Welcome to Warframe! You just started Warframe and have a 100 questions? This guide will help you get started.
The answer is a clear cut NO. Warframe is an example of free to play done right. Everything in the game can be gotten without spending real money. There are some cosmetics that can only be gotten using real money, but there are a TON of cosmetics that don’t require real money. If you’re into fashion and don’t want to spend real money, don’t worry! However spending real money does get you some exclusive cosmetics, convenience, and potentially faster progression.
Example Skins That Don’t Require Real Money To Buy
Pressing ‘esc’ brings up the menu which provides shortcuts to many things you’ll need to navigate through the game. Many of these options will not be shown at first, but will unlock as you progress through the quests.
Credits represented by three shards can be farmed or bought off the market (total rip off). Platinum represented by a silver cylindrical shape is the premium currency which can only be traded for or bought with real money. If trying to avoid spending real money, it is suggested to farm parts and build items rather than purchasing them directly with platinum. Platinum is very valuable and should be spent intelligently.
What Ranks Do To Warframes, Weapons, and Companions
Warframe doesn’t use the term levels. It instead uses the word ranks, but they are basically the same thing. Affinity is the equivalent to experience.
All warframes, weapons, and companions can be ranked up to 30 through gaining affinity. It is important to note that ranking up doesn’t quite work the same as other games. When a warframe ranks up, it will unlock abilities and each warframe has 4 abilities. Ranks will also provide more capacity to equip stat enhancing mods. Each mod costs different amounts of capacity. When weapons are ranked up, they do not increase in power. They only increase in capacity. Mods are the key to improving dps.
Experience Division To Your Loadout
Affinity will be divided up between all warframes and weapons. Companions will receive their own affinity pool. It might be a good idea, when attempting to level up, to only equip warframes and weapons that are not max level to not waste affinity, unless you need your rank 30 warframe or weapon to deal damage.
What Is a Mastery Rank?
You also have an overall rank called, Mastery Rank, separate from warframes, weapons, and companions which provide vital benefits.
The Benefits of Mastery Rank
Ranking up mastery rank is vital for progression. First and foremost, ranking up unlocks weapons in the game. As you progress, more and more weapons will be unlocked until finally at mastery rank 15 all weapons will be unlocked. Trading requires at least mastery rank 2. Mastery rank 16 unlocks all rivens which is non-essential end-game content. Note that all warframes and companions have no mastery rank requirement. Here are additional benefits of mastery ranks:
How To Level Up Mastery Rank
Mastery rank is gained by ranking up warframes, weapons, companions, archwings, and archwing weapons to level 30. Once an item is max ranked, you will never be able to gain mastery rank points from ranking up that same item. To find out what items you have ranked up and what items you haven’t, check either the codex (esc–>quests–>universe tab) or profile (esc–>profile–>my profile–>equipment tab). Ranking up warframes, companions, and archwings provide double the amount of points toward Mastery Rank than weapons do.
Mastery Rank Tests
When you’re ready to rank up, you must first pass a mastery rank test. The game will notify you by shining a bright blue line below your name. Click rank up in the drop down box when ready. The tests are easy, though later they can present more challenge. If you fail, you’ll have to wait 24 hours before attempting it again.
How To Practice For Mastery Rank Tests
Practice runs can be done in the Larunda Relay in Mercury. It is located on the right side of Cephalon Simaris’ room. In the relay, to fast travel press esc–>fast travel–>cephalon simaris.
How To Gain Experience From Enemies Killed By Teammates
Affinity isn’t split among teammates, but you do receive affinity every time a teammate scores a kill. However, you will only receive this affinity, if you are within 50 meters (base distance) of the teammate who scored the kill. Therefor it would be ideal, when leveling, to stay within affinity range indicated by the three circle symbols next to player names.
How To Access Inventory
esc–>inventory–>warframe or weapon tab
The Difficulty of Inventory Management During Early-Game
One of the biggest difficulties of a new player is inventory management. As said in the previous section, leveling Mastery Rank is vital. You will have to max rank many items. HOWEVER, you only start with 2 warframe slots, and 8 weapon slots. It will cost platinum to increase slots. Limited slots and limited platinum creates a dilemma for a new player. To rank up new weapons, old weapons will have to be deleted to create space.
What Items To Keep and What Items To Level Solely For Mastery Rank
Some weapons are worth keeping and others are not, also known as MASTERY FODDER. Most of the lower rank weapons are not worth keeping. However, some of them are and they are listed in the “Weapons” section. There are so many warframes and I’m sure you’ll be interested in at least several. In that case, it will be important to increase warframe slot capacity. Warframes to keep are ones you find fun and/or are useful. Warframes awarded from quests (see “Warframes (Quest)” section) should be kept unless there is an available primed version within reach, because the quest warframes can never be acquired again (Digital Extremes is looking to change this at some point). Several Prime warframes have been vaulted, which means they no longer are in the drop tables. If the prime version of a quest frame is vaulted, it may be better to keep the non-prime version until acquiring the prime version. Some weapons, are also ingredients to other weapons, so those should be kept also. Check out this Wiki Link for a list of all weapons that are ingredients.
How To Get Additional Warframe and Weapon Slots
Luckily DE has provided every new account with 50 platinum which allows for purchase of 1 warframe slot and 4 weapon slots. The slots are so important that the platinum shouldn’t be wasted on anything else at this point. Many people recommend buying 1 warframe slot (20 platinum) and 4 weapon slots (24 platinum). To buy the slot, just click on the + sign. Eventually you’ll want to buy even more slots, because a development of interest in multiple warframes and weapons is almost guaranteed as you progress. In that case, you’ll need more platinum, so check out the “How To Make Platinum” section of this guide. Alternatively, you can buy 1 orokin reactor (20 platinum) and 1 orokin catalyst (20 platinum) which allows more mods to be equipped on 1 warframe and 1 weapon (more details on orokin reactors/catalysts in “Modding” section)
Foundry – How Items Are Made
To access foundry: esc–>equipment–>foundry
Many items are built using resources and/or parts.
All Building Requires Time
Everything has a build time with warframes being the most at a whopping 3 days. Weapons take 12 hours. New players are usually shocked at this wait time. It is a significant amount of time and matters less later in the game.
How To Lessen The Impact of Long Build Times
To lessen the impact of such high wait times, it’s smart to continuously build, so that way while your leveling your current warframes and weapons, there will be new ones ready by the time you max rank them. This way a cycle begins eliminating all or almost all wait time. Alternatively, building can be rushed with platinum, but this is not recommended if low on platinum.
How The Foundry Can Help With Inventory Management
As mentioned earlier, inventory management is troublesome in the beginning. A smart trick is to build items even if you have no more slots left, and leave it unclaimed in the foundry. When a slot opens up, you can claim them then.
How Non-prime Warframes Are Made
Most blueprints for non-prime warframe parts (Neuroptics, Chassis, and Systems) can be farmed. The blueprint that combines the parts can be bought off the market with credits. Some warframe blue prints can only be gotten from completing Quests (more details in “Warframes” section). After getting the blueprint, it will be displayed in the foundry.
How to access the market: esc–>market
Where To Get Specific Resources
There many different types of resources. They all drop from enemies and containers with some exceptions. Each planet drops a specific type. You can find out which resource drops from which planet by selecting a planet and hovering over the extractor icon at the bottom right.
Strategies for Farming Resources
Generally, more resources drop the higher the planet level is. They also drop more when fighting high concentrations of enemies, which are usually found in survival or defense missions and more players in a the party will cause more enemies to spawn. Argon Crystals drop from enemies but they also often spawn as containers. Therefor, it would be smart to enter rooms with high concentration of containers and destroy them all.
Warframes That Increase Resource Drop
How To Increase Pickup Range
Equipping a sentinel with the mod Vacuum (preferably max ranked) or companion with Fetch will collect all items within a nice radius. Without this mod, it would be easy to accidentally miss drops.
Arsenal
To access Arsenal: esc–>equipment–>arsenal
Here you can switch warframes, weapons, and companions. Gear is where you equip items such as scanners and kinetic siphon traps. To mod a warframe, weapon, or companion, hover over them and click upgrade.
Modding Screen
Here you will equip vital mods and create your build. Mods take up capacity. Whenever you rank up and open up capacity, you should take advantage and either equip more mods or rank up currently equipped mods.
Polarities – How To Decrease the Capacity Cost of Mods
Warframes, weapons and companions often come with polarities. Because there is limited capacity, you’ll want to use polarities to your advantage. If you look closely you’ll see a symbol on some slots. There’s D (Vazarin), V (Madurai), and – (Naramon). Every mod also comes with its own polarity. When you match polarities, the mod takes up half the normal amount.
Auras – Mods That Increase Total Capacity
For warframes, there’s a special slot called the aura. For melee weapons, it’s called a stance. Aura mods for warframes come from Nightwave (more information on Nightwave in “Nightwave System” section). As soon you have one, you’ll want to equip them because they increase capacity. If auras polarities are matching, they will increase capacity even more.
Actions Screen
At the bottom right of the screen you’ll see the actions button.
Forma – How To Change A Polarity
In the Actions screen, you can apply what’s called a forma. When you apply a forma, you can either change an already existing polarity or add a new polarity to a blank one. Note in order to apply a forma, the weapon, warframe, or companion must be rank 30 and after applying the forma, the item will return to rank 0.
What are the best ways to farm Forma?
Orokin Reactors/Catalysts – How To Double Capacity
Orokin Reactors double total capacity for warframes and companions while Orokin Catalysts double the capacity of weapons. In the actions screen, you will be able to apply them. Unlike forma, items will retain their rank and need not be level 30. These items are vital and should be applied to your favorite warframes and weapons as soon as you get them.
Ranking Up Mods
Going back to the previous screen, you’ll see a mods button at the bottom right.
Here you will be able to rank up mods to increase their stats.
Be mindful that flawed mods have significantly lower stats than their regular counter parts. You can opt out of ranking them to avoid wasting endo or dissolve the ranked mod for a percent return on endo.
Endo – Currency Used To Rank Up Mods
Ranking up mods will cost endo. Endo can be collected in various ways. They will randomly drop from enemies and be rewarded from completing missions objectives.
Endo Cost To Rank Up Mods
Mod Tiers By Rarity
Dissolving Mods For Endo
In the modding screen, duplicate mods that aren’t worth any platinum can be dissolved into endo. Mods can also be sold for credits, but I recommend dissolving them instead.
Ayatan Sculptures – A Good Source of Endo
In the modding screen, you’ll see an Ayatan Treasures button.
This window lists any ayatan sculptures, ayatan stars, and ayatan amber stars you’ve gotten from missions.
Sculptures can be upgraded using ayatan stars and ayatan amber stars. They are randomly placed in missions but rarely. They can also be gotten once a week from Maroo’s Ayatan Treasure Hunt. There’s also daily sortie missions that reward sculptures and endo. More information on these missions are detailed in the “Navigation System” section.
Maroo’s Bazaar – Where To Extract Endo From Ayatan Sculptures
Endo can be claimed from sculptures by talking to Maroo in Maroo’s Bazaar located on Mars.
Maroo’s Ayatan Treasure Weekly Hunt
Only 1 Ayatan Sculpure can be claimed once a week. Maroo’s Ayatan Treasure Hunt will be a test of parkour.
What Do I Get From Nightwave?
Progressing through the Nightwave system gives you access to many essential items. They include: Orokin reactors/catalysts, Aura mods, exclusive weapons, forma, nitain extract, and the Vauban warframe.
How To Access Nightwave
How To Progress In Nightwave
Nightwave has a total of 30 ranks aka reward tiers. You’ll have to do daily/weekly acts to rank up. The challenges award anywhere from 1,000 and 9,000 points toward the rank. Each rank takes 10,000 points to level up. The challenges reset every 7 days on Sunday.
