Review: Staticor (U27.3.16)

Last updated: U27.3.16

The Staticor is an MR10 Thrown Secondary introduced in U18.4.7. It is quite unusual even by throwing weapon standards, firing slow-moving explosive energy bolts from its gauntlets. Though annoyingly requiring 10 Fieldron to make, this Clan-tech weapon is easily among the best Secondaries in the game for the majority of content.

Acquisition

The Staticor blueprint must be researched in a Dojo Energy Lab.

Stats

The Staticor has a very solid combination of stats. Its above average Crit Multiplier is supported by solid Crit Chance, and it has a great Status Chance. Base Radiation damage is always appreciated, allowing otherwise impossible combos like Corrosive + Radiation, as well as offering decent damage multipliers and a useful proc. The Staticor has an exceptional Reload Ratio of 8.57, spending barely any of its time reloading.

Notably, the Staticor is a charge-up AoE weapon. Uncharged shots travel faster, dealing less damage in a smaller area, while Charged shots are slower, but deal slightly more damage in a much larger radius. With the U27.2 update that removed self-damage, the Staticor also received self-knockdown and explosion damage fall-off. Uncharged shots lose up to 30% of their damage away from the explosion epicentre, while Charged shots lose up to 90% at the edge of their explosion. Both Uncharged and Charged shots can cause self-knockdown if you are too close to the detonation point.
Augments
None.

Builds

0-Forma:

With only a single - polarity, the Staticor is difficult to fit a 0-Forma build for. There are two main options, a very basic Crit build (top), or a Status-focused build (bottom). Unfortunately, the Crit build can only fit either Primed Pistol Gambit and regular Target Cracker, or Primed Target Cracker with a partial ranked Pistol Gambit. As such, I'd personally lean towards the Status build. It deals a little less damage-per-shot, but is easily compensated by the significantly higher RoF from Lethal Torrent.

Focusing on simple elemental combos, as is always the case since U27.2, Viral is the best all-rounder. It hits all Grineer reasonably hard, is an effective proc against Infested, and is not useless against the Corpus. Corrosive is a solid dedicated anti-armour element, notably giving the rare and powerful Corrosive + Radiation combo. It also has the best damage multipliers against heavy Infested. A pure Toxin build is also worth considering against unarmoured Corpus enemies, as it bypasses their shields entirely.

Recommended Setups: Viral vs everything, Corrosive vs armour, Infested, Toxin vs unarmoured Corpus

Primed Crit 1-Forma:

One added V polarity allows the use of both Primed Crit mods, significantly increasing damage-per-shot. There's still a ways to go with Forma however, given there are still only 6 mods and only 3 spare capacity.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Primed Crit 3-Forma:

Two more V polarities allows you to finally slot in Lethal Torrent alongside the two Primed Crit mods. There is 5 spare capacity, enough to switch the 60/60 elemental for a 90% for more direct damage.

General Purpose 4-Forma:

Finally, after another V polarity, you can start to use all eight mod slots, though depending on what you want in the last slot, more Forma may still be required.

This example build mods in Viral + Heat, an especially potent all-round combo since U27.2. It does exceptional damage to the health of any Status-vulnerable enemy, and can tackle armoured enemies quite well thanks to powerful Heat procs. Corrosive + Heat is also a powerful combo, notably having great multipliers against every Infested unit. Primed Heated Charge makes either of these builds significantly more powerful. Viral + Electric notably hits unarmoured Corpus units very hard once their shields are down.

If you want to stick to just two elemental mods, there are several other options to consider. Magnum Force and Augur Pact both add solid damage, the former being more powerful but also reducing accuracy. Hydraulic Crosshairs and Sharpened Bullets both improve Crits provided you can maintain their trigger conditions. Anemic Agility is helpful if you really like using Charged shots.

The one notable Exilus mod for the Staticor is Lethal Momentum, for increased Projectile Flight Speed.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: Viral + Heat vs everything, Corrosive + Heat vs armour, Infested, Viral + Electric vs unarmoured Corpus

My Builds:

As always, though Viral + Heat is more generally effective, I prefer to run Corrosive as Viral is usually on my Primary already.

This alternate build is optimised for use against Corpus, with great multipliers against every one of their units.

