Review: Lanka (U24.2.6)

The Lanka is an MR10 charge-up sniper rifle with a unique and highly effective scope bonus, introduced all the way back in U8.0. Though slow to fire, it deals an absurd amount of damage and can kill most enemies with a single shot. It is one of the best examples of a very niche, but highly effective, weapon.

Acquisition

The Lanka must be researched at a Dojo's Energy lab to acquire its blueprint.

Stats

A fully charged Lanka shot has a base Damage of 525 - by far the highest of any sniper rifle, and among the highest of any weapon in the game. This is backed up nicely by its solid crit stats (25%/2x). Fairly high Status Chance (25%) has some uses as the Lanka has pure Electric base damage.

Making up for its absurd base Damage is the Lanka's 1 second base charge time, affected by +Fire Rate mods. This makes it by far the slowest firing sniper, and one of the slowest firing weapons. Its Reload Ratio is quite high at 5, although if you're taking more than a shot or two to kill an enemy, for the most part you're probably doing something wrong. The Lanka can be fired at partial charge, for proportionally reduced damage.

As a sniper rifle, the Lanka has a combo counter and scope bonuses. Its combo counter requires 2 hits to activate. It has three zoom modes, 3x, 5x and 8x. Zooming in gives an additive Crit Chance bonus, added after all mods, of 20%, 30% and 50% respectively. Notably, at 8x zoom, with Point Strike equipped, the Lanka has over 100% Crit Chance, something no other sniper rifles achieve with just Point Strike.

The Lanka is a projectile weapon, with a rather fast projectile speed.

Augments

The Lanka has one Augment, Voltage Sequence. This Augment is available from the Perrin Sequence.

Upon killing a flying enemy (notably Ospreys, but also includes enemies such as Dargyns, airborne Hellions and the various dropships) the victim spawns an Arc Trap. The damage of this Arc Trap scales with the Lanka's Electric damage - it does not benefit if the Lanka is modded for any other damage types. The effect does not trigger on enemies forcibly made airborne, such as through Vauban's Bastille, only occurring against naturally flying enemies.

This effect is strange, but can be quite effective against groups, especially the Corpus who are most vulnerable to Electric damage. However, this also severely limits the Lanka's build diversity, as you are forced to use Electric damage for the Trap to be at all useful. This is especially bad against the Grineer, who have fewer flying units, and many of whom also resist Electric damage.

As a Perrin Sequence Augment, the mod provides the Sequence Syndicate Effect. Upon gaining sufficient affinity, the weapon will deal 1000 Radiation damage with guaranteed proc in an area around the player. It will also partially restore shields, and temporarily increase the maximum shield amount. I've covered the Sequence effect before, praising the radial Radiation, but criticising the shield boosts.

This Augment is very strange. On the one hand, it offers surprising power against groups, something the Lanka struggles with. On the other, it severely limits build diversity and does not remotely compare to a proper crowd-killer weapon.

Builds

0-Forma:

The Lanka is another weapon with no innate polarities, which makes modding it without Forma frustrating. This pictured build is pretty self-explanatory, standard mods building for Corrosive. Depending on what you're using the Lanka for, there are multiple elemental options available.

Corrosive or Radiation are fantastic against some Grineer enemies, but mediocre against others. A Gas build can be quite effective against groups due to the Lanka's pure Electric base Damage and good Status Chance. In particular, it does massive damage to most unarmoured Corpus when it does proc. Viral deals much more direct damage against Corpus organics, but I find it to generally be complete overkill, and a Gas build has the same Corpus killing power with much better group killing. A Radiation build will deal far better direct damage against armoured Corpus units. Against Infested, I generally recommend a Corrosive build. Although Gas is effective against light Infested, and deals fantastic group damage, it is heavily mitigated by Toxic Ancients and Ancient Healers.

If you're building for an elemental combo that uses Electric, it is also potentially worth dropping one of the elemental mods for a +Fire Rate mod. The Lanka's base charge time is quite slow and greatly hinders its usability, especially when confronted with groups. A +Fire Rate mod reduces this charge time, which can be a great help. On the other hand, it deals massive damage even with an incomplete build. Overall, I feel that the improved charge time far outweighs the loss of damage in general Warframe use.

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

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities lets you slot in both Serration and Split Chamber, as well as two 90% elementals. Again, it can be worth downgrading or completely dropping one of the elemental mods for a +Fire Rate mod.

For most builds, I'd recommend sticking with 90% elementals for maximum damage, since most enemies will not survive a shot, and the status procs are not especially helpful for the slow firing Lanka. For a Gas build, I'd recommend going for maximum Status Chance and Toxin bias, for maximum reliability of proccing, and high Gas proc damage.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Gas 4-Forma:

This particular build is optimised for Gas proccing, with maximum Status Chance and Toxin bias for frequent and brutal Gas proccing. I've slotted in Vile Acceleration as the last mod for the greatly improved charge speed. Vigilante Armaments is a good alternative if you prefer the raw damage.

Damage Focused 5-Forma:

This build is optimised for high damage-per-shot, with Vile Acceleration's large Fire Rate boost for improved usability. If you care only for damage-per-shot, and not for charge time, you can switch Vile Acceleration for say a 60/60 mod. Heavy Caliber is also an option that will significantly improve damage, but the accuracy loss for the additional Multishot pellets can be a major problem.

Non-Chroma Eidolon Focused 6-Forma:

For Eidolon hunting, this is the best overall non-Chroma build. Primed Cryo Rounds offers a larger damage bonus against the Alloy-armoured Eidolons than Vigilante Armaments. Vile Acceleration again offers some great usability, but if you'd rather have maximum damage-per-shot, you can swap that for Vigilante Armaments instead.

