Optimized Volt Builds: An Advanced Guide – Warframe

Tricked out and expensive builds for Volt lovers. Cheap builds also included! This guide contains speed, raid, and melee tanky builds and a short parkour guide. With the speed builds, you’ll get more done in less time than you ever thought you could. Run fissures, sorties, alerts, invasions, kuva, and raids faster and have an edge over the competition in time limited events such as Alcolyte farming. Be a great contributor in raids by shortening completion times using speed buffs and be a great option for the team as bomb carrier. As for the melee tanky build, I got tired of being limited to low-level content. I also got tired of running true melee tanks (E.g Chroma) in survivals because of how slow they are. Meleeing enemies running away is such a pain. With tanky melee volt, those issues are solved on top of having increased DPS from buffed sprint, reload, and melee attack speed.

INTRODUCTION

In this guide I will include fully tricked out Volt builds where I spare no expense in formas and arcanes. For people who don’t want to invest the amount of time and resources, I’ve included cheap builds which require less formas and no arcanes.

Volt is a very skill based warframe. The more skill you have the faster your speed runs are going to be and the more bullets you’re going to dodge. Many of these builds and suggestions are not for the faint of heart and are designed for absolute Volt enthusiasts like myself. I mean I ABSOLUTELY LOOOOOOOVE VOLT. That’s why I went so crazy with these builds. But if Volt is your favorite warframe, why not go all out?? Trust me. The benefits are truly rewarding especially in the fun and efficiency departments.

TEAM SPEED BUILD

4 FORMAS REQUIRED

• Aura slot: –
• Add polarities: – D V

OVERVIEW

• With this build, speed ability lasts 21 seconds, costs 39 energy, and has a range of 27 meters. Range stat needs to be at least 100 for team builds. As you can see there are no survivability mods. This build is only meant for regular missions. You’ll also be dodging bullets.

SPECIALIZATIONS (Level 40 missions and below)

• Sabotage
• Capture
• Exterminate
• Easy assassinations (The Sergeant and Phorid)
• Spy (If you don’t need invisibility)
• Alerts
• Non-endless neo fissures and below
• Invasions

MISSION TYPES TO AVOID

• Defense
• Survival
• Sorties
• Any higher-level content
• Defection
• Nightmare
• Axi fissures

ARCANE SETS

• Arcane Agility
• Arcane Energize

ARCANE SYNERGY AND IMPORTANCE WITH BUILD

• Arcane agility gives 4% chance on receiving damage to gain a 20% increase in sprint speed. The chance on proc seems low but I found the arcane to be procing all the time. There is no need for 2 sets. This build has no energy efficiency mods because there is simply no room. Therefor, arcane energize is needed to ensure 100% uptime on the speed ability. Make sure to kill enemies along the way for their energy orb drops. I found this is easily done with any weapons with large range such as polearms, heavy blades, whips, and certain primaries/secondaries. I personally use the scoliac, amprex, and galatine prime.

VIDEO OF A CAPTURE MISSION ON NEPTUNE DISPLAYING 100% UPKEEP ON SPEED WITH NET ENERGY GAINS USING ARCANE ENERGIZE

• Completion time is 1:25. Keep in mind this mission was solo. In team based missions, your slow poke teammates will slow you down, but that’s ok because your job is to speed them up.

Protip: Using strafe to turn lowers momentum while using mouse to turn maintains momentum. Only strafe when needed and in open environments use the mouse.

VIDEO OF RADSHARE CAPTURE MISSION (COMPLETION TIME IS 2:15)

VIDEO OF PUB AXI EXTERMINATE

VARIATIONS

• The goal of this build was max speed runs. There could be some variations to it. However, there needs to be a balance between high speed and practicality which could be a little tricky. There needs to be good duration so when teammates get out of range of you, you won’t have to worry about re-boosting them for some time. There’s also the concern of maintaining 100% uptime for speed buff. I found this build to be a good balance in all aspects.
• Alternatively, Narrowminded can be swapped for Quick Thinking, Redirection, or Vitality for more survivability. This will sacrifice 5 seconds of speed boost, but will also add more range.

SOLO SPEED BUILD

This solo speed build is similar to the team speed build with some changes. Everything is the same except the following mods were switched from:

• Primed flow
• Stretch
• Rank 5 Narrowminded
• Intensify

To

• Rank 4 Fleeting Expertise
• Rank 5 Streamline
• Rank 10 Narrowminded
• Armored Agility

OVERVIEW

• This build sports a duration of 20 seconds and increased energy efficiency at 19 energy per cast. The team build requires killing enemies along the way for energy drops. However, this solo build requires minimal energy orbs.