Combat Use and Summary

With solid damage-per-shot and its large AoE, the Staticor is fantastic at doing significant damage to entire groups of enemies simultaneously. Bunches of Chargers, Crewmen, even lighter armoured enemies like Troopers just melt when a Staticor bolt explodes anywhere near them. Higher health enemies like Corpus Techs and Ancients don't take much more to take down, thanks to the Staticor's solid DPS. High Status Chance gives the Staticor strong anti-armour capabilities. It can make very good use of Viral/Corrosive to weaken enemies, and is quite capable of stacking up powerful Heat procs.

Base Radiation damage with a high status chance and AoE is also a fantastic boon against crowds. Proccing Radiation on groups of enemies can cause them to fight among one another, drawing fire away from you and your allies. More importantly however, Radiation procs also disable the aura effects of Eximi and Ancients, making the Staticor notably good against the Infested.

The Staticor is also fantastic in Arbitrations. Besides its general killing ability, its AoE also makes short work of the Arbi Shield Drones, even if the rest of the enemies are completely unaffected. Furthermore, although you can't proc status on a protected enemy or the shield drone itself, any rad-procced enemy will not be protected by the special Shield Drone. One of the more irritating things about Arbis is lining up a perfect shot on an enemy, only for a Shield Drone to swoop in and save them. The Staticor's constant Rad procs prevents that from happening if you've managed to get a Rad proc on the enemy beforehand.

Charged shots are slightly more powerful than Uncharged shots, and have a much larger explosion at 9.6m vs 2.4m radius. For the required charge time and ammo, Uncharged shots end up doing much more damage overall. Furthermore, the Charged shot Projectile Speed is even slower than Uncharged shots. Nonetheless, it is a fun mechanic to use when you want a single, higher power and enormous explosion. It can be a useful opener if charged up just before combat.

The introduction of self-stagger/knockdown has really hurt the Staticor. Previously it did not deal any self-damage which was an unfair advantage, however both Uncharged and Charged shots have the ability to knock yourself down if you are too close to the explosion. This is particularly troublesome in close quarters


All in all, if you can accept/ignore its propensity to knock you down in close quarters, the Staticor is among the best Secondaries in the game. It does great damage to all enemies, both singular heavies and groups. It procs a lot of whatever elements you put on it, has a great Reload Ratio and is quite ammo efficient. I highly recommend giving the Staticor a shot. It is a very powerful and quite versatile weapon that can easily handle the majority of content in the game.

Scores
Vs Trash Mobs: 5/5 - With solid damage, AoE, and a great Reload Ratio, the Staticor is exceptionally effective against groups. Charged shots have an enormous explosive radius, while Uncharged shots are much more spammable.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4/5 - The Staticor doesn't have especially high burst DPS for a secondary, and struggles to land headshots consistently, but handles high health enemies without too much issue provided it has the right elements.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 4.5/5 - High Status Chance, solid AoE and decent RoF allows the Staticor to inflict a lot of procs. The Staticor is very capable of weakening heavily armoured enemies, then punching through them with a mix of direct damage and Heat procs.

Vs Variants
None.

Competitors

There are no other Secondaries like the Staticor. The majority of other AoE/explosive Secondaries are slower firing and smaller capacity. Of them, I've generally found the Staticor to be the most well rounded. A solid mix of both Crit and Status gives it great versatility, while its comparably fast RoF and great Reload Ratio give it far better uptime and spammability than most other competitors. Its AoE on Uncharged shots is quite small, however this is compensated by its high RoF, as well as the ability to charge up a much more powerful and wider exploding Charged shot.

Rivens

Image taken from when the Staticor had the minimum 1/5 (0.5) Riven Disposition.

The Staticor currently has a low 1/5 (0.53) Riven Disposition, meaning that only really good rolls are actually be worth equipping. Especially with the introduction of explosion damage fall-off and self-stagger, I wouldn't think it unreasonable to raise the dispo a little, perhaps to 2/5 (~0.7). I don't think that slightly more powerful Rivens would significantly alter the Staticor's popularity.

As always, Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are great stats to have. +Elemental damage is always a solid option, whether for introducing extra elements, saving mod slots, or just more damage. + ROF may be nice if you want to use charge shots more frequently. +Projectile Flight Speed would make the Staticor a lot nicer to use at longer ranges.

As with a lot of weapons, -Ammo Max and -Zoom are pretty good negatives to have. -Mag Capacity or Reload Speed would likely be pretty tolerable, given the Staticor's low disposition and great Reload Ratio. As always, -Infested/Corpus damage is pretty tolerable as well. -Projectile Speed is not awful in small amounts, and much less noticeable at close range. +Recoil has essentially no effect.