Warframe guide

like a green goblin

When did they uplift the nightwave level?

Just noticed this today.

I reached the max overtime lvl of 60 six weeks ago and couldnt progress anymore.

Now i am at lvl 67 for some reason. Did not really play much in the past weeks and did not notice that change before.

ok

That means the progress was counting in background and just

My first try to do a solo Iso vault run including the arcana bountieis on deimos.

The recent changes made it much harder than the iso vaults before. The nerf to octavia force me change strategy and use a gunblade to kill the necramechs. It takes longer than before but at least works. Biggest problem is to stay focused since you need about 90mins to reach and get the tier 3 bounties done.

If you intend to farm for the weapons and arcanes I would advice to plan much more time for these runs because you can repeat the bounties once unlocked. It clearly makes sense to repeat at least the t3 one multiple times once you already unlocked it via a t3 iso vault completion.

Otherwise you would have to start from the scratch next time... which means another 90mins just to reach that point again.

Biggest issues is really to stay focused and not make any stupid mistakes (like I did in the vid).

This is my build for the run above.

Solo runs are faster and more reliable unless you really have a team trying to work together.

Just recently I had problems finding teams willing to go all the way to t3, which forced me to abort the run. Thats why I prefer solo atm until I find people really willing to go the whole way to t3 and maybe beyond.

This is btw. a test of all my weapon builds so far aswell as a showcase of the mod layout.

I have not that many weapons that i decided to put forma on but the ones I have perform very well.

This also shows the performance of the plague weapons compared to normal ones.

As you can see the Keewar performs very well.

The Kripath on the other side in a direct comparison with the Lesion underperforms heavily. It is not a bad weapon but absolutely not in the same league as the Lesion which only took 2 forma while the Kripath required min. 5 forma.

The Plague Keewar with 2 Forma is a much better choice.

The 5 forma Kripath is about at the same performance level as an Ohma without any forma and even without catalyst. (I tested that but did not record it).

Most other melee weapons in my arsenal perform at a very similar level. My most favorites are the Kronen Prime, the Lesion and the Sephan (a Nikana Zaw).

The Stropha has a niche role for killing bosses but also performs well against other high-lvl enemies. I just dont like the flow against low level enemies.

The Venka is an outlier in this list as you can see it performs fancy crit damage, with a perfectly high crit chance and crit damage... and on top the best crit multiplier in the game -> 13 (other weapons only reach 12). The problem is that it lacks range to be an effective melee weapon.

But that is not the purpose of my Venka. I use it as a stat stick for Frames like Ash or Khora.

The exalted weapons of these frames take their stats from the melee weapon equipped. With such insane crit stats the whipclaw of Khora (as you can see in the vid) turns a very effective weapon. I have 2 Khora builds... one for farming with the strangle dome. Here the enemies get trapped in the dome and the whip will kill them while they drop extra loot (including energy to keep the dome and the whip slashes running).

The other build is a pure DPS one to maximize the whip slashes.

At the end of the vid I switched to showing ranged weapons and it is not hard to see how unbalanced melee vs ranged is.

To be fair... most weapons would perform better if I switch to a damage type that fits to the enemies. But who does really do that in normal gameplay?

Most of my ranged weapons are balanced to work well against corpus by default.

Thats why they underperform a bit in these tests.

But even if I would match the damage types they would not even get close to the melee weapon damages. And on melee you barely ever have to match damage types at all.

I think ranged weapons need a buff.

They work fine in almost all situations on the normal star map and also on the open world maps. This test was done vs lvl 175 heavy armored enemies... you dont see such in normal gameplay. But when you play Steel Path... or endless Arbitration missions you would reach lvl400 enemies after ~1 hour gameplay. I really doubt that ranged weapons are even an option in such situations.

after 499 days in Warframe the Stalker finally showed some mercy and dropped the Hate blueprint for me

Just wanted to point out a few hints about the new Orphix Venom Operation.

I finished it yesterday evening (roughly 24h after it started) so it is not super hard to do unlike last years Scarlet Spear Operation.

The event will last till January 18th, 2021... so there is plenty time to finish it even if you are trying to get the arcanes (which I did not need to go for due to last years event).

You can play it totally fine if you do not have an Necramech yet since you can simply use Mechs that are provided during the mission.

Of course they wont perform as good as a custom (own) Necramech but they will get the job done.

In order to start the Operation you need to have completed "the war within" quest due to the requirement to have access to an operator.

There are 3 difficulties you need to play for the main rewards. It makes no sense to replay the the easier difficulties a 2nd time.

The endurance mode is what you need to play due to the higher score per kill.

