Review: Sybaris Prime and Dex Sybaris (U24.4.3)

This will be the first time I'm covering two weapons of the same family at the same time. The families I could have covered in the past are: the Latron Prime/Wraith (I forgot about the Wraith at the time, and consider it largely inferior), the Braton Prime/Vandal (again the Vandal is largely inferior), and the Cernos Rakta/Prime (the Prime functions very differently to the rest of the Cernos family, so I felt it worth covering separately). This time around, both the Sybaris Prime and Dex Sybaris are good rifles worth covering.

The Sybaris Prime is an MR12 Burst-Fire rifle, released in U20.6.2 alongside Oberon Prime. With high crit and Status Chance and rather high base Damage, the Sybaris Prime is a powerful and versatile hard-hitting burst rifle.
The Dex Sybaris is an MR7 Burst-Fire rifle, originally released for Warframe's third anniversary in U18.6.2. With slightly higher crit, but much lower Status Chance, it also hits very hard, but lacks the extra scaling factor that the Prime has. With that said, it is still a very good MR7 rifle.

Sybaris Prime

Acquisition

As standard for a Prime weapon, the Sybaris Prime's blueprint and parts can be found in various Void Relics. It will be Vaulted alongside Oberon Prime, but is currently available.

Stats

The Sybaris Prime has a great mix of high base stats. It has both quite high crit, as well as a rather high Status Chance. Combined with a rather high, balanced base Damage, it hits very hard and deals quite good damage-per-shot. Its Reload Ratio is relatively unimpressive at just 2.12 however.

The Sybaris Prime, like the other Sybares, is a two-shot Burst-Fire rifle.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

With native V and two - polarities, the Sybaris Prime can fit a pretty solid build without any Forma. You have plenty of space for the staples, Serration, Split Chamber, Point Strike, Vital Sense, as well as any combo of elementals (besides Primed Cryo Rounds). In this build, I've elected to go for Viral with one 60/60, opening up space for Vigilante Armaments.

As the Sybaris Prime is relatively slow firing, I tend to find a high status Viral build as the best build against armoured organics. It procs Slash with reasonable frequency, and its Slash procs are quite powerful. The Sybaris Prime's low RoF greatly limits the effectiveness of a Corrosive status build to strip armour. Against Infested, Corrosive is the best all-rounder for general damage output. Against unarmoured Corpus, I find Viral or Toxin to be the best. Viral is brutal once shields have been depleted, while Toxin is far more efficient against enemies with majority shields (e.g. Anti MOAs). Against armoured Corpus, who predominantly use Alloy Armour, Radiation is by far the best.

An extra option that makes use of both - polarities is switching Vigilante Armaments for Fanged Fusillade. This build focuses on inflicting Slash procs, most notably effective against organic armoured enemies. Viral is the best elemental combo for this, halving enemy health for the Slash procs to eat through.
Compared to Hunter Munitions, FF increases direct damage output slightly as well as increasing Slash proc output thanks to the bias increase. However, Hunter Munitions inflicts far more Slash procs, and notably is inflicted separately of natural procs, allowing pellets to potentially inflict two procs at once.

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

Raw Damage 1-Forma:

One added V polarity offers a lot of versatility, comfortably fitting in Split Chamber and offering a lot of other mod options. This pictured build maximises raw damage, with two 90% elementals for Viral, and Vigilante Armaments. Switching the second 90% for a 60/60 opens up 9 points of space, for something like Bladed Rounds

Hunter Munitions 1-Forma:

An alternative is to slot in Hunter Munitions instead. Though this build loses out in terms of direct damage (especially once the above build uses its eighth mod slot), it is far, far more effective against armoured enemies, inflicting many brutal Slash procs. A Viral setup with increased Status Chance results in more reliable Viral and natural Slash procs, while Hunter Munitions of course adds additional Slash proc affliction.

Punch Through 1-Forma:

My favourite for the extra mod slot though is of course Shred, for the Punch Through. The Sybaris Prime is relatively slow firing and has no innate anti-group capabilities. Shred both boosts its RoF (to a more comfortable level at least), and adds Punch Through for greatly improved crowd damaging abilities. Again it is lacking in raw damage compared to the other builds, but in my opinion, the added convenience and comfort is well worth it.

Recommended Setups: Viral + HM vs Grineer, Corrupted, Corrosive vs Infested, Viral or Toxin vs unarmoured Corpus, Radiation vs armoured Corpus

Raw Damage 3-Forma:

Two more added V polarities lets you comfortably fit in most mods, though you may need to replace one of the - polarities depending on what mods exactly you want (see below for one example). This build focuses on raw damage, with some Punch Through for anti-crowd purposes, and as such uses two 90% elementals.

