Review: Pyrana Prime (U24.5.5)

The Pyrana Prime is an MR13 Full-Auto secondary shotgun. Released alongside Limbo and Destreza Primes in U23.0.3, it has very good crit and high base Damage, for extreme close range damage output. A unique feature temporarily spawns a second Pyrana Prime, for increased RoF and doubled Magazine Capacity, granting it even more absurd DPS.

Acquisition

As standard for a Prime weapon, the Pyrana Prime's blueprint and parts can be obtained from opening Void Relics. It is currently available, though will be Vaulted when Limbo Prime gets Vaulted.

Stats

The Pyrana Prime has very high raw damage potential, with very good crit and quite high base Damage. However, it has a rather low Status Chance of just 12%. Thanks to shotgun status mechanics, this makes the Pyrana Prime essentially status non-viable. It has a fairly high RoF for a shotgun, though not a particularly large Mag Capacity, for an overall Reload Ratio of just 1.88.

The Pyrana Prime however has a special feature that pushes its damage output to the extreme. Upon achieving three kills within three seconds, it spawns a ghostly second Pyrana Prime, doubling its Mag Capacity and increasing RoF by 40%. Upon triggering this, the current capacity is also doubled (for instance, 9 rounds in the mag will double to 18). This lasts for five seconds, and cannot be refreshed while still active.

When this ability expires, the maximum Mag Capacity is reduced back to normal. Any remaining rounds stay, to a maximum of the standard Mag Capacity. For instance, having 9 rounds before the effect expires will leave you with 9 rounds afterwards. However, having say 14 rounds remaining will be reduced to 12 for a standard mag.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

With two native V polarities, the Pyrana Prime can fit in a pretty decent basic build. Nothing special about this pictured build, Damage, Multishot, Crit, elements as desired. I've put in Corrosive here because it's a decent default elemental combo.

With low Status Chance, the Pyrana Prime is relying on direct damage to kill enemies. Against armoured enemies, Corrosive or Radiation is great against the corresponding armour type, but poor against the other. Personally, I like Viral for a balance against both types, provided the unit itself is an organic (e.g. both Heavy Gunners and Bombards have Cloned Flesh health, so will still take increased damage from Viral).

Against Infested, Corrosive will do just fine and is the most reliable elemental combo. For unarmoured Corpus, Viral or Toxin are both quite effective. Viral is far more effective once enemy shields are down, especially against organics. Toxin bypasses shields completely, making it more effective against high-shield, low-health Corpus.

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

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities let you upgrade the crit mods to Primed crit mods, as well as being able to fit two 90% elementals. As mentioned just above, the Pyrana Prime's Status Chance is quite poor, so going just for maximum damage output is the best idea. Nothing special about these builds honestly.

General Purpose 5-Forma:

Another few Vs and -s and you can slot in just about any mods, in this example I've slotted in Seeker. As always, there are a number of options. Augur Pact is a cheap damage boost, while Magnum Force gives more, for worse accuracy. Primed Heated Charge is another big damage boost, though its effectiveness also depends on the enemy health types. Hydraulic Crosshairs is a crit boosting option that's not too draining.

My Builds:

My first build is a Viral build with Punch Through. I would have liked Deep Freeze instead of Frostbite, but my Forma scheme didn't allow for that. This is a general purpose build that kills most things pretty quickly.

This build is Corrosive + PT, intended primarily for Infested.

This Radiation + Toxin build is intended primarily for armoured Corpus enemies.

Combat Use and Summary

With very, very high DPS, but little Status Chance, the Pyrana Prime is most effective against enemies with little or no armour. It tears through both groups and few heavy enemies with ease, especially when its ability has been triggered. As to be expected from a shotgun, it is only really effective at close range, with both wide spread and damage fall-off dragging its performance down drastically beyond close range. The Pyrana Prime's high RoF for a shotgun and heavy recoil make it even harder to use at long range, especially when its special ability has been activated.

Similarly, though its special ability gives it absurdly high DPS, it also hurts the Pyrana Prime's ammo efficiency significantly. For longer missions, I'd strongly recommend at least one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc.

