Need help optimizing my Pyrana Prime build

[Apav]

I have two questions about my build.

1. Where do you think it would be best to fit this riven? I know Seeker is the flex slot but I find punch through to be highly underrated and incredibly useful for all the content I'm doing. I haven't run into that many situations where more single target DPS would matter yet. So I guess that makes my decision between swapping out either Pistol Gambit or Target Cracker for it. Right now with this riven and regular Pistol Gambit I have 85% crit, but I plugged this build into warframe builder and with a maxed Primed Pistol Gambit I'd have 100.97% crit, so is Target Cracker the one I should replace? In this scenario would the loss of 1.3x crit multiplier in almost every hit be noticeable? 

2. Right now I'd have to use one 90% and one 60/60% elemental mod to be able to use this riven without an extra forma, but that has me wondering which combination would be most optimal for DPS. Here's the stats for each combination. Which would you use?

Two 90%: 4620 elemental damage and 38.7% status

One 90% and 60/60%:  3850 elemental damage and 55.8% status

Two 60/60%: 3080 elemental damage and 69.1% status

Thanks for the help!

Edited August 11, 2018 by Apav

[ReinAxefury]

1. If you do low level content, Pyrana Prime is good even without the Riven, that said, there are a few ways you can go about this, i would replace pistol gambit is you really care more about the utility, another way would be reroll the riven for punchtrough+crit+damage/multishot/crit damage + harmless negative.

2. I'll say go with 2 90% mods, reason being that Pyrana Prime is a shotgun secondary, and status chance works the same way as primary shotguns, that 57,6% is the chance for 1 pellet to proc, considering the damage distribution of elements on the weapon, the most likely to proc is slash, but the slash proc from 1 pellet is so low on damage, even if you spend your whole magazine on an enemy, the damage is worthless, even if its for armor strip, there are better weapons to do that (pox, akbronco prime and twin rogga to name a few).

[GibsonPrime]

5 minutes ago, ReinAxefury said:

1. If you do low level content, Pyrana Prime is good even without the Riven, that said, there are a few ways you can go about this, i would replace pistol gambit is you really care more about the utility, another way would be reroll the riven for punchtrough+crit+damage/multishot/crit damage + harmless negative.

2. I'll say go with 2 90% mods, reason being that Pyrana Prime is a shotgun secondary, and status chance works the same way as primary shotguns, that 57,6% is the chance for 1 pellet to proc, considering the damage distribution of elements on the weapon, the most likely to proc is slash, but the slash proc from 1 pellet is so low on damage, even if you spend your whole magazine on an enemy, the damage is worthless, even if its for armor strip, there are better weapons to do that (pox, akbronco prime and twin rogga to name a few).

I second this.

If we're keeping seeker, replacing Pistol Gambit means you gain 13.7% crit chance and a bunch of multi shot.

 

Edit: it's -ve recoil.  nvm.

Edited August 11, 2018 by GibsonPrime

[Apav]

14 minutes ago, ReinAxefury said:

1. If you do low level content, Pyrana Prime is good even without the Riven, that said, there are a few ways you can go about this, i would replace pistol gambit is you really care more about the utility, another way would be reroll the riven for punchtrough+crit+damage/multishot/crit damage + harmless negative.

2. I'll say go with 2 90% mods, reason being that Pyrana Prime is a shotgun secondary, and status chance works the same way as primary shotguns, that 57,6% is the chance for 1 pellet to proc, considering the damage distribution of elements on the weapon, the most likely to proc is slash, but the slash proc from 1 pellet is so low on damage, even if you spend your whole magazine on an enemy, the damage is worthless, even if its for armor strip, there are better weapons to do that (pox, akbronco prime and twin rogga to name a few).

 

9 minutes ago, GibsonPrime said:

I second this.

If we're keeping seeker, replacing Pistol Gambit means you gain 13.7% crit chance and a bunch of multi shot.

 

Edit: it's -ve recoil.  nvm.

 

Thanks for the help guys!

1. I really like this riven so I don't think that's an option for me. Multishot and crit chance are one of the best stats for this gun, and that -75% recoil makes this gun a lot more fun to me. So you would take the 4% increase in crit chance and keep the 1.3x multiplier over losing the 1.3x multiplier and gaining 32% crit chance (or even more with Primed Pistol Gambit)? Is critting ~50% of the time but having a higher multiplier more favorable than critting 100% of the time with a lower multiplier? 

2. I know the Pyrana is a pocket shotgun, but I didn't know it behaves the same as shotgun primaries mechanically speaking. Thanks for clearing this up! 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Apav

[ReinAxefury]

1 minute ago, Apav said:

I really like this riven so I don't think that's an option for me.

Well, on that case, you can always remove seeker when you get to a point where isn't worth using, when you get primed versions of pistol gambit and target cracker it will get in your way, at that point you'll be able to reach 100% crit chance (with the riven) and like x4,6 crit multiplier.

[Apav]

51 minutes ago, ReinAxefury said:

Well, on that case, you can always remove seeker when you get to a point where isn't worth using, when you get primed versions of pistol gambit and target cracker it will get in your way, at that point you'll be able to reach 100% crit chance (with the riven) and like x4,6 crit multiplier.

That sounds optimal, thanks! What exactly is the sort of content that would warrant this, where single target focused builds make a noticeable difference? Because even on sorties and high level endless missions aren't there a lot of enemies still? And where I'm at things still die too quickly for it to matter. 

But there's a problem. I see no way to be able to swap Seeker out unless I forma that dash into a V, but doing that would break my Seeker build. So I'd have to forma anytime I wanted to swap between Seeker and Primed Pistol Gambit/Target Cracker, and that isn't feasible. 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Apav

[ReinAxefury]

5 hours ago, Apav said:

What exactly is the sort of content that would warrant this, where single target focused builds make a noticeable difference?

I'd say if you don't want to go further than lvl200 enemies you should be fine with that weapon, further than that becomes tricky because of ammo economy, depending on buffs and other stuff it should be alright a bit further, also armor plays a big factor considering is a slash based weapon, specially if you know how to take advantage of the passive, you can get a few kills to activate the passive and wait for it to go off to activate it again, that way you can even gain ammo instead of losing it.

5 hours ago, Apav said:

But there's a problem. I see no way to be able to swap Seeker out unless I forma that dash into a V, but doing that would break my Seeker build. So I'd have to forma anytime I wanted to swap between Seeker and Primed Pistol Gambit/Target Cracker, and that isn't feasible.

To this i can only say at that point you'll want to reroll that riven or forget about punch through.