Guide To Synergizing Warframes To Weapons

[gtonic]

    So I did some research and some math to better help myself find weapons that would better synergize with a warframe of my choosing... I figured.. why not share my results with the fellow gamers i play with.. maybe it'll help them out with frames they might be having trouble finding a good set of weapons for.

 

-DISCLAIMER-

    This does not take into account personal play style.. that is a dynamic variable that I cannot predict for everyone.

    I used the base statistics form each warframe to make these suggestions because they were static variables.

 

So lets begin shall we....

 

    First of all what type of game is Warframe? Well right off the back you can tell it's a shooter game. What type of shooter? The game shows a character in a third-person perspective, soon you then learn that it's an mmorpg. Meaning... Warframe (in my opinion) is a massively multiplayer online third-person shooter role-playing game or MMOTPSRPG.

 

    So being a shooter game you obviously have generic weapon types rifles (auto/semi-auto), snipers, shotguns, pistols, etc..And being an RPG you take the role of a certain class or in this case a warframe. These warframes come with 4 unique skills that are secluded to that particular frame. One then has to wonder...well what weapons best suite which frame?

 

    the answer is pretty simple.. what one variable is relative to the type of weapon you prefer to use and applies to the warframes also...

 

    In my opinion the correlation would be the defensive nature of the warframe. If one wanted to use a close ranged weapon like a shotgun for example the one would more than likely need to be pretty defensive.. while if one wanted to use a sniper rifle then defense wouldn't be as important of an issue.

 

    This bring up the next variable.. range. I noticed that there's a correlation between weapon range and overall defense. this lead my to believe that warframes with overall lower defense would probably be better suited with weapons of further range.

 

-Skip this if you hate math-

 

    So I decided to find a way to calculate "overall statistical defense." I did so by giving each warframe a ranked percentage according to their indedidual stats. For example.

 

   Ash and Saryn both have the highest base health at rank 30 (450)  I divided 450 and 100 to get 4.5. meaning that if i divided 4.5 with the rank 30 base health of all the other frames I would get a number that would represent the percentage of health they would have compared to others. Loki and Mag both have the lowest base health at rank 30 (225) which happens to be half of 450 or 50% but to prove it with the formula i used 225 / 4.5 = 50

 

-Stop Skipping-

 

   I did that for every warframe for their health, shield and armor values, then averaged all three values together to get a singular number representing the defensive nature of each frame based purely on their base stats.

 

my results being:

 

Frame        Defense Score

 

Frost                89

Rhino               89

Saryn               84

Ash                  67

Mag                 61

Volt                  58

Excalibur          56

Nova                50

Vauban            48

Banshee          47

Ember              47

Nyx                  47

Trinity              47

Loki                 45

 

 

   Now they're three major weapon types in the game in terms of primary weapons; snipers, rifles and shotguns. So I've broken down the list into three sections... as shown below:

 

Frame        Defense Score

 

Shotguns

 

Frost                89

Rhino               89

Saryn               84

 

Rifles

 

Ash                  67

Mag                 61

Volt                  58

Excalibur          56

Nova                50

Vauban            48

 

Snipers

 

Banshee          47

Ember              47

Nyx                  47

Trinity              47

Loki                 45

 

    Now this isn't set in stone yet.. some people don't belong in certain categories. How come? well because the defense score doesn't include abilities. For example Loki has 0 abilities that wither deal damage or increase his damage. Making in actually, him more defensive than the other frames in the defense tier.

 

   That along with ones personal play style, the way the prefer or feel most comfortable playing that certain frame and the offensive/defensive capabilities from their abilities will alter things.

 

    Lets digress from primaries for a bit and get back to it later.. for now lets talk secondaries. You're secondary is your alternative weapon and I would suggest to choose one that balances out the negative aspects of your primary.

 

    For example if your primary sniper then maybe pairing ti with a secondary that has a faster fire rate, shorter range and less accuracy would balance out the cons you have with your sniper.

 

    As for melee, the same concept applies. There happens to be melee weapons that give larger range radius's and some that can even attack from certain distance away.

 

All of this being said I decided to put together some weapon combinations for each frame, taking into consideration everything I've discussed. 

