Review: Plinx (U24.2.6)

The Plinx is a new MR6 secondary, released in U24.2 alongside the Profit Taker Heist. It is one of the rare battery-powered weapons. It is an alright sidearm blaster and can be fun to use, but as suggested by its low MR lock, is overall outclassed by many other weapons.

Acquisition

The Plinx blueprint is available directly from the Market.

Stats

The Plinx has some of the crit stats in the game, with the second highest Crit Chance (32%) and Crit Damage (3x) of all secondaries. To compensate, it has one of the lowest Status Chances in the game, at a measly 4%, and a fairly low base Damage. Its base Damage is quite unusual, consisting only of Heat and Puncture, with the latter being higher.

The Plinx is notable as one of the relatively few "battery-powered" weapons. Since this is the first battery weapon I've covered, it's worth covering their behaviour. Instead of a conventional reload and a maximum spare ammo refreshed by ammo pickups, battery weapons automatically replenish their magazine, after a short delay after firing. Firing while the weapon is recharging will interrupt the charge. In this way, battery weapons have infinite spare ammo. Additionally, ammo will regenerate even while the weapon is holstered. Notably, +Reload Speed mods only reduce the reload delay, not ammo regernation speed, and +Mag Capacity mods will increase overall Reload Time. This behaviour applies to a select few regular weapons, and all Archwing primaries in Archwing missions.

The Plinx has a reload delay of 0.8 seconds after firing, regenerating 10 ammo-per-second for a total base Reload Time of 1.8 seconds. With a base Mag Capacity of 10 and a RoF of 3.33, this gives the Plinx a fairly poor Reload Ratio of 1.67.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

Yet another weapon with no innate polarities, the Plinx is a little limited without any Forma. This is the best overall build I can come up with. In my opinion, the Plinx doesn't benefit much from +Fire Rate, hence Barrel Diffusion instead of Multishot. Hornet Strike and the basic crit mods as standard. I've chosen the elementals to form Viral, with Deep Freeze being Rank 4 instead of 5 to fit. With the Plinx's measly Status Chance, a Corrosive build will not reliably proc Corrosive, and I personally prefer Viral as a general-purpose element.

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

Primed Crit 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities let you comfortably slot in both Primed crit mods, as well as two maxed 90% elementals. This offers a significant damage boost over the 0-Forma build, but doesn't change any build directions.

Recommended Setups: see above.

General Purpose 4-Forma:

Another two V polarities lets you fit in Lethal Torrent as well. From here, there are multiple options for the eighth mod slot that you could build for. Seeker adds Punch Through for some valuable anti-crowd improvement. Augur Pact and Hydraulic Crosshairs both offer boosted damage, the latter being more powerful but also conditional. Primed Heated Charge is also a powerful option.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds:

I didn't enjoy the Plinx enough to get any further.

Combat Use and Summary

 The Plinx is perhaps best at finishing off and cleaning up a few enemies. Regenerating ammo makes it a secondary that will essentially always be topped up when you draw it, which can be especially helpful for a primary with poor ammo economy. It does not fare well against groups, with a small magazine and no AoE. The Plinx also struggles against armoured enemies, with essentially no status capability and only moderate DPS which falls off quite quickly at high levels. It fares best against high health enemies with little or no armour, by virtue of having excellent crit but no anti-armour or anti-crowd abilities to speak of. Puncture + Heat is not a particularly good set of base Damages, since Heat is not a very good damage type for a crit-focused weapon.

I feel that the battery mechanic can work quite well for the Plinx, topping it up fairly quickly and essentially guaranteeing a full mag on draw. It also suits its name quite well, allowing you to plink away at enemies with no fear of wasting ammo. However, the total Reload Time is actually a little slow by comparable secondary standards, and hurts the Plinx's Reload Ratio, sustained DPS and general usability a little. A total lack of recoil and good accuracy allows repeated precise shots, ideally at enemy heads.

Personally, I think that the Plinx is a bit of a contradiction. A relatively low MR lock and ease of use makes it a great newer player secondary, and the unlimited ammo can also be quite helpful if such a player finds themselves out of their depth. On the other hand, it requires Gyromag Systems to build, which are only acquired from Profit Taker Heist Bounties, which in turn are only available after reaching Old Mate (max rank) with Solaris United in Fortuna. For more experienced players who can actually acquire Gyromag Systems, the Plinx is not a notably powerful weapon, and ammo is much less of an issue. Also worth noting is that Kitguns can all be made battery weapons with the Pax Charge arcane, and just about any Kitgun build is far more effective and versatile overall than the Plinx. Overall, the Plinx feels like a weapon you would probably just level and dump by the time you can actually build it.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2/5 - Unimpressive Reload Ratio, small magazine, mediocre RoF and no AoE effects makes the Plinx unimpressive against large groups.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 3/5 - Great crit gives the Plinx decent single target DPS, reasonably effective against unarmoured enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 1.5/5 - Barely any Status Chance means that the Plinx has no way of dealing with armour, and its moderate DPS is not enough to brute-force its way through such enemies at higher levels.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

The only other battery-powered secondaries are the status beam Cycron, and any Kitgun equipped with Pax Charge. Looking a bit more generally however, there are many other crit-focused Semi-Auto secondaries. Weapons like Lex Prime, Magnus, Vasto Prime, AkBolto Prime, the Plinx really isn't notable when it comes to firepower. Furthermore, just about any Tombfinger or Rattleguts Kitgun with Pax Charge will blow the Plinx out of the water.

Rivens

As standard for a new weapon, the Plinx has a moderate 3/5 (1) disposition. Given the number of weapons that match and exceed its overall capabilities, and its fairly low MR lock, I feel that it deserves at least a small Disposition boost.

Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are of course the go-to good stats. A desired element can help to save a mod slot. +Punch Through can be helpful against groups.

-Max Ammo has no effect on the Plinx. -Zoom is useful if you only care about close range combat. +Recoil has practically no effect on the weapon. -Impact/Slash have no effect on damage. -Status Chance has minimal effect as well, since the Plinx's base Status Chance is so low; -Status Duration can also be reasonable since you won't be inflicting many procs.