Review: Cyanex (U25.0.8)

The Cyanex is an unusual MR8 secondary with two distinct firing modes, released in U25. Its Primary Fire launches explosive, homing projectiles that also bounce, while its Secondary Fire rapidly ejects all of its ammo straight ahead. With both firing modes having exceptional status capabilities and their own unique features, the Cyanex is a decently powerful and rather fun secondary.

Acquisition

The Cyanex can be researched at your Dojo's Energy Lab to acquire its blueprint.

Stats

Straight off the bat, it's immediately obvious that the Cyanex is a pure Status weapon. Its Crit is pretty terrible, among the worst in the game, while a base Status Chance of 32% is among the highest. Its Primary Fire notably has a decent amount of base Gas damage. With a Full-Auto RoF of 4.67, with its Primary Fire, the Cyanex has a very poor Reload Ratio of 1.07.

The Cyanex's Secondary Fire rapidly Fires all remaining rounds in a single burst. These have a different base Damage distribution, being entirely physical, majority Slash. It also has an extremely high RoF for such a small Mag Capacity and relatively long Reload Time. Notably, the Secondary Fire also gains a small amount of innate Punch Through.

Uniquely, the Primary Fire gives its projectiles limited homing and bouncing capabilities. When close enough to an enemy, the projectiles will turn to hit them, and can bounce off hard surfaces once. Additionally, upon impact, the projectiles will explode in a 1m radius. The base Impact damage is dealt solely in direct projectile hits, while the Gas is dealt purely in the explosion. Any added elements are distributed between the two. Originally, the Cyanex had self-damage on the explosion, but it has since been removed.

The Secondary Fire does not have the AoE explosion, or the homing and bouncing abilities of the Primary Fire.

Augments

None, it's a new weapon.

Builds

0-Forma:

Without any native polarities, it's a bit of a struggle to fit more than just rudimentary mods into the Cyanex without Forma. This example build is a basic Corrosive build, which is reasonable effective against most targets. If you don't have access to all of the elemental 60/60 mods (Jolt for Electric being the most likely to be missing), this build has space to use both 90% elementals, which are generally more common.

I prefer the 60/60s, not only because they synergise with the Cyanex's high base Status Chance very well, but also because they save a lot of space. In this example, I've fitted in Augur Pact with the remaining space. I'll discuss other mod options further below.

Against armoured enemies, a Corrosive status build is naturally your best bet. Both firing modes of the Cyanex can rapidly inflict Corrosive procs to greatly deplete the armour of the victim(s). Similarly, Infested are hit hardest by a Corrosive build, though a Blast build is nearly as damaging, and has a more generally useful proc. With the Cyanex's homing ability on Primary Fire, the knockdown from Blast procs does not really hinder your ability to shoot enemies, and it can help keep Infested swarms from overwhelming you.

Against unarmoured Corpus, the best elemental combo to add on for the Primary Fire is Viral. The innate Gas is already quite effective against them, and I've had better results with the Viral + Gas combo than just adding more Gas. Halving enemy health while also eating away at it with AoE Toxin procs is absolutely vicious. If you're building more for the Secondary Fire, then Gas is a very solid option since that doesn't have innate Gas. Viral is still a strong option, as is Toxin for single target shield bypassing.

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

Viral 1-Forma:

One added V polarity opens up a bit more mod space, in this example I've slotted in Quickdraw. The Cyanex's base Reload Ratio is very poor, even more so with Lethal Torrent. (Primed) Quickdraw does a great deal to make the Cyanex feel better to use, with much less downtime between shooting. Another option is of course going for raw damage with more elementals. There is enough space to have 3 or even 4 elemental mods, depending what you have available. However, I feel that for the Status-focused Cyanex, there are very few actually worth pursuing.

