Overall Warframe Ratings [Updated For 10]

[Verazix]

Ember's ultimate seems to target 3 enemies at a time, and over a wider range than Miasma.

If this is the case they've finally "fixed" the bug with the ability that had it hitting only one enemy at a time. With that in mind, if it's really hitting three enemies at once it most certainly is one of the best ultimate abilities in game. If it still has the 10~ second base duration we're looking at between 13-14 ticks per target (depending how rounding is done, if it ticks at 0 or .75 first). Assuming 400 damage, 14 ticks, three targets we're looking at 16,800 damage potential before armor/vulnerabilities/focus/continuity/constitution calculations. Around 1680 DPS, assuming perfect conditions, which would take Miasma roughly nine targets considering it does 250 DPS per target (though they're also stunned for the duration of the animation). The duration allows for higher mobility however, but the lack of upfront power makes much of it's damage back loaded with it's target cap, and costs it synergy with other frames as they have to "wait" for entire groups to die rather than just press four and move on. Seems WoF has it's own niche, being good for quick mobile damage and less so for large clumps. The ability to shoot during it really isn't a very large boon considering it's animation is still around the same as Miasma (if not slightly longer), but it's duration does allow one to "carry" part of the damage around with them.

I'd have to play with Ember more before I could support a change, it seems like it might work better in some situations and less in others. Might be great for survival for instance, where you run around from one place to the next and mobility is a huge boon. Not as powerful in defense/mobile defense where you end up with huge clumps of enemies waiting to be wasted by a single cast of an ultimate however.

[Eyepop]

This is a great post you got there, Volt!  Thanks for taking the time to be so informative.

 

Was glad to see that you've ranked Saryn so low, personally I'm disgusted with the way that DE has treated her.

 

And maybe I should grab Mag again: sounds like even Shield Polarize is useful now!

 

Verazix and Grilled, I'd appreciate it if you'd bring your complaints and suggestions about Saryn's venom to the thread that I've got about it.  Since 9.7 I've constantly been trying to get DE's attention about that, but nothing's worked so far.  I'm hoping that a long-lasting, constructive thread will get noticed, though I'm not even sure if the devs look at this subforum.  We've got to be louder about our displeasure or they'll never fix things.

[nakatotaiyou]

you just wrote bladestorm is useful.... hahaha, 2000 damage sure, limited to 13 enemies delivering it veeeery slow, vs enemies of any level you're better off using smoke screen/shuriken and your weapons. also it gives invincibility, useful? no, you can just use smoke screen and go invisible. its pratically completely useless.i plan to make a post about bladestorm soon.

[TunaMayo]

If how seriously you take my post is based around one frame, then to be perfectly honest I don't particularly care what you think.  I would be happy to go back and reconsider it, but basing your evaluation of the OP around one small sub-component is a bit harsh.  Regardless, as I said in the OP, I have never had a problem punching through shields so long as I'm using an ice mod and prioritize shield drones which I always am.  I'm not an expert on all the frames by any means.  I was giving what I could as an evaluation and it is open to discussion while you are attempting to force your opinion.  I'm not even saying you're wrong.  I'm just saying you're being kinda harsh here.

 

Regarding Soul Punch, I do not consider the AoE to be negligible.  Also, ragdolling takes the enemy out of commission for longer, allowing you to focus other targets.  It's a bit of personal preference I suppose.

 

It's more that you obviously haven't spent much time playing as mag, using all of her skills and working out what they do, before evaluating the frame. If you haven't spent much time playing mag before you pass judgement on her, how can I be sure that the same doesn't go for all frames? Sorry if that sounds harsh but Mag is a starter frame, I know that doesn't mean an awful lot though.

 

I won't lie, I hated mag before, couldn't stand her. Now because of shield polarise she is one of my top frames, especially for high end defence against corpus and grineer. Not sure if you know this but Shield Polarise works by removing 50% of shields of all enemies in the radius. The shield damage done to each target is then multiplied by 250% and done as radial damage, not sure how large that explosive radius is however. Simply put, Shield Polarise damage scales with the level of the enemies due to scaling shields. Making it the best and only scaling damage power in the game (for shielded targets of course). 

