Advices needed for level 30 Excalibur

[cindra997]

Hello,

I used to play a lot of Warframe few years ago and then I stopped playing when Nekros was released. I redownloaded the game this monday and seen that a lot of things have changed. I've played some missions with my friend and reached level 30 on Excalibur. Now I have no idea what to do next. When I try to solo play some higher level missions I get destroyed. I would appreciate a lot if anyone is interested in explaining me what mastery is for and how to reach higher levels of it, what weapon should I use(I have MK1-Braton, Aklato and Skana on max levels) and any mod farming places, or how to be able to do some things solo. I also have some Nekros blueprints and parts, so is it still obtainable by doing the assassinate missions?

Thanks in advance and have a great day.

Edited December 2, 2016 by cindra997

[Airyllish]

Well, welcome back to Warframe for starters.

Mastery Rank is increased by unlocking nodes on your star chart and completing them, and by ranking up other weapons and warframes to 30. Several weapon blueprints can be obtained by completing the (likely new to you) Solar Rail junctions, which will also unlock the next planet in the star chart so are generally worth doing. These junctions all have various requirements, but you can hover over them or enter the junction once it's unlocked to see what those requirements are in order to complete it.

Warframes are the same old same old as they ever were: several of them drop their Neuroptics (aka Helmets), Systems and Chassis from a boss on a planet, with 100% drop chance for one of the three every time you run the assassination. (So, for example, Valkyr's parts are dropped by everybody's favourite Corpus salad. I mean, Alad V.) Other frames such as Limbo, Mirage, Atlas and Chroma are available through quests, which you now also get blueprints for in Solar Rail junctions.

Basically: do your star chart. It's good for you.

Weapon blueprints can also be bought for Credits in the marketplace, which will let you start to expand your arsenal in that way. Several weapons or different versions of the weapons are unavailable from the Marketplace however and need to be obtained in other means: Synidcate versions of weapons for example need to be bought from their related Syndicate, some weapon blueprints are only available from a Clan Dojo.

Primed Warframes and weapons have been changed in their acquisition and are now gained through Relics instead of through the Void, but it might be worth looking into those later once you have yourself a good spread of frames beyond the starting Excalibro and basic starting weapons. Good frames to look at getting if you want a variety of frames to tackle a variety of missions with include Frost for Mobile Defence/Defence, Loki for things like Captures/Spies and a frame like Valkyr who can take you through a good portion of Survival missions.

... and as for Excalibro, despite him being my starting frame, I never actually got him to 30. I pretty much immediately dipped my toes into Saryn instead, whom I was gifted by a friend, and never looked back.

[Blade_Wolf_16]

To get a higher Mastery Rank, you need to max Weapons, Warframes, Kubrows, etc. in order to unlock Weapons, Trade, Syndicates, etc.

Nekros drops on Lephantis.

You can buy better Weapons on the Market, but since you're new (again :P) your choices are limited. Weapons with no or low MR restriction are good to begin with and are pretty much all equal in general. The Karak and Blotor are good AR, Strun is not a bad shotgun imo and almost every melee weapons are good if you use them against the good faction. Choose whatever you want and try it! :)

[Koldraxon-732]

For DEtails, see the spoiler'd segment beneath this text.

Spoiler

 

To ACTUALLY ascend the Mastery Rank, once your progress bar is full from levelling previously not levelled items (including non-MK-1 versions of starter weapons), you will be prompted with a test. The first of the first three tests will challenge your skills with your primary only, the second with any kind of sidearm you happen to be using, the third with whatever your melee is; failing these tests will deny you from trying them again for 24 hours. Mastery Rank is essential to accessing more features, like Trading (MR2), many weapons (from 1 to 13, as of Nekros' Prime's release), certain Quests (MR5), and more.

To improve your chances of surviving higher level missions, I recommend for you to MOD your Warframes and Weapons, and use the modding bench to improve said mods to further push your potential. I also recommend you go to the 'Training' section of the Codex and examine the 'Advanced Movement' tutorial.

