Stuck in progression

[Zack]

Hello, so I started warframe a few days ago, i've played quite a bit (i'm at 37 hours), i've been really enjoying it, and the progression, taking 12h or 24h to craft things is a little bit long but i got used to it.

My problem right now is that i've been progressing quite fine until now, i've had a few mission where i had problems but i just upgraded my items and kept on going. But right now i'm stuck at Keeler on Saturn. I'm really struggling to make it, and there isn't other players doing it, but even if there was, i was soloing the game as much as i could for the progression because i want to get the hang of it by myself, i don't mind playing with others for alerts or fissures, or this kind of content, but i would like to be able to do the planet progression by myself.

So i'm playing Excalibur, and haven't unlocked any other warframe yet since we only have one other slot, and it takes quite a bit of ressources and time to make new I didn't want to craft a new one and figure i don't like it. But this isn't the problem, i really enjoy playing Excalibur.

The problem is that i feel like i need to upgrade my items more, but i just can't. I don't have a lot of money, not much Endo, so I can't upgrade my mods as much as i would like to, plus i don't have that many mods. So i'm guessing i'm at a point where i need to grind to get my items upgraded, but i really don't know how long it's gonna take to get real good and usefull mods and upgrade them. I tried to watch builds on the internet, but all the good ones require many rare mods and very specific ones that I don't have.

Also i try to look for infos but many  things are outdated and it's hard to know what's right and what's wrong, that's why i thought it was better to ask "again".

At this time, i'm fine when i'm using my ultimate skill, i can kill mobs quite easily, but if i don't have any more power, i just feel like my guns and sword don't deal anything, and since i can't use it indefinitely, i get killed as soon as it ends. And also i'm taking quite a lot of damages, i've upgraded my mods to get 320% shield and 280% health, but i still get wrecked in a second from time to time, plus i'm really having a hard time against damages that goes through the shield.

So what should i do now? Where should i go to grind for what I need? What DO I need ? Thanks for reading this rather long post, and i'm waiting for your answers :)

Also, i have a "long term" project, I saw that video and thought this looks like a fun build to play, there's still a long way before i can get this warframe and the weapon, and all the mods, but that's what i'm working toward. But since there's still many planets and missions i have to complete before being able to play it, I really need some advice on how to progress.

Sorry for my english, i'm French and it's not that good, but I thought the english forum might be the most viewe

Edited February 13, 2017 by Zack0121

[l07g]

1. Upgrading armor to deal with shield-bypassing dmg would be a good start. It work well on excal, however,it won't for low base armor warframes like volt or mag (well, anything that has lower than 100 armor).

2. Did you pick up a new wepon? The MK1s, Lato and Skana might be showing signs of underwhelming dmg capability from Saturn. If you did change your wepons, have you thought about putting a Catalyst on your weapon? It will greatly help you.

3. Don't try to max the 10 lvl mods right away, keep them at lvl 5-6-7 and upgrade your 5 lvl mods like elemental mods, crit mods or some warframe mods like rush (for speed). It will take a long time until you have the resources to max things like Vitality (health) or Serration  (rifle dmg).

Forum Protip: follow the thread you started so you can be informed of any updates on your topic. (Scroll up, button on the right of the thread title)

Edited February 13, 2017 by l07g

[NeithanDiniem]

Pretty much any endless mission (defense, survival, excavation, interception, salvage) will give you mods, endo and such as a reward. They also often set you against a good number of enemies so you'll get some nice resources to go with it that you can use for building with. Spy missions have some decent returns for newer players, including some exclusive rewards, and offer a different type of gameplay with allowing stealth to be a factor in completion a bit more strongly than other mission types. Capture missions can give you consumable items that can increase your survivability (health restores) that you may want to go after as well. Rescue missions can get you specters which you can build and deploy to get some help on missions when no one else is playing. You can buy from the market deployable restores for Ammo, Health, Shields, and most importantly energy. They are pretty cheep, build in a minute, can be deployed on the fly in missions, and later you can get upgraded versions that build 10 more advanced deployables at a time. Going after prime items on fissures could net you some ducats for buying items from Baro Ki'Teer, which can sometimes include boosters for resources or affinity. If lucky and knowledgeable of trade in Warframe, you could also end up with a set for a weapon or a rare part and can then try and sell it for platinum with other players (warframe.market is a pretty good site for starting out on). Lastly, looking for a dojo to join can help you find people willing to aid you in missions, depending on if they are new-player-friendly and all. The forums can provide you an easy way to search for a recruiting clan that offers that kind of help.

