Problems getting Mastery Ranks playing solo. Is this is a real thing or do I just suck?

[Zengur]

I have something like 48 hours of logged time in (but seriously perhaps 20 hours of actually doing missions, 50-60% of the time I'm in some menu doing nothing on the Orbiter, dabbling with weapon and mod builds or the game runs in the background) and I'm STILL at mastery level 2, though inches from MR 3.

For the past 17 missions or so I have averaged to the tune or 240 mastery points per successful mission. I counted.

I take all the Void Fissure missions I figure I can handle alone, and lately have played a ton of defense and exterminate missions (also infestations to get credits, they are plenty easy to frag for quick cash - at this MR at least) trying to kill as many enemies as possible as fast as possible to gain affinity and rank up my weapons. But going is slow as hell.

Also I'm stuck on Earth/Venus because the Space Crab JACKÀ$$ in Venus stomps me to minced Tenno Armor (I bet the ***er eats the metal after with Sriracha sauce) or shoots blue 5$|-|17 on me which causes me to die. Granted, I am not very good at the Parkour element of the game but after I die a couple of times I go back trying to find a Fissure, a mission I have yet to complete or take a survival or defense gig and try to level up something. I recently fixed myself up with a Kraken and Furis MK-1 just for Mastery Fodder but oh boy are the fun to play for the first 1 to 5 ranks. 

How do the veterans of the game rank up their unranked new stuff? Personally, I pick an easy defense or exterminate mission and do as much as I can with my new peashooter and kill whatever causes me trouble with another backup weapon or Skana which is a whirlwind of death against almost any faction at this stage of available missions. 

Since I have access to just about nowhere my inventory is overflowing with Ferrite, Rubedo, Alloy Plate, Polymer and generally stuff you find in Earth/Venus but not much else. Which in turn cramps my style hard if I try to forge just about anything on my blueprint list, never mind those I can buy.

Mods and weapons make the Frame in the end but being rank 2 (3 in an hour or two, I hope) seriously cramps my options though. What missions I can take, what weapons I can buy and use, how many slots I have free, how many loadouts, you know the drill. I've heard it mentioned several times over playing with a squad will result in faster advances in Affinity. This true?

Oh, and I don't _like_ playing solo, but I'm currently in a network with Strict NAT 90% of the week and the guys in this organization would laugh until they pass out even thinking about making changes to their routers because some semi-random IT guy wants to play a computer in the evenings. 

Bonus question #1: Should I spend a potato on my level 30 Excalibur? I like it. Perhaps because I can't try anything else though? I already bought some damage mods since they weren't dropping so I don't mind spending the worth of a single lunch to get a bit of Plat and spend a bit on delicious Potatos. But in general I try to play for free.

Bonus question #2: I forgot it while typing. Oh yeah, now it returned to me. Should I try to get my hands on a sniper weapon, is Vectis good (if I can gather the materials ?) and go wander around the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis to get some variety to this eternal grinding against level 1-16 enemies that results in nothing. 

Opinion: The Taxon is plenty fun to have around, it's like a GoPro drone that does target spotting for me either draining shields or slowing down space monsters while spamming blue rays so it makes it easier for me to spot them! Hooray!

Anyway still an awesome game, love it, I'm not in a hurry to run through everything within a week and just enjoy the ride but feeling like I'm doing something wrong and a bit stuck in here.  

 

 

[HoustonDragon]

On 2020-09-19 at 3:21 PM, Zengur said:

How do the veterans of the game rank up their unranked new stuff? Personally, I pick an easy defense or exterminate mission and do as much as I can with my new peashooter and kill whatever causes me trouble with another backup weapon or Skana which is a whirlwind of death against almost any faction at this stage of available missions. 

If it's a unranked Warframe, jump into normal Sanctuary. If it's anything else, grind some ESOs. If you have an Affinity booster, you can generally cap in a matter of 6-8 rounds.

