The Wall Running 101 - By Tenno, For Tenno (Updated For 6.5)

[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

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. You can let go of sprint at any point during the wall run without consequences.

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.

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. Like in horizontal runs, you can let go of sprint at any time and still continue your wall run.

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.

(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.

Unlike with initial wall runs, you do not need to hold sprint to chain an additional wall run. Instead, you only need to hold the jump key again shortly before you hit the desired wall.

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.

(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.

Note: Some of the video links are currently outdated. I am aware of this, and I intend to fix it. It might take a while, though, since I intend to completely remake the videos.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Botskiz

[Judgebanks]

Do you ever think we will have a seperate key for climbing onto an object and wall running? Currently this is my biggest frustration when wall running on objects.

[Botskiz]

To do some more complicated wall runs you already need to hold sprint, crouch and jump almost all at once. Adding a fourth key seems like a bad idea to me.

[derclaw]

Easy fix to verrtical wall-run: make it a carbon copy of Prince of Persia.

You can run up the vertical surface to some point. If you reach the ledge you grab it and run climb-up animation, if you dont - you loose momentum and start to slide down to the wall (NO BACKFLIP) at some reasonable speed using fingers of your left hand as brakes (metalic sparks included like with Zip-line). For examples of such wall sliding check Mega-man series or again Prince of Persia.

During any time of WALL-RUN you can press SPACE to make current backflip.

During any time of DOWN-SLIDE you can press SPACE to jump off the wall and use movement buttons to adjust slide direction bit.

You can shoot your weapon during any part of the move ofcourse.

IMO - This will allow to add more controll over wallrun cause right now its extreamly hectic nad has not so much strategic use.

With wall-slide you can now for example do move like this:

- you are chased by hoard of infests

- you find yourself cornered but with high enough walls

- you wallrun up to the top point, starting to slowly slide down

- it gives you time to shoot infests without retaliation for some time

- then you can kick-jump of the wall over the infested who grouped under you awaiting for prey

- which again gives you some free shots on infested and lets you get out of being cornered situation.

Also you can add transition from HORIZONTAL wall-run to down-slide to add more time to aim wall-jump properly.

Like releasing sprint button to result NOT in imediate end of wallrun, but actually slowing down so you start traveling in a slowly descending arc rather then a straight line.

Edited February 3, 2013 by derclaw

[Judgebanks]

To do some more complicated wall runs you already need to hold sprint, crouch and jump almost all at once. Adding a fourth key seems like a bad idea to me.

Jump is also grab, I was more going towards grab being "X" as in the pick up key seeing as you pick up objects with your hand and you climb up objects with your hand.

Simply put, you would have hand utility function on "X" or your use key which would include grabbing onto objects, and leg utlity functions such as jumping and wall running on spacebar

[EclecticDragon]

You have to hold space to continue wall running. Well that explains why I keep being launched off the wall rather then actually wall running.

[Botskiz]

@derclaw: I'd welcome this change a lot, as I feel it would give more control to the user, or at least make it feel more intuitive. At the very least, changing the auto backflip at the top of a wall to an auto grab would be nice.

@Judgebanks: Jump is grab? I had the impression that you'll auto grab ledges if you jump towards them, and do an auto backflip if you reach the top of a wall during a vertical climb, with no way to grab the top of the wall.

[Voracious]

Maybe it would be better if we didn't need to hold down space. Just space starts the wall running sequence and then hitting it again makes ups jump off. would be much easier to chain this way.

[MoyuTheTrinity]

If you wall run and do a charge melee attack you ash in the direction your looking allowing much more distance an control!!!

Edit: Works with vertival wall run allowing your verticals to get some horizontal distance idk if it can be chained into a horrizontal tho

Edited February 3, 2013 by MoyuTheMedic

[Botskiz]

Turns out I was actually wrong about the auto-backflip at the end of a vertical climb. For some reason I just always managed to let go of jump to early. If you keep holding jump until the very end you can very well get over the edge of a crate or grab a ledge, and even if the wall is way to high to grab anything it will just result in falling down. I updated the first post accordingly.

