Is there a caster warframe?

[(PSN)SkrillexJkU]

I'm a new player just finished downloading warframe when i had first opened it it guided me to choose between Mag,Volt and Excalibur warframe so I am asking if one of them is like a mage warframe in other games where it has close to 0 survivability but has the ability to CC and deal atleast a decent damage? Also if there is any other warframe that is like what I explained because I always play the mage class in most of my online games

[HalfDarkShadow]

Though many comments here already recommended you which of the 3 starter frames you can freely choose from, I'll see if I can try to answer the second half.

As far as 'mages' via spellcaster Warframes to that description you could work towards are quite a few.

Like some mentioned, there a few great ones that are also pretty versatile, for example Nova or Ember.

I'll list them with brief descriptions:

Frost:

Spoiler

If you're looking for an ice-themed, defense oriented but still has great damaging and controlling potential would be him.
There's quite a bit of flexibility with them with modding and enough little secrets and hidden passives about him to keep you occupied for a while ;P

Ember:

Spoiler

A fire-theme Warframes with continuous burst damage and with a bit less of crowd control over the former, but still more than enough to be wrecking with.
Most of her abilities are much more AoE (Area of Effect) based with an emphasis on keeping burn proc's on enemies as much as possible. Her armor rating is slightly higher than most Spellcasters in her category so it'll be much more forgiving if you're a bit more out in the open of battle.

Sayrn:

Spoiler

Although designed to be more combat oriented (the opposite of a glass cannon lol), has many abilities to make her one of the highest damage dealing Warframes in game. She has the highest armor rating in her class (of spellcaster-esque Warframes that have an emphasis on ability and energy management over gunplay).
She's more-or-less functioned around de-buffing mass crowds as much, and as fast as possible. Her primary source of damage will be coming from (mostly) two types of elemental damage, Toxin and Viral. If you decide to play this for a longer period of time, you'll come to understand how elemental and such work out.

This is a pretty advanced build, with a lot of jargon you wont understand fully, but if you want a good idea of the damage potential, I implore you to watch this short video:

 

Few off-ideas that are a more of a blend of other class-archetypes to recommend:
[Editor's note: these are more "advanced" Warframes that you'll need to play the game for sometime before obtaining them. But nonetheless something to always look forward to and to set goals to get!]

Zephyr:

Spoiler

She is, along with Sayrn, another direct-combat oriented Warframe that is designed around extreme mobility and height advantages......or in laymen terms, she's a bird-looking Warframe with air-combat as her niche haha. Due to her having one of the lowest armor rating in-game, she instead has the highest combined health+shields out of all the Warframes currently. She also has one other defensive ability to keep her safe, which I will explain below.

Although you will be using her abilities quite a bit and as much as any other caster-esque Warframes, but [mostly] not for damage. With my previous explanation of her, controlling the air around you, you'll be using her abilities often for mobility purposes and minor crowd control potential.
She has one ability that funnels the air around her as an defense shield to deflect all means of projectiles. Also to note her "ultimate" ability which is to summon 4 tornadoes to deal a significant amount of damage, but more so for pulling crowds of enemies in for some crowd control. If you play long enough and understand how elementals work, you shoot your gun or melee weapon at one of these tornadoes to add an additional elemental for damage. For example, unmodified and they do a total of 9600 total damage, shoot one with Viral, and that will boost it to 19200 total damage.

Anyways, enough gushing about Zephyr lol. She's my most used Warframe :P So if you ever get her and need some build recommendations, feel free to shoot me a message!

Vauban:

Spoiler

A tactician Warframe for a sole purpose of crowd control and locking down enemies as much as possible. All his abilities are 'grenade' based, as that you have to throw them like you would otherwise, but have many purposes of crowd controlling potential, and de-buffing. This can range from magnetized springs, trip lasers, concussion grenades, a very large virtual-like gate that suspends enemies in the air if they walk inside of it, and you can quite literally create a ball of vortex which pretty much sucks all nearby enemies into one [like] singularity to where you and your teammates can start firing at since they're all mushed up together.
Because you'll be running in the midst of battles, he has a unique passive where he gains more armor rating for every ally nearby, which is incredibly helpful. Especially since it's just enough to where it can be the deciding factor of you dieing and loosing all your health from a Bombard's missile, to having just enough health left to either kill him or retreat to heal.
A very advanced playstyle that many would definitely recommend trying once you unlock him!

