Community Builds: Soma Prime

[DEATHLOK]

I'm getting tired of online builds that are obviously not used, but thrown up as fast as possible for view counts or altered to look "original," despite clear and insurmountable shortcomings. I'm getting tired of builds by guys who may not play the game all that much. I'm growing frustrated with all the outdated builds online.

I'd like to share builds with players not trying to be YouTube stars. I'd like to see how other people handle certain problems. If you ever think the same way, maybe you can post your builds. We need to see A, B and C builds—not just one.

Let's not link to the Warframe Builder. People should be able to see and find what they want here. Crop screen shots to keep the images small and relevant.

I'd like to see builds that you consider the best or smartest.

I'm going to start this off with Soma Prime, my favorite gun in the game. If you have a build to share, please do. Not everyone has Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds, so it would be great to see some other ideas.

To my mind, this build gives Soma Prime the longest legs possible, provided you try for some head shots. Head shots will boost Critical Chance, and kills will boost Critical Damage. I have three damage types for Grineer, Infested, and Corpus. I probably should change that Gas damage to Radiation, for the Void. I've used Heavy Caliber and Hammer Shot in the past, but these builds work better for how I play now.

If you're not posting builds, comments are entirely cool. This might even end up being fun.

Thanks!

[-N7-Leonhart]

I would advise against Radiation for Void. Radiation does 7x less damage against Ancients, compared to Corrosive. It is also neutral to Heavy Gunners, which is a big "NO". Downsides vs Shields as well. Overall, for Corrupted, Corrosive has the most pluses and the fewest downsides.

For your build, I would like to add from my personal experience. If you calculate the damage you get from Bladed Rounds, it would be at most 50% more total damage. My favorite build combo to run Soma P with is Shred + Rifle Scavenger aura (there is also Carrier these days). 20 fire rate, Punch Through, never running out of ammo anyway. By far the most fun and effective way to run Soma in my experience.

[ashrah]

problem with soma is low base dmg and u really wish to amp that to end up with more consistant dmg this is my build for years with soma... serration.split chamber.point strike.vital sense. 2 element 90%.heavy calibar max.shred...now who dont have heavy calibar.  3th element is also good 90%

[rapt0rman]

32 minutes ago, ashrah said:

problem with soma is low base dmg and u really wish to amp that to end up with more consistant dmg this is my build for years with soma... serration.split chamber.point strike.vital sense. 2 element 90%.heavy calibar max.shred...now who dont have heavy calibar.  3th element is also good 90%

To counter, the way to consistently amp up it's base damage is to completely override it with 100%+ crit chance, at that point you're dealing with at the very least 36 "base damage" instead of 12. Obviously you still need serration and elements, but no matter how much raw damage you put on it, every time you don't crit you will be doing considerably less damage then when you crit, and every shot that misses the head from heavy cal will also do considerably less.

Shred is Shred though, and although I don't feel it's necessary on the soma, it's still always a viable option.

Edited January 11, 2017 by rapt0rman

[Exploderizer]

1 hour ago, DEATHLOK said:

best or smartest.

[ashrah]

44 minutes ago, rapt0rman said:

To counter, the way to consistently amp up it's base damage is to completely override it with 100%+ crit chance, at that point you're dealing with at the very least 36 "base damage" instead of 12. Obviously you still need serration and elements, but no matter how much raw damage you put on it, every time you don't crit you will be doing considerably less damage then when you crit, and every shot that misses the head from heavy cal will also do considerably less.

Shred is Shred though, and although I don't feel it's necessary on the soma, it's still always a viable option.

with my shots soma doing 1600dmg and crit almost every shot.for rifles like  dex sybaris i use  argon scope and bladed rounds..

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

I don't really use argon scope as it is amazing, but headshots are a problem.

[Inarticulate]

Mods

• Serration
• Split Chamber
• Point Strike
• Vital Sense
• 2 90% elemental mods
• Your choice of 2 of the following:
  • Argon Scope
  • Bladed Rounds
  • Shred
  • Primed Bane of Faction
  • Riven mod
  • 1 additional 90% elemental mod

I prefer Shred and 3 elemental mods, but that's just me. After Ivara was released resulting in me playing a large proportion of my missions stealthed, zoomed aiming stopped being a habit, so I often forget to zoom to make use of Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds.

Against unarmored (i.e. 4 Corrosive Projections) Grineer, Viral using Primed Cryo Rounds, Primed Bane of Grineer, and Bladed Rounds unequivocally gives the highest single-target damage possible without a Riven mod. Argon Scope can replace Bladed Rounds if you expect your kill rate to considerably slow down. Because all other factions have at least two different health types, a three-element combination gives better overall coverage of the faction at the cost of less damage against specific targets.

Elementals

• Armored Grineer, armored Corrupted: Corrosive-(Cold)
  • Corrosive has large a damage bonus against Ferrite Armor and is neutral to Alloy Armor. The occasional Corrosive proc due to the Soma Prime's high rate of fire amounts to an appreciable boost in damage when it occurs.
  • Cold has a small damage bonus against Alloy Armor and has the largest single-element damage bonus against the armor type, not to mention having the only Primed elemental mod available to rifles.
• Unarmored Grineer, unarmored Corrupted: Viral-(Heat)
  • Viral has the largest damage bonus against Cloned Flesh and ties for the largest damage bonus against Flesh. It hits for at least neutral damage against all other unarmored health types except Machinery. The occasional Viral proc will help speed up your kills.
  • Heat has the second largest damage bonus against Cloned Flesh and hits for at least neutral damage against all other unarmored health types.
  • Against Grineer, Primed Bane of Grineer will significantly outperform Hellfire in the third elemental slot, so use it instead if you have it.
• Corpus: Magnetic-(Toxin)
  • Magnetic has the largest damage bonus against Shields and Proto Shields, and its proc further increases its effectiveness against shielded enemies.
  • Toxin deals damage directly to health before shields have been removed and ties for the largest damage bonus against Flesh. It also has a damage bonus against Ferrite armor, which is possessed by all Bursa types.
• Infested: Corrosive-(Heat)
  • Corrosive has the largest damage bonus against the Fossilized health type, which is possessed by Mutalist Moas and all heavy Infested, as well as Ferrite Armor, which is the only armor type possessed by Infested units. It hits for neutral damage against all other unarmored health types.
  • Heat has the largest single-element damage bonus against both light Infested health types and hits for neutral damage against all other health and armor types except Mutalist Alad V's Proto Shield.

[KnaveOfSwords]

Not loading up the game to get screen shots, but my usual build is:

Serration, Split Chamber, Point Strike, and Vital Sense (I'm going to be shocked if we see any serious Soma Prime builds without those 4).

For the remaining 4 spots, I go with Shred (I know some people write off the punch-through mods, especially for weapons that you want to be trying for headshots with, but I find that it does enough to soften up the 2nd and 3rd rank to be worth the reduced damage to the primary target(s)), and 3 of the 60% element+status mods.  While the Soma isn't great for status, it usually manages enough procs, and the lower cost for these (7 capacity, vs 11 for the 90% mods, or 16 for Primed Cryo Rounds, and the added headache of cryo having a different polarity from the other elements) lets me do this build on just 1 forma (plus catalyst),

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

Primed cryo rounds is becoming mandatory on all my rifle builds just for raw damage.  It means an extra forma though.  Unlike shotguns, all the best rifle mods are expensive and a good rifle build needs a lot of forma.