Warframe: Top 10 Secondary Weapons, Ranked (2024)

This article is part of a directory: Warframe: Complete Guide

Warframe is no stranger to unique weapons, ranging from plasma shotguns to fully automatic explosive assault rifles. However, one category of weapons most forget to mention is secondary weapons.

Most secondary weapons come with stronger Mods than their primary counterparts, potentially making them stronger than primaries when modded correctly. Just like melee weapons or primaries, secondaries can come with interesting mechanics to set them apart from the rest. Some even let players add custom effects, such as gaining strength on a kill or gaining infinite ammo. Here are some of the strongest secondary weapons players can use in Warframe.

Updated August 25, 2023, by Charles Burgar: We have overhauled this list to include better formatting features and more in-depth analysis for each weapon. Some entries were removed to make room for meta Incarnon options, while the remaining entries were mostly rewritten to include more useful information. We've also reranked most entries to account for less geared players. See our note below for our ranking criteria.

Beyond that, we've also added tables to each entry that showcases basic weapon information, including a short section that explains why the weapon made the list. Some entries now focus on newer players finishing the Star Chart, while later entries are tailored for experienced Tenno looking for the absolute strongest gear in the game.

10 Lex Prime

The Space Desert Eagle

The Lex is Warframe's take on a beefy hand cannon, acting as a space Desert Eagle. All newer players can pick up this gun for a measly 50,000 Credits from the in-game market, making it one of the first secondary weapons you can unlock. With its high base damage and solid critical stats, the Lex makes short work of Star Chart enemies once you throw on a few mods. It's a straight upgrade over the Lato and MK1-Kunai.

A gilded variant of this weapon, the Lex Prime, can be earned through certain Void Relics. But the major upgrade to the Lex comes from its Incarnon Adapter, turning it into a pocket BFG from Doom. When transformed, each round fires a massive projectile that disintegrates everything in its path, boasting absurd base damage and critical stats. Acolytes, Steel Path Eximus units, virtually nothing can survive more than a couple of shots from this gun.

9 Sporelacer Kitgun

That's One Explosive Mushroom

Sporelacer Kitguns are created by combining a Sporelacer barrel with a secondary grip and magazine. These Kitguns are effectively Infested rocket launchers, firing explosive armaments that deal immense amounts of Toxin damage on detonation. Build this weapon for fire rate and critical stats, and the Sporelacer will clear entire hallways for you in the blink of an eye.

Crafting this weapon isn't locked behind any endgame grinds either, although there is some time-gating involved. The Sporelacer itself is tied to the Entrati's progression system on Deimos, while the remaining Kitgun parts are obtained from Solaris United in Fortuna. You'll need to grind multiple reputation levels with both factions to forge a Sporelacer Kitgun, but the effort is absolutely worth it. A strong build with this gun will carry through the entire Star Chart and most Steel Path content.

8 Knell Prime

A Full-Auto Sniper Pistol

Harrow Prime's signature weapon is nothing short of a powerhouse in the right environment. Featuring double the crit chance and higher base damage than its default counterpart, the Knell Prime shreds through hordes of enemies with an infinite supply of high-damage rounds. All it requires is you land a single headshot every few seconds. That's not a big ask for an Eidolon hunt, but for general play, landing a headshot can be surprisingly difficult with how inconsistent enemy hitboxes can be.

Landing that headshot gives the Knell infinite ammo, 0.5x more critical multiplier, and +20% status chance for two seconds. This stacks up to three times, granting a monstrous amount of status and critical stats. If you can land the occasional headshot, this becomes a fully-automatic Rubico Prime with a bottomless magazine. But if you're fighting enemies with small precision weakpoints (or none at all), then the Knell becomes functionally useless.

7 Tenet Cycron

Bottomless Status Effects

If you want a decent secondary weapon that can do a little bit of everything, look no further than the Tenet Cycron. This weapon fires an incendiary beam that deals Heat damage with high status chance, making it a solid status primer when built properly. All Cycron models also feature a battery in place of a magazine, allowing the gun to recharge its ammo between trigger pulls.

More importantly, the Tenet Cycron chains its beam between two nearby targets, allowing it to damage three enemies simultaneously. With the right build, you can mow through hordes of enemies within seconds. Anything that survives will be debuffed from dozens of Heat procs and any other elements your gun is modded for. The Tenet Cycron is outclassed by Incarnon weapons and even the Kuva Nukor, but there's no denying that this weapon makes short work of most content.

6 Epitaph Prime

The Ultimate Status Primer

There's no stronger status primer in Warframe than the Epitaph Prime. Obtained from Void Relics, this powerful arm cannon launches explosive projectiles with high status chance, capable of inflicting multiple ailments per explosion. You can then follow that up with a charged shot, firing a metal slab that inflicts absurd critical damage. Soften them up with your primary fire, then charge a round to delete the target(s) from existence.

The Epitaph Prime doubles as an AoE status primer and a focused single-target DPS weapon. You can build the primary fire to clear mobs efficiently in lower-level content, but the gun truly shines when you juggle both modes. Throw on Galvanized Shot and Hemorrhage to make the Epitaph truly shine.

