Kuva and Tenet Weapons Tier List — All 35 Adversary Weapons Ranked

Thirty-five weapons, one loop, one formula

The adversary weapons are the strongest versions of existing weapons. Kuva comes from Grineer Liches, Tenet from Sisters of Parvos, and Coda from the 1999 Technocyte adversary.

This page covers 19 Kuva and 16 Tenet weapons with base stats recomputed from the dataset this site builds from, plus the fusion maths that most guides skip.

Every weapon here shares two things: it arrives with a random elemental bonus between 25 and 60 percent, and it arrives with no polarities.

All 19 Kuva weapons

The number that jumps out is Kuva Nukor: 21 base damage, fiftieth on a raw table, and still the most-recommended Kuva weapon in the game. Its 50 percent status and 5.0x crit multiplier do the work. Full Kuva Nukor page.

All 16 Tenet weapons

Tenet Plinx is worth a second look for a low-ranked account: mastery rank 6, 44 percent crit at a 3.0x multiplier. It is the cheapest high-crit pistol in either family.

Tier list by job, not by damage

Same principle as the main best weapons page: the raw column reorders once crit enters.

Area clear

• Kuva Bramma — 1026 damage delivered as an explosion, 35 percent crit. The strongest area weapon in either family.
• Kuva Tonkor — 733 with a 30 percent / 2.5x crit line and a faster fire rate than Bramma.
• Tenet Arca Plasmor — 760 radiation across a wide fan, 34 percent status. Best in narrow corridors where the fan covers the room’s width. Full page.

Crit single target

• Kuva Chakkhurr — 50 percent crit at 2.3x, the highest crit chance in the Kuva set.
• Tenet Ferrox — 34 percent crit at 3.0x, the highest multiplier of any Tenet rifle.
• Tenet Envoy — 28 percent at 2.6x with 740 base damage, a launcher that also crits.

Status and priming

• Kuva Nukor — 50 percent status, chains to two extra targets.
• Kuva Ogris — 47 percent status on an area weapon, the fastest way to spread effects across a room.
• Tenet Glaxion and Tenet Cycron — 40 percent status each, one primary and one sidearm.

Shotguns with a different job

• Kuva Sobek — 77 base across five pellets, built around Acid Shells rather than raw DPS. Full page.
• Kuva Hek — 87 base across seven pellets, the burst pick.
• Kuva Kohm — nine pellets at 20 base, spool-up sustained fire.

Melee

• Tenet Agendus — 260 base, the highest melee damage in either family.
• Kuva Shildeg — 31 percent crit at 2.7x, the crit hammer.
• Tenet Grigori — 38 percent status, the status pick of the Tenet melee set.

Valence Fusion: the 1.1x rule

This is the part players get wrong. Fusing two copies does not average them and does not add percentages.

The result is:

final bonus = min(1.1 × the higher of the two bonuses, 60%)

Rounded down to one decimal place. Any result at 58 percent or above rounds up to 60.

The practical consequence: a donor at 52.8 percent or higher always produces a perfect 60 percent. 52.8 × 1.1 = 58.08, which rounds up to 60.

Two rules that cost people weapons:

1. Order matters. The weapon you open in the Arsenal keeps its Catalyst, Forma, Exilus adapter and Lens. The donor loses everything it carried. Always start from the copy you intend to keep.
2. Elements are chosen at fusion. If the two copies have different progenitor elements, you pick which one survives. That is how you convert a Heat roll into the Toxin or Cold you actually wanted.

A 25 percent first roll is not a wasted Lich. It is one fusion away from a better number, provided the fusion partner is high.

Progenitor element: pick before you hunt

The element on the weapon is inherited from the Warframe that created the Lich or Sister. That is decided before the hunt starts, and changing it means a new adversary.

Practical split:

• Heat is the default for damage — it fits most builds without forcing a combo.
• Toxin and Cold are the picks when you plan to build Viral or Corrosive and want the element supplied by the weapon.
• Magnetic is a utility pick for shielded targets and for builds that want the extra status.

Decide from the build you intend to run, not from a tier list. The element is worth more than a few points of base damage.

Which to farm first

If you have never hunted an adversary, take these in order:

1. Kuva Nukor — the primer that improves every other weapon you own.
2. Kuva Bramma or Kuva Tonkor — one area weapon changes how fast everything else clears.
3. Tenet Arca Plasmor — the close-range area answer, different shape to the launchers.
4. Kuva Chakkhurr — the crit single-target answer for bosses.
5. Kuva Sobek — only after you have the Acid Shells build ready.

Do not farm a weapon you have no build for. An adversary weapon with no Forma and no polarities performs below a finished regular weapon, and the hunt is not short.

What the Coda family adds

The 1999 adversary adds 13 Coda weapons, all at mastery rank 17, and they lean hard into status: Coda Sporothrix at 55 percent is the highest base status chance of any primary in the dataset, and Coda Catabolyst and Coda Tysis both sit at 50 percent.

Coda sits behind later content than Kuva and Tenet. Treat it as the third family to work through, not the first.

Before you start a hunt

An adversary takes several missions plus a requiem sequence, and abandoning one leaves it hunting you across your missions. Start a hunt you can finish in a session.

You also need the slots and the Forma. A Kuva weapon needs roughly five or six Forma before a full build fits, because it ships with no polarities at all.

The crafting and Foundry guide covers the slot cost, and the mods guide covers what goes in the polarities once you have them.