Warframe Syam is one of the only six melee weapons that you can equip on your Drifter while in Duviri. It is a single nikana, but outperforms the default dual nikana that the Drifter starts out with. Its light attacks have the highest attack speed among all Drifter melee options if you discount the multi-hit swings from the Edun polearm.
That said, it also has the fastest heavy attack of them all, allowing you to spam it for the highest sustained damage output before Decrees.
While the Duviri-exclusive special attack (Block+Heavy combo) is underwhelming, Syam's main draw as a weapon outside Duviri is a property bestowed upon its non-Duviri form in Warframe.
Heavy attacks launch wave-like projectiles that force-proc impact, pierce through enemies, and scale with melee damage mods.
How to get Syam in Warframe?
Like all Drifter melee weapons, the only way to unlock Syam is through Teshin's Cave in Duviri. Syam is the second weapon from the left displayed in the Teshin's Cave, and you can unlock it for either 250 Platinum or 50 Pathos Clamps.
Unlocking Syam in Duviri automatically sends a blueprint to your inventory to use on your Warframes. Crafting Syam requires the following ingredients:
- 4x Maw Fang
- 30x Rune Marrow
- 30x Dracroot
- 30x Eevani
- 30,000x Credits
Warframe Syam build guide 2023: Best mods and build synergies
Syam's stats are as follows:
| Attack Damage | 270 |
| Damage Distribution | 20% Impact, 40% Puncture, 40% Slash |
| Heavy Attack Damage | 1350 |
| Attack Speed | 1.00 |
| Range | 2.5m |
| Follow Through | 0.7 |
| Critical Chance | 22% |
| Critical Multiplier | 2.0x |
| Status Chance | 34% |
| Riven Disposition | 1 out of 5 (0.65x) |
As evident from this table, it is not remotely the best nikana in terms of stats. If Syam is played as a regular light-attack nikana, it is outperformed by the Nikana Prime, Dragon Nikana, or even Skiajati, which all have better Riven disposition. As mentioned earlier, its true potential lies in utilizing the heavy attack waves.
Even though these waves force Impact procs, they deal pure Heat damage. In other words, this is an almost perfect setup for a Gas elemental combination with just one Toxin mod.
The wave attacks will alternate between horizontal and vertical slashes, letting you easily hit multiple targets in proximity and occasionally proc headshot multipliers. Additionally, the waves also travel along steep terrain, giving you decent leeway to hit targets from far away in all tilesets.
Gas mods have quadratic scaling on clumping targets, meaning any group-up Helminth ability will significantly enhance its performance. If you do not want to allocate the Helminth ability slot towards this, the Magus Anomaly Operator arcane can also do this job comfortably.
As for the actual build, you can break into Orange crit (tier 2) territory just with Blood Rush at 12x Combo. However, for a Gas setup, you can simply ditch scaling and go for a permanent 2x Combo with Corrupt Charge instead.
The waves gain full scaling from Condition Overload, meaning a secondary primer like an Epitaph will increase your damage even further. Moreover, if you want to scale further into high-level Steel Path targets, a Primed Smite mod will let the Gas procs double-dip from faction damage multipliers.
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