Nightwave Credits
Rewards from each tier changes through each rank. Every few tiers, you will be rewarded with Nightwave credits. These credits are used to buy the various items listed above. The available items rotate every 7 days on Sunday. The top right corner displays how many credits you currently have.
Orokin reactors/catalysts are essential items. They are expensive and cost 75 Nightwave credits. Aura mods only cost 20 Nightwave credits and some of the Aura mods can be sold for 20 to 30 platinum on the warframe market. Instead of buying orokin reactors/catalysts with Nightwave credits, you can sell Aura mods and buy orokin reactors/catalysts on the in-game market for 20 platinum each. Using this method, 80 Nightwave credits can net 4 to 6 orokin reactors/catalysts.
Nightwave Skins
Many of the items available are only skins, so be sure to look closely before buying.
This section only lists acts with less obvious solutions. To equip gear items, go to arsenal (esc–>equipment–>arsenal–>bottom left of screen. To use a gear item in mission, open the gear wheel (default key Q).
Solution: Air support charges are built in the foundry and must be equipped in gear menu.
Solution: Combine Electric and Cold
Solution: Combine Heat and Toxin
Solution: Combine Heat and Cold
Solution: Combine Toxin and Electric
Solution: Combine Cold and Toxin
Solution: Combine Heat and Electric
Solution: Target item on floor and mark (default key G)
Solution: Go to Mods (esc–>equipment–>mods). Select 4 mods and transmute.
Solution: Sneak up behind enemies and melee for finisher animation or bypass the need to sneak using blinding abilities such as Excalibur’s radial blind.
Solution: In mission, select gear wheel and press right click to open the emote wheel.
Solution: Glyphs need to be equipped in gears. In mission, select glyph in gear wheel.
Solution: See section, “Syndicates.”
This section only lists acts with less obvious solutions. To equip gear items, go to arsenal (esc–>equipment–>arsenal–>bottom left of screen. To use a gear item in mission, open the gear wheel (default key Q).
Solution: See “Ayatan Sculptures” section.
Solution: See section, “Difficult Junction Challenges.” This can be done at any sabotage mission with Grineer, Corpus, and Void tilesets.
Solution: Fortuna is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Disruption mission is located on Jupiter and is unlocked after doing the Natah quest.
Solution: Plains of Eidolon is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Plains of Eidolon is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Fortuna is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Eximus units spawn more in Sanctuary Onslaught and Sortie missions with modifier Eximus Stronghold. The New Strange quest must be completed to unlock Sanctuary Onslaught.
Solution: Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna are mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: See Darvo to que this mission. He is located in the room next to Cephalon Simaris’ room. To go to Cephalon Simaris’ room, while in the relay, press esc–>fast travel–>Cephalon Simaris.
Solution: See section, “Modding.”
Solution: See section, “Cephalon Simaris.”
Solution: See section, “Useful Nightmare Mods,” on how to access them.
Solution: See section, “Fissure System.”
Solution: See section, “How To Farm Corrupted Mods.”
Solution: Fortuna is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Fortuna is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: Fortuna is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
This section only lists acts with less obvious solutions. To equip gear items, go to arsenal (esc–>equipment–>arsenal–>bottom left of screen. To use a gear item in mission, open the gear wheel (default key Q).
Solution: Lua planet is unlocked after completing the “Second Dream” quest. More information is on the warframe wiki.
Solution: Index is located on Neptune. Any risk level can be completed. Warframes with crowd control abilities is recommended.
Solution: ESO unlocks after completing the New Strange quest.
Solution: Eximus units spawn more in Sanctuary Onslaught and Sortie missions with modifier Eximus Stronghold. The New Strange quest must be completed to unlock Sanctuary Onslaught.
Solution: Completion of the Silver Grove quest is required. See the warframe wiki.
Solution: Completion of War Within quest is required. Kuva survival missions are any survival missions on the Kuva Fortress.
Solution: Plains of Eidolon is mid-game content and is not included in this guide.
Solution: See section, “Useful Nightmare Mods,” on how to access them.
Solution: See section, “Fissure System.”
How To Access Navigation Screen
To Acess Navigation: esc–>navigation
Progressing through the quests, will unlock special mission types represented by tabs at the top right of the screen. It is imperative to unlock all missions and planets, because these special missions will be located randomly on any location on any planet.
Junctions – How To Unlock Planets
To unlock planets, missions need to be completed toward junctions. Junctions are the gateway to the next planet and involve completing challenges to unlock and reward various items.
Planet Unlock Order
Here is the planet unlock order starting from Earth.
Derelict can be accessed after buying and building Derelict keys off the market
Lua is accessed after completion of the Second Dream Quest
Kuva Fortress is accessed after completion of the War Within Quest
Setting Games To Public or Solo
Hovering over the icon at the top left, you can set games to public, friends only, invite only, and solo.
Nightwave
Nightwave is important and offer rewards such as: orokin catalysts, orokin reactors, nitain extract, aura mods, exclusive weapons, and the Vauban warframe. See section, “Nightwave System,” for more information.
If you see the resource drone at the bottom right, click episode status, to switch to Nightwave display.
Alerts
Alerts are important and occasionally reward important items such as orokin catalysts/reactor blueprints, forma blueprints, and rivens. Maroo’s Weekly Ayatan Treasure Hunt is also located here.
Invasions
Invasion missions need to be completed 3 times to receive the invasion reward. Rewards include orokin catalyst/reactor blueprints, forma blueprints, exclusive weapon parts, and special resources.
Syndicate
Syndicate missions reward syndicate points and syndicate medallions, which award additional syndicate points and are randomly located on mission maps. This is not that urgent but should be worked on at some point. This tab also lists Cephalon Simaris and Onslaught missions which will be more important mid-game. More details are in the “Syndicate” section.
Fissures
Fissures reward traces and prime parts. Traces will be needed in the beginning of the game to farm vital mods. Effectively farming prime parts will be difficult in the beginning, but will become a regular activity during mid-game and after. Details are located in the “Fissure System” section.
Sorties
Sorties are unlocked after the War Within quest and contain higher level enemies between 50 and 100. They randomly reward endo, boosters, forma, orokin catalyst/reactor blueprints, and items that can net some platinum.
Digital Extremes has a nice quest guide located here.
The recruit channel is going to be an important tool as you progress through the game, unless you’re a strict solo gamer. However, there are segments of the game, that solo players will truly benefit from in a party or otherwise that content will be a major pain. There’s lingo, like most online games, that you’re going to want to get familiar with. A very comprehensive list is in the “Warframe Lingo” section.
Recruitment Channel Lingo
Meaning: Host
Example: H Vault Runs
Meaning: Looking For
Example: LF Vault Runs
Meaning: A player has a mission unlocked and will bring along players who don’t have it unlocked
Example: LF Taxi to Orokin Catalyst Alert
How To Navigate The Trade Channel
The trade channel is pretty important. If you hate trading, the warframe market is always available and convenient. If you really hate spending time in the trade channel, there are buy and sell sections that are both very effective. If you’re a big trader, serious platinum can be made from flipping items meaning buying an item low and selling it high. Strategies for making platinum through trading is located in section, “Trading Strategies.”
Trade Channel Lingo
WTS – Want To Sell – WTS [Energy Siphon]
WTB – Want To Buy – WTB [Fleeting Expertise]
PMO – Private Message Offer – WTS [narrowminded] PMO
WTT – Want To Trade item for item – WTT [Constitution] for [Streamline]
Enlarge the Size of Your Chat Window
Many players don’t know but you can, or else the trade/recruit chat will be hard to read making you prone to messaging the wrong person or misreading. The top right corner of the window has three little dots that you can drag.
Use the Chat Filter When Looking For Something Specific
The magnifier symbol is at the top left corner of the chat window.
Most Used Chat Commands
/invite username – invite a player to a party
/unstuck – use whenever glitched in a map
[item name] – link an item in chat. E.g. [Corrosive Projection] (Link will point to the item in the Market.)/friend add username – send a friends request
/i username – ignore a player cutting off communication (They can still see your messages but not vice versa.)
/profile username – check a player’s profile
/? – view full command list
Make sure to join a clan with 100% clan research. I suggest moon clans because they have the highest capacity of players capped at 1000 and they usually have 100% research and none to barely any requirements. Really the choice is all yours, but a one with 100% research is a good idea.
Size of Clans By Tier
How To Join a Clan
You can ask to join a clan in the recruitment channel or in the Official Warframe Forums for Clan Recruitment. If you meet the requirements and are not currently in a clan, a recruiter will send you an invite. The invite will show up in your inbox (esc–>communications–>inbox).
To access the Clan Dojo: esc–>communication–>clan–>enter clan dojo
You must first build a clan key in the foundry to enter.
What the Trading Post in Dojo Looks Like
This section gives VERY brief descriptions of warframes, so that you can pick which ones interest you without information overload. All the warframes are useful and specialize in different mission types although it is true that certain warframes are requested more often in parties than others. Also some warframes are more new player friendly than others. Prime variants are the superior versions that mostly boast small stat increases with a few exceptions. They also tend to look nicer. Not all prime variants have been released yet and some prime warframes have been vaulted meaning they are no longer in reward tables and can only be traded for with other players with platinum. Periodically these vaulted warframes will be temporarily un-vaulted for a month. Otherwise, all prime variants can be farmed in fissures.
I have provided basic builds for the starter warframes, Excalibur, Volt, and Mag, since new players are guaranteed to have one of these warframes. These builds should only be temporary and are designed to be new-player friendly. The builds are energy efficient and cheap, with all mods within grasp requiring only an orokin reactor and no forma. Many of the mods used are mods, detailed in sections from “Important Mods.” You probably don’t have all the mods and enough endo. Therefor, you can slowly build up your collection, add each mod, and rank them whenever you can. Advanced builds will be available later on and can be tweaked according to your play style and tastes after learning more about the game.
Excalibur Overview
Acquisition: Starter or farmed from Lieutenant Lech Kril on War, Mars
Many new players like Excalibur. He can shoot high damage waves out of his exalted blade. Exalted Blade is easy to mod for early game, and can be built for very high damage with an advanced build. He also has a nice AOE attack and blinding ability. Superior Variant, Excalibur Umbra, will be available after completing the quest, The Sacrifice, deep within the quest line. Without spoiling anything, be warned that to fully utilize Excalibur Umbra will take a ton of credits and endo.
Excalibur’s Exalted Blade
The first build is designed for Excalibur’s fourth ability, Exalted Blade. The second build is for the Exalted Blade itself. Many new players like Excalibur because of this ability. After activation, Excalibur’s melee will shoot waves that damage enemies, with unlimited punch through passing through enemies and walls, for up to 40 meters. Activating Exalted Blade will cost 6.25 energy and cost 0.63 energy per second to maintain. Each energy orb pickup buys you 40 more seconds of Exalted Blade. The Exalted Blade can be modded as well and will increase DPS. Note: This build is the most new player friendly and relies the least on mods to be effective compared to all other builds including volt’s and mag’s builds.
Excalibur’s Radial Javelin
This build is designed around Excalibur’s third ability, Radial Javelin. Excalibur will slam his sword into the ground and nuke all enemies, that are in line of site, within 36.25 meters.
Excalibur’s Radial Blind
This build is designed around Excalibur’s second ability, Radial Blind. This build is a very defensive build and casting Radial Blind will blind all enemies within site of a distance of 58.75 meters for 16.20 seconds. Radial Blind costs 12.5 energy to cast. Blinded enemies are debuffed to take additional damage.
Volt Overview
Acquisition: Starter or at the Tenno Lab in the Clan Dojo (details in “Clan/Dojo” section)
Volt may not be a good choice as a starter not because he isn’t good, but because he is easy to get from the Clan Dojo. Volt can give a team-wide sprint speed, melee attack speed, and reload speed boost. He can set a small invincible shield, that when shot through increases electric damage and critical damage. He also has an aoe wide attack that can be modded to restore shield and provide overshield. He is the main warframe out of 4 that is requested in pubs for end-game content, Eidolon Captures.
