Need Help Advice With Frame!

[Wavytron]

Hey guys I got some platinum and was wondering what I should get besides weapon slots and frame slots?
I love melee combat and was wondering which frames I should be looking at as well as weapons to look for?
I was leaning towards Valkyr.  Please any and all tips/suggestions would be appreciated.  

[(PSN)STRYKEofINSANITY]

No matter the hate it gets, Excalibur and his Exalted Blade will always be a favorite of mine. I'd also recommend getting an Atterax or some other high crit chance weapon, get a crit build on it, and use Hysteria with Valkyr, because her melee attacks are also modified by certain melee weapon mods such as Berserker :)

[xXRampantXx]

Valkyr is a good melee 'Frame, but she's also very easy to get without buying.  Generally, it is best to avoid buying 'Frames and weapons with plat unless they're really hard to get without.

[Wavytron]

Oh okay, besides her are there any other frames that excel in melee? Or any other useful frames in general? Good weapons?

[(PSN)MrNishi]

Oh okay, besides her are there any other frames that excel in melee? Or any other useful frames in general? Good weapons?

As xxRampartXx stated : avoid spending plat on the actual Warframe

Slots go much further.

Melee Frames(Have abilities that directly are affected by Melee combat):

Saryn(Toxic Lash), Excalibur(Slash Dash, Radial Blind*, & Exalted Blade...if using Augment then Radial Javelin can also boost melee combat), Valkyr(Paralysis*, WarCry, Hysteria all melee oriented), WuKong(Iron Jab, CloudWalker*, Primal Fury), Atlas(1st ability Landslide)

* Abilities = are AoE melee Finisher setup abilities

WuKong is easy to get if you are doing n a clan and collect Nitatin Extract from Alerts (Alert only resource)

Saryn(Sedna boss), Excalibur(Pluto Boss), and Valkyr(Jupiter Boss) are easily faramable...might need a taxi to boss fight to farm drops.

Excalibur has melee passive bonus:

From wiki- Excalibur has improved mastery in the Tenno art of the blade, receiving +10% attack speed and +10% damage when dealing melee attacks (including via Exalted Blade) while wielding the following weapons:

Longswords, such as the Skana.

Dual swords, such as the Dual Skana.

Nikanas, such as the Dragon Nikana.

Rapiers, such as the Destreza.

Bonuses are additive to mods such as Pressure Point and Fury.

WuKong's passive allows melee hit counter to last 5seconds instead of the base 3 before combo-count resets.

Saryn passively increases Status Duration by 25%. (This can be helpful if you decide to build a high-Status melee Weapon with DoT Procs (Bleed/Slash,Toxin,Heat)

-Since Saryn can apply Toxin and Viral at will...it would be better to build a Slash oriented Weapon to have those Armor Ignore Bleed procs do their work on halve-health enemies (ie....Tonbo)

Volt, Mirage, Ash, and Chroma, (Banshee/Loki/Ivara/Nova/Limbo/Rhino) to an extant can Bolster melee damage.

Volt with Shocking Speed Augment makes for a great melee frame.

Ash more-so uses melee hit counter to boost Bladestorm damage at the moment.

Mirage & Chroma can boost all Weapon damage (Same with Banshee/Limbo/Rhino/Nova) so they can also boost melee damage output.

Loki and Ash can provide the same melee 400% Stealth/Unalerted bonus that Radial Blind or Mirage Prism Blind/ Oberon Reckoning Blind provides. But only on 1st hit of Enemy...(I think ?....I'll double check)

Also, probably should be moved to Players helping Players.

Edited January 23, 2016 by (PS4)MrNishi

[Kryshok]

Well Mirage is one of the bette frames out there and you can't go wrong with Nova. 

 

Now if you really want to spend plat on a frame and you don't have him...Loki for 75 plat you get the frame, slot and reactor in one of the most useful frames in the game.

[NinjaZeku]

If you want a Frame that can withstand lotsa punishment to get some pwning going on in melee range,

e.g. Excalibur, Valkyr, Chroma, Atlas or Wukong should do the trick just fine.

 

Though you can also build e.g. a Trinity focusing on Link (or lol 99% Blessing god mode),

she'll be both durable and, moreso than (some of) the above, a strong support asset to any Squad.

 

Ash and Loki can very easily wreck some serious **** in melee, dat Stealth damage multiplier = yowza.

 

Rhino has AoE damage boost and crowd control options that work well no matter what weapon you're using

and Iron Skin can carry you for ~a good while (just don't start relying solely on it, higher missions will shred it easily).

