I decided to make a combination of a weapon guide and a weapon tier list to assist players. The reason why I decided to make a “guide” is when I encountered newbs and veterans that seem to lack some knowledge to the game and instead of me explaining concepts 100 of times to each player; I rather just make a simple guide. I first became aware that even veterans lack knowledge in the game when a MR21 player said status chance is useless in this game. This is plain ignorance and is a false conclusion. To let you know a little about myself I started playing this game around August 2015 and am now MR20, so I played the game quite a bit. I consider myself a veteran and I tested various weapons for endgame usage and for fun in this game. I haven’t posted much on the warframe forums because I rather test and research things or just play the game. Here’s a simple diagram of the status effects and elemental combinations of warframe:
The status effects of most elemental types and most physical types (impact and puncture) have either one of the two purposes. To CC (crowd control) the enemy or to debuff the enemy. Status procs are very essential to endgame content because not only do they help you survive by interrupting the enemies movement or actions, but they help you do more damage against enemies.
Crit helps as well in terms of damage, but most crit weapons are balanced to have lower base damage than different non-crit weapons of the same weapon class. Thus, crit weapons are not always the best weapons since crit weapons’ base damage are balanced in compensation for their crit damage/chance. Also, one problem with crit weapons is that you usually have to use at least two mod slots, one for crit chance and one for crit damage, to make the weapon have optimal performance.Thus, you have less room for utility mods or elemental mods since max mod capacity is eight. However, this problem doesn’t necessarily make crit weapons bad, it just enforces less different types of optimal builds for crit weapons. Crit weapons are generally good against weak enemies or when you hit a weak spot of the enemy; however, in terms of endgame enemies, you are going to need more than having red crits (a level higher than normal crits, requires over 100% chance of crit) or high amounts of raw damage to kill enemies at optimal speeds (having good dps).
So you are probably going to ask, what do I need in order to kill endgame enemies in decent amounts of time? The answer is kinda simple, status procs, generally corrosive procs. As I mentioned before, status effects; except for slash, toxin, and gas type; have one of two purposes, crowd control or debuff. Debuffing enemies helps a lot in regards to performing more damage against enemies, especially enemies with high amounts of hp and/or armor. Sometimes even high amounts of shielded enemies, for example corpus enemies with Augmented Enemy Shields sortie buff, can be difficult to kill. High level enemies are basically buffed versions of weaker enemies, meaning they have higher stats. So the method of killing endgame enemies is simple, debuff the buffed enemies. Now there are only a few status procs that debuff the enemies: corrosive, magnetic, and viral. Viral procs reduces the enemy’s health by a half for a certain duration of time. The debuff cannot stack, but multiple procs do refresh the duration of the viral proc. Magnectic procs reduces the shields (only affects enemies with shields like corpus) by 75%, but the debuff cannot stack. However, I quote damage 2.0 from warframe wiki regarding magnetic procs “Should multipleMagneticstatus effects occur while one is already active, the duration will be extended, and the target's shields will be permanently reduced when the effect expires.”Viral doesn’t permanently keep the same numeric remaining health when the duration expires, unlike magnetic in regards to shields, but keeps the same ratio of remaining life compared to total life, which is one-half. Corrosive procs are my favorite procs in regards to debuffing armored enemies. I will quote damage 2.0 from warframe wiki regarding corrosive procs, “Corrosive damage's unique status effect isCorrosion, which permanently degrades the target's currentarmorby25%. Corrosion can be applied multiple times to the same target, with each following proc reducing the remaining armor by another 25% of its current (not the initial) value, thereby causing the target's armor to decay logarithmically. AgainstTenno, the status effect lasts for8seconds. In the case of shots with multiple pellets (both by default and through multishot mods), multiple stacks of Corrosion can be applied in the same shot. The enemy corroded by the proc will be covered in a green, electricity-like substance.” Since level 100-130 enemies generally have huge amounts of armor, which reduces how much damage they take, so you can see why I favor corrosive procs while I damage these enemies. If you want to know more about both physical and elemental procs, I suggest reading damage 2.0 in warframe wiki because that’s how I got my information and it’s true; I tested this stuff myself as well. There are puncture procs, which is a debuff, but it’s irrelevant in terms of DPS/damage since puncture procs reduces how much damage the enemy inflicts on players.
Also, certain enemies are weak against certain physical/elemental damage while are very resistant from certain physical/elemental damage. However, the warframe wiki did an excellent job in providing this information, so it would be redundant for me to reproduce it. Here’s the link: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0 Also, generally status debuff procs outweigh or are more important than what damage type the specific enemy is weak against. However, some enemies such as bosses and mini bosses are immune to most status procs, but they usually aren’t a problem in comparison to a level 130 eximus heavy gunner; unless the boss/mini boss is over level 60, which is kind of rare.
Okay, now I’m going to walk through a mastery level 1 player in what weapons are the best in regards to mastery level while they level up to mastery 12. Also, even if you’re not that excellent at math, at least read the damage calculation of http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0 and try to understand the conceptual information.
Next I’m going to give a newb guide in what weapons a newb should get while they reach mastery 12. Read what weapons are accessible per mastery rank at the bottom of the page: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mastery_Rank .
At mastery 1,
Spoiler
I suggest getting Braton, Zhuge, Grakata, Burston, and/or strun for primaries. Strun (can’t get at mastery 0) might be the worst of the listed primaries, but it does 300 damage, which is pretty good for a mastery 1 weapon. Paris can also work, but requires very good aiming skills. Grakata can be a mid-tier weapon. I personally like Prisma Grakata as my most favorite assault rifle and it’s high tier. For secondaries get vasto, akvasto, magnus, akbolto, bolto, and spira (mastery 1). There’s a prime version of spira as well and it’s in the high tier of secondaries, but not technically an endgame weapon since it lacks status chance a little. For melee it doesn’t really matter, but I enjoyed using the heat sword a lot and used it for quite a while. Also, you can use the glaive/glaive prime which is a decent mid-tier weapon. I enjoyed using the glaive prime after I grew tired of traditional melee weapons. If you’re lucky you might get a dread from the stalker, which is one of the best bows in the game. Also, I consider Zhuge an endgame weapon, I will explain why later. Braton prime is probably the best prime assault rifle in my opinion, but it’s still high tier and not endgame. However, even I haven’t formaed the weapon yet due to listening to other people’s advice/guides/tier lists in the past.