 

Biggest learning curve for me was that MASTERY is not actually based upon playing the game. It's all about building and leveling Warframes/weapons, so if you're chasing it, you need to be looking what you can be working on efficiently. The Clan Dojo labs have a huge number of weapons to research and build, along with 4 or so Warframes from the Tenno lab (Wukong is ridiculously awesome, and should be in your stable)

 

Next, start going through the Marketplace, but DO NOT SPEND PLATINUM on them. Instead, use the filters, and start clicking through the ones you can buy the blueprints for with CREDITS. There's literally a couple hundred weapons on there, along with a ton of Warframe blueprints that you can then spend your time farming the components from planet bosses. You also want to keep in mind that several weapon patterns WILL require previously built ones, so be sure you're leveling their Mastery on ALL of them before tossing or using to build the next step. There's also the "starter" MK-1 weapons and things that are on there that can be bought and leveled immediately via Credits.

 

Downside, this will take a LOT of grinding for materials and also credits to purchase and build. You also have to manage your inventory slots, so keeping a bunch of junk floating in your Foundry between claiming becomes an important job to manage. The more Mastery ranks you get, the more reputation daily cap you can earn, meaning you can also be grinding the various Syndicate ranks for their own specialized weapons, augment mods, and the various Archwing weapon components. I ended up grinding through all 6 to rank 5, just to be able to pick up everything. You can also trade components/mods between other players if you're enemies with a specific faction otherwise. And then there's all the Sentinel companions, pet companions, MOAs, K-Drives, Zaws, Amps, Kitguns, Archwings, Archguns, and Archmelee stuff to all build and level, including going after the Lich weapons to grind and Forma level up to 40 (I think there's like 16 different ones of those?)

 

MR rank is important to have access to certain things, but honestly, once you're above MR16 or so, you should have access to all of the weapons/frames in terms of restrictions, and are mainly limited by the rep cap and void trace limit. You can easily make yourself crazy trying to do ALL of it at one time, so also keep your goals reasonable.

[Canach]

Mastery Rank is a leftover mechanic which used to pace progress in the game, before DE took on the philosophy that new players should have access to all content. There was a time, when I would have advised the original poster not to rush the endgame, but now, the game is out of balance for players below MR 6 or so.

A Soma (MR6), Ignis (MR5), Twin Gremlins(MR5), and Orthos (MR2) will get you all over the star chart with style - as will many other low-MR weapons.

Some tips for gaining MR:

• Warframes, Archwings, and Companions give more MR than weapons
• All warframes, companions and weapons which you obtain should be quick-leveled to 30 - Translation - level them through Sanctuary Onslaught or Hydron on Public, without wasting your forma or catalysts on them.
• Many weapons and some warframes, archwings, etc, are available from your Dojo research - join a clan, you'll see.

G'Luck! 

(1,000+ hrs, MR 21)

[quxier]

34 minutes ago, HoustonDragon said:

You also want to keep in mind that several weapon patterns WILL require previously built ones, so be sure you're leveling their Mastery on ALL of them before tossing or using to build the next step

There is one think to keep in mind. If you (I'm talking about new players) want to use weapons to build another weapon keep in mind that the Orokin catalyst won't transfer to the new weapon. For example if you want to build the Sarpa you need the Akstiletto. So if you put the Orokin catalyst on the Akstilleto you lose it if you use it to build the Sarpa. Such weapons (the Akstilletto) are not hard to build so you may build a fresh copy and use it to build another weapon. So keep in mind while you want to install Orokin catalysts. As fair I remember only one weapon comes with pre-installed orokin catalyst - the Broken war. If you want to build the War you may consider using another Broken war.

ps. for a new players getting orokin reactors/catalysts is harder. For someone more experienced 20 platinum is not too much. So don't think too much about such thinks as you can acquire catalysts/reactors somehow (if you really want).
 

[Nick-ka-ka]

9 minutes ago, Zengur said:

 

I've read the Wikipedia every day I play but the material to go through is huge, though I was aware of this.

Ok now that I figured that after level 30 the Affinity will be sort of "wasted" on Frames and weapons, anyone got an idea for an MR3 (72 more points to go...) new Melee weapon? 

