The Panthera Prime is an MR14 sawblade-launching Primary, recently released alongside Inaros Prime in U28.2. Firing explosive, bouncing sawblades, it is a novel weapon quite effective against groups, however its spread greatly limits single-target damage.
Acquisition
Standard Prime weapon component makeup. As it has only just been released, the Panthera Prime will not be Vaulted for a few years.
Stats
The Panthera Prime's Primary Fire launches sawblades, with solid Crit, great Status Chance, and majority Slash damage. Interestingly, these sawblades explode on impact, dealing a smaller amount of Slash damage in a small area. The sawblades can also bounces off of objects up to 3 times, exploding on each impact, for surprisingly solid overall AoE. Do note however that these explosions can inflict self-stagger.
A Fire Rate of 3.67 is among the slowest Full-Auto Primaries in the game. Primary Fire consumes two ammo per shot, resulting in a solid 4.54 Reload Ratio.
The Secondary Fire is rather different, instead levitating a sawblade a short distance in front to deal damage. It functions as a beam weapon, with the spinning sawblade being purely a visual effect. It has one of the shortest ranges in the game, at a measly 8 metres.
Secondary Fire has even better Crit and Status Chances, however its Fire Rate of just 2 is the slowest of any beam-type weapon in the game. One benefit of being a beam weapon is that it only consumes ammo at 1 per second, for an astronomical Reload Ratio of 33.33.
Notably, the Secondary Fire will only consume ammo when actually damaging an enemy/object, allowing it to be held out otherwise indefinitely.
Augments
The Panthera family has access to the Disarming Purity Augment, from New Loka. The Purity Syndicate effect is solid, dealing radial Corrosive damage with guaranteed proc, restoring a small amount of health and slightly increasing max health for a short time.
The actual Augment functionality however is rather lacking. It falls victim to a persistent issue in Warframe - why CC/debuff enemies if you could just kill them? Sacrificing a mod slot for this Augment may not be worth it since you can just slot in a mod that gives more damage and thus kills enemies faster. The Augment also suffers from Secondary Fire being quite poor. It is extremely short ranged, ticks for damage very slowly, only attacks single targets, and does not deal a lot of damage.
If the Augment applied to Primary Fire as well, I would consider it a reasonable option. Primary Fire, with its higher RoF, longer range, small explosions and bouncing mechanic, would be able to apply the Augment's effect to many more enemies much more quickly. Being able to disarm a large group of enemies at range would actually be a useful niche at higher levels, where enemies do not die as quickly.
As is, I would recommend against using the Disarming Purity Augment.
Builds
0-Forma:
One Native V and - polarities allows the Panthera Prime to fit in a decent no-Forma build. This example build uses up all 60 capacity. Besides the essentials, I've slotted in Thermite Rounds to use up the last 7 capacity. It is a reasonable damage boost and significantly increases Status Chance, which is one of the PantheraP's strengths.
A particularly unusual behaviour of the Panthera Prime is the spread of its Primary Fire with increased Multishot. Unlike most weapons where the pellets will randomly spread in a given cone, the Panthera Prime's sawblades spread evenly horizontally, akin to the Cernos Prime. This is especially frustrating when shooting 2 sawblades, as they will shoot to either side of the reticle, potentially missing the target in the middle.
In terms of elemental combos, naturally Viral is by far the best option. It synergises perfectly with the Panthera's frequent Slash procs, eating through heavily armoured enemies quite quickly. Toxin is worthy of note against unarmoured Corpus units, bypassing their Shields to deal damage directly to their health. Corrosive and Radiation have strong multipliers against various enemies, notably Ancients and Ferrite Armour for Corrosive, and Alloy Armour for Radiation.
There is space for a third element in this example build. Naturally, Heat is a great complement to Viral, and is fairly strong on its own as well. Corrosive + Heat does excellent direct damage against the Infested especially. Radiation + Toxin is a strong option that covers most Corpus units. Additional Electric combines with Viral to deal great damage to all of the Corpus health types.
Recommended Setups: Viral (+ Heat) vs everything, Corrosive (+ Heat) vs Infested, Ferrite Armour, Radiation (+ Toxin) vs armoured Corpus, Alloy Armour, Toxin or Viral + Electric vs unarmoured Corpus
1-Forma:
With one added V polarity, there is much more room for seventh mod options. This example build has a whole 5 capacity spare. I've slotted in Vile Acceleration here as I find both firing modes to be painfully slow. Vile Accel makes both significantly faster, though naturally also results in Primary Fire especially consuming ammo fairly quickly. There are naturally a number of other solid mod options to consider, which I've discussed below.
