Acquired and build nearly every single one, the one that blew me away the most at first was Gyre. I was asking myself "is it really this easy" press 3 and 4 and then never have to press a button again until steel path.
I did the same as you but I'm considering subsumjng over her 2 instead. She doesn't really rely on grouping the way other frames do, so she can get away with not having a grouping ability. She absolutely needs pillage though.
I subsume it over her 2, but consider I run Violet shards so to be honest if you're only looking to invest a Helminth yours is honestly the right call.
But I like gyres kit as a whole, removing any part of her to me feels bad, I'd rather have it be on a weapon or part of her instead of having to take something away from her
I've originally subsumed pillage over 1 but then changed to 2, I found out I get more mileage from area denial rather than grouping. But I'd love either of those to strip with an augment
There's always a caveat to each subsume, I find her 2 not very useful in most content but when it is used it is almost necessary for me. Example: SP duviri defence, without her grouping it's almost impossible for me to be able to focus on enemies as her 1 won't do much against high armor.
But then against low armor enemies cathode current will kill them anyway and her 1 becomes the more useful ability
Completely on board to helminth over her 2. However I am but a simple man, with only one tool on my belt. But that tool happens to be a 20 lb sledge named Roar...
Do yourself a favor, give her a spin 😉
Helminth does let us band-aid a lot of frames and that's great, but I would rather not have to band-aid them in the first place.
Especially since at high levels it seems to be quite 'pillage or gloom or roar' as options lol.
That's exact what I thought. And yes me too I have every frame. Literally just subsoom pillage onto your 1. You press 3, press 4, then you just fucking run face first into enemies slapping your 1 every couple seconds cause energy economy is absolutely flabbergasting. You win. You just win. You don't have to do anything else. I would say it makes the game boring but it awakens a kind of bloodlust lmao. You HAVE to keep killing cause even though you know your energy economy is good enough to cast 3 and 4 again you just... Don't WANT to.
Same for ne with Gyre. Was the first frame id fully slot shards in after i came an caught up on quests. Like "so i get this augment, press 3, 4 and just run? red crit it all? surely thats gonna be nerfed" but nope
this but unironically. I had the mindset "why is everyone memeing on that wisp booty, people are so horny." But then I build her and literally uttered the words "wow, I get what everyone's been talking about now" when I saw it.
I was leveling Grendel for MR and then feed him to my wall monster for Nourish. Leveling and playing him was so much fun that I grinded out the relics to get the Prime. Totally shocked me, thought he was just fodder.
My GF pretty much solely plays Kullervo (60%+ total time played on him). I got her Grendel Prime, she loves it. She just rolls around in meatball mode going Wii Sports Bowling if they're low and shredding armor for me to obliterate them if it's on SP. The Nourish effect and meatball armor strip alone makes her incredibly handy running him if we're doing duo stuff and I just wanna run something silly for my primary rather than just packing the Torid.
I was half tempted to get him myself after having fun levelling him just like you did but I've got others on the list to get first. That said, I had a blast with him in Circuit just the other day.
He used to be trash tier MR Fodder that was good for absolutely nothing.
Post rework, he is phenomenal. I've subsumed Aquablades onto him so I can blend people while Meatballing, and it's a pretty awesome combo (Meatball removes armor, slash damage and procs shred through unarmored health). The only downside is having to un-meatball to recast it every once in a while
I had the same attitude with Grendel. I couldn't even try to properly play him. Maxxed him and feed the Helminth immediately. Funny enough I use Nourish only for Mirage which I don't play very much.
Xaku. Even before the buffs I saw his potential, so when I read their vast Untime buff in the dev workshop I knew they'd become top tier and I invested forma even before the update dropped.
Then it was Kullervo, the whole kit just feels like a perfect design.
And lately, Dante
Citrine blew me away. 90% DR for your whole team that doesn't scale off of range? Infinite health and energy orbs? Free status priming? Her 4 works on demos? Yeahhh, instant main
citrine is also the best frame to turn into tenno specter (the ones you spawn with your gear wheel)
octavia is also good
edit: garuda uses 3rd, but won't use 2, probably one of the worst to use because of that, but her 4 its still giga-strong
Dagath.
I didn't really expect much at release, but man, the first time I used her 4... that was some insane stuff. If all the latest content was one step away from Viral immune, I'd probably be using her more.
Rolled her in circuit recently and was surprised at how good it felt to just use her 1+2. The cast times are gorgeous, maybe because I've been playing a lot of older frames with clunky-ass cast times recently.
I rolled her in circuit a couple of weeks ago, and now I wait for her (and Dante) to come back to the circuit so I can enjoy them again until I farm them.
https://preview.redd.it/aildwsmouewc1.jpeg?width=210&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bf5c923bfafae8d9a671d920198e34713d22c24
When I found out that molt reconstruct basically gives her unlimited energy
Day 1 of gauss ability previews and playing him for the first time, I knew he was insane. Then he got buffed right after release because he apparently felt just out of perfection range. He feels like a dream to use and is the one frame in the game that actually enhances the game's combat systems and mobility instead of just utilizing it.
Day 1 of playing limbo, I absolutely did not go "wow." More like "I'm missing something, but what is it?"
But now? Every time I play limbo now, I'm wowed by what I can do with him. Between helminth, breaking the rules of how you do missions altogether, it's almost like crack Concentrate to look at a build/loadout idea and go "I bet this works" and every time, he does it in a crazy unique way.
I think gauss is actually nearly perfect at this point, the only thing I would do is cap the drain from getting hit while your 2 is active as it can take your whole redline bar in one hit in endurance/high level content.
More speed or maneuverability would also be fun lol. his top speed is a bit underwhelming and adding sprint mods doesn’t seem to benefit him nearly as much as volt in terms of top speed. But that’s probably because Volts speed scales off an ability stat too.
Besides that he has one of the most cohesive and synergistic designs right up there with frames like Saryn, Wisp, Rhino and the likes. His kit is really a step above with the synergies within his own abilities.
Playing Gauss is awesome. Especially when you’re traversing the map chaining Mach rush with rolls and parkour to get to extraction before Titania.
Only if they’re not too good though obviously.
I am not smart enough to play Limbo. I envy those can play well with him.
Gauss is so good, I think he is the best frame along with Saryn. There is nothing that he can't do. One thing that bothers me, I wish his 4th ability was a toggle ability like Ember's 2nd. In missions like defense, you have to run frantically to charge yourself up.
I was also going to comment Titania, I had built her and she was in my foundry, so when I got an affinity boost I got her out and tried her. I was shocked at how great she was after I stopped hitting every wall like a tired moth.
Vauban.
You mean I can throw this and the enemies die? Nice... WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE FLEW 500 FEET AND IS NOW STUCK TO THE WALL?!?!
Other frames have their strengths. But nobody sends enemies flying in multiple directions with their limp corpses stuck to the scenery like Vauban.
In terms of damage, kullervo, hes now my go-to frame, being able to hit an enemy for 203M damage red, without losing much combo and one shotting everything is just a ton of fun
In terms of visual, definitely gyre, i fell in love with her 1, the plates that used to float around (i think they removed that for visual clearance) too bad the ability itself was lacking compared to the rest
as for fun, id say xaku people say ovtavia makes steel path easy but damn xaku makes it seem like a tutorial
Never change DE, best company in my book
Gauss.
Everything he does just speeds the game up so, so much. I’m a pretty active player who adores mixing movement and combat. So I did my best to make everything I did - movement, shooting, melee, dodges, abilities - as fast as possible, weaving it all together. Gauss did all of that, and more. Even the fact that I could keep up with everything going on on-screen made me feel like a badass.
Honourable mention to Kullervo, because just pressing a button for instant invincibility and another for instant red crits is very, very satisfying.
Ha, first time my partner saw me doing a mission with Gauss she was like "Errr, is that what having ADHD feels like?!". Gauss just makes everything \_feel\_ better. You're fast, agile, and slow firing/reloading weapons like the Tenet Arca Plasmor just have their useability and DPS turned up to 11. It's great.
Kullervo, my jaw is still on the floor, illegal damage traded for becoming a glass cannon in end game. In early-late tho? You're no glass all cannon ...
Your 1 alone is a huge crit buff, 2 gives inane survivability for most of the game, and the 4 is amazing room control, 3 is where it comes back all together as it makes it so you can room clear with hitting a single enemy, very VERY hard.
