Review: Zakti Prime (U29.3.0)

The Zakti Prime is an MR14 Secondary, just released alongside Nezha and Guandao Primes in U29.3. Firing explosive darts, it is fairly potent at clearing tightly packed groups of enemies, and rapidly stacks up Status procs on any survivors.

Acquisition

As standard for Prime weapons, the Zakti Prime's blueprint and components can be acquired by opening certain Void Relics that are currently available.

Stats

As clearly obvious, the Zakti Prime is a Status-focused weapon. 8%/1.8x Crit is very low and not worth building for. Its Status Chance is excellent however, 42% being among the highest of all Secondaries. Unfortunately, it deals no Slash damage to take advantage of. A Mag Capacity of 8 rounds is quite small, which with a Fire Rate of 5 and Reload Time of 1 second gives for a fairly low Reload Ratio of 1.6.

The ZaktiP fires explosive bolts that detonate 1 second after impact. These explosions deal pure Gas damage in a 3.8 metre radius, notably with no damage fall-off. Naturally, these explosions can inflict self-stagger/knockdown.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

With one V and two - native polarities, the Zakti Prime can fit in quite a solid build even without Forma. As a pure Status weapon, it is also very easy to fit in a basic build. This pictured build includes the classic Viral + Heat combination, with massively increased Status Chance and Augur Pact to fill up the space.

Element-wise, naturally Viral + Heat is a great all-rounder. Viral is relevant against any non-Status-immune enemy, as is Heat. Viral drastically increases the damage taken to health, which greatly improves the increasingly powerful Heat procs that also partially reduce armour. Corrosive has a greater effect on heavily armoured enemies, and has some very good damage multipliers.

Pure Toxin is a great option against unarmoured Corpus enemies, striking at their minimal Health directly, ignoring their Shields. Alternatively, Viral + Electric is extremely effective against the unarmoured Health types of pretty much all Corpus units, once their Shields are depleted. If you want to focus on weakening/depleting Shields instead, Magnetic + Toxin/Heat will munch through them very quickly.

Recommended Setups: Viral + Heat vs everything, Corrosive + Heat vs armour, Infested, (Magnetic) + Toxin/(Heat) or Viral + Electric vs unarmoured Corpus

1-Forma:

One added V polarity gives you a lot more space to play around with. In this pictured build, I've dropped Scorch for Primed Quickdraw, and upgraded Heated Charge to its Primed version. I really like PQuickdraw on the Zakti Prime, as it is constantly reloading. The effect on Sustained DPS is quite large - compare this build with the 0-Forma one, which actually deals more damage-per-shot. Primed Slip Magazine has a similar, though overall inferior, effect.

 

Augur Pact can be replaced with Magnum Force for more damage, at the cost of larger spread. A Primed Expel mod is an enormous damage boost to the matching faction, as it is applied multiple times to damage-over-time procs like Heat, Toxin and Gas. Fulmination is an option that increases explosion radius, potentially useful against crowds but otherwise not a strict damage boost.

 

For the Exilus slot, there are a few options to consider. Lethal Momentum increases Projectile Speed, which can make longer ranged combat a lot easier. If you struggle with it, Steady Hands makes recoil a complete non-issue. (Primed) Pistol Ammo Mutation if you have any issues with ammo economy is an option.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Builds

Pretty standard builds, Viral + Heat for most targets, Corrosive + Heat is particularly good against Deimos Infested.

Combat Use and Summary

The Zakti Prime's explosions are very effective against groups of enemies. On top of dealing reasonable damage with no fall-off, it reliably inflicts its native Gas procs on any enemies caught in the blasts. These drastically increase its damage output against tightly packed groups, effortlessly tearing through weaker enemies. Anything that survives is left with a plethora of procs.

 

A Viral/Corrosive + Heat build is particularly effective against heavily armoured enemies. Viral or Corrosive procs greatly increase the damage taken by such enemies, allowing stacked up Heat procs to deal very good damage to them. Unfortunately, the ZaktiP cannot inflict Slash procs, which would make it an ideal anti-armour weapon.

 

With abysmal Crit, the ZaktPi is somewhat lacking in direct damage output. By all means it can stack up massive Heat procs, however these take a while to deal their full damage. Other weapons with more direct damage can easily kill off such enemies much more quickly. Additionally, the ZaktiP is much, much weaker against Status-immune enemies, since it cannot stack up the procs it relies so heavily on.

 

The ZaktiP makes fairly good use of its innate explosive Gas damage. Though Gas is a terrible damage type and its proc has a cap of 10 stacks, on the right weapon it can be quite potent. The ZaktiP is adept at stacking up Gas procs on several enemies at once, each one dealing AoE damage-over-time, drastically improving its damage output against groups. This of course falls off at very hige levels due to the Gas proc cap, as well as Gas' awful damage multipliers.

 

Unique to the Zakti family, enemies caught in their explosions are staggered, opening them up for finishers and melee stealth damage bonuses. This can be quite useful on very tough enemies at very high levels, as Melee weapons scale far better than other weapons.

 

As a projectile weapon, it can be difficult to land precise hits with the ZaktiP, especially at longer ranges. Keeping in mind that most of its damage is in its no-fall-off explosions, this is less of an issue than for most other projectile weapons. However, its delayed explosions are pretty much always annoying, delaying the bulk of your damage output by a second. In a game like Warframe which moves at lightning speeds, one second is quite a long time and quite an inconvenience.

