Useless Warframes

[Duality52]

On 2021-09-26 at 6:34 AM, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

They are meta and literally don't understand tactics or anything.

Thing is in a game like Warframe, the community strives for more brainlessness due to the loot and grind. That's no surprise, but that renders the game increasingly stale especially in Public matches. The moment they encounter any resistance, they will cheese it as fast and efficiently as possible.

Easily Inaros, as his kit doesn't really exist. Not dying can easily be achieved with other frames, not to mention of how "death" is a foreign topic to the Tenno.

[BahamutKaiser]

I would say they all have a use, but I've yet to find one for Yareli, the foolish inclusion of Kdrive means she will be broken unless they make Kdrive more functional in regular tilesets. Her dive slam needs a usability improvement, and they need to replace one of her abilities with a targeted launch move so you can navigate areas the board acts up in. There's so many fixes she needs, this should have been play tested with player in star chart Kdrive modes before even attempting. Even an exalted Necramech would have more playtest data. 

[pwnSacrifice]

43 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

I would say they all have a use, but I've yet to find one for Yareli,

Yareli actually is one of the better lich/sister hunters. Sea Snares can CC those suckers. Slap on or use your armor stripping tool of choice (seeking shuriken/pillage/shattering impact gunblade, whatever) and voila! A dead lich/sister. And this is something only she can do. That's a pretty nice little niche if you ask me.  You could also even mix and match with stuff like rest and rage (particularly rage) or Roar or Xata's whisper to get even more results. It doesn't fix her issues, but she definitely has a place in the game at this point.

 

On Inaros: While he might not offer the same kind of raw tankiness of some other frames, he does have some pretty considerable advantages. First and foremost, He's super accessible early on, which is important because he is tanky where pretty much no other frame is: when our abilities get shut off. Inaros doesn't care if that's a nullifier.  No shield gating to worry about, simple mechanics to get him / keep him going.  And he's no slouch in CCing, which again, is something some of the tougher frames than him lack. I think he's boring personally, but when he's good he's god. 

No frame is useless, but some require more creativity to get going than others. And honestly, some are just weak. Never useless though. 

 

 

[Sintag]

I'd argue four frames are 'useless'.

 

Loki:  I like Loki.  His kit's still great for what it does, but the problem is that Warframe has moved on without it.  He needs a rework, something to give more utility, but even then I'd argue that it doesn't mesh too well with the current state of Warframe.

 

Nyx:  Good strip/CC, but her 1 just hurts my soul.  I know buffs are incoming and I'll certainly judge her based off the buffs once they hit, but right now she suffers because everything she can do, Revenant can do better.

 

Hydroid:  As others have noted, a mish-mash of abilities.  Good for point defense, but outclassed in that niche anyway.

Limbo:  There's other, far less difficult, far, FAR less rage-inducing means of doing what Limbo's capable of doing.  Honestly one of the few frames I'd call for a full rework to make the Rift less harsh for non-Limbos.

[JohnMorte]

I run arbitrations. A lot.

The most useless frame by far, to me, is limbo. Taking Limbo in arbitrations is basically griefing.

[Slayer-.]

14 minutes ago, JohnMorte said:

I run arbitrations. A lot.

The most useless frame by far, to me, is limbo. Taking Limbo in arbitrations is basically griefing.

Limbo has it use, I find Limbo does what I need in the right mission, BUT HELL NOOOOOOO not in Arbitration that's just a no no.

[Berzerkules]

3 hours ago, JohnMorte said:

I run arbitrations. A lot.

The most useless frame by far, to me, is limbo. Taking Limbo in arbitrations is basically griefing.

I always liked having a limbo in the squad when running endurance. They can banish or protect you in a bubble if you need to afk for a few min. 

I guess it's different in a organized squad vs. the random limbo in a pub arbi.

[Reitrix]

On 2021-09-27 at 12:22 AM, Raqiya said:

Lets be honest, his kit isn't great.
- Turning into a puddle isn't a fun or an interesting ability and that's especially the case after the size nerf. You could honestly just play Grendal, his whole gimmick is just a better puddle in everyway.
- The wave skill by itself isn't all that great either. Sure it gets the player from point A to point B but you can't really call it all that great.
- His CC with his four is unruly and unpredictable compared to other CC abilities making enemies harder to shoot/melee and summoning the tentacles from a puddle doesn't make it much better.
- His First ability is fine.
- The Passive is a joke.