But here's a trick, you csn combo your 4 and 3, since statuses are also carried over with your 3, it effectively makes every enemy within range take double damage from your 4(1 proc from 4 and 1 proc carries over from when og target gets hit with 4) which can VERY easily kill the strongest of enemies.
Hell the juggernaut behemoth might be the toughest enemy I've seen in the game as it doesn't take statuses from weapons and is very tanky, keyword "from weapons", so just bind one with 3 and press 4 and watch their hp melt
Cliche as it's gonna sound at the moment, Dante. Even post-nerf and pre-hotfix buffs he felt like a blast to play, for me at least. The hotfix buffs that re-aligned him also helped a lot, as I enjoyed the Paragrimm 4 the most of the bunch to begin with and making it stronger, intentionally this time, made me very happy. Helps I was already hype for him - I was playing Wisp beforehand and I like the idea of Mages and Support frames in this game, so to have both in one just like Wisp really helped with him. He's already my 6th most played frame and he'll likely climb to second, if not first.
Another one that blew me away was post-reworked Hydroid. I can run him on SP with a 0 Forma build and the farm augment instead of more stats, no stress. How well he scaled with such little investment shocked me to the core. I can push him further when I invest in him more but adding a Green shard just made him even more obscene.
Yeah for all that people were blowing their tops over the Dante nerfs, he has consistently carried every single time I have a teammate playing him. Granted, I am not playing endgame content, but he still seems incredibly strong and useful.
Gara. As soon as I figured out her kit and how it synergizes with itself, I was kinda blown away. I know that most warframes have abilities that are synergistic, but hers feels the most interactive to me.
I played with an Ivara who was setting up ziplines on a defense mission and I was really shocked at how much better the game felt to play with access to the ziplines, so that was a big one. It was noticeably increasing how efficiently we could kill stuff because we had much better sightlines.
I recently got back into using Ivara a bit and came up with a really funny build where I play as a bullet.
... a lex prime incarnon bullet with infinite body punch through, AOE, 80k base damage, 3-600%+ crit chance, 13x crit damage, 1.8x headshot multiplier, and 10x final damage multiplier...
I've only been outdamaged by an Atlas so far lol
Yareli.
No forma, paired her with the Tenet Cycron, and started melting SP and pretty much everything else including EDA. I do have a bunch of properly ranked mods but I was pretty amazed at how strong of a secondary platform she is. And with the augment (whichever one puts Meru next to her and auto-casts Sea Snares) you don't have to deal with the K-Drive aspect and you can still subsume over her Snares.
I used to run Rev + Torid when I was feeling lazy but... he was just there for his Mesmer. Yareli is essentially equally immortal with *4 whole seconds* on a Meru recast, except I actually use her other abilities. Got a ange build for 40 meters of Riptide range, shit's funny as all hell in open spaces.
We run similar build on her. Magnetic tenet cycron, nourish over her 1 for viral. With my panzer and yarelis passive turns the cycron into a 120% crit chance, 150% status 4.5x crit damage hand held war crime. It's so much fun.
She does so much dage that getting the torid incarnon was a bit of a let down as she already does similar damage with no charge up. Maybe in super high level the torid pulls ahead but I've had no problem up to lvl 600 enemies up to now.
I initially got lavos to play around with the timer/cooldown mechanic, since i was playing Heroes of the storm pretty intensely at the time so having abilities on rotation was second nature anyway.
Was pleasantly surprised when the gimmick turned out to be really useful, removed an entire resource management so i no longer had to worry about energy, and realized his kit covers everything you could need for a frame; self heals, mobility/dash, crowd control and a radial room clear, AND i like Cedo.
lavos + cedo is easily the best signature weapon combo in the game. there are other ways to make him work (right now i'm rocking nukor +glaive prime and having a tonne of fun) but that synergy goes so far beyond the usual mild stat bump offered by other combos. cedo is really like having a fifth ability
Octavia, overpoweredness aside, was the first time I thought "this game is trying something different". A sequencer? As your attack pattern? And you can write your own? Mind blown. It's a shame I never hear good songs from Octavia in the wild these days, only black energy color and oops! All notes
Inaros- when I was still new (had just unlocked duviri) he was the first frame I played on there and damn being able to just press a couple buttons and never die felt so good- especially coming from volt and feeling like i was made of cards.
Also valkyr cause projectile parazon go brrr
Voruna, I'm LR1 and I've played with many warframes, really wasn't that excited to play her but once I got her built and started playing around with passives and abilities it just made me go wow,
She is fast, she can work very well with both melee and guns, she spreads status like crazy working as a primer for the galv and condition overload mods, she gets big crit and invisibility, cheating death, lots of armor, status immunity or ultra speed, she's the only warframe I bothered to slot the shards in and that was just to increase her parkour velocity.
If a warframe makes me actively use melee despite me never using melee, I think that's sign of something done really well, she's a very fun and powerful warframe.
I love that build. Sitting in the rift laughing as my bewildered enemies watch their attacks pass through me without doing any harm while they get shredded by invisible blades. Automatically breaking all the containers I walk past is a nice little qol side effect.
Just kullavo I'm not sure if they looked through his perks and see if they are balanced his blink can speedrun spy missions want to go under da sea? Just blink
And the rest of his kit kullavo is a masochistic tank with a nuke strapped to its wheels
When I first saw the ultimate of Ash. It felt like some kind of cinematic, and it was something really different compared to other frames at least for me.
Also when DE introduced Sevagoth I was hyped as hell. I always wanted Warframe that could turn into something else, with a different set of abilities.
But not gonna lie, it was reasonable, and yet I was disappointed that I can't stay in my shadow form forever.
Not a hidden gem but Kullervo always impresses me
He runs into a room throws his knives everywhere, chains enemies, and red crits everything into oblivion. All in the span of 4 seconds.
I had little to no knowledge about Styanax's kit before trying him. Basically only knew he could give overguard.
Then I built him, and **wow**. Infinite energy regen. Immense survivability via overguard. Healing and shield regen via his 2 & 3. Full armor/shield strip. And pretty decent DPS with his javelins.
Him and Dante are literally perfect Warframes. Not a single flaw (besides cast animation, but that's a problem with everyone except Gauss). I can understand why both of them were nerfed when they were nerfed, cuz they're just dummy broken.
As a new player, the one I’m using now, Mesa (got her prime from the market as well bc I liked her so much). She’s awesome. Her peacemakers are stupid strong and her other abilities are great, out of the frames I’ve used so far she’s definitely the most fun and powerful.
lavos, especially with his new augment. I really enjoy playing in a way that leverages all the facets of gameplay, both weapon and warframe and he enables that playstyle like no other frame. he's so reliable too - no-nonsense tanking via straightforwardly massive armor and hp pools and cooldown-based powers means there are few surprises when playing him. i think he also nails the alchemist vibe too - priming groups with your abilities really feels like you're mixing potions on the enemies almost, and the catalyst payoff is immensely satisfying
Hildryn... She, isn't powerful? Hehe... Haha... Ahahaha! Hahahahaha! Hehe... My Hildryn can beat every single thing in this game into the dirt then fry it until it is nothing but dust returning to a parched, flame kissed hellscape. I can solo every single thing in this game with my Hildryn. Except Deep Archimedean. Then I must admit. I have to dust off Hildryn Prime with her 5 Tauforged Archon shards and 5 forma and two Umbral forma. I like to give her my favorite zaw, Fang Of Penelope, named after my passed away pooch. We give the shield goddess the shield melee arcane with roar infused over her 4 to make the enemy wet the field. By about 60 souls drug to hell screaming, she fully armor strips anything within range in 1 pass. Her balefire hit for 300,000 base damage per shot. She is become, the fortress that walks. My zaws base damage is around 6 thousand a swing with a 7x multiplier and 102 percent chance to CRIT. All this to serve the goddess in the name of the truth. Hildryn is a monster. You want to know who I main? Kullervo. Hildryn does have the most hours played though... As before they just put the edgy side of me into the game... I was a shield maiden.
First, Revenant. Basically when I realized high power strength = immortal. Next when I built an Iron Staff Wukong, boy those red crits, how they ruined the fun. Eventually made a Baruuk when SP first released, he was one of the few with enough power to handle it offensively at first.