For all the Volt Builds listed here, the aura mod can be interchanged between Steel Charge (+60% Melee Damage), Rifle Amp (+27% Rifle Damage), Shotgun Amp (+18% Shotgun Damage), Pistol Amp (+27% Secondary Damage), and Dead Eye (+52.5 Sniper Rifle Damage), depending on the weapon type you want to use. Steel Charge at max rank will provide 4 extra capacity than the other auras.
Volt’s Speed/Electric Shield Hybrid
This build is designed primarily for Volt’s second ability, Speed, and secondarily for Volt’s third ability, Electric Shield. The speed ability give +87.5% sprint and melee attack speed and +29.75% weapon reload speed. This is especially good for clearing maps faster, boosting melee dps, and to a lesser extent weapon dps. Speed will only cost 6.25 energy to cast and will last 13.85 seconds. Small electric shields can be placed with Volt’s third ability. These shields are invincible and when shot through gives +150 Electric damage and +200% critical damage synergizing with high critical chance weapons. Electric Shield will cost 12.5 energy to cast and last 34.63 seconds.
Volt’s Pure Electric Shield
This build is designed purely for Volt’s third ability, Electric Shield, and has more survivability than the other builds. Electric Shield is very powerful because it is invincible and buffs weapon damage when shot through for +150 electric damage and +200% critical damage. The shields can be stacked up to 3 times for a maximum of +450 electric damage and +600% critical damage! The shields can be picked up, but will cause energy drain. To get the most out of the damage buffs, shields will have to be set in place leaving little room for mobility. Therefor, this build is good when camping in one spot or when protecting choke points. The shields will cost 12.5 energy to cast and last 47.25 seconds.
Volt’s Discharge
This build is designed for Volt’s fourth ability, Discharge. Discharge is a nuke and will zap all enemies within 47 meters. For more damage, Overextended can be swapped with Vigor at the cost of a smaller range of 29 meters.
Mag Overview
Acquisition: Starter or farmed from The Sergeant on Iliad, Phobos.
Overview: Mag is somewhat of a niche frame that is hated or loved by the community. She can cast a bubble around enemies that when shot at attracts bullets and redirects them toward the enemy. This can be modded for insane damage in end-game in combination with the correct weapons. She can also lower enemy armor and has an AOE attack.
For all the Mag Builds listed here, the aura mod can be interchanged between Steel Charge (+60% Melee Damage), Rifle Amp (+27% Rifle Damage), Shotgun Amp (+18% Shotgun Damage), Pistol Amp (+27% Secondary Damage), and Dead Eye (+52.5 Sniper Rifle Damage), depending on the weapon type you want to use. Steel Charge at max rank will provide 4 extra capacity than the other auras.
Mag’s Pull/Crush Hybrid
This build is designed for both Mag’s first ability, Pull, and fourth ability, Crush. Pull does 345 magnetic damage to all enemies within 58.75 meters. Pull is extremely energy efficient only costing 6.25 energy and pulls all items including energy orbs toward Mag. Additionally any enemies killed by pull have a 28.75% additional chance of dropping an energy orb. It doesn’t do that much damage and so will be more effective with enemies level 20 and below. Crush is stronger but not quite as energy efficient costing 25 energy per cast. It will do 1725 magnetic damage to all enemies within 42.30 meters.
Mag’s Polarize
This build is designed around Mag’s third ability, Polarize. Polarize sends out of a wave that expands in every direction 7.5 meters per second for a duration of 6.92 seconds eventually reaching a distance of 51.9 meters before disappearing. Enemies will take 700 damage, suffer shield and armor reduction, and debuffed to receive 4.63x damage.
Mag’s Magnetize
This build is designed around Mag’s second ability, Magnetize. When casted on an enemy they will be engulfed by a bubble (10 meter circumference). When shooting whether by you or enemies at the bubble, projectiles will be redirected toward enemies caught within the bubble. Additionally, they will take +260% more damage. For maximum damage, shoot above enemies, because projectiles will be redirected toward enemy heads. When the bubble disappears, it will explode and do additional damage in a 21.75 meter radius. Certain weapons will synergize with Magnetize because they will swirl around several times within the bubble before dissipating for additional damage. Low mastery rank weapons detailed in the “Weapons” section include: Ignis (MR5), Dera Vandal (MR 7), Atomos (MR 5), and Synoid Gammacor (MR 7). An advanced build for Magnetize combined with Lanka (MR 10) or Mara Detron (MR 9) does insane damage and can propel players several hours into survival missions. Magnetize is best used in small hallways as the bubble will cover whole choke points doing damage to all enemies in the condensed space as well as offering protection from enemy projectiles.
Each planet has a boss and most reward warframe part blueprints.
Hydroid (Earth)
Acquisition: Farmed from Councilor Vay Hek on Oro, Earth.
Hydroid can do an AOE attack that can be modded with augment mod, Pilfering Swarm, to provide additional chance for loot drops from affected enemies. He can turn into an invincible pool of liquid that traps enemies when they fall in and inflicts damage upon them.
Rhino (Venus)
Acquisition: Farmed from Jackal on Fossa, Venus.
Rhino can be modded to be super tanky. He can provide crowd control and a nice damage buff for himself and his teammates to both weapons and abilities.
Frost (Ceres)
Acquisition: Farmed from Lieutenant Lech Kril & Captain Vor on Exta, Ceres.
Frost is a defensive warframe and can provide a health-based protective bubble. It is effective in protecting teammates and mission objectives. He also has an AOE attack that doubles as a crowd control ability temporarily freezing enemies.
Valkyr (Jupiter)
Acquisition: Farmed from Alad V on Themisto, Jupiter.
Valkyr can go into hysteria mode where she becomes invincible but limited to powerful melee attacks. She can also provider her and her teammates increased melee attack speed.
Nova (Europa)
Acquisition: Farmed from Raptors on Naamah, Europa.
Nova can cast a slow-traveling explosive orb that deals high damage in a radius upon impact. She can set teleport portals for her and her teammates good for speed runs. Portals can teleport players up to a whopping 140 meters. As a result, she is the fastest warframe going point A to point B. She can debuff enemies to take 2x damage and slow up to 75%. She can also speed up enemy movement by 30% good for farming.
Ember (Saturn)
Acquisition: Farmed from General Sargas Ruk on Tethys, Saturn.
Ember can do AOE fire damage that follows her wherever she goes. Overtime the range shrinks. Ember used to be meta, but not so much after her re-work. She also has a fire damage buff ability which synergies with weapons with innate fire damage.
Equinox (Uranus)
Acquisition: Farmed from Tyl Regor on Titania, Uranus.
Equinox has a powerful AOE attack, Maim, that does scaling slash damage. As damage builds up, disabling Maim creates an explosion that deals additional damage calculated from damage done during Maim. She has another ability that boosts power strength to her and her teammates. She can also put enemies to sleep.
Loki (Neptune)
Acquisition: Farmed from Hyena Pack on Psamathe, Neptune.
Loki is an invisible warframe with other defensive capabilities. He can disarm enemies in a large radius forcing them to melee only. He can set a decoy that attracts enemy attention. He has the highest base sprint speed making him good for speed runs.
Trinity (Pluto)
Acquisition: Farmed from Ambulas on Hades, Pluto.
Trinity can heal herself and teammates within a 50 meter radius. She is one of the most requested warframes in team compositions for her ability to restore energy to herself and her allies. Her energy restore is the most consistent to all other warframes with similar capabilities giving the ability for teammates to spam their abilities. She can also provide a team-wide damage reduction up to 75% and provide overshield. She is the main warframe out of 4 that is requested in pubs for end-game content, Eidolon Captures.
Nekros (Orokin Derelict)
Acquisition: Farmed from Lephantis on Assassination, Orokin Derelict.
Nekros is the master of the dark arts and can resurrect dead enemies to fight by his side. He can be modded to become a tank and give additional loot drops. He is often used in farming parties for extra loot and survival missions for additional life support drops. *Orokin Derelict missions do not have to be unlocked and its keys are available on the in-game market.
Nyx (Eris)
Acquisition: Farmed from Phorid during infested invasions.
Nyx can mind control enemies causing enemies in a large radius to attack each other. She can also become invincible, but at a high energy cost and becoming immobile. She can be modded to be mobile during this invincibility but with -50% movement speed.
Saryn (Sedna)
Acquisition: Farmed from Kela De Thaym on Merrow, Sedna.
Saryn is a powerful warframe capable of spreading spores that rips apart enemy armor taking away their damage reduction simultaneously damaging them. She can do an AOE attack and spawn a Molt that can be modded to provide some health regeneration.
These Warframes Require No Farming Except for Resources and Credits. Just Join a Clan with 100% Research! They are located in the Tenno Lab.
Banshee
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
Banshee has one of the strongest enemy debuffs in the game and can be modded to make enemies take as much as 15x damage. She also has an AOE attack and can be modded for strong crowd control.
Nehza
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
Nehza has the fastest base slide speed. He has a speed boosting ability, though it is not as strong as Volt’s. He also has an AOE attack that double as a crowd control ability. He can lay the floor he walks over with fire damaging enemies. He also has an ability that reduces incoming damage by 90%, but has a limit before it runs out. Nehza is tanky with this ability but is outclassed by the best tanks in the game.
Wukong
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in the Clan Dojo
Wukong’s passive revives himself and provides random buffs for up to 3 times per mission. Wukong can summon a copy of himself that will aggressively attack enemies. Wukong can make himself invulnerable for a short time and based on damage received during the invulnerability receive a buff to armor. Wukong is also an amazing at speed running missions. He is able to turn into a cloud that leaves him invulnerable, invisible, and able to travel freely in the air. He also has a melee focused build that can put up huge damage with the right built. His melee ability has high attack speed and high range.
Zephyr
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in the Clan Dojo
Zephyr can cast powerful clowds that destroy enemy armor making them much more susceptible to damage. Enemies as high as level 150+ become much easier to kill as a result. The clowds also provide some crowd control. She can give a small boost in movement speed and is capable of flight good for traveling through the Plains of Eidolon.
Oberon (Eximus Units)
Acquisition: Dropped from Eximus units. (Can be acquired easily just playing the game.)
He provides the team with health regeneration and can deal a small AOE attack.
Vauban (Nightwave)
Acquisition: Bought with Nightwave credits
Vauban provides crowd control that disables and suspends enemies especially good against the Infested. He can also casts vortexes that attract enemies.
Ivara (Spies)
Acquisition: Ivara’s main and component blueprints are acquired from Spy missions depending on mission level.
Ivara can provide her and herself with invisibility and can put enemies to sleep. She can be modded to travel through lasers undetected. Her fourth ability is a bow that does good damage. Her invisible ability prohibits her from doing fast parkour moves such as bullet jumps or sprints. In order to move at faster speeds, she can shoot ziplines which allows her to sprint. Therefor, her playstyle is more a slower methodological approach. Not everyone uses her, but she has a small cult following who swear by her.
Ash (Manics)
Acquisition: Drops from Manics.
Fatal Teleport can be modded for insane single-target scaling damage. He can go invisible and has a single target ability that lowers enemy armor by 70% good for high-end game. He can send out clones to attack enemies. He is essentially the ninja of warframe.
Kora (Sanctuary Onslaught)
Acquisition: Rewarded from Sanctuary Onslaught missions.
Kora is the cat lady who provides pretty good crowd control. She has a cat that can attack, protect, and heal. With augment mod, Pilfering Strangledome, for her crowd control ability, affected enemies have an additional chance to drop loot.
Hildryn (Fortuna: Exploiter Orb)
Acquisition: Hildryn’s blueprint can be bought from Little Duck for 5,000 standing upon reaching the rank of Agent with Vox Solaris. Her component blueprints can be acquired as drops from the Exploiter Orb.
