Warframe Essential Beginner’s Tips

Warframe Essential Beginner’s Tips by sf

This guide DOES NOT cover basic gameplay, game features or user-interface, which should be relatively straight forward from the tutorial, other guides, or self-discovery. Instead, this guide is meant to provide some essential knowledge and tips to the beginners to Warframe, some of which may be less obvious.

Warframe Tips

Warframes are not limited in their choice of weapon. The main difference will be in the primary abilties that is specific to each Warframe, which may dictate a slightly different playing style. The three basic choices available to a starting player are Excalibur, Loki and Volt. In rough fantasy terms, Excalibur is the warrior, Loki is the rogue and Volt is the mage. This should be a relative indicator the general playing style required.

Choice of Warframe

If you are the absolute beginner or are not very confident about your action skills and strategy, the Excalibur is recommend as an all rounded, easy-to-use Warframe, as it takes a direct approach to most situations (Enemy? FIRE/CHARGE!).

Among its powers, the following are the two more useful ones:

• Slash Dash – when activated, the Excalibur will dash forward for a short distance, dealing damage to all things in the path.
  • Useful for damaging tight cluster of enemies and to break out of a tight situation when surrounded by lots of enemies (expecially Infested).
  • Can also be used to get pass Corpus laser barriers (doorways which are blocked by laser beams) when you cannot find the security cameras that caused the barrier to activate.
• Radial Javelin – when activated, launched “javelins” in all directions and will potentialyl damage/impale enemies within the area of influence.
  • Useful when surrounded by enemies or to quickly kill problematic enemies (such as Infested Ancients)

Choice of Mods

Other than the basic abilities of the Warframe, the following are recommended for beginners (once you get them) in order of usefulness.

• Shield mods (Redirection) – increases your max shield capacity. Having 200 shield instead 100 shield can potentially mean that you will get damaged less by ard 50%. Try to power up a the shield mod and equip it in the right polarity mod slot (which will half the mod-capacity cost)
• Health mods – (Vitality) – useful but generally less than shield since damaged shield recharge to full while damaged health requires health pick-ups to restore.
• Shield recharge mods (Fast Deflection) – increases the rate at which your shield recharge.

If you have left over mod-capacity, consider mods which adds stamina capacity or recharge rate which can allow you to sprint more, which can make it a little faster to get to a destination, or faster to get out of a tight spot.

Equipment Tips

Choice of Equipment

The generic choices of Rifle, Pistol and Melee is recommended for beginners. Though it may not be as effective as some specialized choices (in specialized situations), it will cover most situations well enough. Ideal for beginner players who does not want to worry about what weapon loadout to use for each mission.

The recommneded weapons for beginner (assuming you are not spending Platinums) is Braton(Rifle), Furis(Pistol) and Cronus(Sword).

(Note again that these are choices based on ease of obtaining and use, not necessarily based on what is “best” which is subjective to the player’s style and skill).

Braton (Rifle)

Can be bought from Market at 10,000 credtis.
Note: This is a different weapon from the MK-1 Braton new players start with, which is an inferior version.
This is an automatic rifle, which means you don’t have to press the fire button repeatedly to fire.

It has a much higher firing rate than the MK1-Braton you start with and thus a higher sustained DPS when firing in auto-mode (hold fire button).

The Braton is arguably the most versatile (though probably not the most specialized) long gun. It has enough accuracy to be used at mid-long range when fired in burst, a fast enough fire rate at auto-mode for a decent sustained damage (at least for the beginner), a decent magazine size and above all, an economic price tag.

Basic tips on use:

• For mid-long range, fire in short bursts (for bullet economy) by tapping the fire button. Take advantage of its relative accuracy/recoil by aiming for weak points (such as head).
• Use auto-mode against stronger enemies (such as bosses, the heavy-class enemies) which requires sustained damage. Also, try to aim at weak point.

Recommended mods for beginner:

• Those that increase max ammo capacity
• Armor piercing mods (since the enemies in the beginning are mostly Grineer, which is armored)
• Freeze or Lightning mods (more for stun/slow effect than for damage in the beginning)
• Other damage mods (counter fast rate of using ammo by making each bullet more effective)

Furis (pistol)

Can be bought from Market at 15,000 credtis.
This may not be the most effective weapon to the more advanced players, but it is chosen in this cause for the ease of use and similarity to the Braton (rate of fire/accuracy) .