Against heavily armoured enemies, the Pyrana Prime does not fare so well. Though it deals a massive amount of direct damage, this direct damage starts to drop off at very high levels. The appropriate damage type does help significantly against the corresponding armour type (ie Corrosive vs Ferrite, Radiation vs Alloy), but this loses effectiveness at very high levels too. With all that in mind, in the typical content most players will play (max level ~110), the Pyrana Prime is capable of just brute-forcing through most armoured enemies.

A neat trick with the Pyrana Prime is that its special feature can give you pseudo-infinite ammo, at levels where you can easily one- or two- shot enemies. Say you start with 9 rounds in a standard mag, and you use 3 to get the kills necessary to trigger its ability. Your 6 remaining rounds are then doubled to 12. So long as you don't use 3 or more rounds before the ability expires, you have now effectively reloaded rounds without actually using up spare ammo. Essentially, you need to spend less than half of your mag to trigger the ability, which in turn will double your remaining rounds. This is not especially practical, since at the levels where ammo can become a problem, kills will not be so easy to achieve.

Overall, the Pyrana Prime is a very powerful crit shotgun that obliterates most enemies at close range. Beyond that range, it suffers immensely, and its poor Status Chance limits it against heavily armoured enemies. If you're after a secondary that just kills things quickly at close range, I'd definitely recommend giving the Pyrana Prime a try.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4.5/5 - solid RoF, large spread and heavy damage allow the Pyrana Prime to eat through groups of enemies with ease. Such groups also trigger its special ability quite easily as well. However, its Reload Ratio is not particularly good, so it spends a fair bit of time reloading. Added Punch Through is a great help here.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - with possibly the highest Burst DPS of any non-combo-counter weapon in the game, the Pyrana Prime blitzes through unarmoured enemies with ease.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 3.5/5 - with absurdly high DPS, the Pyrana Prime is capable of muscling through even heavily armoured enemies. However, with no real Status Chance to speak of, its effectiveness against such enemies drops drastically at very high levels.

Vs Variants

The Pyrana Prime is a majority upgrade over the MR12 Pyrana. It has improved crit, compensating for a small drop in base Damage and RoF. It also has slightly further damage fall-off, and slightly more Status Chance. Perhaps most useful however is the Pyrana Prime's larger magazine and shorter Reload Time, giving it a much better Reload Ratio. Additionally, the Pyrana Prime's unique feature of doubling after sufficient kills in a short time puts it vastly above the regular Pyrana in overall firepower.

Competitors

There aren't many secondary shotguns to start with, and the majority of the other good ones are status focused. Looking wider into all secondaries, the Pyrana Prime remains the highest DPS of the lot at close range, especially with its special feature triggered. However, it falls short once enemies are out of close range, and against heavily armoured enemies. Nothing remotely compares to the Pyrana Prime in the role it fills (high damage output in close range), but it doesn't fare too well outside of it.

Rivens

The Pyrana family has an average 3/5 (1) Riven Disposition, which honestly is still too high. The Pyrana Prime is absurdly powerful and quite popular, so I feel that a low 2/5, or perhaps even a high 1/5 disposition would be more appropriate.

As standard, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are all great for the Pyrana Prime. +Punch Through is quite helpful against groups. An appropriate element can help to save mod slots for other useful mods. -Recoil can be handy if you struggle with it. +Flight Speed increases its damage fall-off, though I wouldn't consider it all that useful given the Pyrana Prime's very wide spread.

-Impact/Puncture are great negatives as the Pyrana Prime has very little of either damage type. -Status Chance is a decent negative due to how low the Pyrana Prime's Status Chance actually is, thanks to shotgun status calculations. -Status Duration can be alright too, though personally I would recommend against it, as the occasional Viral proc can be quite useful. -Faction Damage to a faction you care less about (e.g. Infested) is quite good on the insanely powerful Pyrana Prime. -Fire Rate in smaller amounts can help to conserve ammo, especially with the PyranaP's special feature. -Ammo Max can be alright for shorter missions, or alongside Ammo Case/Mutation/etc, however you do have to be careful outside of those situations.+Recoil is alright if you can handle recoil, however I wouldn't recommend it, especially with the special feature. -Zoom is great on the PyranaP, which is only effective in close quarters.