Skip to content

Essential Weapons for Warframe 2023: Must-Haves!

As a Warframe player entering Steel Path and endgame content, building an arsenal of the right weapons is key to dominating level 100+ enemies. In this extensive guide, I‘ll cover my top primary, secondary, and melee recommendations, essential mods/arcanes, weapon synergies, plus tips to prepare for Steel Path based on my 2,000+ hour experience.

What is Steel Path and How Does it Work?

Steel Path is an ultra hard version of the star chart with enemies starting at level 100 and scaling upwards in difficulty. All missions feature additional modifiers like reduced ability duration alongside exponentially increased enemy armor, health, and shields.

To unlock Steel Path, you must first complete every planet across the entire star chart. Once accessible, Steel Path missions can be launched from any eligible planet node.

When playing Steel Path, expect adversaries to hit ruthlessly hard and withstand your attacks unless built specifically to counter them. It demands heavily forma‘d warframes and weapons for added mod capacity to equip essential mods.

While solo builds exist to counter Steel Path alone, playing in a squad synergizing warframe abilities and weapon combos makes missions far smoother.

Overpowered Primary Weapons

Primaries excel at clearing hordes of Steel Path enemies. These options have ample damage, critical/status chance, and AoE potential to wipe out rooms rapidly.

Kuva Bramma (Bow)

  • 3.0x Critical Multiplier
  • 35% Critical Chance
  • 20% Status Chance
  • Mainly Blast Damage

This explosive bow obliterates packs of enemies instantly with its high crit stats and Blast AoE. For Steel Path, build for Hunter Munitions to trigger slash procs that bypass armor. Its high ammo consumption is offset by Arcane Ultimatum headshot kills refunding arrows.

Trumna (Rifle)

  • 30% Critical Chance
  • 2.4x Critical Multiplier
  • 25% Status Chance
  • Primarily Impact Damage

The Trumna toggle provides devastating explosive shots on demand. Against Steel Path adversaries, directly hitting an enemy triggers Impact and slash procs with immense damage. Its secondary fire also launches bouncing grenades to carpet bomb areas.

Phenmor (Shotgun)

  • 22% Critical Chance
  • 2.2x Critical Multiplier
  • 32% Status Chance
  • Innate Heat/Impact

This hybrid Corpus shotgun has fantastic damage distribution for picking apart Steel Path enemies. It also features an alternate semi-auto beam with perfect accuracy for sniping. Build for Critical Delay and Galvanized Scope to push slash procs for heavy bleed damage.

Secondary Weapons to Complement Primaries

While secondaries generally see less use over primaries, these four options work fantastically as planned backups. Their high crit, status chance and mechanics synergize beautifully as weapon switches for primary reloads or adding supplementary damage.

Laetum (Pistol)

  • 37% Critical Chance
  • 2.8x Critical Multiplier
  • 37% Status Chance
  • Mostly Slash/Viral Damage

An absolute crit/status monster exceeding most secondaries in raw stats. Its primary fire shoots tracers that stick to targets, exploding after a short duration to apply all accumulated status effects at once. Shreds Steel Path enemies effortlessly through slash procs.

Kuva/Tenet Nukor (Beam Secondary)

  • 26% Critical Chance
  • 2.5x Critical Multiplier
  • 100% Status Chance (!)
  • Mainly Radiation Damage

While featuring lower crit stats than the Laetum, the Nukor compensates with an unreal 100% status chance. It showers enemies in radiation and secondary elemental damage for multiplying bonus effects against crowds. Fantastic for stripping Steel Path enemies of armor and shields.

Epitaph (Pistol)

  • 30% Critical Chance
  • 2.4 Critical Multiplier
  • 28% Status Chance
  • Primarily Impact Damage

The Epitaph specializes in crowd control through guaranteed impact procs and knockdowns with every shot. It serves as an excellent primer to trigger suspensions for melee finishers. Works wonders before swapping to an exploding secondary like the Nukor or Laetum as enemies helplessly take multiplied damage.

Cyanex (Pistol)

  • 21% Critical Chance
  • 2.2x Critical Multiplier
  • 37% Status Chance
  • High Electric Damage

An automatic Corpus pistol with impressive critical stats, its Alternate Fire launches explosive plasma grenades that stick to any surface or enemy. Extremely ammo efficient while dishing out high burst damage, it complements sustained damage primaries like the Trumna or Bramma.

Lethal Melee Weapons

Every melee category sports powerful options for Steel Path provided they meet key criteria:

  • 25%+ Critical Chance
  • 2.0x+ Critical Multiplier
  • 25%+ Status Chance
  • Favors Slash Damage

Here are prime melee choices covering various ranges and speeds:

Stropha (Gunblade): Sports a balanced 31% critical and status chance alongside excellent Slash damage distribution for vicious bleed procs. Its innate Blast helps crowd control groups while heavy attacks maul lone tanky enemies.

Reaper Prime (Heavy Blade): This large sword strikes an optimal balance between attack speed, status/critical chance, range and jump attacks to shred Steel Path adversaries. Mows down enemies with ease via Hunter Munitions and slash procs.

Guandao Prime (Polearm): Features fantastic critical stats (29% chance, 2.6x multiplier) complemented by good status chance and mostly Slash damage. Long reach allows slaying enemies beyond melee range.

Kronen Prime (Tonfa): Very fast base attack speed coupled with 33% critical and status makes this weapon a lethal critical/status hybrid. Build for CO, Blood Rush and Berserker for big slash procs via Hunter Munitions against armored enemies.

Felarx (Glaive): Glaive heavy attacks apply multiple instances of damage; one from modded physical/elemental damage, and a secondary random elemental proc. This versatility pumps out multiplied damage from CO and galvanized mods.

Top Aura Mods

These essential mods boost weapon damage, critical/status chance beyond base ranks. Use an forma to fit them into builds over regular mods like Rifle Amp.

  • Galvanized Aptitude (Shotguns)
  • Galvanized Scope (Rifles)
  • Galvanized Shot (Pistols)

Combining two galvanized mods provide massive damage bonuses that significantly outscale normal mods. They also improve critical/status chance.

Best Steel Path Companions

When playing solo, equip these hard-hitting companions to draw enemy fire and secure kills:

Panzer Vulpaphyla: Grants damage boosts when revived and spreads viral procs for amplification against enemies

Smeeta Kavat: Provides random buffs like critical chance/affinity boosts, ammo/energy restores through its Charm ability

Predasite: Features the Godhand beam that strips armor and grants increased critical chance

Play With A Balanced Team

Squad composition directly impacts how smoothly Steel Path missions go. Ensure at least one of these team buffing warframes/sentinel while rounding out the squad with DPS picks:

  • Frost – Protects objectives with impenetrable Snow Globe barriers

  • Limbo – Renders objectives and players invulnerable to damage in the Rift while energy restorings with Haven Augment

  • Trinity – Provides endless energy and health restores for the entire squad to maintain peak combat performance

  • Wisp – Boosts DPS with fire rate/critical chance motes while providing HP via nourishing mote reservoirs

  • Corrosive Projection Aura (Sentinel Mod) – Essential for stripping away Steel Path enemy armor with enough coordinated squad use

By combining our weapons, ability synergies and essential Steel Path mods listed here, we can dominate this ultra-endgame content with ease. Let me know if you have any other questions!