In this respect, it is well suited as a secondary weapon for beginner when you run out of ammo for the Braton. It’s main disadvantage is the low max ammo capacity compared to the high rate of fire. Also, being an automatic weapon also means that you don’t have to worry about your fire finger getting too muscled from pressing the button repeatedly, once for every bullet fired.

Basic tips on use:

• Similar to the Braton, fire in bursts at mid-long range. In fact, since it is chosen for its similarity with the Braton, it can be used in similar situations/fashion.
• Important on missions when you need to carry a datamass object (e.g. Spy, Deception) in one hand, preventing the use of the two-handed rifle.

Recommended mods for beginner:

• Ammo capacity mods (important since the rate of fire is very fast)
• Damage mods (similar to Braton)

Cronus (sword)

This weapon must be constructed from blueprint, which uses some foundry materials and 15,000 credits. The blueprint can be gained from the first boss Captain Vor in Mercury – Tolstoj.The materials used for it is quite common in Mercury so you may already have enough materials to make it by the time you get the blueprint.Basically, it is an easy-to-get and slightly better sword to replace your basic Skana, until you can get your hands on the more expensive weapons.

Basic tips on use:

• Just press MELEE key (default “E” for keyboard) when the enemy is close. It is that simple.
  Tiplet: Use JUMP > MELEE to do a ground slam for stunning enemies nearby.

Recommended mods for beginner:

• Elemental damage mods (try to get at least one each for Freeze/Lighting/Fire type, choose the one(s) that is effective against the main enemy type for each mission)
• Fire rate mods (Fury) – what is better than a fast weapon, is a faster weapon.

Consumables

An extra Rifle Ammo Box can be bought for 1000 credits. Though you may not need it most of the time, this may help you tide over some diffcult or long missions where you need just that little bit of ammo more to be able to complete it. Buy one or two and equip it in your inventory.
Tiplet: while in mission, press and hold the inventory key (default “Q”) to access and activate the inventory items.

Mod Tips

Fusion Tips

Fusion is a way to power up mods to raise its effectiveness at the cost of higer mod-capacity requirement. Each level powered up incrases the mod-capacity requirement by 1. But since each powered up level usually increases the effectiveness of the mod by the amount at level 1, it is usually more effective to use higher level mods especially for those that has a high basic mod-capacity requirement.

However, keeping various versions of the same mod at different power level can be useful when you need to maximize the mod-capacity of an equipment.

For example, the basic “Ammo Drum” for Rifle which increases the max rifle ammo capacity by 5% costs 2 mod-capacity. But by keeping multiple versions of it at different power levels (say costing mod-capacity 2 (5%), 3 (10%), 4 (15%), 5 (20%) etc ) I can pick the main mods I want for the rifle, then “fill up” the remaining mod-capacity left by using the version of the “Ammo Drum” that will fit the best.

When fusing mods, it is usually most effective to use mods of the same type. For common mods, this is recommended as you don’t need too many mods of the same type anyway (less the different power level ones you may want to keep as mentioned above). For the rarer mods, it is better to use Fusion Core which are non-equippable mods whose only purpose is to power up other mods.

