It's the age-old question of video games:

"What is the difference between 'newbie' (or 'newb') VS 'n00b'?"

Here's some simple definitions to get you started:

A 'newbie' is someone who is new to the game and hasn't learned tatics, tricks, proper teamplay, gameplay and generally has very little experience.

-- This is okay. It's okay to be a newbie. We all start out as newbies. Don't feel bad if this definition applies to you, because it won't apply forever.

A 'n00b' is someone who's been around for quite a while, but has learned little or nothing. That is not, of itself, the problem; the problem with 'n00bs' is that they stick to ignorant beliefs, behaviors and strategies that simply don't work in the long-term. 'n00bs' also have the bad habit of being raging jack-asses who play selfishly, harass or grief teammates and have the bad habit of getting their teammates killed much sooner than they should. 'n00bs' are also easily offended and will behave childishly and churlishly whenever called out for it.

And now you know why 'n00b' is spelled with two zeroes in it, instead of the letter 'O'. Because n00bs are so bad, it must be reinforced their positive contribution is, in fact, absolute zero.

In point of fact, I've no doubt that some will read this guide and unite under a warcry that will probably go something like "You're the n00b!"...

n00bs also have a final behavior that is solely unique to them: They think that things like race or gender matter even in the slightest when playing video games. It never occurs to them that just because someone has lady parts or a skin-tone different from their own that video games are pretty much the ultimate equalizer in that human hand-eye coordination is unaffected by any differentiations in race, gender or sexuality. Here, in video game land, we are all given a truly equal shot. It's really quite a utopian ideal. n00bs are too self-involved to see this and, consequently, lose out on some really awesome gaming experience. But, really, what else would you expect from a n00b?

Ladies and Gents, don't be that guy. Just don't.

Firstly, take a breath and relax.

Secondly, it's time to share some tips about how to get frames and fast.

As a new player, you got to choose from 3 potential Warframes to start with: Excalibur, Volt and Mag. (These are the 3 starters at time of writing, we shall not discuss past starters, but may ammend this guide if the starting lineup changes).

Hopefully, you were a smart cookie and picked Excalibur. If you were just a cookie and picked one of the other two, don't sweat it, you can acquire the others at a later date, just like that famous Nintendo game series we won't discuss. It is worth noting that (again, like aforemention famous Nintendo game series) that the starter frame you picked will dictate how easy or hard the first few areas open to you will be.

The fastest way to get new Warframes to help fill your stable is...(drum roll please!): Join a Clan.

No, seriously; go join a clan. Most larger clans have completed most (if not all) available Research and so have opened up a truckload of Warframes, weapons, Archwings, 2 companion sentinels (at time of writing) and multiple helpful item types.

Warframes available to Clan members in the Tenno Lab are:

Banshee
Volt
Nezha
Wukong
Zephyr

Of these 5 that immediately become available, Banshee, Volt and Nezha are (thus far) the most useful, though it could easily be argued that Wukong can be used to achieve some pretty stellar results. So don't wait, if you're a new or new~ish player, join a clan. Worst case scenario, you can always message me and join mine (yeah, shameless plug, I know, but every bit helps when you're new).

For newer players, for whom this guide is mostly designed, survivability is often pretty hard. There are many approaches to it, ranging from tanky to cheesy to selfish-jerk styles of play. There's pretty much a frame for everyone (even trolls, sadly). So, let's cover some of the easiest to get to help newbies and how best to get them.

Rhino

This frame is pretty much the best one for players who just want to live to the next round. While he doesn't quite have the highest armor value in the game (that honor, at this moment, goes to Valkyr Prime) he's well rounded and his abilities alone allow new players the survivability they need to keep trucking through the game. Namely his #2 ability, Iron Skin, which makes Rhino immune to status effect changes and 99% of knockdowns while it's active. In addition, Iron Skin (which gets its value from your current Armor rating; more on that later) starts with 100% value which is gradually chipped away from enemy gunfire and melee without the player losing shields or health.

His Chassis, Neuroptics and Systems are random drops from fighting one of the earliest bosses in the game, Jackal on Fossa, Venus. His final Blueprint (or BP) can be purchased for credits from the Market onboard your Orbiter.

This is probably just my opinion, but if you're new, snagging a copy of Rhino should be priority #1 for you, especially if you're already struggling.

Loki

Loki is, arguably, the best stealth frame in the game. There are mods for your weapons that will make that one weapon silent, but for Loki, there is also a Syndicate augment for him that makes all weapons 100% silent. With a good Loki frame, leveling weapons and Amps for your operator can make for some very relaxing gameplay, especially in solo Spy missions, as Loki can become invisible. There's just one problem for new players...

Loki's parts can only be farmed from Hyena Pack on Psamathe, Neptune. This is one of the much, much later planets players can unlock. So, if you're new and wanting Loki (or other frames on planets you haven't unlocked yet) this would seem impossible, right?

YO! TAXI !!!

Go to the Recruiting Channel (shown in the image below) or your clan chat (both would be wise) and plop in the line 'LF Taxi' and the location. For example, if you wanted to farm Loki, you'd go to the Recruiting Chat and type in something like: LF Taxi Psamathe, Loki Farm and patiently wait for an invite or reply, repeating your request every few minutes until you find one. You'd be surprised how often someone will pop into chat, see your request and think to themselves "Sure, I'll help a newbie, no prob". I do it all of the time and have watched many others do the same. In fact, as I outline which newbie frames are good for what, if you find yourself thinking "That area isn't unlocked for me...", just remember that you can always request a Taxi.

Next frame on the list?

Ember

This one might spark some debate, but, take a second and hear me out: For newbies, nothing is more satisfying than watching sh*t die. Yes, WoF (World on Fire; her 4th ability) Ember is cheesy. Yes, for experienced players, it can be boring (and mostly is) but for newer people who don't have rivens, primed warframes, corrupted mods, etc.; a WoF Ember is immensely satisfying. It is worth noting that Ember is pretty dang squishy, which is a way of saying "She's pretty much useless once the enemies get above level 30 and she dies too quickly". This is very true. But, again, for new players - many of whom will probably be solo-ing a lot of story missions, having Ember in your stable can be a saving grace.

Ember's parts can be farmed by repeating the General Sarga Ruk fight on Tethys, Saturn.
Taxi, anyone?

These are the 3 starter frames I'd highly recommend to anyone first beginning the game. Ember kills stuff and simplifies gameplay a bit; Loki is great for Spy missions which would otherwise be difficult for new people and Rhino is a survival monster.

I know it's coming, I can just feel it...

"But it costs platinum to get new Warframe slots and I'm broke!"
Or
"It costs real world money to get platinum to expand my Warframe slots and I don't want to spend money on a free game"

Okay, those seem like fair points... but let me ask you this: If you were to purchase a new game right now, what's the average price? Checking Steam, PS4 and Xbox and I come up with $59.99 for a new game. It might cost you $25 to get enough plat to have 10+ Warframe slots. If you like the game, isn't it worth just a little bit of dough? And I'll note that, when I first started (eons ago, now) players between MR1 and MR10 received weapon and warframe slots as rewards for reaching specific ranks. The game has been patched so many times since then, I can no longer confirm this is true, but feel free to let me know in the comments if you know (or, better yet, post your rewards screens when you unlock a new MR).

Regardless of what clan you're in, it's important to know your environment and keep a few things in mind. Here are some key points:

1) People are imperfect. As such, they will disappoint you, anger you, hurt you and/or offend you. Most often this happens with no ill intentions on the part of any person(s) involved. Your best bet, when you enter into any community situation is to remember this rule. If a person is a continual problem, try addressing them directly. If they continue abusive behavior, report it up the chain of command. If - and I have to stress this part - IF your command structure doesn't take measures to correct the behavior and it still continues, then it's time to go elsewhere.

2) The one thing that never changes in any clan is.... YOU. You are the element that never changes no matter what clan you're in. Things that irritate, upset, offend or hurt people about your behavior in one clan/community are likely to do the same regardless of where you go... and the same is true if you're the one being hurt, upset or offended. Remember rule #1 in this regard and then remember that you are people too. And as such, you are imperfect as well. Don't expect perfection of others when you cannot deliver it yourself.

There's an old saying in this regard, for this rule: "If you meet a prick in the morning; fine! You met a prick. But, if you're meeting pr!cks all day, it's because YOU'RE the prick." -> This is a roundabout way of saying that, most often, people project their own inadequacies, fears and weaknesses upon one another; things that they don't like about themselves and then blaming others for it. Once in a while, you will meet bad people. But if you're meeting bad people everywhere you go, it's probably because you're a bad person and projecting your bad onto everyone else. Remember Rule #1?

3) Be courteous. People often make the mistake of thinking kindness and courteousy are the same thing. They are not. In the event you do not feel like being kind, remember to be courteous. Given that most clan interactions occur in the chat channel, courtesy goes a long, long way.

4) Text has no tone. This one cannot be stressed, reprinted or said enough. Text has no tone. This has been proven over and over and over again. Yet, no matter how many studies are released, proven or done in higher institutions of learning, somehow, people never really absorb this simple truth: 80% of human communication is non-verbal; gestures, facial expression, voice tone, inflection, posture, body position... the list goes on and on. Speaking with someone in person is better communication than any other type, video is the next step down, with voice chat being much lower on the scale than that and, finally, at the bottom of the communication heap is text. Which has NONE of the benefits of in-person communication. So, when you read text, you are reading it with YOUR mind's eye; with YOUR voice and YOUR tone. As such, any assumptions you make about what is being said is entirely you projecting your feelings on what has been written. Hilariously, this causes enormous problems that simply don't happen when speaking to someone in voice chat and even more problems than speaking to someone face to face. So I can't say this enough: Text has no tone. Stop acting like it does. Behaving, stating or even insinuating that you can somehow mystically tell tone from text is very much akin to claiming that you are some sort of god who can do what no Phd has ever been able to do nor will ever be able to do. Consequently, you end up coming across as an ignorant, officious prick. Don't be that guy.

5) Treat others as you would have them treat you. This is the golden rule and works generally well for most people. If it isn't working for you, then you should probably use the Platinum Rule: 'Treat others better than you care about them treating you by an exponential factor.' What does that mean? Well, some people aren't phased by language others would find abusive (or even racist) and occasionally even revel in it, like a pig in the mud. When dealing with other people, be aware that, even if you like rolling in the mud from time to time, they might not. So, when in public chats and such, keep it at a bare, clean, acceptable minimum. And, if you feel the need to roll around in the filth, do so in private with others who are of the same mindset.

