Review: Pandero Prime (U29.10.10)

Pandero Prime is one of Octavia Prime's signature weapons, an MR14 Secondary. With very strong stats across the board, it is a solid, if fairly un-interesting, low-capacity hand cannon.

Acquisition

Standard Prime weapon fare, the Blueprint and Components are available from various Void Relics. Since it has just been released, Pandero Prime will not be Vaulted for around two years.

Stats

Like its brethren the Tenora Prime, the Pandero Prime has an overall strong spread of stats. Its Crit is excellent, with great Crit Chance and a very high Crit Multiplier. A Status Chance of 24% is solid, combining well with the PanderoP's 50% Slash bias.

A Mag Capacity of just 8 rounds, with a short reload of 1 second, give a solid Reload Ratio of 2.67

Like the regular Pandero, the PanderoP's Alternate Fire empties the rest of the magazine in a single fast burst. It retains the same per-shot stats as Primary Fire, with a much higher Fire Rate but far worse accuracy and recoil, and inability to zoom. The Reload Ratio with this firing mode is naturally awful.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma Basic:

A single native V polarity allows most of a basic build to be fit in without Forma. This above setup of largely basic mods will fit so long as one of the mods (besides Hornet Strike) is missing one Rank (or HS is missing two). If you're struggling for space due to not having the 60/60 elemental mods, you could get away with temporarily dropping Target Cracker to make way for 90% elementals.

If the -Fire Rate doesn't bother you, Creeping Bullseye is an option over Pistol Gambit, for higher Crit Chance (equivalent to the Primed) at the same drain.

0-Forma Primed Crit:

Alternatively, by leaving out Lethal Torrent, you can upgrade both Crit mods to their Primed versions. This offers higher damage-per-shot, in exchange for lower Fire Rate and overall DPS.

Viral is the obvious all-rounder elemental combo. Not only is it useful against most targets, but it also synergises extremely well with the PanderoP's Slash proc inflicting ability. The regular, powerful Slash procs are greatly augmented by Viral procs, which is exceptionally effective against heavily armoured enemies.

Corrosive is strong if you are targeting Ferrite-armoured enemies in particular, or the Cambion Drift Infested, many of whom are immune to Viral procs. Radiation is extremely effective against Alloy-armoured enemies. Pure Toxin is great against unarmoured Corpus units, bypassing their Shields entirely.

Recommended Setups: Viral vs everything, Corrosive vs Ferrite-armour, Infested, Radiation vs Alloy-armour, Toxin vs unarmoured Corpus

2-Forma:

Two added V polarities allows you to fit in the seven essential mods comfortably, though with little space for an eighth. There is space for one of the elementals to be a 90%, though the other elemental will need to be a 60/60 if all mods are max rank.

Recommended Setups: see above.

3-Forma General Purpose:

Another V polarity opens up some decent options for the last mod slot, though you may still need more depending on your mod of choice. You'll also need more if you want to switch the elementals to 90% due to their much higher drain.

Seeker adds a good amount of Punch-Through, which is quite helpful against tightly packed groups. Augur Pact is a low-drain, low-fuss damage boost. Magnum Force offers more damage, but also carries a significant accuracy penalty. Hydraulic Crosshairs and Sharpened Bullets are conditional Crit mods that both provide decent extra damage. Keep in mind however that you cannot zoom with Alternate Fire, so these two mods will not work when using it.

A third elemental is always a decent option, adding more damage and allowing some notable powerful setups. In particular, Primed Heated Charge offers a massive amount of extra direct damage. Viral/Corrosive both combine extremely well with Heat. Viral is highly effective against most targets, with Heat providing powerful damage-over-time as well as partial armour reduction. Corrosive + Heat is especially powerful against heavily armoured enemies, as well as Infested, notably those found in the Cambion Drift. Radiation + Toxin is a strong catch-all against the Corpus.

Carnis Stinger is another interesting option, increasing both Slash damage and Status Chance. This not only increases the overall number of procs inflicted, but Slash procs especially. It is very effective in a Viral build for use against heavily armoured enemies.

A (Primed) Expel mod can be a very strong multiplier of damage-over-time procs like Slash, but naturally can be tedious to switch around for each faction. (Primed) Quickdraw or Slip Magazine can offer some nice quality-of-life, reducing the impact of the PanderoP's small Mag Capacity.

Probably the most useful Exilus mod is Steady Hands for the recoil reduction. This can make follow-up shots much easier to land, as well as making Alternate Fire easier to use. The increased holster speed from Reflex Draw can be a nice improvement if you switch weapons frequently.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: Viral + Heat vs everything, Corrosive + heat vs armoured enemies, Infested, Radiation + Toxin vs Corpus

My Builds

Standard general-purpose Viral build.

