strictlySpeaking

Thought I'd give you a little bump, since the thread went quiet. Thank you for the video on Eximus info! That's huge. It's less inconsistent than it used to be, but still gets a bit confusing when stuff DOES go through Overguard. Another suggestion; I find that the best Credit farm is definitely Railjack, with neither blessing nor booster, as if you do specifically a Veil Proxima mission (ideally a Void Storm) -- those missions can be done in 5-10 minutes tops (so long as you know what you're doing!), and you can sometimes come out with multiple hundreds of thousands of credits. You'll also be getting all the extra endo associated with spare Railjack parts (often a thousand or two in a single mission) and quite a number of mods you an freely trade or sell or mulch for further credits/endo. But then, I know not everybody likes that mode -- the same way I'll never touch Index, and don't prefer big "raid" style modes like Profit-Taker or Eidolon hunting. I did just enough Vox stuff to get to rank 4 and the 7/7/7, and subsumed both Hildryn and Baruuk. Otherwise, while they do have some very neat arcanes, I'm leaving rank 5 on the backburner until MR 30. Just 75k mastery away!

Been trying to get a better Amp for use in regular missions, because outside of Defense (or a mission everybody is willing to actually stay in one 'spot'), I rarely remember to utilize Op stuff to prime for anything else. Otherwise I have Corrosive on one weapon, Viral on another, Heat on almost everything, at least one Slash weapon, sometimes a Radiation procc, and a Lot of damage equipped at all times on my warframe. I even made a Magnetic progenitor Kuva Nukor. I'm less likely to swap all of my gear over to one type of enemy, often because I'll chain missions of different types. (And like to do ESO.) They die, they just don't die in one hit. Does the CC on Lockdown work on Eximus? Cuz otherwise, my very funny bandaid was actually to subsume Larva onto a negative duration EV Trinity build. It drags everything (minus Eximus) into one spot for shredding, and goes away within a second or two -- meaning I can place it down again further away from a point. It's not perfect, but has been basically serving that exact purpose by accident. Been debating putting it on Equinox as well, but it's probably not a bad idea to simply have it on my Op. Otherwise, I was a Dread main, and headshots aren't super difficult for me. I have Primary/Secondary Deadhead on anything that can justify it, it just takes a couple of kills to get the damage rolling. I've got Vox up to...either rank 3 or rank 4, it was just enough to grab the parts to try out a 6/6/6. I don't think I have access to the actual x/x/7 just yet. They just dropped all the Vox Solaris rank requirements, so I should probably get on that...

I'll just respond to this bit, so we don't get *so* off-track, but I promise I'm reading all of it! Since Arcane Energize has so overtaken the meta (even on frames that truly don't need it) and people are trying to subsume such Energy-heavy concepts onto their frames (and relying on them so heavily), perhaps a discussion about sources of energy, "pacing" out one's abilities during a mission, or means of saving energy is a good topic for OP to consider a video on. Especially when the way you're using it matters. (i.e. channeling vs. burst) Duration matters up to a point, but there are ways to go into the negatives (so long as you have efficiency) and still have the absolute minimum energy costs for channeling. Just takes feeling out the "floor" for each ability -- the sweet spot I dip between is usually 17% to 40%. (Though most of my mods are Rank 8) Just today, I discovered Gloom + Exalted Blade. I thought I was being so clever, too. xD Dangit. Chromatic Blade + Cold emissive + Archon Flow = YAY, energy! And with the extra lifesteal and CC off Gloom, *chef's kiss* Surviveability. It's too bad Specters can't use Gloom, if you know what I mean. (Specters and the abilities they can/can't use and good builds for them might also be a useful video!)

Got excited about it, but did a bit of testing. Xata Invocation, sadly, does not give passive Energy regen while an ability is being channeled, same as Energy Siphon/Nexus. That's what I would've used it for most, so I am still on my quest to save up for Arcane Energize! But dang, if the Tome isn't more fun than I was expecting! It was worth a shot. :) Edit: I haven't gotten any of the Canticles yet, so the Universal Orb one may still be a big help. Will continue searching!

#1. Has anybody tested to see if Venari + Other Companion can run the Shield/Overshield -> Fire Rate mod, to see if the fire rate benefit stacks? That's a lotta fire rate...I definitely have a build I'm pushing absolutely max fire rate on my Twin Grakatas that I use with Arcane Pistoleer, just to see how many shells end up on my screen. XD #2. If I'm running buff/debuff Equinox for higher level content, then my burst doesn't do enough damage to consistently take Eximus out with normal enemies. I think that's just a side-effect of Overguard? If I'm running max-range Equinox, I tank ability strength, but I have all the time in the world to do as much AoE as possible before letting the nuke go off -- I just can't do as much to keep my team alive. Letting both my Duration AND Strength tank allow me to bring extra mods like Flow in the latter build, where energy isn't a problem. With all the extra range, I can also leave energy orbs there to pick up as I need them. But for the former, while I can take priority targets out myself, if I'm managing to do damage, debuffing the damage enemies deal, trying to keep up the shields of my teammates, AND CC-ing panic-button targets -- having both her 3 AND 4 up at the same time means that she eats through quite a lot of energy. And that's with maximum Ability Efficiency. (190%, above the 175% soft-cap, because it continues to discount channeling costs.) It's nice when I have a squad that's super tightly clumped together (especially since the 300% ability range I know and love gets nuked all the way down to about 145%), but as things get more chaotic, I find I have the chance to run out of energy completely. Part of that issue is that I will pick up every single energy orb I walk by, as I'm ticking my energy down with every second my abilities are up. I can't leave energy laying around to grab later, unless I want to play with Fetch/Vacuum turned off completely. Any time I spend with my 3 OR 4 turned off is both damage/health lost, and the energy I get from orbs has me considering pushing archon shards to get that extra kick out of the drops I get. I could definitely use Arcane Energize, and saving up for one is my current project. I'll look into whether or not the Grimoire could fill the gap, though my two go-to Secondaries are my Twin Grakatas and my Kuva Nukor. Tough choice. #3. I have fairly rinky-dink arcanes on my Op (Husk/Vigor), but with a lil under half the way-bound nodes unbound and my primary Focus path in Unairu (plus 9/9/9/10/10 Railjack intrinsics and 10/9/10/10 of the *other* intrinsics filled out), I come out in Op form with 1,600 HP and a considerable amount of armor. I could probably do with a bit more damage, but I find that I have almost no issue with dying in Op form whatsoever. In fact, I find that I almost never die in any game mode I play in these days (Mastery tests with lots of Eximus, SP, Mech stuff, Archwing, etc) -- the issue is more the ability to keep a Defense point from being destroyed, etc. All good food for thought.

