Karak Build Help

[FierceGerman]

Im new so i dont have a lot of good mods, im only MR3 and dont spend a lot of time doing story missions. But i ended up building the Karak lvl 30 and fell in love with it right away. Can you give me opinions on my buil and how to make it better?

 

Speed trigger R5

Split Chamber R5

Serration Damaged R3

Mag Wrap R5

Infected Clip R3

Point Strike

Piercing Hit

 

 

EDIT: i do have a catalyst on it so I have 60 space for mods and I already am in a decent clan with some people ive gotten to know very well. Thank you for the offers though.

Edited May 3, 2016 by FierceGerman

[EvilKam]

Ah, the Karak, it will forever hold a very special place in my heart.  With a catalyst and 2 forma, It got me through most of the solar system, until I upgraded to Soma (at MR7).  Still, I couldn't bear to part with my beloved solar-system-clearing gun until I scored the nicely upgraded Karak Wraith.

It's pretty basic, but being new to Warframe, you're painfully limited by mods, and as with 95% of weapons in Warframe, it's mediocre without a catalyst.  That extra 30 mod points is a really huge deal.

Serration and split chamber form the basis of all the primaries in Warframe, and while a damage and multishot rework has been hinted at, I wouldn't expect to see it for at least a year, so focus on those.  Critical and Status are both negligible, so all that matters is:  Damage First, then magazine/reload stats.

Karak suffers from a realistic magazine size.  This means reload times hinder you more, because you reload more frequently.  Speed Trigger only exacerbates this.  Yes, you get more DPS, but damage per bullet is going to help WAY MORE, at least on a weapon like this.  

Shove whatever elemental mods you can on this gun.  You'll definitely want to read about Damage 2.0 to get the elemental benefits, but I'll be honest, I run blast/corrosive almost always, or Viral + Heat.

The physical damage boost mods DO NOT STACK with elemental damages, so in most cases, you should avoid using them.  Some weapons with a much higher physical stat than the others can pull off a benefit, but be prepared to swap around for effect and if you get down to it, grab a calculator to total it up.  (My Boltor Prime, for example could do 90 more points of damage if I swapped to one of the event-reward physical damage boosting mods, but that's 90 out of like, 1300, so that's only about 8% more deadly and I just don't care)

So my build:

• Serration
• Split Chamber
• Hellfire
• Cryo Rounds
• Infected Clip
• Stormbringer
• Wildfire

This leaves you with one mod of choice, and I could see Fast Hands or Thermite Rounds fitting nicely either way.

No, this isn't going to be an easy farm for you, and I can help hand you some elemental mods.  Now getting a catalyst... that will take some more work.  :)

Second to last:  If you can spare 15 minutes, read a decent guide.

Finally, if you need a clan, let me know.

Edited May 3, 2016 by EvilKam

[AEP8FlyBoy]

Okay, for one...

Piercing Hit, Point Strike and Magazine Warp are pointless mods to use.

You want to mod for specific elemental damage types per Faction, and just focus on dealing Maximum damage with this weapon.

I know you may not have these mods yet, or this amount of Forma invested in your Karak, but this is pretty much as good as you can get. (You could swap Shred with Heavy Cal if you want even more damage per shot, but take a hit on accuracy.)

Edited May 3, 2016 by AEP8FlyBoy

[Sloan441]

The Karak is all about the base damage and elemental mods. It doesn't respond to either crit modding or status modding well, so don't bother.

Ideally, you'll want to work towards serration (more damage everywhere), split chamber (more shots), shred (RoF and punchthrough for each bullet potentially hitting multiple targets), 90% elemental mods of your choice (more damage of appropriate type--two combos, no less), and heavy caliber (more damage everywhere, though at some cost of increased dispersion.

There are a few mods that can sub for HC until you get your hands on one. A 60/60 mod. Another RoF mod like speed trigger or vile acceleration. Bane mods for whatever faction you're fighting (not so hot for corrupted, obviously). Or even just a rifle ammo mutator if you're running out of ammo all over the place (a distinct possibility with ST or VA).

You'll need forma to reach full modding potential, but that's something you can work with as you rank up mods and get new ones.

Of course, this is all assuming you want to retain the Karak indefinitely. You might not want to. There's the chance of picking up the Karak Wraith at some point. It's an upgrade to the Karak in every category (and is a viable status weapon). If you like the Karak, you'll love the Braton Prime--and that certainly is a weapon worth going whole hog on modding.

