Which warframe is suitable for my needs?

[TheMaskuerade]

I've played three warframes so far: excalibur, ash prime and trinity prime (guess where I got the last two from). I like the excal and ash while trinity was nothing short of torture to play. I have little to no knowledge regarding the other warframes other than checking out some of them on the wiki. I was hoping some warframe veterans help me pick out a warframe that meets my criteria.

1-The warframe has to have an offensive ability that can clear a room of enemies, my reason for this is because some of my missions failures were because the corpus would group together with several shield ospreys and there's nothing I'd be able to do at that point without said ability (I'm looking at you, Trinity).

2-I'd prefer that the warframe has an ability that has a flexible energy cost. Something like Excalibur's exalted blade where energy cost depends on time or Ash's bladestorm which depends on the number of targets. The reason for this is because if the ability has a fixed energy cost, I'll not be able to use it optimally everytime. But more importantly, this means that I can cast the ability for 10 enemies or 1 and it won't be a waste.

3-The warframe has to be effective with no specific mods. The mods I have are the standard ones like vitality, shield and energy. They're not even upgraded because I won't be able to use them with a low rank warframe.

4-Said warframe must be suitable for solo gameplay.

Unsurprisingly, looking at the list it just seems I chose what Trinity is not.

Thanks in advance.

[AdunSaveMe]

I always, and will always, recommend Nidus.

[TheMaskuerade]

Just now, AdunSaveMe said:

I always, and will always, recommend Nidus.

I actually considered getting him but then I realized he has no shield and it takes some training to learn how to play him. The thought that enemies will put permanent damage with every attack is off-putting to say the least.

[Zavenosk]

Looking at this, I'm tempted to go with Gara or Octavia. 

Also Nidus has a gimmick where his abilities build up a charge that takes the fatal hit when Nidus would die.  Highly effective with a hp damage to energy mod.

[DeMonkey]

3 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

I actually considered getting him but then I realized he has no shield and it takes some training to learn how to play him. The thought that enemies will put permanent damage with every attack is off-putting to say the least.

Nidus auto heals instead of having shields, his 4th ability also heals.

Then there's numerous mods and weapons in the game that can heal you as well.

[scourge213]

Hello mate and welcome to Warframe.

Your criteria is very troublesome, let me explain why.

The game is focused around mods and forma. A weapon will do dozens of times more damage modded than without mods. Depending on the weapon you can reach over 100 times damage difference. The sutuation with warframes is very similar. (if you dont believe me, remove the mods from this and see the difference https://goo.gl/hcE4Vh ). No warframe and no weapon can be effective without good modding. In fact, even the basic MK1 weapons can be good for 95% of the game's content with maxed out mods - and no, i'm not joking about this.

Energy management are what most warframes are about. You must optimally sacrifice energy efficiency to fully use their abilities. This is where mods like Fleeting Expertise, Streamline and Blind rage are about. You can achieve 1/4 of the energy cost of your abilities when well modded. With Focus schools(unlocked after Pluto and The War Within quest), you can regenerate any lost energy in seconds. Or you can have almost double the energy cost, but due to the nature of the abilities that wont be againt you(say a 50 seconds duration buff).

As for which frame is good? DE are focusing on making all warframes be good at something, but be bad at something else. For solo play, even trinity is good for most of the ingame content, because she can stack double 75% damage reduction from 2 of her abilities and heal herself whenever she wants. You must choose what warframe fits your play style and focus at it for the beginning. Stealth frames, like Ash, Loki or Octavia will be a good fit for you at the begining. Stealth gives good defence against enemies which will prove to be very useful when you don't have many mods.

I would recommend against Nidus, as he's not the type of frame that truly fits the gameplay style of the game. He needs to stack and most matches ingame finish before he can do that. Plus that he needs quite a bit of modding.

End line: look which frame you find to be 'fun' for you and focus on modding it. All frames are suitable for modding for the majority of the ingame content and no frame is suitable for all the content.

