#warframe modding

[odditybobbles]

Remember everybody, always check your range when you finished modding, or you could end up like me.

[l1brarian1999]

Arcane Truculence

Apologies if this somehow lands in the Arcane tag. Anway. Today I found a fun way to use Truculence and I thought I'd share some thoughts on how it can be used.

Arcane Truculence works simply, its application is a bit more complex. So essentially every time you gain 3000 overguard, you make a radial attack (maximum 30m, unmoddable) that applies max Viral to all enemies.

Which is a 325% multiplier. Holy shit I didn't know it was that high, I thought it was only 100%

Anyway.

So naturally, its good on Warframes that are equipped to get themselves some Overguard:

Rhino - Iron Skin generates Overguard, using his Armour and Power Strength plus the amount of damage he takes upon casting (3 second window) so that's not too difficult to get a 3000 overguard... But! If you get the Reinforcing Stomp Augment, you restore 4% of this overguard by using Stomp. Meaning you can keep reapplying the viral so long as you keep taking damage.

Once we get the Exalted rework from Techrot Oncore update in March, Exalted weapons will be able to use Arcanes - this means Mesa, Hildryn, Titania, and Jade will be able to use Secondary Fortifier which will not only massively benefit their damage against Eximus units, but also help with their survivability.

Dante and Kullervo both have abilities that give them Overguard, so... Yeah?

Ember, Styanax, Frost, and Atlas have augments that add Overguard into some of their abilities. Special mention to Atlas however, since Rumbled can be turned off at will, and activated at will with no concerns about how many enemies are around. Ember can make extra good use of Truculence since the viral stacks will synergise with her heat - making her one of the best Warframes for fighting the Infested.

[l1brarian1999]

Warframe Mods - Weapons

Mods are the main way of improving your equipment, so they're rather important and need their own post. They're essentially trading cards but rather than summoning creatures like in Magic The Gathering, you're slotting them into a gun or a dude to make them stronger.

Just like trading cards, they come in a variety of colours, which usually indicates the Rarity - now don't be confused, there's a difference a mod which is Rare and a mod which is rare. You might have a Common mod, that is very hard to acquire. You might have a Rare mod that is very hard to acquire. Most mods are in the standard scale:

Bronze / Common - sort of a brown colour

Silver / Uncommon - more of a Blue to be honest.

Gold / Rare - Yellow, essentially.

Platinum / Legendary - a nice bright white with a subtle blue tint. Usually these are reserved for Primed Mods with a few exceptions. They are always Rank10s

There's more kinds - but generally speaking they'll just be Reskins of Rares or Legendaries.

Now mods have Ranks, most mods you acquire them at rank 0 and pour in Endo and Credits to rank them up. The higher the Rarity, the more it costs. And each mod has a set number of Ranks - usually 3, 5, or 10 with a few exceptions here and there.

Almost all mods work on a Percentile Basis. This means that if the Base stat is lower, the mod can still be used but it presents less benefit. Consider: a rifle with 10% Crit chance, and then you use Point Strike, this only adds 12% crit chance for a total of 22%. Not a great use of the mod slot, which you only get 8 of.

Most mods are quite straightforward - just a flat increase to a stat. E.g. Serration just makes you do more damage. Some mods will boost two stats, or three. Some mods reduce a stat, and also increase a stat, usually by a lot more. E.g. Blind Rage gives you a LOT of Power Strength but at the cost of making abilities cost more. Some mods add entirely new effects. E.g. Aviator reduces the damage you take while in the air.

There are even mods that are purely cosmetic.

And there are a lot of them, though a lot of them you won't ever use. Over time we've figured out the winning combinations, though it changes from time to time.

Let's start simple: Weapons. Relatively simple anyway.

After a while, you'll notice that for each category of weapon - rifle, shotgun, pistol, melee, so on - there's a set of 'core' mods.

Damage - sometimes called Raw Damage, mods like Hornet Strike, Serration, Point Blank, and Pressure Point. These are the very first mods you should be putting on a weapon almost every single time.

