[Top 10] Warframe Best Secondary Weapons That Are Powerful (Latest Patch: Angels of Zariman) And How To Get Them

[Top 10] Warframe Best Secondary Weapons That Are Powerful (Latest Patch Angels of Zariman) And How To Get Them-01
Updated:
12 Jun 2022

Secondaries play a different role in Warframe than they do in other shooting games. If you’re an fps fan, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Switching to your sidearm is always faster than reloading.” But that’s not necessarily the case for this game as some primary weapons reload in the blink of an eye while some secondary weapons reload as if they were light machine guns.

No, they’re not meant to get a quick kill while your other weapon’s running low. Rather, they act as a second primary weapon that you use for different situations or enemy types.

Here are the top 10 arms you’d want at your side when your primary and melee weapons just won’t cut it.

(Note: For the sake of this list, I will also consider Kitgun chambers even though they can also be used as primary weapons depending on the other components attached to them)

10. Aksomati Prime

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Dated meme alert! Aksomati Prime go BRRRR

Making it to the 10th spot are the dual-wield, rapid-fire pistols: Aksomati Prime. 

Two fun little facts about this weapon:

You’ll notice a lot of the dual-wield pistols in the game have the prefix “Ak” in their names. This most likely means “akimbo” or the art of dual-wielding weapons.

The second tidbit is that the base and prime versions of this weapon look, and even act, similar to the primary weapon “Soma” and “Soma Prime”. They’re all rapid-fire weapons that have an Auto-Spool feature. This means that these weapons need to fire a few shots before achieving their max firing rate.

What Aksomati Prime excels at:

  • Easy to control rapid-fire:

Another feature of the Aksomati Prime is that as its fire rate spools up, its accuracy actually increases. Making this weapon even more useful once it’s reached that point.

  • Dealing multiple critical hits quickly:

The Aksomati Prime has a critical chance of 24% and a critical multiplier of 3x (the third-highest critical multiplier among pistols). Combine that with the speedy fire rate and you’ll be seeing crits pop up fast and hard.

How to get Aksomati Prime:

Like most Primed weapons, the Aksomati Prime’s blueprints and parts are obtainable by cracking Void Relics or trading them with other players. A list of the Void Relics containing this weapon’s blueprints and parts can be found on the “Aksomati Prime details” link below.

Void Relic Guide

Aksomati Prime Details

9. Lex Prime

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The pocket sniper rifle we did not deserve.

If I could be totally biased, I’d probably put this classic way higher on the list. It just feels SO good (it also doesn’t hurt that I’ve got a pretty good riven mod for it).

The Lex Prime is essentially the Deagle (desert eagle) of Warframe. It has good accuracy and packs a massive punch per shot. It has a high recoil too but that’s the price you pay for absolutely wrecking people with the pull of a trigger (you can also fix the recoil with recoil mods).

Compared to its non-prime version, the Lex Prime features higher damage, critical chance, status chance, fire rate, and magazine.

What Lex Prime excels at:

  • Being a mini sniper rifle:

As I said earlier, the secondaries in this game fill whatever roles the rest of your arsenal doesn’t. So if you’ve got a shotgun for a primary, taking a Lex Prime to act as a long weapon isn’t a bad idea. It certainly feels like a sniper rifle without the scope that’s for sure.

  • One shotting:

The Lex Prime features a high base damage along with a high critical chance of 25%. Use this to take down high-priority targets quickly.

How to get Lex Prime:

Like most Primed weapons, the Lex Prime’s blueprints and parts are obtainable by cracking Void Relics or trading them with other players. A list of the Void Relics containing this weapon’s blueprints and parts can be found on the “Lex Prime details” link below.

Void Relic Guide

Lex Prime Details

8. Sporelacer

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Just another reason to put on face masks.

The Sporelacer is a Kitgun chamber that fires full auto when turned into a primary weapon and fires semi-auto when used as a secondary. If you’re new to Warframe, the Kitgun system is a “build-your-own-gun” experience the game offers where you assemble components of your choosing to make your own personal firearm. Obviously, we’ll focus on this thing being a secondary weapon here.

