Review: Scourge Prime (U31.0.6)

The Scourge Prime is an MR14 Speargun Primary. Harrow's signature weapon, its original version was released alongside him in U21, with the Prime releasing alongside Harrow Prime in U31. With a Status-focused Corrosive Primary Fire and a headshot-forcing Alternate Fire, it is a unique tool perhaps more notable for its utility than its capabilities as a weapon.

Acquisition

Standard Prime weapon stuff, Blueprint and Components are potential drops from specific Void Relics.

Stats

The Scourge Prime is clearly a Status-focused weapon. 30% Status Chance is excellent, as is base Corrosive damage. It is a great damage type and proc against armoured enemies, and also allows a number of otherwise impossible combos (e.g. Viral + Corrosive, Corrosive + Radiation). On the other hand, its Crit is rather unimpressive at just 10%/2x.

Primary Fire fires small explosive projectiles in Full-Auto. These explosions are quite small at just 1.7m radius, but have very light Damage Fall-Off of just 30% reduction. Note that these explosions can inflict self-stagger if you get too close.

A decent Mag Capacity of 40 rounds, coupled with low Fire Rate and moderate Reload Time give the ScourgeP a great Reload Ratio of 6.81.

The ScourgeP's Alternate Fire is unique to its family. Like with other Spearguns, it throws the entire weapon forward, and will deal some damage to enemies in its path, as well as exploding upon final impact. When deployed, it creates bullet attractors around the heads of all enemies within 14 metres, causing any shots towards said enemies to inflict guaranteed headshots. This throw does not consume ammo, but also does not benefit from Multishot.

The ScourgeP naturally cannot be used when deployed, and is returned either by moving to it, or automatically after 20 seconds. As such, it synergises especially well with Secondary weapons and Warframe abilities that benefit from or amplify headshots. While deployed, it passively reloads 33% of its Mag Capacity per second.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma:

The Scourge Prime has an incredible four native polarities, three Vs and one - ! This offers it very good build potential without touching any Forma. Being a Status weapon, the only immediate includes are Serration and Split Chamber. After that is a combination of Elemental mods, then supplementary mods as appropriate.

This example build uses Vigilante Armaments and Vile Acceleration as its extra mods. Vigi Armaments offers no-fuss extra Multishot, though becomes significantly less valuable when Galvanised Chamber is included. Vile Accel significantly increases Fire Rate for overall much higher damage output. The increased ammo consumption is not a big deal as the ScourgeP's base Fire Rate is so low. If you find Vile Accel a little too fast firing, feel free to try out the other options like Speed Trigger.

 

The default elemental build is Viral + Heat. Combined with the ScourgeP's innate Viral, it hits heavily armoured enemies extremely well once a few Status procs are stacked up. It also covers most Infested extremely well, though for the Viral-proc-immune ones like on Cambion Drift, switching the Viral to more Corrosive is recommended.

Since this build maxes out Viral and Corrosive procs so quickly, extra Heat damage is added to stack Heat procs more frequently on tougher targets.

Radiation + Toxin is a solid catch-all against the Corpus. Toxin bypasses Shields entirely, so quickly kills many of their unarmoured units. Armoured enemies are handled by a combination of Corrosive procs, and Corrosive + Radiation damage. Magnetic + Heat is an alternate setup that tackles Shields head-on, while still dealing with armour very well thanks to Corrosive + Heat.

Recommended Setups: Viral + Heat vs everything, Corrosive + Heat vs Cambion Drift Infested, Radiation + Toxin or Magnetic + Heat vs Corpus

1-Forma Primed Firestorm:

With so many innate polarities, the Scourge Prime needs minimal Forma to look at fitting more high-drain mods. In this case, I've slotted in Primed Firestorm to increase the AoE of Primary Fire, though with a base explosive radius of just 1.7m, the increase is not huge.

