Review: Kuva Seer (U27.0.10)

The Kuva Seer is an MR15 Secondary with drastic improvements over its base model. On top of overall massively increased stats, it also has explosive rounds, dealing damage in a small AoE. Overall, the Kuva Seer is much better than the base Seer, however I still find it uncomfortable to use.

Acquisition

Like with the other Kuva weapons, the Kuva Seer can only be obtained by Vanquishing a Kuva Lich with this weapon.

The weapon will then appear in your Foundry ready to be collected.

Stats

The Kuva Seer has received a huge number of improvements over the base Seer. Among the improvements are much higher (and actually usable) Crit, much higher Status Chance, and a pure Corrosive AoE. This AoE is relatively small, with a radius of only 1.9m, but pretty much any AoE is highly valuable in Warframe's horde-killing-focused gameplay. Notably, the AoE does not deal self-damage.

The Kuva Seer's Reload Ratio is relatively poor, at just 1.57. Its Reload Time is quite slow for such a low capacity.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma General Purpose

Yet another weapon with no innate polarities...this is the sort of build I'd recommend trying the Kuva Seer out with. Basic, no-nonsense hybrid build with elemental combo of preference. The Kuva Damage Bonus can be a great help while levelling the Kuva Seer, as it gives you extra elemental coverage without using mod slots.

Given it has innate Corrosive, my first go-to for the Kuva Seer is to add Viral. Corrosive + Viral is one of the most potent elemental setups in the game, however can only be achieved by weapons with innate Corrosive or Viral damage. With high Status Chance, it reliably strips armour, while also halving enemy health and having excellent damage multipliers all round. In a similar line of thought, Radiation is also quite good, as Corrosive + Radiation is extremely effective against all armour types, and again has great multipliers. The Radiation proc is noteworthy for shutting down Eximus and Ancient auras, which can be quite troublesome.

Gas is also worth a mention. With such high Status Chance, as well as a small AoE, the Kuva Seer is quite capable of inflicting powerful Gas procs. This drastically enhances its anti-crowd capabilities, especially against unarmoured Corpus. However, this sacrifices direct damage against heavier, tougher enemies, as Gas has very poor damage multipliers.

Recommended Setups: Viral or Radiation vs anything, Gas vs unarmoured Corpus, groups

2-Forma Primed Crit

Two added V polarities plus the extra ranks from being a Kuva weapon allow the Kuva Seer to fit in both Primed Crit mods, as well as Lethal Torrent.

Recommended Setups: see above.

3-Forma General Purpose

Another V polarity and you have 10 capacity left for the last mod slot. In the pictured example, I've slotted in Augur Pact as a simple, no-nonsense damage boost. Naturally, there are a number of other decent options.

Magnum Force is a bigger boost than Augur Pact, though the accuracy drop may be troublesome. Hydraulic Crosshairs is a nice damage boost as well, however requires you to remain zoomed in to benefit. An extra elemental mod can be quite good, whether for wider elemental coverage or just extra damage. I would also consider (Primed) Quickdraw to help patch up the poor Reload Ratio. It's worth noting here that you should NOT install any significant amount of Punch Through on the Kuva Seer. Like with most other explosive weapons, Punch Through will cause its shots to pass through enemies and not explode.

For the Exilus slot, Ammo Mutation is a very good option if you don't run Carrier. Otherwise, Lethal Momentum is a nice bonus for longer ranged combat.

Recommended Setups: see above. If desired, adding in extra elements can be beneficial, depending on desired effects. For instance, Viral + Heat is extremely effective against armoured enemies.

My Builds

Personally, I really don't like how the Kuva Seer feels, so couldn't bear to put more than one Forma into it. Even so, I was quite impressed with its overall damage output.

Kuva Lich Bonus

The Kuva Seer is one of the best weapons to have a Radiation bonus on, as this allows extremely potent and versatile build options like Corrosive + Viral + Radiation + Heat. The sheer coverage offers great multipliers against essentially every enemy, and inflicts its victims with a plethora of debilitating Status effects.

Alternatively, it is also surprisingly effective with a Magnetic bonus, again allowing it to achieve otherwise unprecedented combos (e.g. Corrosive + Magnetic + Viral + Radiation). Otherwise, Toxin is my go-to element, as it makes some of the best damage types and is quite good on its own. Depending on what other elements you want, any of Heat/Electric/Cold can be of use as well, both for combining into elemental combos, or just on their own. For instance, Corrosive + Viral + Heat is brutally effective against armoured enemies.

Overall, the Kuva Seer is one of, if not the most, verstaile Kuva weapon in terms of Kuva Lich bonus. The only one it doesn't like at all is Impact, and well, no-one likes Impact right now.