 

As for weapons, I loves me some Heavy Blades (Galatine, Scindo Prime, War) and the Jat Kittag (wee slam attack)

but the Orthos Prime is just so stupid good with its ridiculous range, dat slide attack AoE with Primed Reach :D

[KiloFoxx]

Valkyr is a good melee 'Frame, but she's also very easy to get without buying.  Generally, it is best to avoid buying 'Frames and weapons with plat unless they're really hard to get without.

This, This, SO much this. You should almost NEVER buy something you can easily farm, or you're basically paying to skip content

 

Excal and Valk are your go-to melee frames, but Wukong and Atlas are up there as well. of the 4, I prefer Valk myself (EDIT: Saryn CAN also count, what with Toxic Lash and how her Spore mechanics work, but I'd hesitate to call her a Melee frame myself. Still really fun frame though, she's one of my mains)

 

Galatine is your friend with Valk, easily the strongest Melee weapon you can get when compared to ease of aquisition. YES it's outclassed by Scindo Prime and War, but those are CONSIDERABLY harder to get, and Galatine will serve you VERY well until you can aquire those

Broken-War is also worth mentioning, as the strongest weapon in it's class

Tekko is great for Hysteria builds (as modding for IT to be powerful (Crit weapon) also makes Hysteria powerful, so you can continue to use the Tekko even out of Hysteria)

Dual Ichor I find are stronger than Tekko, while also being similar to Hysteria in how to maximize them mod-wise, and are one of the stronger Dual-Sword weapons (despite TECHNICALLY being Axes)

 

Pretty sure you wanted good MELEE weapons, but Imma list a few Firearms for good measure

The Hek is a wonder to use, capable of reaching ridiculous damage (mine deals nearly 50K damage PER SHOT) as well as a Syndicate mod that HEALS you every so often.

Sancti Tigris rivals the Hek in power, but is quite a bit harder to aquire, and I prefer the Hek personally, mainly 'cause I HATE the Tigris' unique trigger

Boltor (Prime) will always be a go-to fav for most players as it deals great damage and pins enemies to walls. watch that bullet travel time though

Algstrum and Kulstar are AMAZING Secondaries, but mind the Self-Damage

Sonicor is another popular choice for Secondaries, even though it SCREAMS "Noise Marine" to me (hehe, get it?)

(Prisma) Gorgon (if you're lucky enough to get one) used to be a VERY popular choice, though I personally hate it

Soma (Prime) is seen a TONNE and another popular choice as a Crit weapon

Tonkor has seen INSANE popularity lately, and also allows you to rocket-jump fairly safely

Synoid Simulor is also popular, but I dislike it immensely and it seems to require very specific builds to play properly. Devastating when used right though

Edited January 23, 2016 by KiloFoxx

[(XBOX)Crow5906]

Although valkyr is the best in melee in my opinion i would have to recommend Atlas. He is more fun to play as you dont have to 4 to win every time, and you wont have to mash B as much. If your looking to buy, dont waste plat on valkyr she is one of the easier frames to farm.

[jonnin]

melee ivara perma prowl is nice and shes hard to get so a good plat buy.

 

be creative too.  MANY frames work great with melee builds ... nyx?  Sure, chaos and charge in.   Mag? Knock everyone down and go at it, pull them to you and chop chop.    Atlas ... monkey punch everything to death while being immune to knockarounds and with distracting pets.     Look at each frame's abilities and ask a new question .. what does this DO for me with melee?  You will find a lot of ways to do cool things if you look at it from that angle.

 

But you really can't beat ivara for melee if you don't mind the stealthy kills.  30k or so per hit?  Extra focus?  0 damage taken?  A little slow, but very slick setup.

[Wavytron]

Wow thank you everyone for being very informative. Was not expecting all these replies so quickly. Great community! I'm fairly new here just started with my little brother. I've been looking over the guides and such but didn't find much on frames and what frame is good at what.

[ashrah]

excalibur is really well rounded one of better frames right now

[(XBOX)VehementCrusher]

There's some great info above, so I'll just add my two cents.  Don't forget about Aura's... Steel Charge gives the whole group a large melee damage buff and can be combined with coaction drift (one of the new moon mods after 2nd dream) for an even stronger aura affect.

 

Consider atlas or wukong with the shade sentinel or a huras kubrow.  They can make you invisible when not attacking with weapons, and you can remain invisible while using warframe abilities.  This invisibility is NOT affected by nulifiers.