I just blasted through a Fissure rescue mission mostly using my Skana. Didn't look around much and had no idea what I even killed  (ended up being 113 something unit in a few minutes) on the way, just ran, slid and rolled and if I ran into a group of enemies smashed double E  (or hit "3" to spike everyone on a wall) until nothing was moving and/or there was a path through. "Unfortunately" my Skana is now level 27 ;D

You are Mastery Rank 2, correct? Here is a list of available weapons that you can use to advance yourself to the next level.

Primary:
Boar | Boltor | Braton | Burston | Hind | Karak | Strun | Vectis | MK1 Paris | MK1 Strun | MK1 Braton

Secondary:
AkBronco | Ballistica | Bronco | Furis | Gammacor | Hikou | Kraken | Kunai | Lato | Seer | Sonicor | Stug | Kitguns [All] | MK1 Furis | MK1 Kunai

Melee:
Ankyros | Cronus | Dark Dagger | Dual Kamas | Dual Skana | Dual Zoren | Fang | Fragor | Glaive | Gram | Jaw Sword | Kama | Kestrel | Kogake | Lecta | Magistar | Orthos | Scindo | Zaw [All]

[ReaverKane]

You're not on the wrong track, most veterans do Hydron (Sedna Defense Node) or Sanctuary Onslaught to lvl up stuff fast.
You shouldn't limit yourself by playing exclusively solo. Playing with others is actually why SO and Hydron work well because they stick you in a smaller map so its better to share affinity (basically you get exp from other player's kills when you're close enough, also that affinity is spread evenly across all things, while if you kill stuff with warframe abilities, for example, your weapons don't get any, while if you kill with weapons you frame gets a bit, but most goes to weapons, so in a pretty real way, the best way to lvl is to leech kills from something like a Saryn).

I wouldn't advise you to spend plat on anything but slots at this point (and later i'd stick with cosmetics), also, i wouldn't advise you to add a reactor to your only warframe until you really need it (reactor doesn't make it stronger, just lets you add more mods, and you probably don't have those yet).

If you're around PM me, i'll help you with jackal (also a good source for a great warframe, Rhino).
 

[Navarc]

More players = more enemies = more affinity from kills & team shared affinity kills.
I think if you're fast enough, the highest lvl spy you can access is decent EXP if you complete each spy vault undetected. It's good EXP but doesn't compare to a full squad doing Sanctuary Onslaught/Defense/anything similar. I did a lot of Spy when it came out for EXP alone.

Snipers are pretty good in this game, if it's your type of weapon definitely go for one. Vectis is a great choice & it has the Vectis Prime for you to look forwards to in the future.

[Zengur]

22 minutes ago, ReaverKane said:

I wouldn't advise you to spend plat on anything but slots at this point (and later i'd stick with cosmetics), also, i wouldn't advise you to add a reactor to your only warframe until you really need it (reactor doesn't make it stronger, just lets you add more mods, and you probably don't have those yet).

If you're around PM me, i'll help you with jackal (also a good source for a great warframe, Rhino).
 

Ok thanks. I have a plethora of mods equipped in my Frame and my Vitality and Shields are not maxed yet, 540/620 respectively IIRC (because I didn't have the cash or Endo at one point, but now I have both (thanks, Infested!) so should dump my weak Mobilize, Flow and whatever 2-4 point mods and concentrate on maxing out my tankiness?

[Leyvonne]

As a solo player I just play the game modes I enjoy for two reasons; it makes the process feel less of a chore and I don't have to test the frames or weapons separately if they fit my actual playstyle and content I normally do. I have tried the popular methods, but quite quickly got bored of them.

[Zengur]

22 minutes ago, Navarchus said:

More players = more enemies = more affinity from kills & team shared affinity kills.
I think if you're fast enough, the highest lvl spy you can access is decent EXP if you complete each spy vault undetected. It's good EXP but doesn't compare to a full squad doing Sanctuary Onslaught/Defense/anything similar. I did a lot of Spy when it came out for EXP alone.

Snipers are pretty good in this game, if it's your type of weapon definitely go for one. Vectis is a great choice & it has the Vectis Prime for you to look forwards to in the future.

Ok this explains a lot. 