As a secondary weapon, the toxic projectiles this weapon fires deals area of effect (AOE) damage on impact and then splits into three bomblets that deal even more toxin damage.

What Sporelacer excels at:

  • Versatility:

Since it’s a Kitgun component, the Sporelacer has a ton of potential capabilities. It can match your playstyle easily with the right grip and loader. You can get the damage, fire rate, critical chance, and other attributes of the weapon just right for how you want to play the game.

  • Crowd control:

Seeing as its projectiles blow up, then multiply, the Sporelacer is ideal for keeping large numbers of enemies at bay.

  • Melting flesh:

The Sporelacer deals mainly Toxin damage which is best for targets with flesh, meat, and bones (like Corpus Crewmen). Its damage and status effect also ignores most shields in the game, the exception being the shields of boss enemies.

How to get Sporelacer:

The Sporelacer blueprint is bought from Father in the Necralisk in Deimos. It is accessible starting at Neutral rank and costs 500 Entrati Standing.

How to farm the Entrati Standing you need to buy the Sporelacer

Sporelacer Details

7. Dex Furis

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Ever had your significant other give you something like this during your anniversary?

The Dex Furis is a pleasant surprise for new players who’ve only been on Warframe for a year or less. If you’re one of those players, wait for the next anniversary to get a hold of this gem.

This weapon is a huge improvement from the normal Afuris. It sacrifices some of its base damage for critical chance, status chance, fire rate, magazine, and ammo capacity, and oh wow, is it a sacrifice that’s worth taking.

What Dex Furis excels at:

  • Unloading clips on foes in seconds:

Among the secondary weapon family, the Dex Furis has the second-highest fire rate (and the highest fire rate of the weapons in this list).  Get your magazines ready and let it rip, figuratively and literally.

  • Being easily accessible with full modding capabilities:

You get the weapon in a relatively easy mission during Warframe’s anniversary. It also comes with a free weapon slot and is already fitted with an Orokin Catalyst allowing you to install your best mods right from the get-go.

  • Dealing status effects:

If modded properly, you could actually make this weapon reach 100% status chance. Now each of its dozens of shots per second inflicts whatever status effect you choose to put on it!

  • Popping nullifier bubbles:

Get rid of those pesky nullifier bubbles in a second with these rapid-fire pistols so you can get back to unleashing all of your Warframe’s abilities.

How to get Dex Furis:

You get the Dex Furis by participating in the yearly anniversary alerts in March. You will get one with a free weapon slot and Orokin Catalyst already installed.

Dex Furis Details

6. Akarius

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Less John Wick, more Oppenheimer.

Now some of you might be challenging the notion of secondary weapons filling the roles of primary weapons. “Ok, what about rocket launchers, is there a secondary weapon that can fill that role?” you may be asking. And I may be answering with the Akarius.

They may not look like it, but these things fire homing rockets with a huge AOE.

If that’s not enough for you, the Akarius also has a feature where it reloads 50% faster while you’re sprinting. Also, lore-wise this weapon is owned by the Warframe Gauss. When you use this with Gauss as your frame, this weapon gets an additional 50% reload speed boost.

What Akarius excels at:

  • AOE:

The rocket’s explosion radius is 7.2 meters which is really big (also, the Akarius fires two rockets per tap, one for each gun). This allows you to easily manage hordes of enemies, whether you’re defending a point or are on the move since its reload speed improves while you sprint.

  • Not needing to be aimed:

Apart from having a sizable AOE, the rockets themselves also chase enemies, so you can just aim in their general direction and not have to worry about missing.

  • Sending opponents to space heaven:

The explosion of the rockets deals 419 blast damage which has the third-highest base damage among secondary weapons, allowing you to game-end mostly anything you face. Yes, I said game-end.

How to get Akarius:

Akarius blueprints drop from Demolisher Infested units on the Ur node in Uranus (It’s a Disruption mission).