The reward currency is calculated by your score (10% of it).

Father on Deimos offers blueprints for the new Lavos Frame, a new weapon, arcances and some cosmetics. The price on the first view looks high and at the beginning you should totally ignore this vendor. Some of the rewards from father have a drop chance during the mission. So play the operation and collect whatever you can. Dont buy from father unless you really think you have all the currency for what you need.

I advice to play the endurance mode of the operation and stay in the mission till 12 Orphix were defeated. I played for the full duration of 36 waves once but it really was not worth it as the difficulty increases but the reward drop tables remain the same for anything higher than wave 12. Only reason to stay longer is to show off a high score on your profile. The short transmissions from Natah seem to be random.

Generally said the Operation has a AABC rotation. Rewards are granted every 3 waves -> therefore 12 waves to get into the C rotation. It would be easier to end the mission at that point and do another run to 12 than to stay till 24 or 36.

Lavos blueprints drop from the A rotation so your chances are pretty high that you do not need to buy them from father at all. Keep in mind that you might need 2 sets of the Lavos blueprints... one to play with, one to breed and feed (to the helminth).

If you dont have a Necramech you can use the ones provided by the mission (which is not performing that good), dont bother with shooting at the sub-targets. You can slide into them or slam (jump) into them to destroy them with ease. Alternatively you can use the operator do to that job.

Best Necramech to use btw. would be the Voidrig due to the 4th ability (if you have a choice). Best Archgun would be the Mausolon (the 2nd fire mode is pretty good at killing the Orphix) but most other archguns work just fine.

While I really liked Scarlet Spear last year I have to say that Orphix Venom is much more user friendly and easier to access. There is less waiting involved compared to the team mechanic (space vs ground) of Scarlet spear. Still, I hope that Scarlet Spear will return since I really liked to concept of having 2 teams working together and actually having a good use for the Railjack.

The Cedo (the Lavos signature weapon) btw. is a very good shotgun. Very interesting primary weapon if you ask me.

well, now you can say you went all the way to wave 36

Fluctus is good, Ive seen how you were able to destroy the resonators before i was able to reach them (eventhough i am pretty fast when using void dash)

I still stick to my point that the event is easier to access. You dont need a mech... you get one in the mission. Sure its not as good but it is good enough to get you through a few waves... especially when the team carries you a bit.

Scarlet spear was only semi accessible. Sure if you played on ground the requirements were not that high but lets face it... it took much longer than the space mode and the rewards were significantly worse due to the longer time.

Getting into space either required you to have a decent Railjack... or much luck in order to get into an open team (which took ages sometimes).

btw. if you need arcanes... I for sure have plenty duplicates that i dont need. You can have them if you want.

I think it was in January when I asked in Discord if there is a general interest in Warframe build guides for specific frames.

This topic is not forgotten... just was delayed due to other tasks and the need to do some preparations.

I think I will start using the blog for this type of content as it allows separate the topics and also have discussions. On the forum itself it would turn way too chaotic.

The guides will be focused almost exclusively on the Prime variants of the warframes since I have absolutely no interest wasting Forma on regular frames which most certainly will be replaced with a Prime version in future.

However, all guides based on Prime variants in theory also apply to non-prime versions of that frame since the differences are not that big. A bit more energy here and there, a bit higher armor.... etc. I dont think that anything of that will change the build significantly.

I will however utilize Primed mods and Umbra mods in my builds quite frequently as my builds are always focused on the best possible results. It of course it is possible to use regular versions of these mods. In that case the builds will be a bit less effective but also significantly cheaper.

It is not my intention to share builds which require you to use Umbra Polarities (due to the very low rarity of Umbra Forma) unless the Warframe already has Umbra polarities.

The use of Exilus slots and/or Auguments might be required for some builds.

The upcoming guides will all have a similar structure starting with a short description and my personal opinion where I see the use of the specific warframes.

Some builds will be focused on very specific tasks. Some warframes will have multiple possible builds with very specific tasks. Others are just for general use.

I will explain all the abilities in a short way and then will focus on the abilities which in my eyes should be focused on. Most Warframes only have 1 or 2 abilities worth using. The other abilities are gimmicks or just simply a waste of energy.

My builds are my personal opinion based on what I think works best on the specific warframes. Different builds based on different abilities are possible.

Most of the builds make the warframes useable on hard Steel Path missions or high level arbitrations. Other builds are focused specific tasks as as Elite Sacturary Onslaught, Index or Arena. ALL builds will work perfectly fine on normal starmap missions and on open worlds.

