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Kuva weapons were introduced to Warframe in the Old Blood update. Originally an attempt to breathe new life into the arsenal of the MMO looter-shooter that lacked novelty for a few patches, they rapidly overtook all of their regular variants thanks to progenitor bonuses.
These weapons can only be obtained by killing a Kuva Lich, Grineer supersoldiers who become powerful opponents unique to your game. The weapons that these Liches use get a varying amount of bonus damage up to +60%, dubbed the progenitor bonus. The element of this bonus is decided by which Warframe was used to kill the Kuva Larvling, triggering the birth of the Lich. All in all, there are 19 possible Kuva Weapons in the game that the Liches can take up. The following are arguably the most powerful of the lot.
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5 best Warframe Kuva Lich weapons you should have in 2023, ranked from worst to best
5) Kuva Nukor
In the current patch, Kuva Nukor has way more competition than it once used to. However, Nukor fans can rest assured that its viability as a pure status primer has not waned over time, which accounts for its continued high usage rate globally. While newer primers like Kompressa or Epitaph outclass it with additional utility elements, Kuva Nukor is still a decent pick if you want a hybrid primer-DPS sidearm, a niche where it can perform as well as a dollar-store Phantasma.
Where it truly stands out is in dedicated setups that prop it up as a pure DPS source. The abysmally low riven disposition guarantees you cannot make it a critical-based weapon on its own, and this is where the additive crit methods come in.
There are three of these in Warframe: Harrow's Covenant, Adarza Kavat's Cat's Eye, and Arcane Avenger. Individually, they can bring up the base critical chance on the Kuva Nukor enough to actually score a reasonable amount of crits. Stacked atop each other, they can turn a meme build into a legitimately powerful one.
4) Kuva Hek
Kuva Hek does not have a track record of being the best shotgun in Warframe, and it does not qualify as a meta topper in the same row as Cedo, Bubonico, and Felarx. It does, however, manage to reclaim the identity of the original Hek. Unlike the echelon of Cedo and Felarx, it does not thrive on extra gimmicks and simply offers the benefits of using a shotgun by dealing straightforward damage with a high pellet count.
Its penchant for burst DPS is best put into use against three specific baddies in Warframe: Archon Hunts, Sisters of Parvos, and Kuva Liches. These enemies are durable by virtue of a game mechanic called damage attenuation. Archons, Liches, and Sisters also have an additional form of damage reduction that stacks multiplicatively with their armor. This additional resistance is both adaptive and reactive in nature. In other words, the extra resistance is triggered upon instances of damage before they slowly wane after a period of taking no damage. This is different from the adaptive resistance that many Sentient enemies boast, which is specific to the damage type and does not reduce over time.
Kuva Hek's alternate fire mode unloads all four rounds in the magazine in one shot. This means, on the right build, they can outright one-shot even Archons, the most durable out of the aforementioned trio. Simply put, they deal a significant amount of burst damage before the damage attenuation gets a chance to kick in.
3) Kuva Kohm
The original Kohm used to be a sleeper hit in the initial days of Warframe before the Shotgun status chance rework took place. The most powerful high-status chance auto-shotgun in Warframe up till 2018, the Kohm can theoretically outperform all its contemporaries.
Kuva Kohm is a relatively unexplored powerful weapon in the exact same vein. Its stellar damage output is held back by a swath of practicality issues. It is a monster of a bullet hose, but like a true bullet hose, it rapidly chews through its ammunition pool. The other downside is its massive damage falloff. It is, after all, supposed to be a shotgun. Once it is given ancillary provisions to cover these two drawbacks, Kuva Kohm is easily among the most powerful automatic weapons in Warframe.
2) Kuva Bramma
Kuva Bramma is arguably the weapon that gave rise to the boom-and-zoom meta. It was not part of the original batch of Kuva weapons to ship with the Old Blood update, but ever since its introduction, it has remained one of the most used primaries in Warframe. This holds true to this day, long after the reign of area-of-effect weapons is done and dusted.
This weapon is the spiritual successor to Lenz, which is a corpus explosive bow that once astounded the community with its remarkable power. Kuva Bramma is a bow that shoots an explosive projectile that, like the Kuva Zarr, breaks into smaller bomblets for an additional series of explosions.
To be sure, it did not make it through multiple balance patches unscathed. It was affected the most by the nerf on Primed Firestorm, resulting in a smaller possible radius. Now it suffers from the same major problem as the Lenz: ammo economy. However, players who use their explosive bolts sparingly will still find that the Kuva Bramma gets the job done, even in the high-level Steel Path mode.
1) Kuva Zarr
Kuva Zarr embodies the golden age of the boom-and-zoom meta that dominated Warframe between the years 2020 and 2022. The original Zarr itself was unique in being the only cannon in the game. While it left the wielder lacking in power, the handling and meaty audio feedback gave it a cult following.
Kuva Zarr takes all that is good about the Zarr and turns it into one of the best weapons in the game. Like the original, it can switch between two modes: the cannon mode for an explosive shell that breaks into smaller cluster bombs that deal additional damage, and the barrage mode that can unload a high-pellet shotgun blast with a high critical chance.
This weapon got the biggest overall nerfs in Update 32 to balance the boom-and-zoom meta across the board, but it still remains a devastating arm cannon in its own right. Its sustained damage is comparable to Kuva Bramma, but it is the better option on certain builds. For example, it can still take advantage of Galvanized Crosshairs by triggering the extra critical chance from its barrage mode, whereas Bramma cannot benefit from this at all.
Check out other guides on this game from Sportskeeda:
All Warframes tier list ||Warframe Incarnon weapons tier list || Kuva weapons tier list || All Warframe Twitch drops this week || Best stat-stick weapons in Warframe || Latest Baro Ki'teer Inventory || All Warframe Promo Codes || Best weapons in Warframe for each Mastery Rank