Your usual firearms variables like magazine capacity, reload speed, fire rate, recoil, so on so forth. Melee weapons have their own, stuff like Range (the length of the sword) and attack speed (how quickly you swing)

Elemental Mods - each category has mods for four base elements: Heat, Toxin, Cold, and Electric. So if you want Incendiary rounds, or a poisoned sword, this is how. These have complexities in and of themselves, enough for a separate post.

Critical Mods - Think like in Pokemon, there was a chance your moves would sometimes deal double damage, like that but now its something you have control over.

Status Mods - the likelihood that you'll inflict some kind of effect upon the enemy, like poisoned, bleeding, or even irradiated. There's also mods that make these effects last longer.

Faction Mods - Mods that somehow make a weapon do more Damage against a particular faction of enemies.

And many, many, many more.

Warframe Modding gets more complicated quicker - at first you'll just be putting in mods to make sure you stay alive; more health, more shields. And then maybe wanting your Warframe powers to hit harder, or hit more enemies, and that's where builds get interesting. We'll do a separate post for Warframe stuff

As you get further into the games, you'll start collecting enough mods that you have Options. Like some weapons won't be useful for damage, but maybe they're good for a utility like stripping enemy armour, or healing you.

So as you get further along, enemies will get tougher, and you'll need to hit them harder. You maybe rank up your mods more, or add new ones. I won't go into huge detail, so here's a scenario to plant the idea of Multipliers vs Additions: If you add Serration to a Rifle, you are multiplying that rifle's base damage. B x S If you then add Heavy Calibre, you are adding more damage. B x (S+HC). Sure, this is an increase... But. If you instead add Point Strike, and get decent consistent critical hits, then you multiply the damage by the Critical Damage stat. B x S x CD. You can also add Vital Sense to make the CD multiplier bigger. B x S x (CD x VS).

Now not every gun is the same, some don't have good crit stats. Some have no status effects. Sometimes there's other gimmicks or mechanics that benefit from stats you wouldn't think - like magazine capacity.

[cobaltghvst]

How good is amalgam serration? Should I get it for Daikyu prime when i eventually hit MR 15 and can build it?

On a side note I really like the Korrudo but I know they’re not really great unless I’m using them with Valkyr and I’m getting melee speed and damage buffs. Any ideas on if how to make them better or should I not worry about making them good for every frame?

[l1brarian1999]

How do I build Volt?

Right so I presume you're starting out.

Be sure to colour your Volt red to get a 69% Speed Multiplier, as we all know - the red ones go faster. (this is a joke)

Redirection should be your first priority, it'll be the best source of 'not dying' early on in the game. (this is the actual advice, from here on)

For your Ability stats, your priority is Duration, then Strength. Try and keep Range and Efficiency at base. Continuity, Intensify, Augur Message, and Augur Secrets - any combination thereof. Duration will benefit your Shield and your Speed, which are mainstays of Volt's kit.

You're using Shock to stun enemies for a lil Crowd Control, you're keeping your Speed up for the extra melee attack speed and movement, use your Electric Shield to cover yourself and buff your damage with guns, and Overload as the big damage/crowd control.

I wouldn't invest much more than a Reactor and maybe two Forma - tops - until you get Volt Prime. He's one of more accessible Primes by virtue of Baro Ki'teer selling his relics from time to time. Volt Prime gets a touch more armour, and one of the biggest base energy tanks in the game.

If you can get a hold of Energy Nexus through trading, that'll be very nice to have for your energy needs early on in the game. Pair with Flow for a bigger energy tank.

Once you get access to Augment mods, pretty much any of them are really nice to have but I'd generally say only use one per build, probably Shock Trooper.

Obviously upgrade to Primed Mods once you've got them, and ranked them up to at least match the regular versions. Primed Continuity, Primed Flow, Umbral Intensify.

You'll want to eventually start running the Deimos Derelict Missions for Orokin Vault mods like Transient Fortitude, Blind Rage, Fleeting Expertise, and Overextended to start opening up more specialised builds - high range high strength builds for using his 4 in Sanctuary Onslaught, high strength high duration for going very fast for a long time, or all in on Duration for his shields when Eidolon hunting. Stuff like that

As you start getting into higher level missions, I might suggest adding Adaptation to add Damage Resistance to your Shields, or Quick Thinking as a safety net if you catch a stray shot or twelve from behind your shield.

