Warframe: Are Acuity mods worth using?

With the Warframe 1999 update, Digital Extremes introduced Acuity mods - a pair of mods presenting an unconventional approach to ramp up damage. These are Primary Acuity (primary weapons) and Pistol Acuity (secondary weapons), and they have one big quirk: they disable Multishot on the weapon completely when used.

As any buildcrafter would automatically recognize, that is a tall ask. Is the bonus they grant worth this penalty? This is the question we are going to explore, and for that, we need to examine the math driving the decision.

How do Acuity mods calculate damage in Warframe?

Acuity mods have 10 Ranks, similar to Serration (Image via Digital Extremes)

Both Primary Acuity and Pistol Acuity come with the same stats. Here's what it shows on the mod labels:

+350% Weak Point Damage
+350% Weak Point Critical Chance
Multishot cannot be modified

The standout stat everyone will be likely aware of, as mentioned earlier, is the Multishot condition.

You'll be locked into the base Multishot amount, regardless of whether it's a bow or shotgun or beam weapon. Once an Acuity mod is slotted, no other Multishot modification (including negative or positive Multishot from Rivens) will work. This also extends to external buffs, such as Multishot boost from Metronome (Opera) from an Octavia.

Weak Point damage vs Base Damage

For the tradeoff, you get +350% Weak Point Damage. This is not the same as regular damage boost (such as the stat granted by Serration or Spectral Serration). Instead, what it augments is better known as headshot multiplier, which is 3x at base.

However, the total outgoing Weak Point Damage (or headshot damage) is not 6.5x as you would guess. Instead, it's an 8.25x multiplier on outgoing damage for all Weak Point Hits.

For those who want to know why, this is the math. Update 32.0 increased the average headshot multiplier on a precision weapon from 2x to 3x. Except, the calculation since then multiplies the base 200% by 1.5. Acuity mods increase the base 200% before this multiplier, so this results in 550% x 1.5, or 825%.

Acuity was nerfed in a 2025 update

Originally, the 350% Weak Point Critical Chance on Pistol Acuity acted as if it were a separate stat for some secondaries, such as the Zymos. This meant it would be a 350% multiplicative bonus in the damage calculation, which resulted in an incredibly high amount of outgoing crit chance.

However, this was considered an "unexpected" bug, and Digital Extremes has since just reverted it to an additive 350% Critical Chance for all weapons in Techrot Encore (Update 38.5).

When is Acuity worth more than Multishot in Warframe?

For the vast majority of cases, the competition is between adding Acuity or a Galvanized Multishot mod. When fully stacked, these Galvanized Mods (Chamber, Hell, Diffusion) increase Multishot by 330%.

For damage calculation in Warframe, Multishot does get a multiplied by the base headshot multiplier (3.0x) on Weak Point hits, resulting in effectively 9.9x bonus damage with a fully stacked Galvanized mod.

This, by default, is therefore marginally better than the bonus you get on Acuity mods. So when you're considering whether Acuity or Multishot is the better choice for a weapon, here are the factors to consider:

For weapons with at least 30% critical chance and 2x crit multiplier, Acuity mods would give about the same yield as a Galvanized Multishot mod.
If the critical chance is higher than 40%, and the crit multiplier is over 2x, Acuity mods are possibly worth the no-Multishot caveat. A great example of this is Daikyu Prime, which perfectly encapsulates a good Acuity candidate.
For weapons with lower base Critical Chance than 20%, Multishot is almost certainly worth more than Acuity. This is even more true of secondaries, as they can slap on Secondary Enervate to get an alternative way to build up crit.
AoE weapons usually cannot get Weak Point hit bonus, so you should not mod Acuity on them.
Weapons that deal damage through status should get more use out of Multishot, especially if it's a beam weapon.

Like all other new mods added in the Warframe 1999 update, both Acuity mods can be farmed from Hollvania content; specifically Scaldra enemies.

Check out our other guides on Warframe:

About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal