However, keep in mind that this is my personal judgement of the game . I’m not crunching numbers, statistics or do extensive math to back up my decisions, but I played every frame a fair deal to know its strengths and weaknesses. This game is always about finding what works best for you , so please, feel free to express your opinions on the comment section, but don’t regard neither your nor my opinion as fact!

This guide is aimed at beginners or people who don’t know which one of the many Frames to aim at as for their next building goal. The vast amount of different resources and blueprints in this game can be somewhat overwhelming, yet even retrieve, so building the wrong thing could cost you a few days worth of time and quite a lot of resources. To make things easier, the guide will be updated regularly to reflect the current gaming meta, and I will try my best to follow it through with every patch, as long as i still play and enjoy the game.

I’m going to focus on keeping this page as a quick lookup-reference. The advantage is that I can easily and quickly update the information on the fly. If you are still confused after reading this or have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, make sure to visit my Warframe Beginner’s Guide and the official Wiki for further details.

Having played over 1800 hours of Warframe I came to the conclusion that lengthy guides are way too hard to keep updated with fresh information. Things I write down today may be outdated by next week, as Digital Extremes (DE) is constantly balancing frame skill sets, mods and the general gaming meta with every patch.

Click here for changenotes on this article

I’ll update this information as i go (RedText Simulator engaged): 2015-02-25: V1.0 of the Guide. More to come in the near future. 🙂 2015-02-26: V1.1 due to due to massive feedback from the community: Several texts reworked to sound “less aggravating” to some people. 😉 Gave Mirage 5 Stars in Offense Mesa now has 4 stars in Defense (i heard that Shatter Shield is the new thing!) Volt got some well-deserved utility with now 4 stars under his belt. Got Hydroid a bit more mobility and utility due to his fluid nature. Loki Stealth and Radial Disarm OP – more defensive rated now! Alright, alright! I got it that Saryn cleans rooms better than any housewife! Offensive Rating now 5 stars! 2015-02-26: V1.2: Added Chroma to the list.

2015-06-28: V1.3: Updated Excalibur due to his rework, gave him additional stars in offense and defense.

2015-08-12: V1.4: Added Equinox to the list.

2015-08-18: V1.41: Forgot to include the rework of Frost, also updated Equinox text and ratings after some forma and playtesting.

2015-10-06: V1.5: Added Atlas to the list. Deducted 1 Star from offense on Mesa as she now requires actual skill to clean rooms.

2015-12-23: V1.6: Added Wukong to the list. I have 0 experience on Nezha yet so bear with me until I get around the sorties.

2016-01-08: V1.7: Played and added Nezha. Atlas slightly buffed in ratings. 2016-01-14: V1.8: Holy cow, I completely forgot about Ivara. Such a fun frame! 2016-04-07: V1.9: Inaros added.

2016-05-29: V2.0: Added new stars to Volt and Mag due to their rework. Gave Trinity and Mirage a utility rating reduction due to Patch 18.13 nerfs.

2016-09-17: V2.1: Added Titania and gave Nekros a rating and text update due to his rework (buff).

2017-01-14: V2.2: Added Nidus to the list (new)

2017-05-03: V2.3: Added Octavia to the list (new). Reflected the Oberon and Limbo rework. Adjusted Mag’s ratings due to her rather unpopular rework.

2017-05-03: V2.4: Added Harrow to the list

2017-11-12: V2.5: Added Gara to the list

2019-09-23: V2.6: Long overdue update, sorry for the delay. Added 7 (!) new Warframes to the list. Slightly gave Wukong a rating adjustment due to his recent rework. Reworks on Khora and Baruuk are following as soon as I get hands on them (not buying anything for Plat atm).



Ash

Being the “classical” Ninja of Warframe, Ash is currently in a decent spot. His stealth may not be as good as Loki’s, but he’s more durable and suitable for melee combat due to having higher armor and stamina. With his bladestorm being buffed to decent levels he’s now more endgame viable than ever, though still lacks that last bit of utility to be useful in any situation. His ability mods help to overcome that weakness somehow, but in terms of general team support there still are way better frames to choose.

