In today’s article, I’ll be giving you details about some of the best weapons in Warframe and where or how you can get them. This list will have 5 of each weapon class: Primary, Secondary, and Melee respectively. In each entry, I’ll be going over why a weapon is good and what it is good at along with a basic mod list for the weapon to improve the weapon even more.
As a disclaimer, these weapons may not fit your playstyle or you may have a weapon that is better at a specific scenario than these weapons but the weapons in this list are the best all-around weapons for their class or a specific scenario.
To start this list off, I’ll be going over the top 5 primaries and what makes each weapon good, in its own right as well as why each one is in the spot it is.
#5. Rubico/ Rubico Prime
Excalibur Prime ready to pop heads with Rubico Prime.
Weapon Type: Sniper
How to Obtain: Blueprint on Market for 20,000 Credits
Mod List: Vital Sense, Serration, Critical Delay, Heavy Caliber, Split Chamber, Vigilante Armaments, High Voltage, Hellfire, Primary Merciless, Twitch
The Rubico, and its primed variant, is an excellent choice for dealing super high damage to weak points on enemies and bosses alike with an extremely high critical hit multiplier of 3x, the highest of all the sniper rifles. This weapon is best used while farming huge enemies that you need to deal massive damage to weak points with. This weapon should always be on you when you go hunting eidolons for a smooth and successful hunt.
Not only is this weapon extremely useful, but it’s also very easy to obtain by buying the blueprint off the market to quickly, and easily, upgrade your MR. The primed variant, however, is vaulted and can’t be obtained currently, unless you want to spend your hard-earned platinum to obtain the parts.
To start off modding this weapon, you’re going to want to find a mod that increases your critical damage. Vital Sense is the highest increase of critical damage you can put on this weapon and is a perfect choice to add for high critical damage. Hammershot is also a good mod to pair with the Rubico as it increases both critical damage and critical chance although that mod is rare and only drops in Nightmare Mode maps and doesn’t increase the critical damage as much as Vital Sense.
You will also want a pure damage increase in the form of the Serration mod (Serration or Primed Serration; Amalgam Serration is fine but has less damage than the other serration mods) and Heavy Caliber to maximize your base damage possibility. To increase the damage even higher, you will want radiation damage so High Voltage and Hellfire are the way to go (Any heat and electricity mods are welcome).
Next, just to double the amount of damage you do per shot, you will want multishot mods which is why Split Chamber and Vigilante Armaments are included in the mod list. Not only will this double your damage, outright, but Vigilante Armaments also can enhance your critical damage!
Finally, I added Twitch as the exilus slot mod for the Rubico Prime but for the standard Rubico you would have to change the polarity of the exilus slot to fit Twitch but this is just to have a bit extra in the weapon and is unneeded. As for the arcane, I would suggest Primary Merciless to increase the damage even further. Both an arcane and an exilus mod are not necessarily needed, but they can be added for an additional boost to the weapon.
#4. Amprex
Weapon Type: Beam Rifle
How to Obtain: Research from Energy Lab in Clan Dojo
Mod list: Serration, Heavy Caliber, Split Chamber, Vigilante Armaments, Malignant Force, Point Strike, Vital Sense, Hammer Shot, Primary Merciless, Sinister Reach
The Amprex is an amazing beam rifle that is perfect for survival missions because of its amazing crowd control abilities and innate electricity properties. The Amprex is just a generally good weapon for killing Corpus enemies with its high critical chance and good critical multiplier putting this as one of the best beam rifles overall. Thankfully, this weapon is very easy to obtain by buying the blueprint from the Energy Lab in your clan’s dojo but that does mean you solo players will have a hard time getting this weapon.
To mod this weapon, you’ll want a lot of flat damage. Start with the usual Serration and Heavy Caliber (with this weapon, there is almost no loss in accuracy from installing this mod) as well as Primary Merciless as this weapon will gain 12 stacks very quickly meaning another 360% damage increase! Of course, to maximize damage even further, you’ll want to add multishot with Split Chamber and Vigilante Armaments.