Combat Use and Summary

With a fairly small Mag Capacity but very powerful single shots, the Pandero Prime is best suited against fewer, heavier enemies. It deals quite good DPS, while also having a very good Status Chance and Slash bias. Unarmoured or Status-immune enemies can be taken down with its raw direct damage, while heavily armoured enemies can be bled to death with stacked Viral and Slash procs

Correspondingly, with relatively low shot output, the PanderoP is not particularly good against large groups of enemies. While its Reload Ratio is not bad, it will still need to reload constantly, and with no AoE, Semi-Auto and a fairly low Fire Rate, it does not get through groups quickly.

Alternate Fire is best used when you need a quick burst of damage, without a need for accuracy. It has more than double the Fire Rate of Primary Fire, useful for quickly wiping out a small group of enemies or piling damage into a single target. In exchange however, it has heavy recoil and large spread, making it very difficult to control. Since it empties your entire magazine, it is also immediately necessitates a reload.

Notably, Alternate Fire is exceptionally useful for taking down Nullifier bubbles. With some Multishot, it will reliably and rapidly wipe out a full-size bubble, with shots to spare to finish off the Nullifier itself.

Overall, the Pandero Prime is a decent low-capacity Secondary, but not really anything special nowadays. It does good damage with a fair number of Status procs, notably frequent Slash procs. It is well suited to taking down fewer, heavier enemies, and is fairly ammo efficient unless you liberally use Alternate Fire. However, the PanderoP is not well suited against groups, with fairly low shot output and no AoE. If you're after a slower-firing, hard-hitting Secondary that is effective against most targets, it is definitely worth a look.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2/5 - Low Mag Capacity, relatively slow Fire Rate and no AoE capabilities, the Pandero Prime does not fare very well against large numbers of enemies. It can easily kill individual enemies, but spends a lot of time reloading when faced with a large group.

Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4.5/5 - Overall quite high Burst DPS makes the PanderoP fairly effective against unarmoured and Status-immune enemies. Alternate Fire naturally has even higher on-paper Burst DPS, but is much less accurate and controllable.

Vs Armoured Heavies: 4.5/5 - High Status Chance and solid Slash bias allow the PanderoP to reliably inflict large armour-ignoring Slash procs. Combined with any Viral procs it might also inflict, this allows it to eat through heavily armoured enemies quite quickly.

Vs Variants

The MR14 Pandero Prime is a strict upgrade over the MR8 Pandero, though there actually aren't many changes. The Prime simply has a much higher base Damage and Status Chance.

Competitors

There aren't too many other low-capacity, well-rounded Slash-based Pistols. The closest direct comparison is probably the Vasto Prime, but it's not a good look. With the exceptions of higher Fire Rate and superior Slash bias (70% vs 50%), the VastoP falls far behind the PanderoP. Akvasto Prime is similar, having even higher Fire Rate and larger Mag Capacity, but still lagging behind in the other areas. 

Looking more broadly at slower firing Semi-Auto pistols, there are other options like the Arca Scisco, Vaykor Marelok, (Ak)Lex Prime and Euphona Prime. The VMarelok has superior Status Chance, but has lower Slash bias and much worse Crit, for overall far inferior damage. The Euphona Prime's Primary Fire deals far more direct damage, but has barely any Status Chance. Arca Scisco is much weaker overall, but has far better sustained fire because of its very large Mag Capacity. (Ak)Lex Prime is pretty much strictly a downgrade.

There's also the Tombfinger Kitgun to consider. The PanderoP retains a superior Crit/Status split and deals mostly Slash, while the Tombfinger deals mainly Radiation with an explosive round, has a strictly superior Reload Ratio, and can use Kitgun Arcanes. A Max-Crit Tombfinger (Killstream or Splat Loader) will out-DPS the PanderoP, and though its Status Chance will be a lot lower, its explosions inflicting extra procs does close the Status gap somewhat. The explosive rounds also help significantly against tightly packed groups of enemies. I personally like the Tombfinger more overall, with the superior Reload Ratio being a significant factor.

Rivens

Like with all new weapons, the Pandero Prime's Disposition starts at the minimum 1/5 (0.5). I would expect it to shoot up quite quickly - though the PanderoP is objectively strong, it does not do anything special. It is a single-target weapon in a game largely based around horde-killing, so I expect it to see relatively little use.

+Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are obvious great positives to have. +Slash notably biases damage more towards Slash, which in turn results in more likely Slash procs. +Elemental damage can be useful to save a mod slot. +Faction damage is an especially strong multiplier of damage-over-time procs like Slash and Heat. +Mag Capacity and Reload Speed can be quite useful. -Recoil can be useful if you struggle with recoil, especially with Alternate Fire. +Punch Through is a great help against tightly packed enemies.

-Impact/Puncture are great negatives to have. Not only are they poor damage types and procs anyway, but losing them also increases the bias of Slash and added elementals. -Faction damage to a weaker faction (Infested is ideal) is manageable. If you find that you do not fire very quickly, -Fire Rate might be a negligible negative. -Ammo Max is very manageable especially with one of Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Projectile Speed has no effect. +Recoil can be a good negative if you handle recoil well. -Zoom is ideal for close quarters.