Review: Tenora (U24.0.3)

The MR10 Tenora is Octavia's signature rifle, released in U20. A spool-up rifle with unique behaviour and a powerful secondary fire, the Tenora is a versatile and fairly powerful weapon.

Acquisition

The Tenora must be researched at a Dojo's Tenno Lab to acquire the blueprint.

Stats

Both of the Tenora's fire modes have fantastic crit, with a focus on Puncture damage. The Tenora's primary fire also has decent Status Chance with solid ROF, allowing a lot of status application. Its Reload Ratio is very good at 5.14 as well.

The primary fire is a spool-up full-auto, requiring 16 shots to reach maximum speed. Notably, unlike other spool-up weapons, the Tenora actually reduces in recoil and increases in accuracy as it spools up, to the point where it has no recoil and almost perfect accuracy. Though slow to reach max speed, this unique behaviour gives the Tenora a distinct advantage in sustained fire over other rifles.

The secondary fire is a charge fire that consumes ten rounds. It takes 0.8 seconds to charge at base and fires immediately, and cannot be held at full charge like a bow. In exchange for these flaws, it has an absurd base damage, scaling from the primary fire with each round consumed, and some of the highest crit stats in the game. The secondary fire can still be used of the Tenora has fewer than ten rounds remaining, but loses base damage. It also has innate Punch Through where the primary fire does not, which is a nice bonus. Despite its accuracy stat, the secondary fire is very accurate and has minimal recoil.

The Tenora has actually received a couple of significant buffs in the past. The first one was a Mag Capacity increase from 80 to 150 a little time after it was released. The second, in U22.12, included several small stat tweaks, but most notably reduced spool-up time from 25 rounds to 16 rounds. Both of these buffs were greatly appreciated, and significantly improve the Tenora's usability.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

Yet another weapon with no native polarities, the Tenora is a little annoying to build without Forma. This is a basic build that covers most of the bases, going for Corrosive. If you have yet to source the Toxin 60/60s, Infected Clip + Rime Rounds are very easy to acquire, and form Viral which is a solid setup as well. Without two 60/60s, Status Chance is not great, so I'd not recommend a Corrosive status build unless you have both Malignant Force and High Voltage.

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

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities lets you comfortably slot in Split Chamber, and also make good use of the seventh mod slot. There's even space to use a 90% instead of a 60/60 if you so choose. The Vigilante Armaments slot is flexible, and could be switched for something else like Shred or another element. I particularly like +Fire Rate on the Tenora because of how long its spool-up period and charge-fire time are. Vile Acceleration is an option for maximum speed, but doesn't give Punch Through, and reduces base damage by a very small amount.

Alternatively, Hunter Munitions is also a very good choice as well, with the elements set up for Viral. Both Viral + HM and Corrosive status are great builds against armoured enemies. HM has the advantage of also working extremely well with the secondary fire, where Corrosive status does not.

Recommended Setups: Viral + HM or Corrosive status vs Grineer, Corrupted, Viral + VA/Elec vs unarmoured Corpus, Radiation + VA/Elec or Corrosive status vs armoured Corpus, Corrosive + VA/Heat vs Infested

General Purpose 4-Forma:

Two more V polarities lets you fill all eight mod slots more comfortably, though with less flexible space. Another Forma or two would give you a lot of build versatility.
Again I'm a strong advocate for Shred in the last slot, for the Fire Rate and Punch Through. If you'd rather focus on damage-per-shot, something like Heavy Caliber or Bladed Rounds would be a good choice, though I'm not sure how badly the -Accuracy on HC affects the Tenora. Vile Acceleration is an option for maximum speed.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Primed Cryo Rounds 5-Forma:

A D polarity allows the use of Primed Cryo Rounds, though it compromises most other builds. This build offers an especially powerful Viral + HM combo, with a lot of up-front damage as well as Slash proc damage. A - polarity instead would allow better use of the other 90% elementals.

My Builds:

Nothing too special about my builds. First one is a general purpose Corrosive build with maximised status chance, the second a Viral build. The third build was a Plains-intended one, with max status chance but also Vile Acceleration for a fast secondary fire. I honestly don't feel too much difference between Vile Accel and Primed Shred.

If I could be bothered with more Forma, I'd slot in Primed Cryo Rounds in the Viral build, and repurpose the third build as a max damage Corrosive build, with Primed Shred and both 90% elementals, for use against infested.

Combat Use and Summary

The Tenora's primary fire is a fairly well rounded full-auto fire. The spool-up period can be very irritating, as without +Fire Rate, it takes a while to reach max speed. It is also fairly inaccurate before spooling up. Once spooled up however, the Tenora is a solidly powerful and very nice to use weapon. The near-perfect accuracy, essentially no recoil, and decent mix of crit and status make it very versatile.

