Unleash Your Inner Gunslinger: The Ultimate Mesa Weapon Guide
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Mesa, the gunslinger Warframe, is renowned for her devastating ability to unleash a hail of bullets with her Peacemaker ability. However, maximizing her potential requires careful consideration of your weapon loadout. The best weapons for Mesa are those that complement her kit, provide utility outside of Peacemaker, and allow you to efficiently handle various enemy types and mission objectives. Specifically, you should focus on weapons that benefit from her passive, offer strong crowd control, or provide single-target damage for situations where Peacemaker isn’t ideal. This guide dives deep into weapon choices for Mesa, offering recommendations and strategies to make you a true force to be reckoned with.
Primary Weapon Choices
While Peacemaker is Mesa’s primary source of damage, a strong primary weapon is still crucial for pre-Peacemaker setup, dealing with nullifiers, and handling mission objectives like hacking or reviving teammates.
Status-Based Weapons
Weapons that excel at applying status effects are fantastic for Mesa. They weaken enemies, making them more vulnerable to your Peacemaker and your team’s attacks. Good examples include:
- Ignis Wraith: This flamethrower is incredible for applying Heat status, which strips armor over time. The Ignis Wraith’s wide cone of fire makes it easy to hit multiple enemies, synergizing well with Mesa’s crowd control needs before activating Peacemaker.
- Tenet Envoy: While a rocket launcher might seem counterintuitive for Mesa, the Tenet Envoy’s rockets apply multiple status effects, including Impact, Blast, and Heat. Its powerful punch-through and seeking rockets make it a superb weapon in open spaces and against clustered enemies.
- Acceltra: This auto-rifle fires explosive projectiles, doing blast damage, which makes a lot of enemies stagger.
Critical Hit Focused Weapons
Although Mesa’s Peacemakers have guaranteed accuracy, the primary weapon can greatly benefit with critical hit focuses. Weapons that excel at critical hits are fantastic for Mesa.
- Rubico Prime: This sniper is a solid choice to eliminate high level enemies.
- Dread: This bow is a powerful choice as it is silent and excels at critical hits.
Utility Options
- Kuva Bramma: While requiring careful aim to avoid self-stagger, the Kuva Bramma’s explosive arrows offer unparalleled crowd control and the ability to clear rooms quickly. This is best used for general missions.
- Cedo: The Cedo’s glaive projectile applies status effects to a wide area, and its shotgun alt-fire provides excellent burst damage.
Secondary Weapon Choices
Mesa’s passive provides bonuses to secondary weapons, making them even more valuable. A well-chosen secondary can significantly enhance your damage output and overall effectiveness.
Akimbo Powerhouses
Dual-wielded pistols receive a 15% fire rate bonus, making them ideal for maximizing damage.
- Akjagara Prime: Mesa’s signature weapon is a fantastic choice. Its high base damage and critical stats make it a potent weapon, especially when modded for critical chance and damage.
- Akvasto Prime: With high damage, critical chance and status, this is a great secondary choice.
- Aksomati Prime: A high fire rate and the status effects make this a solid selection.
Single-Handed Precision
Single-handed pistols gain a 25% reload speed bonus, which can be crucial for maintaining DPS.
- Epitaph: A powerful sidearm choice due to its high base damage.
- Kuva Nukor: Though not traditionally a damage dealer, the Kuva Nukor excels at applying status effects, specifically Heat and Radiation, priming enemies for massive damage from your Peacemaker. It’s also an excellent choice for weakening tough targets like Eidolons.
- Sporelacer Kitgun: Built with the Sporelacer chamber, this Kitgun fires explosive projectiles with high status chance. It’s a great option for spreading status effects and softening up groups of enemies.
- Tenet Diplos: They can mark an enemy and will automatically track the enemies marked.
Utility Pistols
- Laetum: The Laetum’s incarnon form is one of the strongest in the game, making this pistol an excellent choice for damage.
- Tenet Spirex: They can mark enemies and will apply cold status to them.
- Cyanex: Chains between nearby enemies.
Melee Weapon Choices
While Mesa isn’t typically a melee-focused Warframe, having a reliable melee weapon is still essential for dealing with certain situations.
Stat Stick Melee
Since Mesa relies heavily on abilities, using a “stat stick” melee weapon modded for Channeling Efficiency is a good idea. This can provide various buffs for Mesa’s abilities.
- Ceramic Dagger: A decent option with a fast attack rate.
- Reaper Prime: A useful choice for fast attacking
Heavy Attack Melee
- Paracesis: The paracesis deals more damage to sentients.
Gunblades
Gunblades are a unique weapon type that can be both melee and ranged.
