A Clown Girl's Guide to Limbo
Hello! I'm someone who has played every iteration of limbo since 2016. Although I did take a break from the game in 2019, I’d like to think I know a thing or two about the frame and how he works; at least enough to make a build guide.
But who am I writing this this for?
I'm making this guide for people who genuinely want to play the Frame. And as someone who was (and still is) on that learning journey, it can be hard to find a decent guide when most of the content around Limbo is outdated.
Also, lot of videos and posts just talk about how he's not worth the investment. So, to Limbo mains, this one is for you.
Limbo's Rift
Probably the biggest hurdle for many players and squad mates in regards to limbo is the Rift mechanic itself. People get confused by what you can attack and what you can't.
The rule of thumb is that if you're in the rift you can attack things in the rift and vice versa. However, one of Limbo's best abilities (rift surge) spreads the rift, making it harder for allies to deal with.
While the rift mechanics are beneficial for protection and energy, I understand that not being able to attack enemies is a point of frustration for many people. But there are some work arounds for that.
Since warframe powers ignore rift mechanics, Limbo is best used alongside frames like Excalibur, Jade, Mesa, Sevagoth, Hildryn, Dante, Titania, and any other frame with a nuke or exalted weapon.
So, if you want to run Limbo in a squad, it's best to play limbo with a pre-made squad of people you know that can handle Rift mechanics. If you're running him in public it's best to be considerate of other people and keep the cataclysm/rift surge at a minimum. For non limbo players, remember you can roll out of the rift. And for Limbo players, you can hold Banish to end all banish effects.
Eximus and Nullifiers
This is a common complaint among people who don't like Limbo, he just can't deal with nullifiers and eximus units. But frankly with all the abilities, mods, and tools at our disposal these units are a non-issue.
Eximus are only a problem if you don't want to move or use your weapons, and it's the same with nullifiers. if you see an eximus or nullifier as a Limbo player, just kill it. It's honestly not that hard.
Even then we have plenty of subsume abilities that can turn these intimidating units into a cake walk—and in some instances you might even want to see an eximus.
Some of the best subsumes for limbo include
• Null Star
• Wrathful Advance
• Smite
• Breach Surge
• Roar
• Eclipse
• Xata’s Whisper
• Nourish
• Thermal Sunder
• Silence
These abilities can ignore rift mechanics, buff limbo’s overall damage, and in Silence's case, shut down eximus and acolytes entirely.
Now for the Builds
For this guide I'm going to assume you already know how the frame works and that you're at a high MR with access to some of the best mods, augments, and weapons that you can grind for. If you want a more in depth analysis of Limbo’s kit and mechanics please consult the Limbible by Sci-fi Freak
Null Star Limbo: Light it Up
The first build I have is a caster/gunner hybrid using Neutron Star, Archon Vitality, Arcane Hotshot, and Arcane Avenger
This is my bread and butter build because you can run this for any mission or enemy type. Arcane avenger increases your crit chance by 45% when you take damage and it's triggered by Combat Disciple (which lowers your HP on kill). Meanwhile, hotshot further increases that crit chance by 300% at max stacks, which will always be up because you'll be constantly casting Null Star.
What's interesting about Null star is that it's considered weapon damage so the crit chance you get from Hotshot and Avenger both affect the ability's overall damage. The best part about all of this is the fact that the Rift Surge augment, Rift Torrent, increases your weapon damage and Null star. With this build you're essentially running a nuke build with insane gun damage. This is a great build to run in public most of the time, anything that's in the rift is bound to be dead before it bothers anyone else.
Wrathful Advance Limbo: For When You want a Cardinal Direction Gone Yesterday
This is a FANTASTIC build if you want to turn enemies from this
to this...
Credits go to Haisen_. This build makes use of Rift Torrent's additive buff along side Wrathful Advance's massive final melee crit chance buff. It's very straight forward and you can build it however you want.
The most important part is having 200+ power strength for better Rift Torrent buffs, but other than that this build primarily focuses on weapons, which we will discuss in the recommended weapon section of this guide.
Overall, this build gets stronger the more you kill because of molt augmented and arcane fury.
Smite Limbo: Fuck Eximus, All my Homies Hate Eximus
If you don't want to nuke a whole room and focus more on gunplay, single target damage, and support this is a great build for you. Smite is a great way to deal with enemy armor and overguard while being a good ability to proc universal fall out.
On kill you'll get universal orbs which trigger health conversion. The armor you get from health conversion, in turn, gives you more energy from arcane battery. It's not the best build I've come up it, but instantly clears overguard and it's very fun. I'd recommend taking out cataclysmic continuum for streamline if you're having energy issues. I just prefer it for longer cataclysms.
Silence Limbo: Shhh No More Tears.
Silence is another subsume that turns Limbo from a great CC warframe to one of the best in the game. Silence effectively stops eximus from using their abilities and stasis straight up prevents people from moving. This is a great build for protecting defense objectives and rescue targets. It’s also great when running harder content to give your allies a break from eximus and acolytes.
For this build we’re primarily focusing on using silence with arcane concentration (which goes on for about a minute with this specific build). This one is pretty flexible so if you dont want to use Battery/Health Conversion you can use Arcane circumvent or Aegis instead.