Edited July 17, 2018 by scourge213

[LarryYourWaiter]

Ash prime is probably a good fit.  He’s a bit of an all-rounder.  Has some stealth, tough in combat.  Has a ranged ability and a sort of “dot” ability.  Also teleports, which sort of wins me over every time.

also, clearing a room of bunches enemies doesn’t have to be done by an ability.  A well-modded melee weapon can do the same.  My guandao just shreds everything... or some guns can do the same.

 

 

 

[TheMaskuerade]

9 minutes ago, scourge213 said:

Hello mate and welcome to Warframe.

Your criteria is very troublesome, let me explain why.

The game is focused around mods and forma. A weapon will do dozens of times more damage modded than without mods. Depending on the weapon you can reach over 100 times damage difference. The sutuation with warframes is very similar. (if you dont believe me, remove the mods from this and see the difference https://goo.gl/hcE4Vh ). No warframe and no weapon can be effective without good modding. In fact, even the basic MK1 weapons can be good for 95% of the game's content with maxed out mods - and no, i'm not joking about this.

Energy management are what most warframes are about. You must optimally sacrifice energy efficiency to fully use their abilities. This is where mods like Fleeting Expertise, Streamline and Blind rage are about. You can achieve 1/4 of the energy cost of your abilities when well modded. With Focus schools(unlocked after Pluto and The War Within quest), you can regenerate any lost energy in seconds. Or you can have almost double the energy cost, but due to the nature of the abilities that wont be againt you.

As for which frame is good? DE are focusing on making all warframes be good at something, but be bad at something else. For solo play, even trinity is good for most of the ingame content, because she can stack double 75% damage reduction from 2 of her abilities and heal herself whenever she wants. You must choose what warframe fits your play style and focus at it for the beginning. Stealth frames, like Ash, Loki or Octavia will be a good fit for you at the begining. Stealth gives good defence against enemies which will proves to be very useful when you don't have many mods.

I would recommend against Nidus, as he's not the type of frame that truly fits the gameplay stile of the game. He needs to stack and most matches ingame finish before he can do that. Plus that he needs quite a bit of modding.

Thank you for your in-depth explanation of the game's mechanics, however right now, when my best energy mod is +5% or a damaged mod that gives energy when taking health orbs. Using an efficient warframe energy-wise means a lot. I'm still using low-MR weapons so focusing on using forma and modding them seems like a waste, especially since I haven't experienced many weapons yet. I'm basically relying on my warframe's abilities to carry me when my weapons can't, something I can't do when my warframe is wasting energy getting damage reduction or healing itself. The reason I like excalibur and ash is because their 4th ability acts as a panic button. If I feel there's too much pressure on me to handle I'll just use bladestorm and mark everything or take out the good ol' exalted blade and "cut through them like carving a cake" to quote Ser Barristan Selmy. With Trinity there's nothing to that effect except skills to give me a couple of seconds more before I'm dead.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

You need to mod in this game or you're going to run up against a brick wall at about Uranus regardless of what frame and weapon you are using. Those ospreys you're talking about can be simply blown away if you mod correctly, you won't need any wide spread devaststion frame. Trinity btw can be modded for huge nuke damage with the right mods, there are many different ways to play each frame, that's the beauty of modding.

[LarryYourWaiter]

I’ll agree that I didn’t personally enjoy trinity, but having one in your group fixes the problems you are experiencing - energy depletion.  Having a trinity in the group means infinite energy to spam skills like nuts.

your next goal should be rhino.  You’re not far from farming him and he is solid all the way to end game.  He’s the tank of the game.