 

I guess the use of Soul Punch is personal preference. Personally, I think it is an over-rated power because it is single target damage with hard-to-manouver AoE (i'll give you that one). My main issue with Soul Punch is the ragdolling funnily enough. Sure it is nice taking a heavy out of the picture for a second, but it is infuriating that I cannot target (with another soul punch) or damage the enemy whilst in ragdolled state. Shuriken on the other hand delivers instant stagger for two targets and allows me to face-blast whatever is staggered.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

It's more that you obviously haven't spent much time playing as mag, using all of her skills and working out what they do, before evaluating the frame. If you haven't spent much time playing mag before you pass judgement on her, how can I be sure that the same doesn't go for all frames? Sorry if that sounds harsh but Mag is a starter frame, I know that doesn't mean an awful lot though.

 

I won't lie, I hated mag before, couldn't stand her. Now because of shield polarise she is one of my top frames, especially for high end defence against corpus and grineer. Not sure if you know this but Shield Polarise works by removing 50% of shields of all enemies in the radius. The shield damage done to each target is then multiplied by 250% and done as radial damage, not sure how large that explosive radius is however. Simply put, Shield Polarise damage scales with the level of the enemies due to scaling shields. Making it the best and only scaling damage power in the game (for shielded targets of course). 

 

I guess the use of Soul Punch is personal preference. Personally, I think it is an over-rated power because it is single target damage with hard-to-manouver AoE (i'll give you that one). My main issue with Soul Punch is the ragdolling funnily enough. Sure it is nice taking a heavy out of the picture for a second, but it is infuriating that I cannot target (with another soul punch) or damage the enemy whilst in ragdolled state. Shuriken on the other hand delivers instant stagger for two targets and allows me to face-blast whatever is staggered.

The poor evaluation of mag was largely due to misunderstanding the Shield Polarization change.  I tried using it as I understood the new version, noticed no real effect, and concluded it hadn't changed much.  Obviously if you use something outside of its intended use, it won't work, but I didn't realize I was using it outside of its intended use.  When I was corrected earlier on this page, I double-checked on the wiki before going in-game to try it out.  As soon as I confirmed it, I bumped it to 4 stars.

 

How does Mag being a starter frame impact anything at all?

[TunaMayo]

The poor evaluation of mag was largely due to misunderstanding the Shield Polarization change.  I tried using it as I understood the new version, noticed no real effect, and concluded it hadn't changed much.  Obviously if you use something outside of its intended use, it won't work, but I didn't realize I was using it outside of its intended use.  When I was corrected earlier on this page, I double-checked on the wiki before going in-game to try it out.  As soon as I confirmed it, I bumped it to 4 stars.

 

How does Mag being a starter frame impact anything at all?

 

Again sorry for the knee-jerk reaction. 

 

The comment on Mag being a starter frame was incorrectly phrased and probably unnecessary. What I meant was she is one of the originals and a well known starter frame, not quite the poster boy that Excal is but to a certain extent could be considered a poster-girl of Warframe. Perhaps that would influence more people to play her or get to grips with her?

 

Still not sure why I made that comment.

[Ganpot]

@OP

You have some good assessments and some not so good ones. 

 

For example, there is no way that Frost is only 2 stars, while Ember is 3.  Even with Ember's Overheat activated, she is still far squishier than Frost (especially if he has his Aurora helmet, which increases armor by 25%). 

 

While Ember is slightly faster than Frost, she is still not particularly quick.  Additionally, while Ember can theoretically deal more damage with Fire Blast and World on Fire than Frost deals with Avalanche and Ice Wave, fire damage quickly falls off against anything other than basic infested.  So in reality, both Ember and Frost have terrible damage dealing abilities at higher levels (where comparisons should be taking place). 