VIDEO OF SOLO CAPTURE MISSION ON NEPTUNE

• It’s the same mission in the team build section, but with a shorter completion time of 1:13. The map also seemed harder to navigate comparatively which goes to show the greater speed potential.

VARIATIONS

• Total sprint speed equals 3.632. Armored agility gives more sprint speed then intensify. However, intensify boosts sprint, reload, and attack speed while armored agility only provides increased sprint speed and a negligible amount of armor. Intensify is a great alternative and opting for intensify over armored agility will give a comparable 3.5235 sprint speed.

WEAPON SUGGESTIONS

WEAPON SYNERGY

• The more enemies you kill the more chance for energy orb drops. The faster you kill enemies the faster you can go back to sprinting and the faster you complete missions. I do think a combo of melee and a primary/secondary is ideal in this case, because melee doesn’t require aim, is effective at killing concentrated groups, and allows you to quickly continue sprinting after attacking. When enemies are farther away or not as grouped tightly, something like an amprex with mod sinister reach will spread its electricity pretty far. This way you don’t waste time having to run up to them to melee. Here is a list of good attributes for weapons that synergize with this build:
  • Medium to high area of effect
  • Medium to fast attack speed (For melee weapons)
  • Stances with low mobility and wide arcing attacks (For melee weapons)
  • Good to top tier dps

WEAPON SUGGESTIONS

• Melee statistics are rough estimates of range with primed reach (DE has not released official numbers) and exact base attack speeds. Third category includes low mobility stances with wide sweeping arcs. The reason why I advise against high mobility stances is because the speed buffed animations become so exaggerated that you’ll often do flips and spins past enemies without doing any damage. With slow mobility stances, you will still be very mobile, but not overly. Stances do not matter for whips if you plan on solely using slide attacks through maiming strike builds are highly recommended. This list is in no particular order except melee range is descending. The weapon you choose can be based on personal preference.

• WHIP: Scoliac

RANGE: 11 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.25

STANCE: Coiling viper

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 18 meters

• WHIP: Atterax

RANGE: 10 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 0.917

STANCE: Burning wasp

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 12 meters

• WHIP: Secura Lecta

RANGE: 10 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.25

STANCE: Coiling viper

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 12 meters

• NON-WHIP: Orthos prime

RANGE: 8 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.17

STANCE: Bleeding willow

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 10 meters

• NON-WHIP: Tonbo

RANGE: 7 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.0

STANCE: Bleeding willow

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 9 meters

• NON-WHIP: War

RANGE: 6 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 0.917

STANCE: Tempo royale

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 7 meters

• NON-WHIP: Tipedo

RANGE: 5 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.33

STANCE: Clashing forest

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 9 meters

• NON-WHIP: Galatine Prime

RANGE: 5 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.00

STANCE: Tempo royale

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 6 meters

• NON-WHIP: Lesion

RANGE: 5 meters

ATTACK SPEED: 1.00

STANCE: Bleeding willow

MAX POSSIBLE RANGE WITH RIVENS: 6 meters

• PRIMARY: Amprex

IMPORTANT MOD: Sinister Reach

• PRIMARY: Sobek

IMPORTANT MOD: Acid Shells

• PRIMARY: Torrid

IMPORTANT MOD: NONE

• SECONDARY: Atomos

IMPORTANT MOD: Ruinous Extension

• SECONDARY: Sonicor

IMPORTANT MOD: NONE

• SECONDARY: Pox

IMPORTANT MOD: Fulmination

More suggestions will come when DE releases official melee range numbers and after more testing of riven effects.

A BRIEF PARKOUR GUIDE

I sprint whenever I can since Volt’s ability and mods buff sprint. However, we cannot sprint in all situations. Here is a guide for maxing speed while forced to jump or when it is optimal to jump. The sprint buffs help jumps because the take off speed is based on sprint speed. Whenever you hear wind blowing (sounds like wind turbulence), that means you’re traveling at high speeds. The sequence applies to all warframes with or without the speed buff.