At mastery 2
Spoiler
it’s still best to get weapons from the market because most of the ones in the clan dojo require forma in order to build. To get forma you need to get it by chance from a mission reward from void missions. Forma is also used to change/add polarities to slots of a weapon. Also, most clan weapons aren’t really endgame or even high tier, ironically. For primaries I would get Boar/Boar prime (Boar prime is endgame and out-dps against all prime rifles at close range) and Boltor/Boltor Prime. Boltor is worse than some of the mastery 1 weapons. However, Boltor prime was my first weapon I put an orokin catalyst on and I liked it for a long while, but later on I needed more damage. I even formaed Boltor Prime four times, but it’s a high-tier (not endgame) weapon along with soma prime. For secondaries get hikou (there’s a prime version too) and sonicor. Sonicor is a good cc weapon, but not the best for dps. I enjoyed using hikou a lot and I used it for a long time along with heat sword. For melee, I would buy atterax, it has good crit and status chance and for melee you usually want the crit builds of crit weapons. Also, orthos and tekko are good as well, but for the heavy weapons such as Gram and Scindo I would avoid them at low mastery level because they usually require the berserker mod in order to have ease of use. However, Scindo prime is a high tier weapon, along with orthos prime.
At mastery 3,
Spoiler
for primaries I would get convectrix, dragoon and Vectis. Vectis is a sniper rifle and sniper rifles are the opposite of the meta in the game due to there being so many crowds of enemies and usually long distance fire isn’t needed. However, Vectis/Vectis prime are one of the best sniper rifles in the game. Convectris is a clan weapon so you might not want to waste a forma on it. Dragoon is a pretty good weapon and I wish I played more with it since it’s a mix between a bow and a shotgun. For secondaries it isn’t that interesting. I would get Pyrana, but even I haven’t built this yet because it requires a forma to build it. For melee I would get broken war, ack and brunt, cerata, kronen, and tipedo (leads to lesion which is an endgame weapon). Broken war is an endgame weapon because you can easily perform finisher attacks with the Crimson Dervish stance, which is the most op damage in the game atm because it goes through armor and standard shields, and it’s atm the strongest sword weapon in the game so I highly suggest doing The Second Dream quest. However, you can only perform the melee combo that has the finisher attack in it if you wield the melee weapon by holding the ‘F’ key. Afterwards, hold the right-click mouse button while pressing the ‘E’ key to perform the Coiling Impale combo.
Rank 4
Spoiler
is when things start to get interesting. For primaries I would get hek, ignis, quanta, sobek, tigris, torid, tiberon and paris prime. The best out of the list are quanta, ignis, sobek, and torid. Quanta, ignis, and tiberon require forma and from here on out you have to research yourself whether or not a weapon requires forma or not. I know some may regard hek as a high tier weapon and maybe even an endgame weapon, but I prefer the vaykor hek for endgame content and the sobek for mid-tier content in comparison to the normal hek mostly due to its small magazine size and lower fire rate. Sobek was my favorite primary until I got a boltor prime. For secondaries I would get kulstar, tysis, and atomos. Tysis is a good support weapon, atomos is a good support and aoe (area of effect) weapon, kulstar can kill the players themselves and has high base damage. Kulstar is also a decent aoe weapon. For melee I would nikana, which is used to get dragon nikana (can be endgame just like nikana prime), and Scindo Prime, which is high tier. Nikanas can be endgame because they too can perform finisher attacks with the right stance, similar to swords and fist weapons.
Rank 5,
Spoiler
yeah we did it, now you got the most powerful weapon of all, the tonkor. No point in going further, just kidding. For primaries I suggest getting amprex, sybaris, and especially the legendary tonkor. Tonkor is endgame and is one of the most ammo efficient weapons in the game. For secondaries the marelok is good and later on the vaykor marelok (MR6) is endgame. Also, staticor is an endgame secondary as well, with the right mods of course. For melee, both bo prime and Jat kittag are good high tier weapons.
Rank 6,
Spoiler
now you have access to syndicate secondaries. For primaries I suggest getting the Penta, Opticor, Phage, Soma/Soma Prime, and the synapse. Penta can kill the players themselves, similar to the kulstar. I personally was biased against the synapse and was for the Soma prime instead, but both are good, the synapse just has short range. Most players recommend players to get a soma and even put forma and a catalyst on it because it’s very easy to use and it’s a high tier weapon. All the syndicate secondaries are worth getting in my opinion, but obviously some are better than the other ones. The best ones in respectful order are vaykor marelok, telos akbolto, synoid gammacor, sancti castanas, rakta ballistica, and then the secura dual cestra. Also aksomati is a decent secondary, but I rather pick a syndicate secondary at this point. For melee I would get scoliac and dual ichor, the scoliac is good for pvp, even though I don’t have one yet.
Rank 7 and 8,
Spoiler
I decided to combine rank 7 and 8 since not many weapons require mastery 7 or 8. For primary I would get the Lanka which I think is one of the best sniper rifles in the game. Also, I would get the supra with the entropy burst mod on it because it should be better than the telos boltor. However, most players dislike supra mostly because it’s expensive to make and requires a lot of forma to make it viable against strong enemies. For secondaries I would get the acrid. The acrid, I formaed it because I was curious of trying a status build on it, and I think it’s a high tier weapon, but not endgame. I would get destreza, lesion, dragon nikana, and mios for melee. Dragon nikana and lesion are both endgame.
Rank 12,
Spoiler
I decided to skip rank 10 since only War requires rank 10. I will list the syndicate primaries that I think are the best in respectful order; vaykor hek, synoid simulor, sancti tigris, rakta cernos, telos boltor, and secura penta. Secura penta has high tier damage but requires a frame like bless trinity that won’t die from the blast of it. I personally was very upset that I couldn’t use it without risking my own life with it. Also, the lists for the syndicate weapons are very subjective, obviously.
There are some damage mods that aren’t good period (in terms of the best damage build) and they are usually the bronze mods (brown). Three examples of these bronze mods are these three rifle mods called piercing hit, rupture, and sawtooth clip. They are bad because they only provide 30% additional damage of a single physical type. The reason mods like serration are a better rifle mod isn’t only because it gives more damage, but because it affects all sources of damage because it directly increases the base damage of the weapon. Serration increases damage, it doesn’t give you ‘additional’ damage. Thus, elemental mods benefit hugely from mods such as serration, hornet strike, and point blank. Mods like piercing hit, rupture, and sawtooth do not benefit elemental mods at all because they only give additional damage, not increase in base damage. When I was a newb I thought this was a big deal because the game didn’t really make it obvious that this was the case.
