Advice building Plague Keewar Zaw with Riven

[Xenos]

I got a lot of Zaw rivens back to back for some reason, so I figured I might as well use one of them since I've never made a Zaw before. I wanted to do a Plague Keewar using my riven, but again, I have zero experience building Zaws and don't really know what I'm looking for. What other parts of the Zaw should I be using in the build and what stats should I be rolling for in my Keewar riven? The current riven is just gibberish stats that don't have any decent coordination. What should my end goal for a Plague Keewar + Riven look like?

[»SoD« [☎]]

Give it a few rolls, and see what you get, maybe roll 10x, then you can build it based on the riven

[No_Quarter]

Keewar can be Staff and Scythe.

Staff stances suck, all of them, there are 2 or 3 stances and NONE of them are full stances with 4 combos.

Scythe Keewar has low range but stances for those are amazing (try both, see which one you like) so if you get a range on a riven it may actually work. Note that you can also get a good set of stats and let's you "save" one mod slot and use it for Spring-Loaded Blade which should give enough range for it to feel good.

I'd build it with VARGEET JAI II link, gives good crits for Blood Rush, enough status for Condition Overload to work if you put a 60/60 or weeping wounds.
As for riven, critical damage, attack speed, range, melee damage, heat, status chance, combo duration etc.... Depends really, like, if you get range+attack speed and liek chance to get extra combo - it is good, you got range, you get enough attack speed to free up a mod slot and not use more attack speed and that third stat only needs to be "good enough".

Negative chance to gain combo is dreadful so play to Unum you do not get it.

Another example of it would be attack speed, combo duration and critical damage. You use one mod slot for a riven, and you do not use Organ Shatter, Fury and Drifting Contract. So that opens up your build, 2 free slots to do whatever you like cause riven got it covered.

In order to spot a good roll you need to understand building and avoiding diminishing returns. Putting CD on a riven and putting Organ Shatter AND Gladiator Might does look cool, but it is a diminishing return and you need to be careful with it, in that scenario using ANY 60/60 is flat out stronger than Gladiator Might. That is not to say mod is weak, just using multiple mod slots to increase one stat with mods that all take base value into account is a waste of a mod slot in most scenarios.

[Komarimaru]

Keewar+Seekalla+Vargeet II Jai makes a nice fast Staff, 32% crit and 14% status. Red crits galore, built in viral let's you mod for corossive and still has a nice base Slash Damage that works well with the Viral of Keewar. Using the same setup, but use Kripath gives even more Crit but slightly lower status.

Basically, Speed and Crit > Everything right now unless building for Heavy Attack.

[Xenos]

This is all super helpful so far, thanks! However, I've seen other people implying this, but is high status not as important on melee as it is with rifles and shotguns to make mods like Condition Overload work? Is it just all about that crit / speed and viral/corrosive?

[Ghin]

many melee stances give forced status procs in combos, which makes them tend towards high crit. for viral you dont exactly need a high status% to get one proc going. you only need 3 status effects to get condition overload at max power, and you can generally do that with just what gets forced out from stances.

honestly it depends on the weapon and your plans. you wont see a lot of gas weapons because it requires some pretty specific prerequisites to work well.

[Xenos]

In my case, my most used melee is a Gram Prime with Condition Overload / Berserker, 100% status and crit, and viral. Is there a way for this Plague Keewar to out damage it, or should I instead go for a rapid status inflicting build that can rack up corrosive procs along with viral health halving and perhaps fire for stun? Gram has power but no speed. Should I try and make my Zaw very high speed for quick CO takedowns? Or should I stick to the standard crit build?

[No_Quarter]

heat rips 50% of the armor for the duration of a proc. So Viral+Heat seems to be an optimal combo for majority of content, corrosive being better only if particular enemy is weak to it and if armor value goes over like 5000 which is like lvl 200 bombard or something like that

Corrosive still has strength, just with 50% armor strip being more than strong enough for 99% of the content it is definitely no longer a no brainer what to do.
For slow weapons I would NEVER put corrosive on.

If you are making a scythe then make it fast, blood rush, CO work together there.

[Xenos]

If I wanted to design a Zaw solely to rapidly rack up status effects, what would be the best choices? Gas and Electric for AOE Toxic and AOE stun? Or Magnetic and Fire for a pseudo catch-all against Armor and Shields while also causing panic? Should I roll the Riven to include Status Duration if possible?