FULL PARKOUR SEQUENCE

• Bullet Jump
• Double jump
• Mid-air roll (Simultaneous glide situational)
• Mid-air kick (Simultaneous glide situational)
• Land (kick turns into slide)
• Roll

ADAPTATION WITH ENVIRONMENT

• As you can see in the video, the map is hierchon. The wide open space allows for full sequences. However, not all maps are as wide open. Therefor, you can only use parts of the sequence. Knowing which segments to use comes in time and practice.

Protip: Often times when bullet jumping upward to a higher platform, the bullet jump over shoots. Tap glide to stop the flight. Then do a kick forward if needed to change trajectory 90 degrees onto the platform.

VIDEO OF HUNT FOR MAROO’S AYATAN TREASURE

AOE NUKE

This build is designed around Volt’s fourth ability, “Discharge,” and is effective for nuking maps on all regular planet missions. This build was tested against level 43 heavy gunners and is able to kill them in one cast. Be mindful that more damage is done to enemies within 20 meters. If enemies are within 20-50 meters, less damage is done. With this build level 43 heavy gunners within 20-50 meter range were still killed in one cast. However, it took a second or two longer. This build is also very energy efficient and each cast will only cost 25 energy.

This was the mission results at an Eris, Akkad fissure. As you can see, this build has no problem nuking the map.

AOE NUKE FOR EXTERMINATES

This is an amazing build for regular planet exterminate missions. Casting speed will give a bit of a movement boost, all the while casting discharge to nuke entire areas. The best exterminate teams usually consist of a volt and ember/equinox. However, this setup isn’t always available especially in pubs. This build brings the best of both worlds in a single warframe! Be wary of energy and maintaining zenurik’s energizing dash buff is recommended.

VARIATION

• Swap out “overextended” for “augur reach” and “power drift” for “cunning drift” to gain a bit more power strength at the cost of range.

AOE NUKE FOR BERE/HYDRON

Here are the mission results after two waves. I ended up with 1542 kills which is pretty average, but at least better than banshee.

AOE NUKE FOR ESO

This build is used in the team composition:

• DPS Volt
• DPS (Equinox)
• Buff Roar Rhino
• EV Trinity

In ESO, Simaris will prevent you from spamming discharge, so you’ll have to keep gaps in between casts.

Setting down shields for the team will be helpful.

CROWD CONTROL

This build is designed around Volt’s fourth ability, “Discharge.” Discharge will stun all enemies within 50 meters. Enemies within 20 meters will be stunned for 13.42 seconds. Enemies within 20-50 meters will be stunned for a shorter period, but at a negligible difference. Each cast only costs 25 energy. Maintaining energy regen from zenurik’s energizing dash, you will end up with a net energy gain.

Augur Reach can be substituted with Primed Flow. Enemy Radar can be substituted with Energy Siphon.

TERALYST HUNT

This build is centered around volt’s shield. The shield costs 35 energy and lasts 70.5 seconds. The shield boosts +50 electric damage and +200% critical damage while shooting through it. To activate the damage boost on the shields, you must cast your first ability, “Shock,” at it. Three shields stack for +150 electric and +600% critical damage but ONLY for regular weapons. The shields DO NOT stack for amps. Therefor it might be best to cast single shields, but spread out so that teammates have a clear view of the teralysts. Once shields are down and it is time to use regular weapons on limbs, you could opt to stack 3 shields in that case. The rifle amp mod can be replaced with deadeye if using a sniper rifle.

If all or most of the team shoots through the shields, the teralyst’s shields will be down in less than a mag.

LOOT FARMING

This build is for a ton of +loot radar useful for quickly farming things like syndicate medallions, cetis wisps in POE, and cephalon/somachord fragments. The radar screen shows little squares which could potentially be what you are looking for.

LAW OF RETRIBUTION BUILD

5 FORMAS REQUIRED

• Aura slot: –
• Add polarties: – – D V

ARCANE SET

• Arcane Agility

SENTINEL

• Prisma shade with ghost mod

OVERVIEW AND VARIATIONS

• This build is designed to speed buff the entire team as well as carry the bomb if needed. I believe 284 strength to be the perfect amount. To get higher than 284, you would need power drift, growing power, and/or energy conversion. Rush could be replaced with power drift, but rush provides a hefty personal base sprint boost of 0.3 while power drift gives a minor +15 strength. Growing power is highly impractical because the most important aura in raids is corrosive projection. CP is a – polarity and conveniently so is the aura sprint boost allowing them to be interchanged. If there are already 4 team members with Cps, it’s time to throw that sprint boost mod on. Growing power is a V polarity which will not allow CP to be interchanged when needed. Energy conversion is also impractical because of the frequency of casting and low kill rate in LOR (aka no energy orbs). Arcane energize isn’t needed in LOR since 99.999% of the time teams will run with an EV trin. So a second arcane set of your choice is optional. Running prisma shade in LOR’s with the ghost mod is recommended as it can cloak you while you are on buttons. If your raid team doesn’t have any special requirements, this build should be very good.