I usually don't like snipers in FPS style games at all, but instead bullet spam the top 1/3 of incoming enemies, but I heard something like Vectis is more like a mid-range accuracy rifle I'm soon able to get. Now I just need to find the 4 Orokin Cells. Sigh.

[ReaverKane]

3 minutes ago, Zengur said:

Ok thanks. I have a plethora of mods equipped in my Frame and my Vitality and Shields are not maxed yet, 540/620 respectively IIRC (because I didn't have the cash or Endo at one point, but now I have both (thanks, Infested!) so should dump my weak Mobilize, Flow and whatever 2-4 point mods and concentrate on maxing out my tankiness?

That's one way to go... Excalibur has some pretty specialized builds for high end, but honestly, at the beggining, yeah, either tanky or nuker will be a good fix for just about any warframe.

[Zengur]

Now that some of ya'll seem to be online and reading, my only Frame is maxed to 30. 

Q #1: When I use my Frame powers, where does the Affinity/XP go to?

Q2 #2: If I, say, strip the shields from one of those boxhead Corpus guys and finish it with my newfangled rank 2 Furis MK-1, does all the Affinity end up going to the Furis or does the game spread the XP between all the weapons which ended up stopping the Menace of the Boxheaded pervert? Does anyone even know or even think about **it like this?

[BethTheBean]

1 hour ago, Zengur said:

I have something like 48 hours of logged time in (but seriously perhaps 20 hours of actually doing missions, 50-60% of the time I'm in some menu doing nothing on the Orbiter, dabbling with weapon and mod builds or the game runs in the background) and I'm STILL at mastery level 2, though inches from MR 3.

For the past 17 missions or so I have averaged to the tune or 240 mastery points per successful mission. I counted.

I take all the Void Fissure missions I figure I can handle alone, and lately have played a ton of defense and exterminate missions (also infestations to get credits, they are plenty easy to frag for quick cash - at this MR at least) trying to kill as many enemies as possible as fast as possible to gain affinity and rank up my weapons. But going is slow as hell.

Also I'm stuck on Earth/Venus because the Space Crab JACKÀ$$ in Venus stomps me to minced Tenno Armor (I bet the ***er eats the metal after with Sriracha sauce) or shoots blue 5$|-|17 on me which causes me to die. Granted, I am not very good at the Parkour element of the game but after I die a couple of times I go back trying to find a Fissure, a mission I have yet to complete or take a survival or defense gig and try to level up something. I recently fixed myself up with a Kraken and Furis MK-1 just for Mastery Fodder but oh boy are the fun to play for the first 1 to 5 ranks. 

How do the veterans of the game rank up their unranked new stuff? Personally, I pick an easy defense or exterminate mission and do as much as I can with my new peashooter and kill whatever causes me trouble with another backup weapon or Skana which is a whirlwind of death against almost any faction at this stage of available missions. 

Since I have access to just about nowhere my inventory is overflowing with Ferrite, Rubedo, Alloy Plate, Polymer and generally stuff you find in Earth/Venus but not much else. Which in turn cramps my style hard if I try to forge just about anything on my blueprint list, never mind those I can buy.

Mods and weapons make the Frame in the end but being rank 2 (3 in an hour or two, I hope) seriously cramps my options though. What missions I can take, what weapons I can buy and use, how many slots I have free, how many loadouts, you know the drill. I've heard it mentioned several times over playing with a squad will result in faster advances in Affinity. This true?

Oh, and I don't _like_ playing solo, but I'm currently in a network with Strict NAT 90% of the week and the guys in this organization would laugh until they pass out even thinking about making changes to their routers because some semi-random IT guy wants to play a computer in the evenings. 

Bonus question #1: Should I spend a potato on my level 30 Excalibur? I like it. Perhaps because I can't try anything else though? I already bought some damage mods since they weren't dropping so I don't mind spending the worth of a single lunch to get a bit of Plat and spend a bit on delicious Potatos. But in general I try to play for free.

Bonus question #2: I forgot it while typing. Oh yeah, now it returned to me. Should I try to get my hands on a sniper weapon, is Vectis good (if I can gather the materials ?) and go wander around the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis to get some variety to this eternal grinding against level 1-16 enemies that results in nothing. 

