There’s a lot of weapons available in this game, with little in the way of explanation. While trying them out and deciding what you like is an option, these are my recommendations for weapons to aim towards while you find your feet. Note: Almost all of these can be bought straight from the market.

Primary: Your main ranged weapon, there are a huge number of options available, from high tech bows to flamethrowers and laser carbines. There’s almost guaranteed to be something that suits you.

Bows: With a small ammo pool, slow fire rate and a flight time, these can be unforgiving weapons – but they do get compensation in the form of very high damage and punch-through on fully drawn shots. I highly recommend using a fire rate mod (i.e. Speed Trigger) since it will let you charge an arrow much faster!

• Dread: (5) Dropped by the Stalker (he’ll try to hunt you down after you kill an assassination target) this bow boasts high damage and a 50% critical chance – use it with Point Strike and Vital Sense for constant critical hits!
• Paris: (3) A simple bow inferior to (but much easier to get than) Dread – a primed version comparable to Dread can be found in void relics, should you like how it handles.

Rifles: Home of the the workhorse assault rifles (as well as most beam weapons) rifles tend to have a large ammo pool and perform well in most situations.

• Braton: (0) A generic assault rifle that performs well enough – the primed version available through void relics is pretty good though, consistently applying bleed damage.
• Boltor: (2) Launch a hail of slow-moving spikes to impale enemies. Fairly satisfying to use, and a primed version and a syndicate version (void relics and Arbiters of Hexis) are available if you like the way it handles.
• Ignis: (5) Available from you clan dojo in the chemical weapons lab, this flamethrower sets everything in a large cone ablaze. It’s not a skilled weapon, but it can be effective – alternatively the Ignis Wraith can be sometimes be bought from Baro Kiteer (the Void Trader) in his bi-monthly visits. The Firestorm and Combustion Beam mods can do terrible things to groups of enemies, causing a chain reaction of explosions on a kill!
• Sybaris: (5) A stylish rifle that fires a two-round burst with deadly accuracy. Effective and classy, a primed variant can be found in void relics, and a Dex varient is given away to every player each anniversary of Warframe. Try this with critical mods!

Shotguns: High damage that decreases with distance and a reduced ammo pool. Shotguns can deal huge amounts of damage at a fast rate if you get in a medium-short range gunfight.

• Boar: (2) A rapid fire auto-shotgun, capable of doing high damage at short range, but eating through ammo reserves extremely quickly. A primed version can be found in void relics, should you decide you like it. This chews through ammo, so make sure you have a reliable secondary weapon!
• Hek: (4) A brutal quad-barrel shotgun that does high puncture damage. The Vaykor Hek variant can be bought from the Steel Meridian syndicate, but only the base version can take the Scattered Justice (+200% multishot) mod from the same group. Try the Fatal Acceleration mod if you want to counter the damage fall-off on long-ranged shots.
• Strun: (1) A simple shotgun with reasonable damage – you can upgrade this to the Strun Wraith by obtaining the parts from the invasion missions that pop up. The focus on impact damage and high pellet count means this can frequently stagger enemies, making it a good crowd control weapon.

Sniper Rifles: High damage with a limited ammo pool and slow reload. Sniper rifles have a combo-counter, granting a weapon-specific bonus for landing multiple hits while zoomed in. They also have innate punch-through so a skilled marksman can score multiple kills with the same shot.

• Vectis: (2) Bolt action sniper rifle that’s easy to use and gains extra head-shot damage when zoomed in. A primed version can be acquired from void relics. The single round magazine gives this synergy with the Primed/Charged Chamber mods.
• Vulkar: (3) The 6 round magazine may make this a bit more friendly to use than the Vectis – it’s a personal choice though. A Wraith variant can be sometimes be obtained from Baro Kiteer on his bi-monthly visit. With two unique mods (Lasting Purity and Meticulous Aim) this can deliver some catastrophic headshots.

Secondary: These don’t see so much use, but can cover gaps in your arsenal – take a rapid-fire pistol if your primary is a sniper rifle, for example.

• Atomos: (5) A chaining beam pistol, just hold the trigger to melt a room full of targets you can’t even see! Try modding this for status to spam disabling effects on everyone at once!
• Furis: (2) A workhorse machine-pistol that can be fitted with the Winds of Purity (heals you based on damage) mod from the New Loka syndicate. Dull but effective.
• Kunai: (2) Silent throwing darts that you can arc over terrain to hit foes in cover – you can increase the magazine capacity with the Stockpile Blight mod from the Red Veil syndicate, if you feel the need. Silent, so good if you want to try the stealthy approach.
• Lex: (3) An accurate, slow, high-damage hand-cannon. There’s not much to say here, it will get the job done and a prime variant can be farmed from void relics. Pistol Gambit and Target Cracker will give you nasty critical hits.

