Un-Official Warframe Tier List

[PeterKha]

Let's be honest. Defense and Void - this is our "endgame". Any class with any weapon can be "acceptable" in all other kind of missions. They don't require coordination, tactics, skill, nada. It's just relaxing shooting. But it starts to get complicated when you go with your "fun" frame on your first Void III Exterminate. My first missions of this type was with Rhino... and I was shocked. Iron Skin was shattered in one second. Getting close to the enemy with Rhino Charge = Death. Casting Fist = No damage, only knockdown. Ulti = 100 Energy for Wannabe-Bastille.

 

So yes... Tier List is strongly influenced by these missions... but that's the only way to tell if Frame is really good in every "extreme" situation. Because if you can faceroll Tier III Extermination solo or get to the Defense Wave 60 easly... then you can do anything else.

 

Yes, I think that every Frame deserve a spot in High Wave Defense Mission or Void Tower Mission. Right now you can't really do this content with Useless, Low and half of the Mid tier... not if you don't have Potato'd HEK or something.

All frames are viable in void. It's the same as completing a normal mission. All you need is common sense and a decent primary and secondary. Skills don't play an efficient roll in void well through my experiences anyway. I can run through void with any frame and take little to no damage.

[Ungorisz]

God Tier - Vauban ... YEAH GOD tier in annoying the full party with vortexes that makes other tenno unable to use their powers cause floating "cannot use in air" ...

[Magtone]

I would be interested in a rework in MAG myself.

Her pull is essentially useless except to move enemies around / pull your teammates away from fights or into fights, etc.

Shield polarize, in my opinion, does very little in reducing enemy shields (a pistol can do better) and regenerating ally shields (break time from fighting can do better).

 

Bullet attractor is devised for single targets, that it's use drops into the negative.

THAT is scary.

 

The one shining star I see on MAG is her crush. In combination with "Stretch", it has the greatest AOE damage I have ever seen, dealing 1000 damage to all targets in the now 45% increased radius.

 

Yes, she needs more crowd control. Pull either:

A. deals damage to the target;

B. incapacitates multiple enemies for a longer duration of time;

C. pulls multiple targets to an effect;

D. does something other than pull...

 

Shield polarize needs a rework. Now, I can say that there are many ways to go about this, but I don't want to say "BUFF this!" or "Nerf that!"

Remember those annoying ospreys that drain your shields? I believe that MAG should have a similar ability to that. Maybe change this polarize into an AOE shield drain, with greater effect.

 

Bullet attractor is essentially redundant in fights, unless everyone is using a Gorgon and shotguns......(I just realized that I should do some tests with that... whether bullet attractor increases the damage / range of shotguns).

As bullet attractor was originally meant to be a debuff, I think it should also apply some kind of armor shredding debuff on the target / targets within the magnetic field.

 

Not only would these abilities make MAG more versatile, but I believe it would actually give her a greater role in a squad. She essentially would be there to make the damage dealers deal more damage, her team absorb more damage, and crushing hordes of (weaker) enemies threatening to overwhelm her team.

 

These are just some of my thoughts. Now to apply these kinds of things will definitely take a lot of time.

 

(No, my name has nothing to do with the warframe, this is my gamer alias.)

[fishworshipper]

What's the Snow Globe + Iron Skin synergy?

On a map with ranged enemies, have a Frost use Snow Globe, then have Rhino stand in the Snow Globe and use Iron Skin.

All the pew pew gets directed to and absorbed by the snow globe.

[Nerokerubina]

no

It's like you don't even enjoy fun.

[PeterKha]

My roommate has played:

Mag; The only reason he still uses this frame is because of her ultimate. Mag is scary in his hands, and with Crush he clears entire rooms even at the highest levels. Pull is underpowered against enemies since all it does is drag them into cover and actually make it harder to kill them. Rather, it should drag enemies over and around obstructions, dealing damage with and to every object it comes in contact with, especially if you grab the back person from a conga-line coming toward you. Shield Polarize is worse than useless except against shield drones. It needs to perhaps stun enemies or be renamed "Polarize" where it disables shields and enemies in a small area for a time. And/or cause feedback with shield drones, destroying the drone and stunning anybody under it protection, possibly arcing to other nearby shield drones to repeat the process. And Bullet Attractor actually makes it harder to kill enemies because shots fired at the target go straight to the center rather than to any place that might be a weak-spot. Instead, placing it on an enemy should jam the target's weapon and any others that are inside the sphere, while placing it on an ally should repel arms fire in a random direction, simultaneously jamming enemy weapons inside the sphere.