 

For melee weapons, that depends on your style and what you have access to.  I am particular to anku (for puncture dmg) and the newer mios (for slash), both are available in the dojo labs.

 

Once you figure out the style you like, it really just comes down to modding.  Weapons with higher crit chance and crit dmg, build for the crits and for speed and dmg (berserker, fury, spoiled strike, etc.).  Weapons with lower crits and higher status chance, build for elemental damages.  Combining elements for various elemental procs.  Also using dual-stat mods like volcanic edge are recommended as they increase dmg and status chance.

[KiloFoxx]

Wow thank you everyone for being very informative. Was not expecting all these replies so quickly. Great community! I'm fairly new here just started with my little brother. I've been looking over the guides and such but didn't find much on frames and what frame is good at what.

I'll quick-synopsis each frame then, as well as generalizing each frame as "X Frame" for easy frame-of-reference. I've played since Closed Beta and have played with every frame. Now I may say that some frames have their jobs done better by others, but if the Frame's Aesthetics appeal to you, go nuts. pretty much EVERY frame is Viable (Except Oberon currently) it's just a matter of how you build/play them

 

Ash - Ninja frame, decent at Stealth, his 4 basically WILL kill what it hits, just can take a while (and unfortunately takes you out-of-action during, so it's basically a cutscene fight that'd be MUCH cooler if you could actually y'know, DO it yourself rather than watch)

Atlas- Earth Frame, Sturdy (passive makes him Immune to knockdown while on ground) and steadfast, Atlas focuses on being essentially a Stone Wall. His Rumblers and Tectonics are handy (A summon and a Wall respectively) but I personally find many other frames do his job better. Decent Tank with some damage potential, though not much CC (Crowd Control) outside his 1

Banshee- Sound Frame. The CC queen, Banshee excells at it. Her Sonar allows for added damage (though can be finnicky) Silence gives her a little stealth (barely) and her 1 and 4 both give her insane CC potential. Many people get LOTS of mileage from her, others hate her. YMMV (your Mileage May Vary)

Chroma- Dragon Frame. Capable of having THE highest Armour in the game (Solo) Chroma is a tank. with a unique mechanic that alters his powers based on his ENERGY colour between Toxic, Cold, Fire, and Electric (Greens, Whites, Reds, and Blues respectively) Chroma can find a niche with almost anybody. though Heat and Cold are by far the most popular choices (Upped HP and Armour respectively) He's a complicated frame, but is well worth the effort if he appeals to you. Great for Tactical play, as his 4 basically creates an AutoTurret for you

Ember- Fire Frame. Ember is pretty basic, but that's not a bad thing. she works very well for what she does, and her World On Fire (her 4) can make Exterminate Missions an almost Literal walk-in-the-park if modded correctly. She starts to fall off in damage later on, but she's almost invaluble if you have the space for her simply for how quick and easy she can make many almost necessary runs.

Equinox- Yin-Yang Frame. Equinox is... complex. she effectively has 7 Powers due to how her 1 changes her form between Day and Night, and her other 3 powers change respectively. I personally prefer the CC and Healing potential of Night Form (Rest is VERY handy when used right) though her 4 WRECKS infested in Day form. YMMV, but she's certainly interesting regardless

Excalibur- Sword Frame- Swords Swords Swords Swords Swords Swords. His 1 is a dash forward with a Sword, His 2 is a Blind with a Sword, his 3 sends many Swords outwards from him radially, and his 4 conjures a Sword that shoots Sword beams to Sword you enemies Sword Sword Sword. Great Starter frame with a well-rounded kit, bit of a one-trick-pony IMO though. Still a very viable choice even in Late Game... **NOTE** Excal Prime is Founder Exclusive, and will never get re-released. Excal Umbra is coming though as basically a publicly available equivalent.

