Warframe Coda weapons tier list: All Infested Lich weapons ranked

Coda weapons are the fresh line of entry into Warframe's nemesis arsenal, following the Kvua and the Tenet brand. You get all of these from Eleanor for Live Heartcells, the new headhunter token for killing Technocyte Coda (Infested Liches). There are 13 total weapons introduced in the Coda category, and as expected, not all of them cannot be equally good.

In this Coda weapon tier list, I'll try to rank all of these new nemesis weapons in Warframe. My parameter for ranking will be practicality and performance in Steel Path, within reasons, that is; I don't expect Coda weapons to steal the thunder from Incarnons.

Even though performance is the main criteria, note that this tier list will have some degree of subjective bias. Playstyle preference can ultimately make or break things for you. For example, I like using the reload gimmick on Catabolyst, but many players don't.

Warframe Coda weapons tier list: Ranking all Coda weapons in Update 38.5

Coda weapons are available in two different batches that rotate in and out every four days. If you find that any of the weapons here aren't on Eleanor's inventory, that means they're in the next batch, so at most, it's a four-day wait.

Here's my tier list of all the Coda weapons in Warframe:

Tier	Batch A	Batch B
S	Coda Sporothrix	Coda Synapse, Coda Bassocyst
A	Coda Catabolyst, Coda Motovore, Dual Coda Torxica	Coda Caustacyst
B	Coda Hema, Coda Mire	Coda Pathocyst
C	Coda Pox	Coda Hirudo, Coda Tysis

S-tier

Don't sleep on Synapse (Image via Sportskeeda || Digital Extremes)

This is reserved for the creme-de-la-creme, the best that the Coda brand has on offer. These still aren't good enough to just trump Incarnons or meta-toppers, but if you're not sure what to purchase with your first round of Live Heartcells, you cannot go wrong with these.

Coda Sporothrix: Sporothrix was secretly the best sniper rifle in Warframe for a long time, and I hope Coda Sporothrix will get it the recognition it deserves. Don't let the sniper rifle tag fool you, this thing does wonders for AoE, arguably better than anything else on this Coda weapon tier list, for that matter.
Coda Synapse: The Coda version is has innate Punch-Through, 40% base Critical Chance, and higher beam-range. Synapse is an extremely underrated weapon by itself, and as long as you're not rolling with a Riven on the regular Synapse, Coda is a big upgrade in every way imaginable. However, there's not much here in the way of beam-chaining. For crowds, it definitely cannot beat something like the Incarnon Torid. Instead, Coda Synapse is a specialist of single-target damage, same as the original one. You can quite easily make it viable for taking out level-cap Demo units, for example.
Coda Bassocyst - For style points alone, this weapon could be straight S-tier; but after trying it out in level-cap, I can guarantee that it's S-tier even without the teef-crosshair contrivances. It has low fire rate and high base damage, so it's definitely more of a conventional boom-stick (and an unconventional boombox), essentially a better Tenet Arca Plasmor. The alt-fire is a great for mobbing at something like ESO, but when dealing with Steel Path and above, you'll have to rely on the primary fire instad. The mercy-kill gimmick can also make for some fun niche interactions. For example, you could use Power Drain on your Parazon, and then use the mercy-kill as a setup to snapshot skills on Saryn or Gyre.

A-tier

A divisive upgrade for a divisive grenade volley (Image via Digital Extremes)

These aren't good enough (or didn't tickle my fancy enough) to break into the S-tier, but they're still pretty good. In specific setups, they can pop off better (looking at the Catabolyst here).

Coda Catabolyst - I can already see a lot of readers being put off by the placement of Catabolyst here. Used as a straight beam-weapon, there's just a lot of much, much better options. But you don't use it as an after-hours Kuva Nukor, you use it as the reload-grenade Tediore bomber. If that is too big of a hassle, this weapon will be useless for you with or without Critical Mutation, and if you can turn reload-nuking into muscle memory (and ignore the camera-shake), it's something easily worth the investment.
Coda Motovore - Coda Motovore is the strongest original Coda weapon in my book. It doesn't do that well with Melee Influence and Slash-stacking. Instead, it feels like it was designed with Melee Doughty in mind. You get some nutty crits with this, and you can even do the slam build with it to great success. It is not the best hammer in the game, but it has a gimmick that works, and thus I feel like I should put it on A-tier for positive reinforcement.
Coda Caustacyst - Regular Caustacyst absolutely melts (literally) base-level Steel Path enemies with an acid pool. This trick is certainly not as exploitable as Incarnon Dual Ichor, but with the Coda version, you're getting the highest base status chance of all Scythes, the highest base damage (barring Incarnon-empowered Hate), and some pretty good crits to work with too. An actually useable unique trait and some good stats across-the-board makes it definitely A-tier worthy for a heavy attack Scythe.
Dual Coda Torxica - Cons: These are the Incarnon Dual Toxocyst from Temu. Pros: These are the Incarnon Dual Toxocyst from Temu.

B-tier

Coda Hema is just not as good as I expected (Image via Sportskeeda || Digital Extremes)

These weapons have done nothing wrong per se to have come to B-tier. These provide solid performance, and they will do just fine in base-level Steel Path. They just lack the oomph on top needed to score a little better. That being said, one could argue that a big part of Warframe is turning the ordinary into extraordinary through synergistic build-crafting.

Also, as mentioned earlier, I haven't tested any of the Batch B weapons listed here yet, so expect some of these to change places by next week.

Coda Hema - Compared to the regular Hema, Coda Hema revs up the crit chance enough to make it viable even without Arcane Avenger. The problem is that it's still a run-of-the-mill precision assault rifle in Warframe and does not exactly provide the stats to break into the top five. It has lifesteal on headshots, so perhaps it can get some more unique leverage for some players based on that.
Coda Pathocyst - The original Pathocyst is not that superb for the highly competitive Glaive bracket. It force-procs Viral on thrown heavy explosion, and the Coda variant adds some dependable stats on it (close to Glaive Prime's crit stats, and pretty good damage). Does this make it a better Glaive? Only marginally. Ultimately, It's still a forced Viral proc (and some light crowd control with infested mites) rather than Electricity (Falcor) or Slash (Glaive Prime) or Toxin (Cerata). Get an Electricity progenitor roll and then go for Melee Influence, and it can get the job done at high-level Steel Path.
Coda Mire - This has a slam-based Toxin schtick, so it naturally nudges you towards a slam build, a niche with a lot of competition. Two small problems here: one, it doesn't do that great with its slams, and gets beaten by Coda Motovore. Two, slam builds are getting nerfed this year. Once they do, this one's headed for the C-tier.

C-tier

A Pox upon ye (Image via Digital Extremes)

B-tier means the weapon is still salvageable, but C-tier means I couldn't visualize a scenario where it could be. Even so, there will still probably be some cases where these weapons pop off — only, the scope for that is very narrow, and if it doesn't, it's some rather expensive Mastery Fodder.

Coda Pox - I'm not personally a fan of the thrown secdary weapons subgenre in Warframe, and with Coda Pox, my conviction stands. It doesn't have particularly good stats, and the mini-Torid toxin cloud perk doesn't feel like it could be useful for anything. I hope it gets a buff; maybe it could have some more practical use cases if the cloud procced status faster, or was bigger. There's a fun Blast-Enervate build you can do to snapshot a huge cloud of red-crits, but it's more quirky than practical.
Coda Tysis - Regular Tysis is a surprisingly good weapon with Secondary Encumber. Provided, its embedded tick damage gimmick does not really do much — even with Toxic Lash. The Coda variant does not pump up its 50% base status chance like I hoped, so as a primer, Epitaph or Kuva Nukor is much better than this. If you're looking for a status-based single-target weapon, Coda Tysis can do alright. The only big problem is that punch-through doesn't work on it, so investing into it is not worth it for normal gameplay.
Coda Hirudo - Pocket Life-steal tool, and pretty high crit stats. I can see some use cases for the healing angle, but as for actual damage, the limited range really limits its potential. You can make it work with Melee Influence, but a lot of other melee weapons can work better for that. I am a generational hater of the Sparring stances, so I'll thanklessly leave it here in the C-tier.
This is a slot reserved for Coda Mire for the eventual slam nerf. I hope I'm proven wrong later this year though, because it would really be funny for a soft-looking Infested straightsword to dunk on heavy hammers.

That's it for my tier list of all the Coda weapons in Warframe right now. There may be some switching between A and B-tier in the coming weeks, since I haven't tested all of them extensively, so check back later for a more comprehensive coverage.

Ultimately, most of them do alright in base-level Steel Path. It's possible that something cast in poor light here can pop off really well in specific circumstances or build synergies (think Coda Pox Blast-Enervate tech), but relative to each other, this is how the Coda weapons shake out at the moment.

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Edited by Abu Amjad Khan