A Primed Bane is a very strong damage multiplier, and is the best extra mod if you have the Credits + Endo to spare on maxing them. Heavy Caliber is a decent damage boost, but majorly loses value when Arcanes are involved. Rifle Aptitude is an option to further increase Status Chance, though of course adds no direct damage.

I would not recommend including any Crit mods unless you are deliberately running additive +Crit equipment (e.g. Harrow, Arcane Avenger). The ScourgeP's base Crit Chance is a little too low to be worth modding for.

For the Exilus slot, I'd lean primarily to Terminal Velocity. The increased Projectile Speed can make combat beyond close range a lot easier. Cautious Shot can be used to mitigate self-stagger. An Ammo Mutation mod can be equipped if ammo economy is a concern.

Recommended Setups: see above.

Galvanised Build and Arcane

Galvanised Chamber obviously. 

Galvanised Aptitude is a great option on direct hits, as the ScourgeP effortlessly inflicts at least two procs on enemies. Additionally, its +Damage bonus is multiplicative with other +Damage on direct hits, making it an extremely strong scaling tool. However, its +Damage bonus does not benefit explosions which is a significant flaw.

I would not bother with Galvanised Scope, the ScourgeP has poor Crit and does not land headshots particularly well.

I'd strongly favour Merciless for the Arcane. As mentioned previously, headshots are not particularly easy to land with the ScourgeP, and kills from damage-over-time procs do not trigger headshot kills. As such, Deadhead is both more difficult to stack, and less impactful with its extra benefits.

My Build

Fairly standard Viral + Heat build. If I installed an Arcane adapter, I'd switch Serration to Hellfire/Wildfire or Galv Apt.

Combat Use and Summary

The Scourge Prime's Primary Fire is reasonably effective against groups. It has a small, reasonably effective AoE and great Reload Ratio. Weak enemies can be killed fairly quickly, while any survivors will be left with a plethora of Status procs.

Speaking of, base Corrosive is fantastic for weakening heavily armoured enemies. Combined with Viral and Heat added from mods, the ScourgeP can massively increase the damage that armoured enemies take with maxed Corrosive + Viral procs, while doing reasonable damage itself with large Heat proc stacks.

This reliance on Status procs to deal damage is of course more problematic when faced with unarmoured enemies (who can be efficiently killed by direct damage), and especially Status-resistant/immune enemies. The ScourgeP does not deal a lot of direct damage, especially when compared to Crit weapons which can benefit from the additional Crit headshot multiplier.

Alternate Fire offers practically guaranteed headshots for other weapons, which appropriately synergises extremely well with Harrow and the Knell Secondary. Both significantly benefit from and enhance headshots. Other Crit Secondaries are also good options to maximise benefit from the Crit headshot multiplier.

 

The Scourge Prime has 200 spare ammo, and draws from the very common Rifle ammo drops. With low Fire-Rate, it is quite ammo-efficient and has little issue with ammo economy in longer missions. 

Fairly low Projectile Speed makes the ScourgeP somewhat difficult to use at longer range. You could use its Alternate Fire at long range to force headshots, then use a Secondary to pick off enemies with ease.

Overall, the Scourge Prime is a decent Status weapon and a uniquely effective utility tool. It is fairly against clusters of weak enemies, and stacks great numbers of procs on tougher enemies. Its innate Corrosive damage is a great asset against armoured enemies, as it can effortlessly max Corrosive procs, as well as stacking up whatever other elements are modded on. However, it is lacking in direct damage and can struggle especially against Status-resistant/immune enemies.

The ScourgeP's Alternate Fire offers it unique benefit for any Frame or Secondary that particularly wants to achieve Headshots, like the aforementioned Harrow and Knell, as well as other weapons like the Zymos and Athodai.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - A small AoE and fantastic Reload Ratio give the Scourge Prime decent capabilities against large numbers of weak enemies. It can kill small groups of weak targets relatively quickly, and has relatively little downtime from reloading.

Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 2/5 - A Status-focus and relative lack of direct damage leave the ScourgeP rather unimpressive against unarmoured and especially Status-resistant/immune enemies.

