MR5, unsure on how to progress at this point.

[Lumamaster]

As the title states, I'm currently Mastery Rank 5, and I'm unsure on what to do in order to progress further. All the weapons I want to use are XP locked, and I made the mistake of wasting my first time platinum on useless things (this was a long long time ago btw, back in the old days of update 8, after which I took a longggg break). So I'm unable to acquire new frames (nova was a pain for me to farm up iirc) without having to ditch my current ones, and I'm unsure as to which weapons to use. I'm also finding it difficult to progress on the star chart, as my weapons and mods aren't up to snuff in terms of taking on higher level content solo.

Can anybody recommend some weapons that aren't an extreme pain to farm that would help me progress farther?

Stuff I've already used/are using:

Warframes: Excalibur, Nova

Primary Weapons: Latron, Boltor, Braton, Amprex, Vectis, Paris

Secondary Weapons: Lato, Lex, Aklex, Pyrana

Melee Weapons: Skana, Dual Ether, Broken-War, Galatine, Nikana

 

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by Lumamaster

[Blazer-X]

Excalibur is a solid frame that can last you from the beginning to the end. Good stats mixed with good CC and good damage. Nova is more glass-cannon and shines more in group play, although her solo game isn't by any means bad.

Tonkor is an excellent Primary weapon if you have crit mods and you want to clear out the nodes quickly at MR5. That said, its actually so powerful that some players say it takes away the challenge from the game. Alternatively, if you can get the Augment mod for it, Hek is an excellent weapon thanks to 300%+ multishot.

You could probably use a better secondary. Furis, if you can get the Augment mod (as someone else already mentioned), is a very good choice thanks to lifesteal and keeping you alive. At MR 6, you could start trading for Vaykor Marelok, which is arguably one of the most versatile secondary in the game, period. It's accurate, hitscan, fast fire-rate, fast reload, extremely high damage (only beaten per shot by a handful of weapons), and has an AOE proc that heals you from time to time. 

Melee doesn't matter quite as much. I'd stick with whatever stance or weapon type you feel most comfortable using. If you want pure power, Broken-War is probably the best you can go with that early into the game (and hell, it's still one of the most powerful weapons even in late-game).

As far as mod collection goes: If you don't feel ready raiding vaults for corrupted mods yet, try to first get a full set of nightmare mods. They aren't the most powerful in terms of DPS (outside of Lethal Torrent and Blaze, which are exceptional for DPS), but most of them offers good supporting benefits to your weapon in addition to amping up your damage. Shred, Wildfire, Ice Storm are all great choices in addition to the aforementioned Lethal Torrent and Blaze. Try to grab R5 Streamline and Energy Siphon so you can use your abilities more often.

As for quest: assuming you haven't already, finish Second Dream so you could unlock the Focus System. It offers an extra 5th ability that you can bring with you in all your frames along with passives that ranges from being helpful to near utterly broken.

 

[motorfirebox]

Amprex and Broken War are both solid weapons, look into builds for those (Amprex requires some investment of formae to really get going, though). For a secondary, maybe look at building a Furis? You can get a mod from New Loka that gives it lifesteal. Likewise, Excal and Nova are both nice, useful frames.

What's your mod situation like? Are your Serration/Pressure Point/Hornet Strike mods maxed? What about elemental mods? You can do spy missions for some of the dual-stat elemental mods, if you don't have them.

Similarly, do you have the "base" corrupted mods? Fleeting Expertise, Narrow Minded, and Overextended can make a huge difference in the performance of your frame.

For the most part, any new gear you pick up is going to underperform unless you've got the mods (and the potatoes) to make it work.

Edited May 8, 2016 by motorfirebox

[Wopel]

53 minutes ago, Lumamaster said:

As the title states, I'm currently Mastery Rank 5, and I'm unsure on what to do in order to progress further. All the weapons I want to use are XP locked, and I made the mistake of wasting my first time platinum on useless things (this was a long long time ago btw, back in the old days of update 8, after which I took a longggg break). So I'm unable to acquire new frames (nova was a pain for me to farm up iirc) without having to ditch my current ones, and I'm unsure as to which weapons to use. I'm also finding it difficult to progress on the star chart, as my weapons and mods aren't up to snuff in terms of taking on higher level content solo.

Can anybody recommend some weapons that aren't an extreme pain to farm that would help me progress farther?

Stuff I've already used/are using:

Warframes: Excalibur, Nova

Primary Weapons: Latron, Boltor, Braton, Amprex

Secondary Weapons: Lato, Lex, Aklex

Melee Weapons: Skana, Dual Ether, Broken-War, Galatine, Nikana

 

 

One the best ways to "level" MR is frames (and sentinel/kubrow give the same amount). It is something like 6k MR for each 30. Weapons are around 3k rating at 30. You can look at your profile to see how much you need to get to the next rank.

