WARFRAME Wiki
Register
Advertisement
WARFRAME Wiki

A noble bow to hunt hellish beasts.

The Cernos Prime is the Prime variant of the Cernos Cernos. Aside from increased damage, the Cernos Prime is unique in that it fires three arrows per shot in a horizontal spread, and has an Alternate Fire mode that shoots vertically, and deals bonus damage on headshots. It was released alongside Valkyr PrimeIcon272 Valkyr Prime and VenkaPrime Venka Prime.

Characteristics[]

  • This weapon deals primarily DmgImpactSmall64 Impact damage.
  • Deals 50% bonus damage on headshots.
  • Charged shots have innate 1 meter punch through.
  • Innate multishot of 3 arrows.
  • On kill, bodies will follow the arrow that killed them, damaging enemies in their path and pinning the corpse to walls.
  • Can use the bow-exclusive Mod TT 20px Thunderbolt mod.
  • Fire rate mods apply double their bonuses.
  • Innate two Madurai Pol polarities.

Advantages over other Primary weapons (excluding modular weapons):

  • Fourth highest base damage of all bows, behind Daikyu Daikyu , Lenz Lenz and KuvaBramma Kuva Bramma.
  • Pinpoint accuracy when aiming (RMB ).
  • Silent.
  • Uncharged Horizontal/Vertical Shot (wiki attack index 1)
    • High average number of procs per shot (0.9)
    • Very high average number of crits per shot (1.05)
    • Very high reload speed (0.65 s)
    • High total damage (276)
    • Very high crit chance (35.00%)
    • Above average status chance (30.00%)
  • Charged Horizontal/Vertical Shot (wiki attack index 2)
    • Above average average number of procs per shot (0.9)
    • Very high average number of crits per shot (1.05)
    • Very high reload speed (0.65 s)
    • High total damage (552)
    • High crit chance (35.00%)
    • Above average status chance (30.00%)

Disadvantages over other Primary weapons (excluding modular weapons):

  • Very wide spread.
  • Uncharged Horizontal/Vertical Shot (wiki attack index 1)
    • Very low magazine (1)
    • Very low fire rate (1.000 attacks/sec)
    • Low ammo max (72)
  • Charged Horizontal/Vertical Shot (wiki attack index 2)
    • Very low magazine (1)
    • Very low fire rate (1.000 attacks/sec)
    • Low ammo max (72)
    • Below average crit multiplier (2.00x)

Comparisons:

Acquisition[]

Unlike most Prime gear, Cernos Prime is permanently unvaulted, with relics being obtainable through Abandoned Derelict Caches in Corpus Railjack missions.

Lith, Meso, Neo, and Axi refer to Void Relics  |  (V) Denotes Vaulted Void Relics  |  (B) Denotes Baro Ki'Teer Exclusive Void Relic
Cernos Prime's Relic Drops
String Lower Limb Upper Limb CernosPrime Blueprint Grip
AxiRelicIntact Axi V10 Common
AxiRelicIntact Axi A3 Uncommon (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi K2 Uncommon (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith B3 Uncommon (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso N8 Uncommon (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso O1 Uncommon (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso S6 Uncommon (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo A1 Uncommon (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith C7 Rare
AxiRelicIntact Axi C1 Rare (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi C2 Rare (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith C2 Rare (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith C5 Rare (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso C3 Rare (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso N11 Common
AxiRelicIntact Axi N4 Common (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith V3 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso C2 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso K1 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso N8 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso O2 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso S7 Common (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo N6 Common (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo V9 Uncommon
AxiRelicIntact Axi B1 Uncommon (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi V4 Uncommon (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith A2 Uncommon (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith Z1 Uncommon (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo S13 Uncommon (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo V7 Uncommon (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi S8 Common
AxiRelicIntact Axi H3 Common (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi K3 Common (V)
AxiRelicIntact Axi S5 Common (V)
LithRelicIntact Lith V6 Common (V)
MesoRelicIntact Meso V5 Common (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo V4 Common (V)
NeoRelicIntact Neo V6 Common (V)


Manufacturing Requirements
📝 Edit blueprint requirements
Credits
15,000
GenericWeaponPrimeBlade
1
GenericWeaponPrimeBlade
1
GenericComponentPrimeLatch
1
GenericGunPrimeStock
1
Time: 12 Hour(s)
Rush: PlatinumLarge 50
MarketIcon Market Price: PlatinumLarge N/A Blueprint2 Blueprints Price:N/A

Vaultings[]

Notes[]

  • The +50% bonus damage on headshots is multiplicative to other sources of +bonus damage on headshot such as PrimaryDeadhead Primary Deadhead and Prowl130xWhite Prowl.
  • The Cernos Prime's shots fire multiple arrows in a fanning spread. The number of arrows is affected by multishot mods, similar to shotguns.
  • Alternate Fire toggles a Horizontal Spread or Vertical Spread fire.
  • Mod TT 20px Heavy Caliber will decrease accuracy by a small amount, making each arrow fire slightly off from its normal trajectory.
    • As of Hotfix 19.11.2 (2017-02-17) this was increased dramatically, making the weapon act more like a wildly-spreading shotgun than a fan of arrows.
    • The arrows seem to be spread in a formation where some arrows are lower than the others, rather than being wider spread than others, this might make it difficult to get headshots with multiple arrows.
  • Low accuracy will effectively invert Cernos Prime's firing mode. Horizontal shots will follow generally vertical line of shot and vice versa. This behavior is best observed while using Split Flights

