The Weapon Exilus Adapter

The Old Blood came out with many strange things, but one of the strangest things is the Weapon Exilus Adapter, a new item that allows you to unlock a new slot that has appeared on all primary and secondary weapons, just like the Warframe Exilus Adapter.

Now, for Warframes, the Exilus Adapter is there for utility mods only. This is where you put mods like Rush (for sprint speed), the hacking and loot radar mods, or things like increased bullet jump or reduced friction. In theory, at least, none of these mods are supposed to do any damage, as they’re supposed to be pure utility. That being said, a lot of the mods you can put on Exilus slots do some damage in some way – there are four elemental mods and three physical damage mods that add those types of damage to bullet jumps, but the damage dealt is negligible. Then again, the Drift Mods kinda spit in the face of that since they DO affect damage output. Particularly Power Drift, which gives you +15% ability strength.

The Weapon Exilus Adapter has the same problem. The mods intended to go in the Weapon Exilus Adapter slot are all supposed to be utility mods, mods that you can’t fit in a build and don’t technically do any damage. Mods that reduce recoil, mods that increase maximum ammo, mods that affect mobility like aim glide and zoom. What you won’t find here are mods for reload speed or magazine capacity. Because they affect damage. Or rather, they affect damage output. Because being able to shoot more bullets or reload faster does that. Weirdly, being able to have projectiles moving faster also theoretically increases damage output because your projectiles are more likely to hit, but projectile speed increasing mods are fine. Although, that being said, range mods (e.g. Sinister Reach) that affect the maximum range of a weapon and its fall-off aren’t fine.

So really you don’t have a lot to actually put into these weapon Exilus slots. The most useful mods are the projectile speed mods by a mile. If you’re not using a projectile-based weapon, then I suppose you could put Ammo Mutation mods in but Carrier can kinda do that for you and if you have ammo pads, you’re basically never going to run out of ammo either. The few weapons I have unlocked Exilus slots on, I have put the silencing mods on them.

Or at least I would, since I’ve gotten round to forma-ing them all. Because most secondary weapons have a lot of expensive mods already. Hornet Strike and the two Multishot mods alone have a total cost of 35 capacity (assuming no polarized slots) and when you add in your Primed Critical Chance and Critical Damage mods, you barely even have room for elemental mods. The above Kuva Seer is a good example – I already have 4 Forma in it and I might not actually be able to use the Exilus slot because this isn’t a complete build yet.

But you know what? I’d be fine with these Exilus Adapters for weapons. But they do currently have a downside. It seems that pretty much all Exilus slots come pre-forma’d. You want an example? The Ignis Wraith’s exilus slot is a V polarity, which means I can only really stick two mods in it, and I’m pretty sure I can’t put projectile speed in that slot. The Ignis on the other hand comes with a – exilus slot but would need a Forma anyway for me to be able to put anything in that slot, because it comes with no polarities by default. In fact, I’d probably need a 7th Forma in my current Ignis so I can fit Hush in.

So not only do we not really have room for Exilus mods in the first place, even when we can use them, they require unlocking with a somewhat pricey item and you need extra Forma to be able to use them even remotely efficiently.

On the flip side, at least weapon Exilus adapters are pretty cheap. You can get the blueprints for 75k standing from Syndicates or as the rare reward in any Requiem relic. While they do need a Forma to build them, they are still cheaper than Warframe Exilus Adapters.

In the mean time though, it’s only worth using these on your most favourite weapons that you already have forma’d. Because otherwise it’s too much work.