Overall, the Zakti Prime is a solid explosive Status Secondary. It can clear out groups of weaker enemies quite effectively, and can work its way through heavily armoured enemies with a plethora of Status procs. It is one of the relatively few weapons that makes good use of Gas damage, without sacrificing efficacy against other targets. I personally find it slightly lacking for direct damage, and its delayed explosions (which can inflict self stagger/knockdown) are quite frustrating when you just want enemies dead. The ZaktiP is a novel and reasonably effective weapon of a fairly rare weapon type. If you are after a fast-firing, Status-focused explosive Secondary, the Zakti Prime is a solid option to consider. If you're looking for just a general-use, all-round solid Secondary however, I'm more hesitant to recommend it, as it is rather unconventional.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4.5/5 - High RoF allows the Zakti Prime to litter a room with explosive darts, each inflicting reasonable damage and a plethora of procs on every enemy in range. Gas procs being stacked up on every enemy also results in an exponential increase in group damage, effortlessly ripping through groups of weaker enemies even with the Gas proc cap. The most annoying aspects are the delayed explosions and constant reloading.

Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2.5/5 - A lack of Crit means that the ZaktiP misses out on the biggest damage multipliers, putting it well behind many more Crit-heavy Secondaries for Burst DPS. It can max out Viral/Magnetic/etc procs almost instantly and can stack up hefty Heat/Toxin procs, but still takes longer to deal with unarmoured heavy enemies than harder-hitting weapons. Against Status-immune enemies in particular, it does struggle even more.

Vs Armoured Heavies: 4/5 - Very high Status Chance allows the ZaktiP to max out Viral/Corrosive procs almost instantly, as well as stack up powerful Heat procs. I personally find it to be slightly lacking for punch, but that is really only noticeable once you start to get into Steel Path level toughness.

Vs Variants

The MR14 Zakti Prime is a majority upgrade over the MR10 Zakti. It has a slightly longer Reload Time, but otherwise has better (but still poor) Crit, a much larger Mag Capacity, more than double the Status Chance, and a slightly larger and more powerful explosion.

Competitors

There are a number of explosive Secondaries, of a variety of styles. Most others either explode immediately on impact (e.g. Staticor,  Kuva Seer), or are Thrown and detonate on command (i.e. Talons, Castanas). There are three Secondaries that I feel are similar enough to warrant comparison.

The Staticor also fires explosive projectiles reasonably quickly, with a relatively small explosive radius when uncharged. The ZaktiP has higher Status Chance and Fire Rate, while the Staticor has actually usable Crit and a far larger Mag Capacity. Additionally, the Staticor can charge up a powerful blast with a massive explosive radius. Overall, I personally consider the Staticor to be superior. It still has very good Status capabilities and reasonable AoE, while dealing more direct damage thanks to its Crit.

The Akarius fires pairs of homing rockets with high Status Chance and awful Crit. Compared to the ZaktiP, the Akarius deals much more damage, as well as having much larger explosions and homing on nearby enemies. However, its Reload Time is more that three times as slow as the ZaktiP at 3.4 seconds (improved by sprinting), and it has a measly 20 spare ammo. Additionally, it has a minimum arming distance making it very difficult to use at close range.

Finally, the Zymos is probably the most similar weapon to the ZaktiP. Both fire projectiles with delayed explosions and are Status focused. However, where the ZaktiP is happy to be spam-fired at the enemy, the Zymos really wants to be precisely aimed. In particular, it deals massively more damage on headshots (roughly 15x damage, plus the extra projectiles spawned), while being quite underwhelming on body shots. If you are skilled at landing headshots reliably, the Zymos will be far superior, but otherwise, the ZaktiP will be overall more effective.

Rivens

As is the new standard, the Zakti Prime has started with a minimum 1/5 (0.5) Riven Disposition. The regular Zakti has a fairly high 4/5 (1.25) Riven Disposition. I would not be surprised to see the Prime's Disposition rocket up in upcoming changes, as I do not expect it to be especially popular.

+Damage/Multishot are the top stats the aim for. +Elemental Damage can be a useful damage boost, and can also help to shift around damage type biases. +Status Chance further increases your proc output, though would likely already be enhanced through the roof with a typical mod setup. +Faction Damage is an excellent damage multiplier to the right faction, mainly useful for Grineer. +Mag Capacity/Reload Speed are great quality-of-life improvements. +Projectile Speed can be useful at longer ranges. -Recoil is nice if you struggle with the recoil.

Any of -Impact/Puncture/Slash are great negatives to have. The former two are poor damage types and procs, while the ZaktiP has none of the latter. -Crit Chance/Damage are both good negatives as the ZaktiP's Crit is terrible; with the former being better of the two. -Faction Damage to a faction you're not concerned about (e.g. Infested) can be manageable. -Fire Rate is not a big deal alongside Lethal Torrent. -Ammo Max can be quite manageable, especially alongside one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Projectile Speed is largely a non-issue for close quarters, and can be mitigated by Lethal Momentum. +Recoil is good if you handle recoil well. -Zoom is ideal for close quarters.