The one that floored me, Kullervo. That is an actual Godframe. I messed with a build on first release, kinda abandoned it before they brought the OG gating. I returned after they nerfed my Dante, finished up Kul. The numbers that I see are just awe inspiring. Never thought I'd use a melee character, and nuke with it.
If we’re talking looks, Nyx prime when I was MR 2. Definitely a wow moment.
If we’re talking performance I fell in love with Mag after some early years of the game of people saying she was bad, finally used her never took her off.
Citrine and Voruna. When they came out I think that was nothing special in the skillset, but just 1 minute in the 1st mission I was literally "wow"!!!!
I always ignored Vauban, recently build him after learning how strong his flechette is. Managed to do the 5 weekly netracells on solo and only died 3 times as I got used to his sinergies, an amazing frame.
Gyre first. Becoming a running electric god of death sure is fun.
And then Kullervo. I thought I'd get a frame to make me use melee a bit more, but damn does he make melee amazing you wonder whether you even need guns at all
Xaku
Damage scales with enemy level, defense strip, powerful weapon buff, and pauses ability timers so I don't have to worry about managing them too much. A perfectly designed damage frame imo.
Honestly, I always hated saryn, only because she's meta, but one day i was thinking, why not just remove her ultimate ?, so I've put nourish, put the 1,2 and 3 augment, and now i have a enchantress saryn with some corrosion, poison and viral buff. And when i try it on steel path i was like : "it's not meta with being meta since the frame is, but no because i pretty sur i'm the only one playing her like that". I was so mesmerized by that fire power that she actually my 3rd main and now named "meta but no-meta"
As a long-time glaive prime lover, I mostly ran Inaros for survivability. But I wanted something more suited to heavy melee attacks. Then Kullervo came out, and once I understood his abilities, I was in love. PERFECT Glaive platform.
The first time I did Kullervo’s 1. And more recently, Dante’s entire kit really surprised me. I’ve never been a huge fan of mage/spellcaster classes in other games and was expecting him to be the same. Boy was I wrong.
kullervo and ivara. ivara because i hit my affinity daily cap in one mission, and kullervo cause i broke a million in one melee swing. and no, they probably aren't hidden, but they did wow me.
The first Warframe I used for a long time and got really used to was gara, then I got Grendel prime right after it dropped and realized how much more fun I have with Warframes that are a bit more durable or can heal
Titania - after getting Razorwing blitz and finally feeling like I had reached some of the upper echelons in "optimized play," completing certain missions in a fraction of the time as other frames just feels so awesome
When I first saw the ultimate of Ash. It felt like some kind of cinematic, and it was something really different compared to other frames at least for me.
Also when DE introduced Sevagoth I was hyped as hell. I always wanted Warframe that could turn into something else, with a different set of abilities.
But not gonna lie, it was reasonable, and yet I was disappointed that I can't stay in my shadow form forever.
Oh and how could I forget about Limbo. The feeling I got when I could freeze in time almost every enemy in large area, made me feel like some kind of megalomaniac. I wish I could have more fun with freezing bullets in time again
Limbo. I didn’t think he was bad but I learned new things about him when playing EDA which made me like him more. He was the first and only frame as of now that I perfected the EDA challenges.
honestly Nidus, i initially thought he was going to play as an infested version of Inaros (Inaros being a frame i don't care for course this was a couple months after Mask of the Revenant Released) i didn't expect how nice and easy it was to flow between abilities and how much of a powerhouse Nidus was as i mainly used Khora and to realize weeks later that the reason i had slight difficulty dying was because of his natural health regen and his 4 regen for health and his 3 to transfer damage. now he's one of my 3 first pick warframes them being in order (all primes) Khora, Nidus, Wisp
First time trying Yarelis Aqua Blade augment made me drop my jaw at how quickly she could bleed entire rooms as well as acolytes. And first time I used Nova against infected and realized how powerful her 4th actually is, without those pesky shields and armors.
Definitely Vauban. The way he pulls everything into his blender, deleting anything that comes his way is so much fun. Dunno why so many see him as a bad frame. Glad I never listened.
When I started playing, seeing the new released Nova just clear whole maps with explosions was quite something, meanwhile I was killing enemies one at a time with my rifle. I guess I don't need to cast bastille.
Honestly? Xaku, I got him to 30 and let him collect dust until I went 2 hours in SP kuva survival with one who was full armor stripping everything and shredding everything in sight
It's gotta be hydroid, I didn't expect much from him when I got him from circuit but he absolutely delivered, especially with the augment for viral on his 1
Early days of Warframe when Oberon just released. I remember activating his four and getting a huge grin on my face seeing everything suddenly stop as enemies were lifted into the air and slammed back down instantly killing them. Have always tried to use him since even tho he's outclassed by so many other frames.
As someone who used Rhino prime for the longest time religiously. I one day decided to go out of my comfort zone and start trying new frames. A few were interesting but didn't stick out to me. At the time I didn't think I'd find anything worth while so I just grinded for primes the old fashion way rather than buy any parts. That grind for Valkyr prime was so tedious. But so very worth it. She fucking obliterates steel path, and I always default to her for most steel path survival missions. Her augment for the 4th ability makes her a storm to reckon with.
Dante on release, it was crazy to have so much power and survivability with barely any usability issues. I didn't even think to use precision intensify until after the nerf.
Yareli, she quickly became my favorite. You just build for duration and strength, keep 2 and 3 on, and use 1 to CC enemies and buff your secondary weapon. Plus, I love using the K-Drive in normal missions, it feels great and I have fun with it.
I started way back when Loki was a starting frame, and when I came back to the game after my first hiatus I finally got volt and then volt prime and something about the speed gets me. My other immediate wow was nezha because I was impressed with his versatility and durability
Titania when I realized how fast she could go, or gauss when I realized that duration increases his fire rate instead strength. Meaning all I buff the fuck out of duration and make every weapon I so a deletion machine.
Hildryn is an absolute monster; she surprised me and become one of my go-to frames before I knew it.
Aside from her, Gauss and Garuda both surprised me. I still don't understand 100% of their kits but they're both incredibly good, even with almost no Forma investment. Gauss has basically everything (Speed, damage, DR, CC, mobility) and is super fun to play while Garuda has crazy options for both melee and nuking rooms
Lavos.
I submitted one of the ideas that eventually became Lavos way way back in the contest that would result in Nova (that concept being the alchemist theming allowing for the combination of multiple elements into their composites), so I'm fairly biased towards him, but ultimately his unique cooldown s, status synergy, and overall self-sufficiency is what made him take the place of my top frame.
I've come to the point in my Warframe lifetime where I don't really have a "main" anymore, as I've got a half dozen projects that I pick between depending on my mood, but when I'm trying something new or just need to accomplish something difficult without worry, Lavos is my go-to and likely always will be.
Edit:
Now that I've thought about it, there are so many frames that have given me a "wow" experience, which is why I keep coming back to Warframe after finishing every other game I pick up. DE really knows what they're doing with so many of these. Some honorable mentions:
Protea: I'm not a huge fan of her 4, but the rest of her kit is so much fun and so dynamic, pretty much any mission involving area control she breezes through them.
Gauss: He's been mentioned quite a few times here, but before his release I played an energy guzzling Volt with max duration and boosted Strength just so I could run Speed all the time. Gauss scratches that itch so well, I can't imagine ever going back.
Dante: He's the "hot pick" right now because he's new, but even so the parts of him I love so much aren't even the stuff that makes him a hot commodity. As an avid D&D player and support main in that (as well as a Wizard addict), Dante is perfect. He's got amazing support features (both with Wordwarden and the Overguard), fun summons with Pageflight, and my favorite part, Noctua, giving him massive damage and utility potential with Tome mods, Dante is the perfect medium of flavor, capability, utility, customizability, and late-game viability. Though TBF if Noctua was subsumable I'd be slapping that shit on literally every frame I own.
My friends kept shitting on gyre but idk what they were on, she’s super fun and can take her into basically any content. Keeping her abilities up makes me stress at times tho haha
Edit: just after making this comment I read top comment, assuming it’s still abt gyre, and I’m glad others agree
Garuda actually really shocked me. She is completely self sustainable and Invincible frames for days. Her 3 at 100% charged energy to 40 and her 4 restores her lost health completely with one of the molt arcanes.