[Aniawn]

Can you provide us with a rundown of your full loadout?  This might be very helpful in planning your loadout.

[Zack]

11 minutes ago, l07g said:

1. Upgrading armor to deal with shield-bypassing dmg would be a good start.

2. Did you pick up a new wepon? The MK1s, Lato and Skana might be showing signs of underwhelming dmg capability from Saturn. If you did change your wepons, have you thought about putting a Catalyst on your weepon? It will greatly help you.

3. Don't try to max the 10 lvl mods right away, keep them at lvl 5-6-7 and upgrade your 5 lvl mods like elemental mods, crit mods or some warframe mods like rush (for speed). It will take a long time until you have the resources to max things like Vitality (health) or Serration  (rifle dmg).

Thanks for your prompt answer.

I didn't know about armor, i looked it up but it seems it's also mods, I don't have any armor mod, but if i see one i'll use it, thanks for the info

I did buy a new weapon, i'm using Boltor which seems like a good weapon, and it was doing really well for a time, but now it's not performing that well. I did try to craft an other melee weapon but it really sucked, i don't know what good melee weapon to craft now. I did put a catalyst on my warframe, and put all the defensive mods i could in it.

Yeah i saw that it was getting pretty crazy to upgrade the shield and vitality mod, that's why i stopped at the point where i am, i upgraded all the elemental protection mods i have as much as i could, right now i have 50% resist to fire, to electricity and 37.5 to poison, plus i have 15% health aura. I have 75% damage in my boltor with 60µ electrical damages and 25% more amo because i was getting low on some long missions.

Edited February 13, 2017 by Zack0121

[l07g]

1 minute ago, Zack0121 said:

Yeah i saw that it was getting pretty crazy to upgrade the shield and vitality mod, that's why i stopped at the point where i am, i upgraded all the elemental protection mods i have as much as i could, right now i have 50% resist to fire, to electricity and 37.5 to poison, plus i have 15% health aura. I have 75% damage in my boltor with 60µ electrical damages and 25% more amo because i was getting low on some long missions.

I wasn't speaking about elemental resist, but elemental dmg for rifles, secondaries and melee. Elemental resistance is a very situational/questionable pick in a build.

[Zack]

2 minutes ago, l07g said:

I wasn't speaking about elemental resist, but elemental dmg for rifles, secondaries and melee. Elemental resistance is a very situational/questionable pick in a build.

So I should keep my boltor and add as much elemental damages as I can is what you say ?

 

12 minutes ago, Aniawn said:

Can you provide us with a rundown of your full loadout?  This might be very helpful in planning your loadout.

That's a really helpfull chart, thanks, I guess i should try to start taking into account what kind of enemy i'm facing and what kind of damages i need to kill them.

Edited February 13, 2017 by Zack0121

[Zack]

18 minutes ago, NeithanDiniem said:

Pretty much any endless mission (defense, survival, excavation, interception, salvage) will give you mods, endo and such as a reward. They also often set you against a good number of enemies so you'll get some nice resources to go with it that you can use for building with. Spy missions have some decent returns for newer players, including some exclusive rewards, and offer a different type of gameplay with allowing stealth to be a factor in completion a bit more strongly than other mission types. Capture missions can give you consumable items that can increase your survivability (health restores) that you may want to go after as well. Rescue missions can get you specters which you can build and deploy to get some help on missions when no one else is playing. You can buy from the market deployable restores for Ammo, Health, Shields, and most importantly energy. They are pretty cheep, build in a minute, can be deployed on the fly in missions, and later you can get upgraded versions that build 10 more advanced deployables at a time. Going after prime items on fissures could net you some ducats for buying items from Baro Ki'Teer, which can sometimes include boosters for resources or affinity. If lucky and knowledgeable of trade in Warframe, you could also end up with a set for a weapon or a rare part and can then try and sell it for platinum with other players (warframe.market is a pretty good site for starting out on). Lastly, looking for a dojo to join can help you find people willing to aid you in missions, depending on if they are new-player-friendly and all. The forums can provide you an easy way to search for a recruiting clan that offers that kind of help.