6) Contribute whenever you can. You're a member of a community when you're in a clan. Contribute. In Warframe, that usually means grinding for resources and contributing them to research. But it can also mean helping newer players or helping clan mates out with farming or on missions. These are the reasons you join clans in the first place. Contribute and be a positive member of the little society you've entered.

Read the comments on the guide so far. There's a LOT of bullsh*t and hate, all of which goes something to this effect:

"Hurr-durr, can do any mission wit any frame, hurr-durr! You iz scrub, hurr durr"

Okay, seems fair, but people who are spouting such idiocy generally fall into 1 of 2 groups:

Group 1: They've been playing the game for a VERY long time and, in order to challenge themselves further, they've made it a point to learn maps, tips, tricks and patience to use every frame for virtually every mission. Almost all of us long-term players have done this at some point and some like it better than others.

Group 2: Scrubs who have to constantly be picked up and/or rescued by smarter teammates who know how to pick the right frames, abilities, weapons and loadouts to make the mission in question go as smoothly as possible for all teammates involved.

If you fall into the first group, fine; this guide isn't for you anyway, stop being an assh*le and getting newbies frustrated and killed with 'pro' advice, you jerk. This guide is to help them get to your level, not another forum for you to be a community dipstick and suggest that anyone who can't do what you can is a scrub. You're being "that guy". Stop it.

But most of the comments I've gotten so far fall into Group 2 and it's to you I speak now: Drop your arrogant nonsense, subscribe to the guide and learn something so you'll stop sucking so hard you could suck start a jet engine through a coffee straw and we'd all very much appreciate it, thanks. In short, you're already "that guy", you've always been "that guy" and, if you don't change your ways, you'll always be "that guy". And no one likes "that guy".
No one.
Not even your mom.

Here's the facts, as the devs (Digital Extremes) have stated many, many times (and it's clear no one listens): Each frame was specifically designed (some better than others) so that it's strengths and weaknesses can work better in some missions than others and to compliment teammates' frames and abilities.

The major exception seems to be Limbo, whose abilities are too easy to be selfish and trollish with. Which is why there is so much Limbo hate. It's not that it's hard to not be a jerk when playing Limbo, it's that so few players make an effort not to be.

Myth? Nope.

Reality? Definitely.

Go ahead, grab your Rhino, Ember or Nezha and run a Sortie Spy on lv100+. While you lie around dying or trying to creep by enemy nonsense, I'll be off completing the hacks and puzzles with ease and moving on to more fun missions, thanks. While you're trying to find away around laser gates, I'll simply stalk right through them with Ivara. While you're busying trying to figure out how to do the agility puzzles on Luna, I'll pop Ivara's line and hop up, grabbing the prize.

There are some things which become running themes during gameplay. Hence, there are rules. Let's get started!


RULE #1 STAY TOGETHER!

When you split the team, you split the spawns. Why is this bad? Well, for starters, it makes it much more difficult to obtain the necessary void traces. The further you are apart, the further away teammates have to travel to pick up the void traces necessary to crack open their relics. Void traces do have icons that can be seen through objects, but the maximum distance these seem to work at is between 80-90 meters. If you're split further than that, your teammates can't see where they are dropping. At higher levels of gameplay, this can also result in your teammates being isolated and getting wiped off the board by spawning enemies. If your teammates die by running out of revives, you reduce the number of relics that are opened and thus reduce your chances of better rewards. DON'T DO IT.

RULE #2 Don't spawn more Excavators than you can manage.

It's tempting to spawn multiple simultaneous Excavators to hurry through the game mode. On normal excavation, this isn't the end of the world... HOWEVER on Relic Excavation, this means you will likely not have enough time for all of the necessary void traces to drop, resulting only in you wasting your time and your teammates time and obtaining nothing for your efforts. In addition, if you let one run out of power, but enemies are still spawning near it, they will destroy it. The longer you've been on the map, the higher levels the enemies will be, the faster they will destroy them and there will be a longer time penalty between excavator spawns. The best advice is to spawn and defend one at a time.


RULE #3 DON'T BE "THAT" GUY!

We've all played with "that guy". We might have even occasionally been "that guy". Stop it. Don't do it.

Who is "that guy"? "That guy" is the guy/girl who, when his/her teammates point out that they're screwing over the team replies with "Well I play Warframe for fun, so if you don't like it, leave...". News Flash, jack-asses: We all play Warframe for fun. There aren't other reasons to play video games of any kind. You just "playing for fun" and using that as an excuse to screw everyone over is not acceptable. If you can't be a team player, put your game in solo mode and go nuts. Otherwise, set your ego aside and get ready to be useful for once in your life.

Who else is "that guy"? The guy/girl who uses the wrong frame for the wrong mission. Like that special-in-the-head dipstick who uses any frame other than Loki or Ivara on high level Spy missions, consequently sets off all of the alarms and then laughs it off because they 'just play for fun'.

In Excavation, "that guy" is the guy/girl who spawns too many Excavators, splits the spawns, doesn't pick up downed teammates, misuses Limbo and prevents teammates from picking up void traces and/or wants to extract early.

Relic Excavation is that rare opportunity to crack open relics for special rewards, get Cryotic for crafting gear, earn rewards like Credits, Mods, more Relics, Endo and even farm resources all while getting components for primed gear. If you join a Relic Excavation, do so when you have the time to settle in for the long haul. How long usually depends on the tier of the relics you are opening. Axi, being the highest, will be shorter games and Lith, which is the lowest, will be longer, more drawn out games. Lith relics are the most common and, as a result, many players have scores or even hundreds of Lith Relics to burn. If you're in need of trash prime parts to sell for Ducats for the next appearance of Baro Ki' Teer, Lith Excavation runs are fantastic for it. If you want a shorter game, or think you might have to leave early, join a different game type. Don't run Excavation or run one solo. Don't screw other people because you're a selfish jack-ass.

What is an 'End-Game' melee weapon? It's a melee weapon that, when used correctly, is more powerful than every gun or bow in the game. I write about this because I've built one. And they're extremely useful and powerful. They can literally turn a game on its heels and help you snatch victory from the jaws of certain defeat.

OVERVIEW

There are 3 kinds of End-Game melee builds:

Status - These weapons rely on inflicting as many different statuses as possible and then capitalizing on those statuses by dealing extra damage per status inflicted. As a result, the mod Condition Overload is absolutely critical to these builds, as it adds 60% melee damage for each status inflicted to the target.


Critical - This is the community favorite for end-game melee weapons and the current meta... and with damned good reason. A proper crit build can inflict increasingly large amounts of damage for each additional tier on the combo multiplier and can therefore stack damage values into the stratosphere. It's not uncommon to see critical builds inflict damage values well over 100K per strike, rending armor splitting enemy flesh. Crit builds, like status builds, have that one must-have mod: Blood rush.


Channeling - The forgotten and over-looked step-child of melee builds, channeling relies on utilizing the warframe's energy pool to deal increased damage. As such, it has the obvious drawback of being useless when the energy pool runs out, but has the benefit of dealing increased (read: double) damage per hit, starting with the very first hit, unlike the other two much more popular build types, which must inflict status or build combo multipliers first. However, because of some of the mods available for channeling, it is possible for a channeling build to allow for survivability in situations where other builds might not do as well. In addition, Channeling builds have the tendency to be mish-mashes of either Status or Crit builds with channeling thrown in as an additive measure.
However, when it comes to damage, by far and wide, channeling is the WORST choice (when it could be the best), in my opinion, but who knows? Maybe DE will fix that some day.

In the next section, I'm going to teach you about these builds and provide you with some examples.


Channeling




















Just like Santa Claus, End-Game Channeling builds don't exist. Unlike Santa, however, Channeling is incapable of eating your cookies or anyone else's. The reality is: They stink so bad you can hear them. You read that right. Channeling is so bad, it's possible that it might actually give you cancer. Avoid it.





















Status

As previously stated, status builds rely on on a single, must-have mod: Condition Overload.















As a result of the way this mod works, it is best used in combination with primary and/or secondary weapons. In short, the whole of your warframe loadout can (or perhaps even should) be built around making best use of condition overload.

In theory, there are 14 possible status effects. However, you can't apply all 14 at once. But you don't need to. Certain status effects - like Slash, Corrosive, Viral and Radiation - have some pretty crazy side-effects.

Statuses (and their effects)

Slash - Bleed (deals additional 245% base finishing damage over 6 seconds)
Impact - Brief knockback
Puncture - Weaken (reduces damage dealt by the affected by 30% for 6 seconds)

Heat - Ignite (deals additional 350% base damage over 6 seconds, causes panic on target)

Toxin - Poison (deals additional 450% base damage over 8 seconds)

Electricity - Chain lightning (deals additional 50% base damage to enemies within 5m of target, stuns briefly

Cold - Freeze (Reduces movement speed, fire rate and attack speed by 50% for 6 seconds)

Explosive (Heat + Cold) - Stuns target and knocks them down

Magnetic (Cold + Electricity) - Disrupt (reduces maximum shield by 75% for 4 seconds and drains all energy)

Viral (Cold + Toxin) - Virus (reduces current and maximum helath by 50% for 8 seconds)

Corrosive (Toxin + Electricity) - Corrode (reduces current armor by 25% permanently; stacked enough, it can remove all of the targets armor in its entirety)

Gas (Toxin + Heat) - Poison Cloud (target and enemies within 5m suffer toxin damage)

Radiation (Heat + Electricity) - Confusion (enemies may target their allies for 12 seconds)

Void - Turns target into a bullet magnet

One of the most popular combinations for status is Zakti + Melee. This is because Zakti does innate Gas damage, but can be modified to do Viral and Radiation. Once struck by such a Zakti shot, you can then follow up with a Melee weapon that inflicts high slash damage, plus can inflict Corrosive + Cold or Corrosive + Heat with Condition overload. By inflicting 5+ status so quickly, not only is the target taking the damage from the initial shots, they're taking damage from each status + 60% melee damage per status.

The math looks something like this (we're assuming Heat as our final): Total Damage = Modded Damage X 1.6^N (with 'N' being the number of status procs currently affecting the enemy). So, assuming 1 strike from the Zakti and 2 strikes (one to inflict additional statuses and 1 to proc Condition Overload), assuming 100pts base damage, the final damage count on the second strike would look something like this:

TD = 100 * (1 + 0.6) * (1 + 0.6) * (1 + 0.6) * (1 + 0.6) * (1 + 0.6) + (Status per second)
TD = 1,048.58 + [(Radiation + Viral + Corrosive + Slash + Heat)/T]
-- Where 'T' is equal to time in seconds

See how crazy that can get?