I'll take any answers people are willing to give! I LOVE all the detail and effort and thought that went into the responses both of you gave! :D See, stuff like this? Brilliant. Stuff that a long-time user of a really specific frame or weapon or playstyle is just going to figure out over time. What am I playing? Why am I playing it? What am I trying to do? What am I missing, in order to accomplish that thing? Not all of us quite have that Arcane Energize just yet, and I've been actively hunting down a good Subsume option for just the *tiniest* bit of energy regen I can find, usually for a frame that uses channelled abilities. :( Not everybody knows that things like Energy Siphon and Energy Nexus won't kick in while a channeled ability is in use. (Probably because most frames don't have a channeled ability...) I only just discovered the massive Dispensary nerf, and if you lean heavily into Equinox's 3 and 4, you're probably not running her with duration (fine for channeling, very bad for stuff like an augmented Spectrorage...) so that shrinks my options down a bit... D: Volt Prime is now one of the only 7 frames I'm missing, and man, he's one of the ones I was always the most excited about. A kindred spirit! My first "real" weapon was the Dread, fully kitted out with Baby's first tactical potato, and was even the first riven I ever got. I used it for so long, that to this day, it's my most-used Primary weapon! (921 hours listed in-game, 12.3% Dread use :P) I'll always take one big shot that finishes the fight over a hail of bullets (even if it takes a bit of set-up and aiming time, despite enjoying the exact opposite in melee), and accuracy is in most of the weapons I use best. But, obviously...casting time can get in the way. I do find something like a simple grab-and-go Kuva Nukor to be a bit more "functional" in a chaotic mission, but it'll just never be as satisfying. All good advice, and nice to see somebody "supporting" the use of less offensive/aggressive frames and abilities! A lot of people used to be a bit snarky with us utility-frame users (especially when encountered out in the wild in regular missions), but where would all the old-school Eidolon hunters be without a good Trinity? :P This is mostly in regards to your mod choices, because immediately, the 60/60s (for all weapon types) and anything that stacks with combo multiplier (AFTER the re-work that allowed multiple status proccs on over 100%) have become my bread-and-butter. Even if melee hadn't dominated the meta for so long, something that can scale that hard, to add so much to your build? Is very hard to pass up. The 60/60s are easily the most splashable mods you can put on almost anything, including weapons that otherwise crave crit > status. (And the wild disparity between those and a more hybrid/status build!) I've noticed that people over-estimate the amount of damage something like Pressure Point will do when combined with something like Condition Overload, even moreso after adding other "damage increases" from elsewhere in their build, which was part of what led to my struggle in wrapping my head around the modding system.. well. After the re-work that made mods show the actual, numerical increases they gave. xD Because while it's great to know "what stats you need" on a weapon (i.e. "mod this for crit" or "mod this for status") you won't really know what that looks like when you first start out. You won't have any of those mods, and you won't know which ones you should get first. It's easy to assume that fire rate is always good, or that magazine capacity is better (or worse!) than it actually is -- modding a weapon for the highest burst damage possible ("Damage Per Screenshot") is simply not the same as modding for the highest sustainable damage-per-second you can. And the latter is way more important for a newer player. I won't even touch on the "personal play style" side of things, because I just recently started clearing out weapons I had that were "very good" but that I just...hated using. Simple stuff; I don't like big, slow, and clunky melee weapons. I don't like heavy attacks. For some reason, that's more okay with ranged weapons? But if a melee weapon's special trait is only activated on Heavy Attack use, I'm simply never going to use it. I kept around a lot of the story weapons and a couple decent options for a bit of everything, but I was able to free up some major weapon space by finally letting go of a couple things. Showing people which frames benefit from a bit of tankiness vs. which frames never want to see Adaptation anywhere in their build...it's tough. Which frames can truly benefit from something like Health Conversion, especially if they can't safely take the damage needed to pick up health orbs? (Obviously, this answer is wildly different for a new player struggling with the basic star map vs. that second or third hour into an infinitely scaling Steel Path mission.) Others have literal built-in invulnerability and don't need one or more of those types of mods, like Valkyr or Wukong or Garuda -- and if you can play around Rolling Guard, the frame may not even matter, you may uniquely need no other form of sustain at all. Excal was my starter (and due to my lack of progress for uhm.. *cough* -- let's just say I was stuck using him for a VERY long time), and having essentially learned the game on him, I couldn't be happier to see that he's still viable. His Chromatic Blade augment is still one I get giddy about, and...well. I don't know what still counts as spoilers these days, but he remains my go-to option for any mission I use a necramech in. Excal, a Vizier Predasite, my on-call crewmate. It's the solo player in me. And while I'm not super familiar with Voruna just yet, I found she was kind of shockingly fun to play. First off -- Miter. <3 The first "fun" weapon I was ever introduced to. I didn't even know it HAD an Incarnon mode, so if you'll excuse me, I need to go pay Cavalero a visit- The Miter was the first weapon I ever tried to jury-rig into doing the most damage possible. I rolled a riven for it myself, farmed up the Kuva for it myself, 10/10 would shoot razordiscs of death again. Second, I'm sorry, the Grimoire does WHAT NOW. <- Sincerely, someone who doesn't have Arcane Energize Third, I recently returned to the game suddenly find I had a new source to pour my reputation into! These bond mods are so exciting! Pack Leader + Reinforced Bond? And the fact that you can now run 2 copies of the same mod (without needing to own 2 of them) on companions at the same time? Made me realize I could run 2x Pack Leader and 2x Reinforced Bond on Venari + my Companion while using Khora... (anybody wanna go brrr?) My default is my Sly Vulp, and I'm most excited about Contagious Bond. :D We're gonna have some fun with that. Side-Note: Hilariously enough, I didn't ask about Op stuff because I'm still used to it being a taboo to discuss. I'll be maxing out my first Focus tree in a day or two, and I still don't know how to build the Amp I really want to use -- I've been debating something like a 1/4/7 (big damage) or a 4/4/6 (never stop shooting, basically) and because trying them all out involves as much farming as it does... :( Back-burner. More "personal" Amps tailored to one's playstyle might be something to dig into, now that Ops are so solidly part of normal gameplay? The information you gave was more than I ever could've hoped for, and will honestly help not just me, but anybody who can manage to find it! I will probably start linking your videos to some friends of mine, as the youngest of my extended group of friends are only just-now starting to play. The algorithm is not kind, and as much as I'd love to give advice on the time of day to post, where to link via social media, how to advertise, it does just boil down to getting your stuff in front of as many eyeballs as possible. All it takes is getting it in front of just the right person for things to start rolling. Longer content is great and all, but I know I prefer shorter and sweeter videos, and that I'm a lot more likely to read a written guide due to being deaf -- that doesn't mean that I don't love a good video! But I will definitely find shorter ones easier to watch. I'm loving the teasers! At the end of the day, make content you love! If you love it, somebody else will to. Let's see if we can help people find it!