That puddle is one of the better emergency safety buttons in my opinion. 

I get that the meme is for Hydroid to just sit in  puddle mode forever, but its better used as a tactical GTFO button. Especially when combined with it's augment to heal him while down there.

The main problem is the amount of damage getting thrown at him. Maybe it's just a solo issue, but even when I run him with Parasitic Armor to push him to Inaros levels of Armor DR, he lasts all of about 5 seconds in Steel Path, so I end up 8n puddle mode more often than shooting at things... But I guess that's a wider problem with the game as a whole, Hydroid just suffers pretty badly from it. 

Though for fun times, use Blood Altar instead of Tidal Surge. Watching a puddle pounce 50 meters across the room will never get old. 

An easy big tweak that would  mean a lot to Hydroid would be to remove the hold cast effect and just have it at full power on tap.

If also love for that tentacle passive to apply on every third melee hit in addition to Slams with no limit on number. 

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

On 2021-09-25 at 9:48 AM, Aldain said:

Pretty much just how broken invisibility is and not-the-worst-CC-in-the-game.

I'm convinced Loki's number one problem is Loki players these days, but I do think he isn't quite as much of a mess as Hydroid simply because I can see the concept of what Loki is supposed to do even if he's painfully outdated. I also believe that Decoy could be better just with a few adjustments to make it not made of toilet paper (and as I've said, putting Switch Teleport as a hold-cast and giving him a new 3rd ability).

Hydroid is just a mess though, his 1 is in the running for worst damage ability in the game by virtue of random accuracy (the augment sucks too) his 2 is a worse Slash Dash that costs more, his 3 is agonizingly slow and doesn't fit Warframe's gameplay at all, and his 4 is a mediocre CC used only because of the loot augment and because it is the best of his clownfest of a kit.

Honestly I'm still surprised they haven't made ST more of a "leave a surprise behind" ability. So you'd teleport the clone and cause it to explode, or teleport an enemy and have the enemy suck enemies into one place. 

Zane from Borderlands 3 is pretty much a perfect example of what I'm talking about, and it works just fine. Make it a secondary function of Decoy so it can also have use as a Subsumed ability and I'm sure with the right numbers it'd be a solid ability.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

7 hours ago, Slayer-. said:

Limbo has it use, I find Limbo does what I need in the right mission, BUT HELL NOOOOOOO not in Arbitration that's just a no no.

Maybe that's a bad thing and should be rectified. People see the issue with Limbo in Arbitrations but apparently he's fine against the Corpus and Infested, even though they feature the exact same limitations. 

[osd_daedalus]

No one talks about Mag anymore? Has it some usefulness now? (I haven't used it for a long time)
Anyway, with Helminth system even some of the "useless" frames can be top tier or fun to play, it just requires to think outside the box.

Since it was mentioned... I find Inaros useful for solo Hijack missions or when you are going after corrupted mods and you are bringing all of 4 dragon keys.

[Old_Fogie]

On 2021-09-26 at 8:08 AM, SneakyErvin said:

edit: And yeah Ivara is great for spy, but it is kinda her saving grace because all she brings aside of that is a weapon that does something that several normal weapons can do these days.

Ivara isn't a 1 trick spy pony if your really familiar with her. I've used her in SP survival, Arbi's, and defense. Peeps seem to forget how effective her dash wires are, and the associated augments. Additionally, unlocking [Silence] on a variety of weps gives a wide range of choices depending on missions. Her Arty bow does need some serious love though, as it doesn't match some of the top tier pin cushions of choice.

As for Yarelli and Hydroid. I have no opinion on Yarelli, as I don't have that frame.

Hydroid is kind of meh IMO. Definitely wouldn't take him to SP. He's ok for farming, but Khora has him beat... Badly. Beard Boy needs to update his style to todays piracy.