Zakti isn't your only option, either. You can use any number of secondaries or primaries including Scourge and Knell from the recent Harrow collection. Don't forget, this calculation can include statuses inflicted by your Warframes as well, such as Saryn's toxin, Volt's electricity or Ember's Heat.

Here are some example builds.

Secondary















Melee

Critical Builds

These are not only a community favorite, they are my personal favorite. Critical (hereby referred to simply as 'crit') builds, unlike Status builds, are pretty much stand-alone enemy destroyers. Crit builds are a little more complex than status builds in that they have more than one must-have mod. Most crit builds rely on 2 mods, actually: Blood Rush and Body Count.

Bear in mind that crits are also separated further into 3 tiers: Yellow (lowest), Orange (middle) and Red (highest)

* It's worth noting that each tier is further separated into levels, which we'll highlight a little later.

Blood Rush stacks up to 165% Critical Chance based on combo multiplier. But how does that work? Let's dig in and find out:

Combo multipliers begin at 1.5X (there is nothing lower) and requires between 7~15 consecutive kills in order to gain, at which point, Blood Rush begins to take effect. It works like this:

Enhanced Crit Chance = [Blood Rush] x [Combo Multiplier]
ECC = 1.65 x 1.5
ECC = +247.5%

I know what you're thinking: "How does this benefit my total damage?"
Well, damage calculation is kinda funny in Warframe, but this should give you some expectation.

First, let's start with a Zaw (which, if built properly, have awesome base crit chances) that has been ranked, gilded and ranked again.

Base Crit Chance: 32%

I know, 32% base crit chance doesn't sound too great, but let's watch that grow:


Total Critical Chance = [Modded Critical Chance] x (1+[Blood Rush] x [Combo Multiplier])

Now, we'll add True Steel to our Zaw, bringing it's modded crit chance to 51.2%:

TCC = 0.512 x (1 + 1.65 x 1.5)
Total Critical Chance = 180.7%

Wow. That's a huge jump. It's a guaranteed 'yellow' crit with an 80.7% chance to be an orange crit. Not too shabby for people who don't have rivens or expensive mods. But, what if you get them?

Now that we've started exploring some of the crazier implications of crit builds, let's continue down that road. First, we have to know that there are levels to crit chance, here's a basic breakdown:

0% - 100% = Level 1
100.01% - 200% = Level 2
200.01% - 300% = Level 3
300.01% - 400% = Level 4
400.01% - 500% = Level 5

Let's add a copy of Maiming Strike to our Zaw and see how it changes the build:

Maiming Strike: Slide attack has 90% chance to be a critical hit

Okay, so the downside to this is that, in order to capitalize on it, your attacks have to be slide attacks. Not really a problem, but let's see how it changes the damage calculation, assuming the lowest combo multiplier:

Total Crit Chance = [Weapon Crit Chance × (1 + Mod Crit Chance) + Static Critical Chance Modifiers] × (1 + Blood Rush Multiplier × Combo Multiplier)

TCC = [0.32 x (1 + 0.6) + 0.9] x (1 + 1.65 x 1.5)
TCC = 1.412 x 3.475
TCC = 490.67%

Yes, you read that right. Assuming a combo multiplier of 1.5 and every attack is a slide attack, your new crit chance is a little over 490%. It only takes 300% to guarantee a red crit.

"Yes, but how does that affect the damage total?"

Okay, fair question. Here's how that works:

Critical Damage = Damage x Total Crit Multiplier

Which, of course, breaks down even further:

Total Crit Multiplier = Crit Level × (Crit Multiplier − 1) + 1

Holy crap, that's a lot of math. *sigh* Let's do the calculation, shall we? Given we are doing slide attacks with our maiming strike and have a 1.5 combo multiplier, our crit level right now is level 5. Our Zaw's crit multiplier is only base at 2.0

Total Crit Multiplier = 5 x ( 2.0 -1) +1
TCM = 5 x 1 + 1
TCM = 6

The Slash on our Zaw is 156, 124.8 Puncture and 31.2 Impact, so the damage totals will look like this:

[Slash] Critical Damage = 156 x 6 = 936
[Puncture] Critical Damage = 124.8 x 6 = 748.8
[Impact] Critical Damage = 31.2 x 6 = 187.2

Total Damage = Slash + Puncture + Impact
TD = 1,872

Per hit. Drink that in for a second, then digest that every consecutive hit adds to the count and once the counts reach a certain point, the combo multiplier goes up.

Now you've got an idea where to start, try adding rivens and mods that increase critical chance and critical multipliers. Keep in mind that Gladiator Mods are additive to Blood Rush. Below is an example build. Let's do the exercises this section has listed, see how much damage this Ooltha-based Zaw can do with a 3X combo multiplier, assuming slide attacks:

Modded Crit Chance: 80.6%
- True Steel = +60%
- Riven = +91.9%
Critical Multiplier: 3.2x
Slash: 156
Puncture: 124.8
Impact: 31.2
Slide Attack has 84.6% chance to be a critical hit
Blood Rush: 165%
Gladiator Mods (total): 90%

Let's start with the total critical chance:

Total Crit Chance = [Weapon Crit Chance × (1 + Mod Crit Chance) + Static Critical Chance Modifiers] × (1 + Blood Rush Multiplier × Combo Multiplier)

TCC = [0.32 x (1 + (0.6 + 0.919)) + 0.9] x (1 + [1.65 + 0.9] x 3)
TCC = [0.32 x (1 + 1.519 + 0.9)] x (1 + 2.55 x 3)
TCC = (0.32 x 3.419) x 8.65
TCC = 1.09408 x 8.65
TCC = 9463.792%

Holy sh**, that puts us at a level 100 critical chance. Okay, let's continue the calculation:

Total Critical Multiplier = 100 x (3.2 - 1) +1
TCM = 100 x 2.2 + 1
TCM = 221

Here are the final damages, per hit, but before actually using the combo multiplier:
Slash = 156 x 221 = 34,476
Puncture = 124.8 x 221 = 27,580.8
Impact = 31.2 x 221 = 6,895.2

And now, for the last piece of the puzzle. After all other calculations have been applied, we add all three damage types together and then multiply them by the current combo counter. So, the final damage count, per hit, looks like this:

Final Damage = (TD/S + TD/P + TD/I) x Combo Multiplier
Final Damage = (34476 + 27580.8 + 6895) x 3
Final Damage = 68,952 x 3
Final Damage = 206,856

This, of course, assumes the enemy has an armor value of zero (almost no enemy has an armor value of zero) and/or isn't weak to a particular damage type. Don't believe it? Well, that's okay. Here's a screenshot, taken from a video I recorded of my own gameplay with a Nekros Prime using the Zaw build listed above. The damages do go crazy, stupid high.


Your eyes do not decieve you. The enemy in question takes extended (read: double) damage from Slash attacks and has a very low armor rating and, almost precisely as calculated, has taken 471,090 damage. Crazy, right?

The only other thing that we need to cover is combo duration. As a general rule, it's really, super low. Around 2-3 seconds before it goes away. This is why mods like Body Count (+12sec), Drifting Contact (+10sec; +40% status chance) and/or Gladiator Rush (+6sec; Set Bonus +15% Critical Chance, stacks with combo multiplier) are an absolute must, as they extend the combo duration. It should also be noted that, in very rare instances, some melee rivens can have combo duration bonuses (or subtractors!), so roll those rivens.

Here's the craziest part of all: These are the simple set of calculations. It's actually possible for things to get even crazier than this, as each different creature has 'critical zones' where critical damage can be stacked to even higher heights... dizzying heights, in fact. Want to see how dopey things can get? Check out the "Comparing Benefit fo Crit Mods" in the wikia:

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_Hit#

Things being what they are, what are you waiting for? Go build for yourself a crazy End-Game weapon!

The next several sections are intended to be basic guidelines on how warframes can be played.

They are not to be considered the only way to play said frames.

That being the case, yes, my advice is that you learn how best to play particular frames to fit your style. But, if you're going to go frame testing, do so in a controlled way, such as Simulcrum (if Cephalon Simaris has made it available to you) or by doing Solo, Invite Only or Friends Only missions.

Testing a warframe in a public mission can have disastrous results.

Bear in mind that the guides below were designed in such a way to highlight what a particular frame's strengths are and some of their weaknesses and some of the more common (if not best) ways to leverage the strengths while avoiding the weaknesses. (Good god, that was a long sentence)

All that being said, while I encourage you to experiment, I also encourage you to remember that the chances that you will discover something no one else has in the 4~ish years since Warframe's release is pretty small. In fact, you probably have a better chance of getting struck by lightning during clear skies.

My final parting bit is this: If you run into someone whose warframe build is really impressive, ask them what mods they have on it. You can then either copy their build or modify it to suit you. I personally prefer to modify. Why? Because that's how real Pro's do it: Learn from others and expand on it to fit their needs.

Okay, you're new here, to Warframe.

And all you have is this goofy Excalibur warframe and a few weak-sauce weapons. If you go on anything but the starter missions, you're totally screwed, right?

Well... No, not exactly.

Excalibur may be a basic (Read: Starter) Warframe, but you can really pimp him out and make him a bad-a$$.

But there are a few things you're going to need to do.

Firstly, you're going to need an Orokin Reactor. Even for starting players, this is pretty easy to get. Most starting players are 'gifted' 125 Platinum (the in-game premium currency) that they can spend on items and gear, but not trade. It only costs 20p for an Orokin Reactor, which will double your Warframe's mod capacity. This is an easy decision to make and the easiest time you'll ever have deciding what to spend your platinum on.

Secondly, you're going to need some mods. Some of which are going to seem pretty expensive, initially. But, to be fair, most of these are actually pretty easy to get, once you know how. Here is the short list of the 'expensive' mods:


















































In all fairness, ranking up these mods - particularly Blood Rush - is going to run you a lot of Endo and a lot of credits, assuming you can get a hold of them.

But Blood Rush is strictly necessary for the build (it's only really useful on a powerful, but cheapo Zaw build, which you'll see in action in the below video).

I'll save some effort typing and insert a helpful video that will show you some options for pimping out your Excalibur warframe early on in the game. But, first...

Condition Overload and Drifting Contact are two of the more 'expensive' mods in the game. At the time of writing this, they typically cost between 30p and 75p on the trade market (which newer players can't easily afford). So, other than begging (which you may need to do) how do you get them? Easy, player; you transmute them.