Thanks, that's a lot of information, and that's pretty usefull, i'll take that post into account from now, i guess i just need to grind in different places to get what i need to keep on going

[Brasten]

I think of Warframe in terms of Early (Earth to Jupiter), Mid (Saturn to Neptune), Late (Neptune to Sedna/Eris), and End (post Star Chart endless missions of enemies over level 60-100+)

In the Mid game, where you are, the most important thing you need to be doing is working on getting your Mod collection to Max Rank. You should have mods like Serration and the various elemental damage mods. You also need to being understanding the deeper mechanics of Warframe combat. Including Enemy Resistances and what Elemental damage types to use. Your Weapons and Warframe should be filling their Mod Energy capacity with useful Damage mods. Not filler like Fast Hands or Rifle Aptitude.

• Serration
• Stormbringer
• Infected Clip
• Cryo Rounds
• Hellfire
• Split Chamber

If you don't have mods like these (for Pistols and Shotguns) at Max or near Max Rank, you need to work on getting them there. "Bane of Grineer/Infested/Corpus" also depending on which faction you are fighting on a mission.

As a general rule you need to have filled your Mod Capacity with useful Damage mods equal to the enemy level you are fighting. At Saturn you should have 25 to 30 Mod Capcity dedicated to damage. Against Grineer at your Rank: Serration, Split Chamber, Stormbringer + Infected Clip (for Corrosive damage), Hellfire, Bane of Grineer.

If you do not have enough Mod Capacity.... You need to look for Forma using Void Relics. Forma can be used to give your weapons Polarity Slots to reduce the costs of installed Mods. Effectively giving you more Mod Capacity. 

You also need to being constructing new Warframes in the Mid Game. Once a player can access Jupiter they should have access to all the resources they need to build new Warframes. If you have not build Frost yet, you should do so. His objective defense power (#3 Snow Globe) will make missions like Keeler far easier. Many Warframes are better at certain mission types. Having a diverse collection of Warframes to use is critical for you at this point in the game.

As you head toward the Late game, that is when you need to be working on Min-Maxed "builds", which you can find through various sites such as Warframe Builder and reading information on the Warframe Wikia.

• Early Game: Work on your Mod Collection. Lean basic movement and how to use cover.
• Mid Game: Build new Warframes to help with different missions. Work on Max Ranking "mandatory" mods. Learn and practice Advanced Maneuvers (Slide & Air casting, chaining Advanced Movement for fast traversals).
• Late Game: Work toward "Min-Maxed" builds on Weapons and Warframes. Get Dual Stat Mods, Drift Mods, Corrupted Mods, look for Baro Ki'Teer when he brings his Primed Mods.
• End Game: Expand your knowledge of the game systems. How Armor works. How Damage (crits and status) work. The weaknesses in those system and how either work with them or get around them. Which Frames and Weapons work well on which enemy types.

http://fr.warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_Warframe

[l07g]

4 minutes ago, Zack0121 said:

So I should keep my boltor and add as much elemental damages as I can is what you say ?

A decent build that works for usually most weapons is as follows:

Serration (dmg), Split Chamber (Multishot, if you have one) and as many elemental dmg as you can fit + some other situaional mods if you still have the room for them

NOTE: DOES NOT APPLY TO CRIT WEAPONS (Boltor isn't a crit weapon, however)

[Maicael]

For starting out survivability I'd recommend getting Rhino from the Venus boss Jackal. His Iron Skin ability will help, and it ignores knockdowns and status procs (like those damage ones that bypass your shields). If you don't like him you can always get rid of him later on. You should have 50starting out, which is enough to buy another Warframe slot and 4 more weapon slots or some other combination. Reactors/Catalysts are pretty necessary for doubling mod capacity, but they are offered as rewards often enough if you save them for what you really like, and I don't recommend buying them until you've played enough you're sure it's what you want to spend platinum on.