Hildryn is a very unique warframe. She has the highest base shield by far at 1575. With a max Redirection mod (+440% shield), her total shield comes to 3555, making her tanky. However, she has a severe weakness to toxin and gas because these elementals bypass shields. The grineer unit, Nox, and many infested enemies deal toxin and gas damage. With Hildryn’s second and/or third ability, this weakness can be alleviated by maintaining overshield (purple health bar) which prevents bypassing. There are some items that provide Toxin resistance, but they are not usually attained until mid-game or beyond. Her third ability, gives you a 3-second invulnerability, if your shields were to be completely depleted. Her fourth ability, does AOE damage and provide energy orbs.
Warframes are chronologically ordered according to main quest line.
Chroma
Acquisition: Chroma’s main blueprint will be rewarded upon completion of the quest The New Strange. Component blueprints are awarded by completing Junctions. The Neuroptics will be rewarded after completing the Uranus Junction, the Chassis the Neptune Junction, and the Systems the Pluto Junction.
Chroma has a very strong damage buff ability and can be modded to be team-wide. He also has an armor buff ability making him a tank. He is not as tanky as the other warframes in this class, but makes up for it with his offensive capabilities. He is the main warframe out of 4 that is requested in pubs for end-game content, Eidolon Captures.
Harrow
Acquisition: Harrow’s main blueprint is awarded upon completion of the Chains of Harrow quest.
Harrow can provide temporary invincibility and damage buff to his team. He provide the team with energy via enemy kills. He is the main warframe out of 4 that is requested in pubs for end-game content, Eidolon Captures.
Excalibur Umbra
Acquisition: Excalibur Umbra is awarded upon completion of The Sacrifice quest.
Superior Variant of Excalibur. Without spoiling anything, be mindful that it will take a crazy amount of endo and credits to unlock the full potential of Excalibur Umbra. Therefor, regular Excalibur is a great alternative.
Mirage
Acquisition: Component blueprints are awarded at the end of each mission for the Hidden Messages quest.
Mirage can provide a damage buff to herself and her teammates. She can cast mirror images of herself which can be modded to deal up to 50% of her real self’s damage. Additionally, these mirror images attract enemy attention and damage. She also has a blinding ability that blinds enemies within a large radius as long as they are within direct line of sight.
Atlas
Acquisition: Atlas’ blueprint is awarded after completing The Jordas Precept Quest, which unlocks the Jordas Golem Archwing Assassination mission that drops the remaining component blueprints.
Atlas can be modded to be a tank who can self-heal with some crowd control abilities.
Limbo
Acquisition: Component blueprints are awarded from The Limbo Theorem quest, obtainable by completing the Europa Junction on Jupiter. An Archwing is required to begin the quest’s missions.
Limbo can switch to alternate dimension called the Rift Plane. Here he becomes invincible, but unable to attack other enemies. Limbo can convert a large area into the Rift Plane. Here enemies can be frozen in place and Limbo and his teammates will be safe from harm from enemies outside the rift. Limbo can also do AOE damage but at a high energy cost.
Mesa
Acquisition: Mesa’s component blueprints are acquired from Mutalist Alad V after completing the quest Patient Zero.
Mesa is a very powerful gunslinger capable of decimating hordes of enemies in seconds with her fourth ability peacemaker. It is not unusual, when a Mesa is on the team, to see all enemies on screen destroyed. Mesa also has a very high dps and can destroy tanky enemies. Her third ability, shatter shield, reduces incoming bullet damage by up to 95%. Her second ability, Shooting Gallery, boosts damage for her and her teammates.
Titania
Acquisition: Titania’s main and component blueprints are obtainable from The Silver Grove quest. The quest is obtained from the New Loka leader at any relay.
Can go into a tiny Archwing-like mode and buff weapons for increased fire rate.
Inaros
Acquisition: Inaros’ main and component blueprints are obtainable from the Sands of Inaros quest. The quest blueprint is purchasable from Baro Ki’Teer for 100 ducats and 25,000 credits. More information on Baro Ki-Teer in “Baro Ki-Teer” section.
Inaros is a tank with the highest health pool of all warframes totalling over 4k health with a maxed Vitality. He has the ability to self-heal and provide crowd control.
Nidus
Acquisition: Nidus’ main blueprint is acquired from The Glast Gambit quest. Nidus’ component blueprints are acquired from Rotation C of Infested Salvage on Oestrus, Eris.
Nidus is an advanced warframe that takes some skill to play. He can gather enemies into a concentrated area. He can become just about invincible and deal very high damage. However, that invincibility and damage needs to be built up. Therefor, he really shines in endless type missions. He is also used in the team composition for farming endo in the Arena on Sedna.
Octavia
Acquisition: Upon completion of the Octavia’s Anthem quest.
Octavia is one of the most powerful warframes in the game with many capabilities. She can set down a mallet that attracts enemy attacks. Scaling damage is inflicted to enemies around the mallet based on how much damage it has received. Therefor, she can easily last hours into survival missions, because enemies will deal higher and higher damage and as a result receive higher and higher damage. She can also provide her and her team with invisibility, damage buffs, and increased energy regen.
Gara
Acquisition: Gara’s main blueprint will be awarded upon completion of the Saya’s Vigil quest. Gara’s component blueprints are acquired from Bounties in the Plains of Eidolon.
Gara can provide a protective glass that prohibits enemies from entering a radius. She can then destroy the glass to produce AOE damage. She can provide her and her team with up to 90% damage reduction. She can debuff enemies to take additional damage.
Revenant
Acquisition: Revenant’s main blueprint will be awarded upon completion of Nakak’s mini-quest, which is unlocked after reaching the rank of “Observer” with The Quills, opening a prompt with Nakak that allows the player to purchase the Mask of the Lost One from her. Equipping the mask on the Operator and entering the Plains of Eidolon at night will begin the mini-quest. Revenant’s component blueprints are acquired from Bounties. Acquiring and building at least two components are required to advance and complete the mini-quest.
Revenant can nuke a large area, but at a high energy cost. He can also temporarily convert sentient enemies to allies.
Garuda
Acquisition: Blueprint awarded upon completion of Vox Solaris quest. Parts are in Cetus bounty reward tables.
Garuda’s abilities do more damage the less health she has. She can absorb damage from enemies and reflect them back. She can lunge at enemies and cause bleeding status effect.
Baruuk
Acquisition: All of Baruuk’s blueprints can only be acquired by purchasing from Little Duck, using Vox Solaris standing.
Baruuk can build up very high damage resistances. He has the ability to dodge all incoming projectiles as long as he isn’t attacking. He can also put enemies to sleep.
How To Deal With Difficult Archwing Missions
There are a couple difficult archwing segments such as the Jordas Precept quest that awards the Atlas warframe. You will have to fight a very tanky boss, the Jordas Golem, using only archwing. This is probably one of the most painful missions in the game when underpowered.
Some of the best weapons in the game have a high mastery rank requirement. This weapons section lists weapons with a low mastery requirement from 0 to 8. Some of these weapons are temporary solutions until better weapons are unlocked, but others can be long-term. The problem with weapons is that they NEED forma. Warframes can get away with being underforma’d, but weapons do not. Without forma, weapons are pretty lackluster, even the best ones. Some weapons come with polarities and need only 3-4 forma, but this is on the lower end. Some weapons need 6 to 7, and sometimes even 8! I have written a very popular guide for the best long term weapons and their builds, Best Weapons In The Game! Note that a weapon’s mastery rank requirement isn’t reflective of how effective a weapon is, though many of the best weapons are concentrated from 10-15.
Hek (MR 4)
Acquisition: Market
Semi-automatic Shotgun with superior variant the Vaykor Hek available at MR 12
Torid (MR 4)
Acquisition: Infested Lab in Clan Dojo
End-game viable gas grenade launcher
Dread (MR 5)
Acquisition: Stalker
End-game viable slow firing bow with arcing projectiles
Ignis (MR 5)
Acquisition: Grineer Lab in Clan Dojo
A great flamethrower, with superior variant Ignis Wraith available at MR 9.
Kohm (MR 5)
Acquisition: Market
Full automatic shotgun with a long windup time. End-game viable with a status riven.
Tonkor (MR 5)
Acquisition: Market
A powerful grenade launcher that can inflict self-damage but is outshined by the Zarr available at MR 7.
Rubico (MR 6)
Acquisition: Market
A top tier sniper rifle with hit-scan bullets, with superior variant, Rubico Prime (MR 12)
Dera Vandal (MR 7)
Acquisition: Invasion Reward
A very powerful fully automatic laser rifle, but its projectiles have slight travel time.
Dex Sybaris (MR 7)
Acquisition: Given as a gift during the second half of March in celebration of Warframe anniversaries
A good burst fire rifle outshined by the Sybaris Prime (MR 12) and especially Tiberon Prime (MR 14)
Sobek (MR 7)
Acquisition: Grineer Lab in Clan Dojo
An automatic shotgun with a decent fire rate that does area damage with the mod, Acid Shells.
Soma Prime (MR 7)
Acquisition: A vaulted prime set which can only be traded for or farmed during temporary un-vaultings
A good easy-to-use fully automatic rifle with 200 bullets in a magazine with hit-scan bullets.
Baza (MR 7)
Acquisition: Tenno Research in Clan Dojo
The Baza is similar to the soma prime and is very accurate. Its magazine size is only 40, but makes up for it with a fast reload speed of 1.4 seconds.
Tigris (MR 7)
Acquisition: Market
A double barrel shotgun outshined by its best variant, the Tigris Prime (MR 13)
Vulkar Wraith (MR 7)
Acquisition: Baro Ki-Teer (Details in “Baro Ki-Teer section)
An easy to use sniper rifle with a respectable fire rate that is out damaged by top sniper rifles including the Rubico (Prime)
Zarr (MR 7)
Acquisition: Market
A powerful end-game viable grenade launcher that is capable of doing self-damage
Lenz (MR 8)
Acquisition: Corpus Lab in Clan Dojo
A powerful end-game bow that shoots explosive arrows damaging and slowing enemies in an area. Capable of doing self-damage but is easily avoided because of the arrow’s delayed detonation time of 2 seconds.
Paris Prime (MR 8)
Acquisition: Farmed via Fissures or traded for
Good slow firing bow with arcing projectiles that is outshined by the Dread (MR 5) and the Lenz (MR 8)
Exergis (MR 8)
Acquisition: Market
Exergis has the potential to be a top-tier shotgun but is held back by its small magazine size of 1 and reload speed of 1.6 seconds.
Do NOT underestimate secondaries in this game.
Sonicor (MR 2)
Acquisition: Market
A very effective area damage weapon with enemy knock back ability
Lex (MR 3)
Acquisition: Market, pre-built for credits
A good and accurate semi-automatic pistol with superior variant Lex Prime (MR8)
Aklex (MR 4)
Acquisition: Market, Ingredients: 2 Lex’s
A dual wielded version of Lex with superior variant Aklex Prime (MR 15)
Hikou Prime (4)
Acquisition: Vaulted Prime set, can only be traded for or farmed during temporary un-vaultings
Only effective with the mod Concealed Explosives and up to level 40 enemies. Does area damage and self-damage.
Atomos (MR 5)
Acquisition: Market
An effective area damage weapon
Kulstar (MR 5)
Acquisition: Market
An effective end-game viable mini-grenade launcher capable of self-damage
Brakk (MR 6)
Acquisition: The Grustrag Three – appears after completing 5 consecutive invasions against the grineer or summoned using a beacon sold by Baro Ki-Teer
A powerful mini-shotgun
Synoid Gammacor (MR 7)
Acquisition: Cephalon Suda Syndicate or traded for
A powerful single-target beam weapon that restores energy
Prisma Angstrum (MR 8)
Acquisition: Baro Ki-Teer or traded for
A good mini grenade launcher outshined by other grenade launchers
Lex Prime (MR 8)
Acquisition: Farmed via Fissures or traded for
A very powerful and accurate semi-automatic pistol. It’s so accurate that it’s basically described as a sniper rifle with no scope.
