Review: Spira Prime (U31.1.8)

The Spira Prime is an MR10 Thrown Secondary. Sporting impressive Crit, it is one of the strongest Thrown Secondaries in the game, however pales in comparison to more conventional weapons.

Acquisition

Standard Prime weapon stuff, the Spira Prime Blueprint and Components drop from various Void Relics. As of writing, it is Vaulted so these Relics cannot currently be acquired. The parts and Relics are still tradeable from other players if you so wish.

Stats

The Spira Prime is clearly a Crit weapon, with some of the highest Crit stats of any Secondary. A Status Chance of 14% is not great with relatively low Fire Rate of 3.33, but still reliable for a few procs. Majority Puncture damage is unfortunate, as Puncture is a mediocre damage type and poor proc.

A decent Mag Capacity and very fast Reload Time result in a very good Reload Ratio of 4.5.

As a typical Thrown Secondary, the SpiraP is innately Silent. With the introduction of the Exilus mod slot, this is much less notable as all weapons can be made Silent without sacrificing a primary mod slot. It also suffers from projectile travel time and drop, which can make combat outside of close range more difficult.

Note that upon kill, the SpiraP's projectiles will ragdoll the killed enemy and continue travelling forward, akin to most arrows fired by Bow-type weapons. This pseudo-Punch-Through effect doesn't compare to actual Punch-Through, but is better than nothing.

Augments

None.

Builds

Basic 0-Forma: 

Two innate V polarities are quite helpful in fitting a basic build. Depending on what elemental mods you have available, you may be able to fit something like the above build. Just one 60/60 elemental mod is required for a standard 2-element build with all the other basics. Of course, having mods below max rank can also help you fit mods in.

Primed Target Cracker 0-Forma:

If you have one of the Primed Crit mods as well as all 60/60s for your desired elemental combos, you can fit in one of said Primed Crit mod thanks to a V polarity.

The usual elemental combos are all here. Viral has a near-universal proc, so is effective against almost everything. Corrosive is very strong against Ferrite-armour enemies, as well as most heavier Infested particularly those on the Cambion Drift. Radiation is quite strong against Alloy-armoured enemies. Pure Toxin is great against most unarmoured Corpus, bypassing their Shields entirely to strike at their often-weaker Health. For the tiny number of enemies whose Shields are legitimately tough, Magnetic is quite strong.

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

Primed Crit 1-Forma:

One added V polarity lets you fit in both Primed Crit mods, even with space for one 90% elemental instead of a cheaper 60/60.

Recommended Setups: see above.

General Purpose 2-Forma:

With another added V polarity, you can start looking at an eighth mod. Depending on your choice, even more Forma might be needed.

A third elemental mod can be decent, as it offers several uniquely effective combinations. Adding Heat alongside Viral or Corrosive is very strong, as its proc both reduces armour and stacks up a very strong damage-over-time effect. Combining Radiation and Toxin give a very nice Corpus catch-all, hitting most of their Health types effectively.

Augur Pact is a small, no-fuss damage boost. Magnum Force is stronger but its accuracy penalty can be very frustrating. Both are poor choices when Arcanes are included. A Primed Expel mod is a strong option, but these are very expensive to max out and tedious to switch per target. Hydraulic Crosshairs and Sharpened Bullets are decent conditional Crit-boosting mods.

Concealed Explosives is an option available to ordinary Thrown Secondaries. It adds an 80% chance to deal 250 Blast damage in a 10m radius with self-stagger/knockdown, and the damage can only be increased by a (Primed) Expel mod. As such, it is typically best on high Fire Rate weapons, which the SpiraP definitely is not. However, it still offers a (very weak) AoE that can be very helpful against crowds - but only very low level ones.

In the Exilus slot, the most notable option is Lethal Momentum. The increased Projectile Speed can be very helpful beyond close range.

Recommended Setups: see above. Also consider: Viral + Heat vs everything, Corrosive + Heat vs Ferrite-armour, Infested, Radiation + Toxin vs Corpus

Galvanised Build and Arcane

Galvanised Diffusion of course. 

Galvanised Shot on-paper offers a lot of damage, but in practice is often only barely worth using. With such heavy Puncture bias, the SpiraP rarely inflicts any other Physical Status procs. As such, it will only consistently beat out Hornet Strike with a three-element build (or extra assistance).

Galvanised Crosshairs is an option alongside or even instead of Primed Pistol Gambit. At full stacks, it offers far more Crit Chance than PPG. It of course relies on consistent headshots, which is doable with some skill since the changes several years ago to Thrown Secondary trajectories.

Both Arcanes offer their own value. Deadhead combines well if you are also running Galv Crosshairs, offering extra peak damage and stacking up much faster as it only requires three stacks for full damage. The Recoil reduction is useless though.

Merciless offers faster Reload Time which is always nice, and does not rely on headshots to stack. However, it requires far more stacks and loses them more quickly, which is troublesome on a weapon like SpiraP that does not kill hordes of enemies very efficiently. Its +Ammo Max bonus is not particularly useful.

My Build

Standard Viral build. If I were to install an Arcane, I'd drop Hornet Strike and slot in either Scorch for Heat, or Seeker for Punch-Through.

Combat Use and Summary

With such heavy Crit focus, the Spira Prime fares best against unarmoured/Status-immune heavy enemies. It deals solid DPS by Secondary standards and benefits greatly from Critical Headshots. However, it falls down against most other targets.

Relatively low Fire Rate and no AoE to speak of makes the SpiraP fairly poor against crowds. While it can comfortably kill weak enemies one-by-one, and its ragdoll-on-kill effect can be helpful, it ultimately is not very efficient against large numbers.

