By Nelson Schneider - 07/15/23 at 08:37 PM CT

Recently, in their “The Duviri Paradox” update, Canadian-based, Chinese-(partly)-owned developer, Digital Extremes, revitalized the weapon ecosystem in their decade-running Live Service shooter, “Warframe” with the addition of Incarnon Genesis Adapters, which can be earned for a specific subset of ‘old, unused’ weapons in a rotating selection that changes each week. Digital Extremes has tried in the past to revitalize the old, underperforming weapons that make up a huge portion of the “Warframe” arsenal numerous times. First, they release Prime variants of a huge number of weapons, often boosting stats to be a bit less anemic compared to the original… but sometimes changing nothing, even for a terrible weapon. Next, they tried Syndicate variant weapons and Syndicate mods, often with revamped stats, but always with an exclusive, intrinsic effect outside of the weapon’s standard mode of operation. After that, it was the Riven Mod system, by which players could grind out randomly-acquired Riven Mods unique to each weapon (or weapon family, for variants), then expend a resource called ‘Kuva’ to reroll said mod’s randomly-generated attributes until landing on a useful combination. Riven Mods further fluctuated in the size of the bonuses provided based on a weapon’s popularity and usage among the game’s player-base, allegedly allowing weak, underperforming items to close the gap with newer, better, power-crept items by virtue of their lack of popularity. Lastly, the Kuva Lich and Sisters of Parvos systems were added, allowing players to hunt down a “Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor”-inspired nemesis to claim a powerful variant of an existing weapon. While the Lich/Sister weapons proved incredibly popular and were much sought after, Digital Extremes ended up nerfing the Kuva/Tenet variants of the most popular explosive weapons by obliterating their ammo capacity compared to their non-Kuva/Tenet varieties… making the variants unusable due to the ammo economy, while the originals remained unusable due to their sub-par stats.

With the Incarnon Genesis system, however, it seems that Digital Extremes has finally landed on a winner. Like the original Incarnon weapons added in the “Angels of the Zariman” expansion, Incarnon Geneses gain the ability to charge up a powerful alternate form by landing headshots on foes. They likewise gain access to a number of specific, choosable, and freely-exchangeable stat modifications that generally correct the flaws in the underlying weapons. I never thought I’d be obliterating Steel Path Eximus units in seconds using a Mastery Rank 2 Furis machine pistol, but thanks to Incarnon Genesis, that’s entirely possible.

There are still a few small problems with the Incarnon Genesis system, however. None of the Geneses possess the truly insane damage capabilities as the original Zariman Incarnons. For guns, they lack the Attrition evolution at tier 5 that allows them to perform Anti-Crits, while for melee weapons, they lack the Swift Transmute evolution at tier 4 that allows them to be modded in such a way that they can wolf-out into their transmuted form at will. That said, the ability to take underperforming old weapons and push them into the upper echelons of excellence is quite an accomplishment, which made the news that Digital Extremes intends to add more Incarnon Genesis Adapters to the game over time extremely welcome.

Thus, I came up with a list of some of my conceptual-favorite “Warframe” weapons that I would love to use more, but don’t because they’re just so lacking in the necessary oomph to hold their own in end-game content. I would love to see Incarnon Geneses for these things sooner rather than later.

Primary Weapons
1. Sobek
The Sobek is a status-based automatic shotgun that can throw a lot of pellets downrange. Unfortunately, status-based weapons aren’t up to the task of endgame content on their own, with its pitiful 11% base Crit chance hamstringing its ability to kill much of anything. Even with two amazing, unique mods, the Sobek’s lack of damage output relegates it to the bench. But an Incarnon Genesis with the option to boost its base Crit to something reasonable would be all it needs to have its day in the sun. (Of course, I’d prefer Attrition and Anti-Crits to boosted Crit chance, but it seems that Digital Extremes even scared themselves with that mechanic and are avoiding implementing more weapons that can access it, for now.)

2. Zhuge
There are quite a few bows in “Warframe,” but not many of them are crossbows. This auto-firing, silent weapon seems like it should be a solid niche performer, but even with a Primed version that adds a small explosion to each bolt, it’s not. The magazine is too small, and the reload is too long, so you spend more time hiding around corners reloading than actually making baddies look like porcupines by riddling them with bolts. Existing Incarnon evolutions offer ideas about how to fix these problems, ranging from a simple boost to magazine and/or max ammo capacity to an evolution that massively increases reload speed when empty. Of course, I’d also like to see this crossbow get a transmuted form that spits out big, chunky F-U bolts like the Nataruk or the Felarx, but with a full-auto trigger.

3. Lenz
When I first built a Lenz, I hated it and couldn’t wait to master it and get it out of my inventory for good. Just recently, Digital Extremes released an upgraded Prisma Lenz that proved significantly better… except for the weapon’s fundamental flaw: Ammo capacity. Even before the explosive ammo nerf that rendered so many Kuva bombers irrelevant, the Lenz suffered from a stunningly low maximum ammo capacity of 6… for arrows… including the one nocked on the string… Just… why?! The Prisma Lenz only upped the ammo capacity to 8, meaning that the Lenz is still functionally useless in most “Warframe” content, simply due to the lack of ammo. Incarnon weapons, however, have a unique ammo economy due to the fact that their transmuted forms don’t use ammo from the player’s capacity, but instead pull ‘charges’ out of thin air. The ability to charge Incarnon mode using your half-a-dozen arrows, then use Incarnon mode while picking up ammo drops would completely revolutionize how this bow (and a couple others) works.