The Tenora handles groups fairly well, with a great Reload Ratio and more than enough damage to kill most weak enemies easily, though Punch Through is always appreciated. It doesn't fair so well against unarmoured heavies, as there are many rifles that out-damage it. The Tenora can however handle armoured heavies with reasonable effectiveness with its primary fire, with either a Viral + HM or Corrosive status build.

The secondary fire is a more specialised anti-heavy shot. With such a long base charge time, it is very poorly suited to shooting groups, but with great damage-per-shot, it deals exceptionally well with unarmoured heavies. The secondary fire struggles against armoured enemies without Hunter Munitions, but can deal massive damage to them with it.

With both fire modes consuming a lot of ammo, the primary fire being a fast firing full-auto, and the secondary fire consuming ten rounds per shot, the Tenora is not particularly ammo efficient. It has a very high spare ammo of 900, but will appreciate Ammo Case/etc support for longer missions.

Overall, the Tenora is a versatile and rather effective rifle. Between its full-auto primary fire, and the high damage secondary charge fire, it can handle the majority of Warframe content quite well. The two firing modes offer it a lot of versatility that most other rifles lack, and it has one of the best reload animations in the game. The unique spool-up behaviour makes the Tenora much easier to control than most other fast firing weapons as well. If you're in the market for a versatile auto rifle, the Tenora is one I'd certainly recommend checking out.

Personally, I didn't expect to like the Tenora too much, and that was the case when it was first released, particularly with its smaller magazine on release. However, some time later, on a whim I bought a decent Riven for it, and found that I rather enjoyed it. It is my second favourite spool-up rifle behind the Supra Vandal.

Scores
Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - Solid DPS with the primary fire, and a great Reload Ratio, but is beaten for efficiency by a number of other rifles.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4/5 - Secondary fire deals extremely high damage-per-shot, and is highly effective against unarmoured enemies. Its main weakness is the fairly slow charge time, which cannot be held.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3.5/5 - Reasonable Status Chance and good ROF on the primary fire allows the Tenora to proc Corrosive at a decent rate, and it can do a hefty amount of raw damage with either firing mode. With the right element, the secondary fire can brute force through some armour surprisingly effectively.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4.5/5 - Both firing modes can make great use of HM, especially the secondary fire which has measly Status Chance but fantastic crit. A critical Slash proc from the secondary fire will do substantial damage to an armoured enemy.

Vs Variants
None.

Competitors

The two main classes of competitors to the Tenora are the other spool-up rifles, and other crit-based rifles. Of the spool-up rifles, the Soma Prime and Prisma Gorgon are both also crit-focused. The Prisma Gorgon is more powerful but also has high recoil, worse spread and a smaller magazine. The Soma Prime has a larger magazine, but has a worse recoil pattern and worse status ability. Neither has anything comparable to the Tenora's secondary fire. The other spool-up rifle, Supra Vandal, is status focused.

Of the remaining rifles to discuss, there are a few more comparable crit-heavy ones, Baza, Telos Boltor and Prisma Grakata. Baza plays more like an SMG than a spool-up LMG, while the Telos Boltor plays like a conventional assault rifle, with very good crit and usable status, much like the Tenora. Likewise, the Prisma Grakata also has good crit and status, though again plays much more like an SMG.

Rivens

The Tenora has a respectable 3/5 (1.05) Riven Disposition. It was very slightly buffed in U24 (1 -> 1.05), but remains well within the 3/5 bracket. It can get very solid but not absurd Rivens, which I feel is appropriate for its overall power and abilities.

As standard, Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are great to have. MS+CC will help especially with consistency for the secondary fire, which is slow and does not normally reach 100% CC. +Fire Rate is great if you want to use the secondary fire a lot. Punch Through further improves efficiency against crowds. A useful element can help free up a mod slot, which is particularly nice if you want to have a Fire Rate mod as well as Hunter Munitions. +Slash can make the primary fire inflict Slash a lot more frequently if you want to build for that.

-Zoom is generally quite popular, though as someone who likes to use the secondary fire at longer range, I don't like it on the Tenora personally. -Max Ammo can be fine for shorter missions, or if you run Ammo Case/etc. -Projectile Flight Speed has no impact on the Tenora. Likewise, due to its unique spool-up behaviour, +Recoil can be quite tolerable as well. -Impact/Slash can be a nice negative for both firing modes, as they are a minority in both. -Puncture will cost you more damage, but will allow a lot more Impact/Slash/elemental procs.