There are of course multiple other options for the Vigilante Armaments and Shred slots. Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds are decent options, as is Heavy Caliber if you can tolerate the loss of accuracy (which I can't personally, so don't recommend). You could opt instead for another elemental, useful for rounding out your effectiveness against different targets. For instance, Corrosive + Fire covers every Infested target, while Viral + Electric hits all unarmoured Corpus hard once shields are down.

Hunter Munitions 3-Forma:

Naturally, Hunter Munitions is an option as well for maximising effectiveness against heavily armoured enemies. As such, the second elemental is a 60/60 for the increased Status Chance (as well as for lack of space). Ideally, both elementals would be switched to 60/60s for maximum Status Chance in such a build. Again, this sort of build is lacking in direct firepower, but is highly effective against armoured enemies.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: Corrosive + Fire vs Infested, Viral + Electric vs unarmoured Corpus

My Builds:

Nothing extra special about this build, just a general-purpose Viral build, best against organics. Malignant Force gives boosted Status Chance, great for reliably inflicting and maintaining Viral procs, as well as inflicting powerful Slash procs. Primed Cryo Rounds gives a massive damage boost, which for the content I play, tends to be more useful than Rime Rounds for the Status Chance.

These other builds are even more standard, Corrosive for Infested and Radiation for armoured Corpus.

Combat Use and Summary

As a precision rifle with very good crit, the Sybaris Prime is most effective against unarmoured heavies, dealing major damage with each burst. It also fares fairly well against armoured heavies thanks to its high Status Chance, inflicting very powerful Slash procs with surprising frequency. This is exacerbated even further with Hunter Munitions, drastically increasing Slash proc frequency at the expense of a little direct damage. A Corrosive status build can be usable if Slash is for whatever reason ineffective, but is rather slow.

Where the Sybaris Prime is worst is against crowds, naturally. It is relatively slow firing, with no innate Punch Through or AoE, and its Burst-Fire nature often results in wasted rounds against already-dead enemies. Its relatively unexceptional Reload Ratio doesn't help either.

The Sybaris Prime has very good accuracy, though also has the highest recoil in the Sybaris family. At longer ranges, the recoil can be sufficient to throw off the second shot significantly. As such, double headshots can be harder to land if you are not experienced with recoil compensation.

Overall, the Sybaris Prime is a powerful burst rifle. It deals a lot of damage with each shot thanks to very good crit, and has high enough Status Chance and Slash bias to threaten heavily armoured enemies, even without Hunter Munitions. It struggles a little against groups, though fares quite well by precision rifle standards. Compared to other precision rifles, I also find it to feel more forgiving, with a relatively higher RoF and capacity. It was for a long time my favourite weapon, only losing favour when the TIberon Prime was released. Especially as it is due to be Vaulted relatively soon, I strongly recommend giving the Sybaris Prime a chance if you are at all interested in a versatile precision rifle.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2.5/5 - Relatively low RoF, fairly small magazine with no AoE or innate Punch Through, the Sybaris Prime does not handle groups particularly well.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4/5 - With quite good Burst DPS thanks to great crit and rather high damage-per-shot, the Sybaris Prime handles unarmoured heavies quite well for a rifle.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3.5/5 - High Status Chance and crit allows the Sybaris Prime to inflict quite powerful Slash procs with surprising frequency, despite its mediocre Slash bias. It greatly benefits from anything that increases Slash bias (ie +Slash or -Impact/Puncture), and Viral helps significantly as well.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4.5/5 - With high Crit Chance, Hunter Munitions greatly enhances the Sybaris Prime's already solid ability to inflict Slash procs, rapidly tearing through an armoured enemy's health.

Dex Sybaris

Acquisition

Like the Dex Furis, the Dex Sybaris is available only during Warframe's Anniversary events. It is awarded for completing a special (rather easy) Alert. As with all free weapons, it comes with a free Weapon Slot and an Orokin Catalyst pre-installed. Due to its special method of acquisition, it is usable and acquirable regardless of your MR.

Stats

The Dex Sybaris has slightly better crit than the Sybaris Prime, at a very high 35%/2x, though has much lower Status Chance. It also sports relatively lower base Damage, though still deals a lot of damage-per-shot. Its RoF is lower, as is its Mag Capacity, though compensates with a faster reload. This gives for a slightly better Reload Ratio of 2.24.