Pandero (MR 8)
Acquisition: Market
A powerful semi-automatic pistol, that is out-damaged by top tier semi-automatic pistols, but still holds its own.
Digital Extremes is reworking melee soon. Melee effectiveness subject to change.
Nikana Prime (0)
Acquisition: Vaulted Prime set can only be traded for or farmed during temporary un-vaultings
A powerful single target samurai sword
Atterax (MR 2)
Acquisition: Market
A powerful whip with a large range, but needs the rare mod Maiming Strike to reach its potential
Orthos Prime (MR 2)
Acquisition: Farmed via Fissures or traded for
A powerful polearm with the largest range possible for polarms
Galatine (MR 3)
Acquisition: Market
A powerful sword with superior variant Galatine Prime (MR 13)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredients Kunai ]and Bo
A good polearm with very high attack speed and good range
Tonbo (MR 3)
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
Similar to the Tipedo
Twin Basolk (MR 3)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredients Dual Zoren and Atomos
Good fire-based weapon
Guandao (MR 4)
Acquisition: Tenno Lab in Clan Dojo
A powerful polearm with the largest range possible for polearms.
Redeemer (MR 4)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredients Vasto and Dual Skana
Has a powerful ranged shotgun-like secondary fire attack with a slow fire rate. Especially useful for the Mastery Rank 9 Test. Superior variant, Redeemer Prime, is available at MR 10.
Scindo Prime (MR 4)
Acquisition: A vaulted prime set which can only be traded for or farmed during temporary un-vaultings
A mid tier axe
Jat Kittag (MR 5)
Acquisition: Grineer Lab in Clan Dojo
A top-tier hammer with slow attack speed
Dual Ichor (MR 6)
Acquisition: Infested Lab in Clan Dojo
Good dual wielding axes
Dual Kamas Prime (MR 6)
Acquisition: A vaulted prime set which can only be traded for or farmed during temporary un-vaultings
Good dual wielding scythes
Zenistar (MR 6)
Acquisition: daily login reward
An awesome fire-based heavy blade
Fragor Prime (MR 7)
Acquisition: Farmed via Fissures or traded for
A top tier hammer with a slow attack speed
Hirudo (MR 7)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredient Kogake
An effective claw weapon with self-healing properties
Lesion (MR 7)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredient Tipedo
A top tier polearm
Dragon Nikana (MR 8)
Acquisition: Market – Ingredient Nikana
A good single wield sword with superior variant Nikana Prime
Secura Lectra (MR 8)
Acquisition: Perren Sequence Syndicate or traded for
A powerful whip with a large range and increased credit drop, but needs the rare mod Maiming Strike to reach its potential
Ohma (MR 8)
Acquisition: Market
A top tier Tonfa
Vaykor Sydon (MR 8)
Acquisition: Steel Meridian Syndicate or traded for
A powerful polearm with the ability to blind enemies
This section lists the most commonly used Nightwave mods.
Details on the Nightwave system are in section, “Nightwave system.”
This section lists the most commonly used Nightmare mods.
Warframe Mods
Weapon Mods
How To Farm Nightmare Mods
Nightmare mods are rewarded after completing special Nightmare missions. To unlock Nightmare missions, you must complete all missions on a given planet. A Nightmare mission will show on a random mission highlighted in red. Nightmare missions come with random a handicap which can include: no shields, timer, health vampire, energy drain, low gravity, and death detonation.
Most Commonly Used Corrupted Mods
Warframe
Weapons
Where To Find The Door
The whole map should be checked until a player finds it.
They can be solo’d by equipping all four dragon keys. Be mindful of the advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is obviously that you don’t need a group. Each dragon key handicaps you in different ways and you’ll have to find the door on your own.
If you can’t handle so many debuffs and/or not very good at finding the door, then partying up might be the way to go.
POE stands for Plains of Eidolon which is next to Cetus, Earth. Most of the POE content should be avoided until mid-game or end-game. However, there are worthwhile mods and items that are attainable and worth farming for in early-game or late early-game. Note that bounties can be repeated if item of interest is not rewarded.
How To Access Bounties
(In Cetus, esc–>fast travel–>Konzu)
Bounties recycle their missions and mission reward tables every 2.5 hours. If the item you are looking for is not in the designated reward table. Check back again later.
Bounty Reward Mission Level 5-15
Streamline drops from many sources such as random missions and many grineer type enemies. If it takes too long to get streamline naturally just playing the game, farming it here is an option.
Bounty Reward Mission Level 20-40
Focus Lens – see “Focus Lens” and “Focus Schools” sections for more details.
Bounty Reward Mission Level 30-50
Note that Augur Secrets is extremely rare and may not be worth farming for until mid-game.
How To Acess Ghoul Bounties
Ghoul Purge is a recurring event in POE. When they are available, Lotus will send you a message to your inbox notifying you about the ghoul presence in POE. The event can be accessed from the alerts tab or by going to Konzu in Cetus (esc–>fast travel–>konzu)
Ghoul Bounty Reward Mission Level 15-25
Companions are very useful and should not be ignored. There are three categories: Sentinels, Kubrows (canine-like), and Kavats (feline-like). There are several different Sentinels and different breeds of Kubrows and Kavats. Sentinels can do many things such as: pick up drops for you, turn you invisible, debuff enemies to take more damage, provide some crowd control, and heal your health and shields. Kubrows can disarms enemies, turn you invisible, heal your shield, and break loot crates for you. Kavats can boost resource drops, affinity gain, and critical chance. Companions gain their own experience pool and isn’t shared with warframes and weapons.
All of these mods are good, so builds are mostly player preference.
Taxon (Weapon: Artax)
Carrier (Weapon: Sweeper)
Helios (Weapon: Deconsctructor)
Shade (Weapon: Burst Laser)
Diriga (Weapon: Vulklok)
Wyrm (Weapon: Laser Rifle)
Djinn (Weapon: Stinger)
Dethcube (Weapon: Deth Machine Rifle)
Required “Howl of the Kubrow” Quest Completion
How To Make A Kubrow
Recommended missions
Each mission will spawn about 6-7 kubrow dens. The Tenno has to search for them and destroy them for a chance for an egg drop. They spawn randomly in different locations, but if you do it enough times you’ll memorize where to look and farming will go faster.
If you destroy all kubrow dens, you should get around 1 egg every 2-4 runs.
There are six different types of kubrows detailed below. When incubating traditionally, 1 of 5 breeds is randomly spawned. Only way to ensure a specific breed is made, is to use imprints. The sixth kubrow type is made using a different process.
Resource boosting and dps boosting make Kavats a great alternative to Sentinels.
How To Make a Kavat
Orokin Derelict Farming
Hyekkas Spawned From the Hyekka Master DO NOT Count
Lore
Attributes
Description
Corpus Enemy Faction
Lore
Attributes
Description
Infested Enemy Faction
Lore
Attributes
Description
Physical Damage Types and Damage Bonuses
Elemental Damage Types and Damage Bonuses
Elemental Combos and Damage Bonuses
How Mod Order Affects Elemental Combos
Mod slots have an order to them from left to right. Elementals join together according to order. The first two elementals will always combine and if there is a third and fourth elemental, they will combine.
Toxin is in position 2, Electric is in position 4, Heat is in position 6, and Cold is in position 8. The resulting combos will be Corrosive (Toxin and Electric) and Blast (Heat and Cold). If we take off Cold, the resulting elements will be Corrosive and Heat.
How Mod Order Affects Weapons with Innate Elemental Damage
Most weapons by default only have physical damage types unless modded with an elemental. However, some weapons have an innate elemental. For example, Silva & Aegis Prime has innate Heat damage. If a weapon has an innate elemental, elementals from mods can combine with the innate elemental, but not always.
Here we have installed alone elemental, Toxin, in position 5. The toxin combined with the innate elemental to form Gas (Toxin and Heat).
Here we have Toxin in position 5, Electric in position 6, and Heat in position 7. The first two elementals will always combine with each other. The third left over elemental will combine with the innate elemental. In this case, we get Corrosive (Toxin and Electric) and Heat (Innate + Mod).
Here we have Toxin in position 5, Electric in position 6, and Cold in position 7. Toxin and Electric form Corrosive, while Cold combine with Innate Heat forming Blast.
How To Calculate Chances For Which Damage Types To Proc
Since most weapons come with all physical damage types, and with elementals mods, that’s another 1 to 2 more damage types. Each damage type has a chance to proc whenever there is a status proc and they is spread out between the damage types for a weapon. Let’s say for example a weapon has these stats:
To calculate CHANCE (not damage) for which damage type to proc, we multiple all the physical damage types by 4. So we get:
From these numbers, we can see that Puncture will have a 10% chance to proc, Impact 10%, Slash 40%, and Corrosive 40%.
Status Weapons
Status weapons have high base status chance (above 25%) and can be modded to be 100% or close to 100%. Because these weapons have such high status chance, enemies will receive bonus damage from physical and elemental procs. The bonus is much needed against high-level enemies.
Critical Weapons
Critical weapons have high base critical chance (above 25%) and high base critical damage multipliers (2.2+) and can be modded to have 100+ critical chance or close to 100%. Because of the critical damage multiplers, these weapons are able to put up big numbers. However, without status procs, critical damage will not benefit from physical and elemental damage bonuses. High-level armored enemies have a ton of damage mitigation. A level 150 heavy gunner has 14,600 armor which equates to a whopping 98% damage reduction! With such high damage mitigation, those big critical numbers dwindle quickly. That is why status weapons are better for high-level content than pure critical weapons. However, there is a mod called, Hunter Munitions, which gives a critical proc to have a 30% chance to apply slash. With Hunter Munitions, critical weapons will do better in high-level content.
Hybrid Weapons
Hybrid weapons boast both high critical chance and high status chance. When a critical and status proc at the same time, the critical damage multiplier applies to the status damage, having the best of both worlds.
This Section Refers To Shotguns or Shotgun-like Weapons (Multiple Pellets Per Shot).
Shotguns fire various amounts of pellets per shot. For example, Tigris prime shoots 8 pellets, Euphona Prime Alt-Fire shoots 10, Kohm shoots 12, and Mara Detron shoots 7.
The Status Chance Listed In The Stat Section Is a Little Misleading
Let’s take a look at Tigris Prime. Without mods, it has got 30% base status chance.
Now we equip 3 mods with +status chance. Now the status chance is at 84%. Seems pretty high right? Wrong, it actually has VERY low status chance because Tigris Prime shoots 8 pellets per shot. 84% represents the chance that 1 pellet will proc status out of 8. Mathematically, that’s 84% x 1 / 8 which amounts to 10.5% chance that each pellet will proc status. So in essence, really there’s only a 10.5% chance, not 84%. Let’s hypothetically take a shotgun with 99.9% status chance. Status chance per pellet will equal 99.9% x 1 / 8 which amounts to 12.5%, in essence still extremely low.
Shotguns Really Shine When They Reach 100% Status Chance, Because That Means Each Pellet Has 100% Status Chance!
Important thing to note though is that status chance needs to be calculated before adding in multishot when creating builds.
Evasive parkour moves, warframe mods, companion mods, and other strategies for surviving are detailed in my guide, How To Survival.
Digital Extremes Is Reworking Melee Combo Counter Soon. Changes Pending.
It gives a damage multiplier the more “consecutive” hits are landed.
The combo counter can be seen at the bottom right when melee is out. In the picture, the multiplier is at 3.5x and I have landed 600 “consecutive” hits. “Consecutive” hits is not truly consecutive. What it really means is to connect hits within at least 3 seconds of each other. This countdown time can be increased through mods.
