Ranking Exalted Weapons – Warframe’s Best and Worst Exalted Weaponry
Exalted weapons are awesome. The ability to suddenly summon a weapon of death out of thin air is just so cool. Even if you’re already armed with an explosive bow, the badassery of summoning another bow is too cool to pass up. But there are lots of exalted weapons, and they’re all definitely not equal. In today’s article, I’m going to rank all twelve exalted weapons.
Note: this is mostly based on personal opinion. You can get HUGE damage numbers on all of these. In fact, properly modded, these are all insane. But I like to consider usability and coolness as well.
12. Garuda’s Talons
Ranked in last place, we have Garuda’s Talons, which just… they don’t fit in. Not only are Garuda’s Talons not tied to an ability, but they require ditching your melee weapon to use them. That would be fine if these talons were actually good, but they’re somewhat gimped by their mediocre stances. Garuda’s Talons also don’t have the gimmick that makes Venka Prime so strong, the additional combo count.
Simply put, why use Garuda’s Talons when you can use any melee you like? That being said, they are cool though.
11. Iron Staff
Wukong’s Primal Fury is actually the weakest part of an amazing kit. Despite getting bigger and longer with increasing combos, Iron Staff is kinda… weird. The combos Iron Staff has aren’t very interesting and quickly get repetitive, and a well-build melee weapon tends to do more damage. Primal Fury also forces Wukong’s Celestial Twin to use Iron Staff as well, when you’re often better off letting it use your primary weapon while you melee things.
Unfortunately, Primal Fury is so mediocre that it often gets replaced with Helminth abilities.
10. Ironbride
Did you forget about Necramechs? I nearly did. That being said, I don’t know why but I just can’t get behind Ironbride, the exalted sword that the Bonewidow mech carries. While Bonewidow did get some nice buffs, there’s a weird anti-synergy to all her abilities, and Ironbride is just an exalted Archwing sword. Unfortunately, Archwing melees are just not very good, so Ironbride suffers as well. If Ironbride used normal melee mods, it would be a fine weapon.
9. Diwata
Titania’s Razorwing form has two weapons: a melee and a pair of guns. Diwata, the melee, is oddly the weaker of the two, and by quite a way. Its stats wouldn’t be too bad, if it wasn’t for the fact that Titania in melee range is dangerous. More annoyingly though, Diwata falls to the side for usability reasons. Although there is some automatic targeting, Titania ends up losing too much damage by wasting time crashing into things. It’s generally easier just to shoot things, rather than to melee them.
8. Balefire
Balefire is a weird one, because it’s actually a pretty damn good weapon. Costing shields to fire, the damage is definitely there, but the fire rate is pretty awful. The good news is that Balefire does primarily electric damage, giving easy access to Radiation and Corrosive elements. However, it will ragdoll enemies if you have overshields, which can be a nuisance to aiming, and, since everything else costs shields as well, it gets pricey to use.
What makes Balefire worse is that it’s the only ability you can use during Aegis Storm. While a second Balefire Charger will appear, it’s purely cosmetic. Come on, if we’re locked out of all other weapons and abilities during Aegis Storm, at least let us use akimbo rocket launcher sidearms!
7. Artemis Bow
Bows these days have a huge amount of competition. The Kuva Bramma is bonkers, the Lenz is a nuke and pretty much all the Cernos variants are good. Heck, the Cernos Prime is basically Artemis Bow but for other Warframes. That’s not to say that Artemis Bow is bad. It’s not. It’s probably the second best bow after the Kuva Bramma. Artemis Bow fires a volley of arrows that hit hard. However, the spread on these arrows is based on how long you hold the fire key down for. If this was a simple toggle – between horizontal and vertical spread – Artemis Bow would be way more useful.
Concentrated Arrow does make Artemis Bow more direct. Getting headshots causes explosions that are very much on par with the Kuva Bramma. But you do exchange seven arrows for one.
6. Exalted Blade
Exalted Blade is the original exalted weapon, and it still holds up pretty damn well, both in damage and in coolness. Simple, effective and easy to use, the Exalted Blade has carried many a newbie. It’s also got one of the nicer augments and a nice ability tie-in. Doing a slide attack will cast Radial Blind and Slash Dash gains extra damage.
Using the augment Chromatic Blade, you can easily increase Exalted Blade’s damage further, and change its status type, which is handy.
5. Dex Pixia
Titania’s pretty unique in appearing twice on this list, and for good reason. While Diwata is just okay, Dex Pixia is insane. These dual weapons tear through enemies like cotton candy. Hemocytes in particular melt into nothingness and, best of all, you have theoretically infinite ammo. Most Archwing guns don’t hit as hard as Dex Pixia do, and you’re also a tiny, floating pixie as well.
While not quite as powerful as Mesa’s Regulators, Dex Pixia gives you mobility and evasion, so you can zoom around to your heart’s content.
4. Hysteria
Valkyr’s Talons rank highly on this list for two reasons: firstly, you’re invulnerable while using them. Sure, you take some damage after exiting Hysteria if you’re not careful. But these claws cleave their way through pretty much everything, and they combo insanely well with Valkyr’s War Cry. Not only are you invulnerable though, Valkyr’s energy costs aren’t actually that high, and you can keep on clawing for a long time.
3. Peacemaker
Really, Mesa’s regulators are probably a little too strong. Their base damage is already insanely good, but since they’re pistols, they have access to so much more damage. In fact, Mesa is so strong that she’s a common staple all over the solar system, mostly thanks to Peacemaker. And you barely have to aim. Generally just swinging your cursor in an enemy’s direction is enough to mow down most threats.
You can even negate the one single downside, being unable to move, with a single mod. That fits in the otherwise mostly unused Exilus slot.
2. Serene Storm
At first glance, Baruuk seems kinda weird. His exalted weapons are his own fists, and it kinda looks like Serene Storm is a last-resort ability. In a heavy enough crowd though, you can fight on almost indefinitely. Desert Wind, a melee, sparring-based weapon, not only creates waves of deadly energy, but if you strike with your fists proper, skulls just cave in. Reactive Storm however takes this ability to extremes. Not only can do you HUGE damage, but your damage CHANGES to better harm its intended target. With Reactive Storm alone, even the Steel Path bends to your might.
Probably the only thing holding Baruuk back is the fact that you have restraint. But Baruuk’s restraint meter is easy to break down, especially if you use plenty of his other abilities. And get shot at a lot.
1. Arquebex
The overall most insane, craziest and probably most powerful exalted weapon though is the Voidrig’s Guard Mode, using the Arquebex twin guns. With mods, the Arquebex EASILY hits 100% status chance and 100% critical chance. Meaning every single massive projectile does huge damage. While the Voidrig’s Guard Mode does have heavy energy drain and forces you to be immobile, it doesn’t really matter. Infinite ammo and a base damage of 12,000 damage (split between Heat and Blast) means very little can survive the Arquebex’s onslaught.
It’s so powerful that we’re not allowed to use it on Profit Taker, for fear of making Profit Taker too easy and nuking the robot with a single bullet.
The amazing thing is that the Arquebex is actually silently nerfed. On release, it could EASILY do millions in damage… in a single shot. Yet even now the Arquebex has the highest base damage in the game. It’s so insanely strong that the only thing that holds it back is the fact it’s an exalted weapon for a Necramech.
And there we have it, all our exalted weapons, judged by me. Of course, I could have made this a top 5 or top 10 list. But with only 12 exalted weapons so far, two of them belonging to Titania, I might as well judge them all.
Seriously though, Arquebex is fun. You should try it.