[scourge213]

9 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

Thank you for your in-depth explanation of the game's mechanics, however right now, when my best energy mod is +5% or a damaged mod that gives energy when taking health orbs. Using an efficient warframe energy-wise means a lot. I'm still using low-MR weapons so focusing on using forma and modding them seems like a waste, especially since I haven't experienced many weapons yet. I'm basically relying on my warframe's abilities to carry me when my weapons can't, something I can't do when my warframe is wasting energy getting damage reduction or healing itself. The reason I like excalibur and ash is because their 4th ability acts as a panic button. If I feel there's too much pressure on me to handle I'll just use bladestorm and mark everything or take out the good ol' exalted blade and "cut through them like carving a cake" to quote Ser Barristan Selmy. With Trinity there's nothing to that effect except skills to give me a couple of seconds more before I'm dead.

Hey mate i feel you. I've recently helped with a friend that went through the same place as you.

True you dont have mods right now and the abilities you have feel powerful. However the more you progress the more though the enemies will be. Damage abilities will cease to be effective very fast after Jupiter and if you dont have your weapons at the ready, you'll be stuck.

Thrust me there is not 1 or 2 topics about people being stuck at around jupiter-uranus because they didnt mod themselfs right.

That's why i recommended stealth. It requires relatively low amount of mods to achieve constant stealth(still hard, but not as hard as to have all mod slots with maxed mods). Stealth will keep you safe, as a constantly active 'panic button'. While only 1 good weapon with well placed mods will allow you to kill anything you face. One such weapon for low MR is the 'hek', and i can safely say its not a waste to forma this 4 barreled shotgun.

Edited July 17, 2018 by scourge213

[-CdG-Zilchy]

6 minutes ago, LarryYourWaiter said:

your next goal should be rhino.  You’re not far from farming him and he is solid all the way to end game.  He’s the tank of the game.

He's the beginner tank until you get Inaros and Nidus. Then Rhino becomes a support and CC frame.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

15 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

Thank you for your in-depth explanation of the game's mechanics, however right now, when my best energy mod is +5% or a damaged mod that gives energy when taking health orbs. Using an efficient warframe energy-wise means a lot. I'm still using low-MR weapons so focusing on using forma and modding them seems like a waste, especially since I haven't experienced many weapons yet. I'm basically relying on my warframe's abilities to carry me when my weapons can't, something I can't do when my warframe is wasting energy getting damage reduction or healing itself. The reason I like excalibur and ash is because their 4th ability acts as a panic button. If I feel there's too much pressure on me to handle I'll just use bladestorm and mark everything or take out the good ol' exalted blade and "cut through them like carving a cake" to quote Ser Barristan Selmy. With Trinity there's nothing to that effect except skills to give me a couple of seconds more before I'm dead.

Have you tried ranking up this +5% energy mod? I'm guessing you're referring to a damaged streamline nod. Excaliburs 2 ability with a stretch mod is a FAR better panic button then his 4.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Zilchy

[TheMaskuerade]

4 minutes ago, scourge213 said:

Hey mate i feel you. I've recently helped with a friend that went through the same place as you.

True you dont have mods right now and the abilities you have feel powerful. However the more you progress the more though the enemies will be. Damage abilities will cease to be effective very fast after Jupiter and if you dont have your weapons at the ready, you'll be stuck.

Thrust me there is not 1 or 2 topics about people being stuck at around jupiter-uranus because they didnt mod themselfs right.

Thats why i recomended stealth. It requires relatevly low amount of mods to achieve constant stealth(still hard, but not as hard as to have all mod slots with maxed mods). Stealth will keep you safe, as a 'panic button'. While only 1 good weapon with well placed mods will allow you to kill anything you face. One such weapon for low MR is the 'hek', and i can safely say its not a waste to forma this 4 barreled shotgun.

My current weapon is actually the Hek after it was heavily recommended, it has definitely eased my pain playing Trinity. However, it is still not a good weapon for dealing with multiple enemies. I'll probably get back to playing Trinity when I have properly modded my weapons but until then I'll need a replacement since I have reached rank 30 on excalibur and ash prime and I'd like to progress my mastery rank.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

1 minute ago, TheMaskuerade said:

My current weapon is actually the Hek after it was heavily recommended, it has definitely eased my pain playing Trinity. However, it is still not a good weapon for dealing with multiple enemies. I'll probably get back to playing Trinity when I have properly modded my weapons but until then I'll need a replacement since I have reached rank 30 on excalibur and ash prime and I'd like to progress my mastery rank.