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Baruuk

Haven’t played him yet – please beware that the following lines are observations ! One of the hardest to come-by frames, Baruuk is surprisingly not represented a lot in the game. But with that said, you also don’t see him bought or played a lot. His evade / avoid damage to eventually CC and do damage delay-playstyle is not really fitting Warframe’s meta right now, as there are frame- and weapon-builds that can clear lvl 150 enemies within seconds. He’s a very niche Warframe, enjoyed by few, but lacks exceptional traits. His lock behind one of the hardest to farm factions in the game (Vox Solaris) makes it very hard to gauge his overall impact, so I recommend to leave him for now.

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Atlas

Atlas fits into the “brawler” frame category, featuring high armor that almost rivals that of Valkyr combined with his inherent immunity to knockdowns as long he has the feet on the ground. Atlas also sports a decent amount of utility, allowing him to distract, crowd-control and hinder enemies with a diverse kit of abilities. However being bulky and slow, Atlas is not ideal when you need to escape fast or clean a room quickly. Most of his abilities suffer from short range or a longer cast-time – something that can get you killed pretty quickly as high armor values alone won’t help much in high-level situations. Atlas is a ton of fun to play, but his kit lacks the special “oomph” that other specialized frames have to offer. Play and consider him as a heavy battle-mage with some utility and go for Valkyr or Chroma if you want to focus solely on melee combat.

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Banshee

Always being one of the underdogs in Warframe, Banshee is actually woefully underrated. Her Silence and Sonar skills give her excellent stealth capabilities outside the usual “invisibility” that Ash and Loki provide without being restricted just to herself. In addition to that, her ultimate provides excellent utility and crowd control up into late game. Her ability mods add to the already high utility, making Banshee viable up to late game as added weak spots make enemies much easier to dispose off.

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Chroma

As a recent addition to Warframe, Chroma strikes a balance between Valkyr’s offensive close-combat focus and Frost’s defensiveness while still providing some unique team-utility via the use of his different energy color alignments and build options. In addition to that Chroma has excellent self-buffing capabilities, allowing him to be played either as melee-heavy brawler or ranged sentry via the use of his “Effigy” ultimate. While still being relatively mobile compared to the other tankier frames, Chroma has no quick escape buttons or movement options at his disposal. Currently he only has a lackluster ability mod at his disposal, which will hopefully soon be rectified with new mod additions being made to the game. All in all he is a very balanced frame that is fun to play and very versatile to use for any playstyle.

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Ember

Ember always was a difficult frame to get right and manage in high level scenarios. She’s been buffed and nerfed constantly as her sole focus on fire-based spells is somewhat hard to balance in a game with different types of damage. That said, the recent buffs to Ember made her a bit more viable as battle caster, but her fragility and lack of real team utility (outside of buffing fire spells) make Ember still stand in a tough spot. She’s one of those frames that can be lots of fun to play, but she’s a rare sight in many high-level scenarios due to her strong focus in one direction.

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Equinox

Added with update 17 as an 8-part boss drop, Equinox is quite difficult to obtain and somewhat harder to get used to. The frame basically has 2 forms you can switch in between, either allowing you to heal teammates and reduce incoming armor or buff your teammates while damaging the enemy. Equinox is a kind of in-between mixture of Oberon and Trinity with a bit of Saryn thrown in. Being a jack of all trades this frame doesn’t excel in any particular field, however the focus on a slash damage aura provides very good utility against infested. Equinox is not as easy to use as other support frames, requiring you to constantly position yourself in between enemies or allies in order to be effective. This frame is a ton of fun to play and offers both decent utility and crowd control, but it fits a rather small niche between the many other strong supportive and defensive frames such as Trinity. All in all it is a nice choice if you want to play something completely different.

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Excalibur

As a starter Frame Excalibur has been around for basically the entire game. Over time this led to most of his abilities becoming made obsolete by new game mechanics and other frame’s powerful abilities. However, after his rework on Patch 16.10 Excalibur recieved a major buff to his kit that brings him up to par with most other frames, especially his melee-focused counterparts Chroma and Valkyr. While his radial blind is as useful than ever, the new “Exalted Blade” skill gives him extreme damage and good survivability against projectiles when being attacked from the front. His ability mods furthermore emphasize his melee focus, making Excalibur a very interesting and recommendable choice for people that want to rely mainly on melee combat paired with well-rounded stats, defense and mobility.