[AEP8FlyBoy]

I was just going to suggest about the Karak Wraith, but since he's a fairly new player, I doubt he has access to it at this point.

Edited May 3, 2016 by AEP8FlyBoy

[NinjaZeku]

Piercing Hit, just no, bad Deutschdood. We don't use those 30% IPS Mods. Not. Even. Once.

Point Strike, eh, Karak is really, really not a crit weapon, put that stuff on e.g. Soma / a (non-Daikyu) Bow.

Get a non-damaged Serration ASAP (worst case, ask for a freebie in Trading) and rank dat baby up, yo.

Speed Trigger helps "burst DPS" but Split Chamber / Heavy Caliber / further elemental Mods
give a damage boost without making you reload more often.

FWIW, here's how I'd build a Karak / most non-crit Rifles:

Serration, Split Chamber
Heavy Caliber, Shred (Punch Through helps greatly with crowds)
Stormbringer, Malignant Force (150% Corrosive, works well against pretty much everything)
Hellfire, Thermite Rounds (150% Heat, decent Element / proc and great if you use Ember, heh)

[With Elements adjusted to Toxin + Magnetic / Radiation for Corpus
or Viral + Radiation / Heat for Squads with multiple Corrosive Projection Auras.]

For drop locations of all those Mods, check out the Wiki:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki

Also, pretty relevant to weapon modding:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0#Overview_Table

Edited May 3, 2016 by NinjaZeku

[SamuraiPizza]

Yow, you'll need an undamaged serration ASAP.

PM me in game, Legion216 at around 10pm EST and I'll give you one, free.

Aside from that, the folks who have already posted here have given extremely sound advice. 

[FierceGerman]

1 hour ago, AEP8FlyBoy said:

Okay, for one...

Piercing Hit, Point Strike and Magazine Warp are pointless mods to use.

You want to mod for specific elemental damage types per Faction, and just focus on dealing Maximum damage with this weapon.

I know you may not have these mods yet, or this amount of Forma invested in your Karak, but this is pretty much as good as you can get. (You could swap Shred with Heavy Cal if you want even more damage per shot, but take a hit on accuracy.)

Personally i like the Mag wrap but cause i usually do bursts with the karak so even though it only adds an extra 9 capacity it still helps conserve on the ammo. but thank you for the advice fellow tenno :)

, 

[FierceGerman]

32 minutes ago, Legion216 said:

Yow, you'll need an undamaged serration ASAP.

PM me in game, Legion216 at around 10pm EST and I'll give you one, free.

Aside from that, the folks who have already posted here have given extremely sound advice. 

ill make sure to add you but i doubt ill be on that late haha, but where could i get an undamaged serration?? Void? Earth? Eris? or is it just a random drop?

 

[FierceGerman]

52 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

Piercing Hit, just no, bad Deutschdood. We don't use those 30% IPS Mods. Not. Even. Once.

Point Strike, eh, Karak is really, really not a crit weapon, put that stuff on e.g. Soma / a (non-Daikyu) Bow.

Get a non-damaged Serration ASAP (worst case, ask for a freebie in Trading) and rank dat baby up, yo.

Speed Trigger helps "burst DPS" but Split Chamber / Heavy Caliber / further elemental Mods
give a damage boost without making you reload more often.

FWIW, here's how I'd build a Karak / most non-crit Rifles:

Serration, Split Chamber
Heavy Caliber, Shred (Punch Through helps greatly with crowds)
Stormbringer, Malignant Force (150% Corrosive, works well against pretty much everything)
Hellfire, Thermite Rounds (150% Heat, decent Element / proc and great if you use Ember, heh)

[With Elements adjusted to Toxin + Magnetic / Radiation for Corpus
or Viral + Radiation / Heat for Squads with multiple Corrosive Projection Auras.]

For drop locations of all those Mods, check out the Wiki:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki

Also, pretty relevant to weapon modding:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0#Overview_Table

i know the Karak is a bad weapon when it comes to CC but i dont have a lot of dmg or elemental mods so i figure ever bit of damage helps, trust me, ill change that when i get some more mods haha.

 

 

[FierceGerman]

58 minutes ago, AEP8FlyBoy said:

I was just going to suggest about the Karak Wraith, but since he's a fairly new player, I doubt he has access to it at this point.

i thought Wraith weps were only from Event's?

[NinjaZeku]

1 minute ago, FierceGerman said:

i thought Wraith weps were only from Event's?