Hydroid:

Spoiler

Quite literally Pirates of the Caribbean inspired Warframe, who uses water for pure crowd control. From summoning a barrage of water-cannon missiles from the sky, to turning into a puddle to sink any enemies nearby to the depths with you or to a tidal wave and knock enemies over, to even summoning The Kraken's own tentacles to grab and swing all enemies around to keep the fire away from you and your party.
They are all for crowd control purposes, as aforementioned, so note they do not do as much damage as say for other spellcaster-esque Warframes in his category. But his crowd control abilities are definitely more than enough and always welcomed in parties!

 

So that's a few recommendations I can give for now, but definitely more than enough for you to look into and work towards to eventually try out to see if it's for you! I hope that's enough information for you, and remember these are only a few from a slew of different styles and themes of Warframes, so if you end up really liking the game and start collecting them, I'm sure you'll find the perfect Warframe (or Warframes) for you!

Cheers!~

[taiiat]

Mag and Volt are both different types of 'Mages'.
but depending on how you see things, Excalibro could also be a 'Mage'.

[Biddion]

I have played mag, She is caster like.

[Lord-Taco-the-Great]

Ember might be what you're looking for. Or Oberon.

[[DE]Drew]

If all you use is Exalted Blade, Excalibur counts, right?

Volt would get my vote if you are new and want to cast a lot. 

[Eldnacpeek]

3 hours ago, (PS4)SkrillexJkU said:

where it has close to 0 survivability but has the ability to CC and deal atleast a decent damage

 

I feel Nova is a good contender for that description; she's an effective glass cannon. Banshee as well, she excels in good CC and her damage is decent. However, the damage potential she opens up is astounding with her abilities, so you'll be relying more on vast buffs to weapon damage rather than direct fram damage.

Edited June 17, 2016 by LazerSkink

[Clem2-TheClemening]

Classifying warframes as casters doesn't really work. They pretty much all are. 

Mag is the closest to a caster among the starters. You ragdoll enemies with your first and fourth abilities, magnetize makes enemies shoot themselves, and polarize... we don't talk about polarize.

There are plenty of CC frames though. Beyond the starters, Frost is amazing at CC with 4 different ways to freeze and slow enemies, Saryn can debuff everything while also killing them over time, and so on. Hell, even Rhino, the early game "tank", is great at CC and buffing.

Perhaps the casteriest warframe is Vauban. 7 different balls of CC to choose from, including holding in place, sucking into an orb, tripping, shocking, throwing around, concussing... shame he's one of the hardest frames to get, as his parts only drop from alert missions while you're asleep or at work.

 

Edited June 17, 2016 by Clem2-TheClemening

[(PSN)SkrillexJkU]

10 minutes ago, [DE]Drew said:

If all you use is Exalted Blade, Excalibur counts, right?

Volt would get my vote if you are new and want to cast a lot. 

I kept searching on the internet but people kept saying it got nerfed and from their words it seemed like that skill became melee? If it ain't melee I might aswell really pick it up i liked the skillset because of the blind and rocket aoe i think? 

Edit:Volt's skills seem to be like a CC mage with utilitities like shield and speed buff I'll ask around if my friends will join it's my pick

Edited June 17, 2016 by (PS4)SkrillexJkU

[Sweaty_Pleb]

Get mag; I think nekros would fit you well he's like a dark magic Warframe 

[Vuli]

All the starter frames are "casters" in some way but:

Excal if you want to stabby-stabby

Mag if you want to debuff

Volt if you gottagofast/palpatine-it-up

[(PSN)O_o_II_II_o_O]

I started with Excalibur as he is the best all round frame to get you into the game. I find Frost a good casting frame, as I use all four powers at certain points. Having said that I rarely use him outside of defence due to speed.

[Kryshok]

Well of the starter three I would go with either Volt or Mag since they do rely on their abilites more. That being said keep in mind once you begin farming for new frames Mag of the three is easiest to farm since her parts drop on Mars, Volt is a clan frame and Excalibur is on Pluto or Ceres. 

The other frames mentiones like Oberon and Vaubahn are closer to a caster even the dreded Limbo but the closst to a mage frame would be Nekros. 

