Review: Glaxion Vandal (U25.2.2)

The Glaxion Vandal is an MR12 beam Rifle, with a heavy focus on elemental Status. With several improvements over the base Glaxion, as well as having benefitted greatly from the beam weapon rework in U22.13-22.14, it is a fairly capable weapon.

Acquisition

As of writing, the Glaxion Vandal is not currently available. It was a reward during the recently completed Hostile Mergers event, awarded for achieving 4000 points in a single Endurance run of Disruption.

Stats

Immediately obvious is the Glaxion Vandal's exceptional Status potential. With an incredible base Status Chance of 38%, and fairly high RoF of 12, it can inflict a lot of status procs in a short amount of time. Thanks to its pure Cold base damage, the Glaxion Vandal is exceptionally effective at inflicting elemental procs. Its crit is just usable, though by no means its best feature.

As a beam weapon, the Glaxion Vandal only consumes ammo at half its RoF, giving it an exceptional Reload Ratio of 9.26. However, being a beam weapon also limits its range, in this case to 24 metres. Additionally, it suffers from the ramp-up mechanic that all beam weapons are subject to, though after its tweaks I have rarely found it to be an issue.

Notably, the Glaxion Vandal produces a small AoE on final impact, dealing damage and inflicting procs to any enemy within range.

Augments

None.

Builds

General Purpose 0-Forma:

Another weapon with no innate polarities, the Glaxion Vandal can't fit too much in without Forma. Unlike a conventional weapon however, for beam weapons, Multishot merely increases damage rather than giving additional beams. As such, 60% Multishot is not inconsistent like it can be for regular weapons. Though the Glaxion Vandal's crit is relatively mediocre, it is just high enough to edge out a pure damage build. If you're skilled at aiming for heads, a crit build becomes significantly superior.

Given its impressive elemental Status capabilities, the Glaxion Vandal handles armoured enemies best with a Corrosive build. Note that it is so efficient at inflicting elemental procs that a maximum Status Corrosive build can actually strip armour too quickly, losing your damage bonus against Ferrite-armoured enemies. This can be mitigated by using 90% elementals, rather than the 60/60s. Corrosive is also your best bet against Infested, with the best damage multipliers.

Against unarmoured Corpus, you have two main options. Viral is an easy combo to form since the Glaxion Vandal has innate Cold, and deals good direct damage against organic Corpus. However, it is not an especially powerful weapon, so can take some time to kill enemies with direct damage. My preferred option is Gas. As the Glaxion is pure base Cold damage, when equipped with Gas, it inflicts Gas procs extremely frequently. This is especially brutal against Corpus with more Shields but less Health, such as most MOAs. A Gas build is also viciously effective against tightly packed groups.

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

Multishot 1-Forma:

An added V polarity allows you space to slot in Split Chamber to replace Vigilante Armaments, for a little more damage. There's a fair few mod points left, which can be used to your personal preference.

Punch Through 1-Forma:

Alternatively, you can slot in Shred instead for some Punch Through. I always like Punch Through as it makes handling groups much easier. The Glaxion Vandal has slightly less need for it due to its innate (though small) AoE on final impact, but I have it there anyway. The increased RoF is a notable bonus, directly increasing the rate of Status procs as well as overall damage output.

Recommended Setups: see above.

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Another added V polarity allows you to comfortably fit in Split Chamber, while still having plenty of mod space for that seventh mod. Again Shred is my go-to, but there are several other options which I'll discuss just below.

Recommended Setups: see above.

General Purpose 4-Forma:

Two more added V polarities and you finally have enough space to make good use of all eight mod slots. Seriously, pretty much all weapons want at minimum 3 V polarities, often even more, and it's really frustrating that DE continues to release weapons with no innate polarities.

There are a decent number of mods that you can use in the last two flexible mod slots. Pictured above are my go-tos, Vigilante Armaments for drawback-free extra damage, and (Primed) Shred for Punch Through and increased RoF. Heavy Caliber is another good raw damage option, with minimal negative impact. Sinister Reach does not increase damage output, but significantly increases beam range, which can be very useful in larger tilesets. Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds can improve the Glaxion Vandal's crit, though the above mentioned mods will offer much more overall damage. Additional elemental mods can offer a decent damage and bias boost.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds:

Nothing special about my builds, Corrosive for most targets, Gas against unarmoured Corpus.

Combat Use and Summary

As you might expect from having exceptional elemental Status capabilities, the Glaxion Vandal is best against enemies with a lot of armour. Even without significantly boosted Status Chance, the Glaxion Vandal can rapidly strip armour with a Corrosive build. I personally find its burst DPS to be a little lacking however, which leaves it a little slow to kill enemies if all their armour has been removed. This leads in perfectly to its performance against unarmoured heavy enemies - relatively poor. It has mediocre crit and base Damage, so deals a lot lower DPS than many other primaries out there.

