My personal top 5 tank frames based on tankiness

[birdobash]

So I thought I'd share my personal opinion on what the top 5 tank frames are in the game, based around the general idea of *in Russian accent* "I laugh at puny grineer who shoot me with puny gun, while I stand still and get tickled". DISCLAIMER: Inaros is NOT on the list, ik ik HERESY you might say, I'll explain myself later.

#5: Rhino

At number 5 we have rhino, a frame with an ability that puts on a shield that completely mitigates damage. With the right build utilizing ironclad charge and armor boosting arcanes, rhinos iron skin can reach insane health values. Alongside this he has decent amounts of utility including a decent damage booster and a widespread hard CC. The only reason he isn't higher up on the list is he requires iron shrapnel in his build otherwise iron skin running out can be suicide, and even with iron shrapnel there is a tiny gap between removing and recasting iron skin that can a lot of times lead to instant death.

4# Baruuk

Baruuk is the absolute king of damage reduction, modded correctly he is able to put on 3 seperate instances of DR, 90% from 9+ desolate hand daggers, 50% from completely drained restraint bar, and 40% from using serene storm. In total this equates to a maximum of 97% maximum damage reduction on baruuk just from his abilities, not including outside sources like arcanes, DR mods, or armor. This is an insane amount of damage reduction, and if you also slot in adaptation and arcane grace into him he becomes nearly unkillable. The only reason he is not higher on this list is due to baruuks kit having a lot of problems and anti-synergy, elude, lull, and desolate hands all clash and have anti-synergy with each other, and serene storm has mediocre damage and cannot utilize the melee mods and systems that make melee weapons so good, therefore making it a mediocre weapon even compared to normal melee weapons.

#3 Gara

I'd say Gara is the queen of tankiness, that's my opinion, but I don't think people will disagree with this statement (or at least until hildryn comes out and she turns out tankier than gara). A glass based frame that has a 90% damage reduction ability that has an infinite duration, and infinite damage scaling, Gara can also share this 90% damage reduction with teammates and operatives, making literally her entire squad JUST as tanky as she is. With the combination of splinter storm, mass vitrify, and her shattering lash, gara can reach insane damage numbers that scale infinitely off of melee weapon mods, making her basically immune to damage from melee attackers as they die instantly when they get near, and mitigating a lot of damage from ranged attackers. Alongside this her mass vitrify makes her completely invincible and is a hard CC for any enemy caught inside it, contributing their health into the walls of the ability, which can then be shattered back into splinter storm. There are only 2 things holding gara back, lack of healing in kit and her useless spectrorage, the former can be fixed with an abundance of healing sources that can be found ingame including augment mending splinter, but the latter is just a part of her kit that holds her back.

#2 Nezha

Lo and behold the prince rises from the ashes, after being blessed by pablo Nezha has become one of the best support/tank frames in the game. A 90% damage reduction ability that has I-frames at the start and when it disappears, allowing it to have 100% uptime with no vulnerable time gap between casts, alongside this nezha is able to utilize an abundance of health related mods he couldn't use before due to warding halo before being a weaker version of iron skin. Now he is able to utilize mods such as rage/hunter adrenaline, adaptation, health conversion, and equilibrium, including arcanes such as guardian and grace, and with the change to his reaping chakram augment this frame is a self sustaining tank/support BEAST. All of his abilities synergize, and his innate speed allows him to survive longer against enemies since AI accuracy lowers as players move speed gets higher.

#1 Nidus

The absolute king of tankiness, nidus is an unkillable unstoppable train of havoc that literally CANNOT die if played properly. The combination of high health, high armor, a 90% damage reduction ability, passive self healing, active area healing, and his undying passive makes him the absolute top tier if you want the tankiest of tanks. Nidus makes all enemies in the star chart a complete joke, and enemies levels 150-200 barely make a dent in him, only killing him if he purposely tries to die/goes afk. He is technically able to survive ANY enemies at ANY level, doesn't matter if the enemy level hits the integer cap in warframe, nidus is still technically able to survive, the key is his undying passive, because nidus loses 15 stacks every time he dies and gets 5 seconds of invincibility, all he needs to do is gain 15 stacks during those 5 seconds. With enough enemy density inside his larvae and his 4 active, this is completely plausible, even if he gets one shot instantly everytime he stops being invincible, even if he doesn't actually kill the enemies inside the larvae, he technically won't die. The only limitation here is if you are in a survival mission enemies need to die to get life support, but if killing enemies was not a limitation, nidus would literally survive ANYTHING.