If you are stuck on slots, you should solo run the T1 void maps and make sure to get all the puzzles and hidden rooms. They will have containers that occasionally give mods. Sell these on trade, even if it is 5-10 per mod (like Flow or Continuity etc), you can buy your extra slots (12p for two weapon, 20p for frame).

As for weapons, when I started I looked up which weapons were used as parts for other weapons. The information is on the wiki (which is mimicked in a thread here on the forums). This lets you transition one slot into another (or maybe 2 for weapons like the Tipedo or Redeemer) so you make the most of the limited space. 

As for the star chart, Excal is a solid frame but if you are struggling it is probably due to mods. If you don't have the mods you may want to get Rhino, just DO NOT get into the habit of relying totally on Iron Skin, you WILL regret doing so later on. He also is a great frame despite the amount of complaining people do, and will allow you to pretty much clear the star map solo play. Some missions will be annoying but Nova or Excal should be able to cover those exceptions.

All in all, do voids for mods and either sell them or use them, keys are abundant. Once you have better (or ranked up mods) you will be able to handle tougher encounters. Also, learn your elemental combos for the factions, they can make a huge difference in the beginning. It really is all about the mods.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Wopel

[motorfirebox]

20 minutes ago, Lumamaster said:

I don't have any of the corrupted mods. (them dark sectors are a tad too overwhelming for me)

Honestly, I'd start there. Bring Excal and try to get the reduced damage key. You can spend the whole time popping off radial blind, CCing the mobs for everyone else to kill. 

[Sakatchi]

Some things you could do for progression is get the cheap credit bought crappy guns out of the way to raise your mr. Stuff like the mk1 lato and branton and such.

Do the quests in your codex, you can get some neat rewards, like either daggers and a catalyst for them, or a heat sword and heat mod for the infested introductory quest.

I feel you on the solo aspect, try to be a touch more social though. The game is a bunch more fun if you can find some people you can stand to do missions with.

And then finally make goals for yourself. Pick a certian weapon you like and farm up the resources for it one at a time, and don't expect to get it done with in a day. Just wake up and go 'yeah I'm gonna get all these nanno spores before work/school/project' then do so, then focus on something else. You really start to care for your gear if you do this.

And I speak from experience as someone that's both used plat to buy stuff, and farm stuff up normally.

Also if you have any plat left, put it towards frame and gun slots.

[Rounpositron]

Turn Nikana into Dragon Nikana, and farm Nikana Prime.

Also, try the Twin Grakataaaaaa!

[Carifyn]

There are some weapons on the market that you can just buy for a few credits without needing to build them (starting with 15.000 I think) like the Sicarus as secondary weapon or the MK1-weapons. Even when you don't want to keep them they are easy to get and give you mastery :)

You could also try getting Rhino for a tankier frame, it was one of the easier to get ones from Jackal on Venus (at least my partner did it solo in his first playing week). My first warframe to get after Volt was Trinity (although I did the farming with an open group). Although she is mainly used as supporter frame, she is very good to solo stuff too because of link, bless and never getting out of energy. Both could help you progress further through the star chart.

 

[Lumamaster]

29 minutes ago, motorfirebox said:

Amprex and Broken War are both solid weapons, look into builds for those (Amprex requires some investment of formae to really get going, though). For a secondary, maybe look at building a Furis? You can get a mod from New Loka that gives it lifesteal. Likewise, Excal and Nova are both nice, useful frames.

What's your mod situation like? Are your Serration/Pressure Point/Hornet Strike mods maxed? What about elemental mods? You can do spy missions for some of the dual-stat elemental mods, if you don't have them.

Similarly, do you have the "base" corrupted mods? Fleeting Expertise, Narrow Minded, and Overextended can make a huge difference in the performance of your frame.

For the most part, any new gear you pick up is going to underperform unless you've got the mods (and the potatoes) to make it work.

Good thing I'm in New Loka. :D

I don't have any of the corrupted mods. (them dark sectors are a tad too overwhelming for me)

I've got Serration and Pressure Point maxed, idk about Hornet Strike. I've got all the elemental mods at least level 2 for each weapon.

27 minutes ago, Rounpositron said:

Turn Nikana into Dragon Nikana, and farm Nikana Prime.

Also, try the Twin Grakataaaaaa!

All part of my plan, except for Nikana Prime.

Will take a look at the Twin Grakatas.

 

[Leyers_of_facade]

My suggestion, go to void. T1 and T2 shouldn't be too difficult for your gears as of now, doing void runs will yield prime parts, formas that can be useful for a player early on (I would hate to see more forma bp because I have just too much of it). With these prime parts you can either sell them in trade chat for plats or you can feed them to baro for some mods / weapons as their price could rise exponentially after baro leaves. With more plats in hand you can open more slots, get more frames and weapons and you are set!