You see, in your Mod Foundry, there is an option for selecting up to 4 mods and transmuting them into a new mod. The way this works is very simple: If you use 4 rare (gold colored) mods, you will usually transmute into a rare mod. The more often you do this, the more likely you are to transmute into something you need, but don't own, such as Drifting Contact and Condition Overload (I've got nearly a dozen of each that I've created in this manner). How do you get extra mods to transmute? Easy answer there as well: long Survival games or long Excavation. The reason I say these and not something like Defense is that Survival and Excavation game modes have infinite spawns and unlimited spawn rates (meaning as the game scales with more players in-game, more and more monsters can spawn at faster and faster rates), allowing for greater chances that needed mods will drop.

The only other ways, really, are to either beg other players (generally looked down upon) or to teamup with higher MR players and clans and see if they will help you out (a less looked down upon version of begging).

As for the Chromatic Blade mod, that can be obtained from Steel Meridian or Arbiters of Hexis Syndicates (also through begging, trading or gifting, obviously).

All that having been said, with no further ado, I present the cool video showing you how bada$$ starter Excalibur can be:

Rhino

The great toolbox.

Rhino is one of the few frames that has as many varied uses as he does. He's also one of the few frames that has so many ways to just tank through damage. Rhino can chew through enemy damage without blinking like their bullets are cornflakes and come out on the other side laughing.

I have no current plan to outline every possible build, but instead, to outline some of the better augments and give you ideas to build on to use him effectively. The augments shown here can be obtained from either Steel Meridian, The Perrin Sequence or, of course, through trading.

First up:

Ironclad Charge


When topped out, Ironclad Charge increases Rhino's armor rating by 50% for every enemy hit by his 1st ability, Charge. How does this play out?

Let's assume your Rhino has a modified armor rating of 500 (which seems really low) and you perform Charge and hit only 1 opponent. For the next 10 seconds, Rhino's armor rating gets boosted by 250, for a total of 750. But, what if you hit 10 opponents? Since this calculation is applied to your modified as a total (and not per hit, thank all the gods that ever were, that would be so hard to calculate) Rhino, for the next 10 seconds, gets an increase 500% (or 2,500 points). How is this good? Activate his 2nd ability within that 10 seconds and your Iron Skin ability gets a significant boost. Here's how the base calculates out:

Modifed Health = (Base Health + (2.5 x Base Armor x (1 + Armor Bonus))) x (1 + Ability Strength) + Absorbed Damage

(1200 + (2.5 x 190 x 1)) x 1 = 1675 before Rhino finally takes damage. Not bad, but not great.

But, what if your modified armor was 500 and you got 500% from Ironclad Charge and you have Intesify equipped?

(1200 + (2.5 x 190 x(1+ (1.63 + 5)))) x (1 + 1.3)
(1200 + (475 x (1+ 7.63))) x (2.3)
(1200 + 4,099.25) x 2.3
5,299.25 x 2.3 = 12,188.275 Take a moment and drink that in, then remember that Iron Skin counts down as a percentage of the total before it reaches zero and you take neither health nor sheild damge until it does, additionally being immune to knockdown and status effect changes, such as toxin, electricty, stun and so on, it also remains completely unaffected by ability duration. Seem crazy yet? This is why Rhino is a must-have for both new players and old. And, bear in mind, this is using Rhino's base armor value, not Rhino Prime (whose base armor is 275 at rank 30).

This leads us to our next few augments for Rhino...

Next up: Iron Shrapnel

Remember the craziness we started with Ironclad Charge? Here's a great offensive pairing. Take the calculation above and apply it with this.


Then remember that it will hit everything within Rhino's range, which can be driven further out with mods like Stretch and Overextended. Yup, pretty crazy, right?


















And, last but not least, for the guy/girl who simply MUST survive:


Reinforcing Stomp



This is a personal favorite of mine. Using things like Intensify, Blinding Rage, Overextened, Stretch and Primed Continuity, you can create what I call "The Time Stomper". It's a Rhino build centered entirely around lifting every baddie on the tile off it's feet, essentially stopping time for them, dealing damage to every baddie it touches and recharging Rhino's Iron Skin by 80pts for every baddie it hits (and it will hit most of them). The first time you run into someone with a "Time Stomper" build, it's a pretty surreal experience, watching all the things that were out to kill you stop cold in their tracks, be lifted off the floor and be completely at your mercy. Then you realize how awesome it is and race to take advantage of it before they drop down and have a chance to regain their feet.

Now that you have an idea, build for yourself a crazy Rhino. Try comboing 2 of the augments shown here and making your own build, just the way you like it.


There is a meta for a Rhino build often called 'Big Roar' or 'Great Roar'. It should be fairly obvious what this centers around, but here's my question to you: Can you figure out how to build it?

Nekros, like most frames, has more than one way he can be played.

But, by far, the most popular is the farming build, which relies primarily on:

Despoil





















The idea behind Despoil is simple: It doesn't use Nekros' energy pool, using instead his life pool. This allows his 3rd ability, Desecrate to be used to great effect. How? It basically doubles the chances that any given enemy will drop a life pickup, and, based on my experience, 'double' is an underestimation.

Desecrate (assuming a rank 30 Nekros) has a base range of 25 meters and creates a 54% chance to roll the corpse's drop table again to receive rewards. For certain corpses, like Oxium Osprey, who have relatively small drop tables and drop fairly rare resources (in this case, Oxium) this means a good chance at double resources. A good for instance is, using Oxium Osprey as an example, instead of getting 10 oxium, you now have a 54% chance of getting 10+(roll), which could be anywhere from another 5 to another 10. So, 10 can quickly become 20. Now, kill a hundred of these and you begin to see why Nekros, Desecrate and Despoil are valuable additions to any player's stable.

But it gets even better than that. With a team of, say, 2 Nekros, 1 EV (Energy Vampire centric) Trinity and 1 Nidus, maps like Vodyanoi where enemies have a high chance of dropping rare mods and Endo, getting the resources, credits or Endo you need to rank your mods, build your weapons and/or warframes becomes much, much simpler. Why? Because, technically, desecrate can proc once per corpse, per player (at time of writing). In addition, there is a high chance the 2nd Nekros' Desecrate will proc on bodies the 1st Nekros doesn't and vice versa.

Hilariously, on Excavation missions, the enemies that drop the energy cannisters now have a 54% chance to drop 2 cannisters instead of one.

Likewise, on survival missions, Nekros makes long-term survival much easier as enemies now have a 54% chance to drop additional life support modules. This comes in especially handy on the relatively new Kuva survival aboard Kuva fortress. Yes, it is possible to go 20+ minutes and still get some Kuva, but having a Despoil Nekros not only makes this easier, because you'll pick up so much extra life support from dead enemies, you can now use every life support module for Kuva instead of oxygen. Super sweet.

Best of all? Desecrate's range can be augmented by mods like: Stretch, Overextended and Coaction Drift.

Woot!

BUT NEKROS IS SUPER SQUISHY! HOW TO FIX, PLZ!

Take a breath, friends, here's an easy solution (albeit a bit annoying at times for teammates):

Shield of Shadows





















GO ON, RAISE THE DEAD, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, YOU SICK LITTLE NECROMANCER YOU...

With this equipped, each one of the dead Nekros raises now take 6% of all damage done to Nekros (or his shield). The max, of course, is 7 per cast and recasting will not work unless at least 1 dies first (and even then will only raise as many as it takes to hit that maximum number). However, now, you will visibly see a line drawn between Nekros and his shadows. With the right mods on Nekros, this can make an otherwise squishy frame suprisingly tanky... you just have to be sure to have something in your recently killed list in order to raise them (in other words, you don't make any dead, you don't get to raise any dead) and that list gets wiped if you die and respawn. Bummer, but not the end of the world.


There are a few other builds, but these are the two worth noting.

The augments can be obtained from Perrin Sequence or Red Veil syndicates or, as with many things, through trade.

It should also be said that, because Nekros' desecrate will cause the bodies to double (or even triple) health orb drop rates, that a copy of Health Conversion will go far in making Nekros less squishy and give him one of the best survival rates in the game.

To answer that question, let's look at Banshee's abilities so we can see how best to use what's in her toolbox.

Sonic Boom

The descriptor text for this literally reads: "Banshee emits a sonic Shockwave that pushes targets in range with enough force to incapacitate or kill attackers."

My problem with this statement is that, with a level 30 Banshee and Rank 3 Sonic Boom, along with 209% power strength, this ability only does 104.5 damage. That's not a typo, nor is it a percentage. It's a tested reality. That being said, unless you're fighting level 1-3 bad guys, this ability is really only good for 1 thing: Knocking the enemy briefly off their feet. Now, if you have a weapon that deals very heavy finisher damage, this can be utilized to decent effect. If not, this ability is basically a waste of energy and pointless, given how quickly enemies can recover compared to how long it takes players to recover from the same.

Bummer.

Sonar

I'm not going to waste time with descriptor text. The basis of this is that it highlights critical strike points on enemies and increases the critical damage multiplier in relation to your power strength. So, at a power strength of 209%, that multiplier goes to 10.45. This ability can be used to fantastic effect and benefits the entire team. It's hard to argue with a Banshee ability that offers the whole team a garaunteed critical hit and around 10X critical damage.

Silence

This is Banshee's 3rd ability and what leads most people to believe she can be great at Stealth missions. They aren't entirely wrong, but it does have a serious downside: The enemies can no longer hear you or your guns, but they can definitely see you. And, if they see you, they will either shoot at you (best case scenario) or run to set off a level-wide alarm (which Silence does not disable, btw). So, between this and Sonar, if you are slow-ish and careful, you can definitely run some pretty slick spy mission runs with Banshee, it isn't what I would consider ideal... however, it is my personal opinion every player should give it a try, as it is a great segue into more varied styles of play.

Sound Quake

This is the ability players have come to hate the most and I'm going to expand on why. By itself, the ability does pretty much trash for damage (at 209% power strength, it only does 418 per second and eats up quite a bit of energy). It's the augment that people hate on so much, which has since gotten a dubious 'nerf'.

