Review: Euphona Prime (U24.2.9)

The Euphona Prime is an MR14 secondary with two distinct firing modes, released in U19.11.5 alongside Banshee and Helios Primes. Firing a high crit slug with its primary fire, and a high spread buckshot with its secondary, the EuphonaP can be built to handle a variety of different enemies.

Acquisition

As with all standard Prime weapons, the Euphona Prime's parts could be found in various Relics. However, Euphona Prime was recently Vaulted, so Relics containing its parts are not currently available, and likely will not be available again for a while.

Stats

The Euphona Prime has two wildly different firing modes. The primary fire fires a single slug. It has fantastic crit and a high base Damage, but essentially no Status Chance. The slug is a projectile, with both travel time and projectile drop.

The secondary fire is a shotgun blast with essentially no crit, but 30% base Status Chance, capable of 100% Status with four 60/60 mods. It also has very high base Damage, but as a shotgun, has very short and extreme damage fall-off (to a minimum of ~1.1% damage at just 12 metres!), and an extremely wide spread.

Both firing modes share the same RoF, Mag Capacity and Reload Time, for a relatively low Reload Ratio of 1.67.

Augments

None.

Builds

Primary Fire 0-Forma:

With three native V polarities, you can fit in a lot of mods quite comfortably without needing any Forma. Right off the bat, you can fit both Primed crit mods, while still having space for one of the elementals to be a 90%. If you don't have the Primed crit mods, you can switch them for the regular crit mods, put the Multishot mods in the polarised slots, and have space to switch the 60/60 for a 90% elemental.

Your elemental choice depends primarily on what enemies you want to prioritise. Against Infested, Corrosive is naturally the most reliably effective. Against unarmoured Corpus, I find Viral to be the most effective, though Toxin can also be an effective option. Against armoured Corpus, Radiation will be the most effective.

Against Grineer and Corrupted, who have units with both armour types, you have three main choices: Corrosive, Radiation, and Viral. Corrosive is super effective against Ferrite armour and Fossilized (primarily Heavy Gunners and Ancients), and Radiation against Alloy armour (primarily Bombards and such). Viral is super effective against most of the health types, notably the Cloned Flesh that both Heavy Gunners and Bombards share, but will not ignore a portion of armour, so will deal less damage than the appropriate damage type. Personally, I prefer Viral for being effective against both armoured enemy types, as the other two are great against one armour type, but not notable against the other.

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

Secondary Fire 0-Forma:

As a shotgun with 30% base Status Chance, you will need all four 60/60 mods to make the Euphona Prime an effective status weapon. For the last slot, I find either a 90% elemental of the element you want to proc more of is a good choice (in this case Pathogen Rounds/Convulsion for Corrosive), as is Seeker for some Punch Through (though Seeker will require a Forma). Augur Pact is a cheap, simple option for a bit of extra damage as well. (Primed) Quickdraw/Slip Magazine can make the Euphona Prime nicer to use as well.

Despite majority Slash damage, I've generally found the Euphona Prime's secondary fire to kill armoured enemies fastest with a Corrosive build (with Blast to reach 100% Status). Especially with Pathogen Rounds/Convulsion for the extra Corrosive bias, the EuphonaP secondary fire can strip armour in just a few shots. Likewise, Corrosive + Blast is the most effective setup against Infested. Against unarmoured Corpus, both Gas + Magnetic and Viral + Radiation are effective. Gas + Magnetic has the advantage of AoE damage from the many Gas procs, while Viral + Radiation has far better direct damage.

Recommended Setups: Corrosive + Blast vs Grineer, Corrupted, Infested, armoured Corpus, Gas + Magnetic or Viral + Radiation vs unarmoured Corpus

Hybrid 0-Forma:

If you really want to make use of both firing modes with one build, this is probably the best you can do. With both Primed crit mods, the primary fire is quite powerful, and with all four 60/60s, the secondary fire has its 100% Status. With the primary fire however, the +Status Chance from the 60/60s is pretty much wasted, and with the secondary fire, the crit mods are wasted. In both cases, Lethal Torrent is also missed for the +Fire Rate, as is a slot for flexibility, whether it be for Seeker's Punch Through, a 90% elemental for more bias, or something else. Barrel Diffusion can be switched for Lethal Torrent, but this results in even less damage-per-shot and fewer pellets for status.

Recommended Setups: see Secondary Fire above.

