Review: Astilla (U24.8.2)

The Astilla is a rather unusual MR10 shotgun, firing glass slugs that explode on impact. Behaving more like an automatic grenade launcher, it is nonetheless a fun and rather effective primary.

Acquisition

The Astilla's blueprint can be acquired directly from Market.

Stats

The Astilla has a rather unusual mix of stats. It has a fairly large magazine for a shotgun at 16, necessitated by a fairly high RoF of 4.33. With a Reload Time of 2 seconds, this gives it a slightly low Reload Ratio of 1.85. Its crit is usable though far from exceptional, while its Status Chance is very high, backed up by reasonable Slash bias.

The Astilla is not a conventional shotgun, firing only a single projectile pellet. As such, 100% Status Chance is not necessary to inflict procs consistently. Additionally, its damage fall-off is quite far for a shotgun, starting out at 30m and only dropping to 50% at 60m, though projectile travel time does limit its effectiveness at range.

The Astilla's glass slugs explode on impact with any surface or enemy, with a roughly 3m radius. 30% of the Astilla's damage is dealt by the slug's direct impact, while the remaining 70% is dealt in the explosion. A direct slug hit will also inflict a guaranteed Impact proc.

If Punch Through is installed, the slug will not explode until it hits a surface/object that it cannot penetrate.

Augments

None.

Builds 

Crit 0-Forma:

With one native V and - polarities, the Astilla can fit in solid basic build. This hybrid crit build uses the fairly weak Shotgun crit mods, so does not deal an especially high amount of damage. These example builds are modded for Corrosive, though there are many options available that can be quite effective.

Status 0-Forma:

Due to how weak the standard Shotgun crit mods are, a pure status/elemental damage build actually ends up with slightly higher DPS. This build has maximum Corrosive damage for fastest Corrosive proccing, though requires Shell Shock for maximum effect. Notably, both the slug and the explosion can inflict status procs, allowing the Astilla to inflict a lot more procs than its RoF would suggest.

Against armoured enemies, you have two primary elemental options. As mentioned already, Corrosive is a powerful option against any type of armoured enemy, depleting the armour of any status-vulnerable enemy. Viral + Slash is the other main option, with Viral damage, maximum Status Chance, and +Slash from Sweeping Serration. Such a build deals the majority of its anti-armour damage in Slash procs, ignoring armour entirely. I personally favour the Corrosive option, but both are quite effective.

Against Infested, Corrosive is your best primary elemental combo. Heat or Blast are good additions if you have the spare capacity.

Against unarmoured Corpus, you again have a number of options. Pure Toxin bypasses shields entirely, while Viral is extremely effective once shields have been depleted. Electric or Radiation can be added to Viral to make it more effective against robotics. Gas can also be used quite effectively, inflicting AoE Toxin procs which are devastating against groups. However, its direct damage output is quite poor as Gas is a weak damage type.

Recommended Setups: Corrosive vs Grineer, Corrupted, armoured Corpus; Corrosive (+optional Heat/Blast) vs Infested, Viral (+optional Electric/Radiation)/Toxin/Gas vs unarmoured Corpus

Status 1-Forma:

One added V polarity lets you comfortably slot in Primed Point Blank, with a little more capacity to customise to taste. There are a lot of options that I feel the Astilla would appreciate.

For raw damage output, Blaze is a powerful option, but also adds Heat damage which is detrimental for non-Heat inclusive Status builds. Vicious Spread is another raw damage mod without that downside, but increases your spread. Given its relatively poor Reload Ratio, I also like Tactical Pump or Ammo Stock on the Astilla. In a similar vein, Chilling Reload is quite good as well, but like Blaze, potentially messes with your elements. With such a low Ammo Max on such an ammo-hungry weapon, Shotgun Ammo Mutation could be worth a slot as well.

