The Best Weapons in Warframe (updated)

Starting Weapons
It does not matter much which ones you pick, since you will quickly get better weapons.  Personally, I’d go with the MK1 Braton, the MK1 Kunai, and the MK1 Bo, but it’s personal preference.  Just sell them as soon as you get replacements.

First Upgrades
The Hek, Karak, Dread, and Ignis are great early game weapons. Once you hit MR 9, get the Ignis Wraith from the Dojo, which is one of the best AOE weapons in the game.

The Sonicor is a very powerful secondary, considering how easy it is to get. At MR 5, the Atomos is an excellent short range weapon that can handle all star chart content.

The Amphis is the best mastery rank 0, non-Prime melee weapon.  At MR 2, there is the Scindo, which does good damage and has a large attack radius and is easy to acquire. At MR 5, the Cassowar, avaiable in the Clan Tenno lab, is a big upgrade.

As soon as you can, try to get some Prime weapons.  They are almost all good, and if you have some platinum to spend, you should be able to buy some Prime weapons cheap in trading chat. If you join a clan, you’ll gain access to clan weapons, which aren’t top tier, but can help rank up mastery and they have some interesting and fun options.

Primary Weapons

The best explosive/large AOE primaries are the Kuva Zarr and the Kuva Brahmma. Other good options are the Probiscus Cernos, and Bubonico. For single targets, the best option is the Phenmor. You can’t go wrong with pretty much any of the Kuva or Tennet weapons either, or the Phantasma Prime.

For shotguns, the Felarx is the highest damage shotgun, and the Cedo is excellent at applying status effects to multiple enemies quickly, if you want to prime for Condition Overload or Galvanized Aptitude/Savvy/Shot.

Secondary Weapons

For single target DPS, the best pistol is the Laetum Incarnon weapon. For status application, use the Kuva Nukor, which can get over 100% status chance and jumps to multiple enemies, and the Epithaph, which also can do a ton of status, but over an AOE. For AOE damage, the Sporelacer kitgun is pretty good. All kitguns, Kuva, and Tenet weapons are solid choices.

Melee Weapons

The Praedos and Innodem are the pinnacle of melee weapons. The bonuses from their evolutions put them a solid step ahead of all non-Incarnon melee weapons.

Other good melee options include: Zaws, Stropha, Glaive Prime, Venka Prime, Kronen Prime, and the Tenet Grigori.