I actually like playing the Chaos Queen, and am looking forward with interest to see what DE does to update her.. Down side with that, is that DE has a history of "oopsies" when it comes to frame updates. So there's that worry as well.

As someone else mentioned, Pablo has publicly stated that no reworks were going to happen. So also kind of puzzled about this as well.

[SneakyErvin]

1 hour ago, Old_Fogie said:

Ivara isn't a 1 trick spy pony if your really familiar with her. I've used her in SP survival, Arbi's, and defense. Peeps seem to forget how effective her dash wires are, and the associated augments. Additionally, unlocking [Silence] on a variety of weps gives a wide range of choices depending on missions. Her Arty bow does need some serious love though, as it doesn't match some of the top tier pin cushions of choice.

Of course she isnt, but she doesnt do anything else really well. She can do other things, but most other frames just do it better. She stands out in spy along with Wukong due to trivializing all obstacles. I think one of my main issues with her is that she is very restricted in stealth if you dont constantly use dashwire, which in itself is another issues since it is tied to the horrible toggle system. Ontop of that stealth breaks whenever you shoot unless you use some form of silencer on her. Things that just makes her feel extra clunky and annoying/unfun to play. If she had some actual powerful trade off I wouldnt mind her clunkyness.

[RazerXPrime]

[Hypernaut1]

9 hours ago, Reitrix said:

That puddle is one of the better emergency safety buttons in my opinion. 

I get that the meme is for Hydroid to just sit in  puddle mode forever, but its better used as a tactical GTFO button. Especially when combined with it's augment to heal him while down there.

The main problem is the amount of damage getting thrown at him. Maybe it's just a solo issue, but even when I run him with Parasitic Armor to push him to Inaros levels of Armor DR, he lasts all of about 5 seconds in Steel Path, so I end up 8n puddle mode more often than shooting at things... But I guess that's a wider problem with the game as a whole, Hydroid just suffers pretty badly from it. 

Though for fun times, use Blood Altar instead of Tidal Surge. Watching a puddle pounce 50 meters across the room will never get old. 

An easy big tweak that would  mean a lot to Hydroid would be to remove the hold cast effect and just have it at full power on tap.

If also love for that tentacle passive to apply on every third melee hit in addition to Slams with no limit on number. 

I use a combination of puddle and tidal surge to keep enemies off balance. He can't tank damage. You definitely need some good weapons to supplement his playstyle in Steel Path. 

I appreciate his playstyle because it feels very analog. It's up to my creativity to get through a mission. His abilities aren't useless, they all do what they're supposed to do in all content, you just need to know when to use them. You can't just tank damage into a room, hit a button and CC everything 100%. 

 

[Eluminary]

There is nothing wrong with loki... 

Codex entry 

"Desired by advanced players, Loki offers a variety of specialized reconfiguring abilities. The creativity of Loki's powers allows players to master the battlefield through manipulation." 

[Reitrix]

2 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

I use a combination of puddle and tidal surge to keep enemies off balance. He can't tank damage. You definitely need some good weapons to supplement his playstyle in Steel Path. 

I appreciate his playstyle because it feels very analog. It's up to my creativity to get through a mission. His abilities aren't useless, they all do what they're supposed to do in all content, you just need to know when to use them. You can't just tank damage into a room, hit a button and CC everything 100%. 

 

My issue with how incoming damage works goes beyond just Hydroid lol. 
Recently I've been trying to bring all my frames up to be capable of playing in Steel path, but the problem I keep running headfirst into is how ridiculously squishy every frame is that doesn't have an immortality button. 
PS: Adaptation continues to elude me and i refuse to buy it with plat.

After a bad experience on my Excal Umbra (72% Armor DR, 1050 HP) getting absolutely slaughtered when a crappy confluence of bad mechanics hit me (I have the clip >_>) on an infested Survival, i went and actually confirmed the amount of damage that a single Charger does per swing. 
At level 155, that baseline number is ... 3000. 
So even shaving that down by the 70% Armor DR my Excal has, i still take 900 damage per swing from just 1 singular Charger. 
Checked in with basic Butchers, they did around 400 per swing and then checked in with normal Crewman to find that they took all of about 2.5 seconds to kill that Excal. Well, when they hit. Stormtrooper syndrome is strong in  them. 