@MoyuTheMedic: Thanks for the info. It never occured to me to use the melee attack while wall running. I'll see what I can do with it.

[MoyuTheTrinity]

Turns out I was actually wrong about the auto-backflip at the end of a vertical climb. For some reason I just always managed to let go of jump to early. If you keep holding jump until the very end you can very well get over the edge of a crate or grab a ledge, and even if the wall is way to high to grab anything it will just result in falling down. I updated the first post accordingly.

@MoyuTheMedic: Thanks for the info. It never occured to me to use the melee attack while wall running. I'll see what I can do with it.

This wallrunning is so much fun It might make the game if they pollish it and remove the restrictions maybe add a wall kick for instant boosts the wall dash slash only lets you go horizontal maybe allow it to go any direction so we can get even higher

[Botskiz]

I'm struggling to find a place to use the melee attack as a movement option. Chaining doesn't work after melee, and it's not suited as replacement for the slide cancel. You fall down too quickly using melee and the slide cancel even gives you a slight height boost. Melee has the advantage of bridging more distance, though. Using it after a horizontal run can almost always be substituted by simply running.

The way I see it, the only useful way to use it as movement option is after a vertical climb, if you try to reach a platform below yourself and up to maybe two meters to your left or right, so that you can't reach it with a slide cancel. As I said, though, I fail to find any spot like this.

[MoyuTheTrinity]

That one designated wall runnign area in the nw map the only way to get into that locked room is the window i always fail to just wall run in the slash cancel throws me into it

[EclecticDragon]

That one designated wall runnign area in the nw map the only way to get into that locked room is the window i always fail to just wall run in the slash cancel throws me into it

Well that's one way to get in there. I just kept throwing myself at it from the pipe till I got in. :P

Edited February 4, 2013 by EclecticDragon

[shoudra]

Easy fix to verrtical wall-run: make it a carbon copy of Prince of Persia.

You can run up the vertical surface to some point. If you reach the ledge you grab it and run climb-up animation, if you dont - you loose momentum and start to slide down to the wall (NO BACKFLIP) at some reasonable speed using fingers of your left hand as brakes (metalic sparks included like with Zip-line). For examples of such wall sliding check Mega-man series or again Prince of Persia.

During any time of WALL-RUN you can press SPACE to make current backflip.

During any time of DOWN-SLIDE you can press SPACE to jump off the wall and use movement buttons to adjust slide direction bit.

You can shoot your weapon during any part of the move ofcourse.

IMO - This will allow to add more controll over wallrun cause right now its extreamly hectic nad has not so much strategic use.

With wall-slide you can now for example do move like this:

- you are chased by hoard of infests

- you find yourself cornered but with high enough walls

- you wallrun up to the top point, starting to slowly slide down

- it gives you time to shoot infests without retaliation for some time

- then you can kick-jump of the wall over the infested who grouped under you awaiting for prey

- which again gives you some free shots on infested and lets you get out of being cornered situation.

Also you can add transition from HORIZONTAL wall-run to down-slide to add more time to aim wall-jump properly.

Like releasing sprint button to result NOT in imediate end of wallrun, but actually slowing down so you start traveling in a slowly descending arc rather then a straight line.

I completely agree I tried real quick before doing some other stuff and this will make it a lot easier at minimum a prompt that would let you know when you can wall run!

[Zakalwe]

Dude, you are awesome. I really didn't realise the potential wallrun held, I'm really looking forward to exploring this later.

Cheers! :)

[Scherhardt]

Neeeedd morreee stamina for practiceee.. I seem so run out of stamina before I attempt my 2nd chain wallrun any tips?

Kudos man great guide.

[Botskiz]

@Scherhardt: Thanks for bringing this up. Never ran out of stamina myself, so I didn't really consider it. Updated the first post.

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. Also consider a stamina recharge mod on your Warframe.