But honestly for a first frame I would go with Excalibur...he has four usable abilities and balanced overall.

[(PSN)SkrillexJkU]

2 minutes ago, Kryshok said:

Well of the starter three I would go with either Volt or Mag since they do rely on their abilites more. That being said keep in mind once you begin farming for new frames Mag of the three is easiest to farm since her parts drop on Mars, Volt is a clan frame and Excalibur is on Pluto or Ceres. 

The other frames mentiones like Oberon and Vaubahn are closer to a caster even the dreded Limbo but the closst to a mage frame would be Nekros. 

But honestly for a first frame I would go with Excalibur...he has four usable abilities and balanced overall.

Aleight i'm picking excalibur when i open on my ps4 but do you knownif Excalibur's Exalted Blade was nerfed to become melee only cause what I read on the internet seems like so?

[Kryshok]

It was nerfed to some degree but still very usefull...personally I rarely use it over a Radial Javelin build

 

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Mag and Volt both fit this theme. Volt is somewhat of a battlemage with both, melee and Caster/gunplay.

Mag Is a Controll Mage, more of a psychic actually (what was the mmo where psychic was a mage class?) but imo the better pick.

 

If you're looking for arcane casters, get Volt and ember later on.

Edited June 18, 2016 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(PSN)SkrillexJkU]

6 hours ago, HalfDarkShadow said:

Though many comments here already recommended you which of the 3 starter frames you can freely choose from, I'll see if I can try to answer the second half.

As far as 'mages' via spellcaster Warframes to that description you could work towards are quite a few.

Like some mentioned, there a few great ones that are also pretty versatile, for example Nova or Ember.

I'll list them with brief descriptions:

Frost:

  Reveal hidden contents

If you're looking for an ice-themed, defense oriented but still has great damaging and controlling potential would be him.
There's quite a bit of flexibility with them with modding and enough little secrets and hidden passives about him to keep you occupied for a while ;P

Ember:

  Reveal hidden contents

A fire-theme Warframes with continuous burst damage and with a bit less of crowd control over the former, but still more than enough to be wrecking with.
Most of her abilities are much more AoE (Area of Effect) based with an emphasis on keeping burn proc's on enemies as much as possible. Her armor rating is slightly higher than most Spellcasters in her category so it'll be much more forgiving if you're a bit more out in the open of battle.

Sayrn:

  Reveal hidden contents

Although designed to be more combat oriented (the opposite of a glass cannon lol), has many abilities to make her one of the highest damage dealing Warframes in game. She has the highest armor rating in her class (of spellcaster-esque Warframes that have an emphasis on ability and energy management over gunplay).
She's more-or-less functioned around de-buffing mass crowds as much, and as fast as possible. Her primary source of damage will be coming from (mostly) two types of elemental damage, Toxin and Viral. If you decide to play this for a longer period of time, you'll come to understand how elemental and such work out.

This is a pretty advanced build, with a lot of jargon you wont understand fully, but if you want a good idea of the damage potential, I implore you to watch this short video:

 

Few off-ideas that are a more of a blend of other class-archetypes to recommend:
[Editor's note: these are more "advanced" Warframes that you'll need to play the game for sometime before obtaining them. But nonetheless something to always look forward to and to set goals to get!]

Zephyr:

  Reveal hidden contents

She is, along with Sayrn, another direct-combat oriented Warframe that is designed around extreme mobility and height advantages......or in laymen terms, she's a bird-looking Warframe with air-combat as her niche haha. Due to her having one of the lowest armor rating in-game, she instead has the highest combined health+shields out of all the Warframes currently. She also has one other defensive ability to keep her safe, which I will explain below.

Although you will be using her abilities quite a bit and as much as any other caster-esque Warframes, but [mostly] not for damage. With my previous explanation of her, controlling the air around you, you'll be using her abilities often for mobility purposes and minor crowd control potential.
She has one ability that funnels the air around her as an defense shield to deflect all means of projectiles. Also to note her "ultimate" ability which is to summon 4 tornadoes to deal a significant amount of damage, but more so for pulling crowds of enemies in for some crowd control. If you play long enough and understand how elementals work, you shoot your gun or melee weapon at one of these tornadoes to add an additional elemental for damage. For example, unmodified and they do a total of 9600 total damage, shoot one with Viral, and that will boost it to 19200 total damage.