Let’s bring up that crit chance and damage with Point Strike, Vital Sense, and finally, Hammershot to bring out those over-the-top orange numbers. Next, to compensate for the Amprex’s shorter range, you can install Sinister Reach to increase the range from 18 meters to 30 meters.
Finally, while the Amprex is amazing at dealing with Corpus enemies, electricity doesn’t do a lot against alloy armor like that of some of the harder-hitting grineer. To solve this problem, we’ll add a bit of toxin damage with Malignant Force to make this weapon deal massive amounts of corrosive damage to deal with those pesky bullet sponges known as the Bombard and Napalm.
#3. Acceltra
Weapon Type: Rocket Launcher
How to Obtain: Demolisher Infested; Dark Sector, Ur, Uranus
Mod List: Terminal Velocity, Split Chamber, Vital Sense, Cryo Rounds, Heavy Caliber, Serration, Point Strike, Vigilante Armaments, Infected clip, Primary Merciless
This weapon is great for mid-range crowd control as it is, after all, a mini rocket launcher! The Acceltra has extremely high damage, critical chance, critical multiplier, and a fast fire rate that mixes well with Gauss or any other warframe you choose to use. It’s a unique weapon that not only boosts the reload speed while sprinting (doubly effective while using Gauss) it also uses the standard rifle ammo type, rather than the more rare sniper rifle ammo which makes up for its problem of lower maximum ammo capacity.
To keep with our theme of speed on this one, we’ll start with the exilus mod Terminal Velocity, increasing the projectile speed of this weapon so Gauss won’t stagger himself as often. Of course, to increase damage we have Serration and Heavy Caliber (this is a rocket launcher, why would you care about pinpoint accuracy?). Let’s double that damage with multishot and add Split Chamber and Vigilante Armaments.
Good, quickly, install Vital Sense and Point strike to make use of that high crit chance and multiplier. Finally, let’s make this one go viral by adding Infected Clip and Cryo rounds and this weapon should be tearing through waves of enemies in no time!
#2. Proboscis Cernos
Weapon Type: Bow
How to Obtain: Obtained from market for 30,000 credits
Mod List: Vigilante Supplies, Serration, Split Chamber, Heavy Caliber, Infected Clip, Cryo Rounds, Hellfire, Vigilante Armaments, Vile Acceleration
Let’s be honest, the Cernos is a good bow and the Proboscis form is even better with exploding viral arrows that pull nearby enemies in before exploding allowing some cool combos with your warframe abilities! Despite some of the downsides of the bow dealing viral damage, this weapon benefits much more like a combo weapon with either your secondary weapon, melee weapon, or warframe ability. This weapon is especially good for farming with a Pilfering Swarm Hydroid and you should always take it with you to collect materials or rare drops from enemies.
The mod list for this weapon is a bit different than our last entries but is still quite similar in the fact that we’ll need damage in the form of Serration and Heavy Caliber. This bow is going to be mostly used for farming so it doesn’t need to rely on critical damage; instead, let’s turn this bow into a fast-firing explosive bow with the help of Vile Acceleration, making this bow fire quite fast.
The weapon already has viral damage in it, so let’s just boost the viral aspect even more with Hellfire and Infested Clip. Let’s add a little cryo damage in there with Cryo Rounds. To finish the build, we need a bit of multishot in the form of Split Chamber and Vigilante Armaments. Vigilante Supplies seem a bit weird, you say? Trust me, this bow will eat your ammo, so it’s better to have this mod to help get even more ammo to nuke those enemies.
#1. Cedo
Weapon Type: Shotgun
How to Obtain: From Father with Entrati standing
Mod List: Vigilante Supplies, Critical Deceleration, Galvanized Hell, Ravage, Shotgun Spazz, Hunter Munitions, Galvanized Savvy, Toxic Barrage, Chilling Grasp
When looking at this weapon, based on the stats, you would be less than impressed at this shotgun but when adding mods, this shotgun can easily deal more damage than most other primary weapons in the game. This weapon has a unique ability to deal 60% bonus damage for EACH unique status effect on an enemy combos very well with both Lavos’ abilities and the weapon’s secondary fire which has a chance to proc several different status effects.
