What weapons for Steel Path ?

[Emaulligu]

Hey there, I got a couple of Warframes holding up but I find myself a bit short in the DPS department, notably against Grineers. So far my Kuva Zarr does the trick, but it takes 2-3 shots to finish off enemies on Earth which, while manageable, makes me worried about going all the way up the starchart.
So I'm asking what's everyone go-to weapon for SP as I'm trying to get more ideas for stuff that can actually work at that level.

[SimpleMinded]

We are going to talk about one of the best 1 forma weapons to make it out of 3.0, that also has special weapon effects. This beats out rivened zaws and optimized exalted weapons. Its essentially the new catchmoon in melee form!

Upon inflicting a Status Effect on its target, the Lesion gains bonuses to its Attack Speed and bonus Toxin damage, which coupled with its primary focus on Slash damage makes it a dangerous weapon.

This flexible build has 100% status chance, 50% armor strip with heat, heat damage over time that stacks, slash damage over time that stacks and viral. Remember how its really hard to get corrosive + viral + slash? Well this weapon does it all with 1 forma. And it boosts its own attack speed on hit for 6 seconds while boosting toxin damage. With double

MELEE 3.0 Changes

Mastery Rank increased from 7 to 9

Damage increased from 100 to 237 (Above average damage buff!)

Range increased from 1.5 to 2.7 (Above average range buff, but behind Galantine/Gram Prime)

Status Chance increased from 30% to 37% (Just above 3x 100% Status Chance cutoff!)

Critical Chance increased from 5% to 15% (We can use berserker mod)

As you can see the 3.0 chances have improved Lesion drastically.

All tests done on L165 Corrupted Heavy Gunners using a wukong gladiator setup. Below we attacked targets using E+E combo. In practice you'll be attacking fast enough that you're hitting these enemies so fast (10-20 hits a second) it won't matter.

Fear not, you don't need a gladiator setup or Wukong for this and we dont build combo duration and the tests don't take advantage of the gladiator bonuses anyawys. I discuss example other warframes that work well below.

If you want to learn more about how to build a Gladiator set build, check out my 4 guide set on Wukong which will walk you through the concept from start to finish, on how its done on any other melee focused warframe.

https://overframe.gg/build/6182/wukong-prime/200k-crits-gladiator-synergy-4-guide-set/

Note that this build can substitute Primed Pressure Point and Molten Impact for Blood Rush + Drifting Contact. This will give you more damage long term against big targets like L165 demolysts and L200 regular enemies but you likely won't see a difference when fighting regular enemies at L165.

And because you are killing things pretty fast in several hits, you generally won't have many targets to build up combo meter, which is why I opted for a more balanced build between Primed Pressure Point (Treat it like its 2.5 extra CO stacks) and Molten Impact (more heat damage per hit).

GUIDE START
The above build gives you nearly everything you want for 1 forma. Good reach, good attack speed (not including self attack speed boost on status proc which means its on all the time), damage scaling (easily 100k hits with Condition overload), armor strip 50% for those pesky L200 enemies (heat damage), big damage over time (slash + heat procs 100%). You also get decent range:

2.7 range = 3.8m reach approx
5.7 range = 6.8m reach approx

As you can see, many weapons have lost out on range due to their internal range not being multiplied by primed reach even after their base range is improved. This also affected slide attack a lot as now the radius is much smaller without spring loaded blade (which is difficult to fit in any build), along with maiming strike no longer being multiplied by blood rush, making it far worse. New bloodrush also is weaker even though it can "stack" to a higher amount, as it doesn't multiply off your crit chance anymore (which maiming strike would also be included in the formula).

Keep in mind you need 3 60/60 mods to achieve 100% status.

(Viral + Slash + Heat) Virulent Scourge + Vicious Frost + Volcanic Edge + Molten Impact = kills a kills a L165 corrupted heavy gunner in 2x E+E (Slashing Wind) combo faster than other setups. This generates a ton of Heat Dots, Slash dots, and viral damage to reduce max HP by 50% while taking advantage of the toxin bonus.

Now let's say you don't care about armor reduction. Below is a GAS setup that basically kills just as fast, in an AOE (gas damage) with stuns (electricity)

(Gas + Electric + Slash stun setup) Volcanic Edge + Molten Impact + Virulent Scourge + Volatic Strike = kills a L165 corrupted heavy gunner in 2x E+E (Slashing Wind) combo. This generates a ton of toxic damage in an AOE with stuns from electricity proc, and slash procs.

Will it blend? Yes it basically blends anything and everything. Yes it has short range but its still decent for what it can do. Armored targets? 50% strip. Big targets? 5-20k heat + 5000 slash damage or more a second. Halve its HP because we can instant? Yes.

Riven?
Damage (Damage always improves status builds)
Attackspeed (Faster hits = more status = more dots = more damage)
Range (hit everything at the same time) or Heat Damage (higher DOT damage)
-Slide Crit/-infested
Arcanes?
Arcane Strike - 10% chance for 40% attack speed 12s
Arcane Fury - on crit 40% chance for 120% melee damage for 12s

You do NOT need arcanes for this to kill everything. Note that Arcane Fury doesn't multiply the damage, its additive so it may not be the best arcane for the warframe you like to use.