Mods That Synergize With Combo Meter Mechanic
Drifting Contact is considered the best +combo duration mod currently. Not only does it increase combo duration, but gives a +status chance.
Body Count is a good alternative, if you don’t have Drifting Contact. Drifting Contact is recommended, however, and it isn’t too hard to farm. Generally, more than 1 +combo duration mod isn’t needed as more than 1 will decrease dps.
Blood Rush causes every increase in tier will give +165% critical chance, great for crit melee weapons.
Weeping Wounds with every increase in tier will give +45% status chance, great for status type melee weapons.
Relentless Combination synergies with slash melee weapons with high status. There are plenty of slash melee weapons available. Each slash proc counts as a hit toward the hit count, and so will ramp up multiplier tiers quickly.
For more information on Focus Schools, check out section, “Focus Schools.” After the combo duration runs out, the combo meters goes back to 0. With Max Naramon’s Power Spike, instead of going back to 0, the combo meter will depreciate every 3 seconds by default. With +combo duration mods, the depreciation is even slower.
Over time in an endless mission, enemies raise in level and therefor become more and more tanky. However, also overtime the combo meter will rise, scaling effectively against higher and higher level enemies. This combo meter mechanic along with a strong slash type melee weapon allows players to go hours into survivals.
Right now Venka Prime, is the only special weapon that gives higher damage multiplier with each tier.
Works similarly with the melee combo counter with some differences.
Where To Locate Sniper Combo Meter
While Zooming, you can see it below the crosshair.
Combo Counter And Multiplier Chart
The combo counter will depreciate by 1 every 2 seconds and will also depreciate with every miss.
Harkonar Scope increases the combo duration. However, it isn’t very viable because the sniper rifle will lose out on DPS.
It is difficult for sniper rifles to be viable long into endless missions. Because of the slow fire rate of sniper rifles, the combo will increase very slowly. On top of that, there are no mods equivalent to Blood Rush or Weeping wounds for sniper rifles. There is some viability, but there has to be a very specific setup. Here is an example setup:
Vectis Prime
Sniper rifles combos without warframe abilities like Mag’s Magnetize are difficult to pull off to be viable in long endless missions.
Fissure missions award prime parts, forma blueprints, and traces.
Prime warframes are superior versions of regular warframes. Prime weapons are 99% of the time best of all variants. Note that not all warframes and weapons have prime variants because they haven’t been released yet. Also weapons in the dojo (Grineer, Corpus, and Infested Weapons) do not get a prime version. Instead they get prisma, vandal, and wraith versions.
What Are Relics?
Relics are sometimes awarded for completing missions. Each relic, when used in a fissure mission, will be consumed and a random prime part will be awarded. The drop table for each relic is limited to 6 different parts. Relics also have tiers, Lith, Meso, Neo, and Axi, with each tier representing enemy levels, Lith being the lowest and Axi being the highest. Note that enemies in Axi missions are buffed to do 3x damage than normal.
What Are Traces?
Mission Select Screen
When selecting the mission, a window will pop up giving two options, select a relic or play without a relic. Each relic has its own drop table displayed on the right. Selecting play without relic will not reward a prime part but still rewards traces. If you need traces but don’t have any relics, playing without a relic is fine.
Corrupted Enemies
During the mission, groups of enemies will randomly become corrupted and start to glow. These enemies will drop reactant.
Reactants
You’ll need to pickup 10 reactants to receive the mission reward.
Prime Part Rarity
Rewards have different tiers of rarity. Gold being the rarest, silver uncommon, and bronze common. Generally speaking you’ll want to select the rarest prime part out of all the choices since that will 99% of the time be worth the most (unless a prime set is vaulted). When in a party, you will be able to choose your teammates reward, so playing in a party is optimal for more chances for rare rewards.
Relic Refinement – How To Increase Chances for Rare Reward
Relics can be refined in the void relics kiosk (esc–>equipment–>void relic refinement). After selecting a relic, at the bottom right will display the options to refine the relic at different levels from intact to: exceptional, flawless, or radiant. Each tier will cost more traces to refine but higher tiers will increase the likelihood of a rare drop.
Players often create “radshare” groups which means teams will all equip the same radiant relic to give maximum chance for a rare prime part. 4 players with all radiant relics will give a total 33% chance for a gold drop.
Sometimes the part you need is a bronze part. Similar to radshares, all party members will equip the same intact relics. However, intactshares mostly only happen when new prime sets are released and everyone is scrambling to get the sets.
New prime warframes and their accompanying prime weapons release every few months. Every time new prime sets are released, an already existing prime warframe and its accompanying prime weapons are vaulted. Vaulted means that the relic from which the prime sets drop will no longer be available from drop tables. Thus, they can only be traded for from other players or gotten from relics attained before the vaulting. Prime sets are vaulted chronologically according to release.
On the Official Drop Tables and Drop Chances Website, you’ll see items dropped from tables labeled Rotation A, Rotation B, and Rotation C and drop chances.
The order endless missions change their drop tables is AABC. For a survival, rewards are every 5 minutes. So therefor, a drop from rotation A will be rewarded at the 5 and 10 minute mark. At the 15 minute mark an item from Rotation B will be rewarded and at the 20 minute mark an item from Rotation C will be rewarded. For defense, it’s wave 5, 10, 15, and 20. After a full rotation of AABC, the drop table will cycle again to AABC. Essentially it is AABC…AABC…AABC…AABC to infinity. For Sanctuary Onslaught drops occur every 2 zones, so AABC is zone 2, 4, 6, and 8. For spies there’s only three vaults, so it will be ABC.
Usually when farming for a specific prime set, the prime set will drop from all or almost all relic tiers. Let’s take Limbo Prime for example.
Meso Z1: Axi L2
Uncommon: Rare
Meso Z1: Neo L1
Uncommon: Rare
Meso Z1: Lith B3
Uncommon: Common
Players sometimes farm relics to speed farm specific prime sets. Let’s say you have all Limbo Prime parts except Systems. You’ll need Lith relics. There will be locations that have higher chance of dropping specific tiers.
Relics will build up just playing the game. Really the best way is what you find fun but here is a list of missions with highest chance of relic rewards at specific tiers.
Lith
Meso
Neo
Axi
Note: Fortuna and Cetus bounty rewards are on rotation.
About every 6 months vaulted sets become temporarily unvaulted for 2 months. These relics usually only drop from specific locations. They drop from either Cetus/Fortuna bounties or from the Void planet. If the relics drop from the Void planet, here are missions with highest drop chance at specific tiers.
Lith
Meso
Neo
Axi
Note: Fortuna and Cetus bounty rewards are on rotation.
The Void Trader
To take full advantage of Baro Ki-Teer will require approximately mid-game. Baro Ki-Teer offers special items for sale such as: Primed mods (superior versions of a mod), +60 elemental/+60 status chance mods, +slash/puncture/impact mods, Sands of Inaros quest blueprint which rewards the Inaros warframe, Aklex Prime relics, Volt Prime relics, Odonata Prime relics, exclusive weapons, cosmetics, and boosters. Many of the mods are required to maximize builds and weapon dps. Also, some of the weapons are top-tier.
The Cost of His Items
Items will cost various amounts of credits and ducats (the brown symbol).
How To Get Ducats
Junk prime parts can be traded for ducats at a relay kiosk at any time. The rarity of the prime part determines its value in ducats. The more rare the prime part, the more ducats it will net. Prime parts should always be checked on the Warframe Market to see whether they are worth good platinum. If not, then trading them in for ducats is a worthwhile investment. Check the Warframe Market Ducanater for ducat per platinum rates for each prime part.
How To Locate Baro Ki-Teer
Baro appears every 2 weeks at a random relay and will stay for 48 hours. In Eastern Standard Time, that’s Friday 9 am to Sunday 9 am. When he will arrive and at what relay can be found on the Warframe Hub. When he arrives, a message in your inbox (esc–>communications–>inbox) will appear acknowledging his presence and what relay he is located in. He can also be selected in the alert missions tab.
Full list of items for sale and ducat trade value for prime parts
Full list of items for sale and ducat trade value for prime parts are located on the warframe wiki.
Items cycle approximately every four months.
Link is here. The list can help you predict what items will come next Baro by looking at items offered four to four and a half months ago.
This Section Is Late Early-Game to Mid-Game Content
There’s going to be specific team compositions for power leveling in these locations. They are all the same except Elite Sanctuary has a small tweak to it.
DPS is probably the most unforgiving because it involves min/maxing builds. The other roles are not as build dependent.
You won’t probably or it will take a long time honestly. Only way to be the CP leech is to be the host and look for the rest of the team in recruit channel.
Bere is more complicated than Hydron and ESO, because it is an interception mission. Points will have to be captured and there is a protocol.
The CP Leech and Buff will capture points D and B, while looking closely at the score at the top left corner.
If the opponent is winning, then the CP leech and Buff need to neutralize A or C, so that Tenno % is just higher than the opponent % preferably by 1 or 2 points. This is to prolong the waves to farm more experience.
The DPS and EV should concentrate on their job and stay on the center platform in picture. The Buff must maintain Roar’s upkeep.
Equinox DPS Build For Bere, Hydron, and ESO
As Equinox make sure to be in day form and cast third ability, Provoke, which increases power strength, and then Maim for nuking. After maim builds up damage, disable maim to create a powerful explosion. Then cast maim again and do this over and over.
Volt DPS Build For ESO
Buff Build For Bere, Hydron, and ESO
Power Drift mod is not really needed and is mostly about min/maxing. If you skip out on it, that will save you a couple forma.
EV Build For Bere, Hydron, and ESO
There’s a few options for this build. I have modded it for maximum range to make it easier for energy to reach the DPS. However, Vampire Leech, Augur Reach, and Cunning Drift are all optional. If you skip out on Cunning Drift, that will save you a couple forma. If you’re power strength mods are not max rank, you can replace Vampire Leech, and Augur Reach with Intensify and Augur Secrets. What is pretty important though, is that fleeting expertise is rank 5. The difference between rank 4 and 5 is pretty significant because more energy restores will happen per second with rank 5. Most builds are better off with Rank 4, but this is one of those builds that benefit hugely from lowest duration possible.
This is almost the same team composition as Bere and Hydron except there cannot be a CP leech. It is instead replaced by a second DPS. Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, or ESO for short, starts with higher level enemies and so requires more DPS.
The DPS will get mostly focus points and pathetic amounts of affinity for their weapons. The rest of the team will get a lot of affinity for their under leveled warframes (CP Leech Only) and weapons, but very poor amount of focus points.
There will pretty much always be pubbers in these games which improves enemy spawn rates for more experience. Just que up a public game for these locations.
The reason defenses might be better is because defense maps require players to stay in one spot to protect the mission objective. Because of this, players will mostly stay within affinity range (default 50 meters) of each other increasing total affinity gain. In survivals, players are not forced to any one specific area, and it is a rare occurrence for random pubbers to camp in one spot.
This Content Is Late Early-Game to Mid-Game
There’s a few different combinations most players run.
Composition 1 – Two hydroid to cover more area
Composition 2
Composition 3 – Most teams dont run two Nekros, but they don’t know that Nekros has a desecrate rate and it isn’t exactly fast. All bodies have timers on them before disappearing, so 1 Nekros misses out on alot. 2 Nekros after a lot of testing, does in fact result in more drops. Because there is only 1 Hydroid, there won’t be as much range covered. If you pick a spot with only 1 choke point, 1 Hydroid is perfect.
Composition 4 – This team composition will rely on another warframe other than Hydoid for DPS. The mod Pilfering Swarm gives additional drop if the enemy is affected by Tentacle Swarm. Tentacle Swarm doesn’t actually have to get the kill. This way Hydroid can be modded for max range and won’t have to worry about modding for power strength.
Hydroid Build For Compositions 1-3
Tentacle Swarm is going to cover a 20 meter area, good enough cover for a choke point, so staying in an enclosed area may be a good idea. The duration is kind of low at only 14.2 seconds. If you find this too short, then swap Augur Secrets for Prime Continuity. The ability will last 25.5 seconds instead.