 

 

Combinations :

 

Snipers :

 

  Banshee - Paris/Paris Prime, Kunai and Glaive

 

  Ember - Vulkar, Dual Broncos and Gram

 

  Nyx - Lanka, Twin Vipers and Krestrel

 

  Trinity - Dread, Despair and Hate

 

  Loki - Ogris, Seer and Skana

 

Rifles :

 

  Ash - Ignis, Hikou and Dual Heat Swords

 

  Mag - Latron/Latron Prime, Sicarus and Amphis

 

  Volt - Dera, Spectra and Prova

 

  Excalibur - Grakata, Kraken and Pangolin Sword

 

  Nova - Gorgon, Vasto and Dual Ether

 

 Vauban - Torid, Acrid and Mire

 

 

Shotguns :

 

  Frost: Hek, Lex and Fragor

 

  Rhino Sobek, Akbolto and Furax

 

  Saryn - Boar, Afuris and Fang/Fang Prime

 

Feel free to ask why I chose those combinations :)

 

[100SadPandas]

Why did you do the combination for Saryn and Ash?

[AlienTetris]

the combination for sayrn is brilliant, boar to shoot the venom spores, Fast secondary to crank out some dps and fangs to get the most value out of contagion +1 soo much information.

Edited July 28, 2013 by AlienTetris

[AfroGamerNinja]

Okay, so why the Grakata for Excalibur?

[Angius]

IMHO best choose for Rhino is Fragor with Brokk skin. You can mod Fragor to deal about 110 damage with fast strikes, so with maxed Fury and Brokk Skin you got very high DPS.
Plus you can get more DPS using Roar.
Thanks to Iron Skin, Rhino can jump into a pack of enemies, thus Furax is not the best choise. With heavy meele you can hit multiple targets with one swing, and you got pretty big AoE attack.

[xveganrox]

Why would you choose Hek or Boar over Sobek? I've used all three and found Sobek to be significantly better in every situation. Vulkar, Grakata, and Sicarus are also completely outclassed by Snipetron Vandal, any other rifle, and any other pistol as well in my experience.

[AfroGamerNinja]

But seriously, why would I equip a bullet hose whose sole redeeming qualities are his mythically high crits on my Excalibur? Compared to it, the Braton's ammo economy is on par with the Latron.

[gtonic]

Why did you do the combination for Saryn and Ash?

I was using them as a example... since the highest base health on a frame is 450 I mentioned them.

 

 

the combination for sayrn is brilliant, boar to shoot the venom spores, Fast secondary to crank out some dps and fangs to get the most value out of contagion +1 soo much information.

Yeah when I was coming up with everything that's one of my favorite builds :p even though im building mine torid/acrid/mire for the full poison package :p

 

 

Okay, so why the Grakata for Excalibur?

 Grakata is a pretty awesome wep i believe you can build it crit and it'll do amazing ... i like that on him because it's fast and sprays bullets he's one of the more fasted paced frames so it kinda fits his style

 

 

IMHO best choose for Rhino is Fragor with Brokk skin. You can mod Fragor to deal about 110 damage with fast strikes, so with maxed Fury and Brokk Skin you got very high DPS.

Plus you can get more DPS using Roar.

Thanks to Iron Skin, Rhino can jump into a pack of enemies, thus Furax is not the best choise. With heavy meele you can hit multiple targets with one swing, and you got pretty big AoE attack.

 

I chose Furax for him partly because of cosmetics i'll have to be guilty  on that lol.. I think they look cool on him and you are right in terms of damage.. but it's not always about the most damage you can get out of a weapon sometimes but how you are as a complete package I kinda gave him more rangy weapons as an option to not have to jump into the fight and roar should make Furax more viable on him since hand to hand kinda has crappy damage

 

 

Why would you choose Hek or Boar over Sobek? I've used all three and found Sobek to be significantly better in every situation. Vulkar, Grakata, and Sicarus are also completely outclassed by Snipetron Vandal, any other rifle, and any other pistol as well in my experience.

 I've heard a lot of people prefer sobek over the other shotguns and I think it;s because it's a hybrid of all three and is more balanced therefor you don't have to spend mods trying to balance out the cons... I chose Boar for Saryn because it has a bigger cone radius making ti easier to get Venom off and Hek for Frost because I tend to see them in their Snow Globe shooting down enemies so i went for the one with better range. I gave Rhino Sobek because I think it's better than Strun in general.