Primary Fire 1-Forma:

An added V polarity lets you switch the 60/60 for a second 90% elemental for more damage. From here you'd be Forma-ing to fit in what you want for a final mod. Augur Pact is a low-cost mod that offers a nice bit of extra damage, while something like Primed Heated Charge offers a lot more damage, but also requires more Forma. Hydraulic Crosshairs is a solid option if you have it and can tolerate the trigger conditions. Seeker of course offers valuable Punch Through, which I feel helps the Euphona Prime a lot against groups. Like mentioned before, (Primed) Quickdraw/Slip Magazine can be nice QoL mods as well.

Recommended Setups: see Primary Fire above.

Secondary Fire 1-Forma:

One Forma of either V or - polarity will let you use just about any mod in that final slot. I've put in a - here for maximum Seeker efficiency, but even just a V for one of the 60/60s will fit Seeker in anyway. Again, for the secondary fire, I particularly like either a 90% elemental for the higher bias (especially good for Corrosive or Gas builds), or Seeker for anti-group purposes.

Recommended Setups: see Secondary Fire above.

Combat Use and Summary

Primary Fire

The Euphona Prime's primary fire is most suited to killing unarmoured heavies. With insanely high damage-per-shot but no status (or Hunter Munitions for that matter), with the right elements it can instantly kill most unarmoured or lightly armoured enemies. Without status, it does not scale especially well against heavily armoured enemies, though fares better than most secondaries through raw DPS.

Naturally for a slow-firing weapon with no AoE, the Euphona Prime is quite poor against groups. Punch Through does help significantly, but is nowhere near enough to handle larger crowds.

As a projectile weapon with travel time and projectile drop, the Euphona Prime's primary fire is relatively difficult to use beyond medium range, at least by Warframe weapon standards. It also has a reasonable amount of recoil, though this is rarely an issue with such a slow RoF.

Secondary Fire

Capable of 100% Status and a decently high pellet count, the Euphona Prime's secondary fire is exceptional against armoured enemies. A Corrosive + Blast build can strip an enemy's armour in just a couple of shots, leaving them very vulnerable to the EuphonaP's high raw damage. With fairly high raw damage, it also does reasonable damage to single enemies close up, though this doesn't remotely compare to the EuphonaP's primary fire.

Like with the primary fire, the Euphona Prime's secondary fire falls behind when taking on crowds. With incredibly short damage fall-off, it is quite difficult to take advantage of its high damage and wide spread, dealing miniscule damage to anything beyond around 10 metres. Up close it can easily kill a weaker enemy, but without Punch Through, most of the pellets will connect with the same target. A Gas + Magnetic build can be a lot more effective against groups with its AoE procs, but again requires you to be in the enemy's face for any significant damage.

The secondary fire's insanely wide spread and absurd damage fall-off really limit its usability and potential. While most Warframe combat is in relatively close quarters, the Euphona Prime's secondary fire is practically unusable outside of point-blank range, which makes it rather uncomfortable to use. Just about every other weapon in the game is still reasonably effective at ~10 metres, while the Euphona Prime's secondary fire is already dealing only ~34% damage, likely with at most half of its pellets connecting. Again the secondary fire also has a decent amount of recoil, but again the low RoF makes this largely a non-issue.


Overall, I find the Euphona Prime's primary fire to be much more overall usable, since it doesn't require you to be in the face of your enemy. Sure the secondary fire is pretty powerful in terms of potential, but the absurd spread and damage fall-off really kill its usability. The primary fire is very powerful, dealing immense damage with a single shot, but it falls behind in many aspects of usability, such as Reload Ratio, travel time and projectile drop. If you're after a heavy hitting semi-auto pistol, the Euphona Prime is a very powerful, if rather flawed, option.

Scores

I've scored the Euphona Prime's two firing modes separately, as the two firing modes want very different setups, and modding for both is rather suboptimal. Every other weapon with multiple firing modes that I've covered previously has been able to comfortably make good use of the same build for every firing mode, but this is not the case for the Euphona Prime. The Primary Fire wants maximum crit, and does not care at all for status, while the Secondary Fire wants all four 60/60 mods for status, and cares little for crit. A hybrid build is possible, but sacrifices performance and access to extra utility like Punch Through.

Primary Fire

Vs Trash Mobs: 1/5 - Low RoF, small Mag Capacity, poor Reload Ratio and no AoE effects, the Euphona Prime is very inefficient against groups.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - Insanely high damage-per-shot, the Euphona Prime can kill most unarmoured heavies with a single headshot.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 3.5/5 - Essentially no Status Chance means that the Euphona Prime has to rely on pure damage against armoured enemies. It fares better than most other similar secondaries, purely on account of its absurdly high damage output, but does not scale especially well at high levels.