For starters, the weapon’s ammo type isn’t as common as a rifle’s ammo type so Vigilante Supplies is a good exilus mod to start with (although if held by Lavos, this weapon has this effect without any mods). This weapon benefits very well from crits so we add Critical Deceleration and Ravage to increase the damage and chance to deal a critical shot.
To combo off of those crits, you’ll want to add Hunter Munitions; a mod that has a chance to inflict slash on an enemy for every crit you hit, and with those last mods, you’ll be doing plenty of crits. To fix the fire rate that Critical Deceleration broke, we’ll add Shotgun Spazz to make the fire rate far above what it was originally, making this weapon shoot very fast and hit very hard.
To add another status effect, go with Chilling Grasp and Toxic Barrage to not only give you a lot of Viral damage but also increase your chance to proc status effects making the gun even stronger. We’ll add Primary Merciless to get even more damage to this weapon making it far and beyond what its baseline stats would let you believe.
Finally, let’s focus on the two galvanized mods, Galvanized Hell and Galvanized Savvy. You could easily replace these with Shotgun Savvy and Hell’s Chamber but the galvanized forms have bonus effects that benefit this gun immensely.
Next up, I’ll be going over the secondary list as well as telling you which secondary pairs well with your choice in a primary weapon.
#5. Tenet Spirex
Weapon Type: Pistol
How to Obtain: Defeat a Sister of Parvos who has this weapon
Mod List: Pistol Ammo Mutation, Hornet Strike, Lethal Torrent, Pistol Pestilence, Frostbite, Barrel Diffusion, Pistol Gambit, Target Cracker, Hemorrhage, Secondary Deadhead
The Tenet Spirex is a slightly newer weapon but it’s still amazing, in its own right, despite the lower accuracy and slow reload times. This weapon is insanely powerful for a sidearm and explodes on impact causing a guaranteed impact to proc on enemies. The explosions of this weapon proc the impact chance separately from the initial impact and can even hit enemies through walls!
As for mods, treat this pistol like a sniper and go for headshots because it will increase the weapons reload speed so you can focus on pure damage from this weapon with the mod Hornet Strike. Of course, this weapon has extremely high crit damage and chance so boost those up with Target Cracker and Pistol Gambit.
To increase the damage even further, include Barrel Diffusion as well as Lethal Torrent to maximize the DPS of this sidearm. As for what elements to put in, go with Pistol Pestilence and Frostbite for viral damage and the extra status chance. Of course, Pistol Ammo Mutation is good for getting more ammo and Hemorrhage is perfect for a weapon with guaranteed impact procs to get a slash to proc on those enemies. As this weapon should be used to hit headshots, a Secondary Deadhead is a good choice to gain more damage!
This weapon, with its status effect procs, is perfect to pair with the Cedo to get even more damage out of your primary! That is if you don’t kill the enemies with the first shot of this weapon.
#4. Tenet Diplos
Weapon Type: Dual Pistols
How to Obtain: Defeat a Sister of Parvos who has this weapon
Mod List: Pistol Ammo Mutation, Barrel Diffusion, Magnum Force, Lethal Torrent, Hydraulic Crosshairs, Hornet Strike, (Element mod of your choice), Target Cracker, Pistol Gambit, Secondary Merciless
The Tenet Diplos are a pair of machine-gun pistols that can lay down some serious fire. This sidearm is extremely accurate and even has a lock-on feature when aiming that can target up to 8 enemies to fire seeking-rounds. Some may dislike that the seeking rounds aim for the body, but so long as you fire before you aim, the lock-on feature won’t activate. Even when you’re using your melee weapon or primary weapon, this gun will reload itself for you while holstered so if you dump a mag into a crowd of enemies, you can go back to your primary and lay waste to the rest of them, no problem!