Here's the original:







The problem with this, as you can see, is that for every passing second, not only are the enemies kept off their feet, the damage stacks ever higher (100dmg per second) with the only drawback being an energy cost increase of 1 per second. Yikes. After a lot of controversy and a hell of a lot of complaints, this was changed. It now reads this:






As you can see, with this new text, they completely changed the way the ability is played. Now, instead of placing her hands on the ground and continually quaking, Banshee briefly slaps the ground once and the quake resonates outward, doing up to 20X damage at the epicenter and gradually doing less damage as the distance increases until it finally does zero. That doesn't sound too bad, until you have some crazy ideas like using Overextended, Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude, Stretch and Power Drift. With such a loadout, Banshee now does, at the epicenter, 418 x 20 = 8,360, gradually decreasing over the range, which is 220% (or 44 meters)... basically covering small and medium tiles completely and most of the larger tiles to some degree. The ability still knocks enemies off their feet, disrupts the movement of flying enemies and, on top of that, because the animation is relatively short, Banshee can keep repeating this until she runs out of energy.

There is, at least, a saving grace to such a build: She's extremely squishy. Even Banshee Prime at rank 30 only has 65 armor and there is no space to increase her health and shields beyond the 300/300 that her rank gives. Meaning it's extremely easy for higher level baddies to take her out quickly.

Still, such builds are now being used to great effect in game modes like Sanctuary Onslaught and causing many a player some frustration and consternation.

So, what do you think? Great Frame or Complete Cheeseball?



Thanks to the wonderful whiners on the Warframe forums that got Banshee nerfed.

Again.

What got nerfed this time?

Sonar is now useless.

Quake requires 4X the energy to use.

In short: Banshee is now a sh*t frame. MR fodder and NOTHING ELSE.

Side note: The forums at warframe.com need to be doused in gasoline and set on fire. That place is more toxic than a sewage covered hooker who does business in a radioactive dump.

We live in the Information Age of the Digital Era. Things are constantly changing, forever evolving. This guide is intended to evolve and grow as well (which I've stated before). 'The Limbo Quandry' is a section that has been added to, subtracted from and, at this point, been re-worked more times than a porn star's ta-ta's. And for good reason. So, if the sections of this guide look different, now you know why.

This must be said first, so sit back, chill and learn :

A large percentage of Limbo players do not play the frame in a friendly manner. Because of the unique way Limbo was designed, it's all too easy to be selfish or a troll with this frame and completely infuritate teammates or, worse, screw them over.

This is why there is so much Limbo hate.

Is it possible to play Limbo and not be a raging jackanape? Of course. But it takes fore-thought and effort, something a lot of wannabe-'pro' Warframe players simply don't do. But you should.

First things First

One of the primary abilities that some players use to troll others is Limbo's passive, which allows his combat roll to open a temporary rift portal that will automatically launch Limbo himself into the rift. Enemies and players can 'accidentally' hit this portal and be ushered into the rift. On the upside, you can't take damage from any enemies that aren't in the rift with you, making it easier to regenerate energy, life and shields... on the downside, you can't pick up drops, loot, interact with objects or kill baddies while in the rift. See the problem? No? Okay, fair. I guess I should elaborate:

*Many* experienced players (but certainly not all) have a heavy distaste for combat roll. It's inaccurate, uncontrollable and has the bad habit of launching players into bad situations. For this reason, many either don't use it, don't remember which key it is or, as I've seen most often, have it mapped to an otherwise empty and weird key that isn't convenient to reach. All of these things are great if you don't want to accidentally combat roll to your death. Not so great if Limbo is intentionally trolling you and your teammates with his abilities. See the problem now?

With this ability, the best way to use it is as an emergency escape hatch when Limbo is low on life or energy. It's also a great way to ensure your escape should you be in a survival and the life support run completely out. You won't be able to kill enemies or pick up items, true, but neither will you take damage. Bottom line? Use this ability judiciously.

The Next Thing

Stasis. This is the single most trollish ability Limbo has. As such, it's use should be limited only in extreme or dire situations and NEVER while on a standard defense mission. In Excavation or Mobile Defense? Absolutely, but even then, it's probably best to use your mic to communicate to the team you plan to use it, just in case they are running explosive weapons. You won't want to be the reason your teammates self-incap.

One More Thing...

The best idea with using Cataclysm, especially if you're trying to be a great Limbo player and not a huge prick, is to use mods to increase Duration and Power Strength, while lowering the range of your cata (such as Blind Rage combo with Narrow Minded; 'cata' is Warframe shorthand for Cataclysm). In this way, you protect your intended target without screwing the entire map. In addition, people in your cata will get greater energy regen and, best of all, when your cata finally does collapse, it will deal some pretty decent damage to anything in the blast radius. Super sweet.


Bottom Line: These are tips on being a great Limbo player with a frame where it's all too easy to be a jerk. Yes, it takes fore-thought and effort. Yes, you will need Corrupted mods. And, Yes, you will absolutely need to Forma Limbo a few times to make it truly awesome. But, if you're looking to be a good Limbo player and not an utter prick, this is the price you pay to make a bad frame into something truly awesome. And, if you play him right, Limbo goes from being a troll to being truly awesome.

(non-selfish Limbo gameplay coming soon)

Get to it.

Ah, Frost, how we love to hate thee.

But it isn't you we hate, it's your damned snow globe. And here's why:

Newbies (or n00bs, which are far worse things) believe that it will protect a target... but it only protects against gun fire. Unlike other frame's abilities, enemies are completely unhindered from entering the bubble and doing as they please. And, once inside the bubble, they are now protected from YOUR gunfire unless you are inside the bubble. And, while their fire will damage the bubble's integrity and eventually force it down, your gunfire does no such thing...

There is an augment for Snow Globe... but it only adds a 50% chance enemies entering the globe will be frozen for a whole 8 seconds.

Sounds great, doesn't it? No? Well then why do people over use it so much and so often?

It's simple: They have the mistaken belief that the Snow Globe (hereby referred to as Bubble) makes either them or the target invulnerable. And, worse, no matter how many times this is proven incorrect, they cling to that belief. *sigh*...

If true, how do you play Frost like a Pro?

Gather 'round, kids, we're going to show you some builds that make Frost's other abilities more beastly than you can imagine.

Firstly, there's Ice Wave and its augment: Ice Wave Impedence






















Ice Wave does heavy damage to enemies in it's path. With the augment, it also leaves a trail it it's wake that slows enemies that come in contact with it for up to 12s. Not too shabby.

Ice Wave Impedance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65R3SZm6MGU

Next up? Icy Avalanche






















Avalanche, by itself, is... a little ridiculous. By itself, it freezes enemies in range solid, dealing them damage. It reduces enemy armor and then the frozen enemies explode, taking damage a second time. With the augment, it grants allies within range (including Frost himself) an icy armor coat that can absorb 60 damage per hit for the duration of the avalanche. And it does this per enemy it hits. So, hit 5 enemies and yourself and allies get icy armor coating of 300. To get a bigger coat on the next cast, hit more than five bad guys.

In point of fact, after playing with Avalanche Frost for quite a while now, I have to say, he's probably one of the best support frames in the game. The avalanche armor has to be eliminated before the enemy can render either shield or physical damage to the warframes of you and your allies with any and every manner of physical and status based attacks.

You read that right.
Icy Armor grants immunity to status effects and knockdowns. It's essentially Rhino's Iron Skin for the entire team.
Mull that one over for a minute.

Because Duration doesn't matter, you can have over 200% Range and 200% Power Strength (both of which affect Icy Avalanche). This allows you to tag as many baddies as possible and grants you and your allies so much armor it borders on broken. It's so very, very good, in fact, Frost Prime is my go-to frame for helping newer players level and survive. Not because Frost is such a bad-ass (and he kind of is) but because it arms my lower level (or MR) teammates so they can fight harder and for longer.

So, stop n00b~ing it up with Snow Globe and start being a real PRO, and keep your teammates nice and (wait for it)... FROSTY!

Icy Avalanche
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVIG9tBQeI

"Can I run both?"

Technically, yes, BUT... You'll be sacrificing a mod slot that would otherwise be used to increase your power strength or your range, both of which are key to Avalance or Ice Wave's usefulness.

Ah, Vauban, my old friend. You're such an annoying frame to obtain. Mr. "I can only be gotten through random alerts, so be logged in as often as possible for eons and eons".

Unless, of course, someone decides to be wise and farm the parts for your Prime variant - which is, incidentally, much better - and only goes after the standard parts for Mastery Rank fodder.

Not that I'm making a recommendation or anything...

Moving on...

Vauban is a control freak. And, if you are too, you can leverage his abilities to fantastic effect.

Vauban's Passive is pretty sweet too: "Armor increases for each ally nearby"

But base Vauban only has 50 armor, so, stay close to your teammates. Now, if you have Vauban Prime, this passive gets much better, as the Prime variant has 125 armor (contrary to the Wiki's listing of 100).

Let's cover some of his abilities and augments, because some of them are pretty awesome.

Tesla Link





Take a second and think about this for a minute: This mod guarantees 2 things, 1) Enemies take a Slash proc and, 2) The Slash proc does 250 damage instantly. Here's what's not on the augment: The amount of Slash damage the target takes per second is based on Vauban's Power Strength.

Place a few of these in a narrow corridor that acts as a choke point for baddies, then use some Condition Overload centric weapons and now you can not only control the situation, you can annihilate enemies.








Repelling Bastille





















Bastille creates a circular grid that stops enemies from advancing on a target. It does not, however, block gunfire, so be aware of that.
Aside from not blocking gunfire, if enemies drop down or spawn within the radius of the bastille, they remain unhindered and can do as they please. This is why Repelling Bastille is such a great augment; any new enemies that drop within the radius are shoved back to the line the bastille creates.
Enemies caught within bastille's web can't advance, true enough, and most of the gun weilding baddies are no longer able to fire... but the little twits with harpoons can, such as the ancients. Why this is the case eludes me, but that's DE for you in a nutshell: Not fixing things they should and spending too much time concentrating on things that ultimately don't matter. Moving on...

Perpetual Vortex





















Vauban's vortex acts like a black hole, sucking enemies within range into its core and dealing them crush damage for its duration. For lower level enemies (lv 30 and below) this is devastating; for higher level enemies, this is a method of controlling the board by coalescing them into controllable sections to be finished off by more powerful weapons. In addition, loot drops from dead enemies are also drawn in, making it much easier to collect drops.

Perpetual Vortex augments this further by increasing the duration of the vortex, as shown, by up to 70% of the current duration for every additional vortex that you add to it. With a long enough duration percentage on the warframe, it is possible to increase the total duration of the vortex longer than five minutes. Which, in Warframe time, might as well be five years.