Like the other Sybares, the Dex Sybaris is a two-shot Burst-Fire rifle.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

Another weapon with no native polarities, the Dex Sybaris is annoying to fit a build for without Forma. I've included my usual crit-rifle 0-Forma build, Vigilante Armaments allowing more mod diversity than Split Chamber. I've gone for a Viral build again because I feel that it is the most balanced on this sort of slow firing rifle, especially when you get the occasional Slash proc as well.

Corrosive and Radiation are quite effective against their respective armour type (though suffer against the other), with Corrosive also being excellent against Infested. Viral is great against unarmoured Corpus, though Toxin is also definitely worth a mention. Unfortunately, due to its low Status Chance, the Dex Sybaris does not fare especially well against heavily armoured enemies on its own.

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

Hunter Munitions 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities allow the comfortable fitting of Split Chamber alongside an additional mod. Naturally for the high-crit, low-status/RoF Dex Sybaris, Hunter Munitions is a great option against armoured enemies, against whom the Dex struggles most. Using its very high Crit Chance as a pseudo-Status Chance, Hunter Munitions turns the Dex Sybaris into a powerful Slash proc weapon, easily capable of eating through the health of heavily armoured enemies. A Viral build complements this best, as its (unreliable) Viral procs greatly benefit the many Slash procs you will inflict.

Naturally Hunter Munitions can be switched for a variety of others, especially if you downgrade the 90% elemental to a 60/60. Against enemies who are less notably vulnerable to Slash procs (ie most anything unarmoured), Vigilante Armaments offers a simple, effective damage boost. Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds are of course solid options too if you have them and reliably meet their trigger criteria. Another of my favourite mods for the slot though is just below...

Punch Through 2-Forma:

As always, I strongly recommend Shred on the Dex Sybaris. It boosts its low RoF to a slightly better level, and offers Punch Through which is a massive help against tight crowds - something the Dex otherwise struggles against. With the pictured build, downgrading the 90% elemental to a 60/60 opens up enough space to switch Vigilante Armaments back for Split Chamber, taking Shred's polarised slot.

Recommended Setups: Viral + HM vs Grineer, Corrupted, otherwise see above.

3-Forma:

A third V polarity allows the comfortable use of Split Chamber alongside Shred, with a 90% elemental and a little more space.

Recommended Setups: see above.

4-Forma:

A fourth V polarity, alongside switching the 90% elemental for a 60/60, offers enough space to fit in a decent eighth mod, in this case Vigilante Armaments. Hunter Munitions is of course also an excellent option against armoured enemies. Argon Scope/Bladed Rounds can be good too. Heavy Caliber offers a pretty big damage boost, however I wouldn't recommend it as the accuracy loss is very noticeable on a precision rifle like the Dex Sybaris, and it would require additional Forma.

A (Primed) Bane mod is also powerful, especially alongside Hunter Munitions, as the Slash procs are doubly increased by the (Primed) Bane. In particular, if you are fighting only Grineer or Corrupted, and care only about killing armoured enemies, you could consider dropping the elemental mods entirely, and slotting in Hunter Munitions, any more crit mods (e.g. Argon Scope) and a (Primed Bane). Though severely lacking for direct damage, especially against the wrong faction, such a build inflicts massive Slash procs with high reliability.

One build I personally quite like is slotting in Malignant Force + Primed Cryo Rounds, for a large amount of Viral damage, and reasonable Viral Status Chance. This combines fantastically with Hunter Munitions, for a build that hits quite hard against most unarmoured enemies, and eats away at armoured enemies quite effectively too.

5-Forma:

The fifth Forma starts allowing the use of the 90% elementals alongside most everything else you might want to slot in. Compared to the 60/60s, 90% elementals do offer noticeably more damage, and the loss of Status Chance is not huge for the Dex Sybaris, which naturally has fairly low Status Chance. Naturally, it alternatively opens up even more options for your flexible mod slots.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Combat Use and Summary

With high crit and overall damage-per-burst, the Dex Sybaris is most effective against unarmoured heavies, hitting very hard especially if both shots are headshots. Without Hunter Munitions, it largely struggles against heavily armoured enemies, due to its rather low Status Chance. The occasional lucky Slash proc helps significantly, but they are relatively uncommon and unreliable. With even better crit than the Sybaris Prime, the Dex Sybaris makes even better use of Hunter Munitions, giving the two nearly comparable Slash proc frequency.

