Best Catabolyst Builds In Warframe

Warframe is packed with some of the most unusual and exciting weapons you’ll ever find in a shooter. Sure, you can grab a classic rifle or handgun if that’s your style, but why settle for ordinary when you can wield weapons like beam cannons, razor-sharp throwing stars, or living bio-weapons that look straight out of a sci-fi nightmare? One of the most unique and satisfying guns you’ll come across is the Catabolyst, an Infested pistol with an explosive twist—it literally turns its magazine into a devastating grenade. In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly how to get your hands on the Catabolyst and its special Coda variant, break down its quirky reload mechanic, and share some top-tier builds that’ll help you shred enemies well into Warframe’s late game.

How To Get The Catabolyst In Warframe

To get your hands on the standard Catabolyst in Warframe, you’ll need access to the Bio Lab in a clan dojo. That means you either need to join an active clan or buy the weapon outright with Platinum from the in-game market. If you go the crafting route, be ready to farm some rare materials—Scintillant in particular can be a bit of a grind. Once the research is complete in your clan’s Bio Lab, you can replicate the blueprint and start gathering the rest of the resources needed to build it.

If crafting isn’t your thing or you’re just looking for an alternate path, you can eventually unlock the Coda Catabolyst during your progression. After finishing “The Hex” quest, you’ll start encountering Technocyte Codalaters—Infested Liches tied to the new storyline. Take them down and then head to Hollvania to speak with Eleanor. She sells Coda variants of weapons, including the Catabolyst, but her stock rotates every few days—so if it’s not there right away, just keep checking back.

Catabolyst Crafting Materials:
• 5x Scintillant
• 4x Ocular Stem-Root
• 7x Mutagen Mass
• 10x Stellated Necrathene
• 30,000 Credits
• Build Time: 24 Hours

Catabolyst Stats And Features In Warframe Explained

The Catabolyst is a unique Infested sidearm that fires a steady Corrosive beam with a rapid fire rate and an insanely high status chance, making it perfect for stacking elemental effects like Heat, Viral, or Blast. While its critical stats leave a lot to be desired, you can crank those numbers up significantly with the Critical Mutation mod from Nightwave. This turns it into a much more balanced weapon capable of dealing both status and crit-based damage depending on how you build it.

What really sets the Catabolyst apart is its reload mechanic. Instead of just topping off your mag, reloading tosses out an explosive blob of toxic energy that detonates on impact. If you reload from a full magazine, the explosion deals solid Corrosive damage, but if you wait until the clip is empty, that explosion hits for ten times the damage and comes with boosted crit stats—turning reloads into mini-nukes. The Coda Catabolyst, a variant you can get later in the game, trades that single blast for three smaller grenades in a spread, offering more crowd control and area denial at the cost of raw damage.

Catabolyst vs. Coda Catabolyst – Core Stats:
• Beam Damage: 53 (Catabolyst), 56 (Coda) – both Corrosive
• Grenade Damage: 1,997 (Catabolyst), 658 x3 (Coda) – also Corrosive
• Multishot: 1
• Fire Rate: 12 rounds per second
• Crit Chance: 11%
• Crit Multiplier: 2.9x
• Status Chance: 43% (Catabolyst), 50% (Coda)
• Magazine Size: 31 (Catabolyst), 37 (Coda)
• Reload Time: 1.7 seconds
• Mastery Rank Requirement: MR 11 (Catabolyst), MR 17 (Coda)
• Accuracy: Low
• Trigger Type: Automatic
• Weapon Type: Secondary (Pistol)

With the right setup, the Catabolyst becomes one of the most creative and satisfying sidearms in Warframe, especially when you take advantage of its reload explosions for burst damage and crowd control.

Best Catabolyst Builds

When it comes to building the Catabolyst, you’ve got two main directions to go: you can either set it up as a reliable status-focused beam weapon or build entirely around its unique grenade-style reload mechanic. Both playstyles are viable, but for most missions and general gameplay, focusing on the beam mode is the more practical and consistent choice. The grenade build can be fun and extremely powerful in the right setup, especially if you build your entire loadout to take advantage of it, but it’s a bit more situational and less reliable in fast-paced content. Below, we’ll break down top builds for both approaches so you can pick what fits your style best.

Beam-Focused Build

This setup is all about pushing the primary beam fire to its max potential, ignoring the reload grenade mechanic entirely. It’s a consistent, high-damage build that melts enemies with status and crits working hand-in-hand. We’re using Galvanized Shot for scaling damage based on status effects, and pairing it with Cascadia Flare to boost damage even further every time Heat procs. To get the most out of that, we mod for Viral and Heat, with Primed Heated Charge tilting the bias toward Heat procs to keep Flare stacked and rolling.

Galvanized Diffusion and Lethal Torrent take care of multishot, giving the beam more hits per trigger pull and increasing your chance to apply multiple status effects at once. For damage scaling, this build leans into crits—Galvanized Crosshairs and Primed Target Cracker massively boost your critical damage and give you a solid crit chance when aiming. If you run Arcane Avenger on your Warframe, you’ll easily hit reliable crits to round this build out as a strong all-purpose sidearm that’s perfect for high-level content.

Grenade-Focused Build

If you’re looking to turn the Coda Catabolyst into a full-blown grenade launcher, this build is all about maximizing the explosive damage from its reload mechanic. Since the grenade isn’t affected by most traditional damage mods—Galvanized Shot and similar effects won’t work—you need to build around mechanics that do scale its damage. That’s where Synth Charge comes in. This mod boosts the final shot in your mag by 300%, and because the grenade triggers on empty reload, it ends up applying this bonus to the explosion. It’s a weird interaction, but it works—and it hits like a truck.

The grenade also benefits from solid crit stats, especially when you reload from an empty mag. For this reason, Critical Mutation is your go-to if you’ve unlocked it, giving you a massive crit boost while increasing fire rate. Pair it with Primed Target Cracker to ramp up the crit multiplier. If you don’t have Critical Mutation, Primed Pistol Gambit works as a solid alternative. Add in Lethal Torrent and Galvanized Diffusion for multishot to help with status spread on your beam shots, and stack elemental mods like Primed Heated Charge and Pathogen Rounds to further scale explosion damage. With the Coda variant firing three grenades in a spread, try to land all of them on the same target for maximum burst—it can shred even tougher enemies in a single reload.

Conclusion

The Catabolyst is one of Warframe’s most creative and satisfying sidearms, offering two completely different playstyles depending on how you build it. Whether you prefer a status-heavy beam that melts enemies over time or a grenade-slinging setup that drops massive bursts of damage with every reload, this weapon delivers. The Coda variant adds even more flexibility with its triple grenade spread, giving you great crowd control potential. With the right mods and strategy, the Catabolyst can hold its own in high-level missions and give your arsenal a serious Infested twist.