Review: Acceltra (U25.7.8)

The Acceltra is an MR8 rapid-fire rocket launcher Primary. With very high Crit and a solid AoE, it is a powerful explosive weapon, though like with the Akarius, has its own share of downsides.

Acquisition

The Acceltra's blueprint drops from Demolisher Infested, who are only encountered in Infested Disruption missions. Currently the only node with an Infested Disruption mission is Ur, Uranus.

Stats

The Acceltra is heavily skewed towards Crit - 32%/2.8x are very high Crit stats. This is of course counterbalanced by an abysmal 6% Status Chance. Unusually for an explosive weapon, its base damage is purely Physical, skewed towards Impact and Puncture. A high RoF of 12 is supplemented with a decent Mag Capacity of 48, and a reasonable Reload Time of 2 seconds, for an overall Reload Ratio of 2. Notably, while sprinting, the Acceltra's Reload Speed is increased, more so when used by Gauss.

Oddly, the Acceltra's spare ammo capacity is a measly 96 - only two magazines worth.

As mentioned previously, the Acceltra fires rockets. These explode on impact with any object or surface, with a minimum arming distance of 7 metres. Any impact within this distance will not detonate rockets, however the explosion will still deal damage if you get caught in them. This makes the Acceltra one of the safer explosive weapons.

The Acceltra's base damage is split between the projectile and explosion, so close-range shots that do not detonate will deal much less damage. Direct rocket hits deal the Impact damage, with guaranteed Impact proc, while the explosion deals the Puncture and Slash damages. The explosions are roughly 3 metres in radius, and share the same Crit and Status Chance of rocket direct hits.

Augments

None, it's a new weapon.

Builds

General Purpose 0-Forma:

With a single native - polarity, the Acceltra can fit a relatively basic build without Forma. If all mods are at max rank, one 60/60 elemental will need to be used alongside one 90% elemental, to make use of the - polarity.

With the capacity for only 6 mods, very poor Status Chance, this Acceltra build relies on direct damage to kill any enemies. This is fine against anything without significant armour, though of course suffers significantly against high level, heavily armoured enemies. For such targets, you have several elemental choices. Corrosive or Radiation cover their respective armour type very well, but are far less effective against the other. Against predominantly organic factions, Viral is a reasonable middle-ground as well. Elemental choice here depends on what enemies you want to prioritise.

Against unarmoured Corpus, your main options are Viral and Toxin. Viral is exceptionally effective once enemy shields have been depleted, while Toxin ignores shields entirely. Against Infested, as per usual, Corrosive is the overall best option.

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

Direct Damage 2-Forma:

Two added V polarities allows you to comfortably fit in a seventh mod, as well as space for two 90% elementals. As an explosive weapon, the Acceltra does not benefit from Punch Through (it's actually hindered by it), so I don't recommend (Primed) Shred like I normally would.

Hunter Munitions 2-Forma:

Notably, the extra mod space lets you fit in Hunter Munitions, which combines exceptionally well with the Acceltra's exceptional Crit stats. It is the Acceltra's primary weapon against high level, heavily armoured enemies, where direct damage falls off badly, especially against the wrong armour type. There are a number of other good options for the seventh slot which I'll cover just below.

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

General Purpose 4-Forma:

Two more added V polarities and you get enough space for a good eighth mod. The Acceltra has quite a few good options for additional mods.

As shown in the 2-Forma builds, Hunter Munitions is a great addition against armoured enemies, and Vigilante Armaments is a solid, no-nonsense upgrade. Heavy Caliber is a strong candidate, giving a significant damage boost. Its accuracy penalty is less impactful on the Acceltra, thanks to its AoE. As standard for a Crit weapon, Argon Scope/Bladed Rounds can be good additions if you can maintain their trigger conditions. Because of the Acceltra's unusually low reserve ammo, I'd also strongly recommend considering Rifle Ammo Mutation if you aren't already running Ammo Case/Rifle Scavenger/etc.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds:

Just the one build here, a Viral + HM build. Though the Acceltra is very powerful, I don't really enjoy using it.

Combat Use and Summary

With high RoF and some AoE, the Acceltra excels against groups of weaker enemies. So long as they are outside the 7 metre minimum arming distance, the Acceltra's rockets will tear through large groups with ease. Even at point-blank range, with severely reduced damage output, it is powerful enough to kill weaker enemies without much trouble. With its very high Burst DPS (by Rifle standards at least), the Acceltra is also highly effective against heavier enemies with minimal/no armour. It can be difficult to repeatedly land headshots on enemies due to rocket travel time and spread, which does inhibit the Acceltra's maximum DPS a little.

Against heavily armoured enemies, the Acceltra relies primarily on Hunter Munitions. Its Status Chance is very low, making any sort of Status build very inefficient. Though its Burst DPS is quite high, it inevitably falls off in effectiveness at higher levels, especially with the wrong damage type (e.g. Corrosive vs Alloy Armour, or Radiation vs Ferrite Armour). Hunter Munitions leverages its exceptional Crit stats to reliably inflict powerful Slash procs, bleeding out enemies ignoring their armour entirely.


