Build it if you want a single-target execute button for Steel Path bosses and Archons, not a crowd clearer. The alt-fire dumps the whole magazine into one hit that drops Demolishers and Acolytes fast. Already running Kuva Nukor or Kuva Sobek? Skip it. You need a general-purpose primary, not this.
Hold the alt-fire and the Hek dumps all four barrels in one pull, burning the entire 4-round magazine for roughly 2,436 raw damage in a single hit, about four times a normal shot. One shot, then reload. Not a spam button.
The Kuva Hek isn’t just a reskinned Hek with bigger numbers on the card. It’s a Kuva Lich weapon: a random bonus element baked in, a magazine that holds four shots, and an alt-fire that turns it into a shotgun sniper for a split second at a time.
Update 35.6 also reopened a mod slot that had been locked away for years. Scattered Justice works on Kuva Hek again, and it shows up in most current builds.
How to get the Kuva Hek
You don’t buy this one. There’s no blueprint either. It drops from a Kuva Lich, and only if that specific Lich happens to be carrying it.
Kill Grineer thralls on the Kuva Fortress or in Steel Path missions until a Lich spawns. Thralls drop murmur clues. Collect enough of them and you decode the Lich’s three-mod Requiem sequence. Confront the Lich with the correct mods in the correct order and you vanquish it. If it was holding a Kuva Hek, the weapon drops straight into your Foundry, free.
Lich weapons are random per Lich. You might vanquish five in a row without a Kuva Hek showing up. No guarantee. That’s the grind: thrall farming, murmur collection, repeat until it drops.
The card lists Mastery Rank 15. Not enforced. Claiming a Lich weapon happens in the Foundry, not the market, so you can use it the moment it drops, regardless of your MR.
Stats
| Class | Primary |
|---|---|
| Mastery Rank | 15 |
| Trigger | SEMI |
| Noise | Alarming |
| Fire Rate | 2.17 |
| Accuracy | 9.1 |
| Magazine | 4 |
| Reload | 1.9 s |
| Multishot | 7 |
| Critical Chance | 23% |
| Critical Multiplier | 2.1x |
| Status Chance | 13.3% |
| Riven Disposition | (1) |
| Damage | 87 total |
|---|---|
| Impact | 13.1 |
| Puncture | 56.6 |
| Slash | 17.4 |
Riven disposition sits at three dots, 1.00x. Simple math: a riven won’t swing this weapon the way it would on something off-meta. Don’t expect a riven to fix the magazine size or the fire rate.
Builds
Most current builds lean into the alt-fire and the crit stats instead of fighting them. Multishot comes from Scattered Justice and Galvanized Hell. Primed Ravage pushes the critical damage multiplier up. Primed Chilling Grasp adds Cold for a Viral combo against general Steel Path targets. Building specifically for Archon one-shots? Swap toward a Radiation-leaning progenitor roll instead. Hunter Munitions rides the crit chance for armor-bypassing slash procs, and Galvanized Savvy adds more status plus a per-kill damage bonus. Typical investment across current guides runs 4 to 5 Forma.
Hek
Shotgun
Shotgun
Shotgun
SET: PRIMARY
Shotgun
Shotgun
Shotgun| Mod | Effect |
|---|---|
| Scattered Justice | Up to +200% multishot at max rank, plus a scaling bonus-damage proc called Justice. |
| Galvanized Hell | Large base multishot. Kills grant a stacking temporary multishot buff, up to 4 stacks. |
| Primed Ravage | Raises critical damage multiplier, not critical chance, from around +60% to around +110%. |
| Primed Chilling Grasp | Adds Cold damage to every pellet. |
| Hunter Munitions | Critical hits have roughly a 30% chance to also force a Slash proc, which bypasses armor for damage over time. |
| Galvanized Savvy | Raises status chance. Kills grant escalating direct-hit damage for each status effect currently on the target, stacking twice. |
| Primed Point Blank | Flat base damage increase. The standard shotgun damage stacker. |
| Critical Deceleration | Trades fire rate for a large boost to critical chance. |
Primary Deadhead is the top arcane pick across current guides. Headshot kills stack a primary-damage buff up to 3x for 24 seconds, and at max rank it also raises the headshot multiplier and cuts recoil. Shotgun Vendetta adds reload speed and shows up as a newer alternative if you’re leaning hard on repeated alt-fire dumps and want less downtime between them.
Reviewed September 2026.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Alt-fire dumps all four barrels in one pull for one of the biggest single-target bursts among shotguns, roughly 2,436 raw damage before mods. Strong against Demolishers, Acolytes, and Archons.
- Free elemental damage from the Lich progenitor bonus, 25% to 60%, pushable to the cap through Valence Fusion. Works like a bonus mod slot.
- Solid baseline stats across the board: 23% critical chance, a 2.1x critical multiplier, 13.3% status chance, 7 pellets per shot. Beats the base Hek and, per most build guides, the Vaykor Hek too.
- Scattered Justice is usable again since Update 35.6, letting it stack toward very high multishot totals alongside the Galvanized mods.
- Reload is fast for what it delivers, 1.9 seconds, so it recovers from an alt-fire dump quicker than the tiny magazine suggests.
Cons
- The 4-round magazine means the signature alt-fire is a one-shot-then-reload move. No back-to-back quad-barrel bursts without heavy magazine investment.
- Slow fire rate (2.17) and an alt-fire that burns the whole mag make it weak against big crowds compared to full-auto or wide-AoE shotguns like Kuva Sobek or Kuva Kohm.
- Getting one at all means a full Lich hunt: thrall grinding, murmur decoding, vanquishing, with no guarantee the Lich even carries a Kuva Hek. A good element roll can take several cycles or Valence Fusion fodder to lock in.
- Low riven disposition (1.00x, three dots) caps how much a riven can boost it. Current Kuva-weapon and shotgun tier lists both rank it behind Nukor, Ogris, Sobek, Felarx, and Cedo for general use. It’s a burst-execute specialist now, not the best-in-slot shotgun.
This fits a specific role: a dedicated answer for tough single targets when your other primary can’t burst them down fast enough. Demolishers, Acolytes, an Archon phase that needs one big hit instead of sustained fire.
If you’re building your first general-purpose Kuva weapon, grab Nukor or Sobek first. Not close, honestly, for all-around use. The Hek’s alt-fire is satisfying but narrow, and the 4-round mag punishes you the moment more than one target needs killing.
Worth farming for the niche it covers. Not worth farming if you expect it to replace your main primary.