Spy Limbo: The Easiest Spy Vaults of Your Life
This one is less of a generalist build that you can use in any mission type and more of a build that you can use for rescue, spy, and sabotage. The main meat and potatoes of this build is the Perspicacity helminth subsume.
With a Huras Kubrow you'll be invisible, incapable of tripping traps, and instantly hack any console you come across which is especially good in Archon hunt spy missions.
Tips & Tricks
Buff Stacking: Rift Torrent is an additive buff, but because it's an augment you can subsume Roar, Eclipse, and Xata's Whisper. I believe the only other frame that can stack additive and multiplicative buffs is Jade.
Strange Interactions: You can melee breakables to get rid of them so you don't need to leave the rift if you want to break a barricade or a few crates.
Useful Operator: If you need to interact with consoles, life support, or anything in the rift you can leave your warframe to interact with those things. Additionally, if you have a good amp you can use your operator to kill nullifiers instead of going in the bubble or leaving the rift.
Safety Switch: Pop stasis within the rift before cataclysm or banish so that enemies don't shoot you while casting.
No Pulls: Enemies affected by stasis cannot be affected by movement abilities like Nautilus' pull and weapons that draw enemies together. as a result you can't use use of Melee Afflictions and Melee Vortex on enemies affected by stasis. HOWEVER, you can use Airburst, Scyotid, Void Snare or Magus Anomaly to group enemies.
Double Kill: For some reason Stasis enemies are considered dead so more enemies will spawn in the mission as long as stasis is up, potentially increasing loot.
Sentient Adaptation: Sentients affected by stasis will gradually become immune to its effects.
Necramech Impossibility: Limbo must be outside of the rift to damage a nechramech. It doesn't matter if the mech is in cataclysm, it can only take damage from outside sources. Which means allies outside the rift can damage Nechramechs even if it's inside.
Weapon Recommendations
Limbo is a weapons platform, meaning any weapon works with him In fact the buff you get from Rift surge is good enough to use unleveled, unforma'd, and un-potatoed weapons for fast leveling.
They won’t be good but they also won’t be insufferable to use.
Because of that you can just pick your favorites and run with it.
However, there is one very niche thing that works extremely well with Limbo: Kit Guns.
Pax Seeker: Seeking Heads
Kit Guns, Pax Seeker in particular, is especially good on Limbo because the seeker bolts can damage enemies regardless of whether they're in the material plane or not.
Exhibit A:
Cataclysm's boarder is on the left and you can see the seeker bolts targeting those outside of the rift anyway. This means you can pull out an insane headshot build with a kit gun to continuously proc headshots.
Here's a build I made based of thedemonprinceofficial’s gaze build. This kit gun requires the Steadyslam Grip, the Gaze Chamber, and the Bashrack Loader.
Again you can run any weapon of your choice, but right now I personally like having the Epitaph for priming and the Coda Pathocyst for insane melee damage.
Here's the Coda Pathocyst build for Wrathful Advance.
Using this weapon alongside wrathful advance, molt augmented, rift torrent, and arcane fury can turn most enemies into mince meat; one shotting acolytes and level cap enemies.
Survivability Options
As of today there are tons of survivability options you can build for to avoid getting popped like a pimple the moment you leave the rift.
Arcane Aegis and Barrier are both good on Limbo because of his shield scaling. Fortunately, you can farm both of these arcanes during the belly of the beast.
If don’t want to run those arcanes you can use secondary fortifier on a chain beam or AOE secondary for easy overguard. But perhaps the best in slot for Limbo today is arcane circumvent. With two easy dodges you can get armor, shields, and overguard allowing you to easily deal with eximus while protecting yourself.
With secondary fortifier or arcane circumvent, you’ll be looking forward to seeing an eximus walk into your cataclysm.
Archon Shards
If you’re not running natural talent I highly recommend using two tau forged yellow shards for casting speed. Limbo has very long cast times so having better cast speed can make your life significantly easier.
Other than that you can pick your shards based on your needs. If you’re running hotshot maybe orange shards would be good. For a melee limbo, maybe 3 purples for better damage. However, I personally prefer having 3 red power strength shards to boost my strength.
Closing Remarks
The best part of the Limbo is the fact that he's incredibly flexible. He is a sandbox and a theory crafter's dream. If I had access to a second Limbo prime I'd probably have more than 4 builds to show off.
Right now I'm thinking about replacing stais with Gloom just because. The incredible versatility is also why I don't have a helminth-free build. Aside from personal preferences, I just can't help but experiment with different ability combinations.
Lastly, I understand that a lot of the mods, arcanes, and weapons I showed here are very late game and hard to get. For those who already have these late game items, then you're good and ready to go. But for newer players who want to play Limbo, this can serve as a guide to how you can build your limbo.
There are tons of thing you can do with the character that I probably haven't even thought of, so go off and have fun.
Limbo Log #1
Slight update from recent information I’ve discovered
• You cannot pick up alchemy amphors on your operator while in the rift, but you can interact with consoles so it's weird.
• Secondary Irradiate can be a good arcane for limbo because the damaging radius from irradiate is not affected by rift mechanics.
• You cannot damage enemies in the rift with operator amps (even though you could back in 2019, idk what happened).
• Limbo looks really cool with the new Nightwave Signa.
Limbo log #2
I have used the nightwave umbra forma on limbo.
I have ascended