Now that the newb walkthrough of the mastery rank weapons is over, it’s time to teach you what makes a good weapon and what makes a good build for a weapon.
Also, for status builds, the best status mods are generally the dual stat rare mods such as high voltage, pistol pestilence, frostbite, jolt, voltaic strike, and thermite rounds. However, these mods are hard to get when you are new to the game. Here’s a link for the dual stat mods: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Dual_Stat_Mods . Also, I suggest using warframe builder to help you build weapon/warframe builds of warframe or search for builds. Here’s the link for warframe builder: http://warframe-builder.com/ . However, Warframe builder doesn’t give you the actual dps of a weapon in regards to status procs, only in regards to raw power.
Okay the moment we have been waiting for, my own personal tier list of the warframe weapons. First things first, there are five tiers: high tier endgame, low tier endgame, high tier, mid tier, and then low tier. Also, what I mean by status builds are builds that use the dual stat mods (usually 3-4 mods) to increase the status chance of the weapon. Corrosive procs are only useless if you have four corrosive projection auras on your team or three corrosive projections if all are supported by coaction drift. Most random teams don’t have four or even three corrosive procs, so I have to compensate for this, especially in random sortie missions. Hell, even in premade sometimes a player doesn’t have corrosive projection for some reason. If the enemies have no armor and aren’t the infested nor corpus, the best elemental combo to use would then be viral and electricity or viral and radiation. For example fight against the corrupted or grineer with four corrosive projections, the corrosive procs wouldn’t do anything, but viral procs helps, especially against the heavy units. Most of the time I fight against the corrupted since I always need ducats. Also, grineer and corpus don’t reach endgame unless you do sortie missions or trials. I mostly tested my weapons against a level 90-130 corrupted heavy gunner and sometimes even a corrupted eximus heavy gunner or bombard in the simulacrum room.
High tier endgame weapons (please read the paragraph before this to continue):
Spoiler
High tier endgame weapons (please read the paragraph before this to continue):
Tonkor is probably the most ammo efficient weapon in the game. Even if you run out of ammo just switch to a secondary, kill a few things, and you should be good again. I used to be biased against the tonkor mostly because it had less base damage and less magazine size than the vaykor hek, but when I actually used it in regular gameplay I was amazed. It usually kills an entire group of enemies in one freaking shot. Until you reach to level 100+ eximus enemies you have to shoot multiple times, but it doesn’t take much time since it’s 2 second reload. This is probably the best crit weapon in the game atm as well because you don’t need to worry about status chance at all. As you can tell by know, I usually prefer status builds of weapons than crit builds of weapons in terms of actual dps. I will state again, warframe builder doesn’t give you the actual dps of a weapon in regards to status procs, only in regards to raw power. The tonkor doesn’t need to worry about status chance because it procs crits frequently with high base damage and is an aoe (area of effect) weapon. Also, unlike the penta and the ogris, the tonkor doesn’t inflict a lot of self-damage and lets you rocket jump when you shoot at your feet. Tonkor isn't good against nullifiers though since the shot bounces off the nullifier's shield.
Synoid simulor is both a good aoe (area of effect) and cc (crowd control) weapon. However, it also does good damage as well. The weapon performs best at groups of enemies. Some people use crit builds for simulor, but I use status build for mine and it performs well in sorties. It’s fun watching the enemies panic from getting burnt, reducing the shield of the enemies and reducing the enemies armor with corrosive procs. I’m guessing crit build simulor is better than status build simulor in regards to level 1-30 enemies, but in regards to lvl 100+ enemies, I want those enemies to have less shields and armor. Corrosive and fire combo isn’t the best against corpus, so magnetic and fire is probably better.
Quanta Vandal is a good status weapon and a very ammo efficient laser assault rifle. However, I don’t technically have one, but in theory it should be a good high tier endgame weapon. I have used the quanta, but sadly it doesn’t have the same status chance as Quanta Vandal. The quanta is an adaptable weapon in that it can focus on one enemy with its primary fire or a group of enemies with its secondary fire. The normal quanta I regard as high tier weapon, but not endgame.
Vaykor Hek is the best crit shotgun in the game at the moment and has decent status chance. I run a combination of crit and status for the vaykor hek for two reasons, I want a chance to perform a corrosive proc and I want to save forma. It performs well in sortie missions and up to the 60 minute/wave mark in void missions. Going beyond 60 minutes/waves, players usually start to die or have problems. I recommend not extending 80 minutes/waves in void missions unless the team composition is very good. I have used the vaykor hek a lot and I prefer it over the normal hek and the sancti tigris because it has more magazine size and I feel like it performs better against groups of enemies and huge groups of enemies are usually problematic. Some players say normal hek is better than vaykor hek because of the multishot augment, but they are overlooking the fact that vaykor hek is a crit weapon, has more fire rate, and has twice more magazine size. Also, the normal hek has to sacrifice a mod slot for the multishot augment. The main reason why vaykor hek is better than the hek isn’t because of its damage but because of its performance. If you want to use a normal hek, try a sancti tigris, it’s better.
Sancti Tigris is a monster at killing infested enemies and most planet bosses. Sancti Tigris performs best against small groups or individual enemies. It can have difficulty against huge groups of enemies, though. However, in combination with warframe abilities, for example nova’s ultimate, it should be good enough in terms of performance.
Zhuge is a mastery 0 weapon atm and it’s freaking good. I haven’t leveled it to lvl 30 on the second/last forma yet, but at one forma it out dpsed the rakta cernos. You are probably asking how? The answer is simple, corrosive procs. I made it to where my Zhuge has 98% status chance along with 50% crit chance (in disregard of multishot). So every shot has 90% chance to shoot another arrow and both of these arrows have 98% chance to proc a status effect, either physical, corrosive, or fire. I like fire more than ice most of the time because it does DoT (damage over time) and it causes the enemy to panic, which is cc. However, in terms of being versatile in terms of raw damage and in ignore of status procs, corrosive and ice is better than corrosive and fire. Fire is basically more defensive than cold in terms of utility in my opinion. Cold does slow the enemy, but I rather the enemy panic and not shoot at me. Fire panics don’t work on MOAs though. The traditional bows may do more damage than the Zhuge, but the Zhuge has faster fire rate and higher status chance so the enemy will most likely have a few stacks of corrosive procs, which means the enemy has less armor than it originally had. I feel like the Zhuge is going to be my new favorite bow weapon, which might replace my assault rifles, especially since it has high base damage.