Opinion: The Taxon is plenty fun to have around, it's like a GoPro drone that does target spotting for me either draining shields or slowing down space monsters while spamming blue rays so it makes it easier for me to spot them! Hooray!

Anyway still an awesome game, love it, I'm not in a hurry to run through everything within a week and just enjoy the ride but feeling like I'm doing something wrong and a bit stuck in here.  

 

 

1. Play in a group/PuG, as the more people you have the bigger the boost to affinity.

2. As for the Jackal, you can roll through those blue beams. You need to time it right. Again, a group/PuG would be helpful.

3. Keep in mind, that once a piece of gear hits R30, you're not getting anymore MR points. Those exceptions are kit-whatevers and the special weapons that rank to 40.

4. For beginning Tenno, I'd suggest leveling your gear in Dark Sector - Survival on Venus (north pole). Once you unlock the invasions and fissures, your leveling well be insanely quick - especially endless missions. 

I know people will suggest, Hydron, but you need to pass wave 10 before the affinity means something. You have far better options.

[Subitayo]

For the loose breakdown of affinity: for all of the affinity you gain in a mission, 25% is guaranteed to go to your warframe's levels and mastery. the rest is split between the rest of your weapons that are equipped, including any that are max rank. In this sense, you lose affinity if you take a weapon (or companion) that is max ranked to a mission.

A tip I suggest is going through the marketplace and buying the heck out of the blueprints you have available there for weapons and the warframes soon to be accessible (Rhino from Venus, Mag from Phobos, Hydroid from Oro, Earth, Frost from Ceres; you already have Excal which is Mars). Another tip if you haven't figured it out yet; your foundry will build more than 1 thing at at time as long as you have resources and credits.

I would also suggest finding a clan if you haven't yet; they have additional research for weapons, companions, and warframes (Banshee, Nezha, Wukong, Volt, and Zephyr found in the Tenno Lab; Helios in the Energy Lab, Ignis from the Chem lab, for examples). These guns will require a lot of Forma though, so farming relics and fissures wouldn't be too awful either, which will also give you a random selection of prime parts to start collecting as well.

I don't know how far in the star chart you've gotten at your MR, but until you can reach higher level missions, endless missions are a great place to earn experience. I went to Helene on Saturn since they changed the map for Io, Jupiter recently; but any dark sector usually has affinity and experience buffs and is usually a survival mission. (save your air support until you're at that 50-70% range. Theoretically you should be killing things fast enough to keep air dropping from enemies to not need to worry about air too bad.)

If you're online and on PC, feel free to send me a pm in game. I'm typically on overnight and don't mind helping to clear newer players' star charts.

[Nick-ka-ka]

50 minutes ago, Zengur said:

Now that some of ya'll seem to be online and reading, my only Frame is maxed to 30. 

Q #1: When I use my Frame powers, where does the Affinity/XP go to?

Q2 #2: If I, say, strip the shields from one of those boxhead Corpus guys and finish it with my newfangled rank 2 Furis MK-1, does all the Affinity end up going to the Furis or does the game spread the XP between all the weapons which ended up stopping the Menace of the Boxheaded pervert? Does anyone even know or even think about **it like this?

1- Even if your warframe or weapon is at max rank, they will still receive exp from kills and mission rewards. Kills from warframe powers will go to your warframe 100%.

2- The general rule for affinity is that 25% will go to the warframe, and the rest will be divided up among the weapons you have. Killing with a specific weapon will split it between the warframe and the weapon 50/50. So the experience will be split between the furis and the warframe.

[Zengur]

48 minutes ago, Nick-ka-ka said:

1- Even if your warframe or weapon is at max rank, they will still receive exp from kills and mission rewards. Kills from warframe powers will go to your warframe 100%.

2- The general rule for affinity is that 25% will go to the warframe, and the rest will be divided up among the weapons you have. Killing with a specific weapon will split it between the warframe and the weapon 50/50. So the experience will be split between the furis and the warframe.