As for mods, Start with Pistol Ammo Mutation to collect more ammo as well as Hornet Strike and Magnum Force for higher damage. Crit is your next important stat to increase with Target Cracker, Pistol Gambit, and Hydraulic Crosshairs (I would recommend going for the Galvanized Crosshairs mod instead, but Hydraulic Crosshairs works just fine).
Next, go for multishot with Barrel Diffusion and Lethal Torrent to double the damage. The last thing is to choose any pure elemental damage mod (preferably one that matches the element of your weapon for maximum effect) to finish this weapon off. The Tenet Diplos is a good secondary to pair with any of your primaries!
#3. Nukor/ Kuva Nukor
Weapon Type: Pistol
How to Obtain: Defeat Kuva Lich that has the weapon
Mod List: Ruinous Extension, Hornet Strike, Barrel Diffusion, Lethal Torrent, Target tracker, Pistol Pestilence, Frostbite, Heated Charge, Pistol Gambit, Secondary Merciless
The Nukor was a great secondary for almost any situation with its insanely high damage potential but the Kuva Nukor improves on this with higher crit chance, status chance, crit multiplier, magazine size, and range at the cost of slightly lower damage. This weapon also improves on its predecessor by being able to chain its beam to up to 2 other targets making it an amazing crowd control weapon.
For mods, I would highly suggest Ruinous Extension as an exilus mod. The polarity may not match, but it helps this weapon to be an even better killing machine! As for damage mods, Hornet Strike is all you should need as this build will rely heavily on crits and elemental damage.
For crits, go with the usual combo of Target Cracker, Pistol Gambit, and the Secondary Merciless arcane. Multishot doubles this weapon's raw damage and we’ll be using Lethal Torrent and Barrel Diffusion to achieve this. With your elemental damage, the best mods are going to be Pistol Pestilence and Frostbite for their elements and status chance and Heated Charge for its flat elemental damage.
#2. Kompressa
Weapon type: Pistol
How to Obtain: From Roky with Ventkids standing
Mod List: Lethal Momentum, Sure Shot, Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Expel Grinner, Magnum Force, Jolt, Pistol Pestilence, Heated Charge, Secondary Merciless
This weapon is the signature weapon for Yareli and hits extremely hard with sticky bubbles that explode with viral damage. This weapon is amazing for clearing large crowds with its innate multishot of 4, large ammo reserves, fast reload speed, and high-status chance making it easy to proc that viral damage on every enemy in your way.
Lethal Momentum is a very good mod for this weapon, making those bubbles move much faster toward the enemy making up for the travel time of the normal bubbles. Sure Shot helps proc that viral damage even more but with the galvanized form, Galvanized Shot, the weapon gains much more damage the more status effects the enemy is afflicted with making this version of the weapon pair extremely well with the Cedo.
For extra damage, we need Magnum Force to increase the overall damage of this weapon while Expel Grineer can be exchanged with any other Expel type mod, depending on what enemies you are going against, making the weapon extremely versatile throughout the star chart. This weapon already has multishot which means it will benefit even more from Lethal Torrent and Barrel Diffusion making the weapon quickly fill the screen with bubbles.
As for elemental mods, Jolt and Pistol Pestilence both add an element as well as increase the status chance of the weapon while Heated Charge adds flat heat damage to the weapon turning it into a killing machine.
#1. Cycron/ Tenet Cycron
Weapon Type: Pistol
How to Obtain: Researched in Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
Mod List: Reflex Draw, Sure Shot, Barrel Diffusion, Lethal Torrent, Frostbite, Pistol Pestilence, Heated Charge, Scorch, Expel Grineer, Secondary Merciless
The Cycron and its Tenet counterpart are some of the most fun to use and useful secondary weapons you could get your hands on and are both easy to obtain. This Pistol may not be able to benefit from ammo increasing mods but it makes up for that by needing no ammo! This weapon quickly regenerates ammo after letting go of the trigger for a second making its ammo essentially infinite!