Akarius Farm Guide

Akarius Details

5. Tenet Cycron

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Your sister dropped this. She seems nice.

The Tenet Cycron is a powerful secondary beam weapon. It shows increased base damage, and critical and status chance from its base counterpart. But it has a lot more differences with the base Cycron aside from just the usual stat improvements.

There are two significant changes. The first is that instead of dealing 8 puncture, 5 slash, and 10 radiation damage, the Tenet Cycron now deals 22 heat damage.

The second difference is that its beam now chains between enemies. What this means is that when the beam hits the enemy, instead of the beam ending there, it will latch on to another nearby enemy (only up to 7 meters). The beam chains twice so you can damage three enemies at once (it will only deal 60% of its total damage to the chained enemies, however).

As an added bonus, all Tenet weapons raise their max rank every time you apply a forma, capping at rank 40. It will also have bonus damage, the type of damage would depend on the Warframe used to spawn your Sister of Parvos.

What Tenet Cycron excels at:

  • Having endless ammo:

Like the base Cycron, the Tenet version also has the feature of refilling its own ammo 1 second after it stops shooting. It only takes another single second to fill an empty battery.

Both versions of the Cycrons cannot pick up ammo and can only reload in this manner.

  • Having the Tenet Weapon bonuses:

The Tenet Cycron, once you’ve used forma five times, will have a max level of 40. It also has the added bonus damage based on the Sister that spawned with it.

  • Causing status effects:

This weapon has a status chance of 40% which is pretty impressive. You can mod it even further so that it can be used to deal multiple status effects quickly.

How to get Tenet Cycron:

You can get this secondary weapon by vanquishing a Sister of Parvos that was generated with one. Sisters spawn with a random Tenet weapon though so it may take a while to get one to spawn with the Tenet Cycron.

Sisters of Parvos Guide

Tenet Cycron Details

4. Catchmoon

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Best Kitgun Chamber in the market.

Widely considered as the best Kitgun chamber, the Catchmoon has been nerfed multiple times over the years, and yet it still manages to stay on top.

When used on a secondary weapon, the Catchmoon is a semi-automatic pistol that fires a large, high-damage dealing projectile. It’s a simple weapon that enforces the “less is more” ideology.  It’s also a Kitgun so what you want it to specialize in depends on you entirely.

Its only limitation is that it has limited range. But the damage it deals more than makes up for this.

What Catchmoon excels at:

  • Versatility:

Like the Sporelacer, the Catchmoon can match your playstyle when you use the grip and loader that’s right for you.

  • Staggering enemies:

All enemies you hit within 9 meters will get an assured impact proc which staggers them. This allows you to escape or deal further damage for free.

  • Raw damage:

Of course, it will depend on the other components you choose, but any Kitgun with the Catchmoon chamber generally deals amazing damage.

How to get Catchmoon:

The Catchmoon blueprint is bought from Rude Zuud in Fortuna in Venus. It is accessible starting at Neutral rank and costs 500 Solaris United Standing.

How to farm the Solaris United Standing you need to buy the Catchmoon

Catchmoon Details

3. Epitaph

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Using this weapon will indeed result in a lot of Epitaphs being written.

If you’ve ever played Assassin’s Creed Unity, this thing is kind of like the Phantom Blade Arno uses. It’s a wrist-mounted mini crossbow. It doesn’t really get much cooler than that.

The Epitaph, like primary bow weapons, doesn’t make use of a magazine and instead draws directly from your main ammo pool.

The main gimmick with this weapon though is its charging mechanism. When you fire the Epitaph uncharged, it shoots an AOE projectile with a guaranteed Cold status effect. Fire the weapon charged and you get a piercing bolt that can hit multiple enemies in a line.

What Epitaph excels at:

  • Having the best criticals (if you want it to):

With the charged shot, the Epitaph has the highest critical chance (48%) of all secondaries, as well as an impressive 2.6x critical multiplier.

