Help Optimizing a Kitgun?

[SlapAlot]

Hi all, first time posting so sorry for any weird formatting or anything.

I've been playing on and off for a long time, so I have a few things and know a little bit, but I'm trying to make a build that can do steel path finally. I'm working on a Nekros build since he's one of my favorite frames, and I was planning on focusing more on his 4 with Nourish off the Helminth etc., and wanted to try and use the Theorem and Residual mods with a kitgun. My current one can somewhat deal with the level ~115 normal enemies in tier 5 bounties in Sanctum, but it still struggles a ton with the larger enemies or any Eximus.

Right now I am using a Rattleguts/Bellows/Lovetap secondary. My mods are: Lethal Torrent, Barrel Diffusion, Primed Pistol Gambit, Hornet Strike, Pistol Pestilence, Frostbite, Scorch, and Sure Shot. I only have the toxic Residual Arcane on it at the moment, though I'm wondering if the Cold might be better just for some CC. The second arcane slot is open right now and I don't have an exilus mod at the moment either.

I know crit and bleed are strong, but I don't know how to stack damage for late game that well. I know I can take out the viral since I'll have Nourish, but are there other obvious issues with the build that are stopping it from doing better? I'm not expecting it to be some crazy room clear, I just want to be able to take down Eximus and other stronger enemies so I can make shadows of them.

Thank you!

[Graavarg]

My advice would be to get riven first, then roll it until it is "good enough", and then build the kitgun according to the stats on your riven.

This allows you calculate, in advance, stuff like crit chance, crit damage and status chance, and include stuff like fire rate, multishot, beam distance etc. in your deliberations.

The one thing that differentiates modular weapons from normal ones is the option to plan and build a weapon according to the buffs you will use on it (and with it), and the one thing that can vary the most is a riven.

Rolling a riven to get some specific stats can be insanely frustrating and down-right impossible (since it depends on RNG + Kuva), so going the other way (rolling first and then building a weapon with stats that fits the riven) is the intelligent and humane way to do it... 😉.

[CephalonCarnage]

I have a rattleguts/gibber/splat which works beautifully. The reason is the firerate, along with the usual extra mods and Arcane Pistoleer. 60% chance of ammo efficiency on headshots means you always get headshots as there's so many bullets flying, and that means infinite ammo on a gun that does a ton of damage in aggregate. It is the crazy room clear once you get going

Now admittedly I have a +cc riven, but TBH kitgun rivens are almost worthless, so go get one. You will also want Secondary Merciless for the extra damage. I also like Pax Charge on it for QoL reasons but YMMV.

Get Galvanised Diffusion to replace Barrel Diffusion. Creeping Bullseye works better for that extra CC.

[Nira]

Yeah cold one is probably gonna help you out more, cold procs are actually pretty decent at slowing enemies down these days too.

Rattleguts really needs punch through in more dense content. I think I rolled a riven that was basically Lethal Torrent with punch through and negative zoom, seems to work well!

As for modding, I'd take Primed Heated Charge over Scorch. 165% element damage is a big ol' boost.

As it's typically a high-status fast-firing weapon, you could probably swap Hornet Strike for Galvanized Shot, but would need a separate damage arcane (Deadhead is my first choice but merciless would work).

And lastly, until you get the riven, Galvanized Crosshairs or Sharpened Bullets might be good if you don't mind aiming.

[Hexerin]

Bear in mind that the elements from your Residual fields, when applied to your Theorem, will combine with any modded elements on the weapon. So with your triple elements you currently have (heat, toxin, and cold) which I'm assuming you have setup for viral/heat, you'll still only have viral/heat (the viral will inherit the cold or toxin, since it's a cold/toxin secondary element). You'll need to keep this in mind while building your kitgun, as you can actually lose an element to combining (say you use the electric Residual, you'd end up with viral/radiation - your heat would combine with the electric, and you'd thus lose your heat).

So if you want to switch to the cold Residual to obtain the CC from cold procs, you will want to swap the other two elements you've got going on your weapon. I'd recommend trading the heat for electric, which when combined with the toxin will give you corrosive. Heat and toxin gives gas, which is just terrible. Corrosive/cold is a good combo, works well against basically any enemy in the game.

Alternatively, you could trade your toxin for electric, which when combined with heat will give you radiation. You'll be weaker against Corpus (their shields, specifically) and Infested (except Cambrion Drift), but you'll be significantly stronger against Grineer's heavy units. Additionally, radiation/cold is a great combo for CC, as enemies will attack slower (cold) while also attacking each other (radiation, which causes rad proc'd enemies to attack each other while also being attacked even by other enemies that aren't rad proc'd).

Unfortunately, you can't really scale your weapon properly. The Bellows doesn't give you any crit stats, so you are kinda stuck with the mediocre 50% or so you're getting with your Primed Pistol Gambit. I'd highly recommend obtaining a better kitgun instead of investing in your current one. Haymaker is the strongest secondary grip, and then you'll want either Killstream or Splat for the loader (the difference is ammo capacity and reload speed, both provide max crit stats).

Edited February 16 by Hexerin

[SlapAlot]

That's a ton to think about I appreciate all the feedback. I definitely need to look into Rivens, they're just a scary grind for a free to play player if I'm looking for something specific. I have some plat to play with from selling parts but not a ton. I'm also curious if Rattleguts is the best option for what I'm trying to do or not. I'll already be getting Viral from Nourish, and can get some CC from the cold Arcane, so if I'm just trying to get some stopping power to get kills for shadows would something like a Catchmoon be better? Or is the crit and stat procs still a really solid way to go? Though I suppose getting more CC like radiation would help the shadows live long enough to do damage as well. I definitely feel like guns are the hardest part of builds for me.

[Nira]

Catchmoon can still get some pretty nice slash damage with Hemorrhage, has infinite body punch through, but a very limited range and not such a good status applicator.

Worth noting its riven disposition is very low too, 0.6!

[Hexerin]

Rattleguts is good for killing, as is Catchmoon. The thing about Catchmoon is that it's only effective at melee range by default (if you slap in Lethal Momentum, it only goes up to 11m before the damage drops off a cliff). As such, the Catchmoon needs an extremely aggressive playstyle where you're consistently right up in the enemy's face. This, for obvious reasons, is not really ideal for Nekros. For context, this is my own Catchmoon (Haymaker, Killstream):

With Deadhead fully stacked, it does respectable damage to fully armored level 150 Steel Path Kuva Heavy Gunners:

Obviously, with Nekros, you'll be able to strip their armor first. With armor stripped, it's basically a guaranteed 1-shot on them instead:

Again, however, you have to be basically humping their leg for this output. Not ideal for Nekros. I'd recommend sticking with Rattleguts on him, so you can remain effective at midrange (15-25 meters) where he's best at.

You could also consider Tombfinger. It's slower with high damage per shot like Catchmoon, but it's got range unlike Catchmoon. That being said, Tombfinger is a projectile weapon unlike Rattleguts (which is hitscan), so you might be less effective at longer ranges. In this case, it'd be a matter of if you would prefer Rattleguts's machine gun playstyle, or Tombfinger's precision rifle playstyle. Nekros is good at both, so that comes down entirely to your own personal preference.