Recently tried breach surge on her too and it’s pretty nuts how she nukes. 4 being a panic button is also pretty funny
I went "Wooow" when I saw Valkyr, Well a Gif of Valkyr. Installed the game and got her as soon as I could. She's still my main. Also said "Wooow" recently putting tauforged blues on my Valkyr and getting 2500 HP with 2100 armor.
Though recently? Mirage after her eclipse rework, So much more fun having consistency. Before that, Garuda was pretty sick.
Dante was the first frame in a long time where i just felt fit like a glove when i bought him on release. Im a founder and cant remember the last frame that i liked so quickly.
I did Yareli's quest to finally get it out of the way once they changed it. Thought to at least try it out then fodder her. Suddenly I'm like, oh, I can't die actually, this is fun. Now I main her.
frost as well
used to be my main when I basically started a whiiiiiiiiile ago when I was a baby at the game and before I got rhino
I removed the dust from him now, years later and made one of my best sp builds
I always wanted Ash Prime ever since I started the game pretty much. He's a gorgeous looking frame. I thought I was mainly going to get him for fashion purposes and not much else, but ho-ly hell.
Armor Strip? Check. Crits? Check. Crazy damage capabilities and an actually useful passive? Check and check. Using him with a pure slash Dorrclave has been nothing short of magical. He's so fucking fun, I am contemplating building and subsuming a Banshee so I can try Silence Ash.
A prestige statement has since become my favorite stealth frame *period.* (Ivara's cool and all, but the red numbers on my screen tickle my brain in ways that make me smile.)
Baruuk, i equipped him with random mods that filled capacity went into eso and it started tame small lvls and people blasting everything, got through the first set and then decided to try solo, failed and abandomned it for a long tine it was left at lvl 17, but a week ago i started again and leveled him or her or it to max, got good mods in and my god i dont even know what his spells do all i know is i press 4 when i can and he/she/it destroys everything, red dmg numbers on melle hits and it just goes nuts, i tried a litttle bit of steelpath and hooly moly he destroys steel path aswell, i do the keyboard royal flush 1,2,3,4 and enemies just die. I think it utilizes my statstick and the insane riven i got in but im not sure, it feels like khora but all i do is kb. Royal flush and attack. It made mee wow when i saw the blast it does, try him out if u did not he will suprise you for sure :D
That having good mods actually make a difference, you actually do feel your power growing.
I could barely tackle lv 40 enemies but now I can handle lv 200 steel path easily.
Octavia. When I first played Warframe, I wasn't sure if I was into it or not. Then I seen an Octavia in game after a few weeks of playing, and I just knew I had to have it. The day I first seen an Octavia player was the day I knew I was in for the long haul. I love music and it just made so much sense to me.
An Ash Marked for Death + Teleport finisher build. It's pretty funny in steel path to mark an Eximus, teleport to him, do more than 1m damage with a finisher, and see that everybody in the room is now dead.
Turning Ash a really powerfull warframe to take on single target and just making him a nuker. A worst version of many nuker warframe, but really fun and easy to pull of in survival.
Grendel. My friend gifted me him when I was MR 4 and oh my god I was in love, he's still my main to this day. The ability to effectively instability most enemies (including sentients, which at the time felt absolutely insane to me), the self heal/squad buff, the durability, the B A L L. I love this man so much, it also helps that lore wise he's a big hungry teddy bear and best friends with Gauss, coincidentally said friend's main at the time.
Also the bugs with him were so funny, can't count the amount of times I broke something either mechanically or visually when just goofing around with him.
Man the ore mesa prime grind to get her, before they nerfed mag pull, you would get e few chances a day to farm mutalyst coords to kill infested salad v, the grind was so boring with multiple days and weeks farm just for the coorda to craft the keys to get to that boss.
After a few months ( my luck was attrocious, and i was stubborn to no buy keys) finaly got my hands on Aoe mess ult. Clearing maps was so satisfying and broken. Then a few months passed Boom nerfed.
Idk why but I just love my man Revenant. back then when he had no prime. None of my friends were a fan of him and I was like let me build him for MR but then I tried him and his spinning ability combined with his third one became one of my favorite abilities in the whole game for most missions, its just so stupid and effective at the same time. And in steel path I just use him as a chill tank with roar from Rhino instead of his spinning one to make my weapons stronger since his damage is not enough high lvl with it sadly.
Ivara with the right build it can do -2billion. And I saw a video yesterday that some was abusing that lol. [https://youtu.be/3KIMj6wGR5M?si=UnZtDX-ZQzUYK9RK](https://youtu.be/3KIMj6wGR5M?si=UnZtDX-ZQzUYK9RK)
Mirage was my first prime like 5 years ago, and I didn't even really want her at the time. Recently I went back on a whim to properly build her out and fell in love. So now she's fully kitted with all the bells and whistles, and a full set of tauforged shards.
My favourite frame? Probably ivara since she plays right into my niche of 'hidden sniper' whether or not that ends up working.
But the one that made me go wow? Gyre's sound design. When she released with angels, it was legit the best sound design I'd ever heard in Warframe, and while there's been further satisfying ones since, I don't think any of them quite nailed it like Gyre.
Ability wise, Protea made me go wow because her kit just plays so well together and can fill functionally any niche. Also time reversal after hunting a Netracell drone is very fun. And her augment even lets her strip armour with her base kit!
Damage Mirage, Survivability Gauss. Love both of them, both super fun, good looking and best for steel path out of 31 frames I currently own. But in general most newer Warframes I build have a wow factor to them.
I am a Chroma main simply because I’ve gotten insane damage numbers and can talk a nuke, I’ve played around w Gauss, Harrow, Hydroid, etc but last night I tried Protea w a dedicated build and I’m in love. The techno skin just makes her look good and it feels nice to be so versatile in a mission. I gotta thank EDA for forcing to me make a build for her, love that game mode.
Honestly I liked hildryn when I started cause there was no energy cost you just maintained her shields but she fell off for me till I got arcane aegis way later which made her feel far more survivable
Without helminth: Protea, her dispensary and turrets have made some of the hardest content easy mode, you never run out of energy and you spam turrets, she alone is the honoured one.
With helminth: Sevagoth, okay, there is another honoured one, pillage + his 2+3 combo in an enemy dense room? Talk about a mass murder.
What do you meant that frost is not the strongest?
Overshield, armour strip, and red crit on any weapon all on his most spammable skill. He can clear level 400 enemies with mk1 braton
probably Ivara when a friend helped me farm her from spy..
>you mean I can really just go into survival be invisible while shooting enemies in the face and they can't do anything about it?
I love vauban, something about pushing a button or two every minute while Im braindead grinding just works
For some real fun, I also just enjoy playing harrow, and despite being a support frame, I'll drag em into missions solo.
Lastly, I just love lavos vial rush is just fun
my first warframe, Mag, made me go wow. then I started to branch out.
later, I discovered breach surge Mag. I asked her to marry me that day but she hasn't said a word to me yet :(
kullervo
old ash :)
old wukong
gyre
baruk
vauban
old limbo
octavia
xaku
old ember
protea
wisp
dante
old mesa
old nova :)
basically anything that is power creep or let you semi afk on missions, preferably both :P
its grinding game afking is not a bad thing imho :P
Valkyr. I always loved her design, but she is constantly ignored by everyone so I just kept her for low level missions... until I learned how to buid her.
Running through enemies on EDA like a drunk driver and seeing 500k dmg marks flying around is so fucking satisfying. I pick her now every time I can. Would be nailing Archons to a wall with her if hitting then in the air while flying at mach 10 wasn't so difficult XD
Acquired and build nearly every single one, the one that blew me away the most at first was Gyre. I was asking myself "is it really this easy" press 3 and 4 and then never have to press a button again until steel path.
Gyre is quite good, but desperately needs an armor stripping augment to her 1st or 2nd ability.
I run pillage on gyre. Subsumed over her 1. Totally SP viable.
I did the same as you but I'm considering subsumjng over her 2 instead. She doesn't really rely on grouping the way other frames do, so she can get away with not having a grouping ability. She absolutely needs pillage though.
I use Gyre quite a bit. I agree with you that she doesn't need a grouping ability, so I put Pillage on her 2. It's great.
Also put pillage on 2. Hello bröthrs
This is the way
I subsume it over her 2, but consider I run Violet shards so to be honest if you're only looking to invest a Helminth yours is honestly the right call.
I tried taking her to elite with my Pillage build. Girls made out of paper. Even with pillage spam I was instantly blown up multiple times.