2-Forma:
Another added V polarity and you can make decent use of all eight mod slots. This example build has 3 spare capacity. Vigilante Armaments is almost always a decent option, adding some Multishot and the Vigilante mod set bonus. There are a lot of options you could consider for the slots occupied by Vigilante Armaments and Vile Acceleration. A third elemental as shown in the 0-Forma builds is a solid option.
Note that for the Panthera Prime, I recommend against using Heavy Caliber. It greatly increases the width of the Primary Fire spread, to the point where you will likely miss single targets with the additional sawblades unless you are at point-blank range. The extra damage-per-shot is not worth the drastically increased spread, in my opinion.
A Primed Bane is a very strong option, if you have them high ranked and are willing to switch them according to Faction. The PantheraP inflicts many Slash procs naturally, thanks to its high Status Chance and majority Slash damage. Because of how the damage calculations work, Slash procs (as well as other DoT procs) are twice affected by +Faction Damage mods, drastically increasing their efficacy. A maxed Primed Bane (+55% Faction Damage) actually increases Slash proc damage by 140%.
Hunter Munitions is a strong option for maximising the number of Slash procs you inflict, which is extremely helpful against heavily armoured enemies. It is however much less effective against unarmoured enemies, against whom more direct damage is usually better. Fanged Fusillade increases direct damage and almost matches Hunter Munitions for Slash proc-per-shot, though at the cost of fewer other (notably Viral) procs.
Argon Scope and Bladed Rounds are both Crit-boosting options for increased damage. Hammer Shot is a weaker option, but also significantly increases Status Chance.
(Primed) Shred is an option for increased Fire Rate as well as Punch-Through. Punch-Through has a mixed bag of effects on the PantheraP. It is greatly beneficial for Secondary Fire, which otherwise cannot damage multiple enemies simultaneously. It improves Primary Fire against lined-up enemies, and also prevents sawblades from exploding on objects it can penetrate, which can reduce self-stagger. However, this means that you will lose out on some single-target damage.
Firestorm increases the Primary Fire explosions, though I wouldn't consider it particularly good given it only increases them from 1.6m radius to 1.98m. Sinister Reach increases the range of Secondary Fire from a measly 8m to a much more respectable 20m.
There are a couple of options to consider for the Exilus slot. Terminal Velocity for +Projectile Speed allows Primary Fire to engage at range more easily. Vigilante Supplies pretty much guarantees you won't run out of ammo provided you can still kill enemies, and also boosts the Vigilante mod set bonus. Cautious Shot will negate the self-stagger from Primary Fire explosions, though there are better ways to do this (chiefly Primed Sure Footed).
Recommended Setups: see above.
My Builds
Generic Viral build. I use Hammer Shot as the last mod as it is non-conditional, and solidly increases the PantheraP's capabilities.
Combat Use and Summary
With its small explosions and bouncing mechanic, the Panthera Prime's Primary Fire is quite effective against groups. Though each individual explosion is not notably strong, the sheer number of explosions being triggered, combined with the bouncing projectiles can inflict great damage throughout a group of enemies.
High Slash bias and Status Chance give the PantheraP quite strong capabilities against heavily armoured enemies. It can inflict many powerful Slash procs, greatly enhanced by stacking Viral procs on the victim.
Where Primary Fire can struggle is focusing all its firepower on a single target, especially at longer ranges. The spread of its sawblades due to Multishot will often prevent all projectiles from hitting a target's weakspot (primarily their head), significantly reducing its potential damage output. At longer ranges, it often results in some projectiles missing the target entirely. The main type of weapon that suffers from a similar issue is Shotguns, which typically deal a lot more damage close-up to compensate.
This issue naturally carries over to unarmoured heavy enemies, against whom focused direct damage is greatly beneficial. As a more Status-leaning weapon, the PantheraP can quickly stack up Viral/Magnetic, and inflict many damage-dealing procs, but is somewhat lacking for direct damage. This is especially problematic against Status-resistant/immune enemies, such as Sentients.
Secondary Fire is mainly good for saving ammo. It is a fair bit weaker than Primary Fire due to lower RoF, and its pathetic range is a huge downside. The slow tick rate without +Fire Rate mods can be very annoying, especially when trying to engage multiple enemies. At such close range, you might as well close the last few metres and just use Melee - which in general is far more powerful than Primaries or Secondaries.
Both firing modes suffer from range issues. Secondary Fire, as a beam attack, has a measly 8m range, which can only be increased by sacrificing a mod slot for Sinister Reach. Primary Fire suffers from projectile travel time as well as its spread, both of which significantly reduce its effectiveness at longer range.
Overall, the Panthera Prime is a rather odd weapon. Under ideal conditions (immobile enemies at close range), it performs quite well, peppering its many victims with powerful Slash procs. In practice however, I personally find the spread of its projectiles to be extremely detrimental to performance, drastically reducing its single-target damage output. Its desire to be at very close range like a Shotgun conflicts with the threat of self-stagger from Primary Fire's explosions.
