Understanding Weapon Damage in Warframe
Warframe’s damage system can seem complex, but understanding a few core principles will let you build your weapons effectively and deal with high-level content confidently. Here’s a practical breakdown focusing on what actually matters when modding your weapons.
1. Mods Matter More Than Weapons
Early on, the difference between weapons matters far less than the mods you put on them. Focus on getting and leveling essential damage mods (like Serration, Hornet Strike) before worrying about using the “best” weapon.
2. Key Damage Multipliers
Weapon damage is affected by several multipliers:
- Base Damage Mods (e.g., Serration) increase total damage.
- Elemental Mods add elemental damage, stacking with base damage.
- Multishot (e.g., Split Chamber) effectively multiplies your damage and status application.
- Critical Chance & Critical Damage can significantly boost your damage output if the weapon has decent Crit stats.
- Status Chance increases the chance of applying procs like Slash or Viral that scale damage over time.
- Faction Damage Mods (e.g., Smite Grineer) can double your damage on status ticks.
3. Physical and Elemental Damage Types
Physical Damage (IPS): Impact, Puncture, Slash. Slash is highly valued due to its armor-bypassing Bleed damage over time. Impact and Puncture are less useful in most scenarios but can help with stagger and damage reduction.
Elemental Damage: Adding Heat, Cold, Electric, or Toxin can improve your damage against certain enemies. Combining these creates secondary elements like Viral (Toxin + Cold) for +damage to health or Corrosive (Toxin + Electric) to reduce enemy armor.
4. Crit vs Status
- Weapons with high Crit Chance benefit greatly from Crit builds, especially with mods like Point Strike.
- Weapons with high Status Chance can apply powerful procs like Slash, Corrosive, or Viral consistently.
- Many top builds combine both Crit and Status for consistent, scaling damage output.
5. Recommended Elemental Combinations
- Viral + Heat: Strong for general use, increasing damage to health and adding heat procs for additional DPS and armor stripping.
- Corrosive + Heat: Useful against armored Grineer and high-level enemies.
- Gas: Situational for specific builds but less generally effective.
6. Practical Tips
- Prioritize getting and leveling damage and elemental mods before anything else.
- Use Multishot mods whenever possible for increased DPS and status application.
- Experiment with element combinations based on the enemies you face most often.
- Consider your weapon’s base Crit and Status stats to determine your build direction.
7. Next Steps
Once you understand these basics, you can fine-tune your builds using Rivens, advanced elemental setups, and faction-specific loadouts. Use WF Tools’ Amp Builder and MOA Builder to plan your builds efficiently and Prime Farming Tips to secure endgame gear to match your builds.
By mastering these fundamentals, you will find your Warframe journey much smoother while maximizing your farming and gameplay efficiency.