Against tightly packed groups, the Glaxion Vandal actually handles fairly well, primarily because of its small, but still effective, AoE. Its high RoF is also very helpful for switching targets quickly. A Gas build can be exceptionally effective against groups, as the Glaxion Vandal can proc Gas extremely frequently. However, it significantly reduces your direct damage output, which can be detrimental against enemies with a lot of health.

The Glaxion Vandal's limited 24 metre range can be troublesome in large areas like the open worlds. In regular missions however, I've generally found it to be sufficient and rarely an issue. A big part of this is Warframe's lightning fast movement system, which greatly reduces the drawbacks of limited range weapons. Being a beam weapon does have a few benefits, most notably ammo economy. The Glaxion Vandal only consumes ammo at half its given RoF, at a very reasonable 6 ammo-per-second. Coupled with a spare ammo count of 1000, it has no trouble with ammo conservation.

Overall, the Glaxion Vandal is a fairly solid Status beam rifle. It inflicts elemental procs at a ridiculous rate, and has just enough Crit to pull off an effective hybrid build. If you're after a Status-focused primary, and enjoy beam weapons, I'd definitely recommend investing in the Glaxion Vandal...that is if you managed to get it earlier, or are patient enough to wait for its return.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - High RoF and a small AoE make the Glaxion fairly effective against groups. It does enough damage to kill most weak enemies quite quickly, and has a fantastic Reload Ratio.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2.5/5 - Unexceptional DPS leaves it behind many other primaries for killing high health, unarmoured targets.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 4.5/5 - The Glaxion Vandal is capable of stripping armour at an impressive rate, however its middling direct damage limits the speed at which it kills de-armoured enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: NA/5 - Mediocre Crit but fantastic Status with high RoF makes the Glaxion Vandal far more effective against armour with a Corrosive proc build.

Vs Variants

Besides the various stat increases over the MR8 Glaxion, the Vandal also has a small AoE on final impact, where the base Glaxion does not. The base Glaxion is still an extremely Status-capable beam weapon, but does not have the Crit for a hybrid build, nor the same effectiveness against groups.

Competitors

There are several other single-target beam Rifles currently in the game. The Flux Rifle is a low MR Status rifle with fairly poor Crit, but it notably has majority Slash damage which allows it to inflict Slash procs constantly. The Synapse is Crit-focused, and notably has base Corrosive damage which is very useful. Probably the most similar other beam weapon is the Quanta (Vandal).

The Quanta Vandal also has very good elemental Status capabilities, with 30% base Status Chance and pure Electric base damage. However, it has much higher Crit, which gives it a much higher overall damage output, and with more than double the Glaxion Vandal's range (50 metres), can engage from much further away. Additionally, its unusual secondary fire gives it much stronger anti-crowd abilities than the Glaxion Vandal. The Glaxion Vandal does have a larger Mag Capacity and much more spare ammo, though these are very minor advantages. Overall, I consider the Quanta Vandal to be the superior beam weapon.

Rivens

The Glaxion family retains a very high 5/5 (1.35) Riven Disposition. I have no doubt that it will drop significantly in the next Disposition update, as the Vandal is only a very recent release. I would consider around 3/5 (~1), perhaps a little lower, to be fair for the Glaxion Vandal. It is already a very capable weapon, and has relatively minimal trouble with most content.

As always, Damage/Multishot are fantastic stats to have on a Riven. If you're doing a crit build (which I believe is worth doing on the Vandal), Crit Chance/Damage are also good options. +Elemental Damage can be quite good for overall damage output, as well as elemental bias. I would consider Punch Through to be potentially quite useful as well, though not as necessary thanks to the Vandal's small AoE.

Sadly, I believe Glaxion Rivens are incapable of rolling +/- Physical Damage, as it has none. -Status Duration is alright if you care only about Corrosive procs, but quite detrimental otherwise. -Faction Damage to a faction you care less about (e.g. Infested) can be a good negative. -Mag Capacity is quite decent on the Glaxion Vandal thanks to its incredibly large base Mag Capacity, and overall amazing Reload Ratio. Similarly, -Reload Speed can also be quite tolerable. -Ammo Max is also quite decent as the Glaxion Vandal's ammo efficiency is fairly decent, due to being a beam weapon. -Flight Speed has no effect as far as I am aware. +Recoil has essentially no effect. -Zoom is a great negative stat to have, as the Glaxion Vandal has limited range, so is only usable in close-ish range anyway.