20 minutes ago, Lumamaster said:

I don't have any of the corrupted mods. (them dark sectors are a tad too overwhelming for me)

I've got Serration and Pressure Point maxed, idk about Hornet Strike. I've got all the elemental mods at least level 2 for each weapon.

 

Impressive, a maxed serration already, mine was maxed at errr.... lets not mention that.

I think you mean vault runs rather than dark sector? They shouldn't be too difficult so long you get a full squad as there are players who despite being high MR still farms vault runs for a particular mod they want or for easy plats.

[Btabc]

Honestly I'm having this problem as well... sort of.  I'm half way in the middle of my MR5 progress and the weapon I'm liking a lot right now is Tonkor.  Luckily I've started a clan and I've gotten all of the research labs built so I'll have "long-term" goals for weapons to help, but Mastery Rank seems to go at a "crawl" for a "casual player" like myself (also I do not have that much of a need for another frame, I LOVE Rhino, but I'm starting to see where I might have to).  I get on about once a day (if I'm lucky) because of my jobs.  I had initial problems getting/trying to obtain argon crystals, but about 10 minutes in the void isn't that bad.  I had a few thief mods so I can open lockers and shows loot on the mini map and I just did that for a little while.  One run yielded me 3 argon crystals!  Now I was initially going into the void to make a incubator power cell so I "killed" two birds with one stone :).

I have also not spent a dime to expand my inventory space, but I'm glad that there's multiple ways of buying platinum (since I do not have a means of using a credit card).  After I rank up a weapon I'll usually discard it (lower MR weapons) to make way for new ones.  I'm also in the same boat as yourself with dark mods... I don't have a single one.  Tried to do one today and it kept bugging for me.  I was able to get in the first time a little while ago, but died because the other three people were AFK.  Tried entering three times afterwords and each time there were no power cores showing up.  So I look at it as perhaps next time :)

So far I solo a lot of things and my personal favorites are exterminates, I don't know why, but they are :).  I can do a Sedna mission alone (I know it's not that impressive, but I've struggled in trying to do so) and I can thank my tonkor for that.  It helped me to look up builds of certain weapons so I at least have a direction to head to.  

[Lumamaster]

32 minutes ago, 14159265358979323846 said:

My suggestion, go to void. T1 and T2 shouldn't be too difficult for your gears as of now, doing void runs will yield prime parts, formas that can be useful for a player early on (I would hate to see more forma bp because I have just too much of it). With these prime parts you can either sell them in trade chat for plats or you can feed them to baro for some mods / weapons as their price could rise exponentially after baro leaves. With more plats in hand you can open more slots, get more frames and weapons and you are set!

Impressive, a maxed serration already, mine was maxed at errr.... lets not mention that.

I think you mean vault runs rather than dark sector? They shouldn't be too difficult so long you get a full squad as there are players who despite being high MR still farms vault runs for a particular mod they want or for easy plats.

Wait, no, Serration is level 4. My brain was thinking of the crit mod for swords.

[Urlan]

Focus on clearing out nodes on the starchart and searching the derelict/nightmare missions for mods while gathering keys for void runs later. Remember to max your archwing gear as they give a good amount of affinity and don't require slots to store.

[Wopel]

As much as the focus stuff can be amazing, chances are if they are having problems on the star map at the point they are, they aren't getting through the quest and they aren't set up for stealth/focus farming to the able to advance it any.

Better to focus on the 'basics' that they can accomplish than to toss more complications in honestly.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Wopel

[MechaTails]

If youre on pc, i can help you do some missions. I like playing with people at this stage because they arent all tricked out with meta gear being obliviously obnoxious. The missions are a lot more fun with decent weapons that dont wipe out the map.

Once you find gear you like, the leveling grind is a lot more tolerable.

[Roboplus]

As always, I recommend Atterax. Long range, decently fast, high crit and status stats. Hits hard, stacks bleeds, and is only MR 2. You can take that thing from even the earliest star chart maps through Sortie 3s.

You should be hanging around the void a lot anyway, so you'll get the Argon and stance (Burning Wasp) needed for it. Just make sure you have all the other materials first.

As for mods, focus on leveling the base damage mods (if you have them) and the 4 elemental mods as you get them. The most important thing to get first is damage.

Early to even mid game for players involves a lot of melee, because those mods are generally easier to get and to level.

[Lumamaster]

Alright, thanks for the help guys!

Also, I have completed The Second Dream (a friend of mine that's like MR19 helped me do it). (how else do you think I got Broken-War?)

I'll take all of your suggestions into account in terms of where I'm going to progress next!

8 hours ago, MechaTails said:

If youre on pc, i can help you do some missions. I like playing with people at this stage because they arent all tricked out with meta gear being obliviously obnoxious. The missions are a lot more fun with decent weapons that dont wipe out the map.