Sorties / Baro Ki'Teer brought back a lot of special weapons / made them tradable.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Sortie

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Baro_Ki'Teer

For a currently farmable upgrade to Karak (that isn't Soma), you could try going for Braton Prime.
I also like to suggest Kohm, it's a full-auto crowd shredder Shotgun, pretty fun :D

(BTW, you can quote multiple people in one post, multi-posting like that is considered bad form. Just FYI.)

[FierceGerman]

1 minute ago, NinjaZeku said:

Sorties / Baro Ki'Teer brought back a lot of special weapons / made them tradable.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Sortie

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Baro_Ki'Teer

For a currently farmable upgrade to Karak (that isn't Soma), you could try going for Braton Prime.
I also like to suggest Kohm, it's a full-auto crowd shredder Shotgun, pretty fun :D

(BTW, you can quote multiple people in one post, multi-posting like that is considered bad form. Just FYI.)

i got Acid Shells so im just gonna build the shot gun for it and test it out haha. and alright thank you for the heads up. and i've thought about the braton prime but i think i want to build i sniper since im practically in love with long range weps.

 

[SamuraiPizza]

45 minutes ago, FierceGerman said:

ill make sure to add you but i doubt ill be on that late haha, but where could i get an undamaged serration?? Void? Earth? Eris? or is it just a random drop?

 

Okay I can come online now, if you'd like. Took an early day off work. PM me in game.

Apollodorus on Earth gives you serrations but it's an annoyingly infrequent drop given how important (practically mandatory) it is.

Edited May 3, 2016 by Legion216

[Sloan441]

27 minutes ago, FierceGerman said:

i think i want to build i sniper since im practically in love with long range weps.

 

If you think you want to play around with snipes, then I'd suggest using a link optimized Trinity to do it.

One of the problems with sniper rifles in the game is most areas of the map aren't particularly large and melee oriented enemies will close aggressively and spoil your aim by beating on you.

A Trinity running link constantly sidesteps a lot of these issues. Taking her to survivals and setting up shop in a large O2 bearing room can yield some pretty impressive results. She can stand her ground against any number of enemies, has total status protection, and can take her time to aim and make those headshots as long as her energy holds out--and it will hold out with judicious use of EV.

Pair your sniper of choice with a good secondary for skirmishing and a powerful melee weapon to clean up slavering hordes when they get a bit too close and you're good to go.

[(XBOX)Skylancer4]

6 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

Piercing Hit, just no, bad Deutschdood. We don't use those 30% IPS Mods. Not. Even. Once.

Point Strike, eh, Karak is really, really not a crit weapon, put that stuff on e.g. Soma / a (non-Daikyu) Bow.

Get a non-damaged Serration ASAP (worst case, ask for a freebie in Trading) and rank dat baby up, yo.

Speed Trigger helps "burst DPS" but Split Chamber / Heavy Caliber / further elemental Mods
give a damage boost without making you reload more often.

FWIW, here's how I'd build a Karak / most non-crit Rifles:

Serration, Split Chamber
Heavy Caliber, Shred (Punch Through helps greatly with crowds)
Stormbringer, Malignant Force (150% Corrosive, works well against pretty much everything)
Hellfire, Thermite Rounds (150% Heat, decent Element / proc and great if you use Ember, heh)

[With Elements adjusted to Toxin + Magnetic / Radiation for Corpus
or Viral + Radiation / Heat for Squads with multiple Corrosive Projection Auras.]

For drop locations of all those Mods, check out the Wiki:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki

Also, pretty relevant to weapon modding:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0#Overview_Table

It is quite possible you bought your way to all that by MR 3 but I can say without a doubt, as a casual player who started recently, your list is pretty unrealistic otherwise. The OP is using what they do have (as I do on my console account) and while your list is a nice end game list, what you are saying is basically "get pre-raid geared" in order to perform better.

Edited May 3, 2016 by (XB1)Skylancer4

[NinjaZeku]

7 hours ago, (XB1)Skylancer4 said:

It is quite possible you bought your way to all that by MR 3 but I can say without a doubt, as a casual player who started recently, your list is pretty unrealistic otherwise.

Well yeah, that was supposed to be an example of a "final" build to work towards.
Still, for his immediate situation, anything above the FWIW seemed pretty reasonable to me.
Undamaged Serration nao, Split Chamber from e.g. Ruk / T1 Void, Heavy Caliber from Vault runs ... hardly impossible.

[BTW I didn't buy anything early on, I made it to like ~MR5 with crappy Mods including a damaged Serration lol]