Vaykor marelok is a good pistol and is very easy to use. I run a hybrid of a crit and status build with my marelok. It’s not the best status secondary weapon, but it does proc some corrosive stacks from time to time.
Staticor is now my most favorite secondary weapon and it’s a status weapon! Staticor out dps sonicor and my build has 85% status chance in disregard to multishot. This thing has radiation base damage, which is really good with status builds. Basically all the time you reduce the corrupted/grineer enemies armor, knock them down, or confuse them with radiation. All three choices are awesome, so no matter what you are procing something that you want. Your enemies won’t have a chance to make a come back.
Broken War/Dakra Prime and Nikana prime/Dragon Nikana are the endgame melee weapons mainly because you can perform finisher damage through performing finisher attacks. Finisher damage is the best damage type in this game because it ignores standard shields and armor. You basically will kill a lvl 130 corrupted heavy gunner by performing 3-5 finisher attacks. Nikana prime is probably the best, but broken war is easier to use.
Any dagger can be endgame with the covert lethality mod, but you have to perform a stealth attack. This would be good when you make the enemies asleep with nightform equinox, blinded with Excalibur, or blinded with inaros, or stunning enemies with valkyr. The best daggers for covert lethality mod are the daggers with high attack speed, namely dark dagger and ceramic dagger. Dark dagger has an augment so I picked dark dagger, plus it’s cooler. Also, sheev might be good even though it has slower attack speed, but with normal attacks you can have 85% status chance.
Acrid, it out dpsed my vaykor marelok build.
Mios with a dual status and crit build it should reduce the enemy's armor heavily while doing quick critical attacks.
Low tier end game weapons:
Spoiler
Boar prime is my favorite shotgun, but I still use the vaykor hek more, generally. It can reach 100% status chance and I have at times completely taken away a lvl 100 corrupted heavy gunners armor entirely away due to having decent fire rate. I added no fire rate mods as well. Also, the individual pellets can each proc, which makes reducing the armor or procing even faster on enemies. This bad boy out damages boltor prime and soma prime in close range if you use a 100% status build.
Torid can control areas of the map pretty well, so it’s really useful for defense missions or even survival missions. Torid is more of a support weapon than a damage weapon, but for a support weapon it’s really good with the corrosive/blast combo, along with status dual stat mods. Especially good with Saryn Prime.
Snipetron Vandal looks like it has good stats and in theory should be a good weapon, but I don’t have it unfortunately. Sniper rifles aren’t meta in the game, but on the right hands can be deadly, which is why I put it in the second highest tier of the list.
Lesion is the best status polearm weapon. My build has 100% status chance and each status proc makes the weapons have additional attack speed, which is a unique weapon effect.
Synoid gammacor is an excellent secondary weapon, but it can run out of ammo fast. The best weapon against nullifiers, though.
Ankyros prime can perform finisher attacks pretty quickly with the right stance. The main problem is the reach of the weapon.
Brakk, I haven't used this weapon at all but it's raw dps seems pretty good in warframe builder. It can perform the same amount of damage as vaykor marelok, but vaykor marelok doesn't lose damage at long distances and it has much higher status chance.
Dual Toxocyst, requires headshots in order to be sufficient for endgame use.
High tier weapons (non-endgame):
Spoiler
All prime weapons except boar prime
All syndicate weapons that were not mentioned
All wraith and vandal weapons not previously mentioned, except for wraith vipers, lato vandal, and wraith machete
Tigris and Hek
Prisma Grakata and Prisma Skana
Opticor
Phage
Drakgoon
Penta
Talons
Mara detron
Cerata
Glaive
Atterax
Sydon
Jat kittag
Kulstar
Tekko
Scindo and Galatine
Aksomati
Atomos
Ignis
Tysis
Sonicor
Mid tier weapons:
Spoiler
Any weapons that I haven’t mentioned yet
Low tier weapons:
Spoiler
Weapons that are downgrades for example the MK1-Braton and MK1-Paris
I got lazy near the end of my low tier endgame list. If a lot of people like this guide/tier list I might put in my personal weapon builds and might even update it. Hopefully people find this guide helpful and if you have any criticize please check the Warframe Wikipedia to make sure you are correct. If you have any questions and I'm not lazy enough, I might answer them, lol. Sorry, I just rather play and learn than post in a forum about stuff. I might have missed some weapons just because there are so many weapons in the game. I missed ignis, but I added it when I edited. Also, I recommend people watch Mogamu's weapon videos regarding weapons I talked about and haven't talked about. They helped me a lot to get a feel of the weapon.
I will just quote one of the replies since it gives good information regarding both status chance and crit damage.
On 3/21/2016 at 3:04 AM, PikeOrShield said:
...On another note: I realize you have a preference toward status weapons, but I think you should mention that critical headshots get a x2 multiplier in adition to the x2 headshot multiplier on most enemies. You kind of mentioned it by saying crit weapons did well against enemy weak spots, but people might want the numbers to back that up. It's on this page under "Critical Headshots".
You should also consider talking about how the game decides which status your weapon procs most often. (Ex: if a gun deals 50% slash, 25% impact, and 25% puncture and has a 20% status chance, the weapon will have a 10% chance of dealing a slash proc and a 5% chance for impact or puncture per bullet). Also include that IPS damage gets a x4 multiplier to status proc chance over elemental damage types.
From testing various weapons I feel like I have more dps with status builds of certain weapons like the boar prime than I would with a crit build of the same weapon because the armors of endgame enemies are very high and lowering these armor values helps all sources of damage to do more damage in the end. Plus I can do headshots while inflicting stacks of armor reduction on the enemy. The normal crits really aren't as effective as reducing the enemy's armor if the enemy has high amounts of armor.
Enemy armor values are displayed under the codex and infobox, but scale to the enemy's level. Generally, onlyGrineerand boss enemies have armor, while theCorpusand Infested factions do not have any. When the enemy health bars is yellow, armor is in effect and damage will be reduced and cause it to flicker red.
Scaling of enemy armor values uses the following formula:
Armor = Base Armor × (1 + ((Current Level − Base Level)1.75÷ 200))
Base Armor:Base armor value for the enemy.
Current Level:The level of your target enemy.
Base Level:This is the initial level an enemy can spawn. This is important because certain enemy types, such as Heavy Grineer, will not spawn until certain levels (like level 8 forHeavy Gunners), so while they may be level 30, their armor has only scaled up 22 times.