Mission Tips

General Mission Tips

• Grineer are generally weak against Armor Piercing
• Corpus are generally weak against Electricity
• Infested are generally weak against Fire (expect more melee situations)
• Except for Extermination missions where the number of enemies is fixed (no more spawning will occur after the fixed number of enemies are spawned), most Missions will have respawning enemies. Do not loiter in the same area unless that is your intent (e.g. farming enemies)
• Mission maps are formed by generic level pieces which you will learn to recognize after some time. Remember where some of the more obscure portals are:
  • round tunnels which are covered by non-functional fans can be accessed by destroying the fan
  • some wall gratings can be destroyed revealing passages behind
  • some openings in the ceiling can be accessed by either climbing some crates nearby or by a vertical wall walk (there will be a metal wall showing some vertical scratches).
    Tiplet: To do vertical wall walk, SPRINT straight into the wall and Press and Hold JUMP button then Release the JUMP button near the top to do a backflip to the floor at the top.
  • some chasms can be crossed by a horizontal wall walk
    Tiplet: To do horizontal wall walk, SPRINT and jump onto the wall and Press and Hold JUMP button. Will last until you release the JUMP button or when you run out of stamina.
• Move into cover from time to time. Your shield will only start recharging if left alone for a while. Interrupting enemie’s attacks on you periodically will allow your shields to recharge which will greatly increase your survivability. For best effects, time this together with weapon reloads.
• If you find a valuable item like a mod dropped by an enemy, place a player waypoint (default “G” key) to notify your teammates. Mod-drops can be gained once by every player in the same team. Do your fellow Tenno the favor and expect the favor to be returned.
• If your teammate is down, reach them quickly and look at them. Then Press and Hold the ACTIVATE button (default “X” key on keyboard) when prompted to revive them until they recover. Do your fellow Tenno the favor and expect the favor to be returned.
• If you are down, you will still be able to use your secondary weapon (like pistol). Continue to attack the enemies around to try to make it easier for your teammates to reach and revive you.
• Fight close as a team. When a player gain any weapon affinity (xp) from combat, all nearby teammates will gain the same amount as bonus. i.e. The efficiency of gaining xp is much higher when a team fights together.

Grineer Mission Tips

• If you find yourself being attached by a rolling ball thing that some Grinneer throw, do a roll to get rid of it before it explores. Though it is difficult, these “Latchers” can be destroyed if you manage to aim and hit it.
  Tiplet: Tap your SPRINT key to roll.

Corpus Mission Tips

• If you find your way blocked by a Laser Barrier, there is most likely one or more security cameras around that detected a hostile target. Look for green (non hostile cameras) or red (hostile camera detecting your or your teammates) on the ceiling nearby and destroy them to shut down the barrier.
  Tiplet: if you cannot find the security camera, move the whole team somewhere to try to get out of the camera’s detection. Then either make a dash for it or try to deduce where the cameras are. Also, it is possible to bypass an active Laser Barrier by using some powers (from wiki: Excalibur‘s “Slash Dash,” Rhino‘s “Rhino Charge,” Loki‘s “Invisibility,” and Trinity‘s “Link“) or *sometimes* by sliding (though not very reliable for the beginner)
• Turrets may activate and fire at you at times. This is the only time when you can attack and destroy them as they are invulnerable to normal attacks when dormant.
• If you see a group of Corpus enemies with a chain of electricity that goes to a flying thing, destroy the flyer (Shield Osprey) first as it is shielding the other enemies, making them harder to kill.
• MOAs (two legged robots) can be spawned directly from wall components that look like a box. Keep an alert eye or ear behind you.
• The Leech Osprey (a flyer) can launch a flying round thing that when attached to your Warframe, will start damaging the shields. Do a roll to get rid of it, similar to the Grineer’s Latcher.

Infested Mission Tips

• Melee may not only be unavoidable, it may actually be recommended for some of the enemies except maybe the Ancients. E.g. the Chargers (animal like enemies which runs on all four limbs) which will usually come in a group and will quickly reach and surround you making it hard to aim with range weapons. Some non-Ancient humanoid may also explode if you kill them with non-melee attacks.
• Most Infested do not have ranged attacks (except ancients whose arms can extend a distance). It may possible to find a high inaccessible place where the enemies cannot get to you, and snipe them without retaliation.
• Learn to recognize green glow of the Toxic Ancient. Not only is it hard to kill, it will damage you just by being near (even after it died).
• Try to bring a crowd-damage ability mod for you Warframe, and reserve energy for when surrounded or dealing with Ancients. Do not hold back from using your energy when you feel like it especially against Ancient Disrupter which can drain your energy anyway if they hit you.

Finally

Most of these tips are gathered by myself through actual playing. Many of which belongs to those “Doh! I wish I knew” category. (I remembered the times I simply walked pass downed teammates which resulted in their deaths during my early missions because I did not even know that I could revive them! Or the times I died repeatedly in front of a Corpus Laser Barricade because I did not know how to turn it off.)

Thus, hoping that new players will go through less pain and time I did when I learn the play the game, I compiled this little collection of tips.

Some of the stats and images are from the fabulous Wiki, put up by the great community. All associated credits and thanks goes to the respective contributers.

Finally, thanks to all who spend their time reading this.