[No_Quarter]

you do understand that there is a mod that gives you status duration and you can put it in?

As I suggested, riven does not have to have all perfect stats. it can be good even if it replaces your regular mods, so if a riven roll opens up a mod slot then use it as you like.
cold, attack speed and combo duration does not sound incredible but it gives VIral with Primed Fever Strike, and you do not have to use Fury and Drifting Contract - so you can use other things.

So rolling a riven for certain set of stats is a wrong approach imho, sure, desire one or two stats that cannot be replaced, but in melee there is no one roll that rules them all.
Range is always a good stat, rest is always up to debate and what it opens up in a build.
Example, you want CC+CD riven but you get CC+Cold. Good, ditch Vicious Frost from the build and add Gladiator Might. Outcome for all intents and purposes is the same, sure if your dispo is high your CD is slightly lower but value of cold you got is higher so it gets leveled up pretty darn close. Assuming you go with Viral which for melee makes sense cause Primed Toxin adds crapton.

Status duration is kinda meh on fast melee, apart from stacking insane bleeds if stance lets you force them there is very little reason for it, most status effects have 6 second duration and majority of targets die within that window anyway.

As for what elemental you should go for - hard to tell because there is no best choice for everything and roll of a riven may force you one way or another.

Viral+Heat is the most all-round setup but not the best in every scenario. Getting electricity on a riven makes that impossible so try to make best use of what you get, getting 2 very good stats alongside electricity may make it so it does not matter what you got on because your output is insane

[Xenos]

Originally posted by No_Quarter:

you do understand that there is a mod that gives you status duration and you can put it in?

As I suggested, riven does not have to have all perfect stats. it can be good even if it replaces your regular mods, so if a riven roll opens up a mod slot then use it as you like.
cold, attack speed and combo duration does not sound incredible but it gives VIral with Primed Fever Strike, and you do not have to use Fury and Drifting Contract - so you can use other things.

So rolling a riven for certain set of stats is a wrong approach imho, sure, desire one or two stats that cannot be replaced, but in melee there is no one roll that rules them all.
Range is always a good stat, rest is always up to debate and what it opens up in a build.
Example, you want CC+CD riven but you get CC+Cold. Good, ditch Vicious Frost from the build and add Gladiator Might. Outcome for all intents and purposes is the same, sure if your dispo is high your CD is slightly lower but value of cold you got is higher so it gets leveled up pretty darn close. Assuming you go with Viral which for melee makes sense cause Primed Toxin adds crapton.

Status duration is kinda meh on fast melee, apart from stacking insane bleeds if stance lets you force them there is very little reason for it, most status effects have 6 second duration and majority of targets die within that window anyway.

As for what elemental you should go for - hard to tell because there is no best choice for everything and roll of a riven may force you one way or another.

Viral+Heat is the most all-round setup but not the best in every scenario. Getting electricity on a riven makes that impossible so try to make best use of what you get, getting 2 very good stats alongside electricity may make it so it does not matter what you got on because your output is insane

Appreciate the loads of advice!

I think I'll roll it a few times and look for anything that would add to a super speedy status build. I've never done a pure status / speed melee before, only hybrids and pure crits, so this should be fun!

[No_Quarter]

There are 0 reasons to not do hybrid on Keewar too, think it would be a waste since you have the option to build a hybrid.

But there are weapons that do not have that option, from the top of my head it's Garuda's Talons and basically anything with 10% or less base CC and a poor riven disposition.
Good riven disposition let's you use Sacrificial Steel and CC on a riven to reach 50%+ CC and gain DPS from that as well as strong status. Garuda does not get a riven for her but her talons are super strong anyway.

[Xenos]

Originally posted by No_Quarter:

There are 0 reasons to not do hybrid on Keewar too, think it would be a waste since you have the option to build a hybrid.

But there are weapons that do not have that option, from the top of my head it's Garuda's Talons and basically anything with 10% or less base CC and a poor riven disposition.
Good riven disposition let's you use Sacrificial Steel and CC on a riven to reach 50%+ CC and gain DPS from that as well as strong status. Garuda does not get a riven for her but her talons are super strong anyway.

It's more that nothing I roll could possibly be better than my 100% status/crit Condition Overload Gram Prime. Any hybrids I do just feel like inferior versions of it. So I want to try and do speed and viral plus other statuses, which Gram can't do.

But I'll give it a quick shot if a riven roll has a very high CC chance