As mentioned before, this formula causes high level Grineer (lets say up from level 50) to be very hard to kill, as you can see in the example of a level 108 Heavy Gunner:
500 × (1 + (((108 − 8)1.75) / 200))
= 500 × (1 + (3162 / 200))
= 500 × 16.81
= 8405
Damage Received = Attack Damage ÷ (1 + (8405 / 300)) = Damage Received = Attack Damage × 0.0345
The resulting damage received by the Heavy Gunner is dramatically reduced to~3.45%of original damage.
So you see, a normal crit of a head shot isn't really enough to compensate for the enemy's high amount of damage reduction. Reducing the armor of the enemy is easier and usually more efficient at the very higher levels.
Question
CosmicHermitCrab
This build is updated to 18.6.1.1
I decided to make a combination of a weapon guide and a weapon tier list to assist players. The reason why I decided to make a “guide” is when I encountered newbs and veterans that seem to lack some knowledge to the game and instead of me explaining concepts 100 of times to each player; I rather just make a simple guide. I first became aware that even veterans lack knowledge in the game when a MR21 player said status chance is useless in this game. This is plain ignorance and is a false conclusion. To let you know a little about myself I started playing this game around August 2015 and am now MR20, so I played the game quite a bit. I consider myself a veteran and I tested various weapons for endgame usage and for fun in this game. I haven’t posted much on the warframe forums because I rather test and research things or just play the game. Here’s a simple diagram of the status effects and elemental combinations of warframe:
The status effects of most elemental types and most physical types (impact and puncture) have either one of the two purposes. To CC (crowd control) the enemy or to debuff the enemy. Status procs are very essential to endgame content because not only do they help you survive by interrupting the enemies movement or actions, but they help you do more damage against enemies.
Crit helps as well in terms of damage, but most crit weapons are balanced to have lower base damage than different non-crit weapons of the same weapon class. Thus, crit weapons are not always the best weapons since crit weapons’ base damage are balanced in compensation for their crit damage/chance. Also, one problem with crit weapons is that you usually have to use at least two mod slots, one for crit chance and one for crit damage, to make the weapon have optimal performance. Thus, you have less room for utility mods or elemental mods since max mod capacity is eight. However, this problem doesn’t necessarily make crit weapons bad, it just enforces less different types of optimal builds for crit weapons. Crit weapons are generally good against weak enemies or when you hit a weak spot of the enemy; however, in terms of endgame enemies, you are going to need more than having red crits (a level higher than normal crits, requires over 100% chance of crit) or high amounts of raw damage to kill enemies at optimal speeds (having good dps).
So you are probably going to ask, what do I need in order to kill endgame enemies in decent amounts of time? The answer is kinda simple, status procs, generally corrosive procs. As I mentioned before, status effects; except for slash, toxin, and gas type; have one of two purposes, crowd control or debuff. Debuffing enemies helps a lot in regards to performing more damage against enemies, especially enemies with high amounts of hp and/or armor. Sometimes even high amounts of shielded enemies, for example corpus enemies with Augmented Enemy Shields sortie buff, can be difficult to kill. High level enemies are basically buffed versions of weaker enemies, meaning they have higher stats. So the method of killing endgame enemies is simple, debuff the buffed enemies. Now there are only a few status procs that debuff the enemies: corrosive, magnetic, and viral. Viral procs reduces the enemy’s health by a half for a certain duration of time. The debuff cannot stack, but multiple procs do refresh the duration of the viral proc. Magnectic procs reduces the shields (only affects enemies with shields like corpus) by 75%, but the debuff cannot stack. However, I quote damage 2.0 from warframe wiki regarding magnetic procs “Should multiple Magnetic status effects occur while one is already active, the duration will be extended, and the target's shields will be permanently reduced when the effect expires.” Viral doesn’t permanently keep the same numeric remaining health when the duration expires, unlike magnetic in regards to shields, but keeps the same ratio of remaining life compared to total life, which is one-half. Corrosive procs are my favorite procs in regards to debuffing armored enemies. I will quote damage 2.0 from warframe wiki regarding corrosive procs, “Corrosive damage's unique status effect is Corrosion, which permanently degrades the target's current armor by 25%. Corrosion can be applied multiple times to the same target, with each following proc reducing the remaining armor by another 25% of its current (not the initial) value, thereby causing the target's armor to decay logarithmically. Against Tenno, the status effect lasts for 8 seconds. In the case of shots with multiple pellets (both by default and through multishot mods), multiple stacks of Corrosion can be applied in the same shot. The enemy corroded by the proc will be covered in a green, electricity-like substance.” Since level 100-130 enemies generally have huge amounts of armor, which reduces how much damage they take, so you can see why I favor corrosive procs while I damage these enemies. If you want to know more about both physical and elemental procs, I suggest reading damage 2.0 in warframe wiki because that’s how I got my information and it’s true; I tested this stuff myself as well. There are puncture procs, which is a debuff, but it’s irrelevant in terms of DPS/damage since puncture procs reduces how much damage the enemy inflicts on players.
Also, certain enemies are weak against certain physical/elemental damage while are very resistant from certain physical/elemental damage. However, the warframe wiki did an excellent job in providing this information, so it would be redundant for me to reproduce it. Here’s the link: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0 Also, generally status debuff procs outweigh or are more important than what damage type the specific enemy is weak against. However, some enemies such as bosses and mini bosses are immune to most status procs, but they usually aren’t a problem in comparison to a level 130 eximus heavy gunner; unless the boss/mini boss is over level 60, which is kind of rare.
Okay, now I’m going to walk through a mastery level 1 player in what weapons are the best in regards to mastery level while they level up to mastery 12. Also, even if you’re not that excellent at math, at least read the damage calculation of http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0 and try to understand the conceptual information.
Next I’m going to give a newb guide in what weapons a newb should get while they reach mastery 12. Read what weapons are accessible per mastery rank at the bottom of the page: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mastery_Rank .
At mastery 1,
I suggest getting Braton, Zhuge, Grakata, Burston, and/or strun for primaries. Strun (can’t get at mastery 0) might be the worst of the listed primaries, but it does 300 damage, which is pretty good for a mastery 1 weapon. Paris can also work, but requires very good aiming skills. Grakata can be a mid-tier weapon. I personally like Prisma Grakata as my most favorite assault rifle and it’s high tier. For secondaries get vasto, akvasto, magnus, akbolto, bolto, and spira (mastery 1). There’s a prime version of spira as well and it’s in the high tier of secondaries, but not technically an endgame weapon since it lacks status chance a little. For melee it doesn’t really matter, but I enjoyed using the heat sword a lot and used it for quite a while. Also, you can use the glaive/glaive prime which is a decent mid-tier weapon. I enjoyed using the glaive prime after I grew tired of traditional melee weapons. If you’re lucky you might get a dread from the stalker, which is one of the best bows in the game. Also, I consider Zhuge an endgame weapon, I will explain why later. Braton prime is probably the best prime assault rifle in my opinion, but it’s still high tier and not endgame. However, even I haven’t formaed the weapon yet due to listening to other people’s advice/guides/tier lists in the past.