I've read the Wikipedia every day I play but the material to go through is huge, though I was aware of this but never thought that yeah, that DOES lose me Affinity because I'm not leveling anything

Ok now that I figured that after level 30 the Affinity will be sort of "wasted" on Frames and weapons, anyone got an idea for an MR3 (72 more points to go...) new Melee weapon? 

I just blasted through a Fissure rescue mission mostly using my Skana. Didn't look around much and had no idea what I even killed  (ended up being 113 something unit in a few minutes) on the way, just ran, slid and rolled and if I ran into a group of enemies smashed double E  (or hit "3" to spike everyone on a wall) until nothing was moving and/or there was a path through. "Unfortunately" my Skana is now level 27 ;D

[Zengur]

Oh and to everyone who suggest playing with a clan or throwing a PM and joining a squad (thanks for inviting me), sorry if was unclear on the OP about this or the post was too long to read, I can't play squads or communicate with other players right now. The routers where I'm posted right now are on Strict NAT mode. UPnP and NAT-PMP are enabled on my game options but Warframe will not detect them. Changing UDP ports does not help. 

I'm unable to reach the chat servers, join squads or talk to or see other players and I have to deal with this for four more weeks. When I'm at my home and I get to choose what my router does I can finally play the game like I imagine it was meant to.

[(PSN)Claudija]

I use Assur, Neptune for melee. Baal, Europa or depending on mood I've been known to use Zeugma, Phobos or even Martian missions for lower ranking.

All going on about MP, I'm pure Solo and as of typing I'm a Gold Tiger; MR21 so no you don't need to be in groups at all and I have 1,245 or so hours in the game.

What helps me OP, is setting a goal. First, finish The Sacrifice so I had my Operator. Second, complete Star Chart, third set Dojo to utilise all rooms and build Railjack which of my friends many playing longer than me: I was first to complete around February 2nd before they refunded us for overpricing the Railjack components. Set your goal and go for it.

Mastery counts only once; as soon as the item is Rank 30 (Kuva Weapons and Paracesis cap at 40 but need to be Forma-added 5 times to reach this and gain maximum Mastery from the weapon or Kitguns/MOAs/Vulpaphylas/Predasites/Zaws basically anything you build up collecting resources from Open World nodes PoE, Orb Vallis or Cambion Drift which need Rank 30 then Gilding - technically a free Forma which you can name the item and polarise it then Ranking back to 30) after these conditions are met, item is Mastered and as previously mentioned- no longer contributes any Mastery. Multiple Formas after said-Mastery as I did with my Daikyu bow (MR5-8) is optional for getting best performance but does not help gain MR Exp.

[quxier]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)Claudija said:

or you use: Arrow Mutation/ Vigilante Supplies instead. Note: Kuva Bramma is the only bow that gains just 1 arrow regardless of the Rank of these mods due to DE nerfing its ammo efficiency. Daikyu has an Amalgam granting Arrow Mutation but not as reliably and Vigilante Supplies offers a nice sync with its sister Vigilante Armaments for Multishot bonus.

Or just use Carrier (Prime). It will make ammo and gathering things easy. I almost don't use any other companion.

[Kista-]

For leveling, when I play solo, mostly I do sabotage missions. Every mission object splits the affinity through all gear, plus if it's reactor sabotage there's hidden caches that will do that. Cracking vaults undected in a spy also does this. For solo play the gear you want to get affinity, you gotta use it. So leveling a melee, use melee, etc.

[taiiat]

the details of playing Solo is that you don't get to soak Shared XP. this isn't a problem, just means that XP is split differently.

• if you want to Level a Weapon yourself, you have to get Kills with that specific Weapon.
  • Kills by your Warframe will not give any XP to any of your Weapons. Weapons you are not Killing with do not get any XP at all.
• if you want to Level a Warframe yourself, you have to either get Kills with that Warframe or with any of your Weapons.
  • Kills by the Warframe are more efficient than Kills by a Weapon, if possible.

there is one exception to these rules for Solo - Objective XP is applied like Shared XP to your Equipment.
so one of the more older school methods to Level fairly quickly Solo, is to do a lot of Spy Missions since you have 3 sources of Objective XP (and high amounts if you don't set off the Alarms in the Vaults). plus whatever Enemies you Kill between the Objectives.
optional Objectives also give Objective XP, if you're really looking to changeup the Gamemodes. but Spy will definitely be the best XP per minute.