Additionally, it does not scale very well against high-level armoured enemies. With majority Puncture damage, it does not inflict Slash procs reliably, and its mediocre Status Chance and low Fire Rate means it does not quickly stack up elemental procs either. As a result, though the SpiraP can brute-force through lower-level armoured enemies, its effectiveness plummets drastically as levels increase.

Suffering from both projectile travel time and projectile drop, it can be difficult to use the SpiraP at longer ranges. At the very least, its low Fire Rate and fairly large Spare Ammo of 210 mean that ammo economy is rarely an issue.

Innate silencing was more notable before the Weapon Exilus slot was introduced. Previously, silencing normal weapons meant losing a very crucial mod slot, which very few weapons wanted to do - giving innately silenced weapons a minor niche. Now every weapon can be silenced by using the appropriate mod in the Weapon Exilus slot, which is a much less valuable slot most of the time anyway.

Overall, the Spira Prime is arguably the strongest of the "normal" Thrown Secondaries, with by far the best Crit and overall DPS. However, it struggles to compare against most other well-regarded Secondaries, with few, if any advantages.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 2/5 - Relatively low Fire Rate with no AoE to speak of makes the SpiraP relatively poor against crowds. Concealed Explosive can add some AoE but deals low damage as its explosive damage is static and does not scale with the weapon. While useful at low levels, it does almost nothing against high level enemies. A great Reload Ratio helps a little, as does pseudo-Punch-Through on kill.

Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 4/5 - Great Crit gives the SpiraP surprisingly good DPS, even by Secondary standards. It can deal a decent amount of direct damage, especially if landing consistent headshots.

Vs Armoured Heavies without Forced Slash: 2/5 - With low Fire Rate and mediocre Status Chance, the SpiraP does not inflict a great deal of procs. Majority Puncture also doesn't help, preventing reliable Slash procs. A Viral, Corrosive or Radiation build can do decent damage against the appropriate target, but this falls off very quickly at higher levels.

Vs Armoured Heavies with Forced Slash: NA/5 - SpiraP does not inflict anywhere near enough Impact procs for Hemorrhage to be worth using.

Vs Variants

The MR10 Spira Prime is a majority upgrade over the MR8 Spira. A lower base Damage is easily compensated with a higher Crit Multiplier, as well as nice improvements in Status Chance, Fire Rate, Mag Capacity and Reload Time.

Competitors

Against other silenced Thrown Secondaries, there is minimal contest, partly as the category is so barren.

The MR4 Hikou Prime is more Status-capable and better suited for Concealed Explosives, but deals pathetically low damage and is near-useless in high-level content.

The MR7 Fusilai is notably both more Status-capable and has good Slash-bias, so can reliably inflict Slash procs. However, it deals far less direct damage and has half the Mag Capacity, so is otherwise a much weaker weapon.

The Sancti Castanas and Talons are both manual-detonation explosives, while the Staticor is also a loud explosive weapon. They all serve vastly different roles to the SpiraP.

 

If we look at more general slow-firing Secondaries though, the comparison becomes much more problematic. Many other weapons can achieve comparable or superior DPS, often with other superior attributes as well. Below is just a small sample of somewhat comparable Secondaries.

The MR14 Pandero Prime is a fair bit stronger, notably with decent Slash-bias and higher Status Chance. Higher base Damage easily makes up for slightly lower Crit Multiplier. In exchange, the SpiraP retains superior Fire Rate, Mag Capacity and Reload Time. The net result is that the PanderoP is much more effective against all types of single targets, while being a little worse against groups.

The MR14 Sepulcrum is also quite strong. Again it has a lower Crit Multiplier, but has higher total base Damage, notably with a small AoE for superior anti-crowd capabilities. It trades a very long Reload Time for a massive Mag Capacity. Additionally, its wacky Alternate Fire can deal massive bursts of extra damage.

A Tombfinger Kitgun is a strong competitor as well. A high Crit, high base Damage/low Fire Rate build give it an enormous direct damage advantage again with a small AoE, as well as comparable/superior Reload Ratio.

Finally, the MR14 Tenet Spirex is also a very strong weapon. It again sports far higher base Damage (especially when including Sister bonus) + AoE in exchange for lower Crit (still having superior DPS), but also notably an enormous Status Chance advantage.

Overall, while the Spira Prime has a strong argument as the best "normal" Thrown Secondary, it quickly falls by the wayside when compared to other Secondaries.

Rivens

The Spira Prime has a high 4/5 (1.2) Riven Disposition, with the regular Spira being even higher at 4/5 (1.3). This seems quite fair as neither weapons is notably powerful or popular.

+Damage/Multishot/Crit Chance/Crit Damage are the standard good positives, with the latter two being more valuable with Galv mods and Arcanes in the mix. +Elemental Damage is a nice damage boost and can save a mod slot. +Slash could be nice if you are trying to eke out more Slash procs, though it would only be noticeable alongside -Puncture. +Faction Damage to Grineer can be a nice extra damage increase. The other two possible Factions are on average much weaker. +Fire Rate is a decent DPS increase, but will also result in much more frequent reloads. +Mag Capacity/Reload Speed can be nice, if rather small, quality-of-life. +Projectile Speed is very helpful beyond close range. +Punch-Through is very useful against tightly packed groups.

All of -Impact/Puncture/Slash have value. -Impact has almost no effect on damage output or useful procs. -Slash has minimal impact on damage output, but reduces the chance of one useful proc; granted its proc chance is already so low that it is a minor loss at worst. -Puncture is the most significant damage loss, but also opens the way for more frequent Slash procs, which can be very useful. -Faction Damage to the weaker Factions (Corpus and especially Infested) can be manageable and has no effect on other targets. -Ammo Max is largely a non-issue on a relatively ammo-efficient weapon. +Recoil has no effect. -Zoom is useful for close quarters.