Review: Vectis Prime (U23.10.8)

The Vectis Prime is an MR14 sniper rifle, originally released with Ash and Carrier Primes in U16.11. It has since been made available again multiple times in Twitch promotions, though is currently vaulted. The Vectis family is unusual compared to other Warframe snipers, with a tiny mag size, in exchange for a much faster reload.

Acquisition

The Vectis Prime, as standard for a Prime rifle, is made from 3 parts + blueprint. It is currently vaulted, so cannot be acquired from currently available relics.
Stats

Immediately obvious is that the Vectis Prime has great crit and status, though due to its low ROF and Slash bias, cannot make the most of its high Status Chance. Also noteworthy is its very high base damage. As the main unique feature of the Vectis family, the Prime has a Mag Capacity of just 2, compensating with a very short reload of 0.85 seconds.

Innate Punch Through is very nice, and the damage fall-off occurs beyond where most weapons can even hit (300m limit for regular hitscan weapons). The accuracy stat is also misleading, as the VectisP is perfectly accurate when zoomed.

As with all snipers, the Vectis Prime gets a bonus from zooming in. Its 3.5x zoom has +40% headshot damage, and 6x zoom has +60% headshot damage. The VectisP also has a combo counter, though it is the slowest to build of all snipers, requiring 5 hits to reach the 1.5x multiplier. As with all snipers, it decays gradually, once every two seconds or every miss.

Augments
None.

Builds
0-Forma:

With native V and - polarities, the Vectis Prime can fit a reasonable, but incomplete build. There's sufficient space for the usual mods and two 90% elementals, with a few points left over. The second 90% can be downgraded to a 60/60 for a little extra mod space, which you can use for Fast Hands or something.

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

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Two additional V polarities lets you reasonably use all eight mod slots. This build is a standard Viral + HM build. For a different setup that doesn't need the Slash procs, something like Fast Hands or Bladed Rounds would be a good option for the last slot.

Two 90% elementals can be used for the extra raw damage, but this greatly restricts choices for the last mod slot.

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

General Purpose 3-Forma:

Another V polarity lets you use up all the mod slots more comfortably.

That extra Forma lets you use two 90% elementals while still having a reasonable amount of space for other mods.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Primed Cryo Rounds 4-Forma:

An added D polarity lets you slot in PCR for a big damage boost. This is perfect for a Viral build, as it greatly increases the chance of proccing Viral.

It also works great to supplement a Radiation build, as Radiation + Cold is extremely effective against Alloy Armour.

My Builds:

+Toxin on my Riven lets me drop one elemental mod for a good Viral + HM build. This build is my general purpose, and obliterates just about anything that isn't a heavily armoured robot.

Against armoured robots and Eidolons, I use a pure damage Radiation build. The +Toxin is rather unfortunate here, as it prevents me from doing Radiation + Cold, and is not very effective against those targets.

This is an odd Index intended build. Again Radiation is used because just about everything in Index has Alloy armour. HM has been slotted in to offer some extra damage when the direct damage starts becoming less effective.

Combat Use and Summary

As with all snipers, the Vectis Prime excels at destroying single high priority targets. With low ROF, tiny mag and constant reloads, it struggles against crowds especially if they don't line up nicely.

The tiny mag with fast reload give the Vectis Prime a unique firing rhythm. Where the single shot Vectis operated like a bolt-action rifle, the VectisP feels a little like the Tigris family, except faster to reload. Personally, I prefer the VectisP's small mag + fast reload over the more conventional snipers like Rubico Prime, as I find the firing rhythm much more comfortable and effective against the crowds of Warframe.

The VectisP has a fair amount of vertical recoil, which can make rapid follow-up shots difficult. This is somewhat mitigated by it being uniquely able (along with the base Vectis) to remain zoomed in while reloading, helping with target acquisition and retention.

With low ROF and low Slash bias, the Vectis Prime relies on Hunter Munitions for reliable anti-armour purposes. It cannot strip armour quickly, nor can it proc slash reliably without HM. That said, as a sniper with very high damage and a combo counter, it can brute-force through armoured units more effectively than most other raw damage weapons. HM makes the VectisP absolutely brutal against armoured enemies, as one or two headshot Slash procs can easily kill most armoured enemies.