The Astilla is a weapon that I feel does not need or want Punch Through. Because the projectiles only explode on an object they cannot penetrate, Punch Through may cause the slugs to pass through enemies, and not explode on groups.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Crit 2-Forma:

Another V polarity allows you to slot in Primed Ravage in a crit build, and have decent space for the eighth mod. Primed Ravage, with its significant boost over regular Ravage, makes a crit build very much worth it. This of course comes at the cost of a few mod slots, leaving you with fewer flexible slots to play with.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Combat Use and Summary

With high RoF for a shotgun and decent, spammable AoE, the Astilla excels against groups. It can hammer large groups simultaneously with its large and quite powerful explosions, easily able to switch targets with its reasonable RoF. It is held back primarily by its below-average Reload Ratio.

By Shotgun standards, the Astilla is fairly unexceptional for DPS. It is focused more on Status and AoE than direct damage output, so falls behind against enemies with a lot of health.

With excellent Status Chance, and being capable of inflicting status with both direct hits and explosions, the Astilla can inflict an impressive amount of status procs. It is quite capable of stripping enemy armour with Corrosive procs, or bleeding enemies dry with a Viral + Slash build. However, it again falls behind a little for raw DPS, so kills such armoured enemies a little slower than other, more powerful shotguns.

With some recoil, projectile travel time and drop, and damage fall-off, the Astilla is fairly poor at longer range. It has a much longer fall-off than most shotguns, but still lacks the precision to be properly effective. Additionally, the Astilla is extremely ammo inefficient by shotgun standards. It has an Ammo Max of only 112, which it can eat through extremely quickly thanks to its high RoF and Full Auto. Shotgun ammo is also one of the rarer ammo drops. As such, I'd strongly recommend at least one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc.

As Gara's signature weapon, the Astilla has an increased Ammo Max of +80 when used by her. This does help the ammo situation in shorter missions, but helps little in long missions. Signature weapons getting a bonus when used with their corresponding Frame is a relatively new concept that was only recently implemented.

Overall, the Astilla is a solid and rather unique shotgun. It is best described as a Full Auto grenade launcher, rapidly firing explosives slugs that deal solid AoE damage without self-damage. With (barely) usable crit and great Status Chance, it is a versatile and rather fun weapon. Given it is readily available directly from Market, I would strongly recommend giving the Astilla a try. It is by no means the most powerful weapon in the game, but it is a lot of fun and quite unique in Warframe.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4.5/5 - Decent RoF and a solid AoE give the Astilla very good anti-crowd abilities. It is held back a little by its fairly low Reload Ratio.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2.5/5 - Relatively unexceptional DPS by shotgun standards leaves the Astilla a little behind against unarmoured heavies.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 4/5 - With very high Status Chance, decent Slash bias and a status-capable explosion, the Astilla can utilise both Viral + Slash and Corrosive armour strip builds very effectively. Both
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: NA/5 - With fairly low Crit Chance, the Astilla does not make especially good use of Hunter Munitions. It can inflict natural Slash procs just fine, especially with +Slash mods.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

There isn't anything else like the Astilla currently in the game. There are a fair number of explosive type weapons, but very few have no self-damage, and none handle anything like the Astilla.

Rivens

The Astilla has an above average 3/5 (1.1) Riven Disposition, which I think is a little high. It is already a very solid weapon and needs no help dealing with most enemies. An average 3/5 (1) disposition, or maybe even a high 2/5 (~0.9) seems more reasonable.

+Damage/Multishot are naturally both great stats. +Crit Chance/Crit Damage are both great if you're going for a crit build. +Slash is good if you're going for a Viral + Slash build. An appropriate element can help to save mod slots or boost the bias of desirable combos (e.g. Corrosive). +Fire Rate makes the Astilla handle a lot more like a conventional rifle, however drastically increases its ammo consumption. Personally, I consider both +Mag Capacity and +Reload Speed to make the Astilla much more comfortable to use. +Flight Speed makes it easier to use at longer range, though it is not as effective at such ranges.

-Crit Chance/Crit Damage can be alright negatives if you're not doing a crit build. -Faction Damage to a weaker faction (e.g. Infested) can be quite tolerable. -Ammo Max is usable in smaller amounts, however makes the Astilla even harder to use without Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. +Recoil can be alright if you handle recoil well.