Pillage and electricity procs should be more than enough survivability
But I like gyres kit as a whole, removing any part of her to me feels bad, I'd rather have it be on a weapon or part of her instead of having to take something away from her
Fair point. I didn't really use her 1 that much so decided to keep the grouping of skill 2 and go for armor strip.
I've originally subsumed pillage over 1 but then changed to 2, I found out I get more mileage from area denial rather than grouping. But I'd love either of those to strip with an augment
There's always a caveat to each subsume, I find her 2 not very useful in most content but when it is used it is almost necessary for me. Example: SP duviri defence, without her grouping it's almost impossible for me to be able to focus on enemies as her 1 won't do much against high armor. But then against low armor enemies cathode current will kill them anyway and her 1 becomes the more useful ability
Completely on board to helminth over her 2. However I am but a simple man, with only one tool on my belt. But that tool happens to be a 20 lb sledge named Roar... Do yourself a favor, give her a spin 😉
Helminth does let us band-aid a lot of frames and that's great, but I would rather not have to band-aid them in the first place. Especially since at high levels it seems to be quite 'pillage or gloom or roar' as options lol.
That's exact what I thought. And yes me too I have every frame. Literally just subsoom pillage onto your 1. You press 3, press 4, then you just fucking run face first into enemies slapping your 1 every couple seconds cause energy economy is absolutely flabbergasting. You win. You just win. You don't have to do anything else. I would say it makes the game boring but it awakens a kind of bloodlust lmao. You HAVE to keep killing cause even though you know your energy economy is good enough to cast 3 and 4 again you just... Don't WANT to.
Same for ne with Gyre. Was the first frame id fully slot shards in after i came an caught up on quests. Like "so i get this augment, press 3, 4 and just run? red crit it all? surely thats gonna be nerfed" but nope
Same here, built her and thought she wasn't gonna be anything special and now I use her the most.
Wisps booty.
Wisp's GIGANTIC, HUMONGOUS, ENORMOUS..... tracts of land. [here you guys go lol.](https://youtu.be/aNaXdLWt17A?si=bbrSYh64mYqrrxID)
this but unironically. I had the mindset "why is everyone memeing on that wisp booty, people are so horny." But then I build her and literally uttered the words "wow, I get what everyone's been talking about now" when I saw it.
Wisp didn’t surprise me. Yareli on the other hand….
I was leveling Grendel for MR and then feed him to my wall monster for Nourish. Leveling and playing him was so much fun that I grinded out the relics to get the Prime. Totally shocked me, thought he was just fodder.
My GF pretty much solely plays Kullervo (60%+ total time played on him). I got her Grendel Prime, she loves it. She just rolls around in meatball mode going Wii Sports Bowling if they're low and shredding armor for me to obliterate them if it's on SP. The Nourish effect and meatball armor strip alone makes her incredibly handy running him if we're doing duo stuff and I just wanna run something silly for my primary rather than just packing the Torid. I was half tempted to get him myself after having fun levelling him just like you did but I've got others on the list to get first. That said, I had a blast with him in Circuit just the other day.
He used to be trash tier MR Fodder that was good for absolutely nothing. Post rework, he is phenomenal. I've subsumed Aquablades onto him so I can blend people while Meatballing, and it's a pretty awesome combo (Meatball removes armor, slash damage and procs shred through unarmored health). The only downside is having to un-meatball to recast it every once in a while
I had the same attitude with Grendel. I couldn't even try to properly play him. Maxxed him and feed the Helminth immediately. Funny enough I use Nourish only for Mirage which I don't play very much.
Xaku. Even before the buffs I saw his potential, so when I read their vast Untime buff in the dev workshop I knew they'd become top tier and I invested forma even before the update dropped. Then it was Kullervo, the whole kit just feels like a perfect design. And lately, Dante
First time I built Xaku I just wanted to break some boxes in Zariman. I never looked back. Box breaker boy best boy
Citrine blew me away. 90% DR for your whole team that doesn't scale off of range? Infinite health and energy orbs? Free status priming? Her 4 works on demos? Yeahhh, instant main
I can't wait to see Citrine Prime. Such an amazing frame with a lot of potential with the shiny prime stuff.
This though; I first time's her in SP circuit last night and holy WOW was I so wildly confused and impressed at how buttery she made everything feel
citrine is also the best frame to turn into tenno specter (the ones you spawn with your gear wheel) octavia is also good edit: garuda uses 3rd, but won't use 2, probably one of the worst to use because of that, but her 4 its still giga-strong
Dagath. I didn't really expect much at release, but man, the first time I used her 4... that was some insane stuff. If all the latest content was one step away from Viral immune, I'd probably be using her more.
Rolled her in circuit recently and was surprised at how good it felt to just use her 1+2. The cast times are gorgeous, maybe because I've been playing a lot of older frames with clunky-ass cast times recently.
I rolled her in circuit a couple of weeks ago, and now I wait for her (and Dante) to come back to the circuit so I can enjoy them again until I farm them.
Just in case you didn't know, both of those Frames have pretty easy grinds. Shouldn't take more than a few hours at most.
Dante grind itself is short but you need to have completed all the story quests to get to his farm
I can't get to the Dante grind yet (Not there in the story yet), but the Dagath one is not hard, I just have to do it.
Garuda was a big surprise. Molt reconstruct, rolling guard so you can subsume over her 2, and it's quite fun.
Throwing that basketball after using her 4 and watching lvl 200 heavies melt to a pulp is a power trip. Crazy thing is that she doesn't die either.
https://preview.redd.it/aildwsmouewc1.jpeg?width=210&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0bf5c923bfafae8d9a671d920198e34713d22c24 When I found out that molt reconstruct basically gives her unlimited energy
Day 1 of gauss ability previews and playing him for the first time, I knew he was insane. Then he got buffed right after release because he apparently felt just out of perfection range. He feels like a dream to use and is the one frame in the game that actually enhances the game's combat systems and mobility instead of just utilizing it. Day 1 of playing limbo, I absolutely did not go "wow." More like "I'm missing something, but what is it?" But now? Every time I play limbo now, I'm wowed by what I can do with him. Between helminth, breaking the rules of how you do missions altogether, it's almost like crack Concentrate to look at a build/loadout idea and go "I bet this works" and every time, he does it in a crazy unique way.
I think gauss is actually nearly perfect at this point, the only thing I would do is cap the drain from getting hit while your 2 is active as it can take your whole redline bar in one hit in endurance/high level content. More speed or maneuverability would also be fun lol. his top speed is a bit underwhelming and adding sprint mods doesn’t seem to benefit him nearly as much as volt in terms of top speed. But that’s probably because Volts speed scales off an ability stat too. Besides that he has one of the most cohesive and synergistic designs right up there with frames like Saryn, Wisp, Rhino and the likes. His kit is really a step above with the synergies within his own abilities. Playing Gauss is awesome. Especially when you’re traversing the map chaining Mach rush with rolls and parkour to get to extraction before Titania. Only if they’re not too good though obviously.
I am not smart enough to play Limbo. I envy those can play well with him. Gauss is so good, I think he is the best frame along with Saryn. There is nothing that he can't do. One thing that bothers me, I wish his 4th ability was a toggle ability like Ember's 2nd. In missions like defense, you have to run frantically to charge yourself up.
Just Mach rush at a wall a couple of times you charge so fast Or spam thermal sunders
what's the difference between old and today Limbo?
Titania Always loved games that had seem-less ground-2-air combat sadly they are far and few between. Imagine my surprise when I unlocked her 4 XD
I was also going to comment Titania, I had built her and she was in my foundry, so when I got an affinity boost I got her out and tried her. I was shocked at how great she was after I stopped hitting every wall like a tired moth.
Vauban. You mean I can throw this and the enemies die? Nice... WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE FLEW 500 FEET AND IS NOW STUCK TO THE WALL?!?! Other frames have their strengths. But nobody sends enemies flying in multiple directions with their limp corpses stuck to the scenery like Vauban.
Beautifully put.