In short, the two stats Vauban's abilities benefit most from are Range and Duration; both Bastille and Vortex are greatly enhanced by these, in terms of how far they reach and how long they last. Power strength definitely enhances how much damage Vortex can do, so bear that in mind as well.

With Vauban, the bottom line is to use him to control the ebb and flow of combat by controlling where the enemies are and how much they are or aren't allowed to do by judicious use of his abilities. Vauban is not a reactive warframe by nature; he's for people who like to plan. And who must control.

The only problem I have with Nova is that she doesn't have augments I would consider even mildly useful, much less 'good'. In fact, I think most of them are situational at best and at worst eat up mod slots that can be used for mods that actually do something for Nova. Feel free to disagree, but I'm not currently inclined to include trash mods in a recommended build/play guide.

There are two variations of Nova that people like to use most often: 'Speedva' and 'Slowva'

'Speedva'

Speedva is one of the few Warframes that benefits from the negative aspects of a corrupted mod, in this case: Overextended.


























How does that work, you ask? Well, it comes down to Nova's 4th ability: Molecular Prime.

Molecular Prime expands a spherical wave of 'anti-matter' that charges enemies, causing them to move slower, attack slower and take 200% damage, additionally dealing blast damage on death within a radius of up to 10 meters (with no range mods, assuming a lv 30 frame).

Here's the cool part: While Molecular Prime's expansion is not affected by range (it's duration that matters here), the rate at which enemies are slowed is based on power strength. At 100% power strength, they are slowed down by 30%. HOWEVER, by reducing the power strength of Nova, you can actually increase the speed at which the enemies move (and attack).

Why would you want this? Well, most people use this for defense missions, most especially Relic Defense, in order to make the enemies come out of their hidey-holes faster so waves can proceed at faster rates, allowing players to farm Relics and resources with greater ease.

Sound good now?

"But what about 'Slowva'?"

Slowva is, as far as Power Strength goes, the opposite, often using mods like Blind Rage, Power Drift and Intenstify. This Nova variant is most often used against bosses whose weak spots are only breifly open. With a high enough power strength, you can essentially cut your enemy's movement speed to less than half, doubling the time the weakness is open and simultaneously allowing you, the player, to deal 200% damage. For high level enemies or bosses like Lephantis, Slowva is almost a must. Can you do it without her? Absolutely! Does it go much smoother with her? Without a doubt.

What about Nova's other abilities?

Well, mostly, they are underwhelming, though they do have thier uses.

Null Star can help keep close range enemies at bay (or kill them outright if your power strength is high enough or their level is low enough).

Anti-matter Drop can be used to deal decent bursts of damage to mobs of enemies or bosses.

Wormhole is great for crossing enormous distances quickly and helping out teammates who are using warframes with slower movement speed or who have trouble jumping to hard to reach places.

But Nova is super squishy! Won't I get ROFL-Stomped trying to use her?

Not necessarily. With Mods like Quick Thinking and/or Gladiator Finesse, you can drain Nova's energy instead of getting incapped by lethal damage. In fact, Quick Thinking is one mod I would highly recommend for many of the squishier frames, as it will keep you alive in situations where you would otherwise be, well, squished like a bug on a windshield. Just be sure to carry lots of energy pizzas (more on that later).



Is to use mods like Primed Continuity, Constitution, Narrow Minded and Augur Message. They increase Nova's Duration, making her Molecular Prime extend out much further. This is beneficial regardless of using a Speedva or Slowva build.

Time to be the thing that makes them go 'BOOM!'. Trust me, you'll enjoy yourself immensely.

I waited on doing this guide for a reason. At the time I created the section for a Saryn guide, she had just gotten a round of buffs. And, after testing out the new meta for her, it was broken. Seriously broken. So broken, in fact, that it made Banshee cheese laughable and that the corresponding Banshee nerf look so utterly pointless, you couldn't help but wonder if some folks at DE weren't brain-dead. A possibility that isn't non-zero and thus shouldn't be entirely discounted.

So, I waited for the incoming nerfs.

I didn't have to wait long. After less than a week of Saryn's single-handedly ruling Elite Sanctuary Onslaught (easily laying waste to wave after wave of lv100+ enemies), the first round of nerfs have now taken place. I sincerely suspect the nerf wave for Saryn isn't quite done yet however, any other sweeping changes at this point would constitute a 2nd major re-work for the frame, which, given DE's history, they aren't likely to do so quickly. They'll most likely wait until they've released something whose abilities eclipse Saryn (if only slightly) and then the nerf wave will roll out once more.

Up and to this point, I've made the individual frame guides more or less centered around augments, with the major exception of Nova.

However, for Saryn, rather than spoil the fun of you pimping out a warframe and seeing what it can do, I'm going to give some advice and let you do the legwork:


Range
Power Strength
Efficiency
Armor or Health Regeneration

One final bit of advice: Be a stalwart disciple of the Spore.

Now, stop d*cking around and go build a Saryn or Saryn Prime that makes people weep and rage.

Not to be confused with Space Mommy. More on space mommy later, I promise. Moving on...

Inaros, you beast. You complete tank, you. You are the first warframe I truly loved. Because you are total amazeballs.

Inaros is a tank. He has no shields, high armor and ridiculous amounts of health. If played right, he's nigh-immortal.

But to play Inaros right (IMHO), you need to be melee focused. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty and see what nutty goodness Inaros is capable of.






















Originally, I meant for this guide to be an in-depth write up for Inaros. But, truth be told, I like him so much, I did a short video guide. Watch the link below to see, for yourself, how completely awesome Inaros really is and why I love the frame so much.

https://youtu.be/3OMkUztvjQw

Nidus is the infested frame. He's also one of the more unique frames.

Like Inaros, Nidus has no shields, decently high armor and decently high life. Unlike Excalibur Umbra or Inaros, his life isn't crazy high... but it doesn't need to be.

Nidus's first ability does consume from his energy pool, but it also helps restore the energy consumed and can actually consume more energy than it uses.

But it's Nidus's passive that makes him ridiculous. You see, as he uses Virulence (his 1st ability), he creates mutation stacks. When his has 15 or more mutation stacks, those stacks can be consumed for him to enter 'Undying' when he would otherwise be incapacitated or killed.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed DE didn't do more with his stacks, but, all things considered, Nidus is still pretty damn good.

I did a Gladiator Nidus build. It was perfect for Endo farming as well as general 'kill everything' fun. Do you have to do the same? Certainly not. But it is my favorite build and, hopefully, will give you some pretty cool ideas.

But, enough mincing of words, watch the video guide. Hopefully, you'll find it as much fun to watch as I did to create.

https://youtu.be/vQovjs79s-0




But probably one of the best mods you can get to make Nidus truly amazing? Health Conversion.

I know what you're thinking: "But, aren't all of the Warframes Space Ninjas?"

Yeah, sort of. But, of them all, Ash (or Ash Prime) is the closest to a traditional ninja; thrown shurikens, smoke screens, teleports and stab-happy blade storms? Yeah, if any of the Warframes is a true space ninja, it's definitely Ash.

But don't be fooled; Ash is a f***ing beast.

First up, is his Shuriken ability. It's basically a giant throwing star. Not only does it do some pretty incredible damage against lower level enemies, it can very satisfyingly cut them in half or pin them to walls. Hilariously, it sometimes does both.

Smoke screen allows Ash to become temporarily invisible. How long, much like Loki, is dependent on his duration. Unlike Loki, Ash's invisibility is more tactical than sneaky, so though it is wise to have a good duration here, it shouldn't be your focus, as the length will never hit Loki levels. Mostly, you'll be using this to make best use of his 3rd and 4th abilities.

Teleport sounds pretty obvious, but it teleports Ash towards an enemy target. Doesn't sound that good? Well, additionally, it instantly makes the target vulnerable to finishers. If you're still within Ash's Smoke Screen, this makes for a pretty sweet stealth kill. It also means that using a melee weapon that's been augmented to do additional finisher damage is wise.

Blade Storm: The coup de gras. This particular ability has since received a complete re-work that has forced the community to re-learn how to play it. Once upon a time, Ash simply teleported around to every enemy in this ability's range performing a cinematic, stabby finisher. That was then. This is now: Ash goes into a targeting mode that allows him to mark multiple enemies, the upper limit of which is only how much energy is in his pool. Each enemy can be marked up to 3 times. Upon triggering the ability a second time, after marking the baddies, Ash spawns a shadow clone of himself that teleports around between the marked enemies performing finishers that deal extremely high slash damage. He will attack each marked enemy based on how many times they are marked, so 1 mark = 1 attack and so on.

Now, stack Ash's abilities on top of his passive: Bleed effects (Slash) inflicted on enemies do more damage and last longer.

Ash is a master at making sure enemies take nearly insane levels of slash damage.

But Ash's Augments are some of the more interesting out of all the Warframes. Like Rhino's augments, they turn Ash into a powerful toolbox (though, truthfully, Rhino is still a much better toolbox overall, at least in terms of combat).

While I recommend every player give all of Ash's augments a try to see which one(s) fit their playstyle the best, I'm going to share my personal favorite:

Rising Storm





















For what I think should be obvious reasons, Rising Storm makes Ash's 4th ability completely amazing.

I'm going to share with you my build list for Ash Prime (who has a few more polarity slots than base Ash) that requires no forma and makes him such a beast. Then, you can watch the frame in action against some high level Grineer heavy gunners in the video below.

Aura: Rifle Amp or Steel Charge
Exilus: Power Drift or Hand Spring

Mods:
Transient Fortitude
Primed Continuity
Streamline
Rage
Rising Storm
Primed Flow
Stretch
Augur Secrets

Assuming you use Power Drift as your Exilus, your stats will look something like this:

Armor: 150
Energy pool: 425
Health: 450
Shield: 375
Sprint Speed: 1.20

Duration: 128%
Efficiency: 130%
Range: 145%
Power Strength: 194%

Alternate mods that can make Ash even more powerful: Growing Power (aura), Health Conversion, Energy Conversion <---- For the two conversion mods, you will definitely need to forma. Those are expensive in terms of mod capacity.

Enough mincing of words, here's a cool video to watch.

https://youtu.be/UM8YwBAmcyY

Ivara, wielder of the Artemis Bow, the slow spy, cloak arrows and creator of ziplines.

Yes, Ivara has become one of my favorite Warframes. And, ever since DE finally did the smart thing and gave players the ability to modify and forma Exalted Weapons, Ivara's power has only grown.