Warframes?
Like I said in the intro, I am using a Wukong gladiator setup which gives you melee set bonus based on combo streak and extra lives if you die to a big one shot. However this build is so strong it doesn't need it at all to blend high level enemies. Below I list suggestions as to other frames that can deal even more damage (you can really use this weapon on any frame though as a backup "I need to kill something" melee weapon).

Chroma - 950% self-buff damage boost turns this weapon up to SSS tier

Mirage - 1050% self-buff damage boost with increased range thanks to mirror images turns this up to SSS++ tier.

Rhino - Easy self buff for 200% damage plus cheap 8000 iron skin for tanking. Let's face it, 2x damage is already more than enough.

Any tanky frame that can be up close and personal. Any melee based frame where you want a backup melee weapon when you're low on energy.

What are you waiting for? Go find something to blend!

[dEAdOnE77]

dieheartgamer님이 먼저 게시:

Upon inflicting a Status Effect on its target, the Lesion gains bonuses to its Attack Speed and bonus Toxin damage, which coupled with its primary focus on Slash damage makes it a dangerous weapon.

nice guide, i made just a quick test and it surely melts everthing with that setup (highslashprocs).

[2GenL]

Eclipse with exodia contagion zaw build is the easiest/laziest way and universal to any frame

[dlaurence]

HUGE thank you to dieheartgamer, was stuck on ortho prime modded for speed & viral, but after some tests with recommended build, lesion is definitely superior. Now I just gotta lens it. So thank you.

[t3kk3]

dieheartgamer님이 먼저 게시:

the Lesion

I see you are a man of taste

Still my most used melee, even if i use others more these days (damm lucky riven rolls and fashionframing).

Great explanation how to build endgame melee.

I usually still stick to primed pp and fury bc in pubs it can be hard to get stacks, but for sure your build is one of the best ways to squeeze most damage out of this often overlooked powerhouse (for example with saryn you can swap the 60/60s for raw damage or go for more crit since her 3 gives 100% toxin proc to trigger the passive - co will suffer tho).

Good job!

[Emaulligu]

Sorry I'm a bit late to reply, seems very interesting, I'll have to give it a try.

[Para The Yipper]

Zone님이 먼저 게시:

Will the non kuva normal nukor be good enough? I don't have any good secondaries right now and no access to kuvas right now either as I'm focusing on getting basics for everything still first. I have a pretty well upgraded lens as my primary.

The normal nukor is a single target weapon that does low dmg. The Kuva Nukor is a aoe staus spreader used to empower your condition overload/galvanized mods. Base nukor has %29 status chance. Kuva has a base of %50 and hits multiple enemies.

So no the normal is not good enough. plus kuva weapons are extremely easy to get. it takes at most 4 hours to get one

[W+M1 Pyro]

is mire viable for sp?

[😎Astran😾]

Tener Arca Plasmor with radiation (and Primary Merciless). Even my railjack on-call NPC AI one-shot everything in Steel Path missions using the shotgun.

Also its pellets may bounce so it act like indirect / AoE weapon. It hit stuff even if you shoot walls and floor.

[dEAdOnE77]

W+M1 Pyro님이 먼저 게시:

is mire viable for sp?

Sure, with its innate Toxin, High Slash, good speed, best range in class, good stances, good Dispostion, i enjoy useing it later more often.

[76561198088409502]

kuva zarr is very funny and oneshot everything, use that lol

[lobstermadness]

sporelancer 2ndary pistol :)

[76561199024342534]

Emaulligu님이 먼저 게시:

Hey there, I got a couple of Warframes holding up but I find myself a bit short in the DPS department, notably against Grineers. So far my Kuva Zarr does the trick, but it takes 2-3 shots to finish off enemies on Earth which, while manageable, makes me worried about going all the way up the starchart.
So I'm asking what's everyone go-to weapon for SP as I'm trying to get more ideas for stuff that can actually work at that level.

wana clear steel path together with me?

[peon]

It took me a few months... but I managed to clear steel path. I had to solo 95% of it because no one plays this game mode, which I cant blame people. The only thing that really seems to scale is enemy levels. You get a pathetic amount of credits, experience, and materials/mods which means the only reason to play steel path after clearing it is for farming arcanes.

I did 80% of it probably with octavia prime and a ignis wraith. This worked against everything except for very high level enemies, demolyst's, and a few of the bosses. I was only able to solo interception and hijack with vauban and i used revenant for a few boss missions. The only missions that I couldnt solo and was stuck waiting around in pubilc matchmaking for an hour to wait for someone to join was the ambulas boss fight, and the ropalyst. Ignis wraith isnt going to do anything to them :( haha.

The missions involving the demolyst's I saved for last, and turned out a redeemer prime does very good at blasting most of them down.

It sucks that the only thing you get for clearing steel path is a pat on the back lol.