Review: Dread (U23.10.8)

The Dread is an MR5 bow whose blueprint is commonly dropped from (Shadow) Stalker. It is something that you'll most likely get many blueprints of if you play a decent amount of Warframe. Despite its low MR lock, the Dread is a very solid all-round bow and will do fairly well for most content, at least by bow standards.

Acquisition

The Dread blueprint can be dropped after defeating the Stalker/Shadow Stalker when they ambush you in a mission. It is by far the most common blueprint drop of all of (Shadow) Stalker's blueprints.

Stats

Immediately obvious is the Dread's 50% Crit Chance, equal highest of all weapons in the game. Combined with a solid Status Chance and majority Slash damage, and the Dread can deal quite brutal large Slash procs. The innate Punch Through of 2.5m only applies to charged shots, but is a great utility stat.

The charge time and reload time mean that you're looking at at least 1.2 seconds between fully charged shots at base.

An uncharged shot deals 130 base damage, with the same IPS distribution.

Augments
None.

Builds
0-Forma:

With two V polarities, the Dread is fairly easy to get a decent build on. This above build is a basic Viral + HM build, with decent chance to proc Viral, and quite high chance to proc Slash. Infected Clip can be switched for Malignant Force for more Status Chance but less damage, and the extra few mod capacity used for another mod.

This is raw-damage focused build, going just for Corrosive.

If none of the appropriate 60/60 mods are available, two 90% elementals can be used, but this rules out several other good mods (for instance Vigilante Armaments and Hunter Munitions as above).

Other solid options for the HM/VA slot include Vile Acceleration to minimise the charge time, or Fast Hands to reduce the reload time.

Recommended Setups: Viral + HM vs Grineer, Corrupted, (Viral + Elec/VA) or (Radiation + Toxin/VA) vs Corpus, Corrosive + Heat/VA vs Infested

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Additional V and - polarities allow much better build options, in particular letting you fill all the slots comfortably. This is just a completed Viral + HM build. Another option includes a D polarity to allow the use of Primed Cryo Rounds, which is a substantial damage boost.

It is also fairly easy to go for some higher raw damage builds instead, such as this incomplete Corrosive one. As before, there are multiple solid options for both the empty slot, and the Vigilante Armaments slot. Vile Acceleration and (Primed) Fast Hands both reduce time between shots, while something like Bladed Rounds further increases damage-per-shot.

My Builds:

I don't like the Dread enough to actually Forma it...
The Viral build is the general purpose build, functioning effectively against just about anything, though is best against heavily armoured enemies.
The Corrosive build is intended for use against Infested, with Vile Acceleration drastically reducing charge time, since Infested more than any other faction focus on numbers. (Primed) Fast Hands would also be a good option for that slot.

Combat Use and Summary

Usability wise, the Dread is pretty ordinary by bow standards. The draw time buff in U22.12 was a great improvement, but it is still significant. It does solid single target damage, and deals with armoured enemies better than most of the other bows thanks to Slash procs, but it is still a single shot bow.

With only innate Punch Through for anti-crowd, the Dread is...dreadful against groups of enemies, and really struggles unless they all line up nicely in a row. It does alright against unarmoured high health enemies, and better than most bows without HM against armoured enemies, but it still lags far behind most other primaries. Personally, I feel that being innately silent is absolutely not worth how little DPS it deals compared to most other primaries.

As with all bows, on kill, a Dread arrow will ragdoll the enemy and continue to fly forwards. This adds an additional pseudo-Punch Through effect, but still doesn't help a whole lot against crowds if they're not lined up.

As bows go, the Dread is a pretty solid one, and very easy to acquire. If you want a simple go-to bow and aren't sure what to look for, the Dread is a good and easy place to start, and it remains the favourite bow of quite a few players. As primaries go however, the Dread is simply not very well suited to the majority of Warframe combat.

Scores
Vs Trash Mobs: 0.5/5 - The charge-time buff in U22.12 was a nice improvement, but it still remains that the Dread has a very long time between shots, with only Punch Through in its favour.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2/5 - The Dread has reasonable but not exceptional damage-per-shot, but the extensive draw and reload time hinders its DPS quite severely.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3/5 - With majority Slash damage, and a decently high status chance, the Dread can proc a surprising amount of deadly Slash procs on enemies. It is again hindered by its very slow ROF and annoyingly long reload.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4/5 - Over 100% Crit Chance with Point Strike, as well as the natural Slash proc chance means that with HM, the Dread can proc a heap of brutal Slash procs.

Vs Variants
None.

Competitors

There are two other bows of note that compete with the Dread: Paris Prime and Rakta Cernos. Paris Prime deals a similar amount of damage, but is mainly Puncture where the Dread is mainly Slash. Given the insane toughness of armoured units, the Dread has a significant advantage, being able to proc Slash more frequently and reliably. Against other targets, the two perform similarly well. The Rakta Cernos loses out in damage-per-shot, and has mainly Impact damage, but is much faster to draw and fire, and notably also has the Rakta Syndicate effect. The Daikyu is fairly different, being a status-focused, even slower bow. Personally, I'd consider the Dread to be superior to the Paris Prime, and the decision between Rakta Cernos and Dread being more down to personal preference of more damage vs faster firing.

Rivens

The Dread has a middling 2/5 (0.82) Riven disposition. Although it is fairly popular, given its relatively unexceptional performance especially compared to post-U22.12 weapons, I would consider it reasonable to bump that up to around 3/5 (~1).

As always, Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are the top stats to go for. +Fire Rate and Reload Speed also help immensely given how slow both of those are. +Fire Rate in particular has a doubled effect on bows. An element (e.g. Toxin) can help to free up more mod slots if you're so inclined.

-Max Ammo and -Zoom are as usual decent negatives to aim for. -Impact/Puncture are both quite reasonable as well since the Dread has barely any of either. -Mag Capacity and +Recoil have no effect, and are perfect negatives to have.