Weapon damage can be either Physical Damage or Elemental Damage. Each damage type is stronger against certain enemies and weaker against other enemies so it is important to know which damage type is best in certain scenarious, especially when fighting high level enemies – scroll down to see which damage types are more effective against various Infested, Corpus and Grineer enemies.
Physical damage can be either Impact, Puncture or Slash. Of these Slash is in general the best damage type against most enemies, especially on weapons with high status chance as the Slash procs is a bleed effect that deals damage-over-time (DOT) and bypasses shields and armor. However against certain units Impact or Puncture may be stronger – see details below.
The basic Elemental Damage types are Cold, Heat, Electricity and Magnetic. Elemental Damage types can be combined by adding two mods with different elemental damage types.
- Blast = Heat + Cold
- Corrosive = Electricity + Toxin
- Gas = Heat + Toxin
- Magnetic = Cold + Electricity
- Radiation = Heat + Electricity
- Viral = Cold + Toxin
Notice: if you add more than two Elemental damage mods the order you place the mods will determine how they are combined, e.g.
- Heat + Cold + Toxin results in Blast (Heat+Cold) + Toxin
- Toxin + Heat + Cold results in Gas (Toxin + Heat) + Cold
You can use MODS to increase the physical damage of your weapons or add new elemental damage types.
See the Warframe Wiki for more information about damage types.
Status Effects / Status Procs
A Status effect is a special effect that randomly occurs when you hit an enemy; this is also known as a “proc” = Programmed Random Occurrence. Some weapons have a higher status chance i.e. a higher probability for the status effect to proc. You can increase the status chance and duration with mods.
The bleed effect from Slash damage bypass any shield or armor which makes it a very strong damage type against enemies with strong shields and/or armor as the Slash procs will quickly kill them. For this reason weapons with high status chance and high Slash damage is in general more powerful against high level enemies.
Notice: Some bosses (e.g. the Teralyst / Gantulyst and Hydrolyst on Plains of Eidolon) are immune to Status effects and it is better to use weapons with high crit chance/damage instead.
The different physical and elemental damage types cause different effects when the status effects procs, see below for details. Status effects are very powerful against high level enemies but are less relevant for new players against low level enemies.
| Damage Type | Status effect |
|---|---|
| Impact | Stagger : the enemy will be pushed back and stagger for 6 seconds; this effect can stack up to 10 times |
| Puncture | Weakened: the enemy deals 30% less damage for 6 seconds; this can stack with several procs up to a max of 75% reduced damage |
| Slash | Bleed: Deals Damage-over-Time (DoT) for 6 seconds; each tick deals True Damage that bypasses shields and armor completely! |
| Cold | Freeze : enemy movement speed and fire/attack rate is reduced by 25% for 6 seconds; this stacks up to 70% |
| Electricity | Tesla Chain: Stuns the target and dels AoE damage in a radius of 3m from chain lightning. |
| Heat | Ignite: 6 the target is set on fire which causes them to run around in panic and reduce armor up to 50%; also deals a Heat Damage-over-Time (DoT) |
| Toxin | Poison: Toxin Damage-over-Time (DoT) for 6 seconds |
| Blast | Inaccuracy: gun accuracy is reduced by 30% for 6 seconds; this stacks up to 75%. Melee attacks are not affected. |
| Corrosive | Corrosion: reduces targets armour by 26% for a duration of 8 seconds; this stacks up to a maximum of 80% reduction. |
| Gas | Gas Cloud: 3m AoE Toxin DoT for 6 secs; this stacks with subsequent procs adding 0,3m up to a maximum of 6m. |
| Magnetic | Disrupt: increases damage to the shields by 100% and nullifies shield regeneration for 6 seconds; this stacks up to a maximum of 325% increased shield damage. |
| Radiation | Confusion: causes enemies to fire on each other for 12 seconds and deal 100% increased “friendly-fire” damage which stacks up to a maximum of 550% increased damage. |
| Viral | Virus: increases health damage by 100% for 6 seconds; this stacks up to a maximum of 325%. This effect ignores enemy armour. |
Critical Damage
All weapons have a chance of randomly hitting the enemy with a Critical hit, which cause increased damage. When a critical hit occurs, the normal damage is multiplied with the Critical Damage number.
The Critical Chance number defines how often you will get a Critical hit, e.g. a Critical Chance of 50% means for each two shots fired, one of them will likely be a Critical Hit (or crit for short). If your Critical Chance is 100% or more , every single hit will be a crit. As your Critical Chance gets higher than 100%, you will also have a chance of enhancing your normal yellow crit to a more powerful orange crit or a red crit, which is the most powerful.
Example of Critical Chance:
| Critical Chance | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 40% | There is a 40% chance that each hit will be a yellow crit and 60% chance the hit will just be a normal hit (no crit). |
| 100% | Every shot is a guaranteed yellow crit. |
| 130% | Every shot is a guaranteed crit with a 30% chance of an enhanced orange crit and a 70% chance of a normal yellow crit. |
| 200% | Every shot is a guaranteed orange crit. |
| 225% | 25% chance of a red crit, 75% chance of an orange crit. |
| 300% | Every shot is a guaranteed red crit. |
You can increase your Critical Chance and Critical Damage using mods; furthermore some warframe abilities can also boost the Critical Chance or Critical Damage. For example, firing through Volt‘s Electric Shield will multiply critical damage with 200% (this multiplier does not stack if you place more shields).
For more information see the Wiki.
Best Damage Types against each Faction
Each faction are vulnerable against certain damage types, which cause them to take 50% extra damage.
Factions may also be resistant against other damage types, which cause them to take 50% less damage.
For low and mid-level missions you do not have to worry too much about different damage types but for higher levels e.g. Steel Path you should choose the correct damage type on your weapons before starting the mission.
| Enemy Type | Vulnerable | Resistant |
|---|---|---|
| Infested | Heat and Slash | |
| Infested – Deimos | Blast (Heat + Cold) and Gas (Heat +Toxin) | Viral (Cold + Toxin) |
| Grineer | Corrosive (Toxin + Electricity) and Impact | |
| Kuva Grineer | Corrosive (Toxin + Electricity) and Impact | |
| Corpus | Magnetic (Electricity + Cold) and Puncture. Toxin is also good as it bypass the Corpus shields. | |
| Corpus Amalgam | Magnetic (Electricity + Cold) and Electricity | Blast (Heat + Cold) |
| Orokin | Viral (Cold + Toxin) + Puncture | Radiation (Heat + Electricity) |
| The Murmur | Radiation (Electricity + Heat) and Electricity | Viral (Cold + Toxin) |
| Narmer | Toxin and Slash | Magnetic (Cold + Electricity) |
| Zariman | Void | |
| Sentient | Radiation (Heat + Electricity) and Puncture | Corrosive (Electricity +Toxin) |