The Acceltra's small ammo pool is problematic if you don't run Carrier by default. Its high RoF can blitz through ammo quite quickly. For anything more than a short mission (and even for short missions), I strongly recommend at least one of Ammo Mutation/Case/etc.

The Acceltra's 7 metre minimum arming distance mitigates, but does not eliminate, the threat of self-damage. Like with the Akarius, if you are travelling quickly in the same direction as your fire, it is quite possible to be caught in the 3 metre blast radius. Especially in a game like Warframe where player movement can be incredibly fast, any amount of self-damage can be a threat, regardless of the safety measures in place to prevent it. Furthermore, this feature roughly halves the Acceltra's damage output at point-blank range, which can be troublesome when swarmed by lots of enemies.


Overall, the Acceltra is a very powerful weapon. It tears through large groups and heavy unarmoured enemies with ease, and with Hunter Munitions, can bleed heavily armoured enemies dry as well. Its primary flaws are the lack of spare ammo, the potential for self-damage when moving quickly, and the reduced damage output at point-blank range. If you're after a Crit-based, fast-firing AoE weapon, or even just a decent primary, I strongly recommend trying out the Acceltra. It is one of the strongest primaries in the game currently.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 5/5 - High RoF, very good damage output, and decent AoE make the Acceltra fantastic at ripping through groups of weaker enemies. It is significantly weaker at point-blank range due to the minimum arming distance, though this can be mitigated by Warframe's very fast movement system.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 5/5 - The Acceltra has exceptionally high Burst DPS for a Rifle, making it very effective against unarmoured enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 3.5/5 - Abysmal Status Chance inhibits the Acceltra from being able to efficiently deal with heavily armoured enemies, relying primarily on direct damage. Though it has very good direct damage capabilities, direct damage scales poorly against very high armour.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4/5 - Extremely good Crit allows the Acceltra to make exceptionally good use of Hunter Munitions, to inflict numerous Slash procs on unfortunate enemies. This, combined with very high overall damage output, allows it to deal very good damage to heavily armoured enemies. However, it is severely lacking in the base Status Chance to quickly stack up Viral procs on its own.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

There aren't many fast-firing Primaries that also have AoE. Most explosive weapons are a lot slower firing, like the Tonkor and Ogris. The most directly comparable weapon is probably the MR14 Zhuge Prime, which also fires exploding bolts. The Acceltra deals far more direct damage, and is a lot less prone to killing its user, while the Zhuge Prime's much higher Status Chance gives it more build diversity. With Hunter Munitions thrown into the mix, the Acceltra is the largely superior weapon thanks to its ridiculous Crit.

The MR10 Astilla is also worth a mention, as a Status-focused (though still Crit-viable) explosive-slug-firing Shotgun. Again, the Acceltra is much more powerful and with Hunter Munitions, has little issue against armoured enemies. However, the Astilla does not deal any self-damage, and is not at all weaker at point-blank range.

Finally, the Amprex and Ignis Wraith are both worth mentioning here as well. Though neither competes for raw DPS with the Acceltra (very few Primaries can), they are both even more effective against groups, with massive AoE that does not deal self-damage.

Simply put, the Acceltra has few true competitors, and for the most part, it blows them out of the water with its sheer (frankly ridiculous) damage output and Crit stats.

Rivens

As a new weapon, the Acceltra has a neutral 3/5 (1) Riven Disposition. Given its ridiculous firepower, I think it would be quite reasonable to drop it down, to around 2/5, or maybe even down to 1/5. It vastly overshadows so many other Primaries in sheer damage output, and absolutely does not need Riven help to be good.

As always, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are all perfect stats to have. +Elemental damage can be useful for increased direct damage, and saving a mod slot. +Ammo Max can make the Acceltra a little more manageable in longer missions, though I'd still recommend Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. +Projectile Flight Speed can help rockets to reach their victims faster, reducing the chance of self-damage.

-Physical Damage of any sort is decent for the Acceltra. The worst is -Puncture, which comprises roughly half of the Acceltra's base damage - however it is still vastly overshadowed by added Elemental damage, which is unaffected. Additionally, the bonuses to the Riven's other stats should easily make up for this loss. -Status Chance is alright if you have no intention to proc Status naturally, and intend to rely purely on direct damage (and/or Hunter Munitions, which is unaffected). -Faction damage can be good depending on the faction. -Fire Rate can help to conserve ammo, though significantly reduces DPS. -Ammo Max can be tolerable, but only if you run Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Reload Speed isn't bad so long as you sprint while reloading, which compensates nicely. +Recoil can be manageable. -Zoom is solid as the Acceltra isn't really a precision weapon.