You should have (or have access to) the newest sentinel, Taxon. He'll help with survivability some as well with shield restoration effects, and if you put the Vacuum mod on he'll also help with collecting dropped resources and endo in missions. I don't even need most of what is picked up anymore, but I still like how it clears ground and mini-map clutter.

I would recommend joining squads on endless missions. More enemies will spawn and be killed, so more affinity, more resources/mods/endo, able to last longer, so more rotations and their rewards. Excavation missions are pretty quick and won't fail if extractors are destroyed, so you can keep going as long as you can make it to extraction before losing all your revives.

 

Edit: Also, the Warframe Wiki is your friend. If you want to know what's available, where to find it, tips on how to use stuff, or lots of other things, then try searching on the wiki: http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki

 

Edited February 13, 2017 by Maicael
Mention the wiki

[Zack]

11 minutes ago, l07g said:

A decent build that works for usually most weapons is as follows:

Serration (dmg), Split Chamber (Multishot, if you have one) and as many elemental dmg as you can fit + some other situaional mods if you still have the room for them

NOTE: DOES NOT APPLY TO CRIT WEAPONS (Boltor isn't a crit weapon, however)

Ok, i'll try doing that then, thanks. I was doing a mission and didn't see your in game message, sorry.

[Aniawn]

19 minutes ago, Zack0121 said:

That's a really helpfull chart, thanks, I guess i should try to start taking into account what kind of enemy i'm facing and what kind of damages i need to kill them.

You're welcome.  I am glad to be of service.

[Tomppak]

"Making it" in warframe is a combination of various factors. The basic principles are

1. Using the right tool for the job: Picking a warframe with abilities useful for the mission (like the frost or a good crowd control or AoE) or choosing suitable weapons (or modding them with the right damage types) is pretty much the basics. Having a wide variety of frames and weapons can help you a lot with this. A good way to speed up your collection, though - when you get a -75% discount coupon for platinum, by at least the 5 dollar pack for 370 plat. That will buy you all the slots you need for a long time, so you don't need to immediately worry about running out of space for frames and weapons. (Buy a larger pack if you want/can afford it). Otherwise, sooner or later, you'll need to grind for something valuable to sell for plat so that you can buy those pretty much necessary slots. (Don't buy plat at normal or -20% price!)

2. Raw power: When you get your mods ranked high enough, and good enough weapons, you can mitigate the "having the right tools" by compensating with raw power. Likewise, if you can keep your exalted blade up for most of the duration of the mission, everything is a lot easier. If you can spam blindness nearly non-stop, lots of things come trivial. If you can stay permanently invisible with Loki/Ivara, getting killed is a lot unlikely. Having an ember with decent power strength and duration/efficiency means you can just run through lover level missions with enemies dying to your number 4 before they even pose a threat. These usually require lots of specialization or specific mods/weapons.

3. Movement and crowd control: You don't (always) need to kill stuff. In fact, lots of things can be done without killing stuff. Crowd Control skills can temporarily lock down enemies and create breathing room, but in missions where you don't need to stay in one place (obviously not the Mobile Defense you're having trouble with), staying on the move can do a lot to ensure your survival. Even when you do need to defend an object, staying mobile reduces a lot of incoming damage.

4. Friends. Seriously, while nearly everything is soloable in warframe, having an actual team is part of the fun, and makes things a lot easier. Accept that you don't need to do everything by yourself: Imagine if, in that Mobile Defense, you could have a Frost creating a bubble over you and the defense target, and you could spam that exalted blade from safety? Or even if you had just 2 excaliburs: One could Radial Blind Enemies while the other kills them, switch when you run out of energy. Join a clan - an active clan is obviously better, but even a very in-active clan can help as long as they are part of a more active alliance - asking for company/help in the alliance chat usually yields results.

5. Gear. Join a clan, buy the blueprints for team energy restores, team health restores, and team ammo restores (and possibly team shield restores). You said you die when exalted blade ends? Take a quick jump to safety, pop a team energy restore, activate exalted blade again and get back into the fray. There's also some other good gear that can make life easier: Air Support Charges (While your landing craft is Liset) can give you around 10 seconds (don't quote me on the actual time) extra time to rescue hostages and complete spy vaults when alarms are tripped. Ciphers (buy blueprint at market) can be used to quickly take care of hacking consoles*.