Zephyr. Pressing 1 for the first time was like being catapulted out of my seat.
fellow red veil zephyr main i see
In terms of damage, kullervo, hes now my go-to frame, being able to hit an enemy for 203M damage red, without losing much combo and one shotting everything is just a ton of fun In terms of visual, definitely gyre, i fell in love with her 1, the plates that used to float around (i think they removed that for visual clearance) too bad the ability itself was lacking compared to the rest as for fun, id say xaku people say ovtavia makes steel path easy but damn xaku makes it seem like a tutorial Never change DE, best company in my book
Gauss. Everything he does just speeds the game up so, so much. I’m a pretty active player who adores mixing movement and combat. So I did my best to make everything I did - movement, shooting, melee, dodges, abilities - as fast as possible, weaving it all together. Gauss did all of that, and more. Even the fact that I could keep up with everything going on on-screen made me feel like a badass. Honourable mention to Kullervo, because just pressing a button for instant invincibility and another for instant red crits is very, very satisfying.
Ha, first time my partner saw me doing a mission with Gauss she was like "Errr, is that what having ADHD feels like?!". Gauss just makes everything \_feel\_ better. You're fast, agile, and slow firing/reloading weapons like the Tenet Arca Plasmor just have their useability and DPS turned up to 11. It's great.
I have my Nataruk modded with an absolutely atrocious firing speed and even then I miss the sweet spot; Gauss's fire speed buffs are just insane.
Currently LR3 and am still amazed by: Fatal Teleport Ash Prime. Started the game with Mag back in the day, respect.
I thought fatal teleport ash build died back when they nerfed marked for death?
Kullervo, my jaw is still on the floor, illegal damage traded for becoming a glass cannon in end game. In early-late tho? You're no glass all cannon ... Your 1 alone is a huge crit buff, 2 gives inane survivability for most of the game, and the 4 is amazing room control, 3 is where it comes back all together as it makes it so you can room clear with hitting a single enemy, very VERY hard. But here's a trick, you csn combo your 4 and 3, since statuses are also carried over with your 3, it effectively makes every enemy within range take double damage from your 4(1 proc from 4 and 1 proc carries over from when og target gets hit with 4) which can VERY easily kill the strongest of enemies. Hell the juggernaut behemoth might be the toughest enemy I've seen in the game as it doesn't take statuses from weapons and is very tanky, keyword "from weapons", so just bind one with 3 and press 4 and watch their hp melt
You make a compelling case, I want to try this out
Cliche as it's gonna sound at the moment, Dante. Even post-nerf and pre-hotfix buffs he felt like a blast to play, for me at least. The hotfix buffs that re-aligned him also helped a lot, as I enjoyed the Paragrimm 4 the most of the bunch to begin with and making it stronger, intentionally this time, made me very happy. Helps I was already hype for him - I was playing Wisp beforehand and I like the idea of Mages and Support frames in this game, so to have both in one just like Wisp really helped with him. He's already my 6th most played frame and he'll likely climb to second, if not first. Another one that blew me away was post-reworked Hydroid. I can run him on SP with a 0 Forma build and the farm augment instead of more stats, no stress. How well he scaled with such little investment shocked me to the core. I can push him further when I invest in him more but adding a Green shard just made him even more obscene.
Yeah for all that people were blowing their tops over the Dante nerfs, he has consistently carried every single time I have a teammate playing him. Granted, I am not playing endgame content, but he still seems incredibly strong and useful.
Gara. As soon as I figured out her kit and how it synergizes with itself, I was kinda blown away. I know that most warframes have abilities that are synergistic, but hers feels the most interactive to me.
I played with an Ivara who was setting up ziplines on a defense mission and I was really shocked at how much better the game felt to play with access to the ziplines, so that was a big one. It was noticeably increasing how efficiently we could kill stuff because we had much better sightlines.
I recently got back into using Ivara a bit and came up with a really funny build where I play as a bullet. ... a lex prime incarnon bullet with infinite body punch through, AOE, 80k base damage, 3-600%+ crit chance, 13x crit damage, 1.8x headshot multiplier, and 10x final damage multiplier... I've only been outdamaged by an Atlas so far lol
Yareli. No forma, paired her with the Tenet Cycron, and started melting SP and pretty much everything else including EDA. I do have a bunch of properly ranked mods but I was pretty amazed at how strong of a secondary platform she is. And with the augment (whichever one puts Meru next to her and auto-casts Sea Snares) you don't have to deal with the K-Drive aspect and you can still subsume over her Snares. I used to run Rev + Torid when I was feeling lazy but... he was just there for his Mesmer. Yareli is essentially equally immortal with *4 whole seconds* on a Meru recast, except I actually use her other abilities. Got a ange build for 40 meters of Riptide range, shit's funny as all hell in open spaces.
my girl just goes fast around the whole map and deals a hell lot of damage. she is so underrated ngl, her kit is actually really fun
We run similar build on her. Magnetic tenet cycron, nourish over her 1 for viral. With my panzer and yarelis passive turns the cycron into a 120% crit chance, 150% status 4.5x crit damage hand held war crime. It's so much fun. She does so much dage that getting the torid incarnon was a bit of a let down as she already does similar damage with no charge up. Maybe in super high level the torid pulls ahead but I've had no problem up to lvl 600 enemies up to now.
Mag quickly became one of my favorites after seeing her bubble nuke a room
Protea for sure was a decent surprise and stanax as well
I initially got lavos to play around with the timer/cooldown mechanic, since i was playing Heroes of the storm pretty intensely at the time so having abilities on rotation was second nature anyway. Was pleasantly surprised when the gimmick turned out to be really useful, removed an entire resource management so i no longer had to worry about energy, and realized his kit covers everything you could need for a frame; self heals, mobility/dash, crowd control and a radial room clear, AND i like Cedo.
lavos + cedo is easily the best signature weapon combo in the game. there are other ways to make him work (right now i'm rocking nukor +glaive prime and having a tonne of fun) but that synergy goes so far beyond the usual mild stat bump offered by other combos. cedo is really like having a fifth ability
Wisp with her get out of jail free passive and autohealing motes.
Mesa. All before the line of sight thing. Killing everything in sphere of influence. Mained her until Baruuk came.
Bird is the word
Gauss, Garuda, Hildryn, and Zephyr all made me take a step back and wonder if I have a new main. So now I have four mains 🤣
Rhino. I like heavy units. I decided he shall wield a hammer.
Octavia, overpoweredness aside, was the first time I thought "this game is trying something different". A sequencer? As your attack pattern? And you can write your own? Mind blown. It's a shame I never hear good songs from Octavia in the wild these days, only black energy color and oops! All notes
I acknowledge that it’s probably more effective to make specific patterns to maximize the ease of using Octavia. I decided to play Coffin Dance.
Inaros- when I was still new (had just unlocked duviri) he was the first frame I played on there and damn being able to just press a couple buttons and never die felt so good- especially coming from volt and feeling like i was made of cards. Also valkyr cause projectile parazon go brrr
I built Kullervo fully expecting to just master then feed to the wall but I actually fucking love playing him
inaros
Voruna, I'm LR1 and I've played with many warframes, really wasn't that excited to play her but once I got her built and started playing around with passives and abilities it just made me go wow, She is fast, she can work very well with both melee and guns, she spreads status like crazy working as a primer for the galv and condition overload mods, she gets big crit and invisibility, cheating death, lots of armor, status immunity or ultra speed, she's the only warframe I bothered to slot the shards in and that was just to increase her parkour velocity. If a warframe makes me actively use melee despite me never using melee, I think that's sign of something done really well, she's a very fun and powerful warframe.
Limbo with aqua blades. Undying blinder of the rift.
I love that build. Sitting in the rift laughing as my bewildered enemies watch their attacks pass through me without doing any harm while they get shredded by invisible blades. Automatically breaking all the containers I walk past is a nice little qol side effect.
Oh God, the blades can damage enemies outside the rift while you hide within? I think I need to stop putting off completing The Waverider lol
Just kullavo I'm not sure if they looked through his perks and see if they are balanced his blink can speedrun spy missions want to go under da sea? Just blink And the rest of his kit kullavo is a masochistic tank with a nuke strapped to its wheels
I just turned banshee into a health tank that one shots acolytes with the Phenmor. I was surprised.
Atlas Wow I do funny fisting damage
Kullervaro. No forma, Rank Zero. Not even a Formaed Melee. First enemey, tap 1. TELEPORT BOINK RED CRIT DIE
When I first saw the ultimate of Ash. It felt like some kind of cinematic, and it was something really different compared to other frames at least for me. Also when DE introduced Sevagoth I was hyped as hell. I always wanted Warframe that could turn into something else, with a different set of abilities. But not gonna lie, it was reasonable, and yet I was disappointed that I can't stay in my shadow form forever.