Combat Use and Summary

As a slow-firing Secondary with decent Crit and solid Status capabilities, the Kuva Seer is most effective against fewer, heavier targets. Thanks to its immense base Damage, it does quite high Burst DP, making it quite effective against unarmoured targets. Its high Status Chance, pure Corrosive explosions make the Kuva Seer fairly effective against heavily armorued targets as well. It strips armour with reasonable consistency, allowing it to deal heavy direct damage. Notably, innate Corrosive also allows extremely potent combos such as Corrosive + Radiation or Corrosive + Viral.

The Kuva Seer is weakest against large groups of weak enemies. Its Corrosive explosion, though potent, is relatively small with only 1.9m radius. Additionally, it is still a slow firing weapon with poor Reload Ratio, so does not engage persistent streams of enemies very well. By far the best anti-crowd build for the Kuva Seer is a Gas build, which significantly increases both its effective radius and AoE damage. However, this sacrifices direct damage multipliers against most heavy enemies.

The Kuva Seer retains its base model's very high zoom, which does not combine well with its projectile nature. The high zoom and low RoF makes it clunky in close quarters, while projectile travel time makes it troublesome for effective long range use. For whatever reason, the Kuva Seer has a pathetic spare ammo capacity of just 27 - only 3 spare magazines worth. As a result, even in short missions, the Kuva Seer is prone to running out of ammo if pistol ammo doesn't drop in a timely manner. At least one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc is strongly recommended.

Overall, the Kuva Seer is a fairly powerful Semi-Auto Secondary. It does quite good direct damage to heavier enemies, and is a fairly potent Status weapon. Its pure Corrosive explosions are quite powerful and versatile, giving it significantly improved anti-crowd capabilities, and enhancing its anti-armour potential. The biggest drawbacks of the Kuva Seer all relate to usability - very high Zoom, projectile travel time, and abysmal spare ammo count. If you're after a potent Semi-Auto Secondary, and can manage these drawbacks, the Kuva Seer is a powerful option.

I'm personally not a fan of the Kuva Seer. Though it is quite powerful, and its AoE is a big bonus for a single-target weapon, I find it too clunky and unwieldy. Particularly when compared to a Tombfinger Kitgun (discussed below), I personally don't find the Kuva Seer to be anything special (besides the potential elemental coverage of course).

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2.5/5 - The added AoE gives the Kuva Seer a leg up compared to its base model, and other slow-firing Semi-Auto Secondaries. A Gas build in particular can be devastating against tightly packed groups. However, its AoE is not particularly big, and its slow RoF and poor Reload Ratio are big hindrances.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4.5/5 - Respectable Crit and very high base Damage gives the Kuva Seer very good Burst DPS.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 4/5 - The Kuva Seer's innate Corrosive explosions with high Status Chance go a long way towards taking down heavily armoured enemies. It can strip armour with surprising consistency, and deals enough raw damage to kill them quickly once armour is low. However, its low RoF limits its potential.

Vs Variants

The MR15 Kuva Seer is hilariously superior to the MR0 Seer.

Competitors

The main competitor to the Kuva Seer is also the only other similar-behaving secondary, a Tombfinger Kitgun. Even ignoring their actual firepower, I've found the Tombfinger to be vastly superior to use. It has superior Reload Time or Mag Capacity, often both. It doesn't have the Kuva Seer's extremely high zoom, nor does it have such a tiny ammo pool (especially with the Pax Charge Arcane!).

Though the Kuva Seer has very good base damage, its focus on Status Chance is somewhat limited in effectiveness by low RoF, and its Crit is not exceptional. As such, a Crit-focused Tombfinger will vastly outclass it in raw damage output, and still has respectable Status capabilities. These coupled with the Tombfinger's far better usability, and access to Pax Arcanes, makes the Tombfinger vastly superior in my opinion.

Rivens

As with the other Kuva weapons, the Kuva Seer has a neutral 3/5 (1) Riven Disposition, while the regular Seer has an appropriately high 5/5 (1.5) Disposition. Though already reasonably powerful, I could see the Kuva Seer's Disposition stay or go up, as it is not very user friendly, and faces painfully stiff competition in the form of the Tombfinger.

As usual, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are all great. +Elemental damage can be decent for increased damage output, better bias of a desirable damage type, or just to save a mod slot. +Projectile Speed can make the (Kuva) Seer much nicer to use at longer range. +Ammo Max can help reduce the reliance on Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. +Reload Speed is a nice QoL stat that significantly improves Reload Ratio.

All of -Impact/Puncture/Slash are quite manageable. -Puncture has the biggest damage loss, while -Slash of course reduces the best Physical damage type. -Faction damage to a weaker faction can be manageable. +Recoil can be manageable. -Zoom is an excellent negative, reducing the (Kuva) Seer's zoom to more usable levels.