Wheres Inaros?:

So the reason Inaros isn't on my top 5 list is simply, he isn't as tanky as you think. Sure easily getting 5k to 11k health on inaros LOOKS tanky, but the thing is that Inaros straight up doesn't actually "tank" as much as other frames. The reason why he feels so tanky is because of his pocket sand/1st ability, this ability is insanely good and is hard CC, meaning enemies cannot damage you, which makes inaros seem tanky when only 1 enemy of 20 in a room is shooting at you at a given time. Another thing, unlike other frames Inaros doesn't have a lot of damage mitigation to take advantage of his large healthpool, he has health and armor, he has no other form of damage reduction besides armor, his 2 makes him invincible but it is otherwise a useless ability that also makes the Inaros player useless, and his 3rd ability is basically useless 99.9% of the time. Overall, even though when you think "tank" in warframe you think Inaros, this is not the case anymore.

Edited February 18, 2019 by birdobash

[ThumpumGood]

NM

 

Edited February 18, 2019 by ThumpumGood

[Chewarette]

Garuda is quite unkillable as well

[Sir_Carl]

I agree with your point with Inaros. Sure he has a lot of health but bring him to a sortie assassination and those numbers go down quickly. Personally Rhino is still number one for me since bringing the other frames on your list on eidolon hunts is a no no.

[birdobash]

11 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

Garuda is quite unkillable as well

I personally think she's somewhere above oberon and below Inaros in terms of tankiness, choosing oberon and Inaros because they all don't have damage mitigation. Garuda's self healing is able to surpass oberons even though he has higher armor values, although I think her shield doesn't have enough coverage, it's a bit too single directional for reliable damage mitigation and more just for building heart damage.

[_Urakaze_]

inaros is one of the most tanky frame, because arcane grace, not pocket sand

gara only has 90%DR, so is Nezha, so they shouldn't be that high up on the list

Valkyr should also be on the list, as invincibility is 100% DR, which can last at least 3min and more if you get energy drops from enemy

where's Wukong? the only thing he's good at?

Garuda is also very tanky with 3 altars up

Edited February 18, 2019 by _Urakaze_

[ThumpumGood]

I disagree on Inaros but maybe that's because of my set up. Armor in the 700+ range (when using scarab) and health is above 8k. Operator has magus arcanes that restore health so I can pop out.in to satisfy small amounts of health restore so I dont have to use the 2 as often. I use it to tank the mobs during the profit taker to keep them off of the other 3 members of the squad while the deal with it.(I do switch between the mobs and the PT) I also am able to handle the sortie assassinations with it in relative ease. That mixed with the weapons I use makes it easier for me than the Rhino.

Currently working on Harrow and it's turning out to be a fair tank. albeit a face tank, but still a tank.

[FreelancerAgentTexas]

This thread has a startling lack of Valkyr. Some Valkyr should fix that.

[-AiLuoLi-]

18 minutes ago, _Urakaze_ said:

inaros is one of the most tanky frame, because arcane grace, not pocket sand

gara only has 90%DR, so is Nezha, so they shouldn't be that high up on the list

Valkyr should also be on the list, as invincibility is 100% DR, which can last at least 3min and more if you get energy drops from enemy

where's Wukong? the only thing he's good at?

Garuda is also very tanky with 3 altars up

If you want to count straight up invulnerability then you have to include King Limbo.

And like every similar thread, there will be a lots of heated argument about the definition of tank.

Edited February 18, 2019 by -AiLuoLi-

[PoisonHD]

Inaros with Adaptation + 2x Arcane Grace/ Arcane Grace + Guardian is pretty unkillable to me. I know adaptation can only cover so many elements, but he still gains health while being shot at by lvl 155s.

 

 

Anyway, I agree with all of these really, but Trinity is a better tank then Gara, with two instances of 75% damage reduction, which gives here 93% damage reduction I believe, plus innate ability to heal herself, and the ability to stack arcanes and mods on top of that for more tankiness.

 

@_Urakaze_ Nezha can get 98 or 99% damage reduction I believe with Health Conversion, and just armor in general in combination with Warding Halo. He can self heal by generating health orbs which benefit Health Conversion, making it basically a flat armor buff for him that he can constantly have up. Gara can't use that though, since she can't generate health orbs/

Edited February 18, 2019 by PoisonHD

[DeMonkey]

42 minutes ago, -AiLuoLi- said:

If you want to count straight up invulnerability then you have to include King Limbo.