The mods for this weapon are similar to the last weapon in this list as the weapon has an incredibly high-status chance ranking 4th highest status chance of all pistols so to compliment that, use Sure Shot (again, Galvanized Shot would be best here). Despite radiation making the enemies attack each other, it would be best to add more elements with Frostbite, Pistol Pestilence, Scorch, and Heated Charge as well as further increasing the chance of this proc-ing in a fight!
To increase the overall damage, make sure to add Barrel Diffusion and Lethal Torrent to spread those procs faster to all enemies around you. As this weapon is perfect to pair with the Cedo, Reflex Draw will help you pull out that shotgun MUCH faster to put the finishing touch on all those tougher enemies. The Expel mod on this weapon can be exchanged to whatever enemy type you are currently facing or replaced with damage increasing mod like Magnum Force or Hornet Strike. Finally, might as well use Secondary Merciless as your arcane to get even more damage for every kill.
Finally, we have our list of melee weapons. Remember, your choice of weapons may be different depending on your playstyle but I will try to cater to different types of builds with each weapon.
#5. Reaper Prime
Weapon Type: Scythe
How to Obtain: Vaulted
Mod List: Reaping Spiral, Condition Overload, Berserker Fury, Voltaic Strike, Fever Strike, Blood Rush, Gladiator Might, Organ Shatter, Sacrificial Steel
This scythe goes great with all of your edgy-themed warframe fashions and is an amazing weapon as well as having high stats all around! It has the highest critical chance of all scythes, high critical chance, is tied for the highest critical multiplier with the scythe Hate, high slash damage, high-status chance, and is tied for the highest attack speed of all scythes! This scythe is even better than it looks thankfully (and it looks great btw, it must have a strict diet).
Wow, Reaper Prime has the same stance polarity as Reaping Spiral. Weird. Let’s use that as our stance mod for this weapon. The only damage-increasing mod that’s going in this build is Condition Overload which increases melee damage by 80% per status on an enemy which pairs amazingly with a lot of our top-tier weapons in this list!
Berserker Fury will increase the, already fast, attack speed of this weapon to a max of 70% faster, when maxed out, just for killing enemies with it. To give this weapon some elemental damage, let’s add Fever Strike and Voltaic Strike which adds corrosive damage to this weapon. Voltaic Strike also increases our status chance which is further increased by Blood Rush to make it pair well with Condition Overload.
Finally, to add crit chance and damage, I suggest Gladiator Might and Organ Shatter for flat crit damage increase and Sacrificial Steel to add a lot of crit chance (True Steel also works if you do not have room for Sacrificial Pressure).
#4. Nami Skyla/ Nami Skyla Prime
Weapon Type: Dual Sword
How to Obtain: Researched at the Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
Mod List: Swirling Tiger, Blood Rush, Vicious Frost, Virulent Scourge, Drifting Contact, Berserker Fury, Pressure Point, Fury, Condition Overload
This entry mostly goes to Nami Skyla Prime as it is better, almost, across the board but the Nami Skyla and Nami Skyla Prime can both be outfitted with the same mods, however, the Nami Skyla will not be quite as good. The Damage of the Nami Skyla Prime is the third-highest damage of all dual swords with the highest attack speed, making it very good at dealing high DPS during a fight.
Swirling Tiger is used in this build solely for its neutral combo but can be exchanged for any stance mod you enjoy. With this weapon, we will use Condition Overload to combo with your secondary and primary weapon as well as Pressure Point for extra damage on top of that. To further increase the DPS of this weapon we’ll add Berserker Fury and Fury to make this fast swinging weapon swing even faster.
As far as statuses go, you’ll want Drifting Contact and Blood Rush, both of which combo very well with each other. To add elements, go with Vicious Frost and Virulent Scourge, just to add even more status chance to this already amazing weapon.