Again , the Dex Sybaris does not fare particularly well against groups. It fires fairly slowly, with no AoE or innate Punch Through to speak of. As such, it greatly benefits from a secondary or melee that handles groups effectively.

The Dex Sybaris is very accurate and has very little recoil, making it quite effective even at long range. On open world maps like the Plains, I have little trouble landing repeated headshots on far away enemies.

Overall, the Dex Sybaris is a pretty solid precision crit rifle. It relies entirely on Hunter Munitions against armoured enemies, but otherwise does a good amount of damage with great precision. Perhaps the best thing about the Dex Sybaris is that it is incredibly easy to obtain at the right time - during the typical Anniversary events, the Dex Sybaris is an award for an easy, low-level Alert. As such, it is available to essentially everyone, and it is a fantastic leg up for newer players looking for a good rifle.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2.5/5 - Similar low RoF and capacity with no AoE or innate Punch Through, the Dex Sybaris is not very effective against groups.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 3.5/5 - Great crit gives the Dex Sybaris quite good Burst DPS, allowing it to deal quite good damage to unarmoured enemies. It does fall behind some rifles, including the Sybaris Prime, for raw DPS.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 2.5/5 - With low Status Chance, the Dex Sybaris is significantly less effective against heavily armoured enemies. The right elemental combo does help against the right armour type, but does not scale particularly well. Its best chance is with relatively infrequent but fairly powerful Slash procs, assisted by the Dex's higher Slash bias.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4/5 - Again, great crit results in Hunter Munitions triggering very frequently, inflicting multiple powerful Slash procs.

Vs Variants

Both the Sybaris Prime and Dex Sybaris are significantly better than the base Sybaris. The Dex has slightly lower base Damage, but has much better crit, larger magazine, faster reload and slightly higher RoF. The Prime is an almost universal improvement, with higher base Damage, crit, RoF, capacity and Status Chance. All that said, the Sybaris is decently powerful for an MR5 rifle.

Comparing the Sybaris Prime and Dex Sybaris is a lot less clear cut however. The Prime loses a little crit and Slash bias, and has higher recoil, in exchange for a higher RoF, base Damage, and notably much higher Status Chance. The Prime's larger magazine trades roughly evenly with the Dex's faster reload. Personally, I find the Prime's far better Status Chance to be the deciding factor, allowing it to proc status far more frequently and reliably, most notable with a Viral + Slash build against heavily armoured enemies. That said, especially with Hunter Munitions in the game, both rifles are quite effective against most targets, and the Dex Sybaris is quite powerful for an MR7 rifle that can potentially be acquired at any MR.

Competitors

The Sybaris family competes with other non-sniper precise rifles for a similar role, for instance the Latron and Grinlok families, and other more unusual rifles, like the Tiberon (Prime), Argonak and Quartakk. Both Sybaris variants fare reasonably well for raw DPS, though the Sybaris Prime is better off. The Sybaris Prime in particular also stands out with its high Status Chance, for quite reliable Viral procs, and rather powerful and frequent Slash procs (even without HM).

Notably of the other precision rifles, the Tiberon Prime is far more versatile with its three firing modes. The Battacor has an extremely powerful alternate fire, though requires primary fire kills to enable it. The newly released Prisma Grinlok is very capable of inflicting Slash procs even without HM, and is overall also quite powerful (I'll be covering it soon...).

Rivens 

The Sybaris family has a below-average 2/5 (0.895) Riven Disposition. I consider this reasonably fair, given that both the Dex and Prime are quite powerful weapons, and need no extra help to perform well in higher level content.

+Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are obviously all great stats to have for any Sybaris. A desirable element (e.g. Toxin) can help to save a mod slot. +Punch Through is a great help against groups. For the Sybaris Prime, which has a good Status Chance, +Slash is useful for increasing the number of Slash procs inflicted.

-Impact/Puncture are both reasonable negatives. For the Dex, you lose relatively minor amounts of base Damage to significantly boost your Riven, while the Prime also greatly appreciates the much higher Slash bias. -Faction Damage to a faction you're not worried about (e.g. Infested) can be quite acceptable. Especially for the Prime, -Fire Rate can be an acceptable negative, though this is largely dependant on personal preference and playstyle. -Ammo Max is great for the very ammo-efficient Sybaris family. -Flight Speed has no effect. +Recoil is quite alright except at long ranges, as the Sybaris family does not have a whole lot of recoil - the Prime having the most. -Zoom is great if you only intend to engage at closer range, though I find the Sybaris family quite effective at longer range, so would personally advise against it.