STRATEGIES

• Keep as many teammates buffed at all times
• On mission 1 after bomb is dropped by the injector, place a shield in front of it and wait for everyone to clear the area. Shoot the bomb to force it to explode faster.
• May not want to cast speed buff on mission 2 due to potentially overshooting buttons
• While on buttons cast 3 shields covering 360 degrees around you. This gives you ability to shoot rather than having to melee block giving you relative safety to take out priority targets such as disruptor drones.
• The fourth ability discharge can be used as a panic skill. If you are about to be pulled or pushed off the buttons, cast discharge and you will be uninterruptible simultaneously CC’ing enemies around you.
• Can also cast 3 shields around teammates on buttons.
• Due to his shield ability, Volt is great for taking on more challenging buttons such as the left button in the last room where G3 tends to pressure.

CLIPS FROM LAW OF RETRIBUTION RUNS (NORMAL AND NIGHTMARE)

TANKY MELEE VOLT BUILD

It is obviously not a full on tank frame but it will survive in sorties and similar higher level content.

3 FORMAS REQUIRED

• Aura: No change
• Add polarities: D D D

SPECIALIZATIONS

• Survivals
• Axi fissures (Enemies do 3x damage)
• Sortie speed runs (Exterminate, capture, sabotage)
• Sortie survival
• Enemies up to level 100

MISSION TYPES TO AVOID

• Sortie missions with energy debuff

ARCANE SETS

• Arcane aegis
• Arcane energize

FOCUS SCHOOL

• Naramon with shadow step

OVERVIEW

• This build focuses on survivability and dps. 284 strength will give an additive bonus attack speed of 2.84. Total attack speed will be base speed affected by melee attack speed mods + 2.84. Steel charge provides a nice +60% melee damage boost. The electric shield skill offers both defense as a duration-based indestructible shield and offense giving a +200% bonus critical damage whilst shooting through it.

MECHANICS ON INCREASED SURVIVABILITY

• Volt has great base shield at 450. With a max redirection, his shield comes to 1110. Arcane aegis synergizes well with high shields and provides a steady and reliable shield regen.
• Volt has the highest energy pool of all warframes tied with Saryn Prime. This build boasts 850 energy pool which synergizes well with quick thinking. Additionally, this combo synergizes with arcane energize which will keep your energy topped off as long as you’re killing enemies. Note that the infested’s damage bypasses shield, so this will be one of your more predominent defenses.
• Shocking speed provides an additional safety net, can be used on dangerous targets such as bombards, and procs nicely if surrounded.

• Electric shield can be casted when needed.
• Volt’s increased speed provides greater evasiveness.
• Sometimes the best defense is a great offense and this build’s 284 strength significantly increases dps.
• This build really shines in survivals because there you will be able to activate naramon and with the amount of energy orbs from high kill rates in survivals, energy pool will be constantly filled.
• Nullifiers can easily be destroyed by entering the bubble and killing the nullifier crewman, but having a high fire rate primary or secondary to destroy nullifiers is recommended as a backup. If there is a whole crowd of enemies near the nullifier crewman, you may want to destroy the nullifier from afar.
• This build does not need naramon to survive in sorties and kuva floods as shown in videos below.
• RECOMMENDED: Use sentinel Dirigia with artax. Builds are in sortie 1 exterminate video.

VIDEO OF SORTIE 1 EXTERMINATE (ENEMY AUGMENTED SHIELDS)

VIDEO OF SOLO 60 MINUTE CORPUS AXI FISSURE SURVIVAL

VIDEO OF KUVA FLOOD CORPUS SURVIVAL

VIDEO OF KUVA FLOOD GRINEER EXTERMINATE

VIDEO OF SPEED DUO KUVA RESCUE

VIDEO OF SORTIE 2 CORPUS SURVIVAL: ENEMY ELEMENTAL ENHANCEMENT (WHEN THINGS GO WRONG)

• 1:45 Successful revive of teammate
• 5:38 Down while attempting to revive a teammate
• 7:40 Successful revive of teammate
• 8:03 Down due to being low on energy from previous down
• 11:33 Down while typing
• 12:08 Successful revive of teammate
• Conclusions: Always be on the move. Volt is not the best reviver. Teammates were constantly dying. Therefor it is difficult to carry teams as Volt. It is very dangerous whilst low on energy. Enemies have to be constantly killed for those energy orbs. Energy restores might be useful. I forgot to activate naramon which will help in reviving teammates.

