Review: Pandero (U24.0.2)

Octavia's signature secondary, the MR 8 Pandero was released in U20 alongside the Tenora. In the U22.12 Balance Pass, it was one of the few weapons to receive stat changes that weren't an overall buff. Nonetheless, it remains a powerful and fairly versatile pistol with a fun and mostly unique secondary fire.

Acquisition

The Pandero's blueprint can be acquired directly from the Market.

Stats

As immediately obvious, the Pandero has great crit with a decently high base Damage, packing a substantial punch. Its small magazine is offset by a very short reload, for a respectable Reload Ratio of 2.67. A reasonably high Slash bias of 50% is promising, though its Status Chance of only 10% is a little lackluster.

Not pictured is the secondary fire stats, because they are identical to primary fire, with two differences. It has reduced accuracy, but more importantly, a much higher ROF, at 7.69 at base. Notably, it also scales with Mag Capacity. Where the primary fire is a standard semi-auto, the secondary fire fires off all remaining rounds in the mag. It recoils a lot harder and with very poor accuracy, but of course fires much faster.

In the U22.12 Balance Pass, the Pandero had its base Damage and Status Chance reduced (76 to 72, 15% to 10% respectively), while its Crit Damage was increased slightly (2.5x to 2.8x). Personally, I see it as an overall significant nerf, as the damage output is not significantly altered, but there is a significant loss of status application.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

With no native polarities, it's a little difficult to fit in a good build for the Pandero. This build fits in the majority of important mods, with a tiny bit of spare space.
Because of its fairly low Status Chance, and reasonable Slash bias, I've found a Viral build to be the most overall reliable and effective against most enemies.

Recommended Setups: Viral vs Grineer, Corrupted, unarmoured Corpus, Radiation vs armoured Corpus, Corrosive vs Infested

General Use 2-Forma:

Two V polarities lets you fit in Lethal Torrent, with a little spare space for something else. With full Multishot, this build is reliably able to pop a Nullifier bubble at close range.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Primed Crit 3-Forma:

Another V polarity allows the comfortable use of both Primed crit mods, which though expensive, give the Pandero a massive boost. Putting Primed Target Cracker in a polarised slot rather than Lethal Torrent would let you use one 90% elemental.

Recommended Setups: see above.

90% Elementals + Primed Crit 4-Forma:

Yet another V polarity, and you can slot in two 90% elementals with the Primed crit mods.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Maxed Out 7-Forma:

One more V and two - polarities and you can fill up all the slots with just about any mod. I've slotted in Seeker here for the Punch Through, but there are of course many good mods for the slot, some of which would not require the seventh Forma. Other options include Primed Heated Charge, Primed Quickdraw, Hydraulic Crosshairs (note that HC doesn't work with the secondary fire), Augur Pact, and so on.

Recommended Setups: see above. 

My Builds:

The first build is a standard Viral + Punch Through build, with maximised Status Chance for Viral + Slash procs. This is my general purpose build, and on the Pandero, I much prefer Viral over Corrosive because of how infrequently it procs.
The second build is a maximum damage Viral build, for use against unarmoured Corpus.
The third build is a max damage Corrosive build, for use against Infested.

Combat Use and Summary

With its primary fire, the Pandero functions as a pretty ordinary semi-auto pistol. It has fairly solid power, and a crit headshot on anything with low or no armour will do substantial damage. It doesn't fare too well against groups, with no AoE or innate Punch Through, and a mediocre Fire Rate. Its Reload Ratio is respectable, but not exceptional. The Pandero also struggles a little against heavily armoured enemies, as although it has a good Slash bias, the Status Chance reduction in U22.12 really hurt its Viral + Slash potential.

The Pandero has a moderate amount of recoil, though I haven't had much issue with it personally. It has fairly good accuracy, though becomes noticably imprecise with persistent fire.

The Pandero's secondary fire really sets it apart from other semi-auto pistols. It fires all remaining rounds in a very fast burst, with heavy recoil and fairly poor accuracy, while also (temporarily) disabling aiming down sights. The secondary fire offers a way to quickly deal with multiple enemies, or deal a lot of damage quickly to a single nearby enemy. With practice, it can tear down small groups of enemies rather effectively, which is something many slow firing pistols struggle with. The secondary fire can be canceled mid-burst by rolling or quick-melee, though again this requires practice to pull off reliably.

Notably, with both Multishot mods, the Pandero can also reliably pop a Nullifier bubble in a single full burst, which again is something slow firing pistols can struggle against. A quick reload lets you then put a few rounds into the Nullifier's head before the bubble regenerates.

Overall, the Pandero is a decent semi-auto crit pistol, with a unique and fun secondary fire. It can deal rather solid damage to enemies without heavy armour, and is far from the worst pistol against enemies with armour. It deals with groups and Nullifiers better than most other weapons of its type, and is a lot of fun to use. The Pandero feels very much like a jack-of-all-trades secondary, decent at most things but not excelling at any one. I enjoyed using it much more than I expected, and it's definitely worth a look if you want a versatile hard hitting secondary.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2/5 - The secondary fire offers a lot of utility against groups, especially with Punch Through, but it requires constant reloading doing this, and can be difficult to use. The primary fire is not anything special against groups either. That said, the Pandero is better against groups than most other high power secondaries because of its secondary fire.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 3.5/5 - Solid damage per shot with great crit, the Pandero does quite well against a few heavy enemies. Its secondary fire again can help to quickly put damage on an enemy.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 2/5 - Decently high Slash bias helps with proccing Slash, but the reduced Status Chance really hurts its cause. With the U22.12 Balance Pass, the Pandero's Status Chance is rather underwhelming and unreliable. There are better weapons at proccing Slash or Corrosive, and there are more powerful weapons better at brute-forcing armour.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

The most comparable weapons to the Pandero are the Vasto Prime and Magnus. Both are revolvers with fast reloads and small magazines. The Vasto Prime is fast firing and has slightly worse crit, but far better Status Chance and even higher Slash bias, making it much better against armoured enemies. However, its lower damager-per-shot, smaller magazine and the Pandero's secondary fire make the Pandero much better against crowds and unarmoured heavies. The Magnus likewise is lacking in damage-per-shot but has better Status Chance. However, as a majority Impact damage, it is not as effective against armoured enemies, and again is less effective against crowds and unarmoured heavies.

If you're willing to branch out into other, less-similar Semi-Autos, there are many other options to consider like the Arca Scisco, Lato Vandal, Lex Prime, the list goes on. Semi-Auto is a pretty common secondary trigger type, and many of the other such weapons have their own merits.

Rivens

The Pandero has a neutral 3/5 (0.95) Riven disposition, which I think is fair. It is already a decently powerful weapon, and absolutely does not need a Riven to take on most of Warframe's content. That said, I was a little surprised when its disposition got dropped slightly in U24 (1 -> 0.95).

As always for a crit weapon, Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are great stats to have. An element can be good if it is part of the combo you want to be using (sadly not in my case...), as it can save you a mod slot. I would also consider Punch Through to be very good for a Pandero Riven, as it helps immensely with groups, and is otherwise only available in the high drain Seeker. I would also consider +Reload Speed/Mag Capacity to be useful positives to have. +Slash or Status Chance is also very useful if you're going for a Slash status build.

Unless you're constantly using the secondary fire, -Max Ammo is a good negative to have, and likewise -Zoom is very popular as well. As a hitscan weapon with no damage fall-off, -Projectile Flight Speed is harmless. The Pandero has moderate recoil, but if you can manage it, +Recoil can be a good negative. I would also consider -Impact/Puncture to be good negatives, as it increases the Slash bias and thus frequency of Slash procs.