Hek can deal with multiple enemies it's down to the mods for example using punch through to cut through a group in 1 shot. Tell me what mods you have and I'll try give you a better build.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

It sounds to me like all your mods are rank zero. Go to equipment - mods, click on a mod, select "fusion" up the top of the menu and then you can use endo to rank up your mods and make them far more powerful. For example that +5% streamline of yours can be +30%

Edited July 17, 2018 by Zilchy

[TheMaskuerade]

4 minutes ago, Zilchy said:

Hek can deal with multiple enemies it's down to the mods for example using punch through to cut through a group in 1 shot. Tell me what mods you have and I'll try give you a better build.

The current mods I have for shotguns are: Shotgun Spazz, Flechette, Blunderbuss, Incendiary Coat, Lingering Torment and Disruptor.

 

3 minutes ago, Zilchy said:

It sounds to me like all your mods are rank 1. Go to equipment - mods, click on a mod, select "fusion" up the top of the menu and then you can use endo to rank up your mods and make them far more powerful. For example that +5% streamline of yours can be +30%

If I rank up my mods it'll be good for my rank 30 ash prime or excalibur but what about my next rank 1 warframe who won't be able to equip the mods because they take too much mod capacity?

[DeMonkey]

1 minute ago, TheMaskuerade said:

The current mods I have for shotguns are: Shotgun Spazz, Flechette, Blunderbuss, Incendiary Coat, Lingering Torment and Disruptor.

 

If I rank up my mods it'll be good for my rank 30 ash prime or excalibur but what about my next rank 1 warframe who won't be able to equip the mods because they take too much mod capacity?

Auras, they'll give you a decent amount of starting energy.

(Could also just level them up and then equip the mods)

Edited July 17, 2018 by DeMonkey

[scourge213]

5 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

If I rank up my mods it'll be good for my rank 30 ash prime or excalibur but what about my next rank 1 warframe who won't be able to equip the mods because they take too much mod capacity?

Thats why you have weapons and cover. It wont be good for rank 1 warframe, obviously, but if you can stay in cover and shoot anything dead... it wont matter. Your gear compliments itself, use it.

Edit: This is a constant stealth ash build, requiring no Orokin Reactor and only 1 forma(place the forma on any of the mods you wish) https://goo.gl/k9JMKH . Getting those mods might be a bit of a pain, but it will be worth it. 0.6 energy regen per sec, 9 energy drain for stealth, 14 secs duration will keep you constantly in stealth.

Edited July 17, 2018 by scourge213

[-CdG-Zilchy]

That's literally how it works man, every time we add Forma to a frame to increase mod capacity it resets to rank zero and we grab a good weapon and relevel the frame.

[TheMaskuerade]

18 minutes ago, Zilchy said:

That's literally how it works man, every time we add Forma to a frame to increase mod capacity it resets to rank zero and we grab a good weapon and relevel the frame.

I'm still mr4 and would like to try out different warframes, both to increase my mastery rank and experience what the game has to offer. I'm just trying to avoid a difficult to play warframe like Trinity.

[Nephalem]

44 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

I'm still mr4 and would like to try out different warframes, both to increase my mastery rank and experience what the game has to offer. I'm just trying to avoid a difficult to play warframe like Trinity.

Welll trinity is the best support frame in the game but alll that depends on how you mod it.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

1 hour ago, TheMaskuerade said:

I'm still mr4 and would like to try out different warframes, both to increase my mastery rank and experience what the game has to offer. I'm just trying to avoid a difficult to play warframe like Trinity.

