Returning Player

[(NSW)Speedstinger]

Hi, it's been a long time since i've played Warframe. I'm not really sure why I wanted to come back, I just got that compelling feeling. 

However, because it's been awhile im not entirely sure what I'm doing/was doing. I know this game has a reputation of being harder for newer players, and frankly I think that applies to me. I have 55 hours into the game, but I wasn't very good at it to begin with. I never really fully understood mods and kinda just played with the Twitch prime weapons I had gotten and had been cruising with those. Im just past the Second Dream quest, and I probably should've cared about fixing modding confusion and gaining better weapons much earlier. I also still main my first Warframe, Excaliber, despite having a few others I have/have the ability to grind for. 

 

TLDR; I'm just confused. Is there anywhere somebody could point me for a better handle on modding/weapons? And is it fine to keep maining Excaliber (I love how he plays) or should I make an effort to find a frame better suited to late(r) game? 

 

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but I can't wait to get back into the community and game itself!

[NinjaZeku]

17 minutes ago, (NSW)Speedstinger said:

Is there anywhere somebody could point me for a better handle on modding

I guess try searching for "warframe mod guide" on Youtube or something, that should give you some pointers.

18 minutes ago, (NSW)Speedstinger said:

weapons?

Similarly, there's "best weapons" lists out there, though I'd say try them all out, at worst they'll give you Mastery.

20 minutes ago, (NSW)Speedstinger said:

is it fine to keep maining Excaliber (I love how he plays) or should I make an effort to find a frame better suited to late(r) game?

Excal is more than decent enough for lots of content, but IMO you should again try everything,
having a more diverse box of tools is never a bad thing and who knows, you might find a Frame that you enjoy even more.
(Also, sticking with just one Frame seems like a good way to achieve burnout.)

[(PSN)Viveeeh]

Oh I have experienced this in the beginning too! Did not understand mods, and stats on them - critical chance, critical damage? What the hell is status again? I was so confused, and the game wasn't really good at explaining it all either. Finding out about the Warframe Wikipedia page helped a lot, and I suggest you to do the same - if you don't understand something, just google it, probably the first page in the results list will be a Wikipedia page. Don't want to try explaining about stuff that has been explained elsewhere much more comprehensible I could ever talk about it, so I'll just leave you a few links I find useful:

Mods

Damage 2.0

Status

Critical

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by (PS4)Viveeeh
Typo

[(XBOX)SteamierTripod]

On 2019-09-04 at 4:14 PM, (NSW)Speedstinger said:

is it fine to keep maining Excaliber (I love how he plays) or should I make an effort to find a frame better suited to late(r) game? 

Yes! I started playing as Excalibur and I think he’s the best starter imo. The exalted blade has amazing damage plus ranged light waves, radial blind helps if you’re cornered, radial javelin is good for crowds, and slash dash is a great tool for mobility as well as a small burst of damage. However, when you can, I recommend grinding out the Jackal, which is a boss on Fossa, Venus. Each time you kill the boss and complete the mission, you’ll get a piece of rhino, a versatile frame that has self protection, damage buffs and a crowd control ability. Of course, different frames work better with different play styles (support, offense, defense, healer, etc) but that’s my advice.

On 2019-09-04 at 4:14 PM, (NSW)Speedstinger said:

better handle on modding

Modding is essential in this game. Mods are what can make a c tier weapon an a tier weapon. It’s what makes Oberon, known for healing and support, into a nuke that can wipe out small maps. Modding uses capacity, which is seen in the top left of your modding hud. Some mods take more capacity than others, and upgrading them takes up more capacity. Polarity uses the symbols in the top right corner of a mod/mod slot. If the polarity of the mod matches the polarity of the slot, the capacity cost is cut in half.

With weapons, base damage is good to mod for (serration, for example), and depending on the critical chance and status chance, try to mod for the higher stat. It’s also worth noting that status just means elemental, and some status effects can be combined to make a new status effect. Corrosive is made with electricity and toxin, and degrades armor which is super useful for grineer. Corpus are weak to gas, made with toxin and heat, and infested is weak to heat. Both status and critical is nice to have, but I would mod to improve whichever has the highest base chance.

With warframes, it’s different. You have 4 main categories for altering your abilities: strength, which increases damage/how hard an enemy is affected. Range: how far your abilities stretch. Duration: how long an ability lasts. Efficiency: how much energy an ability takes to use. Higher efficiency = lower energy costs. The mod slot on the top on the left is your aura mod slot, which will also affect squad mates. If you match up polarities in the aura mod slot, the mods capacity is doubled but added to your total capacity instead of subtracting, giving you more capacity to work with. The slot next to it is an exilus  slot, which needs an exilus adapter to unlock. Exilus mods can go in any slot, but regular mods can’t go in the exilus slot.

Sorry for the long essay and if you knew any of this already, but I want to help you get a clear understanding of how this works. Hopefully this does end up helping you, even though it’s a lot to unpack. After experimenting with modding and trying things out for yourself, you’ll get a feel for how it works and you’ll be able to go from there. Good luck, Tenno!

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

I think the hardest part about being a noob is being held back by garbage gear.  Most people tell you not to put orokin catalysts/reactors and or forma in newb gear because your just going to get rid of it.   But you cant really grow until you can start doing that stuff so you can rank up your mods.  The fastest way to get good gear is to join a clan so you have access to dojo weapons and to start popping relics for primes.   Valkyr/Saryn nikani, spira, cernos prime all just got unvaulted yesterday,  those will be the easiest to get because alot of people should be working on them to.  

Relic popping is something you need to do anyways as you need a bazillion forma and this is where they come from.  You should be building 1 forma every 24 hours.  The catalysts/reactors you get from nightwave and or occasionally from invasion rewards.  

Once you have good gear and can start upgrading your mods things will start getting alot better.  There are sources for mods all over this game so just try to do everything.

-Spy Missions can have some killer mods

-Sabotage and the hidden caches can have great mods.

-Doing a full rotation in endless missions drop great mods.  Full rotations being 8 digs in extraction,  20mins of survival, 4 rounds of defense, 4 rounds of interception

-If you are good at fighting infested doing vault runs at Orokin Derelicts has really powerful mods(some people carry all these keys but you should try to have access to a dojo so you can get dragon key blueprints so you can make them yourself so you can run with a group.  But some guys like to carry all and need help just looking for the door, which is great for you)

-The open world nodes and the bounties there have some really cool and useful mods but they are not newb friendly(but people can drag you through them)

-Again...popping relics will make you get alot of prime junk you dont need so what do you do with it??  Well you can try to sell for plat to help buy slots and stuff,  But you really want to take them to a Relay station and find the kiosk consoles in the center of the place and turn your prime junk into ducats.  Ducats are a type of currency this dude Baro Ki'teer wants for his sweet loot from the void.  For example PRIME mods.   He comes around like every 2-4 weeks(I dont know lol).

 

But in general try to tackle star chart primarily,  mess with syndicates asap,  try out the open world nodes of earth/cetus/plains of eidolon and venus/Fortuna/orb vallis, Run tons of Fissures,  Try out invasions(you need to do invasions to get the resources to build most dojo weapons.  The recent buffed invasions a little bit and some of them might be a little hard as newb now).  Try vault runs.   After you get some prime gear you can seriously tackle the open world grind spots for cool stuff and check out Sanctualy onslaught,  sorties...  If you can crush every node on the star chart you unlock arbitrations.   

And while your doing all that you can do the quests at whatever speed you want to.  Although do not put them off to long...