I will ignore PVP builds completely and I will ignore synergies with specific weapons (Warframe signature weapons and or Syndicate weapons) since I generally believe that you should use the weapons that you like instead of weapons which fit into a specific build.

Ill try not only to show what the builds look like but also why they work this way. This might require some more complicated explanations which potentially will help you to figur out own builds and maybe even improve my builds.

Not all of my Prime Warframes are maxed out yet, so this is an ongoing process which depends highly on the available Orokin Reactors that I get.

Atm I can cover 2/3 of the Prime Warframes. I think this is a good amount to start with.

Like I mentioned.... for now I will not cover any Warframes which have no Prime version since I dont want to put 5 Forma on a warframe that potentially gets replaced in a few months. My stockpile of Forma is limited, so I have to prioritize.

crafting one every 24 hours but my consumption is very high

you would be surprised how powerful a frame could be

I started the series of guides with a frame everybody has and which often is underrated a bit.

Excalibur

Excalibur Umbra

As you can see in the video it slices through lvl 180 Heavy Corrupted Gunners with ease. The highest difficulty level on Steel Path is 185. Well, there only is one mission node with that difficulty... everything else is lower.

The builds I proposed can deal with enemies much higher than 180.... the Simulacrum just won't allow me to load even higher levels of enemies into the map.

huh?

its just playing a quest to get the frame and the mods

more you dont need

DE had in mind to make Railjack more accessible.

Well, in my opinion after finishing the first new planet is that they completely failed with that task.

I started solo... used the new NPCs (not my lichs) and got totally owned because they did not do what they were supposed to do. Of course did I give them tasks prior starting the missions but they happily ignored their job.

My Railjack prior the update was 100% maxed out with shitloads of resources that went into upgrades. What I got refunded was a joke. 10k Endo does in no way compensate the costs bringing the railjack back to where it once was.

The choice to remove Dirac and use Endo for upgrades instead makes it even harder for new players to get into Railjack missions since obviously new players need every bit of their Endo elsewhere already (e.g. for upgrading their warframes, weapons and all the other stuff).

It is significantly harder for new players to get into railjack content now.

The mission design sucks.

In the 5 missions that I have played I was non-stop under attack by enemy fighters or enemy torpedoes (which seem to launch once every 2 minutes) giving me absolutely no time to do the mission objectives. My NPCs don't do their job.... so as soon I leave the ship do to the actual mission I get the message that torps are heading towards my ship and since my NPCs do nothing the ship instantly receives critical damage. That forces me to abandon my mission and return to my ship for repairs.

There are missions with never ending spawn of enemy fighters that are attacking the ship. How is a new player supposed to deal with that?

And you have to keep in mind.... I was able to redistribute my intrinsics to have 2 of them at lvl 9 and 3 of them at lvl 10. It is almost maxed out already. A new player does not have that luxury. A new player also does not have the luxury of having already upgraded railjack mods.

Despite this head start that I have due to my previous maxed out railjack I really did struggle to do even the very first, the easiest new missions when playing solo.

Ok, I can now put a few forma on the railjack and try to make the mods stronger. A luxury new players probably dont have.

But turning the Avionics system into mods is even more limiting than it was before. With Avionics you only needed to care about the total capacity. But now you also need to consider the polarities of the new mods and have to put polarities on mod slots which in the end limits your options. The flexibility you had before is no longer there.

Different builds might now conflict with your slot polarization.

Removing ship energy and using warframe energy instead is another stupid change which will limit very much which Warframes you can actually use on Railjack.

The combat abilities on railjack in almost every case requires more energy than the initial energy pool a warframe starts with. This in result means that you can not use combat abilities at the beginning of a mission anymore. You first have to leave the railjack... and collect energy somehow.

Usually by the time you are ready to leave your Railjack in solo mod the mission is almost over already and you don't need combat abilities anymore.

It is not even logical that the Railjack does not have its own energy pool. When I crafted it I added a reactor to it ffs.

I also dislike the new turret placement.

It was much better on the sides of the ship.

Last but not least do I think that there still is no real incentive for most players to play Railjack missions.

Why should I play a Railjack defense mission?

It is much slower to actually reach the point where the defense starts... and the reward structure despite a bit more credits is not any better.

The incentive to play Railjack missions is missing.

Yes, I certainly will grind for that ONE weapon hidden behind that derelict station (just like i did in the old Railjack content). But thats actuallly it.

And when they release the Void storms where you can open relics.... why should I play them if I can do exactly the same in 3 minute capture mission? Why should I spend 10-15 mins on a Void storm?

EDIT: Forget what i wrote about the 10k Endo. Apparently ~400k Endo were added after last nights hotfix.