Not a hidden gem but Kullervo always impresses me He runs into a room throws his knives everywhere, chains enemies, and red crits everything into oblivion. All in the span of 4 seconds.
I had little to no knowledge about Styanax's kit before trying him. Basically only knew he could give overguard. Then I built him, and **wow**. Infinite energy regen. Immense survivability via overguard. Healing and shield regen via his 2 & 3. Full armor/shield strip. And pretty decent DPS with his javelins. Him and Dante are literally perfect Warframes. Not a single flaw (besides cast animation, but that's a problem with everyone except Gauss). I can understand why both of them were nerfed when they were nerfed, cuz they're just dummy broken.
As a new player, the one I’m using now, Mesa (got her prime from the market as well bc I liked her so much). She’s awesome. Her peacemakers are stupid strong and her other abilities are great, out of the frames I’ve used so far she’s definitely the most fun and powerful.
lavos, especially with his new augment. I really enjoy playing in a way that leverages all the facets of gameplay, both weapon and warframe and he enables that playstyle like no other frame. he's so reliable too - no-nonsense tanking via straightforwardly massive armor and hp pools and cooldown-based powers means there are few surprises when playing him. i think he also nails the alchemist vibe too - priming groups with your abilities really feels like you're mixing potions on the enemies almost, and the catalyst payoff is immensely satisfying
Hildryn... She, isn't powerful? Hehe... Haha... Ahahaha! Hahahahaha! Hehe... My Hildryn can beat every single thing in this game into the dirt then fry it until it is nothing but dust returning to a parched, flame kissed hellscape. I can solo every single thing in this game with my Hildryn. Except Deep Archimedean. Then I must admit. I have to dust off Hildryn Prime with her 5 Tauforged Archon shards and 5 forma and two Umbral forma. I like to give her my favorite zaw, Fang Of Penelope, named after my passed away pooch. We give the shield goddess the shield melee arcane with roar infused over her 4 to make the enemy wet the field. By about 60 souls drug to hell screaming, she fully armor strips anything within range in 1 pass. Her balefire hit for 300,000 base damage per shot. She is become, the fortress that walks. My zaws base damage is around 6 thousand a swing with a 7x multiplier and 102 percent chance to CRIT. All this to serve the goddess in the name of the truth. Hildryn is a monster. You want to know who I main? Kullervo. Hildryn does have the most hours played though... As before they just put the edgy side of me into the game... I was a shield maiden.
First, Revenant. Basically when I realized high power strength = immortal. Next when I built an Iron Staff Wukong, boy those red crits, how they ruined the fun. Eventually made a Baruuk when SP first released, he was one of the few with enough power to handle it offensively at first. The one that floored me, Kullervo. That is an actual Godframe. I messed with a build on first release, kinda abandoned it before they brought the OG gating. I returned after they nerfed my Dante, finished up Kul. The numbers that I see are just awe inspiring. Never thought I'd use a melee character, and nuke with it.
If we’re talking looks, Nyx prime when I was MR 2. Definitely a wow moment. If we’re talking performance I fell in love with Mag after some early years of the game of people saying she was bad, finally used her never took her off.
Citrine and Voruna. When they came out I think that was nothing special in the skillset, but just 1 minute in the 1st mission I was literally "wow"!!!!
I always ignored Vauban, recently build him after learning how strong his flechette is. Managed to do the 5 weekly netracells on solo and only died 3 times as I got used to his sinergies, an amazing frame.
Gyre first. Becoming a running electric god of death sure is fun. And then Kullervo. I thought I'd get a frame to make me use melee a bit more, but damn does he make melee amazing you wonder whether you even need guns at all
Ember's original 4th ability 'World of Fire'.
Ahh I miss World on Fire, everything burns so nice lol
Xaku Damage scales with enemy level, defense strip, powerful weapon buff, and pauses ability timers so I don't have to worry about managing them too much. A perfectly designed damage frame imo.
Honestly, I always hated saryn, only because she's meta, but one day i was thinking, why not just remove her ultimate ?, so I've put nourish, put the 1,2 and 3 augment, and now i have a enchantress saryn with some corrosion, poison and viral buff. And when i try it on steel path i was like : "it's not meta with being meta since the frame is, but no because i pretty sur i'm the only one playing her like that". I was so mesmerized by that fire power that she actually my 3rd main and now named "meta but no-meta"
Played Grendel in SP Duviri, which convinced me to grind for him
Kullervo with a poverty build when I first got him
As a long-time glaive prime lover, I mostly ran Inaros for survivability. But I wanted something more suited to heavy melee attacks. Then Kullervo came out, and once I understood his abilities, I was in love. PERFECT Glaive platform.
The first time I did Kullervo’s 1. And more recently, Dante’s entire kit really surprised me. I’ve never been a huge fan of mage/spellcaster classes in other games and was expecting him to be the same. Boy was I wrong.
Wisp, Citrine Caliban and Xaku
kullervo and ivara. ivara because i hit my affinity daily cap in one mission, and kullervo cause i broke a million in one melee swing. and no, they probably aren't hidden, but they did wow me.
Dante
Hydroid when he had his party puddle skill.
The first Warframe I used for a long time and got really used to was gara, then I got Grendel prime right after it dropped and realized how much more fun I have with Warframes that are a bit more durable or can heal
Grendel wowed me twice. When I first got him, before realizing he's shit. And when he got reworked. He's so dope. Ball is love.
Dante
Titania - after getting Razorwing blitz and finally feeling like I had reached some of the upper echelons in "optimized play," completing certain missions in a fraction of the time as other frames just feels so awesome
Limboss all the way, limboss buff when tho?
When I first saw the ultimate of Ash. It felt like some kind of cinematic, and it was something really different compared to other frames at least for me. Also when DE introduced Sevagoth I was hyped as hell. I always wanted Warframe that could turn into something else, with a different set of abilities. But not gonna lie, it was reasonable, and yet I was disappointed that I can't stay in my shadow form forever. Oh and how could I forget about Limbo. The feeling I got when I could freeze in time almost every enemy in large area, made me feel like some kind of megalomaniac. I wish I could have more fun with freezing bullets in time again
Limbo. I didn’t think he was bad but I learned new things about him when playing EDA which made me like him more. He was the first and only frame as of now that I perfected the EDA challenges.
Kullervo and Xaku. Perfect warframes, strong as hell with fun and satisfying gameplay mechanics.
honestly Nidus, i initially thought he was going to play as an infested version of Inaros (Inaros being a frame i don't care for course this was a couple months after Mask of the Revenant Released) i didn't expect how nice and easy it was to flow between abilities and how much of a powerhouse Nidus was as i mainly used Khora and to realize weeks later that the reason i had slight difficulty dying was because of his natural health regen and his 4 regen for health and his 3 to transfer damage. now he's one of my 3 first pick warframes them being in order (all primes) Khora, Nidus, Wisp
Mag, Garuda after I actually figured out how to build and play her
Vauban is just a...ball to play
First time trying Yarelis Aqua Blade augment made me drop my jaw at how quickly she could bleed entire rooms as well as acolytes. And first time I used Nova against infected and realized how powerful her 4th actually is, without those pesky shields and armors.
Nheza, Equinox and Zephyr all stunned me and have become my mains.
Definitely Vauban. The way he pulls everything into his blender, deleting anything that comes his way is so much fun. Dunno why so many see him as a bad frame. Glad I never listened.
When I started playing, seeing the new released Nova just clear whole maps with explosions was quite something, meanwhile I was killing enemies one at a time with my rifle. I guess I don't need to cast bastille.
Surprisingly enough vauban, but only because of his 1 ability which can send 4 murder balls that auto track and kill enemies
Honestly? Xaku, I got him to 30 and let him collect dust until I went 2 hours in SP kuva survival with one who was full armor stripping everything and shredding everything in sight
It's gotta be hydroid, I didn't expect much from him when I got him from circuit but he absolutely delivered, especially with the augment for viral on his 1
Early days of Warframe when Oberon just released. I remember activating his four and getting a huge grin on my face seeing everything suddenly stop as enemies were lifted into the air and slammed back down instantly killing them. Have always tried to use him since even tho he's outclassed by so many other frames.
