Damage meta questions

Hi all, I'm a returning MR24 player (after multiple years) and I suddenly feel very underpowered. When I played status-guns were all the rage.

I did find this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/18vgnjw/what_is_the_current_meta/, but that's 2 years old and a lot can change.

I have the xoris and the torid + incarnon (I was carried...). Still need to combine them, but that's probably locked behind a quest?

I should have the 'correct' weapons, so I'm not really looking for specific weapon advice, but more generally how to build them. Is viral still important? Why does heat matter? High status, or just raw damage? What do I optimize for?

I've seen a lot boost-your-weapon warframes, is that meta? Hydroids 4 used to be fun, but now his 3 seems to reign? And somehow I saw a tanky Nova.

For now I really need some weapons so I can comfortably kill steel path enemies and archons, so I unlock the rest of the content