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Frost

Frost always was and still is the “get-go” Frame for pure defensive endless-type missions . As of Update 17, Frost has been reworked, making his all of his spells more useful than before. With his amount of defensive capabilities paired with good damage and CC, Frost is amongst the top-tier frames to get, even with the Prime version not being available outside of player trading anymore. Many of the newer enemies are now capable of dishing out tons of splash damage, making Frost’s larger (and now permanent) globes more valuable than before. Though very immobile without mods, Frost is a valuable asset for longer mission runs, allowing for very good offensive and defensive builds alike. His good ability mods add further utility to his already great kit and allow for a more “battlemage” oriented build if you so desire. Don’t hesitate to add Frost to your arsenal – you’ll always be a welcome sight for those fragile caster frames out there.

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Gara

I’m having a hard time to give Gara a decent spot among all the other frames. Don’t get me wrong: Gara is quite powerful. She can do damage, has good and reliable crowd control and her “Mass Vitrify” wall is nice to keep enemies out in tough situations. However, Gara also has clear weaknesses compared to Frost’s snowglobe and her kit feels very static to use. It’s more of a subjective view but for me it’s her lack of definition and impact while using abilities. Being released after rather interesting frames such as Nidus and Harrow makes it hard for me to find her interesting. I’m also having trouble defining a niche for her to shine. Gara is definitely sortie-capable even without forma, but also not a must-have frame in my book.

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Garuda

When Ash and Valkyr had a lovechild, Garuda would probably be closely acquainted to it. She’s the “Vampire”in Warframe, mostly focused heavily on close combat and stealing life from enemies to fuel her defensive and offensive powers. The problem behind her melee-heavy playstyle and her rather exalted weapon is the amount of work needed to even kill a few enemies. She simply doesn’t excel much in any department, as other frames either tank better or provide more CC and room cleaning for the effort invested. She’s solid, but not something I see played often in the game, as she simply does neither define nor follow the rather “open world” meta right now.

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Gauss

Gotta go fast! Well almost. Gauss feels super speedy and fun to play, but Volt still holds the true crown of going really fast in Warframe. With that in mind, Gauss feels like a simpler to play version of Volt, as you provide no real team utility in exchange for a self-buff mechanic that depends on your speed, battery level and the redline-mechanic – and speed! Did I mention speed? Gauss is not exceptional in any regard, but similar as with Rhino it’s fun to ram enemies aside. He’s fun to play, but not as durable or great in damage or CC output, so I rather recommend him as fun niche-frame when you like a nice mix of Volt and Rhino.

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Harrow

Harrow’s gameplay is all about sacrifice: deplete your shields for firing rate and reload speed, sacrifice energy to gain more for both you and your team. Harrow is like an offensive version of Trinity with all her benefits, even more CC and more team buffing potential on top. However, his main problem is having a very situational kit and the reliance on headshots. Sacrifice your shields at the wrong time and you are highly vulnerable. Screw up the damage prevention ultimate or your energy sacrifice and you get zero benefits. Overall Harrow is very powerful and versatile, but his kit is difficult to use and can be awkward or even counterproductive at times.

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Hildryn

Hildryn is a tough one to gauge. Her shield-based and shield-regenerating abilities provide a lot of utility to teammates – but Mag and Volt have similar abilities and CC which she trades with damage. Her offense is solid, thanks to a nice exalted weapon and good mod scaling. However the niche focus on shields makes her very good against corpus, but a rather bad pick against almost everything else. Overall she’s solid, but not exceptional in any other regard.

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Hydroid

Hydroid always had and still has a niche in Warframe, and he actually is one of the rarest Frames i ever see in the game. While his undertow and tentacle swarm add decent utility and crowd control, his other abilities are pretty lackluster. Aside from that he lacks any defining traits and – most importantly – skills that other Frames can’t do better. Being bulky in looks, his armor doesn’t really allow for melee combat either, which is a real shame. His ability mods add a great deal of utility to his kit, but are very situational to use and require your teammates to be nearby. As Hydroid is still in a weird spot at the moment I wouldn’t recommend getting him unless you really need something to level.