VIDEO OF VOID AXI FISSURE SURVIVAL (NO NARAMON CHALLENGE)

VARIATIONS

• More Tankiness
  • Can exchange intensify for rage
• Team-oriented build
  • Can exchange steel charge for corrosive projection (must change aura polarity V to -).
  • Can exchange sprint with cunning drift and shocking speed with overextended or stretch for increased range to more easily buff teammates.
  • Can replace sprint with power drift.
• Speed and tank hybrid
  • Can replace steel charge with growing power (artax recommended)
  • Can replace steel charge with sprint boost (must change aura polarity V to -).
  • Can exchange arcane aegis with arcane agility.
• Arcanes
  • Can exchange arcane aegis with arcane barrier which is cheaper and better at restoring shields against lower-level enemies with high fire rate.
  • Can exchange arcane aegis with arcane fury.
  • Can exchange arcane aegis with arcane eruption though this defensive arcane may not proc as consistently as arcane aegis and its crowd control abilities have limited range of 20 meters.
• Discharge abiltiy
  • I considered running the fourth ability discharge in order to CC enemies if I ever got into trouble. However, I found the discharge skill to be way too expensive on energy to be worth it, because remember we need to stay as full as possible on energy for quick thinking. This skill would also need range mods and there is simply not enough mods slots.

CHEAP SOLO SPEED BUILD

3 BUILD VARIATIONS

2 FORMAS REQUIRED

• Aura slot: –
• Add polarty: D

HIGH STRENGTH, MEDIUM ENERGY EFFICIENCY, LOW SURVIVABILITY

• Speed ability lasts 20 seconds and the power cost is 20 energy. Energy siphon will help to maintain energy. 100% uptime for speed can be achieved with an occasional energy orb.

HIGH STRENGTH, LOW ENERGY EFFICIENCY, MEDIUM SURVIVABILITY

MEDIUM STRENGTH, HIGH ENERGY EFFICIENCY, MEDIUM SURVIVABILITY

MORE VARIATIONS

• There are going to be many variations based on player needs, mod ranks, and mod availability. For example, you can opt for an even less forma build. The important points are to have energy siphon equipped, good power strength, duration, and enough efficiency to hopefully maintain 100% upkeep of the speed ability buff. If going for team build, then at least 100 range is optimal. Warframe builder link included below, so you can mod it yourself.

SUPER CHEAP NUKE BUILD FOR NON-PRIME VOLT

*This section is for newer players who currently do not have enough platinum to buy Volt Prime, are short on endo, and do not have prime mods. These builds require 1 orokin reactor only!

OVERVIEW

• This build is designed for Volt’s fourth ability, “Discharge.” It will destroy enemies within 47 meters and only cost 25 energy per cast.

NOTE

• Volt Prime is HIGHLY recommended as it boasts twice as much energy as regular Volt. However, if you really like the Volt warframe, this should only be a temporary solution until you can get Volt Prime!! This way you won’t waste formas on the non-prime version. The reason why the mods are rank 8 is because that is arguably most bang for buck in terms of endo cost vs stat increases. Also Volt prime is vaulted currently. He will increase in price over time, though slowly as Volt is more of a niche warframe.

CONCLUSION

The drawback to super speeds is that in tight maps super speed can actually make it harder to get around. Also boosting a teammate who cannot handle super speed can cause more trouble than good. Another draw back is it’s going to take practice to get full use out of speed. Some people also complain about how squishy Volt is. In that case, the tanky melee volt may be the way to go, since it too can be used for speed runs. It just won’t be as fast which depending on the player could be a good or bad thing.

Probably the most versatile build in this guide is the tanky melee volt. It can be used in a much wider array of situations. I highly recommend it. It just won’t be as much a speed demon as the speed builds due to the speed builds being very specialized. On a positive note, the lesser speed makes it easier to handle.

Original Link – Continuation of discussion