Let’s talk about 'em! I’ll drop a post underneath and update it as I get more weapons.
Only got synapse so far due to the good base elemental dmg value offer, I am kinda whelmed so far. It has good punch through but no chaining on the beam so it still feels like a single target weapon. The unique gives bonus dmg on headshot that is hard to utilize with it, especially if you go for a status build with crux, but I imagine the way to go with be crit due to good base stats for it (well, except damage), possibly with acuity, maybe its multiplicative with the unique effect? I’m pretty bad at this buildcraft lol
The single target damage seems pretty good but it’s probably less effective against any enemies with damage attenuation due to it being a beam weapon. The damage also seems very high when dealing with certain types of weak points like the CRT’s on the Techrot Galliflex.
Still in the process of formaing it, but I’m using Primed Shred and a blast+acuity build so that it turns lines of enemies into lines of explosions. Damage output is quite good. Main way to abuse it is with Arcane Crepuscular due to its ludicrous 40% base CC, which comes out around 320% CC minimum with Acuity + Galv Scope and a single on-kill stack. Due to the punchthrough, blast builds will usually have several stacks at all times.
Other than that, while it has kind of low status for a beam, I think it’s a more offensive thing primer/crowd deleter than the Tenet Glax. Native corr means you can either do a rainbow build with mag-corr-viral, or do mag-corr-cold with a single mod.
Ehh, seems nicher and nicher. Its a crit powerhouse but i’m not really sold on the blast build since there aren’t just enough mod slots to focus on both crit and status, and innate corrosive dilutes the status effects, and invisibilty for crepuscular is annoying to maintain in most cases.
I much prefer glax but then again I only use it on frost and citrine, feels like it has good synergy there. Maybe synapse is the same for cyte
Well, you don’t have to run blastcuity, I just used it for levelling since it’s the highest KPM option available in my opinion. I tried a pure Frostbite build with no acuity and it’s also quite performant.
What sort of build are you thinking of when you say there isn’t room for crit and status? For crit I do: acuity, galv scope, vital sense. For status I do heat+cold and elementalist, leaving two flex slots. In my opinion, status dilution doesn’t matter as much for Blast since the only proc that really matters is the one that’s on the enemy when it dies and takes all its friends with it.
On the crit build, I think you could put Elementalist and be done with it. Due to the way Blast works, getting even a single proc on an enemy before they die is equivalent to another 2.7x modded base damage from Elementalist. While weapon only has 15% status per tick, and I think ~8% blast per tick, the tick rate is quite high and I find in practice I was reliably proccing anyway.
What’s the performance like on your blast build? I think if you play frames that can debuff enemies you can dump Serration to free up a slot for a crit mod, since Aptitude just needs a handful of weak enemies to get the ball rolling. Running both is for multiplicative GunCO weapons, which no beams are.
It’s hard to tell because in actual 1999 missions everything kinda explodes right away anyway but the 2nd blast build (with removed serration and added crit mods) seems to perform better. Crux definitely makes it feel better due to ammo efficiency, and the blast is extremely easy to stack up resulting in area clears as expected, so in missions where you don’t need single target damage and it’s easy enough to even accidentally hit a weakpoint… it’s not that bad at all. I also replaced critical delay with galvanized scope as recommended, aiming down sights is annoying but really worth it in the end
Without serration you really need a primer, either from wf abilities or companion and at that point anything will kill too so i dunno how flexible it really is, could be just carried by other mechanics at this point.
edit: I just tried bassocyst - well, you can read all of this above or you can just take the improved arca plasmor and press LMB to vaporize everything in front of you in a second. I’m not even done with formaing it and it’s clearing every mission better than my other primaries. The alt attack doesn’t seem to be worth using but the basic attack modded for crit, blast and fire rate is just bonkers
If you’re finding ADS annoying, it might not be worth it. Always optimise for fun! Galv Scope and similar mods are more like enhancements for a specific playstyle for people that already enjoy it. I like aiming because it induces a flow state for me, the extreme damage output from Galv Scope+Acuity builds is just a little extra seasoning, haha.
But yeah, Bassocyst is overshadowing most of the primaries I think. I have a feeling Pathocyst is going to be washing most of the melees out too.
Unlocked so far:
- Catabolyst
- Motovore
- Torxica
- Mire
- Pox
- Sporothrix
- Hema
Catabolyst
Yup, it’s the Catabolyst! It was already strong, but now it’s ridiculous. Synth Charge still works, so the grenades still hit in the millions. Now you have three of them. Built this for Blast/Fortifier to keep me safe and crowd shredding.
Motovore
This one is interesting. The 6x multiplier on physical mods means your elemental weightings will be bad if you choose to use IPS mods. Which you might want to strongly consider, given the passive essentially turns IPS mods into 60/60s: slash gives +100% status chance, puncture gives +1.5m range, impact gives +40% attack speed.
Naturally, I tried a Doughty build immediately, and this infested scooticle immediately started hitting in the millions. Can’t wait to see what it does once I have some forma in it.
Update: After completing my forma build, yeah, lethal slams with the Doughty build. Heavy slams seem to have lower status chance than regular swings, and also evenly split IPS, so I think they want to discourage Influence on this. Still, having a high power physical weapon is really neat for a change of pace.
Update Batch 2:
Torxica
Very powerful, like a baby Dual Toxies. Hit like trucks with an Acuity build. The spreading spores slowing enemies makes it easier to line up precision hits, and the spores also apply damage vuln which is fantastic for Blast builds.