By the way, I'm considering adding some videos for each of the techniques. Do you think this is even useful?

[Scherhardt]

@Scherhardt: Thanks for bringing this up. Never ran out of stamina myself, so I didn't really consider it. Updated the first post.

By the way, I'm considering adding some videos for each of the techniques. Do you think this is even useful?

Thanks man. I think it's a great idea adding vids. We want to see how you do it and learn from it as well..

[Botskiz]

Working on the videos. Hopefully I'll be able to update the first post within the week.

[EclecticDragon]

Hey, turns out that if two wall are facing each other close enough you can jump from wall to the other climbing all the way up. It's not really that useful for the most part but I imagine that that there might be a few spots it may work these pillars.

Also you can defy gravity with volt's spirint so long as, A. You don't hit a roof or B. you don't hit a 90 degree angle. I'd have a pic but for some reason while sprint is active the game won't screen cap properly.

[DeonThePhantom]

Thanks for the guide

[gamingalchemist]

thinx helped me out

[Scourger]

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. Clever use of the two

you'd only ever expect a Loki or Excalibur to hang around at.

How do I do it?

This is quite easy, actually. To perform a wall run of any type, you'll simply have to sprint towards a wall and press the jump key just before you hit the wall. Keep in mind that you'll only do the wall run as long as you hold the jump key pressed. Once you release the jump key, you will either do a backflip (vertical climb) or jump off the wall (horizontal run).

The angle at which you run towards the wall is quite important here, because it will determine the type of wall run that you will perform. To perform a vertical climb, you'll have to hit the wall head-on. To perform a horizontal run, you'll have to be almost parallel to the wall you want to run on.

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.

Is that everything I can do?

Off course not! How else would you expect us to surprise Loki at his favourite sniping spot? Of course we could cheat and use Super Jump, but that wouldn't be any fun, would it? We'll use some advanced moves instead.

Pillar and Crate 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.

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. You'll notice that your Warframe will successfully wall jump away from the surface.

Vertical Climb Cancelling

Whenever you do a vertical climb, you can cancel it on the spot by doing by pressing the crouch key at any point during the vertical climb. You'll go into a slide instead.

How is this useful? Well, you can push yourself over an edge this way. Granted, you can also do this by holding down jump during a vertical climb until you finally make it over the edge or grab it, but the benefit of climb cancelling is that you'll generally slide to the direction your camera is facing. This means you could climb up a piller, cancel the climb, and slide onto a ledge to your left.

Melee Cancelling

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 floor. It is important to keep in mind that it is not possible to chain a vertical climb into a horizontal run, at least I never managed to do it, but you can chain a horizontal run into either a vertical climb or another horizontal run.

For a chained wall is restricted by the same principles as a normal wall run. 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 climb. With some practice it is even possible to continue a wall run after a 90° corner.

Unfortunately, this also means that you have to hold both sprint key and jump key to perform your your chained run. From my experience, it's a good idea to never let go of the sprint key during a chain, even while you're jumping from one run to the next. I also found it to be easier to get a chained run if I press the jump key shortly before I hit the target surface.

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. Also consider a stamina recharge mod on your Warframe.

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.

When you do all this, do you use the "Toggle Crouch" or "Hold to Crouch" key? (see keybindings)

Also, and this is important, how did you bind your jump/sprint and the 2 crouch keys?

I don't seem to be able to find a comfortable set of keys, and they are bugged somehow if I try to bring away the jump key from spacebar.

Somehow I believe stupid windows has something to do with it, it's always windows fault for these things. lol.

[Botskiz]

@EclecticDragon: Thanks for the tip, I just made a video of me jumping back and forth a few times between those pillars. Will probably upload it sometime this week, along with some videos of the other techniques, including a vertical climb to horizontal run chain, which I finally managed to pull off.

@Scourger: I'm using the default setup. Hold left ctrl to crouch, sprint on left shift, jump on space. I always keep the tip of my pinkie on shift and use only the knuckle to press ctrl.