Hydroid Build For Composition 4
This build will not do damage but is designed to cover max area of 28 meters and will last 36.6 seconds.
Nekros Build
A lot of this build is optional. Mostly you’ll just need max range, despoil, vitality, and efficiency. Built for third ability, Desecrate, which gives an additional chance for loot drop. Health Conversion makes Nekros a tank and is highly recommended. If you don’t like Quick Thinking, then you can swap it for perhaps Redirection. Primed flow can be swapped for something else.
Mesa Build
Built for ability 4, Peacemaker, and ability 3, Shatter Shield. For regular use, Intensify can be swapped with Rage or Hunter Adrenaline to better sustain Peacemaker.
EV Build
Build for second ability, Energy Vampire. There’s a few options for this build. Vampire Leech, Augur Reach, and Cunning Drift are all optional. If you skip out on Cunning Drift, that will save you a couple forma. If you’re power strength mods are not max rank, you can replace Vampire Leech, and Augur Reach with Intensify and Augur Secrets.
Speed Nova Build
Built for fourth ability, Molecular Prime, to speed up enemies by 30% and max duration for a wave that travels up to 96.8 meters.
This mission awards 25k credits upon completion. Going beyond 5 minute mark will not increase credit reward in any significant way. Therefor, it’s best to extract at the 5 minute mark. This mission also provides experience, circuits, alloy plates, and orokin cells.
Medium risk nets 175k profit, while high risk nets 250k profit. Credit boosters DO apply. The index has pretty tough enemies that can easily kill you. A contender to Index, is the Profit-Taker. However, the Profit-Taker needs to be sped run with Chroma and effective weapon loadout. The index will be easier for early game.
*There are many possible combinations, but this combination is used often.
Rhino Tank Build
Cast first ability, Charge, at as many enemies as possible, then cast second ability, Iron Skin. When low on armor, recast Iron skin to detonate it, and repeat the process.
Mesa Build
Use fourth ability, Peace Makers, and for 95% damage reduction from projectiles use third ability, Shatter Shield. For regular use, Intensify can be swapped with Rage or Hunter Adrenaline to better sustain Peacemaker.
Ev Trinity Build
Banshee Build
Use second ability, Sonar, which debuffs enemies to take 15x damage. Enemies will die very easily if you shoot their weak spots indicated by the colored patches on enemies.
Slow Nova Build
This build is for teams who want to play it safe. This build is modded for fourth ability, Molecular Prime, which will debuff enemies to take 2x damage and slow them by 75%.
Speed Nova Build (For Veterans)
This is for veterans since enemies will speed up by 30% making it more dangerous. If a team can handle it, then this will cause faster kills for faster credit farming.
This Section Is Late Early-Game To Mid-Game Content.
Arena Endo Farming is very effective and is done at Sedna, Vodyanoi. The enemies there are level 85 and to be effective there needs to be a good amount of DPS. The enemies are also dangerous and can easily kill you.
What To Do
The Nidus is going to spam Larva in the center of the map. Larva is going to gather enemies. It’s best if the Nidus place the Larva at the same spot each time so that the team can concentrate attack on that area. A great spot is right in front of the door.
After Nidus gathers everything, everyone is going to attack the enemies in the Larva. These enemies are tanky, so the party will need to equip 3-4 Corrosive Projections. In the picture, I am using Galatine Prime (build below). They should also equip strong slash type weapons with high status chance, because slash cuts bodies in half which gives Nekros two bodies to desecrate versus only 1. I have included weapon builds below, but the problem is they need some rare mods. The melee weapons are very strong, but need those mods to be strong. If you don’t have those mods, you’ll have to make due and equip your strongest weapons instead.
Nidus Larva
With this build, Larva is going to gather enemies up to 30 meters away, and will gather for 7.35 seconds. The ability costs 6 energy, and energy will be restored quickly with the mod, Hunter Adrenaline. Additionally Zenurik energizing dash will help with energy regen. If you don’t have Hunter Adrenaline, it can be swapped with Rage. Gladiator Aegis can be swapped with Augur Reach or Armored Agility.
Nekros Desecrate
Health Conversion is highly recommended on this build, because it makes Nekros a Tank. If you don’t like Quick Thinking, then you can replace Quick Thinking and Prime Flow with other survivability mods.
Weapons With High Slash Will Cut Enemies Into Two Bodies Which Gives 2 Additional Drop Chances From Nekros’ Desecreate. The Following Weapons Are All Slash Weapons.
Orthos Prime MR 2
This build has high slash and large radius of 8 meters.
Atterax MR 2
Maiming Strike is a rare and expensive mod. If you don’t have it, you’ll have to buy it for a lot of platinum or wait for the Acolyte event to come.
Galatine MR3 And Galatine Prime MR13
This build will work for both Galatine and Galatine Prime.
The Following Shotguns (Except Astilla) Need To Reach 100% Status Chance Before Multishot For Effectiveness!! For More Details Go To Section, “100% Status Shotguns.”
Kohm MR5
Kohm is top tier in conjunction with Nidus. With this build it has 100% status chance and will proc slash a ton. In order for it to be effective, it needs 4 60/60 elemental mods and the strange mod, Nano-Applicator. Important: Without Nano-Applicator proc’d Kohm will be very weak, and super strong when proc’d. Since Nidus is always casting Larva, the Nano-Applicator will keep proc’ing as long as you are aiming. Kohm is also an automatic shotgun. Alternatively, a riven with at least +60% status chance can replace Nano-Applicator and Kohm will become effective for both Nidus and Nekros.
Nagantaka MR9
This is a crossbow with two firing modes. I recommend using the alt fire which rapidly unloads a full magazine of 8 bolts.
Astilla MR10
Astilla also has extremely high chance to proc slash, but to maximize its dps, you’ll have to land at least 1 headshot every 9 seconds to proc +critical chance from laser sight.
Akjagara Prime MR12
Akjagara Prime is a great option for the Arena, because it does very high sustained damage.
Tigris MR7 And Sancti Tigris MR12
I suggest against using Sancti Tigris when Tigris Prime is only 1 MR away.
Tigris Prime MR13
Proc’s a ton of slash at 100% status chance.
Euphona Prime MR14
Although Euphona Prime’s alt fire is strong and with this build, it will have 100% status chance and proc a ton of slash, it has very low magazine capacity of 5. A lot of time will be spent reloading unfortunately.
I found some parties in recruit channel, and there seemed to be varying degrees of success. The time depends on DPS, and amount of endo depends on amount of slash weapons the team is equipping and RNG. These missions I was using Galatine Prime.
250 Endo in 2m 25s
610 Endo in 1m 28s
500 Endo in 2m 27s
Syndicates aren’t immediately important, but can be started late early game or mid-game.
Syndicates offer various items: augment mods, weapons, archwing weapon parts, relic packs, spectre blueprints, cosmetics, and captura scenes.
To access syndicates: esc–>profile–>syndicates
Syndicate Selection Screen
You can check rewards for each one and pick one with augment mods for warframes you plan on using and weapons that interest you. In the end it doesn’t matter that much because you can always trade with other players who’ve chosen opposite Syndicates. Alternatively, you can sell extra Syndicate rewards for platinum and use that platinum to buy items from other Syndicates from other players. The only things that can’t be traded are Large Energy/Health/Shield/Ammo restores, Spectres, Cosmetics, and Sigils.
Syndicate Initiation and Sigil
To start leveling a syndicate, choose one and do the initiation. You’ll receive a sigil. To start receiving points toward your syndicate of choice, you’ll have to equip the sigil.
How To Equip Sigil
To equip the sigil, go to regalia in warframe appearance (esc–>equipment–>arsenal–>hover over warframe–>appearance–>regalia–>front or back sigil).
They are needed to increase Syndicate Ranking, up to a Maximum of 5 ranks. Each rank unlocks more items offered by the Syndicate. Various items cost differing amounts of syndicate points.
Gaining affinity will award syndicate points toward a daily cap. Syndicate missions and syndicate medallions also award syndicate points. Medallions can be found randomly all over the map in syndicate missions and are sometimes sneakily hidden.
How To Find Medallions
The little squares, on the map UI, represent containers, Cephalon Fragments, Soma Fragments, and Medallions. What most people do is destroy them all to eliminate all possibilities, until a square that represents a Medallion is found. To destroy cannisters quickly, it is recommended to use an area damage weapon such as: Ignis (Wraith) modded for punch through, Atterax, Secura Lecta, Orthos Prime and Guando.
Mods That Help in Finding Medallions
These mods help you see the squares on the map farther, with all three totaling +102 meters. These mods are also useful in farming Cephalon, Soma, and Warframe Fighter Fragments.
What a Medallion Looks Like
Each Syndicate has a different looking Medallion, but they are all the same size like the one in the picture.
How To Claim Medallions for Points
To claim syndicate points from medallions, go to your syndicate’s designated room located on the outer perimeter of the relays on the first floor.
Requirement: Completion of Quest “The New Strange”
During the quest, Cephalon Simaris is going to have you scan targets. During missions a pointer will point you in the right direction toward the target. However, instead of following the pointer a shortcut is to simply keep your scanner out and zoom for a split second every so often as you progress through the map. By zooming the scanner, the target will appear on the mini-map as long as it is within a large radius around you. Don’t underestimate the radius as it is very large.
What Cephalon Simaris Has to Offer
Daily Missions For Standing
Simulacrum: Test Builds in a Simulation
Can be accessed after completing the quest, “The War Within”
Sorties
Sorties are unlocked after the War Within quest. Sorties are mid to end-game content and contain higher level enemies between 50 and 100. They randomly reward endo, boosters, forma, orokin catalyst/reactor blueprints, and items that can net some platinum once per day. Sorties should be started as soon as it is available to the Tenno and done daily because of its precious rewards. The problem is that Sorties can be tough for beginner Tennos. It is advised to complete all planets and to have complete builds on warframes and weapons first. Spy missions also are automatic mission fail if one of the vaults fail. You’ll want to be at least consistent with spies or have an invisible warframe to make things easier. Defense missions at the Kuva Fortress are filled with traps causing high death counts even among veterans. Sorties also come with random modifiers. Here are some modifiers that should be especially noted.
Focus Schools are accessed after completing the “Second Dream” quest. This Section contains spoilers. It is recommended to come back after completing the quest.
The following is a list of focus skills and passives that may be of interest to you. All waybound passives are useful in Eidolon Captures. Of course this is player preference and there may be other useful skills and passives, but these are good for general purpose. The tables below refer to number of focus points required to level up skills and passives.
ZENURIK
Zenurik is probably the most used focus school by the player base, because of energizing dash.
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 931,527
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 11
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 465,764
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 6
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 931,527
UNBOUND: 1,931,527
CAPACITY: 11
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 1,402,291
UNBOUND: 2,402,291
CAPACITY: 16
NARAMON
Mind Spirit synergizes extremely well with Zenurik’s Void Siphon and Void Flow. It allows 7 dashs from full energy, traveling up to 200 meters.
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 465,764
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 6
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 931,527
UNBOUND: 1,931,527
CAPACITY: 11
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: 1,398,284
CAPACITY: 7
MADURAI
Void Strike is great dps booster for Eidolon Captures.
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 199,142
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 4
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 199,142
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 4
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 373,284
UNBOUND: 1,373,284
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 1,372,291
UNBOUND: 2,372,291
CAPACITY: 16
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 1,402,291
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 16
UNAIRU
Unairu Wisp is great dps booster for Eidolon Captures. Many can be spawned for the whole team.
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: 1,398,284
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: 1,398,284
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 602,426
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 10
VAZARIN
Mending Unity is especially good for Trinity’s ability, Blessing. Blessing reaches teammates within affinity range. Affinity range is 50 meters and 75 meters with Mending Unity.