This wouldn't be a problem with normal spawn rates or multiplayer to divide attention, But since i primarily play solo, I am a bullet magnet. Parkour only avoids so much damage, Its the odd handful of hits that do connect that are the problem. Death comes too quickly to trust Grace to heal. Too quickly for even a triple stacked Blood Atar to heal through. 
Hell, Its even a problem my Gloomspore Saryn can't heal though, despite taking upwards of 2k HP/s in densely packed rooms. 

A lot fewer frames would be considered useless if DE could figure out how to threaten Frames like Inaros in a way that didn't unjustly punish opther frames that cant achieve his level of meatshield. 

[sunderthefirmament]

11 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Of course she isnt, but she doesnt do anything else really well. She can do other things, but most other frames just do it better. She stands out in spy along with Wukong due to trivializing all obstacles. I think one of my main issues with her is that she is very restricted in stealth if you dont constantly use dashwire, which in itself is another issues since it is tied to the horrible toggle system. Ontop of that stealth breaks whenever you shoot unless you use some form of silencer on her. Things that just makes her feel extra clunky and annoying/unfun to play. If she had some actual powerful trade off I wouldnt mind her clunkyness.

I can't believe Ivara even came up in this topic.  She's much more than a spy frame, and her 3 is fine as is.  Stealth is incredibly overpowered in this game, and as long as it remains so Ivara will remain relevant.

 

Here are some non-spy areas where Ivara excels:

• open world mining/fishing/conservation
• open world bounties
• Grineer RJ
• Intrinsic farming (stealth farm)
• Lich/Sister final confrontation
• Riven challenges
• Survival and other endurance content
• Steel Path (the bow holds up with the right build)

 

If you're frustrated by how slow her 3 is, rolling and void dashing are fine for mitigating that.  But you don't need to be invisible all the time, especially now that shield gating is a thing.  I imagine you know all this, though, but I wanted to share where I find her effective and how I handle her mobility.

[pwnSacrifice]

15 hours ago, osd_daedalus said:

No one talks about Mag anymore? Has it some usefulness now? (I haven't used it for a long time)

Mag is easily one of the better frames in the game. Magnetize with the right weapon is crazy dps, ontop of on demand overshields.  Pull is good to suck more guys into magnetize as well as being emergency CC. Best starter in my opinion.

 

1 hour ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Here are some non-spy areas where Ivara excels:

• open world mining/fishing/conservation
• open world bounties
• Grineer RJ
• Intrinsic farming (stealth farm)
• Lich/Sister final confrontation
• Riven challenges
• Survival and other endurance content
• Steel Path (the bow holds up with the right build)

This, So much this. She's a crazy good utility frame, also capable of bananas damage. Aertemis Bow is extremely strong. Want to do your simaris grind in about 10 minutes? Ivara's great at that. Also the only "live" looter frame in the game for what that is worth. Ivara is perhaps the MOST useful frame in the game. Maybe not the "strongest" but extremely useful.  -edit Forgot she can also trivialize any and all interception, including arbitration. 

[Enialyx]

On 2021-09-25 at 9:25 PM, Uan91 said:

>Nyx 

>Inaros 

>Hydroid 

>Trinity 

These warframescare useless or close to be. Some have been deemed as outdated compared to newers or simply they have no reason to exist. 

Nyx: Mass MC has great crowd-control potential.

Inaros: Beefed up sandstorm is one of the best stationary CC abilities.

Hydroid: Only frame with 100% additional pilfer chance. Max range puddle in defense is quite relaxing.

Trinity: Go-to frame for keeping lures & Tenno alive in Hydrolyst hunts.

[SneakyErvin]

11 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

I can't believe Ivara even came up in this topic.  She's much more than a spy frame, and her 3 is fine as is.  Stealth is incredibly overpowered in this game, and as long as it remains so Ivara will remain relevant.