As a result of its relatively low RoF and this lack of precision, I personally find the Panthera Prime to be both sluggish and a tad underwhelming in actual use. If you're someone who enjoys unconventional, wacky weapons, well the Panthera Prime fires exploding sawblades, and it can be quite powerful. If you're after just a solid, easy to use Primary/Rifle weapon, I'd personally recommend investing in other weapons.
Scores
Vs Trash Mobs: 4.5/5 - Bouncing, exploding sawblades allow the Panthera Prime to damage many enemies in quick succession. The sawblade spread is actually beneficial here, improving the coverage offered when firing at groups.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 3/5 - The wide spread when firing multiple sawblades limits the PantheraP's single-target damage output, especially at longer ranges. It is extremely difficult to reliably hit a target's weakspot with all sawblades, except at point-blank range. Few other non-Shotgun weapons have this much trouble landing all their pellets on a target's head.
Vs Armoured Heavies without Hunter Munitions: 4.5/5 - Very high Status Chance and Slash bias allows the PantheraP to inflict numerous powerful Slash procs. Like with against unarmoured heavies, the biggest issue is actually landing all of your sawblades on target, which can be quite troublesome beyond very close range due to sawblade spread.
Vs Armoured Heavies with Hunter Munitions: 4.5/5 - The additional Slash procs are quite powerful against heavily armoured enemies, however I find that it only really becomes noticeable against super-tough enemies, such as those in the Veil or Steel Path. Against anything weaker, I generally find damage-boosting mods to be more useful overall.
Vs Variants
On the face of it, the MR14 Panthera Prime appears to be superior version of the MR7 Panthera. It boasts superior Crit and Status Chances, higher Fire Rate and a larger Mag Capacity to offset a slower Reload Time. The Prime also has explosions on impact of its Primary Fire, which the regular Panthera does not have at all, giving the Prime another advantage.
It is much the same story with their Secondary Fires, the Prime having higher Crit and Status Chances, as well as pure Slash base Damage where the regular Panthera has all the Physical damage types.
There are however two major disadvantages of the Prime. The first is its accuracy reduction causing its Primary Fire with Multishot to spread out, where the regular Panthera remains perfectly accurate. This drastically reduces the Prime's single-target damage potential, especially at long range. The second is that its explosions inflict self-stagger, which is a close-quarters complication that the regular Panthera does not suffer from.
Competitors
There are no other weapons that really compare to the Panthera Prime for firing style. The only other sawblade firing Primary is the Miter, which is a Status-focused, charge-fire weapon whose main niche is its Nullifier bubble popping Augment.
Probably the closest Primary would be the Zhuge Prime, which has a similar scale of RoF, and also fires exploding projectiles, though they do not bounce. The ZhugeP deals overall higher DPS, though inflicts far fewer Slash procs as its Slash bias is much lower. Its larger explosions also only occur after a delay, and its Reload Ratio is significantly worse. However, the ZhugeP's projectiles do not spread out horizontally with Multishot, allowing for much higher and more consistent single-target damage output.
Rivens
As a new weapon, the Panthera Prime starts off with a minimum 1/5 (0.5) Riven Disposition. I would not be surprised to see that shoot up quickly, as the PantheraP is not very popular nor exceptionally powerful. The regular Panthera has a near-max 5/5 (1.4) Disposition, reflective of its unpopularity.
Obviously, +Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are top stats to have. +Slash is not a bad damage boost given the PantheraP is majority Slash, and also biases Status procs even more towards Slash. +Elemental Damage can be useful for saving a mod slot, or adding extra damage. +Faction Damage is a large damage multiplier for Slash procs, primarily useful for Grineer. +Fire Rate is quite helpful for both firing modes, though will eat through ammo much faster in Primary Fire. +Projectile Speed is a great help for Primary Fire beyond close range. +Punch-Through allows shots to pass through enemies, which is especially helpful for Secondary Fire, and potentially prevents Primary Fire explosions. This is helpful to reduce the chance of self-stagger, but also reduces single-target damage output.
-Impact/Puncture are ideal negatives. Neither is a significant damage type, and their reduction/removal improves the bias of better damage types and procs. -Faction Damage is manageable to the weaker factions (mainly -Infested, -Corpus is manageable). -Mag Capacity/Reload Speed aren't terrible given the PantheraP's solid Reload Ratio, but they're not ideal. -Ammo Max can be quite manageable as it is not especially ammo-hungry. +Recoil is largely a non-issue as neither firing mode has much recoil. -Zoom is ideal for close-quarters, which is where the PantheraP is best.
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