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 199,142
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 4
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: –
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 398,284
UNBOUND: 1,398,284
CAPACITY: 7
TOTAL COST TO MAX: 199,142
UNBOUND: 1,602,426
CAPACITY: 10
CAPACITY COST
Capacity – Total Cost:
10 – 23,589
20 – 110,622
30 – 263,952
40 – 488,958
50 – 789,750
60 – 1,169,689
70 – 1,631,649
80 – 2,178,147
90 – 2,811,430
100 – 3,533,536
110 – 4,346,328
120 – 5,251,528
130 – 6,250,738
140 – 7,345,459
150 – 8,537,101
Lens when equipped on level 30 weapons and warframes convert affinity to focus points. Therefor it is best to equip focus lens on warframes and weapons that will score the most kills.
How To Install a Focus Lens
The first 50 platinum that is automatically given to all new accounts cannot be traded. That’s why it’s best as said earlier to buy slots and/or orkoin catalyts/reactors. This makes sense or else people would just keep making new accounts to make platinum.
As you advance from early to mid to end-game, you’ll unlock more and more ways of making platinum. In the beginning you’ll be limited, but here are a couple sure-fire ways of making some platinum. There are other ways too but they tend to be niche and/or based on a trend. Other beginner guides on platinum will have more information.
Nightwave and Nightmare missions reward many important mods such as Corrosive Projection, Energy Siphon, Steel Charge, and many more. These types of mods most everyone needs. You should get one copy for yourself and sell any extras.
Corrupted mods like Nightwave/Nightmare mods are needed by just about everybody, so you’ll want to farm them for yourself and sell off extra copies.
The warframe market or trade chat.
Eventually selling prime sets will net pretty good platinum, but it is probably ideal to unlock all the planets and missions first so that all fissure missions are accessible and to have prime sets for yourself first. Therefor effectively selling prime sets is still a ways ahead. The Warframe Market is a great place to price check.
Haggling has a lot to do with patience. Whether you or another player has low patience, you or they will have to buy high or sell low to quickly close a deal. If a player has a lot of patience, then they can afford to wait for a better deal. Every item has a price range, and trading truly involves dancing within that range, a tug of war so to speak between selling in the high range and buying in the low. If you tug too hard, the other player will likely say no deal. If you tug too softly, you might end up with a less than ideal trade.
You’ll want to rank up, so that you have many trades per day (number of trades per day = your mastery rank) or else your cash flow will suffer as you’ll have to wait for daily reset every 24 hours.
Enlarge the Size of Your Chat Window
Many players don’t know but you can, or else the trade chat will be hard to read making you prone to messaging the wrong person or misreading. The top right corner of the window has three little dots that you can drag.
Use the Chat Filter When Looking For Something Specific
The magnifier symbol is at the top left corner of the chat window.
Use the Warframe Market To Price Check
Warframe Market
Save some platinum for items you’re looking to buy. You WILL get messaged.
Sometimes there will be a buff to a weapon or warframe. In that case, their price will rise, so you can make a quick buck or two. For example, soon there will be a major melee rework. Trends will definitely arise and certain items may lower in value and other items may increase in value. Another example was when Digital Extremes put out a massive weapons buff to many weapons and the prime sets and Baro Ki’Teer weapons surely raised in value.
The sets will go for 400-500 platinum within the first day or two of release depending on how popular the set is, will depreciate in value by the second half of the week, and then depreciate once again after 1 week. It will be optimal to farm a ton the very day, the prime set is released (usually Tuesday). Check out sections, “Fissure System – How To Farm Prime Sets,” and “How To Farm Relics.”
Whatever region you are, you can buy during the day and sell at weird hours 12am to 7am if you’re a night owl. Or you can just switch regions to the other side of the world where times are different by 12 hours. To change regions, esc–>options–>gameplay tab–>region.
Arcanes sell from 20 platinum to 250 platinum.
How To Activate Natah Quest – Scanning An Oculyst
Oculysts will spawn on Uranus missions listed below. Try not to let them detect you before scanning them or they will retreat.
The Second Dream – Security Eye
A button is located at the bottom of the pillars. If you shoot them, a small platform will appear. Essentially you’ll want to jump on the small platform and divert the eye to shoot its beam at the pillar destroying it. Bringing a tank for this mission will give more leeway for errors, but is not necessary with good timing.
Jordas Precept – Jordas Golem Assasinate
Before fighting the Jordas Golem, you’ll have to fight a tough mini-boss, the Behemoth, a larger version Difficult Bossesof the Juggernaut. The Behemoth has a ton of armor. To bypass that armor, shoot the top of its body or its underbelly. Juggernauts have these same weak spots.
The Jordas Golem is invincible except for its engines on its backside. The Jordas Golem has a ton of armor, so equipping a Corrosive Projection aura (-30% armor) is recommended. Better yet having a team of 3 or 4, each equipped with Corrosive Projection will significantly boost DPS. For more information on Corrosive Projection, visit section, “Useful Nightwave Mods.”
Raptors – Namaah, Europa
After being destroyed, the Raptor will drop a power cell that will detonate 10 seconds after being dropped. You have to pick up the power cell and drop it into the Gravity Conveyor, the opening where the Raptor spawned. You drop the power cell by switching weapons. Repeat this three times with each Gravity Conveyor.
Kela De Thaym – Merrow, Sedna
After stepping on the button on the floor, a panel on the wall will start spinning. Behind the spinning panel are 4 mini-buttons you’ll have to hit. An option is to use a weapon with punch through, innate or modded with punch through, and a weapon whose projectiles spread over the entire spinning panel. Ignis and Ignis Wrath are perfect examples and are shown in the picture above.
Phobos Junction – Scan 3 Cephalon Fragments
Equipping one or more of these mods will cause Cephalon Fragments within range to display on the mini-map.
Neptune Junction – Open 3 Caches
The Neptune Junction will have you go to Desdemona, the only sabotage mission on Uranus. Caches are hidden lockers that show up in all sabotage missions. The above pictures show caches for Grineer, Corpus, and Orokin, respectively. Instead of glowing their normal colors, they will glow abnormally white. The best way to find them is to search all over the map and listen for them. At 15 meters away, you’ll be able to hear a feint chime. At 10 meters away, it will be loud and obvious, so make sure to put your sound up. Click the video below to hear the sound.
First, thank you for allowing this game to stay free to play! There are a few ways to get the most bang for your real buck.
Platinum Discounts From Login Reward
Login occasionally rewards platinum discounts at 20%, 50%, or 75%. Beware that the login rewards are random and it’s hard to say how soon or long it will take to get the maximum discount of 75%.
Price Comparisons Between Different Discounts
75 platinum
170 platinum
370 platinum
1000 platinum
2100 platinum
4300 platinum
There are prime access packs that offer newly released prime sets, exclusive cosmetics, platinum, and boosters. If you don’t care about the exclusives, it’s cheaper to just buy straight platinum and to buy whatever item you want from other players via the warframe market trading site and the in-game market using platinum.
Prime Access Packs – Good Deal Or No?
For example, this Limbo Prime access pack, specifically the banish pack for 49.99$, after calculations is worth a depreciating value 2818 platinum. On the day of release, it was worth 2818. Within a few days, its value dropped down to 2418. Within a couple weeks, its value dropped down to 2218. With a 75% discount, you will net 3700 platinum. Still the prime access pack is a pretty good offer if it takes too long to get a 50 or 75% discount login reward. However, the pack forces you to buy specific items you may not have wanted, while with pure platinum you have the freedom to buy whatever you want.
The cataclysm pack, which costs $140, is an even worse deal which I valued at 6158 platinum and that’s not even considering the depreciation over time. 140$ worth of pure platinum with a 75% discount is 10360. That’s a difference in value by 4202 platinum! Essentially you’re paying a lot of real money for the exclusive cosmetics and glyphs.
Starter Bundle – Good Deal or No?
The Starter Bundle costs $19.99 and offers: 300 platinum, 7-day affinity booster, 7-day credit booster, 1 warframe slot, 2 weapon slots, 1 orokin reactor, 1 orokin catalyst, base damage mods, and 3 exclusive cosmetics. This is approximately valued at 465 platinum. For $20, you can get 370 platinum. For $25 with a 75% off discount, you can get 2100 platinum. This is a good deal if you have a hard time getting the 50% or 75% discount.
Items labeled Trade, can be bought off the Warframe Market or traded with other players via trade chat. Market refers to the in-game market.
Mk-1 Weapons are the worst variants of a weapon, but are great for mastery fodder. They can be purchased pre-built with credits off the market (esc–>market) and have a mastery rank requirement of 0. To easily find them, just type mk1 in the search bar.
More Weapons That Can Be Bought With Credits:
The warframe wiki lists weapons by MR requirement, though of course some are not MR fodder. Here is the link. The list is all the way at the bottom of the page.
Instead, upgrade them both to Rank 4. The reason is that max efficiency is capped at 175. A rank 4 Fleeting expertise gives +50 energy efficiency and a rank 4 Streamline gives +25 energy efficiency totaling to +75 energy efficiency. Rank 4’s offer maximum capacity efficiency as well. Some builds will require max rank fleeting expertise and/or streamline, but most will require rank 4’s. Getting additional copies of the mods and upgrading them to rank 5 to have both rank 4 and rank 5 versions may be a good idea, but not until mid-game.
The +stat gain to endo cost ratio is low after rank 8. During mid-game, mods can be ranked to 9 and during late mid-game, mods can be ranked to 10 after amassing large amounts of extra endo.
Do not sell ayatan sculptures for platinum. This will severely hinder progress.
Because it can take a while to unlock all missions on all planets, you can get a taxi from clan chat or recruitment chat for alerts, invasions, fissures, resource farming, credit farming, and any other important missions. Players will que the mission for you since they have it unlocked. Alerts, invasions, fissures, and sorties will spawn on a random planet in a random mission, but will only show on your navigation screen if you have unlocked the planet the mission is on. For the full list of alerts, visit the Warframe Hub Website.
Like I said earlier I don’t think it’s a good idea to sell mods for credits. Perhaps it won’t matter as much later, but right now you desperately need that endo. Instead there are abundant items that can’t be traded and therefor are not worth anything except credits. Go to the miscellaneous tab in inventory (esc–>equipment–>inventory–>miscellaneous tab). Search for extra warframe blueprints you don’t need. Common drops are Oberon, Valkyrie, and Rhino blueprints. They can be sold for 3500 credits each.
The Chroma warframe requires a Volt Neuroptics, Ember Neuroptics, Frost Chassis, and Saryn Systems to build, so you might want to keep 1 of each of those.
It is not that the rewards from these areas aren’t worthwhile. It’s that the content has its own resources to farm. The content is limited within itself and progressing within the content does not lay a strong foundation for all of Warframe’s content. Mostly the only content worthwhile in early game is outlined in section “Useful POE Items.”
Examples of rare keys are Mutalist Alad V Assassinate Keys which award Mesa parts and Orokin Derelict Assassinate Keys which award Nekros parts. 1 Mutalist Alad V Nav Coordinate is needed to build 1 Mutalist Alad V Assassinate Key and 5 Lephantis Nav Coordinates are needed to build 1 Orokin Derelict Assassinate Key. The special nav coordinates aren’t easy to come by. Therefor, efficient use of these keys would be smart. Form a keyshare party in which each party member takes turns using their key, for essentially 4 runs per key use.
Original Link – Continuation of discussion
Apex Legends is a character-based battle royale. Apex Legends became popular because it was a…
I'm not especially good at games due to mediocre reflexes and I was having a…
A short progression guide with movement ability locations. Minor spoilers. It can be hard to…
Has anyone figured out the order of locations that NPCs show up at if you…
I honestly feel that that the ending for collecting all the grubs is an awful…
Two at a time, and can go so unsynced that they just deal unavoidable damage…