There are many ways to play Ivara, but the reason I like her is that she's not only a great Spy, like Loki, her combat potential is pretty incredible. Not to say Loki doesn't have combat potential (he does) but I like Ivara's sneaky-shoot-you-in-the-face playstyle. At low and mid-levels, she doesn't even need to go invisible, she can just use her Artemis bow to completely wreck the house.

Unlike Loki, Ivara's abilities aren't tied to her duration, they're tied to her efficiency. The more efficient she is with her energy, the longer her abilities can remain active and be used. Consequently, mods like Streamline and Fleeting Expertise are an absolute must for her.

To top that off, her augments are truly some of the best in the game. Let's take a look, shall we?








Empowered Quiver is pretty powerful, but the reason I don't care much for it is that it requires tactical use of her 1st ability... and honestly, when it comes to combat in Warframe, I like it the way it is: Fast, fervent, furious and twitch heavy. This mod requires you take a little extra time to plan what you're going to do to capitalize on it. That being said, if that's your style of play, give this augment some consideration.















Piercing Navigator is a completely awesome mod for anyone wanting to rock a ridiculous critical build of Ivara's Artemis bow, though, it's definitely worth noting that every weapon Ivara uses gets this bonus when using Artemis' navigator ability. The way this works is you get the critical chance bonus as a flat addition to the base of the weapon in question before the crit chance is modded by other abilities or mods. It's worth consideration in any Ivara build.















Infiltrate is one of my favorite Ivara augments as it allows Ivara to simply stroll through the vast majority of laser gates. It's nucking futs amazing for Spy Ivara. There are, of course, a small number exceptions to this ability, but you can see those in the video below. If Ivara is to be a spy frame for you, consider adding this augment to your build.


















The drawbacks to this augment is that Artemis bow no longer fires multiple arrows per shot and its innate punch through is removed. Bummer. However, it gets a flat 50% critical chance (on headshot only) to each arrow it does fire and that arrow explodes, dealing damage to nearby enemies in a 7m radius. How sweet it is? Maybe not. The total critical chance of each arrow is leveled to a flat 50%, regardless of critical chance, modded critical chance or power strength. All in all, unless you just like making things explode, this one might get a pass. But, hey! The nicest thing about Warframe is the players' ability to find new and unique ways to take unbroken things and make them broken. Prove me wrong. Use this augment to break Ivara. It will be fun to see and play!








And here's the promised video. In this particular one, I'm using the Infiltrate augment and not any of the others, but, as you can see, Ivara is still really powerful.

https://youtu.be/h5-mt6urkow

I've done some pretty dope builds. Some have even gotten me some Hackusations; like my Chroma Prime, Trinity Prime, Ash Prime, Rubico Prime and a few others. But, by far and wide, the one that has gotten the most hackusations levied against me, is my Mesa/Mesa Prime. The hackusations are bad enough that roughly 60-70% of the time, if I host or join a public match (most especially Elite Sanctuary Onslaught) with my Mesa, I first get hackusations and then squad mates leave en masse.

But those people are morons. And I'm going to prove it.

Here's my ridiculous build and what it will take you to get the same:

Mesa = 5 Forma
Mesa Prime = 3 Forma
Regulators = 2 Forma (It's 2 Forma regardless of Prime or not)

Mesa Mods (all must be maximum rank):

Aura: Pistol Amp
Exilus: Power Drift
Primed Flow
Fleeting Expertise
Narrow Minded
Primed Continuity
Transient Fortitude
Streamline
Umbral Intensify
Blind Rage

Mesa Arcanes: Arcane Velocity x2 (both must be Max Rank; so that means you're going to need to fuse together a total of 20 unranked Arcane Velocity's; better get to hunting those Gantulysts and Hydrolysts).

It looks like this, go ahead, click the image. It's okay, I promise:










Regulator Mods (all must be max rank):

Hornet Strike
Primed Pistol Gambit
Primed Target Cracker
Barrel Diffusion
Creeping Bullseye
Pummel
Jolt
Pistol Pestilence

The build looks like this (feel free to click to zoom in):










Can't imagine how all of this plays out? No problem, watch this video:

Ember was one of my favorite frames for a pretty long while. The reason at the time was that her 4th ability was really powerful.

Sadly, she got a pretty serious nerf. After that, her damage didn't scale very well. In fact, heat damage in general hasn't scaled very well since then. The rework to armor and damage scaling saw to that. In my humble opinion, Ember could use a rework, because as of right now, if the enemies are above level 40, she's pretty much useless, in addition to her being super squishy.

Still, she has her uses. At lower levels, extermination, defense, defection and even excavation missions can be a breeze with Ember. Especially if you're running them solo.

And that's why we love her. For some of these lower level missions, running them solo can be fun and fruitful with an Ember or Ember Prime warframe.

And, of course, she's on my list for new players. The reasons why are listed above, with one more added: It's simply fun watching things die. Especially since Ember often lights them on fire first (Enemies on fire not only take extra damage, they go into a panic).

Ember can be so satisfying to play that, like my brief guide for Saryn, it's often better to just let players discover how to use her as a rule and just give a few tips on what to concentrate on in regards to mods and game play.

(wall o' text incoming)

It's time to take a break from writing specific frame guides for a bit and focus on some more gameplay. I will, eventually, include the rest of the frames in future guides to outline some additional playstyles and ideas, but, for now, I need a f***ing break.

And you guys need to know how to fight and farm Eidolon Teralysts.

To that end, there are some things you need to complete first. Outside of the obvious, you have to finish quests, 'The Second Dream' and 'The War Within'. Many of the other quests are largely superfluous, in terms of being able to hunt terry's (teralysts), though it would behoove you (that is, wise of you) to complete and build out the Chroma warframe during your completion of aforementioned quests.

Why does this matter?


Everything that comes after this sentence is riddled with spoilers. If you don't want story spoiled for you because you're new, it's totally cool bro, pass this section by for now and come back to it after you've completed 'The War Within' quest.

Just kidding, I don't care.

First things first, you need an amp. So, off to Cetus with you, young Tenno.

Once you're in the Cetus market, you need to complete the Saya's Vigil Quest.

That done, it's off to Quill Onnko with you, fast travel if you can. To do that, hit the ESC key on your keyboard to open menu, select Fast Travel, then select Quill Onnko.

If it won't let you fast travel your first time, find Konzu near the gate to the plains. Then, face the gate, with Konzu on your right. Go to the right side of the gate, there is a small hut and behind and to the right of that hut is a narrow passage at the top of which is Quill Onnko. You can't enter while in your warframe, so hit 5 on the keyboard (not the number pad) to switch to your operator and make your way inside.

Once there, Onnko will give you your first Amp: The Mote Amp. It's trash, but at least now you have a weapon for your operator mode. Rather than wax poetic about this amp, what you need to know is that you need to rank it, guild it and rank it again to complete it for your Mastery Rank, but not to get additional amps.

Additional amps have to be purchased in pieces and using standing. How do you get standing with the Quills? You turn in Sentient cores. How do you get sentient cores? You hunt and kill or capture Eidolon Teralysts. To do that, you need good amps because the mote amp simply isn't going to cut the mustard.

















You have your amp, now what?

Here's my advice: Find and make friends with higher level people who have experience hunting eidolons. Let them know you're new and need help. If you run into folks like me, you'll find people whose shoulders are broad and whose demeanor is one that doesn't mind helping 'junior' players...

Unfortunately, there is a 'meta' for taking out Eidolons quickly that has resulted in a fairly toxic attitude among players. It isn't so much elitism as it is the way DE has decided to limit Day/Night cycles on the plains, with daytime cycles being twice as long as the night cycles. As a result of this poor decision on DE's part, long time players find themselves needing to tightly schedule their warframe game times with the short and infrequent night cycle in order to make the most of their time and reduce the ridiculous grind. That, in turn, results in people doing crazy things, like openly cheating (I kid you not, I've seen this), being toxic towards 'non-meta' players and other bad behaviors.

But do not fear nor be discouraged. There are good natured players out there who can help. Yes, I am one of them, but I'm definitely NOT the only one!

But, if you're reaching out to me for help (which is fine) be aware I keep strange and sometimes late hours, I have weird days off and I only speak English, which may be a hurdle for many of you. Moving on...

The end goal is to get an Eidolon Capture (not a kill) so that you get more cool gear. Specifically Brillian Eidolon Shards, which are good for unlocking Waybound Focus abilities and, when you're ready, summoning bigger, badder Teralysts for hunting that drop even more cool gear.

Eidolon drops have changed significantly since the start of this particular mode since they now drop Arcanes as well as cores, shards and even 'poseable' Eidolon decorations for your lander.

Killing regular teralysts will net some cores, an Eidolon shard and at least a copper (common) arcane.
Capturing regular teralysts (technically Eidolon teralysts; or just 'terrys' for super-short) nets a Brilliant Eidolon Shard, regular Eidolon Shard, a copper or silver (uncommon) arcane and a far greater number of cores to include at least one Flawless sentient core. ~ See why captures are preferrable to kills? Bigger payouts.

And what about the Tridolon teralysts, the biggest of all? Even bigger payouts.

But you still need baller weapons, frames and amps to meet the meta, right? Well, technically, yes, but even before that, you need to know which frames, weapons and amps are best and why.

Let's start with the Warframes you should be aiming for and some basics on how to use them:

Chroma For Chroma, the biggest thing you're going for here is Vex armor, which now not only adds the buffs to yourself, but also to your teammates in range. The thing to concentrate on for Chroma is Power Strength and Duration, but bear in mind, your range will suffer. To give your teammates the best buff to take the terrys down quickly, get close first, then rock it out. Also keep in mind to get the most out of Vex armor after activation, Chroma's shields need to be stripped away and he needs to take some life damage for Vex armor to be most effective. Hikou/Prime with Concealed Explosives mod is best for this ever since they nerfed the Power Throw mod. If your power strength is high enough, you can add around 822% damage. To keep shields low, avoid Redirection and Vigor mods and use other health only mods instead.

Volt: Volt's purpose here is to use his Electric shield, which adds 200% critical damage to each shot, in addition to 50% electricity damage. Where most people screw up is the layout multiple shields, on on top of the other, thinking the crit damage bonus stacks. It doesn't. The electrical bonus does, but terrys aren't vulnerable to electric damage alone, so more than one is a waste.

Trinity Trinity's purpose is to use Bless and Energy Vampire to keep both lures and players alive and fighting, so Range and Power Strength are your points of focus for her (so Bless will stay active longer, keeping your lures alive).