At mastery 2
it’s still best to get weapons from the market because most of the ones in the clan dojo require forma in order to build. To get forma you need to get it by chance from a mission reward from void missions. Forma is also used to change/add polarities to slots of a weapon. Also, most clan weapons aren’t really endgame or even high tier, ironically. For primaries I would get Boar/Boar prime (Boar prime is endgame and out-dps against all prime rifles at close range) and Boltor/Boltor Prime. Boltor is worse than some of the mastery 1 weapons. However, Boltor prime was my first weapon I put an orokin catalyst on and I liked it for a long while, but later on I needed more damage. I even formaed Boltor Prime four times, but it’s a high-tier (not endgame) weapon along with soma prime. For secondaries get hikou (there’s a prime version too) and sonicor. Sonicor is a good cc weapon, but not the best for dps. I enjoyed using hikou a lot and I used it for a long time along with heat sword. For melee, I would buy atterax, it has good crit and status chance and for melee you usually want the crit builds of crit weapons. Also, orthos and tekko are good as well, but for the heavy weapons such as Gram and Scindo I would avoid them at low mastery level because they usually require the berserker mod in order to have ease of use. However, Scindo prime is a high tier weapon, along with orthos prime.
At mastery 3,
for primaries I would get convectrix, dragoon and Vectis. Vectis is a sniper rifle and sniper rifles are the opposite of the meta in the game due to there being so many crowds of enemies and usually long distance fire isn’t needed. However, Vectis/Vectis prime are one of the best sniper rifles in the game. Convectris is a clan weapon so you might not want to waste a forma on it. Dragoon is a pretty good weapon and I wish I played more with it since it’s a mix between a bow and a shotgun. For secondaries it isn’t that interesting. I would get Pyrana, but even I haven’t built this yet because it requires a forma to build it. For melee I would get broken war, ack and brunt, cerata, kronen, and tipedo (leads to lesion which is an endgame weapon). Broken war is an endgame weapon because you can easily perform finisher attacks with the Crimson Dervish stance, which is the most op damage in the game atm because it goes through armor and standard shields, and it’s atm the strongest sword weapon in the game so I highly suggest doing The Second Dream quest. However, you can only perform the melee combo that has the finisher attack in it if you wield the melee weapon by holding the ‘F’ key. Afterwards, hold the right-click mouse button while pressing the ‘E’ key to perform the Coiling Impale combo.
Rank 4
is when things start to get interesting. For primaries I would get hek, ignis, quanta, sobek, tigris, torid, tiberon and paris prime. The best out of the list are quanta, ignis, sobek, and torid. Quanta, ignis, and tiberon require forma and from here on out you have to research yourself whether or not a weapon requires forma or not. I know some may regard hek as a high tier weapon and maybe even an endgame weapon, but I prefer the vaykor hek for endgame content and the sobek for mid-tier content in comparison to the normal hek mostly due to its small magazine size and lower fire rate. Sobek was my favorite primary until I got a boltor prime. For secondaries I would get kulstar, tysis, and atomos. Tysis is a good support weapon, atomos is a good support and aoe (area of effect) weapon, kulstar can kill the players themselves and has high base damage. Kulstar is also a decent aoe weapon. For melee I would nikana, which is used to get dragon nikana (can be endgame just like nikana prime), and Scindo Prime, which is high tier. Nikanas can be endgame because they too can perform finisher attacks with the right stance, similar to swords and fist weapons.
Rank 5,
yeah we did it, now you got the most powerful weapon of all, the tonkor. No point in going further, just kidding. For primaries I suggest getting amprex, sybaris, and especially the legendary tonkor. Tonkor is endgame and is one of the most ammo efficient weapons in the game. For secondaries the marelok is good and later on the vaykor marelok (MR6) is endgame. Also, staticor is an endgame secondary as well, with the right mods of course. For melee, both bo prime and Jat kittag are good high tier weapons.
Rank 6,
now you have access to syndicate secondaries. For primaries I suggest getting the Penta, Opticor, Phage, Soma/Soma Prime, and the synapse. Penta can kill the players themselves, similar to the kulstar. I personally was biased against the synapse and was for the Soma prime instead, but both are good, the synapse just has short range. Most players recommend players to get a soma and even put forma and a catalyst on it because it’s very easy to use and it’s a high tier weapon. All the syndicate secondaries are worth getting in my opinion, but obviously some are better than the other ones. The best ones in respectful order are vaykor marelok, telos akbolto, synoid gammacor, sancti castanas, rakta ballistica, and then the secura dual cestra. Also aksomati is a decent secondary, but I rather pick a syndicate secondary at this point. For melee I would get scoliac and dual ichor, the scoliac is good for pvp, even though I don’t have one yet.
Rank 7 and 8,
I decided to combine rank 7 and 8 since not many weapons require mastery 7 or 8. For primary I would get the Lanka which I think is one of the best sniper rifles in the game. Also, I would get the supra with the entropy burst mod on it because it should be better than the telos boltor. However, most players dislike supra mostly because it’s expensive to make and requires a lot of forma to make it viable against strong enemies. For secondaries I would get the acrid. The acrid, I formaed it because I was curious of trying a status build on it, and I think it’s a high tier weapon, but not endgame. I would get destreza, lesion, dragon nikana, and mios for melee. Dragon nikana and lesion are both endgame.
Rank 12,
I decided to skip rank 10 since only War requires rank 10. I will list the syndicate primaries that I think are the best in respectful order; vaykor hek, synoid simulor, sancti tigris, rakta cernos, telos boltor, and secura penta. Secura penta has high tier damage but requires a frame like bless trinity that won’t die from the blast of it. I personally was very upset that I couldn’t use it without risking my own life with it. Also, the lists for the syndicate weapons are very subjective, obviously.