Frost- Ice Frame. King of Defense, Frost is almost required in high-level play that involves defending an object. which is about 60% of all missions. Frost will get a LOT of play if you chose him, and he's well-built for it. His 1 is lackluster (as is many 1s) His 2 has good CC, His 3 forms an impenetrable bubble that slows enemies inside, basically creating an impromptu safe-haven with radial cover, and his 4 is a radial wave of Ice that freezes enemies. Great CC is you build Duration (I don't) Decent damage if you build Power. I highly recommend this frame

Hydroid- Pirate Frame. Arguably the king of Interception, Hydroid really shines in that mode due to his Undertow ability. However he's still got an interesting and useful kit, particularly for loot farming with his 4's Augment. But due to how players focus on one or two things the frame does BEST, he's typically relegated to looting and Intercept. Still a good frame though

Ivara- Archer Frame. A great Stealth Frame, arguably just behind Loki due to her not being able to run while invisible (if she could run, she'd be better) Ivara has a VERY varied kit that makes her useful almost anywhere, and surprisingly great CC with her Sleep Arrows. VERY difficult to acquire with her RNG, but WELL worth the time. I highly recommend this frame

Limbo- Banish Frame. Limbo is... well kinda in Limbo. MANY players HATE him, others really kinda like him. Regardless though, he has a HIGH skill barrier to play properly without infuriating your team, and takes a lot of work to get right. I simply can't do him justice in a short blurb. Read over his skills carefully and remember that Items cannot be picked up while in the Rift, and you cannot shoot INTO, or OUT of his Cataclysm bubble. He's very complex and just hard to play with synergy in a team. USE WITH CAUTION

Loki- Trickster Frame. Loki is the current King of Stealth, though Ivara Vies for that crown on his head. He works great as an "Off Tank" (Someone that stays alive 'cause they never get hit if you're not familiar with the term) and his 4 can strip ALL enemies of their ranged weapons if used right, and with his Augment they start targeting friend and foe alike, giving him REALLY good CC. almost a must for players who vary their play and don't have steady groups, as he's useful/asked for in a LOT of situations

Mag- Magnetic Frame. Honestly, Mag is barely worth the time unless you're fighting HIGH level Corpus anymore. She USED to be god-tier back in Closed Beta, but she got hit with nerf after nerf and never really recovered. Still viable if played right, though she's not as useful as she seems/could be. Her 1 is amazing for CC and decent for damage when built for Range and Power, and the only other reason to play her is her Shield Disruptor on high-level Corpus (where she WRECKS them) She's still VERY squishy and while Bullet Attractor has its uses (and is very strong on its own) you basically sacrifice it to get use out of her other 2 good abilities and even built for it, most places it WOULD be useful, fall flat as she's not really good overall in that scenario.

Mesa-Gunslinger frame. Honestly one of the harder frames to acquire ATM simply due to how few people run her mission, and that it's still locked with a Key (Like Hydroid used to be) She's got interesting mechanics, But I'd wait for a rework on her before giving her TOO much time. She's still viable though, and Shatter Shield and Shooting Gallery can make for some really fun moments. She's definitely Niche though

Mirage- Harlequin Frame. Honestly I believe she Deserves the Trickster title MORE than Loki, but whatever. She's mostly played for her 1 and her 4, as Night and Day doesn't work right ATM due to wonky lighting detection. Hall Of Mirrors basically splits you into 5, effectively tripling your damage output. combine with either Simulor or an Explosive weapon and watch the Devastation at work, and a Prism Ball built for Range and Duration can stunlock an entire map

Nekros Lootmonkey Frame Errr. Necromancer Frame. Imma be honest, If you run Nekros, most people will expect you to spam 3, Desecrate, over and over to re-roll drop tables. But that's boring. With his Augment (and proper modding which makes Desecrate useless) Shadows of the Dead can EFFECTIVELY give Nekros 95% Damage Reduction while active, and his Terrify sunders enemy armour. PLAYED RIGHT Nekros is ridiculously powerful. But everyone expects him to be a loot-monkey so that's what he's relegated to.

Nezha- Fire Frame ON ICE. I'm not joking, his passive makes him slide around like he's on ice. He's hilarious and ridiculous to play, but OOOOHHH so much fun. His Warding Halo makes him a discount Rhino and a GREAT tank, while Divine Spears is actually pretty good CC, and Blazing Chakram is a great movement skill WITH good damage. he's an all-round blast and comes highly recommended if you can get him

Nova- Michel Bay Frame. BOOM BOOM EXPLOSIONS! Mr. Torgue would be proud of this frame. TECHNICALLY the Antimatter frame, I feel my description fits better. She makes things go kaboom. Very useful in most game modes, though I find her rather bland to play, others have a (literal) blast with her. YMMV, but overall recommended.