Rhino Remember my earlier frame guide, where I said Rhino was the great toolbox? Well, here again, Rhino proves how he is the master of all modes. Rather than use a big stomper here, Rhino is best served as a buff master, adding to players' attack power with Roar. Power Strength and Range are most useful here.

Harrow Harrow can be extremely useful to teammates, but mostly you'll be looking to use Covenant (4th ability) to boost your teammates' critical chance, especially on headshots. For Harrow, you'll want to find the highest balance you can between Range, Power Strength and Duraton if you intend to generalize; if you specialize, remove Duration as a concern, concentrate on Range and Power strength. To maximize Covenant to the maximum, you'll want to include a copy of Energy Conversion if at all possible.

























Amps

Amps are a strange animal in the wide world of equipment building, as the varying combinations drastically change the effects of the amp in question and consequently the way they are played.

Hold onto your butts, here's another...


Just kidding. I still don't care.

Amps (continued)

Moving forward, when talking about Amp builds, we'll be referring to the parts by section first, then by tier.
Here's how that works:

Sections:
Prism
Scaffold
Brace

Tiers:

Tier One
Raplak (prism)
Pencha (scaffold)
Clapkra (brace)

Tier Two
Shwaak (prism)
Shraksun (scaffold)
Juttni (brace)

Tier Three
Granmu (prism)
Klebrik (scaffold)
Lohrin (brace)

In forums and community conversations, you'll see people using numbers to indicate what their amps are constructed with that tells other people, very quickly, what construction they are using.

For Example: 3-2-3 = Granmu + Shraksun + Lohrin ~ See how this works?

Here are the current 'meta' Amp builds for terry hunting:
3-3-3
3-2-3
3-1-3
The reason these are 'meta' builds are that they can and do tear away the terrys' shields very, very quickly, especially with 4 players laying down the fire. However, due to the way the Granmu prism works, they are pretty much trash for keeping the vomvalyst population at bay (which is quite important) unless you're using the 3-3-3 build... which is why it's one of the preferred metas. It's alternate fire arcs out a beam that locks onto nearby enemies and stays locked for as long as you fire or until the enemy dies.


My personal favorites?
2-1-3
2-1-2 (my recommendation for newbies or lazies)
2-2-3
2-3-3 <--- This is the absolute best Eidolon wrecker.

The reason I prefer the Shwaak prism is it's wide angle beam, acting like a shotgun blast. Using the Pencha scaffold gives it a pretty good range and the Lohrin brace ups the damage and critical chance. The Juttni is a decent starter alternative, as it eschews crit chance for fire rate and recharge times.

The 2-1-3 combination gives a sniper-like alternate fire that does high damage and the shotgun blast primary is great for stripping away Eidolon shields as well as cleaning house on Vomvalyst populations.

But, if you're hunt Gantulyst and Hydrolyst, the 2-2-3 and 2-3-3 combinations are, by far, the best. As I've said before, they really rip the shields right off. The 2-3-3 is truly the very best for stripping shields away like it's nothing.



Oh God, I spent almost an hour writing this section, Steam froze and I lost it... back to Word for my rough drafting, I guess. Thanks a lot, Valve, you (insert expletive here).

Moving on...

Lures are the difference between a capture and a kill. Please note that captures are preferrable to kills and captures net Brilliant shards (regular eidolons), Radiant Shards (Gantulyst and Hydrolyst) in addition to more sentient cores, rare mods and more... while kills will get you a very pathetic amount of cores and a regular eidolon shard and nothing else. Eidolon kills are the sad trombone of the plains and denote that, no matter how 'pro' you thought you were, you did, in fact, n00b something up.

But you can't just go snatch a lure and expect all to end well. You have to charge them first *le sigh*.



How to charge a lure? Let it vampire a vomvalyst, of course.

Stage 1 vomvalysts take longer to vampire. What do those look like? This, of course.


















If some dipsh** teammate decides to whack them with their shiny new amp and knock them out of their physical form (stage 1), they'll go into Stage 2 where the lures can't do anything to them (also of note: Stage 1 voms, being physical, can be damaged by standard weapons as well, so newbs and n00bs alike can really screw this up pretty quickly).

What does a Stage 2 vom look like?

Faster charging lures? Woot! What's not to like?

Just be careful to only pop the vom so it goes to Stage 2 and not kill it.
















Moving on...

TRINITY

Trinity is important to hunts because of lures.

Can her presence benefit players? Yes.

Is that her mission during the hunt? F*** no.

Trinity's purpose in life while on a hunt is to keep the lures charged and alive. The other 3 players can DPS the eidolon to death without her (easily, in fact, with the right weapons, frames and rivens) so Trinity doing anything other than reviving players and managing lures is both stupid and a pointless waste of time.

So, if you go on an Eidolon Hunt as Trinity, just know lures are your responsibility. They are your babies. Don't be a bad mother. Protect your babies. Make sure they live so when the time comes, they can explode like pinatas and spill out plenty of sexy Eidolon candy from a successful capture.

Way too many times have I seen Trinity players pathetically trying to DPS an Eidolon to death while lures died like flies around us. So I'll say this one more time so it gets through everyone's skull (I hope):

As a Trinity player in an Eidolon/Teralyst hunt, your mission is lures and shield stripping. NOTHING ELSE. I don't care if you do ZERO damage once the Eidolon shields are down, as long as all lures stay charged and alive (and you're helping strip away terry shields with your amp) so we get nothing but captures. I can, have before and shall again done 70%-90%+ damage to 2x3 and 3x3 tridolon hunts as my Chroma; Chroma's shoulders are broad and strong enough to carry you, Trinity... but even my Chroma needs you to carry the lures. You matter, Trinity. You are equally important, Trinity. But don't get caught up in the 'I have to DPS too' bull-sugar. We need you to care for the lures because you're not only best at it, but because if someone doesn't, we all lose out.

And what if the Eidolon escapes but Trinity kept the lures alive? Can you be mad and the Trinity player for not helping DPS? Well, as rude as it is to counter a question with a question, my reply is:

"Did Trinity keep the lures alive and charged? Did she use her operator to strip shields?"

If the answer is 'yes' and 'yes', then Trinity isn't at fault, the other players are. Trinity opened the door and you primitive screwheads failed to walk through.

First of all, everyone wants to be the Chroma, but unless your Chroma has 4+ Forma and 299%+ Power Strength AND you have one of the Meta weapons with over 100% critical chance (total) and a Riven, pick one of the other frames. There's no more discussion to be had on the subject, especially not if you want to complete more than 1 Tridolon run in an evening.

Secondly, remember: Everyone on the team has a purpose, but the damage needs to center around your team's Chroma. Chroma will be the one that deals silly amounts of damage. Your purpose is to enhance that damage to the maximum.

That being said, Volt (or Rhino) and Harrow need to stay up Chroma's buttocks so they can cast Electric Shield, Roar and/or Covenant to enhance Chroma's bonus (also, this will help you get Chroma's Vex armor bonus; so staying up Chroma's rear-end is the best idea).

Next, for the love of every god humanity has ever believed in: STOP GETTING IN FRONT OF THE TERALYSTS!!!

Most of the terry's weapons/attacks are forward facing. It's easier to keep the lures alive (and yourself) if you stay out of the line of fire. Attack from behind and, when it's time to go after the knees, then take it from the side. The ONLY time any player should ever be directly in front of the Teralyst is during the final phase of the fight AFTER all of the weak points have been taken out. And even then, the only ones that should be there are Chroma and Volt to finish off the Teralyst.

Why? Because it's easier to keep the lures alive.

Here are some additional tips:

When using Trinity's Bless, wait for the Eidolon's shields to get stripped (it flashes red) and for Chroma's Fury (Vex Armor) bonus to hit maximum (at 299% Power Strength, the magic number is 822%).

When using Harrow's Covenant, begin casting it almost as soon as the shield drops (just like bless, it's best to wait for Chroma's Vex armor to hit the magic number) and be in range of your teammates.

When using Volt's Electric shield, be aware the 200% damage bonus does NOT stack, but the electricity bonus of 50% does. Casting several isn't a bad idea, but it doesn't help if you don't place them where Chroma can easily use them. Secondly, aim them upwards while standing (don't crouch for casting this, it makes taking advantage of it much more difficult).


In addition to your Waybound abilities, you should be aiming for at least 1 of 2 crucial abilities for Tridolon hunting: Void Strike and Unairu Wisp

Maxed out, they do the following:

Void Strike
On leaving Void mode the next 8 attacks deal 12% additional damage for every second spent cloaked. Cloak consumes an additional 2 energy per second.

* The 8 attacks should be treated as charges and used sparingly. You can use energy pizzas in operator mode to stay in void mode longer.

Unairu Wisp
Void Blast has 100% chance to summon a Wisp when it damages an enemy. The Wisp can be picked up by allies to increase Operator damage by 100% for 12 seconds

Void Blast (operator version of your quick melee attack) has the strange habit of not registering all of the time. In addition, when fighting Eidolons, the Wisp will spawn on the point where the Eidolon is marked (on the ground in between its feet). Be aware of this.

Do you have to have these to win a single Tridolon hunt in a night?
Nope.
Do you have to have these to win more than one Tridolon hunt in a night?
You bet your sweet little a** you do.


Finally, and I have to say this: Be Flexible in your frame choice

If you join a Tridolon hunting team, it's a good idea to have 1 of each of the major hunting frames ready to fight and prepped to be on an Eidolon hunt. If you can, be ready to be the Harrow or the Volt or the Rhino or the Trinity.

Why be flexible? Because it garauntees you'll have a place on pretty much any team that wants to go. Which means that you'll have no trouble finding a team that wants you.

Be ready.

Now you know the frames, the focus and most of the strategy. What next?

WEAPONS

You need the weapons. As of now, the list below are the meta weapons for hunting efficiently:

Vectis
Vectis Prime
Rubico
Rubico Prime
Lanka
Snipetron
Snipetron Vandal

You will need a Riven for your weapon of choice.

There is simply no getting around this. And you'll need to roll that riven for Critical Chance, the higher, the better. Additionally, you should build your weapon out for the following:

Crit Chance
Crit Damage
Multishot
Fire Rate
Radiation (Heat + Electricity)
And, most importantly of all...
You should also be prepared to spend some standing on a many, many copies of arcanes from Quill Onnko (you'll need 10 of a particular Arcane in order to max it out).

Which arcanes? Virtuous Fury, Virtuos Strike and Virtuos Shadow.


Yes, but it wouldn't be fun if I didn't leave some mystery to it, would it?