Difficulty Curve

[Zapzya]

So I began playing Warframe, picked Mag, slowly made my way through the game and got my friend to help me get Rhino. I am now in the position of having a level 17 Latron, level 14 Rhino, level 23 Sicarus and level 10 Cronus. I cannot seem to do much damage past Venus, along with taking a lot. I'm rank 3, and just wondering if I'm doing something wrong which is causing me to do much less damage, or is the game just really hard?

 

Any advice on what to build, what deals damage, priorities of equipment and such, any of that would be great thanks.

[jonnin]

first off -- mag is an excellent frame.  Pull is cheap, big aoe and can outright kill things up to a fairly decent level.   Second, rhino is a good frame BUT it has a problem: the temptation to be immoratal via ironskin 100% of the time in lowbie missions (up to enemy level 20 or so) leads to bad habits; you can go all "terminator" on the enemy and just wade thru without taking damage, trying to dodge or anything, just kill kill kill without any concern at personal safety etc.  This has merits for leveling up new guns and such, but its not really good for new players to get in the habit of playing this way.  

 

Mods that drop are tied to something but I do not yet know what.   It might be a function of mastery rank,  or total experience earned, something like that.  But regardless, as you play, you soon find the same old mobs dropping new, better mods that are useful.   Just all of a sudden someday you get stuff like flow or stretch which help your frame powers a LOT, or better gun mods etc.   Sometimes, the only problem is you have not yet played long enough to progress deeper.  Other times, its a lack of understanding.

 

On the lack of understanding --- each enemy type is resistant and vulnerable to different damage types.  The higher the level the enemy, the more this matters.  Impact is good for shields, but stinks on grineer.  Puncture is great on grineer/armor, but stinks on shields.   Also, some enemy weapons are very dangerous, others not so much --- that guy corpus guy with the full auto shotgun can kill you in 5 seconds while the idiot with the machine pistol can shoot all day without scratching the finish on your frame.   So you have to have a damage type that works against the enemy you are facing and you have to prioritize your targets to kill or avoid dangerous enemy.   

 

Another thing is lack of time invested.    Your warframe's shield and health mods need to be ranked up (not for rhinoob immortal play, but we already said not to do that as a "strategy")  before you go on to tougher areas.  Your weapons need ranked mods as well.   It takes time to develop a set of mods that are capable of moving on up.  

 

And yet another thing.. not all missions are equally difficult.   Defense solo in early, weak gear is "nearly impossible" while the exact same level mission for exterminate is boringly easy.    Keep an eye on which mission types seem too hard and group up for those or avoid them until you have better stuffs. 

 

cover, rapid movement, not being hit, killing efficiently,  well timed use of your frame skills are the keys.  Practice those things. 

 

Or, TLDR, ....  you need gear to do harder content, which takes playtime invested in earning it, and knowledge of a handful of game mechanics about what damage types work on what enemy.  You also need to upgrade your gear to the best stuff you can as soon as you can. 

[K-TheHunter]

i also had problems in venus because of the corpus shield's but what you need is serration and magnetic damage, i also recommend picking up a stronger primary, like Paris, but im not sure if you can already buy it from the market, just focus on the modding of your weapons and try studyng the game, like the enemys your weapons etcetera, also sry for bad english

[StinkyPygmy]

This game has a backwards difficulty curve oddly enough. So its about as hard as it will ever be for you but you should manage fine.

It all really depends on what mods you have at the moment otherwise most weapons will get you through up to the last planet.

The latron is a decent enough weapon and should be fine.

 

My biggest piece of advice would be to know what dmg type weaknesses each faction has and mod for those.

 

A quick simple breakdown is:

Corpus - Magnetic dmg (electricity+cold dmg) for shields or toxin to by pass shields completely

Grineer - Corrosive (toxin+electricity) dmg which is good against armor and reduces it when you proc a status affect. Radiation (Electric+fire) is also not bad against the grineer as their heavy troops are weak against it.

Infested - Corrosive for the ancients and gas for the smaller guys.