To acquire new weapons and Warframes, you will have to buy their blueprints; but some weapons' blueprints are elsewhere (i.e: Relics for Primes, bosses for some weaponry like Vor's Seer handgun, bosses again for most Warframe components, and then Clans also hold a number of Labs with 'Research' which basically are blueprints for what isn't on the Market, with some exceptions). 

The Void and it's Towers are now a physical location, and do not drop Primes anymore; Void Relics, when taken to Fissure missions, are the new 'location' for Primes.

Oh, and if you still have at least 50 Platinum on your person, it is recommended to distribute:

20 to a Warframe Slot, and 24 to Weapon Slots.

This is necessary as you will otherwise find yourself out of room and unable to flex your mix-match potential of the massive array of armaments available to construct.

Some armaments may need one or more of another built as components.

Inaros is another Quest 'frame, who's quest can be bought from Baro Ki'teer. When you're well-equipped and have weapons you know will kill, consider getting the Quest.

 

Additionally, finding friends or people who can assist on Warframe when you need their help will benefit you in the long run.

 

As for your current Warframe, Excalibur's power-set allows for a wide array of applications (blinding enemies is very beneficial, as it gives the opportunity to MURDER THEM without wasting bullets or time). 

Recommended mods, should you find them:

Any elemental damage mods for weapons.

Any straight-out damage/multishot mods.

Any weapon ammunition mutation mods.

Anything that boosts Health/Shields for your Warframe.

Any Aura mod for your Warframe (self-preference: Energy Siphon on 'frames that can heal themselves, and Rejuvenation on 'frames that can't).

 

 

[NinjaZeku]

To be able to hold your own on higher level missions, you want Mods. All the Mods.

Having a Rank 9-10 Vitality at the very least, plus maybe Redirection / Steel Fiber
as per Warframe choice / personal playstyle, can up your survivability enourmously,
though since offense is the best defense, being able to kill quickly
(you'll want all of base damage / Multishot / elemental damage / maybe crit goodness on guns)
and spam powerful abilities (Corrupted Mods from Orokin Derelict Vaults = yes pls)
is ultimately what you'll want to strive for, I'd say.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

I would highly recommend taking a look at this:

 

[cindra997]

Thank you all, I've found all answers very usefull. I have a few more tho. When I last played you were auto guided through planets and now I am landed on Earth (I think,didn't get to play few days and can't remember correctly) when I open navigation and I have acess to more planets but some of the missions are locked on them (not all). So should I just go through every mission on every planet or is there way to see which ones I need to unlock the locked ones. Also, could you recommend me a secondary weapon, I have had Seer blueprints since I was still leveling 3 years ago. Is it worth farming it or should I go for something else, and if it is worth, where to farm parts of it? I tried playing assassination mission on Vor and just got one more blueprint for Seer.

And again, I can't thank you enough for all usefull tips you gave me, I realy appreciate it. 

[NinjaZeku]

22 minutes ago, cindra997 said:

So should I just go through every mission on every planet or is there way to see which ones I need to unlock the locked ones.

You unlock missions by completing an adjacent one.

So, you could just make a beeline for Junctions to unlock the next Planet and stuff,
however, each mission node gives a small Mastery bonus,
completing a Planet gives you random NIghtmare missions and lets you deploy Resource Extractors,
plus you'll probably want to at least have everything unlocked
for Alert / Sortie / whatever missions that might take place on a "not-main-path" node.

28 minutes ago, cindra997 said:

Also, could you recommend me a secondary weapon

Early (MR2 and below) Secondaries I'd recommend might include ...

Akmagnus (status / crit hybrid, build as per your leasure)
Furis with the Augment (immortality and radial death / debuff boom, yay)
Lex Prime (you can get it cheap in Trading or maybe make it your first [easy] Prime farming goal)
Sonicor (wee ragdoll, also high AoE damage that doesn't hurt you)
Twin Grakatas (though you kinda need the Primed crit Mods to get the most out of it)

I guess Seer is a decent (not-Prime) Lex alternative but that inability to
deal critical (including headshot) damage on a sniper-y gun ... bleh.