 

Ash; Almost useless. Shuriken is too costly to bother with, especially with it's low damage output. Smokescreen, enemies still continue to fire at you, any movement on your part ends the invisibility. In short, it doesn't do what it says it should. It should work for allies nearby as well, a quick escape for the whole cell if necessary. Teleport, works like it says but should not require you to teleport to an enemy, as a ninja, Ash should be able to go from one end of a room to the other to remain hidden. It should be a second quick escape. Bladestorm is too temperamental, it's difficult to judge which enemy is the best to target with it, and if anyone leaves or enter the area after casting, they aren't affected. It should allow for multiple strikes on the same enemy if the first or even second didn't put it down, especially if there is only one enemy do deal with, but with a rapidly decreasing damage output: 100% first hit, 60% second, 36% for the third, etc.

 

This is all I have that I can speak about with any certainty and what I think would improve matters.

I agree with what you say with Mag because I can clear rooms of enemies with the click of one button on endless defense and restore my energy as quick as anything. Though with what you said about Ash, there are somethings I agree with and somethings I disagree with. 

 

His shurikens are useless, I agree. But the smokescreen is semi decent. I reckon it needs a buff on the timer but it does exactly what it says which is stunning enemies in the smoke screen. No enemies fire at you because you've completely cloaked yourself, and hitting or moving on your behalf does not end the smokescreen. I actually never saw a use to smokescreen besides going invis and either melee or just shoot down any boss without them attacking you until I did xini defence.

 

I was doing it with a friend and he had to brb when wave 5 was about to start. Mobs coming from all directions and bladestorm is limited target ulti which didn't do so well as I panicked and use it, I mean sure it cleared out some mobs but they got through to the cryopod and at that moment I remembered that smokescreen stuns enemy units and I smoked the cryopod and managed to save it and finish the wave with the cryopod being on 7% so I give smokescreen points for being useful at certain situations.

[Notso]

I disagree with this list because as others have pointed out, this list is seen through the goggles of someone whose got a very narrow definition of usefulness as it relates to high tier defense missions.

 

I can't comment on either Banshee or Vauban, as those are the only ones I've not used so far, but as for the other Warframes, I find that they all have their niche they fit into perfectly. If I spec my gear and frame according to the mission parameters, whichever they will be, I will always excel.

 

Mag is incredibly useful in the right hands on a normal mission. Her pull together with a high leveled melee weapon enables her to act as a sort of tank towards heavies, she can single them out, pull them close (and prone them) and then hack away at them. Really, in DnD pen and paper, knocking an enemy prone is about as useful of a skill as you can have and many builds of fighters tend to be based off that. So really, calling pull situational just shows how little OP knows about battlefield manipulation.

 

I will agree however, that Shield Polarize is in essential only usable in defense missions as in normal missions shields regenerate way too fast. I've seen that Banshee has a sort of "push" ability, I would have liked to see this one replaced with that for even greater single-enemy management. For example, being in a team and pinning an enemy to the wall with repeated pushes would be incredibly useful.

 

As for bullet attractor, it's useful in two instances, when you have an enemy that deals heavy DPS with ranged (and you need that to stop NOW) or when you want to deal heavy damage to a single other target. Mix this with heavy hitters using Hek and an Exalibur or two with a radial spear and you cannot lose.

 

I'm personally fine with her ult because it enables me to get some breathing room if I need to switch my strategy. I would only like to have it be armor piercing though, so that it works on two factions rather than one. Same for the Volts ult too, now that I think about it.