Maybe a few Archon Shards for extra Strength, Duration, maybe some Armour.

For his weapons, make sure to pack lots of Crit on his guns - his shield adds a 100% Crit multiplier that is separate to the weapons own Critical Damage. Number Go Up. I like a high speed status melee with Healing Return, since with Volt's Speed, you can rapidly gain back and health, and with Condition Overload you can get some very nice damage numbers.

[l1brarian1999]

Warframe Modding - The Warframes themselves

Modding a Warframe is a decidedly more complex affair than the weapons, as this is actually where there's some kind of build variety based on player choice rather than 'ideal build' to extra the most value out of a weapon.

Generally, its a case of balancing your suvival stats, your ability stats, and then adjusting as necessary from there.

The great joy of Warframe is of course that you can build whatever you want and you don't owe anyone shit.

If you want you really can make a build that is entirely parkour mods so you can run super fast, if that's what you need the build to do. You'll die a fair bit if you take that parkour build into Steel Path, but it might end up being the best build for low level mission clearing for loot and such you're planning to sell.

You can stack nothing but health, armour, shields, and regen if you know you're not gonna be using abilities and just your weapons. (the age old Inaros strategy.)

Or maybe you drop every survival mod and go full tilt on damage, DPS, and killing enemies. I know one salty little shitfuck who does exactly that. (You know who you are)

And ultimately, only you can pick. However, if there's certain content you want to do - like Steel Path - then there's certain build tricks you need to know.

So let's cover a few key points to keep in mind when building:

Staying Alive - Hah, hah, stayin' alive. Man I'm old now. Anyway, yeah you can't do shit if you're dead. I personally always start with 'how am I going to keep myself alive' (there's another reference for the Queen fans) because everything else is secondary to that. Am I stacking Health and Armour, am I loading up on shields and damage resistance, am I just going to run so fast they can't shoot me, stuff like that. So generally, unless I am very confident I can kill before I die, I will stack two kinds of 'survival'. So maybe a little additive armour and some crowd control. Maybe a big chunk of shields and Quick Thinking juuuuust in case.

Note, try to avoid relying on Quick Thinking. It allows you to use your Energy pool, as 'emergency health' but when it does this, you are more vulnerable to staggers. This is very bad, it is not something you should rely on outside of a few cases since its very, very easy to get stunlocked to death. It has its uses, but they are few and far between.

Thresholds - When building a Warframe, certain abilities have caps. Like armour stripping, you don't need to strip more 100% armour, so there's a certain threshold of power strength you're building for. Keeping these thresholds in mind can save you space, or you might go over them anyway because the stat will have other uses. E.g. I might build Ash for only 143% power strength so Seeking Shuriken will strip all armour, if that's the only thing I'm using. Whereas, if I'm building to focus more on Bladestorm, I might stack as much power strength as I can.

Energy - Warframe becomes a very boring game without Abilities to cast, so getting a source of energy is important. To the extent that I might even recommend that once you get some tradable plat, buying the mod Energy Nexus is a really good investment. Energy Nexus gives you a decent 3 points of Energy a Second, but you only unlock the place to farm it after a bunch of Main Story quests. So by buying it (or getting a friend to gift you one) you get a lot of energy earlier into the game than you reasonably should but oh man. I'll probably do a whole post on Energy sources.

"General" vs "Specialised" builds - I generally have one build I use for day to day running, and then sometimes build specific things for funsies or maybe for a specific mission. A 'pick up and play' build if you will. Knowing the difference between them and when to use them, how to build them, can make things a lot more focused. Some builds are built entirely around a single ability - I've got an Atlas build that has ability Efficiency stacked up alongside Energy Regen (see above) so I can infinitely spam his 1st Ability, Rockslide - its a punch, but with a rock. Over. And over. And over again. Its stupid, by design.