Vs Armoured Heavies without Forced Slash: 4.5/5 - Innate Corrosive damage and high Status Chance can be augmented with modded Viral + Heat, to greatly weaken and deal major damage to heavily armoured enemies. The ScourgeP effortlessly maxes out Corrosive + Viral procs, one of very few weapons with access to this combo. Stacked Heat procs further weaken armour and can deal great damage-over-time.

Vs Armoured Heavies with Forced Slash: NA/5 - The ScourgeP has poor Crit, and the only attack with a forced Impact proc is the throw, which is not usually used as an actual attack.

Vs Variants

The MR14 Scourge Prime is a strict, if fairly minor, upgrade over regular MR6 Scourge. The Crit increase is near pointless, while the Damage (+12% on regular shots) and Reload Speed (+14%) buffs are nice but not major.

Competitors

The Scourge Prime's Alternate Fire ability to near-guarantee headshots for other weapons is unique to its family, and no other weapon offers anything like it. Its Primary Fire is a Status-focused light explosive, which is more comparable to other weapons. Base Corrosive damage is incredibly rare, the only other Primary with it is the beam-weapon Synapse. Besides this however, it's not a fun time for the Scourge Prime.

One similar weapon is one of the other Spearguns, the MR7 Javlok. It has superior Crit and much higher base Damage, for overall far superior damage output, as well as larger explosions. The primary advantage to the ScourgeP is its much superior Reload Ratio, thanks to a far larger Mag Capacity.

The MR14 Astilla Prime is an overall much stronger weapon, with better Crit, Status Chance, explosive radius and much higher base Damage. Decent Slash bias on explosion is very effective for inflicting Slash procs. It only really loses out in Reload Ratio.

Though the MR14 Panthera Prime has weaker base explosion damage, it deals more direct hit damage as well as having superior Crit, again for far stronger direct damage on single targets. Additionally, it is mostly Slash so can inflict a plethora of Slash procs, which the ScourgeP cannot.

In the case of the MR13 Trumna, it has a marginally smaller explosion and much longer Reload Time, but once more sports far superior Crit and overall damage output, as well as a much higher Fire Rate.

These are just some examples of similar weapons. Looking more generally at Status-capable/leaning Primaries, there are far too many weapons to list that are as good as, if not overall stronger than, the Scourge Prime.

Rivens

Oddly, the Scourge Prime has inherited the regular Scourge's above-average Riven Disposition of 4/5 (1.15). I would not be surprised to see it stay around this, or perhaps drop slightly to accomodate the increased stats. The ScourgeP primarily serves a utility role, and in its own killing power does not really compare to many of today's top-tier weapons.

+Damage/Multishot are of course good stats to have. +Crit Chance/Damage can be good if you are trying for an odd Crit build, but will need very high values to be worth equipping. +Elemental Damage can be effective to save mod slots, shift biases and generally just add more damage. +Status Chance can be useful to stack procs even faster. +Faction Damage is effective against the correct faction, especially with damage-over-time procs. It is most useful against the Grineer, who are the toughest of the three base factions. +Fire Rate is a solid Burst DPS increase, but of course impacts ammo consumption and Reload Ratio. +Mag Capacity/Reload Speed can be nice quality-of-life if running +Fire Rate. +Projectile Speed can be useful especially at longer ranges.

-Crit Chance/Damage are good negatives if not going for a Crit build, the former being the better (or perhaps less-bad) of the two. -Faction Damage to the weaker factions (Corpus and Infested) can be quite manageable, and of course have no effect on other factions. -Fire Rate is a DPS loss, but can be easily compensated with a +Fire Rate mod. -Mag Capacity/Reload Speed are not major losses. -Ammo Max is largely a non-issue. -Projectile Speed is not a big issue in close quarters, and can be compensated for with +Projectile Speed in the Exilus slot. +Recoil has minimal impact. -Zoom is ideal for close quarters.