 

I often find that people that complain about the frames usefulness pretty much fall into two categories:

 

1) The power players, really, I don't care about your level 100 Xini/Palus/Outer Terminus OP builds. You complain about warframes not being high tier when you as a player aren't even mid tier in skill. Stop trying to pidgeon-hole every frame into one particular situation. This game is more than just super high level stuff, thus we have differently suited frames for it.

 

2) The newbies, so you tried Ember and thought she sucked and all the while you had no idea you were running around on Pluto with your starter weapons that didn't even have damage increase mods on them. You're excused, because you clearly don't know any better.

 

The sweeping generalizations and logical fallacies ;_;

[Geshoku]

I honestly think pretty much every frame is high Tier~ I personally have played all of them and enjoyed them, each with their own distinct abilities they make up for weaknesses. Plus mag is fun ;w;

That's a funny joke.

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

The sweeping generalizations and logical fallacies ;_;

 

Add a no true scotsman and confirmation bias and I could mistake you for a Redditor!

No really, attacking the meta of an argument without providing counter-arguments is silly.

[LordofTibera]

Makes me sad...Maybe one day I can have a Vauban too. Then I don't have to answer questions as to why I play Rhino...

[fishworshipper]

Makes me sad...Maybe one day I can have a Vauban too. Then I don't have to answer questions as to why I play Rhino...

You have to answer questions as to why you play Rhino?

No one asks me why after I stun a boss for a good 6 seconds after he takes out a player so I can safely revive them.

[Fleischkloppa]

You have to answer questions as to why you play Rhino?

No one asks me why after I stun a boss for a good 6 seconds after he takes out a player so I can safely revive them.

 

Yeah or when I bath in the glory of playing an awesome-looking frame while most of the others dont even lift.

[Notso]

Add a no true scotsman and confirmation bias and I could mistake you for a Redditor!

No really, attacking the meta of an argument without providing counter-arguments is silly.

 

I've done it so many times today I'm sick of it quite honestly. If you really want me to I could pick it apart sentence by sentence but people tend to get pissed when I do that. No idea why.

[Sideway]

Oh gosh.. all the feedback!

 

I'll try to respond in a single post.

 

"I disagree with this list because as others have pointed out, this list is seen through the goggles of someone whose got a very narrow definition of usefulness as it relates to high tier defense missions." and all other comments of this kind.

 

Yes and no. High Tier Defense mission is like a test. If you can handle that... you can deal with anything else currently in the game. Sure Tier III Extermination is more about your Weapon and Ammo Stock but still... sometimes you just need that one defensive skill just to survive a standard gunfight.

 

There are many types of missions in Warframe... but so far only Defense and Void is something that we like to call "Skill Check". You don't need any kind of coordination, teamplay or skill to get through the missions, all of them. The real challenge is Void III and Endless Defense (I really hope that they will add more "Endgame" content soon). If you can preform well in those missions - you'll faceroll anything else.

 

Let's be honest... "normal" missions desn't even count. You have to do them to unlock the entire "map" but you rarely return to them. In the end you just focus on Defense and Void... and if a certain Frame is not preforming well in this kind of missions... then maybe there is something wrong with it.

 

Volt, Rhino, Mag... give them weapon with catalyst and they can solo anything except of Mobile Defense, Defense and Void Tier 3. So if anyone can do this - then it's not a challenge at all... so reasonably is to base Frame performance on this "hard", "endgame" content that requires actual skill and cooperation.

 

That's why good Frame is a frame with scaling skills. That's why Ember is only Mid Tier. She can dish out some serious damage... but it will not scale, not as much as Saryn's for example. If crowd control skills could be resisted by high level mobs... well, that's the other story. But they can't resist anything. So you can rely on chaos, bastille etc. and this game mechanics is the most important.

 

Sometimes one skill can change everything. Banshee is a great example here, Sonar was enough to put her in the High Tier. Mag or Volt with one good, unique, versatile and useful skill could jump right to the Mid Tier. Let's hope that DE will deliver.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Sideway

[Perfectionest]

Hmm, I am interested in what the rest of the community thinks of this list. Do you agree/disagree? Have you played all 13 frames, or are you in a clan or squad with access to all 13, and found clear disadvantages as suggested in this image?

