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Primary Deadhead is a Primary Arcane that on headshot kill increases primary weapon damage for 24 seconds and stacks up to 3 times. At max rank, it also passively increases headshot damage multiplier and reduces recoil.
Can be sold for 
1,000.
Effect[]
| Rank | Damage per Stack | Total at 3 stacks | Headshot Multiplier | Recoil |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 20% | 60% | - | - |
| 1 | 40% | 120% | - | - |
| 2 | 60% | 180% | - | - |
| 3 | 80% | 240% | - | - |
| 4 | 100% | 300% | - | - |
| 5 | 120% | 360% | +30% | -50% |
Acquisition
Awarded for defeating Acolytes in The Steel Path.
| Item | Source | Chance | Expected | Nearly Guaranteed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Mania | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
|
Angst | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
|
Violence | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
|
Torment | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
|
Misery | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
|
Malice | 16.67% | ~ 5 Kills | 37 ± 12 Kills |
All drop rates data is obtained from DE's official drop tables.
See Mission Rewards#Standard Missions for definitions on reward table rotations.
For more detailed definitions and information,
visit here.
Notes[]
- When the buff times out, one stack is lost and the buff duration resets.
- Headshot bonus stacks additively with
Target Acquired, innate headshot damage bonuses on weapons such as 
Kuva Chakkhurr, and snipers with bonus headshot damage from scope bonuses.
Cernos Prime's headshot bonus is unique and stacks multiplicatively with Primary Deadhead's headshot bonus.
- Kills from some status procs on the target's head do not count as a headshot kill.
Electricity and 
Gas procs are able to trigger the effect when aimed at the head however, as they are able to land headshots themselves.
- 'Precision' refers to direct hit headshots (not AoE).
Tips[]
- Can be used on weapons which normally have a 1.0x multiplier to headshots (such as the
Arca Plasmor/
Tenet Arca Plasmor and Update 32 launchers such as the 
Kuva Zarr and 
Afentis) to give them a 1.3x headshot multiplier and actually provide a benefit. - Since Electricity and Gas procs are able to independently land headshots, they benefit twice from the headshot multiplier bonus. Both of these procs will have 1.69x headshot damage from the bonus.
Patch History[]
Update 30.5 (2021-07-06)
- Introduced.
 Arcanes
| ||
|---|---|---|
| Eidolon • Arcane Helmets • Ostron • Operator • Amp • Solaris United • The Holdfasts • The Quills • Vox Solaris | ||
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15 comments
"Electricity and Gas procs are able to trigger the effect when aimed at the head however, as they are able to land headshots themselves." I wonder if blast is included in this now
On Precision Headshot "Kill"
The kill part killed the mod for me, Im a warframe player, stick boom kill entire room
Keep in mind, this just means the final hit was a headshot (Which on AOE is very possible) and you only need 3 to max stack & one every 23 seconds or so
The "Precision" part means that the direct hit kill damage needs to be a headshot. headshots inflicted by aoe don't count
Anyone know if this applies damage to primaries after base damage multipliers are added? Someone is telling me that serration is applied before and then multiplied by Deadhead. This is a base damage multiplier, right? Additive to base damage multipliers?
It is additive to base damage bonuses yes.
I thought so but honestly, I don't know enough about this game to argue with a legendary 2. I figured I'd be petty and go to the wiki comments <3
TY tenno!
Pair this with Pax Seeker and everything is dead
Does this still add a headshot bonus for aoe?
Probably yea since de just change aoe headshot multiplier to 1x just like arca plasmor
If you hit a headshot with an AoE weapon, both the projectile and (almost always) the radial damage will benefit from Deadhead's 30% headshot bonus.
Is anyone else earning this arcane, but when you go to rank it up the one you just earned from the mission isn't there? I swear I've acquired many of this arcane and when I go to see how many I have left to rank it to the next level it still shows zero. Is it bugged or something? Its taken weeks just to get it to rank 3. I should be at least have way to rank 5.
It could be that you are getting Secondary Deadhead and not realizing it.
Only headshots using the weapon this is equipped on will trigger the arcane?
*Harrow heavy breathing*
Perfect for Chakkhurr
+30% to Headshot Multiplier is local (for the primary) only or does it applies passively to everything (melee, abilities etc) ??
No count of slash death is big problem.
Everyone thinks merciless is the best arcane, but deadhead is merciless' big brother
Slash procs don't count as head shots so not really
This arcane is nuts on the Bubonico. It almost completely kills the recoil on the primary fire, so there's no real downside to running Shotgun Spazz anymore.
So.... for me, sometime it bugs sometime not, when the counter is going down, instead of 24second, I got 4 second and the other 2 stack was lost faster
At least, it's easy to headshot kill with Kuva Hek
There is a current bug in which if you go into operator mode and return to your frame, for instance, the number will appear to reset (upon losing a stack) at a much lower time―closely to the time that the buff duration was at upon entering back into your Warframe. Thankfully, this is purely visual, and the actual full time reset and stack decay process is functioning as intended apart from the UI's misinformation.
It drops from acolytes at a 100% rate, the rarity is due to it being one of 6 possible, so not counting duplicates after maxed, a total of 60 acolyte kills are needed to get all 6 new arcanes.
^the math was off, 10 would only be needed for rank 3, but the arcanes are rank 5