff, which makes it only effective in close combat, so you will need some kind of protection if you wish to employ the weapon in the very late game when a single bullet means death.
View Synoid Gammacor List▾▾
Synoid Gammacor: I am a bit unsure about this one, as I do not own one and I am pretty sure I won’t be owning one in the next few weeks, mostly because I find it too boring to extensively farm for Syndicate Standing, but from the videos I have seen and the theorycrafting I have done it seems that the Cephalon Suda version of the Gammacor laser gauntlet is one of the most powerful weapons in the game. When focusing purely on damage, it can reach around 30k DPS and hold it for more than half a minute. Half a goddamned minute! What is even better, when focusing on status chance, it drops to 25k DPS, but gains incredible 95% chance to inflict a status effect per second. You see, for a continuous fire weapon, this is absolutely incredible. But, as I have said, I might be wrong, as I do not own this beauty. Yet.
View Vaykor Marelok List▾▾
Vaykor Marelok: Even more powerful than its common counterpart, which itself already is one of the strongest weapons in the God-Tier. Some of its damage has switched into the Impact damage type, which is more of a nerf than a buff, but this came at the exchange of increased magazine size and critical hit chance, and, more importantly, higher status chance. The Marelok was already absurdly powerful when utilizing hybrid builds, but now it is even easier. The innate Justice effect is really just icing on the cake.
View Dakra Prime List▾▾
Dakra Prime: I won’t venture into the debate whether Dakra Prime is or is not better than the Scindo Prime, as my opinion is severely biased by my unyielding love for this elegant blade (and also the debate would be pointless, after the 15.1 buffs for heavy melee weapons). What is a matter of fact, however, is that this sabre packs incredible damage and very easily executable combos (if you are utilizing the Crimson Dervish stance, which you should be anyway). Also, Dakra Prime is worth the God-Tier for its looks alone, if nothing else, and if you colour it in the appropriate shade of red, it will look like the Sword Scissor from KILL la KILL, which is utterly epic and deserves a special note.
View Atterax List▾▾
Atterax: An excellent substitution to Dual Ichors against infested, immensely useful in Orokin Derelicts, especially in defenses. It features almost unparalleled damage, both in terms of sheer damage output and critical hits. It also comes with exceptional range and good status chance, although this is somewhat diminished by the fact that it is a physical weapon. Overall, the only reason why it loses to the Ichors is the already mentioned damage type and less attack speed, resulting in less useful damage (it still sports greater DPS though).
View Dual Ichor List▾▾
Dual Ichor: Blazingly powerful, sporting incredible critical hit stats and excellent slide attack damage. The Ichors have their very own special ability, which allows them to deal increasing damage for as long as you keep hitting enemies, making the weapon even more of a powerhouse. Given its base Toxin elemental damage, the Dual Ichor is well suited against almost any foes, because even though Toxin deals 25% less damage to robotics, only Corpus use this health type and the faction generally tends to sport huge shields and low health, meaning that the Toxin procs should deal with them fairly easily. With Life Strike, thanks to the immense crits the Dual Ichor can output, a competent frame can become almost immortal, even under heavy fire, for as long as there are enemies you can slash and slice through.
View Galatine List▾▾
Galatine: A sword so large that your friends might think you are overcompensating something, while secretly they know you are not. Here. I said it. Actually, it was not me, but the RedText moments before the patch containing it was released. In the old melee system, which still feature and was based around the charge attack mechanic, Galatine was an utter beast. It had its charge so powerful that it singlehandedly made almost every other melee weapon in the game obsolete, except for Dual Zoren (thanks to their coptering capabilities). Melee 2.0 hurt it just as much as other weapons focused on their charge (and even more, since its charge was so powerful), but the recent patch numbered 15.1 more than doubled its damage and brought it back to its glory.
View Jat Kittag List▾▾
Jat Kittag: Only two words must be said to make you instantly buy this monster. Jet-powered hammer. A jet-powered hammer. Cool factor apart, Jat Kittag comes with the greatest damage of all melee weapons in the game (tied with Scindo Prime), highest status chance of all melee weapons in the game (tied with Serro and Bo Prime), very decent critical hit stats, excellent range and staggering effects on every hit. Basically it is sheer power in the form of a hammer. Enough said.
View Dragon Nikana List▾▾
Dragon Nikana: I know I am a bit on a thin ice here when I say that Dragon Nikana is hugely overrated, but sadly, it is true. In damage output, it cannot exceed Dakra Prime or Atterax, in utility, it cannot possibly come any close to Jat Kittag. It is most likely the weakest weapon out of all the God-Tier weapons in the game. However, that does not mean much. Dragon Nikana is still incredibly good at slashing things apart. It only suffers a little from the scythe syndrome – it attempts to do everything good, but ends up not being perfect in anything. Still, it is very, very cool to wield and use, so I will allow myself a bit of biasedness and let it into the God-Tier.
View Scindo Prime List▾▾
Scindo Prime: This weapon is ridiculous. It was ridiculous before the buffs and is even more ridiculous now. Don’t get me wrong, it is hands down the best melee weapon in the game, except for the very deep late game where Jat Kittag takes over with its massive utility. The damage this battle axe can dish out is insane. It has the highest base damage of all melee weapons in-game, decent crit stats and decent status proc chance. Along with the Cleaving Whirlwind stance, it is perfect. Perfect, but very, very boring and lacking any style, at least in my eyes. Anyone can run around, spin to win, and deal insane damage. It takes the soul of a true blademaster to rule the battlefield with a sabre. But I cannot deny the obvious power of this weapon, as much as I might dislike it.
So, this is it. I hope you liked this blog and please, do discuss in the comments below. However, if you wish to flame and are too hot-headed to bring any meaningful argument to the discussion, please do the ALS Ice-Bucket Challenge (I mean go somewhere out and cool yourself) and don’t become involved at all.I am more than aware that many people won’t agree with all my choices, as we all have our favourites and we all use different builds and play on different levels, and thus our personal experience may differ. I have tried my hardest to stay as objective as possible, although it is possible that I did not manage to do so in ever regard. Also, if there is any factual mistake in the blog, feel free to tell me, after all, this paper is more than a hundred thousand characters long... (There shouldn’t be one, though, as I tried to double-check all the facts I am presenting, if it was possible.) See you next time,
utheraptor
Important thing to note: This blog post is around a year old, and some of the things are outdated now. However, fret not, everything (literally, everything) has been answered in the comments below.
Note: a new version of the God-Tier was released here. Be sure to check it out.