 

Your wish is my command! <3

I will break it up into low - middle and high , useless is kinda insulting even though I get your point.

Low

- Mag : Played for a decent amount of time. Yeah, she isn't great. Nothing special, I don't like her eiterh - reworking her would be probably a good idea.

- Volt : Played him for a short while, will be trying him out more at a later point, If you want a good Warframe for electric damage you will go with Vauban. He seems to be one of those "starting frames" which are rather meh - could be wrong.

- Loki : Didn't play him until now, seems rather boring to me. Has an awfully annoying decoy - therefore here.

- Rhino : Never played him, watched friends playing him. "We" had that discussion in one of those livestreams, Scott mentioned that he isn't the tank that he is supposed to be + that his two skills looked the same - nothing happened. Seems to have good basic stats and rather helpful stun abilities, without much damage(?).

Mid

- Excalibur : Played a lot with this one, has interesting abilities - the best Warframe for the beginning of the game, even though he can't compete with "High Frames" whatsoever, in my opinion.

- Ember + Banshee : I like both Warframes, have cool abilities even though Banshees ulty becomes bad in late defences, Ember is fine for some time - but she has some nasty abilties, like that bloody ring of fire - players can't see anything, eyes start to hurt if you are funny enough to melee stuff in that mess - you might want to change the look of those fire skills, some are really nasty. Oh yeah, played some Banshee and a good amount of Ember.

High

- Ash : Yeah, he isn't well suited for defence in general - however he is doing such huge damage to solo targets, it's ridicolous. He almost one hits every boss at this point, his kunais got buffed to hell and back.

- Trinity : Didn't play her much, seems rather helpful with her abilities. Frustrating with randoms.

- Nyx : I love her - that's all. You might want to buff her flying bubbles, or don't - otherwise I would have to insert focus into her.

- Saryn : Is getting baked at the moment, I heard that she was a beast. Seen her crazy AOE damage - seems to be pretty great.

- Frost : I hate his Snowglobe, referring to its whole design. Aside from that - might be overpowered in his basic stats, pretty slow and boring in his nature.

- Vauban : Had him, before my reset - was pretty average against Infested, his ulty seems overpowered - might be wrong.

 

Edited June 18, 2013 by Mr.Smof

[plznohurtme]

Oh gosh.. all the feedback!

 

I'll try to respond in a single post.

 

"I disagree with this list because as others have pointed out, this list is seen through the goggles of someone whose got a very narrow definition of usefulness as it relates to high tier defense missions." and all other comments of this kind.

 

Yes and no. High Tier Defense mission is like a test. If you can handle that... you can deal with anything else currently in the game. Sure Tier III Extermination is more about your Weapon and Ammo Stock but still... sometimes you just need that one defensive skill just to survive a standard gunfight.

 

There are many types of missions in Warframe... but so far only Defense and Void is something that we like to call "Skill Check". You don't need any kind of coordination, teamplay or skill to get through the missions, all of them. The real challenge is Void III and Endless Defense (I really hope that they will add more "Endgame" content soon). If you can preform well in those missions - you'll faceroll anything else.

 

Let's be honest... "normal" missions desn't even count. You have to do them to unlock the entire "map" but you rarely return to them. In the end you just focus on Defense and Void... and if a certain Frame is not preforming well in this kind of missions... then maybe there is something wrong with it.

 

Volt, Rhino, Mag... give them weapon with catalyst and they can solo anything except of Mobile Defense, Defense and Void Tier 3. So if anyone can do this - then it's not a challenge at all... so reasonably is to base Frame performance on this "hard", "endgame" content that requires actual skill and cooperation.

 

That's why good Frame is a frame with scaling skills. That's why Ember is only Mid Tier. She can dish out some serious damage... but it will not scale, not as much as Saryn's for example. If crowd control skills could be resisted by high level mobs... well, that's the other story. But they can't resist anything. So you can rely on chaos, bastille etc. and this game mechanics is the most important.