And Revenant. Nothing can kill him, not even self damage. 90% - 99%DR sounds great until you compare it to someone with 100% DR and effectively infinite hp.

[_Urakaze_]

1 hour ago, -AiLuoLi- said:

If you want to count straight up invulnerability then you have to include King Limbo.

And like every similar thread, there will be a lots of heated argument about the definition of tank.

that's why OP should define his 'tank' class

 

and I didn't include Limbo is because the damage never actually reaches him, so it is the same as Baruuk's 1, and shouldn't be counted as tanking abilities

[Enexemander]

Leaving out Inaros just doesn't work here. His insane hp and armor just synergizes too well with the builds available.

Vazarin or just magus repair makes him immortal (percentage based) and he doesn't have to worry about CC- he's immune to it. Adaptation is just the Cherry on top.

He also gets finishers whenever he wants- either his own abilities or focus school dashes... Which is again a percentage heal.

Sorry man, it's Inaros all day when talking about tanking on Warframe at current. Nidus is great, but CC is a weakness, and his DR is both able to be nullified or just stop if the enemy dies. It's also a self root. And let's not even start on the ramp up.

Nidus has great tricks. Inaros is just great.

 

[doomeynoker]

Frame are not standing dummy, you need to consider every capacity/synergy to consider survivability.

For exemple, my formated kavat alone can heal my inaros without any consideration from my part. Or I could just deal few hit in melee with Life strike mod.

[TheSixteenth]

Inaros 4 mitigate quite a lot of damage...

Can we talk about valkyr prime? I easily get in the 3k armor range without umbral thanks to her warcry, with adaptation, you are in the 99+% of damage mitigation potentially (mostly around 96+%). Hysteria fed by rage juste in case. A casual swipe of claws bring her back to full health for more killing or just take standing heavy fire, you can't be knocked down and the talons just shreds.

[tyranno66]

Every time a thread like this pops up, everyone forgets how good of a tank Nekros is. He's not just a loot piñata people!

[tyranno66]

-Double post-

Edited February 18, 2019 by tyranno66

[JackHargreav]

Chroma, Inaros and Revenant are all awesome tanks.Granted Chroma and Inaros reaches true tankyness when you equip Adaptation but they can really soak up a lot damage. Especially Inaros. Revy on the other hand doesn't have to soak up any damage. Keep up the 2nd ability and nothing touches you. Wukong also counts I think since he regenerates infinitely.

[GPrime96]

Honestly, i think Trinity is up there with most Tanks. When i use her for Profit Taker, i revive Chromas, Inaros, Rhinos, and even Revenant there. Adaptation, Blessing, Link, and Two Umbral Mods lets her Tank the Elite Terra Enemy’s Damage even at lvl 110+. Only way i get killed as her is when i do a Mistake that gets me killed. Also, Hunter Adrenaline+EV and Blessing for constant Energy and Support.

Edited February 18, 2019 by GPrime96

[Icari]

Thinking a properly modded Inaros would die to anything as low as sortie is borderline retarded.

[FlyingDice]

#1 should be Loki. 100% immune to all enemy attacks as long as a teammate doesn't try to stand next to you. :V

[(XBOX)Rylor Threev]

I don't get it, ppl like to not include in inaros as the/one of the best tank(s) in the game, every single frame needs energy to maintain it's 'tank' stats while inaros just need to be there, sure you won't run out of energy in any mission because zenurik, but once that nuli jumps on top of you, or an energy leech drains all of your energy you're dead, there is a CONDITION for them to be a tank, but whatever, maybe you don't like inaros so I gotta ask: where's wukong? 

[(PSN)watt4hem]

Trinity? No? Insta heal, 75% dr, 2 of them. Which can stun enemies.

 

 

Gprime gets it.

Edited February 18, 2019 by (PS4)watt4hem

[SneakyErvin]

For me it has to be.

1. Revenant

2. Valkyr

3. Nezha (far outshines Rhino thanks to invulnerability when Halo drops)

4. Nidus

5. Oberon

[Chewarette]

Inaros should never be listed anyway, he's not a Warframe, just a huge walking pile of HP. You don't even need energy or spells to be tanky, woo, what a glorious gameplay, that's as enjoyable as 60-seconds Vex Armor'd Chroma (but at least you have to hit two buttons every minute or so).

That's why I'd pick interactive tanks over passive tanking every day. Even if it's less efficient, at least you're actually playing the game.