Chroma Eidolon Focused 6-Forma:

As Chroma's Vex Armour (3) acts as a massive Serration, you will get far more benefit from a build that actually completely drops Serration. This applies to any base Damage mod (Serration, Hornet Strike, Point Blank, etc) when used alongside Chroma - you can actually get a larger damage boost from something else. This build slots in Vigilante Armaments in its place. Again if you don't want Vile Acceleration, you can put something else in that slot, like a 60/60 mod.

My Builds: 

I really don't enjoy the Lanka, and much prefer the Vectis/Rubico Primes for sniper purposes. These builds are all exactly as described above.

Combat Use and Summary

The Lanka is perhaps the most archetypal sniper rifle in the game. Dealing absurd damage-per-shot, it is exceptional at obliterating a single, high priority target. When it comes to killing multiple targets however, unless built for Gas, it struggles immensely. A long charge time results in a very slow RoF, very poorly suited for killing more than one enemy at a time, even with the ability to fire shots at partial charge. Thanks to its base Electric damage and a rather high Status Chance, a Gas build can inflict major group damage when it procs. However, against tougher enemies, particularly with armour, a Gas build falls behind majorly due to its poor damage multipliers.

Against armoured enemies, the Lanka is imperfect. Base Electric damage allows it to be built for pure Corrosive or Radiation damage, but not a mix of both. As such, it can be built to do massive damage to one armour type, but will struggle against the other. However, as a very high damage weapon with a combo counter, it fares a lot better than other pure damage weapons. Hunter Munitions, when it procs, will blast through anything armoured with ease, though a 30% Slash proc chance on crits is not ideal for such a slow firing weapon.

Also frustrating for a sniper weapon is that the Lanka is a projectile weapon, and thus has travel time. This makes shooting at moving targets, especially at long range, annoyingly difficult compared to the rest of the snipers, which are all hitscan.

The Lanka's combo counter builds up quite quickly, and its scope bonuses are fantastic - the highest zoom level, alongside Point Strike, brings the Lanka's Crit Chance above 100%. It is the only sniper rifle that can currently break 100% Crit Chance with just Point Strike, which is great for consistency.

Rather appropriately, the Lanka is the go-to recommended Eidolon hunting weapon, as it can be built for pure Radiation damage and deals an absurd amount of damage. If you can tolerate the charge time and projectile travel time, it is the best weapon against Eidolons. Personally, I can't and I much prefer the hitscan Rubico or Vectis Primes.

The Lanka is a very niche weapon in an already niche category. It is a very slow firing, somewhat inconvenient sniper rifle that deals immense damage. It does not at all suit Warframe's combat, except in specific single-target battles such as Eidolons, where it excels. For that reason alone, if you intend to give Eidolons a go, the Lanka is definitely worth building and trying out. It is certainly not for everyone however. I personally hate using the Lanka.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 1/5 - A long charge time with no innate AoE makes the Lanka very poor against groups. Innate Punch Through helps a little. A Gas build, if it procs, can be quite effective against groups, but is unreliable and has quite poor direct damage against heavier targets.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - Absurd damage-per-shot means that the Lanka can put down most unarmoured enemies in a single shot, especially with the correct element.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 4/5 - Using the right damage type will do massive damage to the corresponding armour type, but will struggle against the other armour type. For instance a Corrosive build will obliterate anything Ferrite armoured, but be significantly less effective against Alloy armour. That said, with insane damage-per-shot and a sniper combo counter, the Lanka is one of the best weapons for brute-forcing through armoured enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 5/5 - A single Slash proc will easily annihilate its victim, the only problem being the unreliability of actually inflicting a Slash proc with HM.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

None of the other sniper rifles compare to the Lanka for damage-per-shot, especially when it comes to Eidolon hunting. The Rubico and Vectis Primes are much better to use generally, and the Rubico Prime especially does very well against Eidolons, but the Lanka remains the best Eidolon hunting weapon. When looking at charge weapons more generally, the Opticor with its large AoE is more effective against groups and also packs massive firepower, but is inconsistent with crits without Argon Scope or a Riven, and does not have scope bonuses or combo counter.

Rivens

Riven seen on Trade Chat

The Lanka has a slightly below average 3/5 (0.95) disposition, which seems relatively fair. Though it is extremely popular for use against Eidolons, it sees almost no use anywhere else.

For Eidolon hunting, the top stats to have I believe are Crit Damage, Multishot, Electricity/Heat and Crit Chance, in that order. Since Chroma's Vex Armour acts as a massive Serration, +Damage is much less effective. Similarly, the Lanka's +Crit Chance zoom bonus makes +CC on a Riven less useful. +Fire Rate can be useful, and +Projectile Flight Speed can be helpful as well. Any negative that does not decrease damage-per-shot is acceptable for Eidolon hunting.

For general use, the top stats are of course +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage. An added element can be useful to save mod slots or increase bias. +Fire Rate helps to reduce the Lanka's charge time. +Projectile Flight Speed can make engagements at longer range easier.

-Zoom is a perfect negative, as it allows you to gain the +50% Crit Chance zoom bonus without as high a zoom. Very rarely is the 8x zoom actually useful, more often than not just making aiming more difficult. -Max Ammo can be a very usable negative despite the use of sniper ammo, as the Lanka is very ammo efficient. -Mag Capacity or Reload Speed can be tolerable if you're not using the Lanka to run-and-gun. +Recoil is hardly a problem, since you won't be making quick follow-up shots. -Faction Damage to a faction you don't intend on using the Lanka against is also great. -Status Chance/Duration is also perfect if you only care about damage-per-shot. -Impact/Puncture/Slash, if they can roll, have no effect so are perfect.