 

 

I forgot why I didn't include snipertron to be honest now that i think about it and I disagree about grakata... in my opinion every weapon in their receptive class (rifle,shotgun,sniper) are all equal.. to some degree some might preform a little better than others while others might slack behind a bit ... but they all have their strengths and weaknesses... allowing them to accommodate different play styles. I firmly believe that developers try to maintain some system of balance throughout the weapons. Shotguns are SUPPOSED to do a truck load of damage, riffle are SUPPOSED to do sustained damage, etc..

 

 

But seriously, why would I equip a bullet hose whose sole redeeming qualities are his mythically high crits on my Excalibur? Compared to it, the Braton's ammo economy is on par with the Latron.

 That's an issue of how your play style differs from others... maybe for you ammo economy is more important so weapons that shoot too fast are turn off  etc..

[Alighierian]

tbh I don't really see why you'd put paris (prime) only with banshee and dread with trinity. technically they're all bows and whilst there is some difference in damage, the actual difference between them apart from arrow speed is rather small.

 

and as for side-arms: despair. from my experience this is one of the best side-arms since it can be semi-fast (no gunslinger) to *blink* *reloading* with max gunslinger. with a bit of practice you can hit stuff right in front of you, up to pretty decent ranges and everything inbetween.

modded it can also do insane damage, I regularely used my despair to get rid of a boss if my sniper wasn't good enough to do so yet (for example whilst relevelling the sniper after forma'ing it). the best thing about it is that it can also do semi-sniping with clicking the mouse (if you have it rather pimped, so that 1 dagger can kill most small stuff you face)

 

 

my personal loadouts are generally the following:

 

banshee (boss) rush setup:

Snipetron Vandal - Despair - Orthos

essential mods: rush (maxed) - quick rest (7 points worth) - focus and sonar maxed (for that sweet, sweet extra damage on bosses)

 

explanation: I basically use this as a high-mobility agressive sniper, with maxed rush and Shade I can effectively run through hordes of enemies and it's not uncommon that I get quite far before they even realise I'm there.

when they do, I can quickly close the gap and slice some guys up with orthos, before sniping some guy further away.

despair is used if there's a massive group ahead and I need to get rid of them from a distance, and fast.

I sometimes take boltor but I generally stick with my sniper because of the one-shot damage which goes so well with sonar.

 

 

trinity (defense / explorer) setup:

snipetron vandal / boltor (depends on mission and what I feel like) - despair - glaive

 

I don't use my orthos on my trinity since it doesn't have a reactor yet: don't have the room for rush / quick rest.

due to that I can't close the gap quickly enough for orthos to do it's job so I just toss glaive at people.

trinity can be an absolute tank thanks to link, and with blessing it also helps massively in high-level defence.

despair is generally more of a back-up for when boltor runs out of ammo whilst the spread of boltor is really useful against hordes;

it allows you to slow down most of them whilst spraying across (and it still does very nice damage)

 

 

I used to use Paris and then Dread a lot, but after I got the snipetron they kinda got put on the shelf. my SV can put up pretty high damage as well, whilst I have a better zoom, 7 shots in a clip (wildfire) and a very nice RoF and reload speed. not to mention that the SV uses hitscan, not arrows.

 

how I see the bow vs sniper argument:

sniper: great for medium-long range, at short range it's a bit outclassed and whilst you can get shots on enemies by using the console method of aiming (moving your frame more than actually moving your reticule), it's zoom makes it hard to use at closer ranges (because you don't see enough and stuff moves across your aim quickly, but if you don't zoom the accuracy drops)

 

bow: pretty good for close-medium range sniping, but at longer range the low zoom and arrow travel time slightly impare the bows. obvious advantage is that bows are silent, you can pick off unaware enemies from a distance with less chance other enemies dropping down on you.

the best thing about them: arrows from paris can impale enemies (bodies tossed back can kill more enemies) and dread dismembers them (body parts can kill more enemies), and if 1st arrow dismembered, 2nd arrow (split barrel) has a pretty good chance to fly on and hit the next guy. I think my record was something like 5 guys with 2 (1 from split barrel) arrows fired from my Dread

 

I find snipers generally work better against fast moving stuff with smaller weakspots (like the ancient's head at range), whilst bows work nicely to lay down a constant barrage. 

 

 

your classifying of frames based on health / armour is pretty accurate, though. nice work on that

Edited July 28, 2013 by Alighierian