 

The determining factor is utility.  While Frost's Freeze ability has its problems, it can still eliminate any heavy from a fight at will, whereas Fireball does pretty much nothing.  And then we come to Snowglobe, Frost's ace in the hole.  Honestly, Snowglobe is so useful in almost any situation (once modded properly) that it single-handed saves the frame from mediocrity. 

 

All told, I think Frost should have a rank of at least 3, if not 4 stars.  Ember probably doesn't deserve more than two.  She isn't survivable, she isn't fast enough to reliably run away from enemies, and she doesn't deal very much damage for a caster frame.  Obviously this situation might change once the armor rework rolls out, but for now, that is my assessment.

[Volt_Cruelerz]

@OP

You have some good assessments and some not so good ones. 

 

For example, there is no way that Frost is only 2 stars, while Ember is 3.  Even with Ember's Overheat activated, she is still far squishier than Frost (especially if he has his Aurora helmet, which increases armor by 25%). 

 

While Ember is slightly faster than Frost, she is still not particularly quick.  Additionally, while Ember can theoretically deal more damage with Fire Blast and World on Fire than Frost deals with Avalanche and Ice Wave, fire damage quickly falls off against anything other than basic infested.  So in reality, both Ember and Frost have terrible damage dealing abilities at higher levels (where comparisons should be taking place). 

 

The determining factor is utility.  While Frost's Freeze ability has its problems, it can still eliminate any heavy from a fight at will, whereas Fireball does pretty much nothing.  And then we come to Snowglobe, Frost's ace in the hole.  Honestly, Snowglobe is so useful in almost any situation (once modded properly) that it single-handed saves the frame from mediocrity. 

 

All told, I think Frost should have a rank of at least 3, if not 4 stars.  Ember probably doesn't deserve more than two.  She isn't survivable, she isn't fast enough to reliably run away from enemies, and she doesn't deal very much damage for a caster frame.  Obviously this situation might change once the armor rework rolls out, but for now, that is my assessment.

You're referring to the kit evaluation.  That doesn't mean "Frost < Ember"  If you look, you'll notice the total score of Frost being higher than Ember.  Kit involves things like ability interaction and stats with a limited general effectiveness consideration.  As you said, Snowglobe single-handedly saves it from mediocrity.  But subtract SG and the whole frame takes a nose-dive not dissimilar to what happened when the original OP version of Overload got nerfed. 

[Carillon]

On Ember:

 

Fireball should be a 1. it's still useless, if fact, it's worse than useless because ember is so strained for mod space that blowing it on junk like fireball makes you noticeably weaker overall.

 

Fireblast's ring does armour-ignoring damage. with a little practice it's actually very easy to land the ring right on top of a pile of grineer. who commence dancing. Interestingly, it's actually worst against the infested because they're the only ones who will move out of the fire. it also lasts a long time and can be stacked on top of itself to make a field of death (which is also AMAZING CC against most grineer). it shines brightest in maps with lots of terrain that you can take advantage of to force foes to pile up where they can't consistently hurt you. it should really be at least a 3.

 

WoF, otoh, quickly falls off due to armour scaling and its target cap. in the grand list of ultimates, WoF is one of the worst. the most frustrating thing about it, i think, is that it falls of really hard right around the level that enemies stop being such a pathertic joke and you'd like to start using your powers. honestly, I'd prolly rate it about 1.5.

 

Overall, let's be honest: ember really only has Overheat/Fireblast. they've got really strong synergy, but... WoF/Fireball are basically just junk that do nothing for her. oh, and she's terrible against corpus, because moas don't dance when you light them on fire. stat-wise, she depends a bit too much on overheat to provide her the durability she ought to have - meaning she's super dependent on the team bringing double Esiphon so she can have it on all the time, and then use dropped energy for rings of death.

(because i can: what she needs from those two bad skills? a way to deal with moa packs, and something that boosts her mobility in a pinch)

 

On Loki:

permainvisibility. this is amazing for him, and a huge part of why you might want to be loki. I'd say that the only thing preventing it from being a 5* is that it doesn't cloak his sentinel.