There are some damage mods that aren’t good period (in terms of the best damage build) and they are usually the bronze mods (brown). Three examples of these bronze mods are these three rifle mods called piercing hit, rupture, and sawtooth clip. They are bad because they only provide 30% additional damage of a single physical type. The reason mods like serration are a better rifle mod isn’t only because it gives more damage, but because it affects all sources of damage because it directly increases the base damage of the weapon. Serration increases damage, it doesn’t give you ‘additional’ damage. Thus, elemental mods benefit hugely from mods such as serration, hornet strike, and point blank. Mods like piercing hit, rupture, and sawtooth do not benefit elemental mods at all because they only give additional damage, not increase in base damage. When I was a newb I thought this was a big deal because the game didn’t really make it obvious that this was the case.
Now that the newb walkthrough of the mastery rank weapons is over, it’s time to teach you what makes a good weapon and what makes a good build for a weapon.
Also, for status builds, the best status mods are generally the dual stat rare mods such as high voltage, pistol pestilence, frostbite, jolt, voltaic strike, and thermite rounds. However, these mods are hard to get when you are new to the game. Here’s a link for the dual stat mods: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Dual_Stat_Mods . Also, I suggest using warframe builder to help you build weapon/warframe builds of warframe or search for builds. Here’s the link for warframe builder: http://warframe-builder.com/ . However, Warframe builder doesn’t give you the actual dps of a weapon in regards to status procs, only in regards to raw power.
Okay the moment we have been waiting for, my own personal tier list of the warframe weapons. First things first, there are five tiers: high tier endgame, low tier endgame, high tier, mid tier, and then low tier. Also, what I mean by status builds are builds that use the dual stat mods (usually 3-4 mods) to increase the status chance of the weapon. Corrosive procs are only useless if you have four corrosive projection auras on your team or three corrosive projections if all are supported by coaction drift. Most random teams don’t have four or even three corrosive procs, so I have to compensate for this, especially in random sortie missions. Hell, even in premade sometimes a player doesn’t have corrosive projection for some reason. If the enemies have no armor and aren’t the infested nor corpus, the best elemental combo to use would then be viral and electricity or viral and radiation. For example fight against the corrupted or grineer with four corrosive projections, the corrosive procs wouldn’t do anything, but viral procs helps, especially against the heavy units. Most of the time I fight against the corrupted since I always need ducats. Also, grineer and corpus don’t reach endgame unless you do sortie missions or trials. I mostly tested my weapons against a level 90-130 corrupted heavy gunner and sometimes even a corrupted eximus heavy gunner or bombard in the simulacrum room.
High tier endgame weapons (please read the paragraph before this to continue):
High tier endgame weapons (please read the paragraph before this to continue):
Tonkor is probably the most ammo efficient weapon in the game. Even if you run out of ammo just switch to a secondary, kill a few things, and you should be good again. I used to be biased against the tonkor mostly because it had less base damage and less magazine size than the vaykor hek, but when I actually used it in regular gameplay I was amazed. It usually kills an entire group of enemies in one freaking shot. Until you reach to level 100+ eximus enemies you have to shoot multiple times, but it doesn’t take much time since it’s 2 second reload. This is probably the best crit weapon in the game atm as well because you don’t need to worry about status chance at all. As you can tell by know, I usually prefer status builds of weapons than crit builds of weapons in terms of actual dps. I will state again, warframe builder doesn’t give you the actual dps of a weapon in regards to status procs, only in regards to raw power. The tonkor doesn’t need to worry about status chance because it procs crits frequently with high base damage and is an aoe (area of effect) weapon. Also, unlike the penta and the ogris, the tonkor doesn’t inflict a lot of self-damage and lets you rocket jump when you shoot at your feet. Tonkor isn't good against nullifiers though since the shot bounces off the nullifier's shield.
Synoid simulor is both a good aoe (area of effect) and cc (crowd control) weapon. However, it also does good damage as well. The weapon performs best at groups of enemies. Some people use crit builds for simulor, but I use status build for mine and it performs well in sorties. It’s fun watching the enemies panic from getting burnt, reducing the shield of the enemies and reducing the enemies armor with corrosive procs. I’m guessing crit build simulor is better than status build simulor in regards to level 1-30 enemies, but in regards to lvl 100+ enemies, I want those enemies to have less shields and armor. Corrosive and fire combo isn’t the best against corpus, so magnetic and fire is probably better.
Quanta Vandal is a good status weapon and a very ammo efficient laser assault rifle. However, I don’t technically have one, but in theory it should be a good high tier endgame weapon. I have used the quanta, but sadly it doesn’t have the same status chance as Quanta Vandal. The quanta is an adaptable weapon in that it can focus on one enemy with its primary fire or a group of enemies with its secondary fire. The normal quanta I regard as high tier weapon, but not endgame.
Vaykor Hek is the best crit shotgun in the game at the moment and has decent status chance. I run a combination of crit and status for the vaykor hek for two reasons, I want a chance to perform a corrosive proc and I want to save forma. It performs well in sortie missions and up to the 60 minute/wave mark in void missions. Going beyond 60 minutes/waves, players usually start to die or have problems. I recommend not extending 80 minutes/waves in void missions unless the team composition is very good. I have used the vaykor hek a lot and I prefer it over the normal hek and the sancti tigris because it has more magazine size and I feel like it performs better against groups of enemies and huge groups of enemies are usually problematic. Some players say normal hek is better than vaykor hek because of the multishot augment, but they are overlooking the fact that vaykor hek is a crit weapon, has more fire rate, and has twice more magazine size. Also, the normal hek has to sacrifice a mod slot for the multishot augment. The main reason why vaykor hek is better than the hek isn’t because of its damage but because of its performance. If you want to use a normal hek, try a sancti tigris, it’s better.
Sancti Tigris is a monster at killing infested enemies and most planet bosses. Sancti Tigris performs best against small groups or individual enemies. It can have difficulty against huge groups of enemies, though. However, in combination with warframe abilities, for example nova’s ultimate, it should be good enough in terms of performance.
Zhuge is a mastery 0 weapon atm and it’s freaking good. I haven’t leveled it to lvl 30 on the second/last forma yet, but at one forma it out dpsed the rakta cernos. You are probably asking how? The answer is simple, corrosive procs. I made it to where my Zhuge has 98% status chance along with 50% crit chance (in disregard of multishot). So every shot has 90% chance to shoot another arrow and both of these arrows have 98% chance to proc a status effect, either physical, corrosive, or fire. I like fire more than ice most of the time because it does DoT (damage over time) and it causes the enemy to panic, which is cc. However, in terms of being versatile in terms of raw damage and in ignore of status procs, corrosive and ice is better than corrosive and fire. Fire is basically more defensive than cold in terms of utility in my opinion. Cold does slow the enemy, but I rather the enemy panic and not shoot at me. Fire panics don’t work on MOAs though. The traditional bows may do more damage than the Zhuge, but the Zhuge has faster fire rate and higher status chance so the enemy will most likely have a few stacks of corrosive procs, which means the enemy has less armor than it originally had. I feel like the Zhuge is going to be my new favorite bow weapon, which might replace my assault rifles, especially since it has high base damage.