5 Kuva Nukor

The Former King Of Secondaries

Before Incarnon weapons were a thing, everyone used the Kuva Nukor. This weapon was unquestionably the strongest secondary in Warframe for years, and that's mostly due to its unique mechanic. Enemies struck by the Kuva Nukor chain the beam toward two nearby targets, effectively tripling the gun's damage output against groups. Paired with its solid base damage, you can mop the floor with most Steel Path units with this gun alone.

It seems similar to the Tenet Cycron, but the Kuva Nukor has one trick up its sleeve: a x5 critical damage multiplier. If you can find a way to make your weapons critically hit more often—notably through Arcane Avenger or Harrow's Covenant ability—then the Kuva Nukor becomes a weapon of mass destruction. It's still an S-tier option for Steel Path content, but the Kuva Nukor has simply been powercrept by Incarnon weapons and the Ocucor.

4 Furis

Monstrous DPS

The Furis Incarnon typically gets overlooked when compared to other options, but this weapon truly deserves a place in your arsenal. When transformed, the gun turns into a wide arc flamethrower that has some truly absurd stats:

• 128 base Heat damage.
• 12 base fire rate.
• 280 base ammo.
• 26% critical chance with a 3.4x multiplier.
• 52% status chance with the Elemental Balance evolution.

With a full build in place, you'll be dealing millions of damage per second while inflicting dozens of status procs, especially if you opt to use Secondary Encumber in your Arcane slot. This gun deletes everything you can think of. Acolytes exist for less than a second. Deep Archimedea enemies die in an instant. Even bosses with Damage Attenuation have their DR capped almost immediately when hit by the Furis.

Calling the Furis' Incarnon form strong would be a major understatement. This is one of the strongest Incarnon weapons in Warframe, full stop. Feather the trigger in its normal state to ramp up its Incarnon, then unleash unfathomable levels of pain while it's transformed. Its only major drawback is the lack of range.

3 Ocucor

The Rich Tenno's Kuva Nukor

We don't normally consider augment mods when ranking weapons, but the Ocucor is such a powerful weapon with its Sentient Surge mod that it deserves a spot on the list. This is effectively a beam weapon that fires auto-aim tendrils. The more enemies you kill, the more tendrils you'll fire, up to four. Normally, this mechanic resets whenever you reload, but thanks to the Sentient Surge augment from Nightwave, that'll never be an issue.

This augment gives this weapon a whopping 240% critical chance and status chance while all four tendrils are active, and each kill reloads 20% of your magazine. If you can keep the kills going, the Ocucor never has to reload and benefits from absurdly high status chance. Equip Arcane Avenger on your Warframe, and now the Ocucor always crits. You can even turn this gun into a status primer with Secondary Encumber, beating the Tenet Cycron in nearly every way.

The best part is that the gun aims for you. All four tendrils automatically track targets, so you simply need to hold down the trigger and move. It's arguably the strongest non-AoE weapon in the game for speed farming missions, although its single-target DPS leaves something to be desired. Still, if you can afford the fairly expensive Sentient Surge augment, the Ocucur is absolutely worth using.

2 Dual Toxocyst

Mind-Blowing Incarnon

The Dual Toxocyst are infested dual pistols that yearn for brain matter. Whenever you land a headshot with this weapon, it'll enter a feeding frenzy for a few seconds, adding Toxin damage to each shot while greatly buffing the gun's fire rate and ammo efficiency. Those buffs alone aren't why the Dual Toxocyst is meta; it's the Incarnon Adapter.

Activating this weapon's Incarnon Form turns it into an automatic set of destructive pistols, featuring much higher critical stats, fire rate, and the ability to ricochet bullets to a nearby target. This gun deals monstrous damage and hits two enemies per bullet. The damage output from the Dual Toxocyst is simply off the charts. They melt through groups like butter and most endgame bosses in seconds. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better set of automatic dual pistols.

1 Laetum

The Acceltra's Spiritual Successor

It wouldn't be a proper secondary list without mentioning the Laetum, everyone's favorite rocket pistol. This sidearm fires high-damage rounds in its base form, building up Incarnon energy with each shot. Press alt-fire to transform the Laetum, turning it into a fully-automatic missile launcher with incredibly high base damage and critical stats.

While most AoE weapons suffer from limited ammo reserves, Incarnon weapons generate ammo from thin air. Land a few headshots, and now you have 216 micro-missiles ready to fire. The explosions from this weapon are fairly small but pack a serious punch.

The gun's main appeal is the Devouring Attrition evolution, which gives the gun a 50% chance of dealing 2,000% more damage. This is multiplicative with all other modifiers. In other words, it's like having a gun with a 50% critical chance and x20 critical multiplier. Floor the gun's critical chance as low as possible to maximize the evolution's proc chance.

With the right build, the Laetum simply deletes everything from existence. It has S-tier mobbing, S-tier bossing, S-tier ammo economy, and is the first Incarnon you unlock from the Holdfasts. Do not underestimate this tiny pistol. Once transformed, it becomes the strongest secondary weapon in Warframe.