 

Here are some non-spy areas where Ivara excels:

• open world mining/fishing/conservation
• open world bounties
• Grineer RJ
• Intrinsic farming (stealth farm)
• Lich/Sister final confrontation
• Riven challenges
• Survival and other endurance content
• Steel Path (the bow holds up with the right build)

 

If you're frustrated by how slow her 3 is, rolling and void dashing are fine for mitigating that.  But you don't need to be invisible all the time, especially now that shield gating is a thing.  I imagine you know all this, though, but I wanted to share where I find her effective and how I handle her mobility.

She doesnt really excel at those.

• Mining, she excels in a few bugged out caves if you really must get all nodes in a run. Volt, Wisp or anyone else with great speed would be better overall for the full session. Fishing, no, only one frame excels at it due to being able to use any spear for any fish, that is Volt (you can actually cheese normal fishing on him with the highest Fortuna spear thanks to his passive). Conservation is best done with either Banshee due to innate silence or Loki with duration build and augment.
• Open world bounties, how does she excel at those?
• Grineer RJ, how does she excel at that?
• Intrinsic farming can be done by any frame now when everyone has access to Enox ability.
• Lich/sister, any stealth frame can trivialize it, so can several tank frames, and banshee can insta kill them. Out of the stealth frames Octavia is likely best.
• Riven challenges, that applies to every frame with a challenge that fits them. That list includes Saryn, Protea, Rhino, Ash and several other frames.
• Survival and other endurance, not really what I'd call excel. She has nothing that helps her kill faster or take care of crowds of enemies to speed things up. She used to be defense cheese if you were to push long, since she should cloak the objective and rely on covert lethality back then.
• The bow isnt really that great, it results in low kills per minutes, slow clear times and so on. The weapons we have access to does the job of the bow better, which kinda means picking the right weapon on nearly any other frame makes her whole kit obsolete.

Excel would mean she'd be one of the absolute top picks for those things. Currently she can do those, but she isnt a top pick for neither.

Having to roll or use void dash is kinda why the frustration is there with her 3. I still dont see the reason for neither stealth breaking on weapon sound or why it makes her move at snail pace. We have 3 other stealth frames that can keep their stealth up 24/7 and move at regular speeds and have access to all parkour. What makes Ivara's stealth special to justify gimped movement? Nothing.

[Reitrix]

4 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

What makes Ivara's stealth special to justify gimped movement? Nothing.

It's like to differentiate it from Ash and Loki invisibilities. 
Ash's is short duration, requiring constant recasts. 
Loki has a longer duration but he doesn't do anything special while invisible. 
Ivara's provides headshot multipliers for a damage buff AND a built-in pilfer mechanic at the cost of mobility. 

However, if you use her Infiltrate Augment with good power strength and take advantage of rolling, She can cover a lot of ground quite quickly. Especially if you use Motus Leap on her. You can build a decent amount of momentum and go into an aim glide to get around as well. 

For sure, its less mobile than Ash and Loki, But it also uniquely offers that headshot multiplier, making it a dual offensive and defensive buff. That's probably their justification in the penalty. 

Also, dunno why you'd think Artemis Bow is weak. With Concentrated Arrow augment and 295 Strength, My zero forma thrown together trash build one shots level 155 Heavy Gunners. 
Admittedly, i dont play her in Steel Path for damage purposes, so I'm unsure how well it'll scale outside of testing. 

[Azamagon]

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

-snip-

Having to roll or use void dash is kinda why the frustration is there with her 3. I still dont see the reason for neither stealth breaking on weapon sound or why it makes her move at snail pace. We have 3 other stealth frames that can keep their stealth up 24/7 and move at regular speeds and have access to all parkour. What makes Ivara's stealth special to justify gimped movement? Nothing.

Preach it bro! (Especially the snailpace anti-parkour thing)

[SneakyErvin]

33 minutes ago, Reitrix said:

It's like to differentiate it from Ash and Loki invisibilities. 
Ash's is short duration, requiring constant recasts. 
Loki has a longer duration but he doesn't do anything special while invisible. 
Ivara's provides headshot multipliers for a damage buff AND a built-in pilfer mechanic at the cost of mobility. 

However, if you use her Infiltrate Augment with good power strength and take advantage of rolling, She can cover a lot of ground quite quickly. Especially if you use Motus Leap on her. You can build a decent amount of momentum and go into an aim glide to get around as well. 