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Inaros

Inaros is one of the tankiest frames out there, mostly due to the introduction of a ridiculously large health pool which also acts as a resource for his abilities. As a result he is very easy to mod defensively to support his close-combat oriented playstyle. His abilities combine a good amount of crowd control with team-healing utility, so Inaros can be placed somewhere in between Wukong, Excalibur and Oberon. Most controversially his weird mix of abilities also renders his kit rather stiff and counterproductive to handle: His blinding 1-key ability “Desiccation” is ridiculously powerful, cheap and quick to cast, which renders his very slow moving “Sandstorm” ability nearly useless as a CC tool. His heal is useful for the team in theory, but people need to pay close attention for that, which barely happens in fast-paced game such as Warframe. Sand clones from his devour ability are handy, but tedious to “produce” and maintain. His damage output and crowd control is overall decent, but lacking compared to other frames. Sooo…as it stands now, I’d recommend doing the great Inaros quest solely for lore-reasons, but he definitely is not a must-have frame until his kit is overall buffed in terms of fluidity and synergy.

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Ivara

Ivara is another welcome addition to stealthier frames. She does offer weaker mobility during stealth as Loki or Ash, but gains a ton of team utility and damage in return. Ivara has many interesting ways of play thanks to her versatile “Quiver” ability. She’s also one of the few Frames being capable of providing both mobility and stealth to other frames, which is more than welcome in heated battles. Overall she’s both capable of standing on her own feet whilst fitting into any team setup. Ivara may lack in raw “room-cleaning” power, but she more than compensates that with her fun way to play and interesting set of mechanics! A definite recommendation from me, and a must-have for anyone in search of a more versatile and complex-to-play Warframe.

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Khora

Don’t have her, don’t play her. So please – take my observations with a bag of salt. Khora is marketed as “the hunter” Warframe with her pet, but seeing how the current Pet-AI still hasn’t seen any noticeable improvements, her Cat “Venari” is basically a more controllable pet, but hasn’t got the noticeable impact on a game aside from providing buffs like other Kavats. Currently, Khora barely sees any play, which is due to her being being very “hidden” within the Sanctuary Onslaught mission. The only reason I saw her being played was her Strangledome ability with can be modded to increase loot…

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Limbo

Even with his recent rework, Limbo is the frame with the weirdest and most difficult to handle skillset in the game. However that does not mean he is not powerful – he actually features the strongest CC, great survivability and great damage on top IF you do it right. Due to his strong focus on “Rift” phasing mechanics paired with his low durability you have to cast quite a lot of abilities in order to suceed. Potentially limbo has great team utility, but phasing out team members and enemies comes with a lot of drawbacks that will most likely get people angry. Limbo’s ability mods also add a great deal of (team) utility and damage to his kit, but don’t make his spells less complicated to use in teams. All in all, Limbo is not the best teamplayer but excels at Spy and Defense missions as you can avoid lasers and negate a lot of damage even on hostages or other escort targets due to the rift mechanic. I do not recommend this Frame for beginners but rather for Tenno with a very distinct taste.

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Loki

Loki was and still is one of the more “advanced” to use Warframes. He has better invisibility and mobility than Ash, but is also more fragile and energy-dependent, heavily relying on his stealth to survive. That said, Loki is a great frame for solo and team situations alike due having a very diverse skill set. His great Radial Disarm ability can even be amplified further with the use of the ability mods, making Loki one of the best choices to have for late game against high level enemies. As Stealth 2.0 was just added into the game, Loki is a great and very meaningful addition to your Warframe repertoire and almost essential to have for any “stealthy” mission.

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Mag

Being one of the easier Frames to handle and “get right”, Mag was and still is one of the better choices for beginners. She has very high base shields, which can be further boosted with her “Polarize” ability in combination with ability augment mods. Mag is a good mixture of crowd-control, team support and damage, providing lots of cheap hard CC for little effort. However her damage output and overall niche use hasn’t been rectified with her rework, making her a rather unpopular choice at the moment.

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Mesa

Being a rather new addition to Warframe, Mesa is quite capable in multiple mission types due to her flexible mixture of damaging and team-supporting abilities. She’s one of the few frames gaining passive benefits when just wielding one or two sidearms, and watching her “work” with her built-in handguns is quite enjoyable. Although Mesa has some defensive spells at her disposal, they do not always reliably keep her alive in the heat of battle, but provide decent protection against ranged fire. Mesa is a ton of fun to play, but her lack of real crowd control and high-end scaling abilities prevent her from being one of the top ranking frames and make her rely on allies to keep her alive while dishing out damage. Her ability mods are situational and provide less overall utility than most abilities of pure support frames. Get Mesa when you need to have an “easy way” out of any defense mission, but keep in mind that her kit is best used with a team to back her up and protect. Mesa excels in stationary defense and farming missions and is thus rarely seen outside of these.