 

*Ciphers can't be used in sorties, so don't get too used to them - practice the hacking because you'll be doing it later. However, when you are in a hurry, they are invaluable.

 

 

[(PSN)drpunk-yo]

If your weapons aren't killing then you need to sort your mods and build out.

If you're dying with +320% shield and +280% health then you're standing still too much. Your powers mods are much more important than survivability mods and those two mods are taking up valuable slots and (more importantly) capacity. Use a Vigor if you must but you don't even need one of them. Those mods only work off the base 100 shield/health too, not the extra shields and health you get as you level up.

In the settings there's an option to turn on the health and shields for other squad members and those stats sit at the top right of the screen as you play. I find it quite interesting seeing what shields and health other people run with. I was amazed at how low some were until I joined them.

Edited February 14, 2017 by (PS4)drpunk-yo

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Get yourself "rage" and "steel fiber". Optional "quick thinking" and "flow". Also the life steal mod for melee. 

 

Rage gives you energy as you take red damage, steel fiber buffs your armor (better damage migration on red damage) and quick thinking expands your health onto your energy (for a price tho...you get staggered then. Mele animation overwrites this stagger) for halved damage on your enegy bar. Rage plus life steal keeps you healthy then, no point in using shields on him. Excal isn't exactly made to manage damage all too well but his blind ability is potent Cc if you have the energy to use it. Rage takes care of that. He isn't exactly the best frame for beginners these days eather as he was balanced to using "naramon" not too recently... it's one of the focus schools you'll encounter further into the game...one passive among many make frames invisible upon striking critical with melee weapons (invisibility gives a 8 times multiplier on the innitial melee hit) and this works with excal. He also usually manages his defense using that.... Anyways ...this multiplier was the reason for balancing measures.

 

Why not trying other frames till you progress further?...mesa for example. Same concept as excal but gun themed. Weak mods give her a potent gun-jamming ability and a 95% damage reduction for bullets. Her ult makes her a Turret and scales similar to excals channeled ult from secondary weapon mods. I'm just not sure tho how avaiable she is for lower mr's nowadays...

Or rhino/nezha (rhino is boss, nezha endgame content but tradeable...ask in your clan or generall chat if someone can spare parts for a beginner), who both have warding abilitys that manage damage pretty well.

Edited February 14, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

18 hours ago, Zack0121 said:

The problem is that i feel like i need to upgrade my items more, but i just can't. I don't have a lot of money, not much Endo, so I can't upgrade my mods as much as i would like to, plus i don't have that many mods. So i'm guessing i'm at a point where i need to grind to get my items upgraded, but i really don't know how long it's gonna take to get real good and usefull mods and upgrade them.

You have the key answer to your own question right here.  If you've hit a ceiling on the content level that you can play then progressing forward can and will slow down or even stop.  Just keep playing content at the level you are capable of in the pursuit of getting all those credits, endo, mods, crafting resources, etc that you need.  You need A LOT of that stuff.

In terms of farming, killing a level 50 enemy is no different or better than killing a level 10 enemy.  Of course you don't want play easy content all the time so always be testing yourself on harder stuff but it is OK to play easier content when it suits your needs. 

I will echo the others that said find a clan and be more willing to play coop.  This is a coop game and it is much better when you are sharing the experience with friends.

[Zack]

Thank you for all you answers, it really helped me to know what to do from now on, i was able to succeed in the mission and keep on going, it's really nice to have all these information in one thread so thank you very much.

 

3 hours ago, Tomppak said:

 A good way to speed up your collection, though - when you get a -75% discount coupon for platinum, by at least the 5 dollar pack for 370 plat. That will buy you all the slots you need for a long time, so you don't need to immediately worry about running out of space for frames and weapons. (Buy a larger pack if you want/can afford it). Otherwise, sooner or later, you'll need to grind for something valuable to sell for plat so that you can buy those pretty much necessary slots. (Don't buy plat at normal or -20% price!)