  • Status effects (also if you want it to):

On the other hand, the uncharged shot has the second-highest status chance (50%) among secondaries. So you can mod the Epitaph in a variety of ways since it’s good at both crits and status effects.

  • AOE (if you wan- you get the point):

As stated above, the uncharged shot deals AOE which is good whenever you find yourself heavily outnumbered.

How to get Epitaph:

The main blueprint and all the components are obtained through Void Storm missions on Earth Proxima, Venus Proxima, and Saturn Proxima. There is either a 9.76% or 10% chance for each of them dropping, depending on which location you go to. For the full list of drop percentages per location, check the link for the “Epitaph details”.

Guide for getting the Epitaph

Epitaph Details

2. Pyrana Prime

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Dance to the beat of the Pyrana Prime.

An automatic shotgun disguised as a pistol. If that doesn’t sell you on the Pyrana Prime, I don’t know what will. Compared to its base counterpart, the Pyrana Prime has an improved magazine and reload speed but has worse damage and fire rate. That might sound really bad but don’t worry, it has a feature that saves it.

When the Pyrana Prime kills 3 enemies, with each kill performed within 2 seconds of the last one, you will get an “ethereal Pyrana”. Basically, a second Pyrana, which turns it into a dual-wield weapon for 6 seconds. While in this mode, the magazine size doubles and fire-rate is increased by an incredible 40%.

What Pyrana Prime excels at:

  • Bringing the pain:

The Pyrana Prime has a critical chance of 24% chance. And that’s per pellet (each shot fires 10 pellets) so you’re pretty much going to get a couple of crits every time you fire your gun, considering most of your shots land of course.

  • Bringing the pain quickly:

If you can trigger the ethereal Pyranna effect, you’ll have your automatic shotguns firing nonstop to spray endless pellets on your enemies.

How to get Pyrana Prime:

Like most Primed weapons, the Pyrana Prime’s blueprints and parts are obtainable by cracking Void Relics or trading them with other players. A list of the Void Relics containing this weapon’s blueprints and parts can be found on the “Pyrana Prime details” link below.

Void Relic Guide

Pyrana Prime Details

1. Kuva Nukor

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Evaporate whoever’s in your way with the Kuva Nukor!

If you liked the Tenet Cycron from earlier, you’ll LOVE the Kuva Nukor. Well, to be fair, if you like the secondary weapons in general, you’ll love this weapon.

The Kuva Nukor is also a beam weapon with the added effect of chaining up to two enemies (up to 9 meters instead of the Tenet Cycron’s 7 meters). The Kuva Nukor also has a higher status chance than the Tenet Cycron (50% vs 40%).

But the main reason why this weapon takes the top spot is a hidden status effect called “microwave”. The effect itself isn’t that amazing, it simply enlarges the body part that the beam hits. But this status effect has an infinite duration and it also helps stacks with the mod Condition Overload which has been a player favorite for a long time for increasing damage dealt.

Also, as with all Kuva Weapons, the Kuva Nukor’s max rank increases every time you apply a forma, capping at rank 40. It will also have bonus damage, the type of damage would depend on the Warframe used to spawn your Kuva Lich.

What Kuva Nukor excels at:

  • Having the Kuva Weapon bonuses:

The Kuva Nukor, once using forma five times, will have a max level of 40. It also has the added bonus damage based on the Kuva Lich that spawned with it.

  • Deleting crowds:

All you need to do is pretty much target one enemy in a group and just watch the chain effect take place. That group will be nothing but space dust in no time.

  • Giving away free status effects (so generous):

With a status chance of 50%, the Kuva Nukor ties with the Epitaph in having the second-highest status chance among all secondary weapons. As said earlier, synergize this weapon with Condition Overload to maximize your damage output.

How to get Kuva Nukor:

You can get this secondary weapon by vanquishing a Kuva Lich that was generated with one. Liches spawn with a random Kuva weapon though so it may take a while to get one to spawn with a Kuva Nukor.

Kuva Lich Guide

Kuva Nukor Details

 

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