#3. Nikana/ Dragon Nikana
Weapon Type: Nikana
How to Obtain: Researched in Tenno Lab of Clan Dojo
Mod List: Blind Justice, Condition Overload, Blood Rush, North Wind, Fever Strike, Pressure Point, Organ Shatter, Weeping Wounds, Fury
If you’ve always had the urge to be a space samurai, then this weapon is right up your alleyway. This entry is favored toward Nikana Prime, but the Dragon Nikana is a direct upgrade of the Nikana and the mod list can be used directly among all 3 versions. This space katana is the best Nikana in the game, followed closely by Skiajati only losing out in status chance and attack speed to it.
Blind Justice is a great stance mod for its combo potential and it matches the polarity of the slot, meaning more space for mods! For damage, equip Pressure Point (Sacrificial Pressure is also fine if you want it here) and Condition Overload to maximize the synergy of this weapon with your other weapons. Of course, increasing the DPS with Fury is the best thing you could do to push this weapon further.
For those high crits, install Organ Shatter and Blood Rush to make the chance of crits even higher per hit in your combo! Finally, for statuses, use Weeping Wounds to increase your chance of proc-ing statuses as well as North Wind and Fever Strike for viral damage.
#2. Kronen/ Kronen Prime
Weapon Type: Tonfa
How to Obtain: Buy blueprint from the market for 65,000 credits
Mod List: Sovereign Outcast, Voltaic Strike, Pressure Point, Condition Overload, Blood Rush, Organ Shatter, Fever Strike, Berserker Fury, Weeping Wounds
The Kronen Prime is an amazing combo weapon with fast attacks and has the second-highest base damage of all tonfas and, with the right build, can destroy even Steel Path enemies with ease. The Kronen can still use this build, but will not have as high damage output as the primed variant.
Sovereign Outcast may not fit with the stance polarity of this weapon, but it is a really good choice for fighting in crowds of enemies. The rest of the mods in this weapon have already been gone over, but the build is as solid as it comes, in terms of combo damage and is easily paired with any of our secondaries or primaries in this list.
#1. Glaive/ Glaive Prime
Weapon Type: Glaive
How to Obtain: From Nightwave Offerings
Mod List: Astral Twilight, Pressure Point, Killing Blow, Sacrificial Steel, Organ Shatter, Power Throw, Volatile Quick Return, Corrupt Charge, Smite Grineer
The Glaive and Glaive Prime are both great weapons, and can be used alongside a secondary weapon for a truly intimidating appearance and they are even more deadly in a fight! While the Glaive is still a good weapon, the Glaive Prime wins out in its usefulness but the Glaive is by no means bad and can be used with the same build.
Astral Twilight is a great stance mod that fits the polarity of this weapon giving you more room for higher-cost mods. This build has several damage mods; Pressure Point for flat damage, Killing Blow for explosively powerful heavy attacks, and Power Throw to increase the damage done when you throw this weapon! The Smite mod can be exchanged for any other Smite mod, depending on the enemies you face for even more damage against them.
Volatile Quick Return turns your glaive into a highly accurate grenade, making this an excellent crowd control weapon! For crits, Sacrificial Steel and Organ Shatter are your best choices for the most damage possible. Finally, Corrupt Charge sets your combo to 30 for even more damage, rounding out this build into an amazing crowd control weapon to use with your choice of secondary.
To finish our list of the best weapons, I wanted to remind you that these weapons are not your end-all-be-all weapons and can be interchanged with many others but this is a good starting place to make a new build from or if you just wanted to know what some of the best general weapons are.
You May Also Be Interested In:
- Warframe: Best Warframes, Ranked Weakest To Strongest (Warframe Tier List)
- Top 10 Warframe Best Primary Weapons (And How to Get Them)
- [Top 5] Warframe Best Arch-guns And How To Get Them
- [Top 5] Warframe Best Melee Weapons And How To Get Them
- [Top 5] Warframe Best Kuva Weapons And How To Get Them
- [Top 11] Warframe Best Weapons And How To Get Them
