Pseudo-exalted weapons are about to get a real spot in the arsenal when Warframe's Techrot Encore update is released on March 19.
Unable to benefit from melee mods, pseudo-exalted weapons have fallen behind their counterparts in the endgame of the long-running online shooter. Meanwhile, exalted weapons like energy swords, ricocheting sniper rifles and magic tomes are the crown jewels of certain Warframe ability kits and have remained a core part of the game's power fantasy since Day 1.
Pseudo-exalted weapons have historically held back the Warframes they're attached to, becoming a real point of contention in the Warframe community.
If you're wondering which Warframes have pseudo-exalted weapons and how they're getting buffed, we have all of the details here.
Read more:Â The World of Warframe Gets Weirder Than Ever With a Living Guitar
What are pseudo-exalted weapons and which Warframes have them?
Atlas and his knuckledusters are about to get a tune-up with the Techrot Encore update.
Pseudo-exalted weapons attack enemies with Warframe-specific melee abilities, but aren't able to be channeled -- that means you can't run around swinging senselessly on enemies while draining your energy pool. It also means that you can't mod these weapons to scale them up to harder content.
The Warframes getting buffed through the pseudo-exalted weapon changes are Khora, Gara, Atlas and Ash.
All of these Warframes have pseudo-exalted weapons that previously scaled with specific mods on your equipped melee weapon. Making these pseudo-exalted weapons usable against more challenging enemies usually meant sacrificing the effectiveness of whatever sword you had equipped (rendering it a "stat stick").
Here are the pseudo-exalted weapons in each Warframe's kit:
- Khora's Whipclaw: Cracking her whip, Khora creates a small explosion centered around the first enemy or targetable entity hit near the target reticle.
- Gara's Shattered Lash: Shards of glass loose from Gara's grip, striking out and embedding in nearby enemies. Gara can fire this ability in a straight line or arc it across a horizontal path.
- Atlas' Landslide: The titanic stone brawler shatters enemies with a devastating punch. Atlas wields his fists as weapons, altogether eschewing a sword.
- Ash's Blade Storm: Summoning shadow clones, Ash becomes a vortex of bloodshed as marked enemies find a dagger planted in their back before they can react.
Big buffs for pseudo-exalted weapons
Gara's abilities synergize well together, and her Shattered Lash buff might even make her Spectrorage ability more powerful.
Pseudo-exalted weapons are about to get their own slot in players' arsenals. That means you'll be able to mod these abilities with every applicable melee mod, just like Valkyr's Talons.
Damage mods like Pressure Point and Spoiled Strike will make these abilities scale up to endgame content, and the other mod slots will allow players to build out more specialized critical- or status-focused builds.
Each pseudo-exalted weapon is getting its own stance mod, reducing the amount of Forma you'll have to use to get these abilities working at the highest level. Players can also slot an arcane into the ability to empower their build.
These changes to pseudo-exalted weapons indirectly buff the affected Warframes in another way. Now that they don't have to carry stat sticks to empower their ability, players can pair Khora, Gara, Atlas and Ash with melee weapons that are deadly in their own right.
Players can enjoy the benefits of this massive quality-of-life change when Warframe's Techrot Encore update launches on March 19.