Nyx- Psychic/Chaos Frame. She makes the enemy fight each other, giving her amazing CC, and her 4 absorbs and redirects enemy (and friendly) fire (no FF damage though, just ups the damage she deals to the enemy) She doesn't see MUCH play due to others doing her job and being more versatile/popular, but she will DOMINATE the battlefield when she's around. Also her Prime looks like a tribute to Ridley Scott (Director of Alien)

Oberon- The "No" frame. Fine fine I'll do him proper

Oberon- The Paladin frame. Oberon sucks currently. but in case there's a rework around the corner, here's his current shtick. He's basically a Paladin. Ranged damage? his 1 (though it sucks). Area Purification? His 2 (though it sucks). Healing? His 3 (though it sucks). Divine Punishment? his 4 (though it sucks). There's really no justice TO be done to this frame, he's just overall bland and not very powerful. none of his abilities have any real kill potential unless spammed (yes, even his 4) and he's just overall Meh. I do NOT Recommend this frame. keep his BPs around in case he gets herder to get, but wait for his rework.

Rhino- Tank Frame. The original tank, Rhino has excellent self-preservation. His Roar buffs team damage, and he even gets a little CC with his 4. a good starter frame (Fitting for dropping on Venus) but gets outclassed by the team-protection from Frost, Chroma's superior armour and CC, and Valkyr's outright INVULNERABILITY. Still a great frame, but ends up outclassed outside his niche

Saryn- The Toxic Frame. The prior queen of face-melting, she is the current reigning champion of mass-area DoT (Damage over Time) She's a tad complicated now, having you swap between Toxic Lash (which REALLY needs to be a Toggle) and Spore with molt as your escape and Miasma as a panic button. ALL her powers play off each other giving her a bit of a barrier to entry, but master it and you'll be spreading death wherever you go. Difficult, but awesome

Trinity- Medic Frame/Infinite Energy Frame. Energy Vampire basically gives the team infinite Energy to play with. not much else to be said there... She also has 2 heals (1 and 4 respectively) and Link makes her pretty tanky, but lets face it. she's played for the infinite energy that augments Shields with her augment. **You will NEVER have a hard time finding a group as Trinity**

Valkyr- Berserker Frame. I love Valk personally. Her 1 turns you into Spiderman, her 2 Buffs your Armour and Melee speed like CRAZY, her 3 is Meh CC that opens up Finishers for those tough enemies, and her 4 is a straight-up Invul state that you can sustain almost endlessly but limits you to melee combat. great power synergy with a LOW barrier to entry, I HIGHLY Recommend Valk. but don't get too used to her as she can teach some BAD habits.

Vauban-Trap Frame. Wait this frame EXISTS? is what many people will say upon seeing him. ONLY dropping from all-too-rare alerts only up for an hour at a time, there are people who've played for YEARS still trying to get Vauban. In all, he's kinda lackluster though. He's a potential CC GOD, but he lacks the defensive qualities to cash in on that. He has his Niches, but most of them are for Farming runs.

Volt- Electric Frame. Volt really kinda sucks unless you're fighting Corpus, and suffers from the same things Mag does. he Boasts THE highest shields in the game, and his Speed makes him ideal for speed-runs on missions (even augmenting Melee speed, Stack this with Valk's Warcry and laugh) but outside that niche he really sucks unless fighting Corpus.

Wukong- The Monkey King. Wukong is hard to pin down, as he has a lot of aspects of other frames. but he's primarily a Tank with Stealth elements. Defy acts kind of like Valk's Invul, but with more consequences (though not limiting him to melee) while Primal Fury is the other half of Valk's 4. Cloudwalker gives him basically flight with some Invisibility, though the drain is killer, and Iron Jab is, well a Jab. not much to expect from a 1. Interesting frame, but I find other frames do it better. Better to run Chroma or Valk for tankiness, and Even Ash is better at Stealth.

Zephyr. Wind Frame. I love this frame. she's fun to play, but needs a rework since Parkour 2.0 made a lot of her kit redundant. Still Turbulence is AMAZING at making her an evasive tank, and if you manage to get BOTH Agility Drift AND Aviator than her floatyness makes her get the MOST from those mods, giving her about 45% Damage Reduc while in the air. if her rework gives her Cloudwalker-esque flight (which is REALLY should) than that'll make her an amazing tank DESPITE the LOWEST armour in the game. Her Tornado needs to go though, as unless you're in a low-ceiling area, you're not really gonna do much with 'em. which is a shame because they should be SO much more powerful. As she's currently built, run Heavy Impact to augment the Dive Bomb damage. though I expect Dive Bomb and Tailwind to be merged come rework (assuming she keeps 'em)

[(PSN)MrNishi]

@ Kilofoxx - Thank you ever so kindly.