- Redeemer Prime: Mesa’s signature gunblade, this weapon is great. It can inflict a great amount of damage at range.
- Stropha: High damage and range makes it an excellent choice.
Key Considerations for Modding
When modding your weapons for Mesa, keep the following in mind:
- Status Chance: If you’re using a status-based primary or secondary, prioritize increasing the status chance to maximize the effectiveness of your status procs.
- Critical Chance and Damage: For weapons focused on dealing direct damage, focus on increasing critical chance and damage to amplify your overall DPS.
- Fire Rate: Increasing the fire rate of your secondary weapons can further boost your damage output, especially with dual-wielded pistols.
- Reload Speed: If you prefer using single-handed pistols, prioritize reload speed mods to minimize downtime between shots.
- Utility Mods: Consider using utility mods like Hush or Suppress on your primary weapon to reduce enemy awareness and allow you to approach enemies undetected.
FAQs: Mesa Weaponry
1. Does Mesa’s Peacemaker benefit from my secondary weapon mods?
No, Peacemaker uses its own set of stats and mod calculations based on the Regulators. Secondary weapon mods do not directly affect Peacemaker’s damage or performance.
2. Is it worth using a primary weapon with Mesa, or should I focus solely on Peacemaker?
Yes, a primary weapon is still valuable. While Peacemaker is your main damage dealer, a primary weapon provides versatility, crowd control, and the ability to handle situations where Peacemaker isn’t ideal, such as dealing with Nullifiers or hacking terminals.
3. What’s the best way to deal with Nullifiers as Mesa?
Use your primary weapon to shoot the Nullifier bubble before activating Peacemaker. Alternatively, you can use a weapon with high punch-through to shoot through the bubble and damage the Nullifier directly.
4. Does Mesa’s passive affect Kitguns?
Yes, Mesa’s passive reload speed bonus affects single-handed Kitguns, and the fire rate bonus affects dual Kitguns.
5. What’s the best melee weapon stance for Mesa?
The best melee stance depends on your weapon and playstyle. However, stances that offer quick attacks and good mobility are generally preferred. For stat sticks, use a stance that allows for fast Channeling Efficiency buffs.
6. Is Mesa good for Eidolon hunting?
While not ideal, Mesa can contribute to Eidolon hunts by weakening enemies with status effects from her primary or secondary weapon.
7. How does Mesa’s Shooting Gallery ability interact with my weapons?
Shooting Gallery provides a weapon damage bonus to an ally, improving their damage. It also jams the weapons of nearby enemies, providing some crowd control.
8. Should I use a silenced weapon on Mesa?
Using a silenced weapon can be beneficial for stealth missions or for approaching enemies undetected before engaging with Peacemaker.
9. Does Mesa benefit from headshots with her weapons?
While landing headshots can increase damage, Mesa’s Peacemaker targets bodies. You should use weapons that rely on pistol kills, not headshots.
10. What are the best Archon Shards for Mesa?
Tauforged Crimson Archon Shards will give you extra Crit Rate, making you a formidable threat.
11. Does Mesa benefit from using a Riven Mod on her secondary weapon?
Yes, a well-rolled Riven Mod can significantly enhance your secondary weapon’s stats, making it even more effective for dealing damage and applying status effects.
12. How do I maximize Mesa’s damage output with her weapons?
Focus on building for status chance, critical chance, and damage, depending on your weapon of choice. Experiment with different mod combinations to find what works best for your playstyle and the types of missions you’re running.
13. Is Mesa Prime worth getting compared to regular Mesa?
Yes, Mesa Prime offers stat buffs compared to regular Mesa, making her more durable and powerful overall.
14. How do I acquire Mesa Prime?
Mesa Prime parts are obtained from opening Void Relics. However, Mesa Prime is currently vaulted. Vaulted Void Relics already contained in player inventories are not affected and can still be either opened or traded between players.
15. What Helminth ability is best for Mesa?
Mirage’s Eclipse ability is a great addition to her as it gives an extra boost of damage, combining with shooting gallery or extra damage reduction, combining with shatter shield.
Conclusion
Choosing the right weapons for Mesa is essential for maximizing her potential as a damage dealer and crowd controller. By considering her passive abilities, the types of missions you’re undertaking, and your preferred playstyle, you can create a loadout that makes you a true gunslinging legend in the Warframe universe. Remember that weapon choice is just one aspect of mastering Mesa. Modding, gameplay strategy, and even understanding the educational applications of games like Warframe are crucial to becoming a true expert. Check out the Games Learning Society at GamesLearningSociety.org to learn more about the intersection of gaming and education. Now, lock and load, Tenno, and show the Grineer, Corpus, and Infested what a real gunslinger can do!