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Mirage

Mirage is an interesting mixture between deceiving caster and brute force thanks to her buffing capabilities and multiplied damage from her Mirror Images. While the latter help keeping her alive by also drawing fire, they don’t work reliability against higher end enemies and splash damage, making Mirage still somewhat dependant on other teammates also due to her lack of mobility or direct escape. As a big positive factor her ability mods provide excellent additional value, making her a lot more useful in situations that require high (team) damage output. As she stands now, Mirage is not quite top-tier, but still great in a lot of situations and thus quite high on my list of personal recommendations. If you can’t make fragile casters like Ember, Mag or Nova work, give Mirage a chance instead.

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Nezha

Nezha is a support frame that delivers a weird mixture of offensive, supportive and crowd control abilities. Think of Ember, Oberon and Volt mixed into one Jack-of-all-Frames. Nezha is one of the most fragile frames which kinda bottlenecks him into using Quick Thinking and Flow mods to keep his low health pool somewhat protected. His “Warding Halo” provides some kind of protection similar to Rhino’s Iron skin but is far from being a “Get out of fail free” card. Playing Nezha as quick in- and out of combat frame can be somewhat rewarding, but at the moment I consider him more of a gimmick and would recommend getting some of the more useful support frames first. However his playstyle is a lot of fun so don’t ignore this frame all together, as fun is still more important than just following the “Meta”. 🙂

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Nekros

Nekros has seen a lot of changes since his release, most of which helped to further define his play style. At the moment he’s one of the Warframes that is very useful in almost any scenario, with Survival missions being his prime moment to shine. Nekros already has a lot of utility under his belt, which in turn he sacrifices for mobility and raw damage output. However, thanks to his outstanding ability augment mods he’s becoming a very unique frame, being able to instantly revive teammates, play a tanky role or support the team with debuffs while providing additional health and loot on top. Don’t miss out this frame in your collection!

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Nidus

Nidus is a great example of a well-designed Frame, with four useful and fun to use powers. Best described as a hybrid of Oberon and Trinity he delivers smaller heals and buffs to the team while adding quite reliable CC to the mix. His ‘mutation stack’ mechanic can make Nidus quite survivable – similar to levels of Atlas, Wukong and Inaros. Once his mutation counter reaches high numbers, his damage easily scales into the thousands, making him an overall great choice for any longer mission with a lot of stationary fights. Overall a very well-rounded choice that you cannot go wrong with.

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Nova

Nova has always been one of the top-tier frames when it comes to outstanding (team) utility paired with the raw damage output. She’s a glass-cannon in the purest sense of the word, which makes playing her both fun and rewarding but also highly risky without further support from defensive frames. Nova has been passively struck by the recent change to enemies being more long-ranged and ability resistant, but her new ability mods can somewhat rectify that issue. She still is amongst the top tier frames and a must-have addition to every collection, especially when you manage to learn using her powerful abilities in the right fashion.

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Nyx

Same like Banshee, Nyx has often been in a weird spot. Thanks to her huge utility she’s a great Frame for playing a major role in both solo and in high-end team missions. She sacrifices pure mobility in exchange for many possible build variations, most of which automatically benefit your team. Loki’s powerful ability mods (mainly Radial Disarm) outshine Nyx in many situation, which is also due to her own ability mods being somewhat lackluster. Even with this point standing, Nyx still is one of the most powerful and end-game viable team supporters out there and still brings a lot of unique traits to the table, making her one of the best Frames to own for nearly any mission scenario.

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Oberon

Oberon always has been the “Paladin / Hybrid” in the classical sense – being a jack of all traits without any special characteristics. He has team healing, provides decent utility and is both suitable to be played as melee or caster. However, being average in most fields gets him outranked quickly when it comes to higher-end scenarios. Trinity outshines him as a healer and the caster frames do more damage, which is also why Oberon is not often seen in many higher level content. At the moment he is in a mediocre spot, but has lots of fans and is far from being useless. Even after his recent rework he needs unique traits (maybe within his already decent Ability mods) to compete with the other, more specialized Warframes out there.