 

On Nova:

 

Null Star:

it's an okay single target uncontrollable damage power that happens to stagger-lock stuff if you're only fighting one enemy. if they bring a couple friends, it's usefulness takes a nosedive. it's a 3 at best, definitely not a 4.

 

Wormhole is nice to have, but (like super jump, etc) it loses a lot of it's value as your skill with wallrunning/etc increases. it remains useful for a lot longer, sure. but still, it would be hesitant to rate it above 3.

 

Her overall rating should prolly be around 3. maybe 4 - the MP-AD synergy is strong, but the other two are kind of tacked on. she's not very flexible and depends heavily on her teammates providing actual defensive skills at higher levels. yes, she wrecks low level junk but... so does pretty much everybody.

 

On Nekros:

Terrify: enemies seem to run willy-nilly all over the place. the thing that really kills it is it's seemingly low range combined with it's somewhat sluggish activation. sameish rating, different reason, i guess.

Desecrate: in it's current state? it's too buggy and unreliable to be rated a 3. if it was fixed to be actually reliable? could easily become a 4, imo. it's the only skill in the game that spits out ammo for your team, and it could easily refund it's cost in energy. free loot is free.

[fatpig84]

I assume this is to avoid self-damage? Also, wouldn't a frame with ragdoll be better done it allows AoE weapons to hit all enemy body parts?

 

Any frame can do it with a kogake. But yeah there are frames that can do it better.

But the main thing about super jump is not self damage at all. 

 

It allows weapons like Ogris hit things from extreme distance since you got a clear shot.

Edited September 26, 2013 by fatpig84

[Ganpot]

You're referring to the kit evaluation.  That doesn't mean "Frost < Ember"  If you look, you'll notice the total score of Frost being higher than Ember.  Kit involves things like ability interaction and stats with a limited general effectiveness consideration.  As you said, Snowglobe single-handedly saves it from mediocrity.  But subtract SG and the whole frame takes a nose-dive not dissimilar to what happened when the original OP version of Overload got nerfed. 

 

Meh, kit evaluation means pretty much the same thing as a general score for a frame.  But honestly, even without Snowglobe, Frost would still be a better frame than Ember, for reasons mentioned in my previous post (mainly tankiness).  None of Ember's abilities are actually that good.  Fireball is utterly useless, Fire Blast is almost completely useless, and World on Fire is useless against anything but basic infested (if your ability decides to target 3 ancients, you aren't going to kill anything).  The damage portion of Overheat is similarly useless (due to range restrictions and enemy armor), and a 40% damage reduction doesn't make up for Frost's approximate 85% damage reduction with max armor. 

 

The irony is that Frost without Snowglobe would play similarly to how Ember already plays. 

[lautalocos]

This seems like it was scaled on enemies below level 50.

 

Seems little shallow to me, we all have our opinions but this is like new player scaling.

low level missions are the only missions without crazy, broken armor scaling. they aren´t good, but they are still better than wave defense 40

[notionphil]

Saryn [14]

 

Venom **

It simply isn't what it once was without the ability to stack.

 

Molt ***

See Loki's Decoy.  Same reasoning.  Molt also doesn't interact with her kit the way Decoy does with Loki's.

 

Contagion **

I just don't see the need to equip this.  Don't get me wrong, if you're going for a melee build, 75% damage amp is nice, but melee in the game as it stands has issues so you won't find too many people jumping at the chance to use this.  It's also not a team buff which means that only Saryn can capitalize on it.

 

Miasma ****

Until the addition of Antimatter Drop and M-Prime that resulted in Nova's coronation, Miasma reigned as the most powerful damage ability in the game.  Nearly instant cast time during which enemies are rapidly dissolved and has the benefit of multiplicative gains from strength and duration mods together.  Targets are also stunned for the duration.  The only drawback is its low range.

 

Kit ***

Bringing great damage and decent utility to the team, Saryn is a solid competitor for a slot in a team, but nothing altogether that special.