Anyways, enough gushing about Zephyr lol. She's my most used Warframe :P So if you ever get her and need some build recommendations, feel free to shoot me a message!

Vauban:

  Reveal hidden contents

A tactician Warframe for a sole purpose of crowd control and locking down enemies as much as possible. All his abilities are 'grenade' based, as that you have to throw them like you would otherwise, but have many purposes of crowd controlling potential, and de-buffing. This can range from magnetized springs, trip lasers, concussion grenades, a very large virtual-like gate that suspends enemies in the air if they walk inside of it, and you can quite literally create a ball of vortex which pretty much sucks all nearby enemies into one [like] singularity to where you and your teammates can start firing at since they're all mushed up together.
Because you'll be running in the midst of battles, he has a unique passive where he gains more armor rating for every ally nearby, which is incredibly helpful. Especially since it's just enough to where it can be the deciding factor of you dieing and loosing all your health from a Bombard's missile, to having just enough health left to either kill him or retreat to heal.
A very advanced playstyle that many would definitely recommend trying once you unlock him!

Hydroid:

  Reveal hidden contents

Quite literally Pirates of the Caribbean inspired Warframe, who uses water for pure crowd control. From summoning a barrage of water-cannon missiles from the sky, to turning into a puddle to sink any enemies nearby to the depths with you or to a tidal wave and knock enemies over, to even summoning The Kraken's own tentacles to grab and swing all enemies around to keep the fire away from you and your party.
They are all for crowd control purposes, as aforementioned, so note they do not do as much damage as say for other spellcaster-esque Warframes in his category. But his crowd control abilities are definitely more than enough and always welcomed in parties!

 

So that's a few recommendations I can give for now, but definitely more than enough for you to look into and work towards to eventually try out to see if it's for you! I hope that's enough information for you, and remember these are only a few from a slew of different styles and themes of Warframes, so if you end up really liking the game and start collecting them, I'm sure you'll find the perfect Warframe (or Warframes) for you!

Cheers!~

Thanks alot for this it really helped me I went on the wiki and read about all those warframes and they all seemed interesting  especially frost also thanks for the video on the saryn the damage is so good I wish I could understand most of the stuff in the video but guess I have to play the game to understand them gonna hop on tonight i picked Volt and my friend picked Excal so let's see warframe 

 Cheers to u

Edited June 18, 2016 by (PS4)SkrillexJkU

[DaftMeat]

There are no real mages since this isn't a class-based game, but for starter frames I say go Volt. His 1 is fast, spamable, and reliable. Speed and Electric Shield are very useful. His casting times are also fairly quick. He makes an ideal glass cannon here.

[Lumamaster]

19 hours ago, (PS4)SkrillexJkU said:

Aleight i'm picking excalibur when i open on my ps4 but do you knownif Excalibur's Exalted Blade was nerfed to become melee only cause what I read on the internet seems like so?

It's not that it's only melee, as Exalted Blade, when you melee with it, it also releases an energy wave that penetrates all enemies in its path and deals high damage. The damage now falls off significantly over distance, but still does do damage.

 

In short, at high level gameplay, Exalted Blade basically only does meaningful damage at melee range, but it's still good early on for taking on large groups of enemies.

[(PSN)SkrillexJkU]

4 hours ago, Lumamaster said:

It's not that it's only melee, as Exalted Blade, when you melee with it, it also releases an energy wave that penetrates all enemies in its path and deals high damage. The damage now falls off significantly over distance, but still does do damage.

 

In short, at high level gameplay, Exalted Blade basically only does meaningful damage at melee range, but it's still good early on for taking on large groups of enemies.

Alright thanks alot finally someone answered that question guess it's gonna be great at low levels while me and my friend play

[DatDarkOne]

8 hours ago, DaftMeat said:

There are no real mages since this isn't a class-based game, but for starter frames I say go Volt. His 1 is fast, spamable, and reliable. Speed and Electric Shield are very useful. His casting times are also fairly quick. He makes an ideal glass cannon here.

In a way, the Warframes can fit in the traditional archetypes.  Rogue, Mage, and Fighter with some crossover/hybrids in the mix.