Review: Ballistica Prime (U26.0.3)

The Ballistica Prime is an MR14 Crossbow Secondary. Released alongside Hydroid and Nami Skyla Primes in U21.6, it is a weapon that has been left largely untouched since release. As such, especially in light of the major weapon rebalance in U22.12 and more recent releases, it has largely been powercreeped and outclassed.

Acquisition

As standard, the Ballistica Prime's parts and blueprint drop from various Relics. As it is currently Vaulted, these Relics are not currently obtainable in-game.

Stats

The Ballistica Prime's stats are solid, but not exceptional. It has decent Crit, solid Status Chance, and a large Mag Capacity with very short Reload Time. Additionally, its base Damage contains a significant portion of Slash damage. However, this starts to come crashing down when considering its firing mechanics.

With both Charged and Uncharged shots, the Ballistica Prime fires four bolts at once, consuming four ammo each time. Charged shots deal double the damage of Uncharged shots, with the base Damage stats reflecting the combined damage of all four bolts. Additionally, Charged shots have innate 1 metre of Punch Through. A Charge Time of 0.8 seconds isn't terrible considering Lethal Torrent is effectively a mandatory mod for Secondaries anyway.

Despite consuming ammo like a Burst-Fire weapon, when calculating Status Chance, the Ballistica Prime is treated like a 4-pellet shotgun. With only 20% base Status Chance, it is near impossible to reach the necessary 100% Status Chance (requires both a Riven and Embedded Catalyzer, alongside 3 or 4 60/60 mods). This effectively neuters any chance of it being a good Status weapon.

As it consumes four ammo per shot, the Ballistica Prime has only a middle-of-the-pack Reload Ratio of 2.00.

Uniquely, upon killing an enemy with a charged shot, the Ballistica Prime will spawn a ghost form of them for a short time. This ghost lasts for 7 seconds, and will move about, attack, etc on its own. Though cool, this effect contradicts the weapon's Silent nature, since these ghosts will alert enemies anyway.

Augments

None.

Builds

NOTE: I believe the Burst and Sustained DPS numbers are calculated incorrectly, and should be much higher.

General Purpose 0-Forma:

Two native V polarities and a - polarity offer the Ballistica Prime a lot of options without needing any Forma. This example build fits in any elemental combo of your choice, alongside the standard Crit Secondary mods.

Due to the unfortunate Shotgun-like Status Chance calculation, building for Status is not very effective. As such, the Ballistica Prime relies mainly on direct damage. With Corrupted and Grineer, this simply means picking your preferred option from Corrosive or Viral or Radiation, to focus on your most hated enemies. Against Infested, Corrosive is the best overall option. For armoured Corpus, Radiation is the best option, with the best multipliers against their primarily Alloy Armour. Unarmoured Corpus are best hit by either Viral or Toxin, depending on whether you want to hit their health extremely hard, or bypass their shields.

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

Primed Crit 1-Forma:

One added V polarity lets you slot in both Primed Crit mods comfortably, which offers a sizable damage boost

Recommended Setups: see above.

General Purpose 2-Forma:

Another added V polarity enables decent use of the last mod slot, though more Forma may be required depending on your exact desired setup. As usual for Secondaries, there are several solid mods to consider for this last slot.

Augur Pact as pictured is a low-drain, no-nonsense damage boost. Magnum Force offers a larger damage boost, but also reduces accuracy. Hydraulic Crosshairs is solid if you can maintain it. Seeker helps Uncharged shots significantly against groups, but is less necessary for Charged shots, which have innate Punch Through. An additional elemental mod can always be good.

In terms of elements, the extra usable mod slot allows you to potentially use Corrosive + Heat or Viral + Heat, which thanks to the U26 Heat buff, are both quite solid combos against armoured enemies. It also opens up Viral + Electric against unarmoured Corpus.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: (Corrosive or Viral) + Heat vs Corrupted, Grineer, Corrosive + Heat vs Infested, Viral + Heat vs unarmoured Corpus

My Builds:

My go-to build is a maximum damage Viral + Heat build, which does solid direct damage to most enemies. I've foregone Seeker because I primarily use Charged shots, which have some innate Punch Through.

This Corrosive + Heat build is most effective against Infested, against whom it hits just about everything super-effectively.

This final build is a maximum Corrosive Status one, to try and make the most of the Ballistica Prime's Status capabilities, which are sadly relatively limited. It can strip armour, but not particularly well.

Combat Use and Summary

The Ballistica Prime is most effective against heavier enemies. It has quite solid DPS, but no notable anti-crowd or anti-armour abilities, leaving it vulnerable to large groups. Though Charged shots do have innate Punch Through, they are also much, much slower. Its Reload Ratio is only mediocre given that it consumes four ammo with every shot, without having any multi-targeting capabilities.

Against heavily armoured enemies, the Ballistica Prime is let down by a quirk of its Status Chance calculation. Its Status capabilities are greatly restricted by its Shotgun-like behaviour, and as such, despite a respectable base Status Chance, it does not proc Status frequently enough to use a Status build. The Ballistica Prime is best against heavy unarmoured enemies, thanks to its solid Crit and Burst DPS, though again is outclassed by a number of other Secondaries.


Due to the not insignificant Charge Time, repeatedly firing Uncharged shots actually ends up with a higher overall DPS than firing only Charged shots. As such, Charged Shots are best primarily for conservation of ammo and spawning ghosts. As bow-type weapon, the Ballistica Prime naturally has both projectile travel time and drop, which makes long range engagements much more difficult.

