Warframe Wall Running Guide
Warframe Wall Running Guide by Botskiz
Greetings, Tenno!
I noticed that some of us like getting to places you really shouldn’t, while other Tenno still struggle getting their wall running supercharged. Don’t worry, this topic is here to help you!
What can I do?
There are two types of wall runs in Warframe, a vertical climb and a horizontal run. Both types serve a different purpose. Basically, the vertical climb is intended to gain height, while the horizontal run is intended to gain distance. There are also advanced techniques such as cancelling and chaining. Clever use of these techniques allows you to reach places you’d only ever expect a Loki or Excalibur to hang around at.
Horizontal Wall Run
To perform a horizontal wall run you simply need to sprint towards a wall at a pointed angle and press the jump key shorty before you hit the wall. An angle of 15° to 30° will work in most cases. Your wall run will continue as long as you keep the jump key pressed or you run out of stamina. If you let go of the jump key, you will jump away from the wall. This is useful if you want to reach certain ledges or overhangs. Running out of stamina will continually decrease your height until you reach the ground again.
Vertical Wall Run
A vertical wall run can be started similarly to a horizontal wall run, but instead of sprinting towards a wall at an angle you’ll need to sprint towards the wall head on. If you let go of the jump key during a vertical wall run you will perform a backflip. If you keep pressing jump until the very end, you will either slowly slide back down or climb on top of the wall, depending on its height. Letting go of the jump key during a down slide will also result in a backflip. The maximum height of a vertical wall run does not depend on your stamina, unlike the distance of a horizontal wall run.
Be aware that horizontal runs mostly don’t work, or are really hard to pull off, on surfaces that are lower than a Warframe’s height.
Crate and Pillar Jumping
You probably noticed a distinct lack of long flat surfaces in the Corpus ship environment, and asked yourself how you’re supposed to do wall running there? That’s a good question, and the most satisfying solution I found was to use crates and pillars to jump off of. Even though these surfaces are quite small, using them as a launchpad is not hard if you figured out the right timing. You can even use door frames to jump!
What you’ll want to do is to run towards the side of a crate or pillar at an angle, as you would do for a horizontal run, and press the jump key slightly before (about half a meter) you reach its surface. Keep in mind that the smaller the surface is, the shorter you’ll need to keep holding the jump key. If your timing is right, you’ll notice that your Warframe will successfully wall jump away from the surface.
Slide Cancel
Whenever you do a wall run, you can cancel it instantly by pressing the crouch key. This will make you go into a slide instead. If you use this technique on a vertical wall run, you will instantly lose all your momentum. Make sure to press the crouch key while still holding jump or you’ll do a wall jump/backflip instead.
How is this useful? Well, you can push yourself over an edge this way. Granted, you can also do this on low walls by holding down jump during a vertical wall run until you finally make it over the edge, but the benefit of climb cancelling is that you’ll be able to climb higher walls and generally slide to the direction your camera is facing. You can also slightly influence the direction with your movement keys. This means you could climb up a pillar, cancel the climb, and slide onto a ledge to your left. You can also use a slide cancel in a vertical run to grab onto edges that are just barely out of reach. To do so simply tap crouch for a short time whenever you’re close to the target edge.
Another benefit is that you can cancel any horizontal wall run early without doing a wall jump. This can be very useful if you want to get on top of a small overhang or if you need to avoid an overhang above yourself.
Video Link (Note: Outdated as of 6.5)
Melee Dash
Technically this is not a cancel, as this is clearly intended to damage opponents, but it serves it’s purpose as a movement option as well. Whenever you do a wall run, vertical or horizontal, you can initiate a melee attack to lunge to the direction your crosshair is facing. This allows you to bridge some distance between your starting point and your target destination, and easy acccess to some tight places. You’ll lose height rapidly, though, so make sure that your destination is lower than your starting point.
Chaining
This can be one of the most difficult, but also one of the most useful wall running moves. What is chaining, you ask? It’s the act of performing multiple wall runs in a row without ever touching the ground in between. It is possible to chain any type of wall run into any type of wall run. Horizontal to horizontal, horizontal to vertical, vertical to horizontal and vertical to vertical chaining are all possible.
Chained wall runs are restricted by the same principles as a normal wall runs. This means that you’ll have to hit the target wall for your chained run in an angle suited for the type of your next run. You can’t jump head on to a surface and expect to do a horizontal run next, and if you hit your target surface almost in parallel, you’ll have a hard time doing a vertical wall run. You’ll want to practice controlling the camera during a jump to make the most out of chaining.
Unfortunately, the usual restrictions also mean that you have to hold both sprint key and jump key to perform your your chained run. From my experience, if you start from a horizontal run, it’s a good idea to keep holding sprint, even during the jump between your chain. I also found it to be easier to get a chained run if I press the jump key again shortly before I hit the target surface.
If you try to start your chain from a horizontal run, though, I actually found it to be a lot easier to release both sprint and jump keys in mid-air, and press both keys again shortly before hitting the target surface. In fact, holding down the sprint key will most often result in a failed attempt. Additionally, the camera position is of much more importance when starting with a vertical run. Make sure your camera is behind your character if next wall run is a vertical run, and move the camera to the side if you want to chain a horizontal run.
Video Link (Note: Information about chaining from a vertical run is not yet in the video)
That’s great and all, but I’m running out of Stamina!
This is indeed a problem if you try to do long chains, but I can give you a few tips. First of all, remember that you need to sprint in order to initiate a wallrun. Therefore it is best to try and initiate your wall run as late as possible to avoid wasting stamina on startup. Also remember that stamina will recover while you are in mid-air. This means that if you spend more time jumping from wall to wall, and less time on the wall itself, you will have less of a problem with stamina management.
You can also boost your stamina efficiency by modding your Warframe. A sprint speed mod for example will allow you to gain more distance out of a horizontal wall run. It will also raise the maximum height of a vertical run. Also consider a stamina recharge mod on your Warframe to maximise the amount of stamina you gain during a jump.
Great! And now what?
Go and practice! I found it to be useful to practice wall running in solo mode during low level extermination missions. This way you won’t annoy other Tenno by not helping out, and you won’t be pestered by infinitely spawning enemies, either. Additionally, the defense mission room seems to be useful for practice, because it features both small and large surfaces suitable for pillar jumping and chaining.
Can I ask/add something?
Not a problem, feel free to share your questions, findings and tips as well! We can only benefit from it.
Thanks for the tips?
You’re right, I forgot to thank people! So thanks to MuyoTheMedic for information on the melee cancel, EclecticDragon and Rotto for tips on vertical to vertical chaining, and Nevrmoor for adding information on Mods and changes in slide cancelling as of update 6.5.
“Unfortunately, the usual restrictions also mean that you have to hold both sprint key and jump key to perform your your chained run. From my experience, if you start from a horizontal run, it’s a good idea to keep holding sprint, even during the jump between your chain. I also found it to be easier to get a chained run if I press the jump key again shortly before I hit the target surface.
If you try to start your chain from a horizontal run, though, I actually found it to be a lot easier to release both sprint and jump keys in mid-air, and press both keys again shortly before hitting the target surface. In fact, holding down the sprint key will most often result in a failed attempt. Additionally, the camera position is of much more importance when starting with a vertical run. Make sure your camera is behind your character if next wall run is a vertical run, and move the camera to the side if you want to chain a horizontal run.”
The above two paragraphs are slightly confusing, since both give tips for horizontal wall running that are contradictory to each other. Isn’t one supposed to cover vertical rather than horizontal?