Once you find gear you like, the leveling grind is a lot more tolerable.

I am indeed on PC! My user is Lumamaster.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Lumamaster

[KnaveOfSwords]

I got caught behind the apparent paywall of needing platinum for weapon and warframe slots for a bit as well.  My suggestion would be to do the following:

1. Run Spy, Excavation, Survival, Defense ¹, or Interception missions to get Void Keys (I'd stay away from interception for now, they tend to give the higher tier keys when they give any at all, and if you're worried about Orokin Derelict missions, T4 is probably harder than you want to face).
2. Do low-level void missions.  This will get you blueprints and parts to various primes, as well as forma and fusion cores (you'll want a lot of both of these, if you don't already).  You can also ask to get invited along on other people's missions, and may want to look for groups doing keyshares.
3. Once you start getting duplicates ² of prime blueprints and parts, head over to https://warframe.market/ and see if anyone is looking to buy them.  Make a mental note of what's not selling at all, and what just doesn't have people on (you can send messages to people who are offering to buy something you have, but aren't on).  You can also offer these items for sale in the trade channel of the chat.
4. Primes that no-one's buying are generally referred to as "prime junk."  While generally not held to be too valuable in themselves, they can still be sold for ducats at any relay, which gives them at least some value.  On the trade chat, prices for these tend to range from 6 to 8 platinum for 5 pieces, though they can get up to 10 or more when people start feeling desperate to get enough ducats before Baro leaves again.  Once you start having enough prime junk (most people aren't interested in trades for less than 5 of these), start making sales ³.
5. Use the platinum from steps 3 and 4 to buy more slots for weapons and warframes (eventually, you'll want to add kubrows and sentinels to that list, but I, at least, was able to get by on just the starting slots for a bit longer than I could with frames and weapons).

 

Footnotes:

1. Defense especially tends to be good for picking up mods.  The drop-rates on rarer ones tend to suck, but fusing duplicates is a good way to get the rating of your mods up.  Other endless missions drop about as many, but tend to scatter them over a larger area.
2. I suggest operating on the assumption that eventually, you're going to want to have (at least temporarily), every weapon and frame.
3. I tend to also check the wiki for their ducat value, and offer only the ones that sell for 10 ducats to people buying prime junk based on volume.  The ones with better ducat prices get saved for either buyers who will recognize their worth, or my own ducat needs.

[SamuraiPizza]

I was VERY recently in the same place so I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents:

1) Sonicor. Do it. DO IT. That weapon can clear groups. It'll help you more than ANY other weapon in running the starchart solo. You can even solo Draco with it. The reason I am suggesting it so strongly is because once you get the Sonicor you stop relying on other players to carry you. The crazy CC the weapon gives is more than good enough.

2) Get a Rhino and a Valkyr. Rhino can do the starchart on almost no mods. As for Valkyr, I have a few surprisingly cheap builds that went an hour in T2 survival. (I'll add screenshots later today if you please). A valkyr can help you farm void survivals for argon crystals, some good primed weapons and what not because in the void she's almost impossible to kill.

3) Get the Hek. And the Steel Meridian mod for it. DAMAGE. My no forma 6-mod build got me through the level 60 Rathuum no problem. Shotguns are SIGNIFICANTLY better than rifles because they do not require maxed rank-10 mods to be good. CHEAP builds that hit stupidly hard!

4) You already have Broken War. The thing rips. Another option (especially for Rhino) is the Galatine. 

 

Now this loadout you will be in a position to solo farm for some of the nicer mods that'll take your Excalibur and Nova from being good to COMPLETELY BUSTED OP. 

Good luck!

[CKNPOTPIE]

I would recommend at this point beginning to farm for some basic prime weapons like the orthos prime braton prime and the paris prime. They give you a big boost in the game and have always been very useful to me, specifically the orthos and paris late game!

[SamuraiPizza]

4 minutes ago, CKNPOTPIE said:

I would recommend at this point beginning to farm for some basic prime weapons like the orthos prime braton prime and the paris prime. They give you a big boost in the game and have always been very useful to me, specifically the orthos and paris late game!

Farming prime weapons is not too recommended right now because the paris/braton/burston/lex prime all need at least one rank 10 mod maxed to reach some serious damage potential. Shotguns on the other hand use rank 5 mods almost exclusively (and therefore will reach very high damage potential much faster), and do absurd damage. Hek/Tigris. GO.

Orthos prime however is a wonderful weapon that I happen to be building right now myself! STOKED. 

Edited May 8, 2016 by Legion216

[(XBOX)Twinna25]

Try and find a raiding group, and do the three raids. Seel the aracnes you get for plat, this gives you a steady supply of plat and a lot of breathing room. Use the plat you get to buy more warframe slots, and level those up.

 

look at sentinels as well, they offer good mastery rep as well.