Review: Secura Dual Cestra (U24.7.2)

The Secura Dual Cestra is a high capacity MR10 dual secondary that showers its victims in laser bolts. With high RoF, heavy recoil, and a painfully long reload, it is a fun and reasonably powerful, but flawed weapon.

Acquisition

The Secura Dual Cestra can be bought directly from the Perrin Sequence Syndicate for 100,000 Standing. It can also be traded, provided it has not been used and does not have an Orokin Catalyst installed.

Stats

One of the big selling points of the Secura Dual Cestra is its massive Mag Capacity of 120 - the equal highest of any Secondary in the game currently. This however is counterbalanced by a rather high RoF of 12.5, and the longest Reload Time in the game currently of 3.5 seconds. These combine for only an above average Reload Ratio of 2.74.

The SDual Cestra also sports a very high Status Chance, which complements its high RoF very well, though sadly it has no Slash damage. It also has relatively low crit, enough to be effective with the Primed crit mods, but too low for the regular Secondary crit mods.

The SDCestra is a spool-up weapon, requiring around 6 shots before reaching its maximum RoF. In my experience, even without Lethal Torrent, it reaches max speed quite quickly, and the start-up period is barely noticeable. It however also has fairly significant spread, noticeable after firing a couple of rounds, and travel time as it is a projectile weapon.

As a Secura Syndicate weapon, the SDC can utilise the Sequence Syndicate effect. Upon gaining sufficient affinity, the weapon will deal 1000 Radiation damage with guaranteed proc to all enemies within a set radius. It will also restore some Shields, and slightly increase your maximum Shields for a short time.

Augments

None.

Builds

Status 0-Forma:

With native V and - polarities, you can fit a basic Elemental status build on the Secura Dual Cestra. As mentioned previously, I feel that its crit is too low to make good use of without the Primed crit mods. The pictured setup above maximises Corrosive damage and bias for fast armour stripping.

Lethal Torrent, though powerful, also drastically increases the weapon's recoil and ammo consumption rate. As such, I feel that it can be worth dropping, for something like (Primed) Quickdraw.

Against armoured enemies, a Corrosive status build is by far the most effective, rapidly depleting their armour. Infested are all hit super-effectively by a Corrosive + Heat combination, with Corrosive being the much more important of the two. Corrosive + Blast is also an option. Against unarmoured Corpus, you have several options. Viral + Electric covers all bases fairly well, being most effective once shields are depleted. Pure Toxin bypasses shields entirely, making it especially effective on enemies who are majority shield (e.g. Anti-MOAs). A Gas status build could also be effective, tearing through groups with its AoE Toxin procs, though has very poor direct damage.

Recommended Setups: Corrosive vs Grineer, Corrupted, armoured Corpus, Corrosive + Heat/Blast vs Infested, Viral + Electric or Toxin or Gas vs unarmoured Corpus

Primed Crit 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities allows you to drop two of the elemental mods in favour of the Primed crit mods. With space for only two elementals, your options become a lot more limited. Corrosive status remains the best option against armour, and is also the best single combo for Infested. Against unarmoured Corpus, Viral and Toxin remain the best options. Gas is much less effective without such a high elemental bias.

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

General Purpose 3-Forma:

Another added V polarity lets you make solid use of all eight mod slots. In this example build, I've slotted in Seeker because I love Punch Through. The Secura Dual Cestra however has many alternative options that it would also greatly appreciate.

As mentioned previously, the SDual Cestra has pretty heavy recoil with Lethal Torrent installed, making Steady Hands a very useful option. It also has a painfully long reload, which (Primed) Quickdraw significantly improves. Pistol Ammo Mutation may be worth a look if you find yourself constantly running out of ammo in longer missions. On top of those options, the usual suspects like Augur Pact and more elementals are solid as well. As mentioned previously, though Lethal Torrent is powerful, it also exacerbates the SDC's flaws, so could potentially be left off in exchange for one of the aforementioned mods.

Against armoured enemies, the above Corrosive with maximum Status Chance is recommended. For unarmoured enemies, switching the 60/60s for 90% elementals is a solid option, but will require even more Forma.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds:

This is my specialised, general-fun armour-stripping build. I've dropped Lethal Torrent for better ammo economy and lower recoil, and Primed Target Cracker, to fit in Primed Quickdraw and Seeker. The +Crit Damage on my Riven mostly compensates for the loss of PTC. PQD massively improves the Reload Time, which makes the Secura Dual Cestra much more comfortable to use, and Seeker adds always-valuable Punch Through.

This is a more traditional build, most effective against Infested.

This also fairly traditional build is best against unarmoured Corpus.

Combat Use and Summary

The Secura Dual Cestra is a fast-firing secondary with massive capacity, great Status Chance and usable crit. As such, it performs surprisingly well against most enemies.

