I use a lot of off-meta melee (if there is such a thing, since most melee can be made powerful). I guess the ones on my list that count as “mediocre” are Mios, Ninkondi, Prisma Dual Cleavers, Guandao Prime, and Twin Basolk. If we’re counting hidden gems, I’d also add Caustacyst, which I liked even before I had a riven for it, and now use on my Kullervo loadout as well.

Just want to add: forma are for when you’ve run out of capacity after you’ve installed a reactor/catalyst. You can install them before, but it’s really inefficient.

Also, if you put all the basic mods on a weapon, and it still feels weak, take a look at its base (unmodded) crit and status chance stats. If, say, base crit chance is significantly lower than base status chance, then replace crit mods with more status/status chance, and see if that feels better. Same principle for frames: some frames have really low base shield, or their abilities don’t need range, or they don’t need to worry about energy management, so you’re better off swapping out some mods for others.

MR30 here. Apart from the prime and lich stuff, there’s definitely a few easy things you’ve missed, and some clusters of stuff you can work on simultaneously or while doing other things (like cracking relics or grinding aya):

• Have you done all the zaws, kitguns, k-drives, and amps? Wasn’t sure if what you’re using tracks them. If not, that’s potentially a big chunk.
• BPs from the market: pandero, carrier, dethcube, shade, wyrm, various archgun/archmelees (parts require syndicates)
• BPs from the dojo: catabolyst, mios, helios, djinn, itzal, dorrclave, hema
• Nightwave: heat dagger, dark sword, wolf beacons for wolf sledge
• Deimos iso vaults: aurum spinosa, sporothrix, cortege, and necramech parts; rep for cortege and bonewidow BPs. Note that arcana iso vaults have better drop rates for aurum spinosa and sporothrix parts, but you’ll probably be stuck doing them solo.
• Stuff from syndicates, all of which are tradable if you don’t want to swap syndicates: various archmelee and archgun parts, sancti/secura/telos weapons, abyssal beacons for dorrclave mats
• BPs, parts, and relics from corpus railjack derelict caches: carmine penta and nautilus, plus relics for valkyr prime, nyx prime, cernos prime, scindo prime, hikou prime, and venka prime
• Baro: prisma weapons, vericres, halikar wraith, vulkar wraith, prova vandal, supra vandal, vastilok, ax-52 (probably)

As a side note for sibear, I found getting cryotic passively while grinding circuit much less tedious than trying to grind it directly, but that might just be me.

And Saryn Prime.

My favorite tank! I never use her 1 or 4, though, and should probably subsume something over one of them. Aegis Storm is ok as a panic CC when playing in a group, but not being able to use my loadout at the same time is so off-putting. As for Balefire, I’ve never found it to be better than my regular weapons, and I don’t find it fun to use.

Not a weapon, but a type: I love blade and whips. They’re cool-looking, and the stance feels good.

Since you mentioned Duviri, I’m gonna assume you’ve done some circuit/orowyrm, so you’re already getting an idea of frames/weapons you might want to have for your collection. Everyone jives with different stuff, so if it feels good to play, or sounds good on the wiki (and the grind seems reasonable), go for it. Worst case, you end up selling it after leveling it to max.

• A lot of mods are worth collecting (although some are too rare or niche to bother with). Check the wiki, look at build sites for equipment you already use, and see if anything you don’t have (and can access easily) could make a big difference.
• Faction rep is always worth getting at some point (especially the ones SolOrion mentioned). When you hit MR8, you might want to grab the helminth segment from the Deimos family at rank 3, as well.

Sidenote: since the anniversary’s going on right now, make sure to do any weapon alerts that come up in the next few weeks: they come with their own weapon slots (which you keep even if you delete the weapons later), and are pre-installed with catalysts.

Absolutely. It feels to me like it’s trying to fill a niche that doesn’t need filling. Sometimes I like a gun like that anyway, but this one’s going in the guns-I-never-use pile.

So I had the same first impression (and I’m still not sold on it, tbh), but I just did some testing, and here’s some things:

• the punch-through evolution works on both modes
• fire rate mods/evo make it feel a lot better
• the last evo that gives crit per/stack in incarnon mode (devastation cascade) seems to be the key, paired with…
• a grouping ability like pull, airburst, or bastille is super helpful
• a lot of builds I saw used ruinous extension, as well, to help hit more targets; if you’re not using a grouping ability, this might be helpful, but otherwise, I’m not sure if it makes a big difference

I feel better about it than I did, but there’s plenty of less fussy weapons I’d rather use instead. Maybe I’m missing something, too?