Secondary Fire

Vs Trash Mobs: 1.5/5 - Low RoF, small Mag Capacity, poor Reload Ratio and no AoE effects, the Euphona Prime is very inefficient against groups. The very wide spread does help a little, but the damage fall-off is extreme, making it nearly worthless beyond point blank range. A Gas build does deal a reasonable amount of group damage, but this doesn't circumvent the need to be in the face of your enemy to do any significant damage.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 3/5 - Reasonable damage output, however again the spread and damage fall-off make it quite difficult to use effectively outside of point blank range.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 5/5 - 100% Status capable, with majority slash and fairly high pellet count, the Euphona Prime can rip through armour with ease.

Vs Variants

None, the Euphona Prime is one of very few weapons without a non-Prime counterpart.

Competitors

Primary Fire

The Euphona Prime has one of the highest damage-per-shot of any secondary in the game, with very high base Damage and fantastic crit. The only secondaries that compete in this respect are the two launchers, Kulstar and (Prisma) Angstrum, and the Catchmoon Kitgun, all of which are vastly different weapons. To compensate however, the Euphona Prime falls behind in many other respects, including RoF, Mag Capacity, overall Reload Ratio, Status Chance, and notably being a projectile weapon with projectile drop. A lot of the other Semi-Autos available, such as Lex Prime, deal less damage-per-shot, but are much more balanced, forgiving, and overall better suited to Warframe's combat. Notably, a Tombfinger Kitgun can be built to exceed the Euphona Prime in every respect except damager-per-shot, comes close in burst DPS anyway, and has an AoE effective against small crowds.

Secondary Fire

The Euphona Prime is a 100% Status capable shotgun, of which there are relatively few such secondaries - only the (Ak)Bronco Prime, (Mara) Detron and Twin Rogga. The (Ak)Bronco Prime are much faster firing, but significantly weaker and firing fewer pellets. The Twin Rogga fires a lot more pellets, but has an even smaller mag. The (Mara) Detron is much, much weaker, but a lot faster firing, has a larger mag, faster reload, and notably deals purely elemental damage. Notably, none of them have majority Slash damage like the Euphona Prime does, however they all have further and smaller damage fall-off. The Euphona Prime is the most powerful at point-blank range, however the others are much more effective beyond that, with tighter spread and much less damage fall-off. Notably, the Mara Detron is by far the best armour stripper thanks to pure elemental damage.

Rivens

The Euphona Prime has a fairly low 2/5 (0.7) Riven Disposition, which I think is fair. It is extremely powerful already, and absolutely does not need Riven help to kill enemies.

For the primary fire, obviously Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are all great to have. An element can help save a mod slot for something else, and +Punch Through can be helpful against crowds. Personally, I like both +Mag Capacity/Reload Speed, as I find the Euphona Prime's Reload Ratio to be rather lacking. +Flight Speed can be helpful for longer ranged combat.

Again for the primary fire, both -Puncture/Slash have barely any effect on the Euphona Prime's slug damage. -Status Chance/Duration are both good for the primary fire, but of course awful for the secondary.. -Faction Damage can be alright, depending which faction you want to use it against. -Max Ammo can be tolerable with Ammo Case/Mutation/etc, though the EuphonaP has a pretty low spare ammo count (only 40 at base). +Recoil has minimal effect since it fires so slowly, and -Zoom is great if you only engage at closer range.

For the secondary fire, the best stat to have is +Status Chance, with a value of at least +53.3%. This allows you to reach 100% Status with just three 60/60 mods and the Riven. Damage/Multishot are both great of course. An element that you want to proc often (e.g. Toxin/Electric for Corrosive) is a good help for bias. +Slash if you want more Slash procs can be good as well. Again, I really like +Punch Through and +Mag Capacity/Reload Speed. I wouldn't bother with +Flight Speed as the secondary fire's extreme spread makes shooting beyond point blank ineffective, even without the damage fall-off.

-Impact/Puncture are both great negatives to have, with minimal impact on total damage and increasing the bias of more desirable damage types. -Crit Chance/Crit Damage are both fine on a secondary fire-only build, though of course terrible for the primary fire. -Faction Damage can again be alright depending what enemies you're targeting. -Max Ammo can be alright alongside Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. +Recoil has minimal effect and -Zoom is perfect for the point-blank-only secondary fire.