Despair (rare Stalker drop) is a viable choice for a silent Secondary,
though Spira with a crit build has it pretty much beat (ignoring the terribly low Fire Rate)
and there's Spira Prime so it's hard to recommend either of the others in light of that.
(Might as well just put Suppress on a Lex Prime lol.)

44 minutes ago, cindra997 said:

where to farm

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki

:D

Seer parts also drop from Vor, just gotta pray and roll that RNG a few more times.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Seer

All parts can be acquired as end of mission rewards after defeating Captain Vor on Tolstoj, Mercury.

[cindra997]

@NinjaZeku It's me again with the spam . So I've been playing more than usualy last few days and got blueprints for Lex Prime, Paris Prime, Boltor, Furis, Fragor, Fang Prime and Heat Sword. So what would you consider more effective, Lex Prime/ Furis; Boltor/Paris Prime and finaly Fragor/Fang Prime/ Heat Sword. Or should I try to get something else for melee and primary? Still can't catch up with all that got changed, so thanks again for all the help.

[NinjaZeku]

6 minutes ago, cindra997 said:

So what would you consider more effective, Lex Prime/ Furis; Boltor/Paris Prime and finaly Fragor/Fang Prime/ Heat Sword. Or should I try to get something else for melee and primary?

Lex Prime I mostly use on stealth runs on a Hushed Invisibility Loki,
it's perfectly fine damage-wise for the heat of battle (especially if you can headshots reliably)
but the Sniper-esque drawbacks (low-ish fire rate / magazine size / reload speed) often make me pick something else.

Furis' damage output is (decent once fully modded but still) rather underwhelming in comparison,
I'd suggest it as a quick-swap-to-heal weapon / a complement to a one-shot monster Primary.

Regular Boltor I was never a fan of, without the massive damage (and accuracy / flight speed!) increase of Boltor Prime,
I'd much rather have some hit-scan goodness (yay e.g. Braton Prime, which not least has great damage & status).

Paris Prime is pretty dang beastly, though again there's the "horde" problem that slower weapons face.

Basically, I like to mix 'n' match between Primary and Secondary,
e.g. have one be AoE with limited range (woo Ignis / Staticor) and then the other
more capable for long-range / single-target pwnage (say, Akstiletto Prime / Dread).

So, in your case, I guess Paris Prime + Furis would make a nicely versatile combo.

[Though maybe also look into e.g. (from low MR reqs to higher, up to MR6) Kohm / Ignis / Quanta / Tiberon / Tonkor / Penta
and Sonicor / Atomos / Kulstar / Akstiletto Prime / Staticor, to name a few that I'd say are unlikely to disappoint.]

Fragor I wouldn't recommend investing too much into, there are loads of better Hammers around,
including of course Fragor Prime and (both versions of) Heliocor.

Fang Prime / Dual Daggers in general ... eh, I don't quite see the point,
you don't have the Covert Lethality bonus of single Daggers, only the range problems,
you do get high spin attack damage but the same is true for Dual Swords which often have great crit stats in addition.

Heat Sword is ~fine (compared to early Mastery fodder like Skana) but nothing too special, either, beyond the slam attack gimmick.

TBH, Melee-wise, it's hard for me to recommend anything other than Orthos Prime,
the range (+ Primed Reach FTW) on that thing alone just puts the majority of other Melee choices to shame in my book.
[And then there's the obscenity that is Maiming Strike, spin to win indeed, pfft Telos Boltace who needs you.]

Although (speaking of spin to win), I do have a place in my heart for the Heavy Blade category,
slicing through waves of Infested with Cleaving Whirlwind's ridiculous Broken Bull combo has yet to get old
and there's something to be said for the powerful / stylish options of Tempo Royale.

Plus of course there's the Redeemer (maybe also Sarpa, have yet to try that one out / compare the two),
what's not to love about a Melee weapon with a built-in OP shotgun?

[cindra997]

3 hours ago, NinjaZeku said:

and then the other
more capable for long-range / single-target pwnage (say, Akstiletto Prime / Dread)

I don't think I will have much success in farming these and Orthos Prime, at least for now 

Thanks again, you're the real MVP.