by corgigoro — last updated 4 years ago
An instrument of unrelenting harm. If Lesion tastes blood, it becomes invigorated with faster Attack Speed and increased 🕱Toxin Damage.
ITEM RANK
3060 / 60
APPLY CONDITIONALS
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).
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.
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.
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.