For the anti-armour Corrosive build, you want maximum Corrosive bias for the highest frequency of armour-stripping Corrosive procs. Adding any elements besides Toxin + Electric will dilute your procs, thus reducing its efficiency. For the anti-Corpus Viral + Gas, again you want reliable and frequent Viral and Gas procs for maximum effectiveness. Although Electric is a very useful damage type against Corpus Robotics, adding it greatly reduces the frequency of Viral/Gas procs, which hurts your overall effectiveness.

The one combo that I feel is worth considering is Corrosive + Blast against Infested. As mentioned previously, Corrosive procs are not particularly important against Infested, being relevant only with Swarm-Mutalist MOAs. Blast has worse damage multipliers (though is still good against Infested), but has a much more useful proc against the Infested. Additionally, since the Blast proc cannot be re-applied until the victim has recovered, inflicting it frequently is not very useful.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: Corrosive + Blast vs Infested

Corrosive 2-Forma:

Another V polarity and you can fit in three or four elementals for a given combo, as well as Augur Pact. Such a setup deals quite a bit more damage, or alternatively has a lot more space to personalise to taste.

In the case of the Viral + Gas build against Corpus however, I'd recommend against biasing heavily for Viral. Gas is the element you want proccing most frequently, but with the added Viral requiring Toxin, you can't add bias to the Gas damage. As mentioned previously, I don't think going purely for Gas is the best idea either, as the Viral + Gas combo is extremely powerful.

As mentioned previously, I consider (Primed) Quickdraw to be quite good on the Cyanex, greatly improving its poor Reload Ratio. Augur Pact is a cheap and easy damage boost. Magnum Force is a powerful option on the Cyanex. It offers more bonus damage than Augur Pact, and its accuracy loss is practically irrelevant for the homing Primary Fire. Seeker is a useful option for the Secondary Fire, offering much more reliable Punch Through, however it is actively detrimental for the Primary Fire. Projectiles that Punch Through enemies do not explode, and lose their homing ability. As such, in certain conditions, added Punch Through can actually cost you a lot of damage.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds:

Two pretty standard builds, this first one is a Corrosive armour strip build. Most effective against Grineer and other armoured enemies. Though I enjoy the Cyanex compared to many other weapons, I don't like it enough to put more than a few Forma into it.

This is a Viral + Gas build, which is great against unarmoured Corpus.

Combat Use and Summary

With great Status capabilities and decent AoE, the Cyanex is best against groups and armoured enemies. Innate Gas damage coupled with a 1m explosion on its Primary Fire allows it to inflict quite significant damage to tightly grouped, status-vulnerable enemies. However, its terribly poor Reload Ratio results in a lot of downtime between bursts.

With Corrosive, the Cyanex is quite effective at stripping armour, especially with its Primary Fire. The Primary Fire can inflict Corrosive both with its direct hits, as well as its Gas explosions, quickly stripping armour from any enemy caught in the blast. However, the Cyanex does not have a particularly high DPS, and is not particularly efficient once armour has been stripped.

Accordingly, the Cyanex performs worst against single, heavy enemies with minimal or no armour. It gains the least benefit from its explosion and Gas procs, relying primarily on its relatively low direct damage. The Secondary Fire is most useful in this area, giving the Cyanex a short, high DPS burst, however it again suffers from the painfully long reload heavily limiting its firepower.


The homing ability of the Primary Fire is very helpful, but also a minor inconvenience. It greatly reduces the need to aim, and coupled with the bouncing, can allow you to hit enemies around corners and behind cover quite easily. However, if your intended target is behind other enemies, there is a very good chance that the projectiles will not hit your target at all, as the projectiles home in on the closest enemy. This highlights one of the main benefits of the straight-firing Secondary Fire, allowing you to burst down a priority target who is behind other enemies. This function is emphasised by the Secondary Fire's limited innate Punch Through.

The Primary Fire's homing ability is also a nice help for longer ranged shooting, as it greatly reduces the precision needed. As the projectiles will actively look for a target to home in on, I find that stray shots often end up hitting enemies you didn't even know were there.