 

 

spend Reactors/Catalysts at your discretion. 

use whichever sorts of Weapons you like, especially when you're low Mastery and every Weapon offers you Mastery for now.
Vectis is a fairly good low Mastery Rank Weapon, yes. it'll kinda feel meh without Crit Mods but you probably have atleast Point Strike by now, and may have Vital Sense.

[Zengur]

Thanks guys, will try to pick up more Sabotage and Spy missions! Sabotages are cool anyways since you can take your time. 

The ones I dislike the most are Rescue/Intercept/Excavation. In Rescue missions I feel you really need to strike like a bolt of lightning instead of getting stuck fighting it out and clear the SPACE MONSTERS guarding the hostage post haste (and make sure there aren't a dozen units right behind following  you) or they kill it, Intercept and Excavation just suck to play alone for me. Against level 4-8 Grineer or Corpus, not that much, but the Affinity reward you get sucks. I feel like. 

I've not done that many Spy missions but the last time I was able to frag the space men trying to trigger the alarm before they were finished, or then disable the alarms really fast so that went well.

[Zengur]

And as luck would have it after posting that a Grineer Sabotage Fissure opened. Sabotage caches! Experience!

About 60 minutes and 531 dead SPACE MONSTERS later I completed the mission without finding a single cache despite I swear on my Taxon's soul I investigated every nook, cranny and dead end corridor on the map. Also got almost 800 MR XP because my Braton and Skana gained so many ranks. Oh well.

Now I'm finally MR 3. Cool. Back to grinding.

[Zengur]

Question: I have something to the tune of 90 duplicate mod items. Lot's of cost 2-4 crap I don't be using or needing anytime soon.

Is Transmute worth trying out, or should I just swap 'em all to Endo?

I spent barrel of it upgrading my Serration to level 9 and increasing my Armor, Vitality and Shields to become the tankiest low rank Excalibur on the block. 

[(PSN)Jacobivan]

4 hours ago, Zengur said:

Question: I have something to the tune of 90 duplicate mod items. Lot's of cost 2-4 crap I don't be using or needing anytime soon.

Is Transmute worth trying out, or should I just swap 'em all to Endo?

I spent barrel of it upgrading my Serration to level 9 and increasing my Armor, Vitality and Shields to become the tankiest low rank Excalibur on the block. 

Good choice of mods upgraded, those will serve you well till late game. It' s ok to melt duplicate mods for endo, i would leave at least one unranked copy of each, though. Will help you level new stuff a little easier. 

For solo mr farming with benefits i recommend Gabi on Ceres. That mission gives you extra 25k credits on completion, double that if it's you first mission of the day. Used to be my best source of income till i could do Index. Also Orokin Cells drop there. 

People answering gave you a lot of good advice, i agree with most of it. I'd like to add a couple things:

Go to the Codex console on your orbiter, start and do any quests you can. Most of them are quite fun, and rewards are usually well worth it- from new frames to try and get mr from, to space doggies, archwings used in open worlds and some planet missions, new lore and spoiler abilities, even new planets to explore later. 

Do Nightwave. Free slots, mods, cosmetics and weapons. Some things you won't be able to do solo just yet, but you should be able to progres and get cool stuff. 

Try to beeline to junctions on all planets you unlock. You have to complete some tasks to be able to access junctions and kill specters, but they give new quests and weapons. If you have trouble with any specter, farm Mag warframe. Her second ability makes junctions specters a joke. 

Good luck have fun, Tenno. 

 

 

 

[(PSN)grayhyh]

19 hours ago, Zengur said:

I have something like 48 hours of logged time in (but seriously perhaps 20 hours of actually doing missions, 50-60% of the time I'm in some menu doing nothing on the Orbiter, dabbling with weapon and mod builds or the game runs in the background) and I'm STILL at mastery level 2, though inches from MR 3.