(Feel free to skip down to my actual question, the rest is context and me explaining why I'm asking xD) Long-time player coming back to the game to finally hit MR 30 after many long Hiat-i, and finding the re-balancing of the game as a whole seems really reasonable. This was a game that I really struggled with when I was younger (mostly due to having a really undefined playstyle, and never knowing how to play to my own strengths -- turns out I'm more of a Utility/Support style player, and despite everybody telling me to play Rhino/Valkyr, I find my two default modes are Equinox/Trinity), and boy...the game is simply not the same kind of "difficult" it used to be. Warframe has a fairly smooth difficulty spike now (and an actual tutorial!!!) when trying to get from the normal star map to stuff like arbitration and sorties to the steel path and beyond. It boils down to: You hit a wall, you find a way to break the wall, and then you hit the next wall in need of breaking. And boy, it took me until 2017 to break a couple of those early-game walls, but it gets faster every time! A lot of people seem to learn the game and brute-force missions on their favorite frame. The phrase that gets tossed around a bit is "one-trick," but I admire somebody who can do anything without needing a hyper-specialized build for it. I fill the void overcome an obstacle by grinding for new stuff, rather than always using something I already have, like looking for missing puzzle pieces. This is great for when I have time to fill and need something to do, but I now have 20 nicely polarized frames and a couple dozen really solid weapons...and not a single one of them is completely maxed out. I've got my eye on some of the crazier arcanes that drop off Netracell missions, but I took one look at the restrictions in place, and I suddenly feel like I'm back to playing Warframe during its teenaged Ninja Gaiden phase. LOL More than ever, it feels like nearly every frame in the game is viable and functional, and for almost every mission type. You can use a huge collection of weapons (both ranged and melee! No more absolute melee superiority) and really get to curate your own playstyle and gameplay. That's equal parts exciting AND frustrating, for those of us who play a little bit of everything, and get really indecisive. You can ask for advice on how to beat a specific MR test, or clear a specific SP mission solo, or how to accomplish A task or B bounty or C objective -- but when "everything" kinda works, and will only work for the people it works for, it actually makes it really difficult to know where to focus. Short of trying everything in every combination by yourself, it's hard to know where to start. My major struggle is that I picked this game up playing almost entirely solo. Didn't have anybody to really play with, and got nervous matchmaking with other players. Eventually, I built frames and weapons strong enough to complete content without outside assistance, and recently came back to clear the SP Star Map the same way I cleared the first one. Now I have an army of viable options for the content that's still slightly out of reach, and I'm not entirely sure which ones to focus on. In fact, due to the fact I like a slightly easier grind, I'm not even sure how to figure out which ones I like playing "best." (Such as; Playing a less-than-optimal frame in a place you wouldn't typically see it recommended.) ACTUAL QUESTION: If you could choose 1-2 frames, 3-5 weapons, and a limited selection of mods to play every piece of content in the game on, what would they be? How did you discover that answer? If they had to be a viable option for any mission that could possibly come up (potentially needing to fly solo), and any restrictions therein (assuming no consumables or brute-force options like an Elite On-Call Crewmate) what do you find is your "pocket pick" or comfort option? And most importantly, why? (Whether it has a specific ability, or gimmick, or works well with a funky subsume/arcane combo, etc.) Which mods are the first you max out, and do you find your builds tend to require a lot of forma? Thanks for your time! Neat videos.