Even without Punch Through, the SDual Cestra handles groups quite well. Its fairly high RoF and huge capacity allow it to engage many targets in quick succession without reloading, though its Reload Time is painfully slow. The Sequence Syndicate effect, though infrequent, is also helpful against crowds. With relatively middling crit, the SDC does not perform especially well against unarmoured enemies with high health. It deals reasonable, but not exceptional direct DPS, sitting around the middle of the pack as far as secondaries go.

The SDC performs very well against heavily armoured enemies. High RoF with high Status Chance allow it to proc Corrosive quickly and frequently, rapidly depleting enemy armour. It deals enough direct damage to comfortably kill them once their armour has been removed.

As mentioned several times already, the SDC's slow reload and high recoil are its biggest weaknesses. Its reload is the slowest in the game currently, and can really slow down the tempo of Warframe's otherwise extremely fast pace. Heavy recoil makes the weapon fairly difficult to control, and combined with rapidly increasing spread, greatly diminishes its effectiveness at range. The SDC's ammo efficiency is also fairly poor, especially with Lethal Torrent. At least one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc is recommended if you're taking it into a long mission.

Overall, the Secura Dual Cestra is a solid, but flawed weapon. It has great Status Chance and deals decent damage, and has a massive capacity. In many ways, it is a more flawed, secondary version of the Supra Vandal. If you're after a status-based bullet-hose secondary, the Secura Dual Cestra is worth a look, but as I'll discuss just below, there are a number of other weapons worth considering too.

Personally, I really enjoy using the Secura Dual Cestra. In spite of its flaws, it just feels really fun to me, and it is powerful enough (with a Riven at least), for me to use it as one of my go-to secondaries. I have a number of other secondaries that are pretty much strictly better, but none are as fun for me.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - With high RoF and a massive Mag Capacity, the Secura Dual Cestra fares quite well against large groups of enemies. Its Syndicate proc, when it triggers, is also helpful. Its painfully long reload holds it back a little here.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2/5 - Relatively low crit stats gives the Secura Dual Cestra unexceptional DPS, so it does not fare too well against unarmoured, high health enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 4.5/5 - High RoF and Status Chance allow the Secura Dual Cestra to inflict Corrosive procs at rather high rate, making it excellent for stripping armour.

Vs Variants

The MR10 Secura Dual Cestra is a strict upgrade over the MR7 Dual Cestra. It sports slightly increased base Damage and increased Status Chance, but most importantly drastically improved Crit Chance. Where the Dual Cestra is a pure Status weapon, the Secura is (only just) Crit viable.

Competitors

There are a fair number of Full-Auto dual secondaries, and many of them are very good weapons in their own right. The most relevant ones to this discussion are the Status capable ones - Dex Furis, Akstiletto Prime and Prisma Twin Gremlins. All of them reload in 2 seconds or faster and have better overall Crit stats. The Dex Furis has a slightly lower Reload Ratio (2.5), while the other two have very high Reload Ratios (5.14 and 8.81 respectively). The Akstiletto Prime and Prisma Twin Gremlins generally handle much better, with very little recoil, fast reloads and very solid overall firepower. The Dex Furis on the other hand has no spool-up, is hitscan and fires even faster, for even better Status abilities, but even worse ammo economy. Even better, it is easily acquirable regardless of MR during Warframe's Anniversary event time.

Though the Secura Dual Cestra packs solid firepower and great status abilities, it does not offer anything that the aforementioned three weapons do not match, or otherwise compensate for. Its flaws are difficult to compensate for without spending additional mod slots, which puts it further behind the other weapons.

Rivens

The Dual Cestra family has retained a rather high 4/5 (1.3) Riven Disposition, which I think is just a tad high. The Secura Dual Cestra is far from a weak weapon, rather it has several notable flaws that many other weapons do not. Its disposition does match its popularity (or lack thereof).

Damage/Multishot are naturally top stats to have. +Crit Chance/Damage are great if you're going for a Crit build. A suitable element can be a great help for elemental bias and damage. +Flight Speed can be helpful at longer range, though the (Secura) Dual Cestra's spread does it no favours here. Personally, I'd consider +Reload Speed to be a great stat, considering its base 3.5 second reload. -Recoil can also be very helpful to counteract Lethal Torrent. +Punch Through offers great convenience and efficiency against crowds.

-Impact/Slash have little to no effect on damage output, and increase the bias of other damage types. -Puncture costs a lot of base damage, but massively improves elemental bias. -Crit Chance/Damage can be alright if you're going for a pure Status build. -Status Duration is alright if Corrosive procs are all you care about. -Faction Damage to a weaker faction (e.g. Infested) can be alright. -Fire Rate, though it significantly reduces DPS, improves ammo efficiency and recoil significantly. -Zoom is a great negative, given the (Secura) Dual Cestra is only really effective in close quarters.