Huge +1

[KiloFoxx]

@ Kilofoxx - Thank you ever so kindly.

Huge +1

It took a while to type up XP.

 

Everyone do keep in mind that all that is simply MY OPINIONS. Yes I'm MR 21, Yes I'm a Founder, Yes I've played every frame and been playing for a LONG time, but with every frame your mileage may vary. I find Frost rediculously useful in literally everything, but someone else may find his relative slowness to gimp him and make him unplayable or just bad. granted I really doubt that, but it can happen. I harp on how bad Oberon is, but you may pick him up and absolutely rock &#! as the goat-paladin. I personally find Nova clunky and boring to play, but the community loves her to a point of obsession, and I only get any enjoyment out of her playing "Bomber Style" which is nearly suicidal.

 

Never take anyone's suggestions as fact. play for yourself and determine what works best for you ^^ Everyone plays differently

[jonnin]

nice overview but take it with some salt...

 

for example mag is *amazing* on corpus,  decent in void, and a little weaker vs high level grineer.  She can still one-shot entire rooms of medium level grinner, but at sortie and above levels of play she fails a little on them.   Excellent first frame that can make it easy to get stuff to make progress.

 

another example, mesa may be a stand-in-place frame but with bullets bouncing off her and the ability to shoot everything on the screen in about 10 seconds, even enemy you can't see, and never missing, is strong.   A little clunky in low enemy count mobile missions like exterminate, but who cares, you can just shoot thru exterminates without abilities.   You also have to know when to drop out and shoot stuff (enemy ice shields, for example) instead. 

 

one more contrasting opinion (that's all these are, hes not "wrong" and im not "right")

banshee is arguably one of the strongest pure damage frames.  She can mark every enemy in a gigantic area with a more than 10 times multiplier for shots fired that hit these marks.  I use her with a wide spread shotgun.  The pellet that hits the mark (and one will, usually)  can do around 100k damage.  Everyone on the team that is hitting the enemy can get these numbers.   And, hitting the marked enemies spreads it to any nearby enemy...  she is one of FEW that has an ability that scales to endgame.  Nekros' ghosts also scale, if you can kill it, you can resurrect it to fight for you, and its as strong or stronger than it was when alive...  

[KiloFoxx]

nice overview but take it with some salt...

 

for example mag is *amazing* on corpus,  decent in void, and a little weaker vs high level grineer.  She can still one-shot entire rooms of medium level grinner, but at sortie and above levels of play she fails a little on them.   Excellent first frame that can make it easy to get stuff to make progress.

 

another example, mesa may be a stand-in-place frame but with bullets bouncing off her and the ability to shoot everything on the screen in about 10 seconds, even enemy you can't see, and never missing, is strong.   A little clunky in low enemy count mobile missions like exterminate, but who cares, you can just shoot thru exterminates without abilities.   You also have to know when to drop out and shoot stuff (enemy ice shields, for example) instead. 

 

one more contrasting opinion (that's all these are, hes not "wrong" and im not "right")

banshee is arguably one of the strongest pure damage frames.  She can mark every enemy in a gigantic area with a more than 10 times multiplier for shots fired that hit these marks.  I use her with a wide spread shotgun.  The pellet that hits the mark (and one will, usually)  can do around 100k damage.  Everyone on the team that is hitting the enemy can get these numbers.   And, hitting the marked enemies spreads it to any nearby enemy...  she is one of FEW that has an ability that scales to endgame.  Nekros' ghosts also scale, if you can kill it, you can resurrect it to fight for you, and its as strong or stronger than it was when alive...  

Mostly my points exactly. also as I mentioned above, I've been playing for a long time, and have basically everything. I'm comparing these as frames equipped with reactors, using my max-level gear, and my max-level mods, on endgame-level enemies. Of course these trends aren't going to fly so much when you're just starting out. Hell, at the beginning areas with even R4-5 mods and MAYBE a maxed Ability mod (Continuity, Intensify, ETC) Frames that I've sung praises of like Frost aren't going to be nearly as good as I make them out to be, as I'm looking at these frames through a lens of Experience, with Maxed, Primed, Nightmare, and Corrupted mods equipped on each of them. PLEASE don't take my words as gospel.

 

As for Banshee, I hear a LOT of people praising her as you did, and conversely a LOT of people putting her down as one of the worst frames. She has a rather high Skill barrier, and requires being played almost a specific way in order to capitalize like you described. Hit-or-miss depending on the player it seems.