 

 

 

Hey Volt,

 

I haven't read the entire thread, so I'm not sure what else has been said on Saryn, but just wanted to add my 2 cents as she's my 2nd main after nyx.

 

Venom is not the reigning champion of DPS but it's still better than most #1's in game. The explosion damage generated when spores pop doesn't show a damage number normally, but I can tell you anecdotally, high level/armored mobs with spores in them tend to die about 2x as fast as those without spores. Those explosions do serious dmg.

 

Forget the DoT stacking aspect, Venom is more of damage boosting ability now.  I am going to get in game tonight after work and see if I can get any solid numbers to back this up. My feel is that Venom is at least a *** and maybe a **** still. It's just no longer a *****. Bigger spores and more visible damage from explosions would bring it to a solid 5, from what we should expect from a low cost 1 ability.

[zzang]

The following is a different take on the rating of warframes and how they compare than other methods have done.  

 

This post has been a long time coming as I wanted to max all frames before reporting this.  What I'll be doing is evaluating each frame on a scale of 1-5 stars for each ability and once again on its overall kit interaction.  I'm sure some will disagree, but hopefully this can draw attention more towards what needs help and what needs less.  For the record, I am not a proponent of "buff everything to Nova level."  I actually favor a nerf to her, but that's not the point of the thread.  I shall proceed alphabetically and shall put the sum of the stars (obviously 25 is perfect) up by the name of the frame.

 

Feel free to contribute feedback and if you disagree with something please provide a valid and cohesive argument for it.  Obviously the initial ratings are my own doing, but several are due to feedback by commenters.  I am aware I'm not an expert on every frame, so if you main a frame and have used several others for reference, please feel free to inform me of any disagreements in the ratings.  Just make sure to provide a logical argument explaining why what has already been posted is incorrect.

 

 easy to be productive in Warframe while texting your girlfriend.  Seriously though, it is a very powerful ability, dealing tons of damage to nearby enemies.  Sure, it isn't as fast as others, but that doesn't change its usefulness.

 

Banshee [18]

Sonic Boom ****

Need breathing room?  Want to just send hapless enemies back?  Press 1.  Very potent crowd-control skill, downing anything that gets a little too close for comfort.  In terms of 1's, this ability is one of the best.

 

Sonar *****

Absolutely fantastic ability.  It promotes skill, teamplay, and is useful at all levels of play.

 

Silence *

Are you playing stealth?  If no, this is junk.  Even if you are, it's still terrible and simply not worth the energy because if you're that close to enemies, you could just kill them with a sneak attack or something.

 

Sound Quake ****

Effectively a long-duration stun, this ability can easily set up kills for allies or buy them time.  The damage is fairly standard.

 

Kit ****

A great teammate to have in every situation, Banshee can always find a role.  Assassination?  Defense?  Other?  She's got something she can throw at them to help the team.

 

HOW got banshee 18 points with 1 totally useless skill and a ulti that is worse than saryns to say it more accurate banshees ulti deal 5-6 damage per tic to high armored targets thats no fair standard also she is rooted to the ground and a easy target while ulti is active and the animation is deadly slow. while saryn also stuns the targets and does armor ignoring damage gets the team time but at the same time she can blast away some foes with strun wraith while the rest is stunned and banshee cant. banshee is just a extremely bad support at the moment if i want a support I choose trinity  if i want stealth i choose loki, if i want defense i choose frost,vauban,rhino,nova if i want a alround frame "insert all frames other than banshee"

 

and how can saryn get 4 points below banshee saryns ulti besides her extremely low range is the 3rd best in the game and also stuns the targets but additionally does armor ignoring damage

 

I find your reasoning here very unaccurate or even false

Edited October 11, 2013 by zzang

[Volt_Cruelerz]

