Warframe Tak & Lug build guide (and is it worth getting?)

Following the Tonkkatt, Tak & Lug is a new event-exclusive melee introduced to Warframe via the Galleon of Ghouls. Otherwise an ordinary-looking grineer sword-and-shield, the Tak & Lug comes with a Unique trait. As the in-game description reads: Heavy attacks hit in a wide area, inflicting Blast status effect. In practice, the "wide area" bit does not hold true.

In this guide, I'll go over my findings about Tak & Lug's unique trait in Warframe and how best to leverage it into a practical build.

How does the Tak & Lug Unique actually work?

Tak & Lug's gimmick isn't even that new (Image via Sportskeeda || Digital Extremes)

As mentioned before, Tak & Lug's Unique effect description implies it deals damage in a large area, proccing Blast status.

Instead, what actually happens is you throw the shield upon pressing heavy attack. Here are some other features to note about this move:

The shield does not, in fact, deal damage in a "wide area". Instead, it travels for about 9m and deals damage to any enemy caught within its path.
Grouping up enemies shows that the shield only hits multiple enemies caught in its physical hitbox.
The shield seems to have some degree of body punch-through. In practice, it will hit one more enemy behind its primary target in most situations.
It's a singular heavy throw maneuver; there's no heavy-attack chaining regardless of what Stance mod you use.

It does, as advertised, get a forced Blast proc — and then other elements on the current build, similar to a regular melee Heavy.

Warframe Tak & Lug stats

Here are the base stats (Image via Sportskeeda || Digital Extremes)

In terms of raw stats, Tak & Lug are nothing special. It's a by-the-mile sword and shield with good status chance and semi-decent critical stats. The base damage is at least Slash-weighted, but that's not something that can make the weapon stand out. Here's what the Tak & Lug is packing in Warframe:

Attack Speed: 1.0
Base Range: 2.5m
Critical Chance: 21%
Critical Damage: 1.9x
Status Chance: 31%
Damage: 197 (157.6 Slash, 39.4 Impact)

Best Tak & Lug build for Warframe (and is it worth the investment?)

Melee Influence Tak & Lug build, but it's probably not worth the investment (Image via Overframe)

If we're looking at the hypothetical best-case build for the Tak & Lug for general use in Steel Path, a Melee Influence build is the best bet. Since Tak & Lug has great status chance but lackluster crit, we tried to make up for it through Galvanized Steel, whereas the combo of Galvanized Reflex and Focus Energy lets you spam the heavy-attack quite freely.

Mods used:

Stance Mod: Eleventh Storm
Pressure Point (consider adding a V Forma and using Condition Overload for higher damage)
Blood Rush (V Forma)
Quickening
Galvanized Steel (V Forma)
Galvanized Elementalist
Galvanized Reflex
Focus Energy
Weeping Wounds

For a much better quality of life, consider replacing Quickening with Amalgam Organ Shatter, since the wind-up is quite slow by default. This would give you the best build to make use of its unique gimmick move for only 2 Forma.

Is it worth the investment? My experience says no. In practice, the heavy attack is so clunky to execute that you'd get better results just spamming the light attack with the same build.

This is why I originally prescribed Quickening instead of Amalgam Organ Shatter. If you wanted to swap out and commit to a full light-attack build, all you'd have to do is swap out Galvanized Reflex for Primed Reach (the base range of 2.5m is quite low).

In terms of actual performance, Tak & Lug ultimately doesn't even come close to the meta sword-and-shield melee options like Tenet Agendus or the Drifter Melee, Argo & Vel, which a player can get very early into their Warframe playthrough.

How to get Tak & Lug in Warframe?

Tak & Lug is exclusive to the Galleon of Ghouls event in Warframe. Since neither its blueprint nor its parts are tradeable, they cannot be purchased from other players, nor is the weapon available on the official Market.

If you've missed it, don't worry: the developers have reassured that Galleon of Ghouls' offerings will reappear in the future.

Check out our other guides on the game:

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