 

Take cover often, grab as many friends as you can to help and learn to mod effectively and you should be fine.

 

The wiki is your friend!

[GinKenshin]

latron is a good dmg dealer, so keep that and then farm for latron p, if you want an auto go for grakta, it's fun and strong and easy to get

for the sicarus, it's not that good, go for lex/bolto/magnus instead if you like, or the kunai-type weapons 

the cronus is a good starter, when you can go for the orthos or nikana--->dragon nikana

as for your builds, here's what you want: 

if it has a crit chance lower than 10% then don't use crit mod
the element vs faction is:
radiation (fire+ electirc) VS grineer, also get viral (toxin+cold) if you have a slot
magnetic (cold+electric) for corpus, also put toxin if you have a slot
fire for the common ones infested and corrosive (electric+toxin) for the ancients 
puncture is good VS grineer
impact is good VS corpus and slash is good for infested basically, but you can still bring them for other factions 

and always use damage mods on your weapons  

Edited October 31, 2014 by Kenshin98

[RandomSurge]

You just need to find some good mods like 2Xshot and base dmg modifier(also you will need elemental combos). And some weapons are just better then others.

[DayInTheSun]

I was stuck on those missions for a while too.  Corpus can feel pretty difficult at times because of all of their shielded units pew pewing at you constantly.

 

Any time you are stuck on a certain map I'd definitely try to evaluate my curent set of mods.  Hopefully your Rhino is leveled enough where he can slot in fused vitality and shield mods.  For your weapons, try to upgrade your damage mods (Serration, etc.) and then tack on some elemental mods if you have the space as they make a gigantic difference.

 

Gameplay wise, playing solo can be a lot more difficult.  Playing with other people in my opinion is a lot more fun and you will usually have a more easier time.  If you do play solo, you probably just need to play a little more tactical.  Before jumping into a room guns blazing you should try to assess which units are the biggest threats and try to pick them off first before committing to a fight.  Using cover is very important in solo play in particular.

[perfectStranger]

As for primary weapon start building a karak or a grakata, then when you are high enough in mastery rank build a Soma

For secondary kunai are great.

For melee build an Orthos, then a nikana and finally a  dragon nikana.

 

Fuse all your cores into these mods until 5th rank at least (after the 5th it start to be really expensive, so save it for later in the game): Redirection, Serration (the 10 rank one, not the 3 rank one), Vitality

Fuse the reamaining cores into the elemental damage mods for your primary weapon: Infected Clip, Stormbringer, Hellfire, Cryo Rounds

As for which enemy to use them and how to mix them read the wiki page on the damage 2.0-> http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_2.0

 

There are similar elemental damage mods and multishot mods for your secondary and for your melee weapon, but start by modding your primary weapon, because is the one you will probably use most.

 

Try to get your hands on the multi-shot mod for your primary->Split Chamber

and some energy related mod for your warframe like Flow and Streamline, so you can use your abilities more often.

 

Also get an aura for you warframe, if you go with rhino and mostly use the primary weapon go for Rifle Amp, it will increase your and all your squad rifle damage, but also it will increase your max allowed mods energy capacity on your rhino by 14 points at max rank.

Edited October 31, 2014 by perfectStranger

[Lorthos_Mornin]

-snip-

 

Yep, what this guy said.

[d1sc1p1e]

oh man i love me some Mag, brilliant frame. this is, even though it doesn't look like it on the face of it, an MMO, so all the basic rules apply. certain enemies are resistant to certain damage types and weak to others, gear takes forever to upgrade, resources are scarce and credits slim. as ridiculous as it sounds a decent ammount of time needs to be spent in the Wiki studying these aspects of the game or you end up incredibly frustrated and feel like you're getting nowhere fast.

 

what jonnin said is right on, i'd only add that it takes time so patience is required. by the time you're MR6 you won't be stressing about resources or credits or getting constantly pwned, but it will take some time to get there.

 

number one advice is join a clan and ask them for help, that's what they're there for. you could end up with a vet giving you BP's and/or Mods, taxis to high level farming/bosses and even babysitting to help you level up.