Overall, the Cyanex is a novel and fun Status secondary. It is by no means the most powerful, but it is fairly good at what it does, and does so in a different way to just about every other secondary in Warframe. By far its biggest weakness is the painfully long Reload TIme, which can be greatly reduced with (Primed) Quickdraw. If you're after secondary that is a little different to the norm, I'd absolutely recommend trying out the Cyanex.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 3.5/5 - The small AoE and reliable Gas procs help a fair bit, as does the homing and bouncing. However, the Cyanex's awful Reload Ratio is a big factor holding it back here, and its reliance on Gas procs due to small innate AoE can be troublesome against Ancients and certain Eximi.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 1.5/5 - As a pure Status weapon with fairly low DPS, the Cyanex is not particularly effective against high health unarmoured enemies. The Secondary Fire does help in this respect, but again the horrid Reload Ratio hurts a lot.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 3.5/5 - High Status Chance, when combined with Corrosive and a small AoE, allows the Cyanex to reliably strip armour from small groups of enemies. However, once their armour has been depleted, the Cyanex lacks the DPS to finish them off quickly.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

The closest weapon to the MR8 Cyanex is the MR10 Zakti, which also launches exploding Gas projectiles. The Zakti has much higher Gas damage (80 vs 41), a far larger AoE explosion (5m vs 1m), and notably also opens up affected enemies to melee finishers. The Cyanex of course has homing and bouncing on its Primary Fire, higher base Status Chance (32% vs 20%), a slightly better Reload Ratio (1.07 vs 0.75), and a Secondary Fire that does a lot of burst damage to a single target. In my use of the two so far, the Cyanex is a lot easier to use, as well as being a little more versatile thanks to its Secondary Fire. On the other hand, the Zakti inflicts more powerful Gas/Toxin procs in a much larger area, and also pairs viciously well with Melee if you are so inclined. I personally prefer the Cyanex as I find it much easier and more fun to use, but both are quite solid.

Looking a bit wider into AoE secondaries that don't have self-damage, the Cyanex has to compete with weapons like the Staticor and Pox, which have their own merits. The majority of other such weapons have a larger AoE, and often high Damage as well. Most notably of the other secondaries, the Staticor has decent crit as well as great Status Chance, good base Damage and a decent AoE, for an overall ridiculously powerful weapon.

Rivens 

As a new weapon, the Cyanex has an average 3/5 (1) Riven Disposition. I think this is fairly reasonable, as it's a fairly solid weapon with some notable downsides.

As always, Damage and Multishot are perfect stats to have. An added elemental for a combo you want high bias in (e.g. Corrosive) is quite helpful. +Mag Capacity and Reload Speed make the Cyanex much nicer to handle. +Flight Speed makes longer ranged combat easier, but is not super necessary with the Primary Fire's homing ability. +Punch Through can be useful for the Secondary Fire, but is detrimental for the Primary Fire as it can prevent the projectile from exploding.

Depending on which firing mode you prefer, any -Physical Damage can be a good negative. -Puncture/Slash have no effect on the Primary Fire, while -Impact only reduces the less-important direct-impact damage. -Impact/Puncture are both good for the Secondary Fire, reducing its lower base Damages, while -Slash can be good if you only care about elemental procs. As a weapon with rubbish Crit, the Cyanex can handle -Crit Chance/Damage quite well, though of the two, -Crit Chance is far less harmful. -Faction Damage to a faction you don't intend to use it against works well. -Fire Rate, especially alongside Lethal Torrent, can help to save rounds, or at least expend them slower. -Ammo Max is quite alright alongside at least one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Flight Speed is alright for the homing/bouncing Primary Fire, but hurts the straight-shooting Secondary Fire a lot more. +Recoil is great if you can manage the Cyanex's majority vertical recoil. -Zoom is ideal on a weapon already with reduced zoom, that is mainly effective only at closer range.