I get that but what I'm saying is ALL frames will be no good to you unless you upgrade your mods. It's the bread and butter of the game. So don't limit yourself by worrying that you won't fit the mods on a new frame 

[TheMaskuerade]

8 minutes ago, Zilchy said:

I get that but what I'm saying is ALL frames will be no good to you unless you upgrade your mods. It's the bread and butter of the game. So don't limit yourself by worrying that you won't fit the mods on a new frame 

Yeah, but I'd rather have a good warframe unmodded so that it is outstanding modded, rather than modding a bad or unenjoyable warframe.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

22 minutes ago, TheMaskuerade said:

Yeah, but I'd rather have a good warframe unmodded so that it is outstanding modded, rather than modding a bad or unenjoyable warframe.

That's what I'm trying to say. NO FRAME IN THE GAME is good unmodded. To be frank you'll hit a brick wall and never pass it playing like that. You are going to have to accept that warframe doesn't work that way. You're probably thinking "but my excalibur..."IT ISN'T. That's why you can't kill basic enemies like grouped ospreys. Without modding you haven't unleashed even 5% of Excalibur's power, or your Hek. And that goes for all frames and weapons I'm afraid.

All the frames are playable with mods but not without. It's not the frame that's the problem, it's that you aren't ranking up your mods and putting in a proper build, I promise you that speaking as a veteran player myself. 

Edited July 17, 2018 by Zilchy

[mosaickle]

3 hours ago, TheMaskuerade said:

1-The warframe has to have an offensive ability that can clear a room of enemies, my reason for this is because some of my missions failures were because the corpus would group together with several shield ospreys and there's nothing I'd be able to do at that point without said ability (I'm looking at you, Trinity).

2-I'd prefer that the warframe has an ability that has a flexible energy cost. Something like Excalibur's exalted blade where energy cost depends on time or Ash's bladestorm which depends on the number of targets. The reason for this is because if the ability has a fixed energy cost, I'll not be able to use it optimally everytime. But more importantly, this means that I can cast the ability for 10 enemies or 1 and it won't be a waste.

3-The warframe has to be effective with no specific mods. The mods I have are the standard ones like vitality, shield and energy. They're not even upgraded because I won't be able to use them with a low rank warframe.

4-Said warframe must be suitable for solo gameplay.

1 - If you insist on specific Warframe abilities that'd probably be Saryn. Otherwise, I used Trinity Prime for 90% of the star chart (first Prime ever, can't remember how I got her so early) and I solved this issue by just using melees with long reach, specifically the Orthos Prime. So honestly this really doesn't need to be solved by a frame's abilities. Though I guess I also got lucky considering how early I got Primed Reach.

2 - Ash would be your go to in this regard since his energy cost does scale on enemies marked (and from what I remember you get it refunded if they die to "other reasons".

3 - Yeah this is an issue. The point of mods is to help make your frame stronger. A frame with no specific mods that'll be able to be both energy efficient and able to clear rooms would be either meta, nerfed soon or now, or just too braindead and thus against DE's philosophy. Many frames were reworked away from "press 4 to win" because of this. You can absolutely progress up to I'd say even Lv. 30 with just health, shield, energy and energy efficiency mods which I'd say are the 4 core but anything above that and you'll need to farm for 'specific' mods like synergy mods, dual stat mods or even syndicate augment mods. There's no way around this because the very essence of asking for this goes against the concept of 'progression'

4 - This is far too wide, because by the sound of it you're still progressing through the star chart. There will be frames that will be unsuitable for specific game modes, no matter how godly they can be at surviving solo. If you want solo survival, go Rhino, Wukong, Nidus, Ash or Loki, but something like solo defense would be Frost, Gara or Vauban. Vauban is also god-like in solo excavations and most prominently, solo interception. If you're done with the star chart, play whoever you like in whichever mission type you like, but if you're still progressing the star chart, you're not gonna be able to 'main' any frame. Any frame by theory can do any mission solo, but to make your life easier you'd want frames with specific builds to specialize. As such, I was fine with my EV Trin for 90% of the star chart because I had my Orthos Prime and Primed Reach to compensate for my more 'defensive' abilities.