Melee: Not simply your last resort, melee weapons can deal massive damage in an area, with each quick swing adding to a combo-counter that you can spend on a heavy attack, multiplying the already increased damage for a colossal hit – the key is knowing when you can take the risk of getting that close to the enemy. Enemies that are caught off-guard (stealth, certain stun abilities, etc) are vulnerable to finisher attacks – getting close will show a button prompt to trigger a short animation that deals much more damage.

• Dark Dagger: (2) Dealing puncture, slash and radiation damage with a decent status chance, this blade can also fit the Gleaming Blight (extra status chance) mod from the Red Veil syndicate – or upgrade to the Rakta Dark Dagger from the same group. Combined with Gleaming Blight, this becomes an amazing tool to refill your energy!
• Galatine: (3) Cut through groups of enemies with this elegant, high-damage great-sword – or search for the primed counterpart in void relics. The reach of this weapon makes it great for dealing with crowds.
• Kestrel: (0) Send foes flying with heavy throws of this boomerang, upgradable with the Entropy Flight (faster travel speed) mod from the Cephalon Suda syndicate. Amazing crowd control against heavy units!
• Orthos: (2) Deal slash damage in a wide area with a decent critical chance using this polearm. A primed version is available from void relics. Quick and capable of handing out status effects to large groups.
• Redeemer: (4) A combined shotgun/blade, this versatile weapon can pack a punch at a distance – you can also obtain a Prime variant by unlocking Void Relics. Deadly when performing charged attacks – consider the Corrupt Charge and Killing Blow mods.
• Skana: (0) Simple and effective, this work-horse sword can use the Bright Purity (extra damage) mod from the New Loka syndicate. You can upgrade to the Prisma Skana sometimes offered by Baro Kiteer, the Void Trader.

Damage Types: Aside from the basic impact, puncture and slash damage, weapons can deal elemental damage based on your equipped mods. If you have two separate elemental mods (i.e. one for cold, one for electrical) they’ll combine into a new elemental type. If you have three types, only the first two will combine, and if you have four types, both the first pair and the second pair will combine. Each type of element deals bonus damage to certain targets based on their health, armour and shielding.

• Puncture: Good against armour, status reduces outgoing damage
• Impact: Good against shields, status can stagger a foe
• Slash: Good against flesh, status deals damage over time
• Cold: Good against advanced armour, status slows action speed
• Electric: Good against robots, bad against alloy armour, status stuns and damages
• Heat: Good against flesh and armour, status panics, reduces armour and damages
• Toxin: Good against flesh and ferrite armour, bypasses shields, status damages
• Blast: (C+H) Good against infested, status reduces accuracy
• Corrosive: (E+T) Good against armour & infested, status reduces armour
• Gas: (H+T) Only good against infested, status leaves damaging gas clouds
• Magnetic: (C+E) Good against shields, status increases shield damage
• Radiation: (E+H) Good against alloy armour, status confuses enemies
• Viral: (C+T) Good against anything organic, status increases health damage

So What Should I Use: Sometimes it’s worth tweaking your mods or the order they appear in to change damage type for a mission, but it’s a lot simpler to have a general purpose set up. Personally, I prefer Radiation and Viral as these work on grineer heavy units and bosses, who usually have a large health pool that’s covered by alloy armour. Many corpus bosses are also equipped with alloy armour, and every enemy in the game has health, so Viral is rarely worthless. Another possibility for a weapon with a high status chance is Heat and Viral, since armour will be halved, any organic target will be flailing around rather than shooting at you and their health will be taking anything from +100% to +200% additional damage from the viral effect. Finally, a high status chance alongside slash and viral damage can do a lot of damage, as the slash status effect ignores armour and will be doubled (or more) by the viral status effect.

Quick Set Up: So this is a starter load-out if you feel lost – use the Braton to take out groups and the Lex to take out tough enemies with head-shots. The Kestrel is versatile, useful for silently taking out enemies in spy missions or knocking-down a tough enemy with a thrown attack, allowing you to shoot them while they stand back up. The mods I’ve suggested will give you viral damage, useful in all content.

• Braton: Rapid-fire solution to mobs of enemies. Serration, Split Chamber, Cryo Rounds and Infected Clip.
• Lex: High damage at long range with great ammo economy. Barrel Diffusion, Hornet Strike, Deep Freeze and Pathogen Rounds.
• Kestrel: Melee you can throw for silent ranged damage and a rag-doll effect. Pressure Point, Killing Blow, Fever Strike and North Wind.