Limiting myself by playing the same frame over and over again.

[(PSN)sb001001]

I started playing the game about a month ago, I chose Excalibur for my starter frame and I did pretty well with it for the first few planets.

After a while I started having trouble soloing the more difficult (higher levels) missions with excalibur because I was missing a lot of the necessary (and/or decently ranked) mods to be able to solo them.

Eventually I managed to get all the rhino parts and even though I didn’t particularly like his looks or the described abilities I decided to give him a try since I needed to level it up anyway for my mastery rank.

I quickly fell absolutely in love with the frame (to the extent I actually bought plat so I could buy the prime version of some other player), iron skin let’s me tank so much damage whether I’m playing solo or in a group and now that I have most of the necessary mods for a solid build (and have most of them fully ranked up) I’m never without iron skin anymore and I have more than enough energy left to roar and stomp my way through most missions with him.

My only problem now is that I’ve grown accustomed to being able to take a lot of incoming damage before I have to even start worrying about it and whenever I play any other frames I just feel super squishy, making me pick Rhino almost every time for any mission I play.

I do feel like I’m limiting myself this way and am missing out on a lot of fun playing and building other frames with other abilities.

I was wondering if there were people that found themselves having the same issue of getting stuck playing the same frame 99% of the time and how (if at all) they managed to break themselves of the habit? Or/and alternatively, what would be a good choice of frame to transition between rhino and some of the squishier frames. (I’ve read a lot about chroma also being a tanky frame too but haven’t started the quest for that one yet so I haven’t been able to try it out yet.)

So far my other favourite frames have been ash, saryn and excalibur.

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

You are going through what most players go through, There's a reason why rhino is so widely available. The answer to breaking the rhino dependence is to farm the required mods to make other frames playable. Rhino is great but rhino skin is nothing compared to frost's snowglobe, Valkyr, or chroma. Start working on leveling up your redirection/vitality and then go find a clan. Most clans will help you grow and its the fastest way to progress in the game.

[Extroah]

I'm using my Excal 99% of the time and i've had some trouble in the past aswell. But after using other Frames i found out that it was my fault because i rarely used the abilities, i was (and still am) always using Melee so i never thought about using them before. But once you figure out how powerfull and especially helpfull they are, mostly radial blind or exalted blade, the more that particular frame will be fun for you again. Exalted Blade really is a life saver in endless missions like Survivals because once the enemies take more than 1~ hit to die from your melee you can just turn it on and continue for quite a long time with no problems. :D

But i agree, Rhino/prime with Iron Skin is lots of fun, and i still use it sometimes when i feel that my Excal wont be able to handle it. :D

 

[(PSN)Elctrcstel]

I too have fallen into the trap of using the same frame for everything. First it was Rhino, then Vauban, then Nekros and so on because i liked their abilities and what i could do with them.

It's all about learning how to play the frames. With Rhino, your effectively a tank and take bunches of damage. But the you swap to Ivara. She is really squishy, but stealthy so you have to play into her stealth by using sleep arrow or prowl. Next, you try Trinity. She starts off pretty squishy but as you level her, you find a combination of Energy  Vampire and Link, and suddenly you have a surplus of energy and a lot of your incoming damage goes to the "linked" enemies.

You just gotta adapt to the frames play style. Trial and Error and learning from past missions, victories and defeats. 

Also, modding can change the play style of the frames. Take Nekros for example. Most people use him with high efficiency and the despoil augment to make him a farming machine, but kinda squishy. But you can also put duration and strength mods on him, along with sheild of shadows augment, and make him a pretty tanky guy that scales pretty well, provided that you (or your shadows) can continue to get kills.

just keep playing around with other frame and see which ones you like to play. Personally, I like using both Nekros named above, Ivara, Loki Prime, Atlas, Limbo and I look forward to Inaros when he comes to PS4

Edited March 30, 2016 by (PS4)Elctrcstel
more info and examples

[--Q--uaint]

Chroma, Trinity, Inaros, and Valkyr all have at least one of innate tankiness or conditional tankiness. Atlas is a decent choice as well, for his knockdown/stagger immunity while grounded.

Another 'frame you could try out is Mesa. I don’t suggest this as the grind for Mesa is utter horror, but Shatter Shield can easily give you 95% DR against ranged attacks.