Mire
Hoo boy. The Coda trait lets these independently apply Tox on slams regardless of modded elements, including Tox-derived secondaries. You know what that means: viral/tox slamfluence babeyyyyyyyy. Has a Blight mod from Red Veil which is a nice midpoint until you get Primed Fever if you opt for a non-influence thing deleter build. Sky high 40% Status Chance is high enough to support multiprocs too.
Update Batch 3:
Sporothrix
It’s the Sporothrix Prime basically! Viral self-primer, now with whatever your heart desires due to the Adversary element now available. No notes, the Sporothrix was already an excellent sniper and this is just that but moreso.
Pox
These are neat. One of the embed-and-dot type weapons, like the Mutalist Cernos. Also like the Mutalist Cernos it has a lot of goofy multiplicative interactions, notably from Secondary Shiver. Thrown weapons so they have very fast reload, so you can blanket groups of enemies in clouds of dooooooom. As I level them I’m trying both a blast build and a Shiver/Acuity build, the Acuity managed to proc a 100m Xata hit on my Ivara, so there’s something happening there I think, lol.
Update Batch 4:
Hema
Hema my beloved. It’s even Hemaier now! Even straight out of the oven, the interaction between Deadhead, Acuity and multi-CO was giving me hits in the millions at times (5 mil in my case due to Nova). Base CC is almost doubled to 20% and the CD is a bit more generous at 2.3x. Overall, a crit build should be over twice as strong (according to the wiki’s comparison calculations).
One thing I want to test is if the holster health drain is a reliable way of proccing Avenger, because if so this is going to be a hilariously effective thing killer.
Rotation B weapons.
Unlocked so far:
- Bassocyst
- Synapse
- Tysis
- Caustacyst
- Hirudo
- Pathocyst
Update Batch 1:
Bassocyst
Oh my god? Probably my new primary that I’m going to weld to all my frames and never change. It’s Blast Plasmor basically. Altfire has autotargeting in a cone and inflicts Blast, Magnetic and Impact and modded and innate(?) elements. Enemies open to Mercies will trigger a teleport and the Mercy animation. Hits like a truck too, straight out of the oven I was already hitting like 300k.
Caustacyst
Pretty fast for a scythe. Can crit now for Duplicate enjoyers. The sludge waves scale nicely, and the persistent hazard left by the sludge pools could be interesting for more CC-oriented setups like Radfluence. Be interested to see if stealth Xata can push the pools further, but that’s a later project.
Update Batch 2:
Hirudo
Finally, a good muckin’ Sparring weapon. This entire melee type is actually cracked since its first heavy is a 400% slam, which means it has a 12x heavy with Seismic Wave. For context, this is only otherwise shared by Sun & Moon and Hespar. Normal heavy slams are only 9x with Seismic Wave. In addition, it feeds you health and max health, which I think means it’s definitively Inaros’s BiS melee? I don’t know, I’ll let the Inaros players weigh in on that one.
Like daggers, the stance is deceptively fast, so you can churn out Discipline’s Merit tennokai heavies extremely fast. Just an absolute monster of a weapon.
It has a Puncture bias too for Doughty builds.
Low status means you really want to do a 12x combo build if you’re going to try and Influence nuke, but that’s fine, because Sparring is a cool weapon type.
Pathocyst
I don’t like glaives that much anymore, but the original Pathocyst was the secret king of the glaives (since 2022 in fact due to the Veilbreaker armour removal buffs, and completely due to the Jade Echoes armour caps), and this is just a direct upgrade. Everything is dead when you throw this bad boy. Influence, Retaliation, Duplicate, the choices are endless, the havoc relentless. And you get the cool pistol synergy glaive mods to play with too!
Due to the progenitor element system, the ability to set innate electric means you have very flexible and fun builds too if you’re going the Influence route. I actually rolled Cold so I’ve been mucking around with a Power Throw + Melee Retaliation rebound build, and it will occasionally trigger Worthy Comradery crits in the millions, so that’s hilarious.
Stop using Glaive Prime basically. The only other contender is Halikar Wraith, and this is much more available.
Update Batch 3:
Synapse
The critmonster is back. This thing hits hard, and it has exceptional range too with 37 m, or 49 with Sinister Reach. I may wind up using it extensively on Ivara.
Tysis
I’ve had this equipped since it came out, and it’s taken me this long to test and commit to any builds. Kind of a goofy weapon, clearly oriented towards priming with its exceptional status chance and secret hidden multi-proccing ability due to the darts. I think the darts might be bugged because they trigger several statuses up front and then just do dry damage ticks after the fact 🤷
For damage, I settled on a basic Fortifier build as well as an Enervate build.
For proccing, I tried a Shiver build but it was not performant at all. I think for a corr-mag-cold utility build you’d go for Encumber.
For a hybrid approach I settled on a corr-mag-viral-heat, which wound up with pretty exceptional damage output.
The Coda Sporothirx seems like it is just a very minor buff over the base version stat wise. Kind of wish they changed the weapon a little more like adding a second zoom level to the Coda version.
Most snipers have visual bugs with their scopes currently, the sporothrix is one of the worse ones where the scope elements will vibrate after taking a shot.
For months, I’ve been saying my first was going to hirudo. Boy, oh boy did that work out just as I planned it
Hirudo is such a fantastic weapon I’m pumped to get an upgraded version.
Just a few more days. The next rotation is going to be unreal. I personally can’t wait for the Pathocyst!