 

Sometimes one skill can change everything. Banshee is a great example here, Sonar was enough to put her in the High Tier. Mag or Volt with one good, unique, versatile and useful skill could jump right to the Mid Tier. Let's hope that DE will deliver.

Solo t3 extermination and the highest level mobile defense using Volt. Volt in endless defense against infested (shield vs ancients, the damage is still crazy) and against corpus (obvious reasons) is fine. Again you're taking some sort of personal bias into account regarding how frames perform. I do agree that Mag has really bad scaling problems and needs help along with the fact that Rhino's iron skin needs to be beneficial against all enemies.

You seem to be basing viability on strong abilities under very specific circumstances and crowd control. This is quite frankly a stupid way to measure effectiveness.

[UberChio]

The one big issue I dont really understand is:

 

Excalibur, Loki, Volt and Rhino used to be the first four frames.

 

Excalibur rose to the top, Loki done pretty well, but Rhino and Volt? Seriously? At this rate every new player would just check forums and most likely choose Excalibur. This biased choice is really killing this game, and if the DE were to prioritize giving players equal choice in playing style (That means all frame are balanced), it would be so much better.

 

And the release of Vauban really diminished Rhino's ultimate. Like seriously.

 

Volt - really this shock thing. im pretty sure if i ran a current through grineer bodies that are cybernetic and wearing prosthetic legs and holding metal weapons it should deal quite a fair bit more damage then what it is doing now.

 

Infested Ancients practically immune to overload? I thought it was a technoctye plague or something.

 

Really I call on the entire thread to just focus on Volt and Mag and not argue on other frames that can work out. THESE TWO CANT.

Edited June 18, 2013 by UberChio

[BoompigXD]

Disagree with Mag i like her she doesn't need a rework in my opinion.

[theammostore]

I disagree with this list because as others have pointed out, this list is seen through the goggles of someone whose got a very narrow definition of usefulness as it relates to high tier defense missions.

 

I can't comment on either Banshee or Vauban, as those are the only ones I've not used so far, but as for the other Warframes, I find that they all have their niche they fit into perfectly. If I spec my gear and frame according to the mission parameters, whichever they will be, I will always excel.

 

Mag is incredibly useful in the right hands on a normal mission. Her pull together with a high leveled melee weapon enables her to act as a sort of tank towards heavies, she can single them out, pull them close (and prone them) and then hack away at them. Really, in DnD pen and paper, knocking an enemy prone is about as useful of a skill as you can have and many builds of fighters tend to be based off that. So really, calling pull situational just shows how little OP knows about battlefield manipulation.

 

I will agree however, that Shield Polarize is in essential only usable in defense missions as in normal missions shields regenerate way too fast. I've seen that Banshee has a sort of "push" ability, I would have liked to see this one replaced with that for even greater single-enemy management. For example, being in a team and pinning an enemy to the wall with repeated pushes would be incredibly useful.

 

As for bullet attractor, it's useful in two instances, when you have an enemy that deals heavy DPS with ranged (and you need that to stop NOW) or when you want to deal heavy damage to a single other target. Mix this with heavy hitters using Hek and an Exalibur or two with a radial spear and you cannot lose.

 

I'm personally fine with her ult because it enables me to get some breathing room if I need to switch my strategy. I would only like to have it be armor piercing though, so that it works on two factions rather than one. Same for the Volts ult too, now that I think about it.

 

I often find that people that complain about the frames usefulness pretty much fall into two categories:

 

1) The power players, really, I don't care about your level 100 Xini/Palus/Outer Terminus OP builds. You complain about warframes not being high tier when you as a player aren't even mid tier in skill. Stop trying to pidgeon-hole every frame into one particular situation. This game is more than just super high level stuff, thus we have differently suited frames for it.

 

2) The newbies, so you tried Ember and thought she sucked and all the while you had no idea you were running around on Pluto with your starter weapons that didn't even have damage increase mods on them. You're excused, because you clearly don't know any better.