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Octavia

Octavia surely isn’t lacking originality: A frame that demands you to move to the rythm of its own music to get buffs isn’t exactly made for beginners. The music you can compose with her (within the arsenal) is somewhat limited and the whole concept of a DJ-frame may be worth of discussion in a game featuring space ninjas. However that doesn’t mean that Octavia cannot deliver: with her overall very defensive kit she provides the most varied set of buffs to herself and her teammates: invisbility, speed, damage – and all of it in spades. If you continously manage both your rythm and the buff timers to keep the music rolling, enemies will not be able to touch you. On the other hand her playstyle is overall not very engaging, as you will have to remain stationary most of the time to perform well – or constantly recast your spells if that is what you prefer.

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Revenant

I personally don’t play him a lot, as his kit feels a bit boring. However you cannot deny the strength of Revenant: Since his mechanics are focused on health, his pool is the biggest in the in the game. This makes him perfect for any energy-return and high-armor modding scenarios. Since his health also greatly improves pets, Revenant is the perfect “I don’t care about your damage output” frames for solo play. He’s got decent and easy enough CC (similar to Excaliburs radial blind) and some team-healing utility. So overall you get a solid package and one of the beefiest frames for soloing any content.

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Rhino

Rhino is what you can easily call a “Classic” amongst the Warframes to own and also very beginner-friendly. He is one of the tankiest frames and one of the few that is able to completely ignore status-effects, an ability that is very important due to the recent addition of versatile enemies. He provides one of the best team damage buffs in the game whilst also being able to solo most of the content by his own. However, his ability mods are overall lackluster and the end game utility-part of his iron-skin ability is falling short as it just provides flat values to his defensive. That said he’s still is a high ranking Warframe to own just for any “don’t bother with it” scenario. If you still can grab his “Arcane Vanguard helmet” you can rectify his speed deficits, making him one of the fastest sprinters out there. Overall you’ll never regret adding Rhino to your arsenal, but keep in mind that there are better choices available for tackling the most difficult content out there.

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Saryn

Being one of the tankier frames, Saryn still is a nice pick if you want to go heavy into melee without bothering about the stealthy parts all too much. Saryn offers a nice blend of close combat and range damage casting abilities, but usually you have to decide which direction you aim at. This can be a problem as the build options either force you to choose a clear direction when building her, sacrificing either defensive stats for burst. The sole focus on poison can limit Saryn’s versatility, albeit in a lesser way when compared to Ember as poison and corrosive is a much more versatile damage type to have. The use of ability mods increase Saryn’s survivability a great deal, but don’t do much to rectify her rather weak team support. Choose Saryn when you want to solo most content with melee and clear rooms pretty decently if you so desire.

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Titania

Titania is really hard to put a finger on in terms of whether I like her or not. Similar to Trinity she’s mainly played as a team support caster and as such greatly profits from cast speed and power efficiency mods. On the contrary her abilities feel somewhat lackluster and same’y, as most of them revolve around debuffing or CCing the enemy. Since Titanias buffs and debuffs stack in small amounts and also depend on which enemy you hit with your “Tribute” Spell, players must expend a lot of energy, good aim and patience to keep buffs rolling. Her ultimate is nice for mobility, but other than that lacks defining traits or spectacular room cleaning abilities of the other frames. She’s not techically bad, but also doesn’t really stand out a lot compared to other casters.

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Trinity

the most powerful and survivable Warframes out there and has seen tons of changes over the course of her existence due to her abilities always being borderline overpowered. In addition to that her build setup is flexible as she can be either built into a full-blown supporter or a nearly indestructible caster-tank when played right. Trinity is definitely best in slot if you want to go for lengthy high-end missions and raids, as she carries a whole team with ease whilie surviving easily on her own. Trinity is a phenomenon. She’s often seen as one – if notmost powerful and survivable Warframes out there and has seen tons of changes over the course of her existence due to her abilities always being borderline overpowered. In addition to that her build setup is flexible as she can be either built into a full-blown supporter or a nearly indestructible caster-tank when played right. Trinity is definitely best in slot if you want to go for lengthy high-end missions and raids, as she carries a whole team with ease whilie surviving easily on her own. However as of patch 18.13 Trinity has taken a huge blow to her team utility, as heals and protective parts her “Blessing” are now longer simple map-wide “fire and forget” skills. However she still has the best power and health regenerating abilities in the game and definitely is a must have if you’re looking for a more complex Frame to play. Her ability mods are somewhat useful and further strengthen her utility, if you can make room in your valuable mod slots that is.