HOW got banshee 18 points with 1 totally useless skill and a ulti that is worse than saryns to say it more accurate banshees ulti deal 5-6 damage per tic to high armored targets thats no fair standard also she is rooted to the ground and a easy target while ulti is active and the animation is deadly slow. while saryn also stuns the targets and does armor ignoring damage gets the team time but at the same time she can blast away some foes with strun wraith while the rest is stunned and banshee cant. banshee is just a extremely bad support at the moment if i want a support I choose trinity  if i want stealth i choose loki, if i want defense i choose frost,vauban,rhino,nova if i want a alround frame "insert all frames other than banshee"

 

and how can saryn get 4 points below banshee saryns ulti besides her extremely low range is the 3rd best in the game and also stuns the targets but additionally does armor ignoring damage

 

I find your reasoning here very unaccurate or even false

How does Banshee get 18? 4+5+1+4+4.

How does Saryn get 14? 2+3+2+4+3

 

Notionphil suggested I look into Venom more (which I will), Sonar is better than Molt, Silence and Contagion both suck, and Banshee has two fantastic abilities with one decent one while Saryn has one fantastic ability and two decent ones.  I'll consider downgrading Sound Quake, but even if both changes occur (Venom: 2->3, SQ: 4->3), Saryn will still be two points below Banshee.

[zzang]

How does Banshee get 18? 4+5+1+4+4.

How does Saryn get 14? 2+3+2+4+3

 

Notionphil suggested I look into Venom more (which I will), Sonar is better than Molt, Silence and Contagion both suck, and Banshee has two fantastic abilities with one decent one while Saryn has one fantastic ability and two decent ones.  I'll consider downgrading Sound Quake, but even if both changes occur (Venom: 2->3, SQ: 4->3), Saryn will still be two points below Banshee.

while this to me would make more sense from a comparision i still find you give banshee as overall kit with 4 points one point to much its a 3 at best

 

agreed for contagion and silence both extremely suck

 

and sonar is better than molt also true although sonar seem to be bugged sometimes and not show up bodyparts

Edited October 11, 2013 by zzang

[rksk16it]

Hey Volt,

 

I haven't read the entire thread, so I'm not sure what else has been said on Saryn, but just wanted to add my 2 cents as she's my 2nd main after nyx.

 

Venom is not the reigning champion of DPS but it's still better than most #1's in game. The explosion damage generated when spores pop doesn't show a damage number normally, but I can tell you anecdotally, high level/armored mobs with spores in them tend to die about 2x as fast as those without spores. Those explosions do serious dmg.

 

Forget the DoT stacking aspect, Venom is more of damage boosting ability now.  I am going to get in game tonight after work and see if I can get any solid numbers to back this up. My feel is that Venom is at least a *** and maybe a **** still. It's just no longer a *****. Bigger spores and more visible damage from explosions would bring it to a solid 5, from what we should expect from a low cost 1 ability.

 

Problem with explosion of spores is, its a value which does not depend upon your weapon. So the better your weapon, the lesser contribution the spores will provide relatively.

 

Furthur not all weapons will be able to pop spores. I'd like to point out Torid and Ogris here. Both of them can do large amounts of damage to a group of enemies clustered together (the same condition where Venom is supposed to excel). Yet those weapons are unable to pop spores AFAIK. Unless it changed very recently...

[WarOverlord]

Get back to work!

[syle]

got fully ranked narrow minded on that nekro ?

[Volt_Cruelerz]

lol I considered making a new thread to include the new frames (I do have them), but ultimately decided that it was a lot of effort for a game I don't really play anymore.  The fundamental problems are with the mechanics of the game which cause issues for new and old players.  The issues with the individual frames aren't going to make or break the game.  That's why I put so much effort into my Fixing the Fundamentals thread, but haven't updated this one.

[WarOverlord]

lol I considered making a new thread to include the new frames (I do have them), but ultimately decided that it was a lot of effort for a game I don't really play anymore.  The fundamental problems are with the mechanics of the game which cause issues for new and old players.  The issues with the individual frames aren't going to make or break the game.  That's why I put so much effort into my Fixing the Fundamentals thread, but haven't updated this one.

Link?

[Volt_Cruelerz]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/160258-fixing-the-fundamentals/