If you spec anything at all right, you can faceroll anything, that doesn't prove much. I can spec my Loki up and go tanking. Just because you can spec a warframe to the right mission and stomp all over everybody doesn't mean that the warframe is good or fits a niche.

 

And let me just pick at your bullet attractor discussion. Okay, so bullet attractor and radial jav, I'll admit that is great, but it's extremely situational. So you're going up against a boss, really the only reason to use BA, and you cast BA on them, what if you don't have an Excal? Well, there went your example, and before you say it, yes it is possible to get every single person firing only one at a time to keep their shields down and keep the damage constant, so you don't need BA. Also, BA can reduce damage to targets, for example if I have a Braton going for the legs of an ancient, and someone BAs it, now I can't shoot the legs. Yeah, it makes it easier to hit, but it would be dead a lot faster if BA hadn't been cast. Aside from those two, rare instances, BA is useless.

 

Next onto your Pull discussion. A high level, and worth it melee weapon could also just do the same effect if you just hit them with the right attack. A jump slam, a flying kick, or a Kestrel from a teammate. If there's a heavy hitter that you really want to melee, good for you for being brave, but then what happens once it flies past your teammates, into your face, and you can't hack it to pieces in time? Now you have an angry supertrooper in your face waiting to deck you across the neck. Okay, you got a bunch of damage done if you did it right, but they are still alive, and more than likely ready to knock you down and stomp on your face. Aside from pulling a guy in for you to hopefully kill before he gets up, and pulling a guy out of a sticky situation, useless.

 

Glad we can agree on Shield Polarize and Crush.

 

 

I'm not a power player or a noob, but I've played with Mag until level 28, and I rarely ever used her abilities other than Crush, and that was so I didn't have to spend time on a room while I was farming.

[Sideway]

You seem to be basing viability on strong abilities under very specific circumstances and crowd control. This is quite frankly a stupid way to measure effectiveness.

 

It's a great way to measure effectivness. You either need survivability, crowd control, team synergy or devastating damage output. If some class can only pull, polarize shield for crap amount, use some next-to-useless bullet attractor or cast AoE skill that doesn't scale and can't ignore armor... then it deserves to be in the Useless Tier as a Frame.

 

Same for Volt and Rhino. They have "nothing". They put nothing on the table. Volt Shield could be nice... but it's too small. Rhino's Aggro and Stomp could be nice... but either it does not scale or it's outclassed by some other skill (Bastille >>>>> Rhino Stomp).

 

You keep on saying that our Tier List is based "only on one thing", but this thing is the most important thing not-casual wise. Nobody cares if Volt or Rhino can solo Hades, of course they can. Anyone can. That's why it doesn't matter. Tier List is an "overall performance". And some Frames performance is much, MUCH wider and much more useful to the cooperative team.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Sideway

[JollierThanThou]

Solo t3 extermination and the highest level mobile defense using Volt. Volt in endless defense against infested (shield vs ancients, the damage is still crazy) and against corpus (obvious reasons) is fine. Again you're taking some sort of personal bias into account regarding how frames perform. I do agree that Mag has really bad scaling problems and needs help along with the fact that Rhino's iron skin needs to be beneficial against all enemies.

You seem to be basing viability on strong abilities under very specific circumstances and crowd control. This is quite frankly a stupid way to measure effectiveness.

 

But those specific circumstances (high wave defense and tier III void) are a valid measure, because they're the only circumstances under which the differences between frames start to matter.

[noteXactly]

I find this thread hilarious and I've stopped by to say hi to OP.

[Sideway]

I find this thread hilarious and I've stopped by to say hi to OP.

 

Why hello there, sir. How's your evening? Working hard I hope!

[BoompigXD]

The thing is Mag's abilities are situational yes, but she has an ability for ALL types of situations. Shield Polarize=Kill some Crewman that are hanging by an MOA. Pull=Downed attack FTW Bullet Attractor=Gorgon's Wet Dream Crush=GET OUT OF MY FACE!!!!

[noteXactly]

Why hello there, sir. How's your evening? Working hard I hope!

 

All my evenings feel 'useful', since I've sold my MAG to slave traders.