The Vectis Prime has been my go-to sniper rifle for a while, thanks to its solid stats and more consistent firing rhythm. To me, it feels better to use than any of the other snipers, and handles the majority of content in Warframe just fine. That said, snipers are not really suited to the majority fo Warframe's content, and the VectisP is no exception. It doesn't handle crowds very well, and there are many weapons that can handle heavies just as well, that can handle crowds much better. Against Eidolons, it is solidly in third place behind Lanka, then Rubico Prime. If you're after a sniper with a different firing rhythm, the Vectis Prime is worth a look, but as Warframe is currently, I wouldn't consider it something to really hunt down.

Scores
Vs Trash Mobs: 1/5 - Constant reloading, slow ROF and no AoE, the Vectis Prime relies entirely on Punch Through against crowds.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - Massive single target damage, the VectisP obliterates unarmoured heavies with ease.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3.5/5 - Very high damage-per-shot and the sniper combo counter let the Vectis Prime brute-force through armoured heavies much better than most other raw damage weapons. Powerful Slash procs can occur, but are rare with the low Slash bias.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 5/5 - A critical headshot Slash proc can do massive damage to most armoured enemies, though the Vectis Prime's <100% Crit Chance hurts consistency a little.

Vs Variants

The Vectis Prime is an improvement over the MR2 Vectis, with increased Crit Chance, massively boosted base Damage, and a Mag Capacity of 2 instead of 1. That last change is a rather odd one, as the 1 shot Mag gave the Vectis a unique, bolt-action type feel, and synergised especially well with Charged and Primed Chamber. Notably, those two mods applied multiplicatively like Rhino's Roar (3), offering a substantial damage boost. DE actually ended up releasing a Corrupted mod that reduces the Prime's mag to one shot, Depleted Reload. Nowadays however, there are enough good mods available that the highest DPS build for the Prime actually does not include Depleted Reload + Charged Chamber, though Primed Chamber instead I believe makes the combo worth it.

For an MR2 weapon available from Market, the base Vectis is remarkably strong, and will already perform quite well in most content. The Prime is a further upgrade, depending on your opinion of the mag size issue, and is significantly more powerful.

Competitors

The Vectis Prime is quite different to the other snipers, by virtue of its tiny magazine + fast reload. The Rubico Prime is the most comparable for overall damage, but has a different magazine/reload ratio.

Rivens

The Vectis (Prime) has a Riven disposition of 3/5 (1), which especially given its buffs in the PoE update, I feel should be reduced. I think 2/5 (~0.8) or even 1/5 (~0.6) would be more appropriate.

For Eidolon hunting, +Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are the best stats to have, followed by +Heat/Electric. +Damage is good only if you don't use Chroma, and wasteful otherwise. -Mag Capacity is uniquely useful on the Vectis family. It has no effect on the base Vectis, and if it is at least -25%, can reduce the Vectis Prime to a one shot mag, making Charged/Primed Chamber always active without requiring Depleted Reload.

For general use, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are great as always. I favour MS+CC in particular for better consistency. An appropriate element can help save a mod slot as well, though may hinder other setups. I would consider +Reload Speed also a great stat to have for the Vectis family.

-Zoom is fantastic for the majority of Warframe's content, letting you get the zoom bonuses without needing to zoom in as far. -Max Ammo is pretty negligible if you run Ammo Case/Sniper Scavenger/etc, and if you use the weapon relatively sparingly, even without those mods as well. Again -Mag Capacity can be quite good as well. I would also consider -Infested/Corpus damage to be fairly reasonable since the Vectis(P) does absurd damage per shot, and can kill most of those factions without trouble regardless. -Status Chance is certainly usable given the Vectis(P) won't be proccing a lot of useful status naturally anyway. -Fire Rate is also pretty tolerable since you won't be firing it very fast anyway. +Recoil can be tolerable since you won't be firing the Vectis (Prime) very fast anyway.