Vaykor marelok is a good pistol and is very easy to use. I run a hybrid of a crit and status build with my marelok. It’s not the best status secondary weapon, but it does proc some corrosive stacks from time to time.
Staticor is now my most favorite secondary weapon and it’s a status weapon! Staticor out dps sonicor and my build has 85% status chance in disregard to multishot. This thing has radiation base damage, which is really good with status builds. Basically all the time you reduce the corrupted/grineer enemies armor, knock them down, or confuse them with radiation. All three choices are awesome, so no matter what you are procing something that you want. Your enemies won’t have a chance to make a come back.
Broken War/Dakra Prime and Nikana prime/Dragon Nikana are the endgame melee weapons mainly because you can perform finisher damage through performing finisher attacks. Finisher damage is the best damage type in this game because it ignores standard shields and armor. You basically will kill a lvl 130 corrupted heavy gunner by performing 3-5 finisher attacks. Nikana prime is probably the best, but broken war is easier to use.
Any dagger can be endgame with the covert lethality mod, but you have to perform a stealth attack. This would be good when you make the enemies asleep with nightform equinox, blinded with Excalibur, or blinded with inaros, or stunning enemies with valkyr. The best daggers for covert lethality mod are the daggers with high attack speed, namely dark dagger and ceramic dagger. Dark dagger has an augment so I picked dark dagger, plus it’s cooler. Also, sheev might be good even though it has slower attack speed, but with normal attacks you can have 85% status chance.
Acrid, it out dpsed my vaykor marelok build.
Mios with a dual status and crit build it should reduce the enemy's armor heavily while doing quick critical attacks.
Low tier end game weapons:
Boar prime is my favorite shotgun, but I still use the vaykor hek more, generally. It can reach 100% status chance and I have at times completely taken away a lvl 100 corrupted heavy gunners armor entirely away due to having decent fire rate. I added no fire rate mods as well. Also, the individual pellets can each proc, which makes reducing the armor or procing even faster on enemies. This bad boy out damages boltor prime and soma prime in close range if you use a 100% status build.
Torid can control areas of the map pretty well, so it’s really useful for defense missions or even survival missions. Torid is more of a support weapon than a damage weapon, but for a support weapon it’s really good with the corrosive/blast combo, along with status dual stat mods. Especially good with Saryn Prime.
Snipetron Vandal looks like it has good stats and in theory should be a good weapon, but I don’t have it unfortunately. Sniper rifles aren’t meta in the game, but on the right hands can be deadly, which is why I put it in the second highest tier of the list.
Lesion is the best status polearm weapon. My build has 100% status chance and each status proc makes the weapons have additional attack speed, which is a unique weapon effect.
Synoid gammacor is an excellent secondary weapon, but it can run out of ammo fast. The best weapon against nullifiers, though.
Ankyros prime can perform finisher attacks pretty quickly with the right stance. The main problem is the reach of the weapon.
Brakk, I haven't used this weapon at all but it's raw dps seems pretty good in warframe builder. It can perform the same amount of damage as vaykor marelok, but vaykor marelok doesn't lose damage at long distances and it has much higher status chance.
Dual Toxocyst, requires headshots in order to be sufficient for endgame use.
High tier weapons (non-endgame):
All prime weapons except boar prime
All syndicate weapons that were not mentioned
All wraith and vandal weapons not previously mentioned, except for wraith vipers, lato vandal, and wraith machete
Tigris and Hek
Prisma Grakata and Prisma Skana
Opticor
Phage
Drakgoon
Penta
Talons
Mara detron
Cerata
Glaive
Atterax
Sydon
Jat kittag
Kulstar
Tekko
Scindo and Galatine
Aksomati
Atomos
Ignis
Tysis
Sonicor
Mid tier weapons:
Any weapons that I haven’t mentioned yet
Low tier weapons:
Weapons that are downgrades for example the MK1-Braton and MK1-Paris
I got lazy near the end of my low tier endgame list. If a lot of people like this guide/tier list I might put in my personal weapon builds and might even update it. Hopefully people find this guide helpful and if you have any criticize please check the Warframe Wikipedia to make sure you are correct. If you have any questions and I'm not lazy enough, I might answer them, lol. Sorry, I just rather play and learn than post in a forum about stuff. I might have missed some weapons just because there are so many weapons in the game. I missed ignis, but I added it when I edited. Also, I recommend people watch Mogamu's weapon videos regarding weapons I talked about and haven't talked about. They helped me a lot to get a feel of the weapon.
I will just quote one of the replies since it gives good information regarding both status chance and crit damage.
From testing various weapons I feel like I have more dps with status builds of certain weapons like the boar prime than I would with a crit build of the same weapon because the armors of endgame enemies are very high and lowering these armor values helps all sources of damage to do more damage in the end. Plus I can do headshots while inflicting stacks of armor reduction on the enemy. The normal crits really aren't as effective as reducing the enemy's armor if the enemy has high amounts of armor.
If you go to http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Armor, they provide an example of an endgame enemy. The example is in the spoiler below.
Enemy Armor
Enemy armor values are displayed under the codex and infobox, but scale to the enemy's level. Generally, onlyGrineer and boss enemies have armor, while the Corpus and Infested factions do not have any. When the enemy health bars is yellow, armor is in effect and damage will be reduced and cause it to flicker red.
Scaling of enemy armor values uses the following formula:
Armor = Base Armor × (1 + ((Current Level − Base Level)1.75 ÷ 200))
This graph shows the amount of armor for Grineer Heavy Gunner up to Level 120.
As mentioned before, this formula causes high level Grineer (lets say up from level 50) to be very hard to kill, as you can see in the example of a level 108 Heavy Gunner:
Damage Received = Attack Damage ÷ (1 + (8405 / 300)) =
Damage Received = Attack Damage × 0.0345
The resulting damage received by the Heavy Gunner is dramatically reduced to ~3.45% of original damage.
So you see, a normal crit of a head shot isn't really enough to compensate for the enemy's high amount of damage reduction. Reducing the armor of the enemy is easier and usually more efficient at the very higher levels.
By WingGun
Edited by WingGunLink to comment
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