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Valkyr

Valkyr has always been a “special” Frame as her kit heavily and almost solely focuses on melee combat at the expense of “room clearing” abilities like those of most other Warframes. In exchange for that she’s one of the last characters that still offer a “true” form of invulnerability (as long as you stay out of nullifier fields). And therein lies the main problem: Warframe’s late game has changed a lot lately, making melee focused Frames very hard to play into high level. This change hit Valkyr especially hard as she has very little team utility and only melee based buffs for her teammates. Adding insult to injury, her ability mods are quite gimmicky and lackluster and don’t help at all to compensate for her innate weaknesses. Due to this she remains a fun to play Frame, but as she stands now, don’t expect to be welcome in many team setups.

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Vauban

Now there’s an Engineer that is credit to team! Vauban is very fragile and susceptible to direct gunfire (like that of Grineer), but he more than makes up for that weakness by bringing some of the best crowd controlling abilities in the game. With Vauban you can completely lock down complete rooms or wrap enemies up in a nice pile. Being heavily focused on his abilities, Vauban has also taken a blow to his survivability due to enemies now being more ranged and having ability-resistant shields. However, Vauban still has so much utility under his belt which also scales well into high level. His ability mods are also very useful and turn him into an invaluable member in just about any team composition.

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Volt

Volt always was and is one of my all-time favorites. He’s one of the fastest frames out there, making him ideal for soloing or repeating missions, which he also runs through with ease thanks to his high base shields. In addition to that his electrical damage is good for quick burst or crowd control, while still providing CC in late game. He provides indestructible stationary (and as of Patch 18.13 also carryable) shields for himself or his teammates to stand behind. And while those shields are way are smaller than Frost’s globes, they provide additional damage benefits and don’t require as much care after casting as they do not diminish under fire. Volt has very useful augment mods which all fully benefit his teammates, making him a great choice for most missions up into high-level content.

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Wisp

Aside from people reducing her to her ….feminine arguments, Wisp is fun to play, extremely mobile and provides tremendous amounts of team utility and healing. Her kit is what makes herself mobile, but the buffs themselves are rather stationary but also synergistic with each other. This is giving her a niche between frames such as Oberon, Trinity and Revenant, with a bit of Ivara and Vauban utility thrown into her kit. Her CC isn’t outstanding, but enough to keep groups of enemies at bay. As all of her abilities are viable and very well-rounded, I can give her a clear recommendation. Modded correctly she can either dish out tons of damage or provide very good and reliable team utility, however at the cost of being very energy-draining.

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Wukong

Wukong is very similar to Valkyr and Chroma in his main purpose of being a survivable frontliner that heavily focuses on melee combat. His survivability mainly is based on his (now reworked) “Defy” – and recently also his sturdy clone and – both of which keep him alive as long as he stays mobile and has energy to spend . That also means that Wukong is vulnerable against nullifiers but otherwise wreaks havoc with his growing magical staff – an exalted weapon which can be nicely modded and extended (heh) using mods. Wukong is very mobile, easy to mod and reliable to play with, but his kit also has no real team utility or outstanding traits. Compared as melee frame I would highly recommend getting Chroma, Rhino or or Revenant first due to their innate team-utility and buffs. If you are still up to an full-on melee approach and prefer a more mobile and sneaky playstyle, Wukong can offer in spades.

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Zephyr

Zephyr is one of the harder to acquire frames due to being exclusively built-in the Dojo. After completing her you will be rewarded with a very unique and mobile Frame that is very focused on quick aerial combat and precise strikes. Her self-defensive capabilities are useful and reliable against long-range combat, as is her ability to crowd control and lock down smaller areas with her Tornado. Her ability mods provide a certain amount of team-utility, but can’t hide the fact that Zephyr is more of a maverick that occasionally steps in to help teammates. Zephyr excels in areas where you can (and need to) roam freely, which is mostly the case in quick interception or survival missions. If you like to play alone a lot and have the spare materials (and a clan), Zephyr is definitely a great choice.

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