TBH, I think you should go for Trinity because she’s relatively easy to get and her abilities make you acutely aware of the incoming damage while giving you plenty of tools to do something about it.

[Skinner1818]

I fell into the same trap when I first started Warframe.

Got Rhino and then did not level up any other warframe for a long time as I did not see the need to, Rhino was tanky could crowd control, had a damage buff and in my opinion looked rather good. I ran void missions and got the Boltor Prime pretty early which hampered my leveling progress even more, as that weapon was, and still is to a certain degree, one of the better weapons in the game.

I am pleased to say that I am now out of that particular habit and feel a lot better for it, as now it makes some missions a lot easier to complete. Not only that but is allows you to explore different Warframe group combinations which can sometimes surprise you.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Skinner1818

[ThorienKELL]

We all have some preference, I have and play all frames but I'm preferring powerful nukers and fast, agile frames above others. I never could play slow rhino although he is well rounded and powerful frame.

Few frames that also have degree of tankiness and can maybe make transition period more easy:

Nezha. Inaros. Valkyir. Chroma.

Some of those are not too hard to get and are fun to use. 

[Cepheus-EN-]

I fell in love with Nezhas super fast sliding. Now i want Maglev mod on every frame so that's what i did.

[Miraluka]

You may need to try the frames out using them from a distance rather than running into the thick of the battle like you normally would with Rhino. Ease into a new frame with longer range weapons.

[(PSN)JeDi-_xStaRzZ]

I play with Nova P since all I play is excavation ^.^

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

57 minutes ago, ChronoEclipse said:

Chroma, Trinity, Inaros, and Valkyr all have at least one of innate tankiness or conditional tankiness. Atlas is a decent choice as well, for his knockdown/stagger immunity while grounded.

Another 'frame you could try out is Mesa. I don’t suggest this as the grind for Mesa is utter horror, but Shatter Shield can easily give you 95% DR against ranged attacks.

TBH, I think you should go for Trinity because she’s relatively easy to get and her abilities make you acutely aware of the incoming damage while giving you plenty of tools to do something about it.

I don't know about Mesa's grind being horror, Mutalist Alad V dies easily and there are plenty of people willing to do key shares for him (for the record I got all three mesa parts in just three runs)

[EinRyu]

I remember after Nova came out I almost exclusively played with Nova only. Eventually I switched from Nova to Loki, and found it pretty jarring. I went from, at the time, the equivalent to a nuclear warhead (Pre M. Prime changes for Nova) to Loki, the frame with no damage abilities. I found my groove with him and he more of less became my new main, but it took a bit.

As others have said, use other tank frames and slowly pull away from purely Rhino (which you will have to anyhow if you plan on doing long t3/t4 survivals or defenses as Rhino Skin falls off hard at a point or build around Roar and Stomp) and get used to the other frames. WuKong, Valkyr, Chroma, Shattershield Mesa, Atlas with his passive, Bless/Link Trinity are all amazing and arguably better tanks than Rhino that are available options.

[OliverRedfox]

I pretty much use Ivara most of the time at the expense of leaving a bunch of other frames sitting around unused at low levels.  It's the one frame I've got fully set up the way I like it with mods, potato, and forma.  Mostly touch my other frames on occasion for mastery points and to get a feel for what abilities my friends have at their disposal.

 

But 2 days ago while doing the Limbo quest, I hit a wall.  I had to do an excavation mission and the excavator was going down fast.  None of my friends were on so I broke out my lowly lvl 11 un-potatoed Frost.  I set it up with power efficiency mods and just kept spamming snow globe to protect the excavator, it turned an impossible solo mission into an easy one.  So you'll likely have a moment like that where you'll move on from Rhino because of necessity for a given mission type.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

Nothing wrong with were you are at in your warframe progression.  Rhino is a good 2nd frame for a reason, and he also gets the 'noob frame' stigma for good reasons (I'm not new player bashing!).

The whole key from here forward is understanding that you can't play the game as nova the same way you play the game as rhino.  Adjust and adapt to each frame's unique strengths and weaknesses.  A really good player can use a large number of frames effectively.

[bad4youLT]

I play with gear what I like , it sounds like you the same , its not really a bad thing , but you should defenatly try out other things , oh and btw rhino is good for starter players but in end game hes not so good at tanking .