The ghost-on-charged-shot-kill feature is a neat function at higher levels when a distraction is needed, as the ghosts draw fire reasonably well. They do not last long however, and do not actually stop projectiles. Perhaps the biggest issue with the ghosts is that they directly contradict the Ballistica Prime's other notable feature, being innately Silent. These ghosts can and will alert nearby enemies, thus depriving it of any stealth capabilities.


Overall, the Ballistica Prime is not a really notable weapon. Its Crit, though solid, is not especially notable by today's Secondary standards, resulting in overall unexceptional damage output. Additionally, its Status capabilities are significantly inhibited by its Shotgun-like Status Chance calculation. Its two notable niches are quite limited as well. The Ballistica Prime is innately silent, which is only marginally relevant now that Weapon Exilus slots exist. Its other notable feature of spawning ghosts of killed enemies is cool and a neat distraction, but in my mind does not outweigh the weapon's other deficiencies.

I think the Ballistica Prime could be greatly improved with a few mechanic tweaks, though some stat buffs appropriate for its MR lock wouldn't go astray. Primarily, if its Status Chance was treated like a Burst-Fire weapon (see the Quartakk for a weapon that was greatly improved in this way), it would be a very solid Status weapon.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2/5 - High capacity and fast Reload are offset by consuming 4 ammo per shot, with no significant spread or AoE for anti-crowd purposes.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4/5 - Solid Crit and high base Damage give the Ballistica Prime quite decent Burst DPS. As such, it performs fairly well against single unarmoured enemies.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 2.5/5 - Shotgun-like Status calculations limit the Ballistica Prime's Status capabilties, forcing it to rely more on raw damage to deal with heavily armoured enemies. Though reasonably effective against unarmoured enemies, this drops off significantly at higher levels against heavy armour.

Vs Variants

The MR14 Ballistica Prime is hilariously superior to the MR2 Ballistica. Notably however, the Ballistica's uncharged shot fires four bolts in a quick burst, while the Prime fires four bolts simultaneously. Additionally, the Ballistica's charged shot fires a single bolt and consumes a single ammo, while the Prime still fires four bolts and consumes four ammo.

The MR14 Ballistica Prime is also vastly superior to the MR6 Rakta Ballistica, exceeding it in many stats. The Rakta behaves the same way as the base Ballistica, firing four consecutive shots uncharged, and firing only a single shot when charged. Additionally, it has the Blight Syndicate Effect, dealing Viral damage with guaranteed proc, and restoring Energy.

Competitors

The Ballistica Prime is a very odd weapon, with few, if any, direct competitors. There are relatively few multi-mode Secondaries, limited just to the Ballistica family, Cyanex, Pandero and Quatz. None of these other weapons really compare well to the Ballistica Prime. In particular, the Charged shot has no good comparison as it fires far slower than any other Secondary.

The Ballistica Prime's Uncharged shot is best compared to faster firing Semi-Autos, such as the Arca Scisco, Lato Vandal (or Prime if you were an early believer), (Ak)Vasto Prime, Akbolto Prime and I'd argue Akjagara Prime too as it behaves very similarly. Frankly, the Ballistica Prime does not fare very well when looking at the bar these weapons set. The Arca Scisco and Akjagara Prime have very good Status capability and decent Crit, while the Lato Vandal and Akbolto Prime are Crit-heavy, with usable Status Chance. The (Ak)Vasto Prime have both high Crit and high Status Chance, backed up with majority Slash damage. Against the Crit-heavy Secondaries, the Ballistica Prime falls behind for raw DPS, and against just about all of these weapons, it also falls down in Status capability due to its Shotgun-like calculation. Its consumption of 4 ammo-per-shot is not ideal either, considering that it offers no real benefit to the weapon.

And of course, when looking at Semi-Auto Secondaries, one must also look to the Tombfinger Kitgun, which has vastly superior Crit and Status capabilities.

Even when looking at other innately Silent Secondaries, the Ballistica Prime is not too well favoured. The Spira Prime achieves similar firepower without excessive ammo consumption, while the Fusilai, Hikou Prime and Pox are weaker, but are all far more Status-capable.

Rivens

The Ballistica Family possesses an above-average 3/5 (1.1) Riven Disposition. Personally, I think the Ballistica Prime needs stat and mechanic changes rather than a high Riven Disposition, as a few tweaks could make it a very good weapon.

Naturally, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are all great stats to have. +Elemental Damage can be a decent damage boost and/or save a mod slot. +Projectile Speed can help make longer ranged engagements easier. +Punch Through can be helpful against crowds, primarily with Uncharged shots.

-Impact has essentially no negative effect, making up only 5% of the Ballistica Prime's base Physical Damage. -Puncture makes up just over half of its base Damage, but its reduction/removal results in many more elemental and/or Slash procs, both of which are far, far better. -Slash is acceptable for pure damage builds, but significantly reduces Slash proc chance. -Status Chance is reasonable if you're going for a pure damage build. -Faction Damage can be acceptable depending on faction. -Ammo Max is bearable in shorter missions or alongside Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Reload Speed isn't terrible given how fast the Ballistica Prime's base Reload Speed is. +Recoil isn't bad if you can handle recoil. -Zoom is great for close-quarters use.