Secondary Weapons
1. Viper
The Viper is a crappy, little machine pistol that is far too much like the other crappy, little machine pistols that clog up “Warframe’s” arsenal. Of course, as mentioned in the intro, another crappy, little machine pistol, the Furis – which has never received a Prime, Vandal, or other variant – was completely redeemed by its Incarnon Genesis Adapter, so why not this one too? The Viper suffers from a high fire rate combined with a tiny magazine size and pitiful damage output per shot… but at least the reload speed is quick! Sub-par Crit and status chance mean that the Viper doesn’t really do anything well, and two fancy mods – one of which gives infinite ammo for 2 seconds after a headshot, the other of which fixes the magazine size issue and adds a Syndicate effect – as well as a Wraith variant still leave this gun underperforming. Wielding 2 Vipers or Viper Wraiths at the same time also doesn’t help, since “Warframe” classifies single guns and their akimbo variants as… two entirely different guns, for… reasons, cutting off exclusive mod access. However, a handful of Incarnon evolutions to buff the Crit chance (or debuff it for Attrition-powered Anti-Crits… no, I will not stop begging for those) and base damage would make all the difference in the world. Furthermore, I’d love to see the transmuted Incarnon form really go all the way with the ophidian imagery and fire off a long, homing snake-beam (similar to a Primary Vermiscplicer).

2. Zymos
The Zymos is a rather clunky Infested pistol that shoots burrowing grubs that eat brains in order to rapidly reproduce. The result is a gun that causes enemy heads to explode on headshot kills, sending small swarms of homing grub-projectiles out in search of new hosts. Sounds cool? It isn’t! The fire rate is atrocious, and between the low base damage, tiny ammo capacity, and non-existent 5% Crit chance, you will never actually get to see a grub-splosion outside of super-low-level content where the enemies all die before you can even pull the trigger. There is another Infested pistol – or rather, dual pistols – the Dual Toxocysts that suffered from similar problems, but after receiving its Incarnon Genesis Adapter turned into an absolute monster. The fact that Incarnon weapons build charge by landing headshots also pairs perfectly with the Zymos’ central gimmick – just like the Dual Toxocysts. Hell, you could probably just copy the Dual Toxos’ Incarnon evolutions and full-auto transmuted fire mode verbatim to the Zymos and take it from an afterthought to a serious endgame contender.

3. Quatz
Oh, it’s so unfair that I want an Incarnon Genesis Adapter for one of the pistols that I consider to be in the top 10 available in the game. Of course, that’s just ME who feels that way about the Quatz. Most people ignore it and think it sucks. And it does, actually have a few weak points that could be shored up via evolutions. The base Crit isn’t quite to the level of ‘awesome’ in aimed mode, and is decidedly mediocre in hipfire mode. The gimmicky electric-explosion reload takes WAY too long, the Crit multiplier could be better, the recoil is insane, and the base damage just barely gets the job done. Evolutions could paper over the minor flaws with ease, and I would really love an Incarnon form that fires quadruple homing beams in hipfire mode and explosive torpedos/mines in aimed mode. *Chef’s kiss*

Melee Weapons
1. Kestrel
Honestly, the new batch of Incarnon Genesis melees doesn’t really do much to float my boat. Yeah, they’re nice to have as choices when playing the Duviri Circuit, but when I can build my own loadout, I’ll never choose the new kids on the block over the OG Praedos or Innodem. That said, in addition to all of the new crop of melee Incarnons getting a second-pass revision, I’d really like to see some… better weapon types get the treatment. The Kestrel is a glaive – essentially a “Xena: Warrior Princess”-style chakram that can be held in-hand or thrown to bounce off a few enemies before returning to the wielder – and most likely the first such weapon a new “Warframe” player will encounter. The idea of thrown melee weapons is cool, but most of them just kinda suck. The Kestrel’s only real claim to fame is that it has the fastest flight speed of any glaive weapon in the game (buffed further by its exclusive Syndicate mod)… but that’s not going to get you anywhere, since it’s too weak to actually kill anything. Boosting its miserable base stats via Evolutions would help it immensely.

2. Broken Scepter
The Broken Scepter is a story-based weapon that features the unique ability to drain the corpses of enemies to generate either health orbs or energy orbs. On top of that unique feature, the Broken Scepter is… almost good. The base damage and attack speed are adequate, and the status chance is solid… it’s just that the key feature – Crit chance – is too low to make it viable outside of the mid-game. Boosting the Crit chance alone would make this one of the better staff weapons in the game, and it would still have the unique drain ability… which could be carried over into the Incarnon form as either guaranteed orb drops on kills, life/energy steal on hits, or just a passive regen for the duration of the transformation.

3. Sydon
Why are there no Incarnon polearms yet?! I think it’s because Digital Extremes knows how good and popular polearms are in the game. And while I would love to be a snarky turd and demand an Incarnon Genesis Adapter for the Orthos or Plague Kripath, that would be power creep and overkill in the extreme. Instead, I propose that the Sydon – and its Syndicate variant, the Vaykor Sydon – get the Genesis treatment. The regular Sydon is slow and suffers from horrible base Crit chance, while the Vaykor variant is slightly improved on both fronts, but still pales in comparison to the actually-good polearms everyone uses. Furthermore, the Vaykor Sydon is supposed to have a fancy radial blind effect, but I’ve never gotten the chance to use it for two reasons: First, it has been bugged and broken for years, only recently being fixed. Second, it requires the player to block 15 attacks to charge an ability that blinds enemies for 5 seconds – not exactly a great or practical trade off. The Incarnon mode needs to fully embrace the blinding concept and make it much easier to pull off while transmuted.