Top Coda Catabolyst Builds for Warframe Dominance

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• How to Get the Catabolyst
• Catabolyst Stats and Features

Warframe is famous for its diverse range of weapons that cater to the Tenno. While you’ll find conventional guns like assault rifles and handguns, the game also presents a unique selection including beam cannons, shurikens, and bio-weapons. If you’re ready to experiment, you’ll discover an array of innovative items that hold value even in late-game scenarios.

Among these weapons, the Catabolyst stands out. This Infested sidearm has the special ability to convert its magazine into explosive grenades. In this guide, we’ll explore how to acquire the Catabolyst, its variant known as the Coda, its unique reloading mechanism, and some effective builds to maximize its potential.

How to Get the Catabolyst

The standard Catabolyst can be crafted in the Bio Lab of your clan’s dojo. If you’re not in a clan, you’ll either need to join one or buy the weapon using Platinum from the in-game market. The blueprint for the Bio Lab requires you to gather some rare resources, with Scintillant being a key material.

If the crafting costs are steep, you can instead look for the Coda Catabolyst from a Technocyte Coda while playing. You can start your search for these Infested Liches after completing "The Hex" story quest. Defeating the Lich allows you to contact Eleanor in Hollvania to purchase the weapon from her Coda weapon inventory. If it isn’t available at the moment, check back a few days later.

Catabolyst Crafting Requirements:

Catabolyst Stats and Features

The Catabolyst is a secondary pistol that fires a toxic energy beam. It boasts a high rate of fire and strong status chance, making it an excellent option for status priming or applying damage with Heat or Blast. While its critical stats may seem modest, you can significantly enhance them with the Critical Mutation Nightwave augment.

What truly differentiates the Catabolyst is its unique reloading feature. Reloading this weapon launches an explosive projectile that detonates on impact, dealing significant Corrosive damage to enemies caught within the blast radius. If the weapon is reloaded from an empty magazine, the explosion deals ten times more damage and has improved critical stats. The Coda variant, instead, releases three grenades in a fan formation rather than a single explosive, providing broader area coverage at the cost of raw damage.

Catabolyst Damage Overview

The Catabolyst is classified as a pistol with an auto trigger type, but it has low accuracy and a magazine capacity of 31 (37 for the Coda variant). The reload speed for both versions is 1.7 seconds, while the mastery rank requirements vary between MR 11 for the standard and MR 17 for the Coda.

Catabolyst Builds

When crafting your build for the Catabolyst, you can either enhance its traditional run or focus on its grenade functionality. In most cases, the beam mode will perform better unless you specifically tailor your entire setup around the grenade effect.

Beam Configuration

This particular build focuses on the primary fire mode instead of the grenade mechanic. Using Galvanized Shot alongside Cascadia Flare substantially boosts the Catabolyst’s base damage. Galvanized Shot ramps up across three damage types: Corrosive, Viral, and Heat. We specifically mod for Viral and Heat in this setup, utilizing Primed Heated Charge to enhance proc chances.

Next, for multishot, Galvanized Diffusion combined with Lethal Torrent provides enough multishot potential to considerably amplify damage. You can choose to scale this build through critical hits or status, although we recommend critical hits. Including Galvanized Crosshairs and Primed Target Cracker will give you a solid chance and multiplier, making your Catabolyst effective across various content when paired with Arcane Avenger.

Grenade Spam

If you’re keen on a grenade-centric approach, this build is designed for you. Direct damage modifiers don’t apply to grenade damage, so effects like Galvanized Shot will not be effective. Instead, utilizing Synth Charge can give you a significant damage boost on your final shot, which positively affects the grenades thrown from an empty magazine.

Pro Tip: After throwing a grenade, if you immediately use your melee weapon, Synth Charge will automatically reload a round into the Catabolyst. You can fire your secondary to reset the magazine, then reload again for another grenade throw. It’s a process you can repeat multiple times.

Critical stats can be quite favorable for grenade spam. Using Critical Mutation along with Primed Target Cracker will boost your critical chance significantly. If you lack Critical Mutation, consider substituting it with Primed Pistol Gambit. The rest of the build should maintain a focus on multishot and elemental damage to maximize your explosions’ power. For optimal damage, aim to cluster the Coda variant’s grenades onto the same target.

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