When exactly can I get a 75% discount?

I was thinking about buying platinum, but actually i had an old account before creating this one, and when i wanted to connect i was banned until year 2035 (i had only play like 2 or 3 hours like a year ago), and i saw on internet that many people actually got banned for no reason, so I really didn't want to invest money if there was a risk to get banned for no reason.

[MagPrime]

4 minutes ago, Zack0121 said:

When exactly can I get a 75% discount?

It's a randomly generated login reward.  There is no sure-fire way of obtaining any of the discounts.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

1 hour ago, Zack0121 said:

I was thinking about buying platinum, but actually i had an old account before creating this one, and when i wanted to connect i was banned until year 2035 (i had only play like 2 or 3 hours like a year ago), and i saw on internet that many people actually got banned for no reason, so I really didn't want to invest money if there was a risk to get banned for no reason.

People got banned for no reason due to a bug that made peoples platinum go into negatives (unknown value=hack and all)... contacting the support or buying platinum to get out of the negatives instantly negates the ban tho.

 

Feel free to. I spent around 40€ myself when i started up. (only money i ever put in this game and i'm at the point where i have about everything i ever wanted) It's no mandatory to do so as trading florishes and people allways buy and as there's allways good stuff to sell (participate in events, sell stuff as the worth grows, regain that stuff once it's made public or just farm and sell sets and rares) but it makes the start much easier ...Noone was ever kept in ban wo a good reason here so no worries.

Edited February 14, 2017 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[(XBOX)CannyJack]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Agent_CHAR said:

You have the key answer to your own question right here.  If you've hit a ceiling on the content level that you can play then progressing forward can and will slow down or even stop.  Just keep playing content at the level you are capable of in the pursuit of getting all those credits, endo, mods, crafting resources, etc that you need.  You need A LOT of that stuff.

In terms of farming, killing a level 50 enemy is no different or better than killing a level 10 enemy.  Of course you don't want play easy content all the time so always be testing yourself on harder stuff but it is OK to play easier content when it suits your needs. 

I will echo the others that said find a clan and be more willing to play coop.  This is a coop game and it is much better when you are sharing the experience with friends.

Very much this. I was far past that level (in terms of weapons, weapon capacity, mod capacity and collection) before I got to Saturn. I'm not an expert by any means, so I tend to grind until I'm comfortable that I'm probably overleveled for the next phase of a game. I was probably a hundred+ hours in before I went to Saturn. If the high level missions are struggles, that's cool - a challenge is nice - but it may also mean you need to "hit the gym" and bulk up a bit on content you can move through quickly and successfully.

Also, I decided not to treat the "free to play" nature of the game as a challenge from Digital Extremes, and instead I bought platinum to get inventory slods, catalysts/reactors, even a couple warframes, just to expand my options. I've funneled more money in to the game than some people would, probably, but I pay money for my other games, so this doesn't feel that different. In any case, no need to go nuts, but getting a chunk of platinum to spend on improvements like inventory and catalysts/reactors is in my opinion worth doing.

Also...you may want to consider getting or building a sentinel if you don't have one. In addition to being a tiny extra gun, the "Vacuum" mod can help you gather up stuff to boost your resource inventory and grab mods that drop and so on. 

Edited February 14, 2017 by (XB1)CannyJack

[Zack]

2 hours ago, (Xbox One)CannyJack said:

Very much this. I was far past that level (in terms of weapons, weapon capacity, mod capacity and collection) before I got to Saturn. I'm not an expert by any means, so I tend to grind until I'm comfortable that I'm probably overleveled for the next phase of a game. I was probably a hundred+ hours in before I went to Saturn. If the high level missions are struggles, that's cool - a challenge is nice - but it may also mean you need to "hit the gym" and bulk up a bit on content you can move through quickly and successfully.

Yeah, but the problem is that a lot of weapons or warframe require to be quite advanced and that's why i wanted to progress in the quite fast , I was looking also for the best spots to farm certain materials or credits or mods, and everytime the answer was on one of the last planets, i don't mind grinding, but i don't want to grind low-mid level content for too long, I want to have fun with cool weapons and warframes and mods.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Zack0121