For sure, its less mobile than Ash and Loki, But it also uniquely offers that headshot multiplier, making it a dual offensive and defensive buff. That's probably their justification in the penalty. 

Also, dunno why you'd think Artemis Bow is weak. With Concentrated Arrow augment and 295 Strength, My zero forma thrown together trash build one shots level 155 Heavy Gunners. 
Admittedly, i dont play her in Steel Path for damage purposes, so I'm unsure how well it'll scale outside of testing. 

You can do alot on her by giving up alot of other things when she doesnt bring much to the table to begin with. Her pilfer is neglectable since mobs are probably dead long before you get in range or the thing has time to steal anything. I'd take movement speed and free parkouring over a headshot bonus any day of the week given the fast paced nature of WF. Artemis had its time with concentrated arrow for those that wanted to play an AoE stealth frame. That however can be achieved with all the stealth frames now given the access we have both to weapons and helminth skills.

Ivara isnt bad or useless, she just isnt really good either.

[sunderthefirmament]

10 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

She doesnt really excel at those.

• Mining, she excels in a few bugged out caves if you really must get all nodes in a run. Volt, Wisp or anyone else with great speed would be better overall for the full session. Fishing, no, only one frame excels at it due to being able to use any spear for any fish, that is Volt (you can actually cheese normal fishing on him with the highest Fortuna spear thanks to his passive). Conservation is best done with either Banshee due to innate silence or Loki with duration build and augment.
• Open world bounties, how does she excel at those?
• Grineer RJ, how does she excel at that?
• Intrinsic farming can be done by any frame now when everyone has access to Enox ability.
• Lich/sister, any stealth frame can trivialize it, so can several tank frames, and banshee can insta kill them. Out of the stealth frames Octavia is likely best.
• Riven challenges, that applies to every frame with a challenge that fits them. That list includes Saryn, Protea, Rhino, Ash and several other frames.
• Survival and other endurance, not really what I'd call excel. She has nothing that helps her kill faster or take care of crowds of enemies to speed things up. She used to be defense cheese if you were to push long, since she should cloak the objective and rely on covert lethality back then.
• The bow isnt really that great, it results in low kills per minutes, slow clear times and so on. The weapons we have access to does the job of the bow better, which kinda means picking the right weapon on nearly any other frame makes her whole kit obsolete.

Excel would mean she'd be one of the absolute top picks for those things. Currently she can do those, but she isnt a top pick for neither.

Having to roll or use void dash is kinda why the frustration is there with her 3. I still dont see the reason for neither stealth breaking on weapon sound or why it makes her move at snail pace. We have 3 other stealth frames that can keep their stealth up 24/7 and move at regular speeds and have access to all parkour. What makes Ivara's stealth special to justify gimped movement? Nothing.

The appeal to her mining isn't speed, admittedly.  It's in not getting bothered.  Same for fishing.

 

Her kit works well for most bounties, as she's a solid mix of single target damage, CC, stealth, and support.  You can't really tailor what type of bounty you're going to get, so I like to bring frames with versatile kits.

 

She works well for Grineer RJ for some of the same reasons above.  You tend to face fewer enemies, but they're tougher.  There's no need for a nuker, so Ivara does quite well with her focused damage (though she can nuke, but I don't love that build).  The CC helps there too.  I will admit that this isn't as much of an issue now with NPC crew that can easily keep an RJ safe, but it was handy having the ability to pacify an entire boarding crew in one ability cast to turn them into easy, high affinity pickings.

 

I think this might be an argument of semantics, though, at least in regards to two words: excel and useless.  Ivara is not useless, so she shouldn't have come up in this thread at all.  And Ivara does excel at the things I mentioned in my original post, if we take excel to mean "be exceptionally good at or proficient in an activity or subject."

 

Look, not that I'm stalking you, but I've wasted enough time on these forums to know that I generally agree with what you say about this game.  If Ivara is not for you, that's really all there is to it.  I find her to be an effective and even exceptional choice for a lot of content, but if you haven't had that experience with her it's not on me to say that you're wrong or anything.  Happy Friday!