Trivia[]

Tips[]

  • Cernos Prime is capable of orange crits with Mod TT 20px Point Strike and Mod TT 20px Argon Scope averaging approximately 1015 orange crit damage with a single arrow.
  • The horizontal arrow spread is effective against groups of enemies, while the vertical spread is effective against a single target.
  • While capable of reaching 100% status making every arrow proc, often the Cernos Prime's power comes with modding for Mod TT 20px Hunter Munitions, which is not affected by status chance. Building for DmgViralSmall64 Viral with Mod TT 20px Malignant Force and Mod TT 20px Rime Rounds is sufficient for the arrows to proc Viral often enough to increase the damage from DmgSlashSmall64 Slash procs brought on by Hunter Munitions to finish them off.

Media[]

Cernos Prime Skins

Edit

Patch History[]

Update 32.0 (2022-09-07)

Ammo Changes

We understand the power fantasy of these weapons is very popular for some, so our first approach was to keep them powerful, but limit how often they can be used by making changes to ammo pick-up.

Ammo Pickup Overrides
The following weapons now have ammo pickup overrides, meaning they gain less from picking up ammo. This mostly applies to AoE weapons, in hopes that players will become more deliberate with their aim to make the most of their Ammo pools. The following lists the specific ammo pick up overrides per weapon category.

Primary Weapon Ammo Pick Up Overrides

15 Ammo per Pick Up:

  • Cernos Prime

Update 30.9 (2021-11-11)

  • Fixed the Cernos Prime Vertical Spread shot doing 2x damage of Horizontal Spread shot.

Update 28.0 (2020-06-11)

  • Reduced the hit FX of the Cernos Prime.

Hotfix 27.2.1 (2020-03-05)

  • Increased Cernos Prime 10% Status Chance per projectile to 30% Status Chance per projectile.

Update 27.2 (2020-03-05)

Greater than 100% Status having meaning

Shotguns have a unique Role here based on a very patch-work history with how they interact with Status Chance. A Shotgun that shoots 99% Status Chance would give you 35% (roughly) status per pellet. 100% Status Gives you 100% Status per pellet. This huge jump in performance happens with just a 1% gain - why? Well, to answer that we have to look at our choice to make what the UI conveys reality. It would feel broken to shoot a Shotgun with 100% Status and not see a perfect spread of Effects. In reality, to make Status consistent we have to treat Shotguns as a special case.

Shotguns as a special case means we have buffed the Status Chance of all Shotguns by x3 or greater. The UI now behaves to show the reality that you are determining Status Chance per pellet.

Update 25.7 (2019-08-29)

  • Normalized quick shots to have the same critical chance/damage and status chance as charged shots.
  • While reviewing Bow stats the team has also refreshed all their FX (including the Lenz)!
  • Quick Shot increased from 60 to 92
  • Charged Shot increased from 120 to 184
  • Flight Speed increased from 85 to 95
  • Tightened the spread of the vertical fire mode and made the top arrow land on the reticle instead of the middle
  • Fixed Cernos Prime equipped with Heavy Caliber causing Vertical Spread mode to function as a Horizontal Spread.

Hotfix 25.3.3 (2019-07-16)

  • Fixed an issue with Cernos Prime arrows fired by Mirage's Hall of Mirrors clones always hitting the floor.

Hotfix 25.0.7 (2019-05-30)

  • Fixed the Cernos (Prime) Energy color persisting as default on the strings.

Update 23.9 (2018-09-25)

  • Cernos Prime has entered the Prime Vault.

Update 22.16 (2018-03-15)

  • Fixed Cernos Prime’s vertical spread not using equipped arrow Skins.

Hotfix 22.13.3 (2018-02-21)

  • Cernos Prime Alt Fire is now silent as intended.

Hotfix 22.13.1 (2018-02-15)

  • Fixed numerous projectile weapons (Cernos Prime, etc) having incorrect Status Chance calculations.

Update 22.12 (2018-02-09)

  • Mastery Rank increased from 8 to 12.
  • Charge speed increased from 1s to 0.5s.
  • Status chance increased from 10% to 30%.
  • Reload speed increased from 1s to 0.7s (in note put 0.65).
  • Added Secondary Fire Mode toggle that shoots a vertical spread of 3 arrows.
  • Added innate +50% damage to headshots.

Hotfix 19.0.7 (2016-11-22)

  • Released via Valkyr Prime Access.

Hotfix 19.0.2 (2016-11-12)

  • Removed an unreleased Relic from the wild.

Update 19.0 (2016-11-11)

  • Parts and Relics loaded to the build.

Last updated: Update 23.9 (2018-09-25)

See also[]

Advertisement