For the past 17 missions or so I have averaged to the tune or 240 mastery points per successful mission. I counted.

I take all the Void Fissure missions I figure I can handle alone, and lately have played a ton of defense and exterminate missions (also infestations to get credits, they are plenty easy to frag for quick cash - at this MR at least) trying to kill as many enemies as possible as fast as possible to gain affinity and rank up my weapons. But going is slow as hell.

Also I'm stuck on Earth/Venus because the Space Crab JACKÀ$$ in Venus stomps me to minced Tenno Armor (I bet the ***er eats the metal after with Sriracha sauce) or shoots blue 5$|-|17 on me which causes me to die. Granted, I am not very good at the Parkour element of the game but after I die a couple of times I go back trying to find a Fissure, a mission I have yet to complete or take a survival or defense gig and try to level up something. I recently fixed myself up with a Kraken and Furis MK-1 just for Mastery Fodder but oh boy are the fun to play for the first 1 to 5 ranks. 

How do the veterans of the game rank up their unranked new stuff? Personally, I pick an easy defense or exterminate mission and do as much as I can with my new peashooter and kill whatever causes me trouble with another backup weapon or Skana which is a whirlwind of death against almost any faction at this stage of available missions. 

Since I have access to just about nowhere my inventory is overflowing with Ferrite, Rubedo, Alloy Plate, Polymer and generally stuff you find in Earth/Venus but not much else. Which in turn cramps my style hard if I try to forge just about anything on my blueprint list, never mind those I can buy.

Mods and weapons make the Frame in the end but being rank 2 (3 in an hour or two, I hope) seriously cramps my options though. What missions I can take, what weapons I can buy and use, how many slots I have free, how many loadouts, you know the drill. I've heard it mentioned several times over playing with a squad will result in faster advances in Affinity. This true?

Oh, and I don't _like_ playing solo, but I'm currently in a network with Strict NAT 90% of the week and the guys in this organization would laugh until they pass out even thinking about making changes to their routers because some semi-random IT guy wants to play a computer in the evenings. 

Bonus question #1: Should I spend a potato on my level 30 Excalibur? I like it. Perhaps because I can't try anything else though? I already bought some damage mods since they weren't dropping so I don't mind spending the worth of a single lunch to get a bit of Plat and spend a bit on delicious Potatos. But in general I try to play for free.

Bonus question #2: I forgot it while typing. Oh yeah, now it returned to me. Should I try to get my hands on a sniper weapon, is Vectis good (if I can gather the materials ?) and go wander around the Plains of Eidolon or Orb Vallis to get some variety to this eternal grinding against level 1-16 enemies that results in nothing. 

Opinion: The Taxon is plenty fun to have around, it's like a GoPro drone that does target spotting for me either draining shields or slowing down space monsters while spamming blue rays so it makes it easier for me to spot them! Hooray!

Anyway still an awesome game, love it, I'm not in a hurry to run through everything within a week and just enjoy the ride but feeling like I'm doing something wrong and a bit stuck in here.  

 

 

Its not you,this game sucks to level up alone,honestly with solo beginner farms its either way survival,exterminate or spy which still arent the most efficient ones and spy requires you to be efficient and not trigger the alarms in the spy vaults for the most xp(you get 3 times the xp from the spy vault if you do it without triggering alarm than you do if alarm is on) honestly just go for recruit chat and tell them you want to be carried on hydron i get that you have internet issues but leveling up stuff solo till later on sucks and even then it still sucks quite a bunch im sorry but thats warframe for ya.

Dont put a potato in rn,try some few more frames before you decide to put a potato on a frame you can grind frame parts at some bosses.

Dont try Poe or orb vallis now,there is no benefit really for doing them early,they are more of their own thing tbh,you can try to grind poe standings for a zaw(looking ass modular primative stick melees but one of the most powerful ones in the game).

They take quite some time and poe resources and also you have to know the right parts for a feasable zaw melee so not worth it rn tbh and its quite a grind,just focus on the rest of star chart and the story quest for now.