Heavy Weapons Frames – Archwing Guns on the Ground

“I am Heavy Weapons Frame. And THIS is my weapon.”

When I first conjured up the title of this article, I had very little to say about Archwing guns being used on land. Mostly because I only had the Grattler available for use outside of Archwing missions and the costs to using Archwing weapons were way too fucking high. You see, Archwing guns were always “too heavy to use in an atmosphere” and were “designed for space use only”, but the Profit-Taker bounties gave us an excuse. All we had to do was install a Gravimag on our Archwing guns to make them lighter.

Sure, you get one after your first completion of the third Profit-Taker bounty, but if you want more, you have to have a clan that as researched the blueprint, then grind through the Profit-Taker bounties to get the exclusive reward components, then wait THREE DAYS for the stupidly expensive blueprint to build. You could build a whole Warframe in less time, especially since anything but the stage 2 Profit-Taker bounty takes too long and the drop chances on the rare parts are mediocre.

Alternatively, you can buy Gravimags for 20 platinum each on the market. Which you could get by selling 2 filled Anasa Ayatan Sculptures. I did that, because I have too much platinum.

To use an Archwing gun, you need to install both a Gravimag and an Orokin Catalyst (the blue potato) on your gun of choice. You then need to equip the Archwing gun launcher in your gear menu. When you’re in a mission, you select the item from your gear menu and sit through a tediously long animation.

Now, when this was released, you 1. had very little ammo and 2. when that ammo ran out, you would have to sit through a 10 minute cooldown. Everyone fucking hated that, especially me when I started this article, but within a week, the Archwing guns were given more ammo and the cooldown was reduced to 5 minutes, further reduced depending on time and ammo used. With those problems gone, there are only two real issues, the loading in animation and one other, which I will get to in a second.

The Archwing guns though are REALLY FUN. Well, some of them. The Velocitus is the preferred weapon of choice for Profit-Taker runs for its sheer single-shot damage, but it’s slow and awkward to use on human-sized enemies and the charge attack is too slow. The Grattler is fun in the Profit-Taker fight but in the tight corridors of a Corpus ship, you tend to blow yourself up with the innate Blast damage. The Fluctus is still awesome, but the one that surprised me most was the Imperator, simply because of how Heavy Weapons Guy-y it is. It is so much fun mowing down enemies, especially with the Imperator Vandal and its huge magazine.

That is, assuming you don’t get mowed down as you deploy your massive gun. Using it at the wrong time locks you in place, so Archwing guns really don’t work for “OH SHIT” moments. You need to pick your moment. Or just use your Archwing gun at the start of the mission. Archwing guns do slow you down and make you drop like a brick while Aim-gliding, but they’ll do fine on most normal star chart missions.

But the thing is, Archwing guns overall are only about as good as your normal weapons. Why use the Grattler or Imperator when I can mow things down with the Supra or the Gorgon? The Tigris and the new Exergis do what the Velocitus does without a tedious animation. And all normal weapons have WAY more modding options than Archwing guns, giving you more choice on how you want to build things.

At the end of the day, Archwing guns are a joy to use, but when you really need to kill things, often your normal guns are easier.