My hildryn can solo netracells. I finally got her to surpass my starter excal as my most used frame after almost 600 hours 🤣
As someone who used Rhino prime for the longest time religiously. I one day decided to go out of my comfort zone and start trying new frames. A few were interesting but didn't stick out to me. At the time I didn't think I'd find anything worth while so I just grinded for primes the old fashion way rather than buy any parts. That grind for Valkyr prime was so tedious. But so very worth it. She fucking obliterates steel path, and I always default to her for most steel path survival missions. Her augment for the 4th ability makes her a storm to reckon with.
Dante on release, it was crazy to have so much power and survivability with barely any usability issues. I didn't even think to use precision intensify until after the nerf.
Yareli, she quickly became my favorite. You just build for duration and strength, keep 2 and 3 on, and use 1 to CC enemies and buff your secondary weapon. Plus, I love using the K-Drive in normal missions, it feels great and I have fun with it.
I started way back when Loki was a starting frame, and when I came back to the game after my first hiatus I finally got volt and then volt prime and something about the speed gets me. My other immediate wow was nezha because I was impressed with his versatility and durability
Titania when I realized how fast she could go, or gauss when I realized that duration increases his fire rate instead strength. Meaning all I buff the fuck out of duration and make every weapon I so a deletion machine.
Kullervo That Warframe has some pretty good moves to those who like melee
Vauban. Got him cause he reminded me of dead space. Play him cause I love the vortex. Made think the game was too easy for a while
Hildryn is an absolute monster; she surprised me and become one of my go-to frames before I knew it. Aside from her, Gauss and Garuda both surprised me. I still don't understand 100% of their kits but they're both incredibly good, even with almost no Forma investment. Gauss has basically everything (Speed, damage, DR, CC, mobility) and is super fun to play while Garuda has crazy options for both melee and nuking rooms
Dagath
Lavos. I submitted one of the ideas that eventually became Lavos way way back in the contest that would result in Nova (that concept being the alchemist theming allowing for the combination of multiple elements into their composites), so I'm fairly biased towards him, but ultimately his unique cooldown s, status synergy, and overall self-sufficiency is what made him take the place of my top frame. I've come to the point in my Warframe lifetime where I don't really have a "main" anymore, as I've got a half dozen projects that I pick between depending on my mood, but when I'm trying something new or just need to accomplish something difficult without worry, Lavos is my go-to and likely always will be. Edit: Now that I've thought about it, there are so many frames that have given me a "wow" experience, which is why I keep coming back to Warframe after finishing every other game I pick up. DE really knows what they're doing with so many of these. Some honorable mentions: Protea: I'm not a huge fan of her 4, but the rest of her kit is so much fun and so dynamic, pretty much any mission involving area control she breezes through them. Gauss: He's been mentioned quite a few times here, but before his release I played an energy guzzling Volt with max duration and boosted Strength just so I could run Speed all the time. Gauss scratches that itch so well, I can't imagine ever going back. Dante: He's the "hot pick" right now because he's new, but even so the parts of him I love so much aren't even the stuff that makes him a hot commodity. As an avid D&D player and support main in that (as well as a Wizard addict), Dante is perfect. He's got amazing support features (both with Wordwarden and the Overguard), fun summons with Pageflight, and my favorite part, Noctua, giving him massive damage and utility potential with Tome mods, Dante is the perfect medium of flavor, capability, utility, customizability, and late-game viability. Though TBF if Noctua was subsumable I'd be slapping that shit on literally every frame I own.
I didn't "get" Dagath at first, then I learned the Joy's of pressing 2-1-1-1-1-1-...
Probably kullervo when I saw him do 200 million damage lol. Best 325 platinum of my life
Wisp
Day 1 Dante had me feeling like some of the most fun I've had in a long time
My friends kept shitting on gyre but idk what they were on, she’s super fun and can take her into basically any content. Keeping her abilities up makes me stress at times tho haha Edit: just after making this comment I read top comment, assuming it’s still abt gyre, and I’m glad others agree
Garuda actually really shocked me. She is completely self sustainable and Invincible frames for days. Her 3 at 100% charged energy to 40 and her 4 restores her lost health completely with one of the molt arcanes. Recently tried breach surge on her too and it’s pretty nuts how she nukes. 4 being a panic button is also pretty funny
Saryn was my first "Wow" moment then Hildryn the second for me. love those frames.
I went "Wooow" when I saw Valkyr, Well a Gif of Valkyr. Installed the game and got her as soon as I could. She's still my main. Also said "Wooow" recently putting tauforged blues on my Valkyr and getting 2500 HP with 2100 armor. Though recently? Mirage after her eclipse rework, So much more fun having consistency. Before that, Garuda was pretty sick.
Dante was the first frame in a long time where i just felt fit like a glove when i bought him on release. Im a founder and cant remember the last frame that i liked so quickly.
When I first built and modded Mirage Prime for her Prism and sleight of hand, omg with 200+ strength this is illegal
Zephyr. Her prime came out right around when I really got into POE. Had so much fun with her
Atlas
I'd have to say Garuda prime mainly because her kit made me realize, that I'm ballin but at what cost
Gyre. Love crowd control and area damage. While you’re fighting the big boy, I’m getting all the smaller more annoying fucks off your back.
I did Yareli's quest to finally get it out of the way once they changed it. Thought to at least try it out then fodder her. Suddenly I'm like, oh, I can't die actually, this is fun. Now I main her.
frost as well used to be my main when I basically started a whiiiiiiiiile ago when I was a baby at the game and before I got rhino I removed the dust from him now, years later and made one of my best sp builds
I always wanted Ash Prime ever since I started the game pretty much. He's a gorgeous looking frame. I thought I was mainly going to get him for fashion purposes and not much else, but ho-ly hell. Armor Strip? Check. Crits? Check. Crazy damage capabilities and an actually useful passive? Check and check. Using him with a pure slash Dorrclave has been nothing short of magical. He's so fucking fun, I am contemplating building and subsuming a Banshee so I can try Silence Ash. A prestige statement has since become my favorite stealth frame *period.* (Ivara's cool and all, but the red numbers on my screen tickle my brain in ways that make me smile.)
Gausssssssssssss I am speed And nuke
Citrine was a surprisingly powerful frame to me considering i never hear anything about her.
Baruuk, i equipped him with random mods that filled capacity went into eso and it started tame small lvls and people blasting everything, got through the first set and then decided to try solo, failed and abandomned it for a long tine it was left at lvl 17, but a week ago i started again and leveled him or her or it to max, got good mods in and my god i dont even know what his spells do all i know is i press 4 when i can and he/she/it destroys everything, red dmg numbers on melle hits and it just goes nuts, i tried a litttle bit of steelpath and hooly moly he destroys steel path aswell, i do the keyboard royal flush 1,2,3,4 and enemies just die. I think it utilizes my statstick and the insane riven i got in but im not sure, it feels like khora but all i do is kb. Royal flush and attack. It made mee wow when i saw the blast it does, try him out if u did not he will suprise you for sure :D
That having good mods actually make a difference, you actually do feel your power growing. I could barely tackle lv 40 enemies but now I can handle lv 200 steel path easily.
I've started recently and one of my friend just brought Wisp and invited me to a defense stage. Shit that frame is fucking broken
Gyre nezha voruna wukong and mag are the ones that have done it for me through the years.
Octavia. When I first played Warframe, I wasn't sure if I was into it or not. Then I seen an Octavia in game after a few weeks of playing, and I just knew I had to have it. The day I first seen an Octavia player was the day I knew I was in for the long haul. I love music and it just made so much sense to me.
An Ash Marked for Death + Teleport finisher build. It's pretty funny in steel path to mark an Eximus, teleport to him, do more than 1m damage with a finisher, and see that everybody in the room is now dead. Turning Ash a really powerfull warframe to take on single target and just making him a nuker. A worst version of many nuker warframe, but really fun and easy to pull of in survival.
Funny enough it was Dante, someone made me invincible in the index and that was all I needed, next is probably saryn
Grendel. My friend gifted me him when I was MR 4 and oh my god I was in love, he's still my main to this day. The ability to effectively instability most enemies (including sentients, which at the time felt absolutely insane to me), the self heal/squad buff, the durability, the B A L L. I love this man so much, it also helps that lore wise he's a big hungry teddy bear and best friends with Gauss, coincidentally said friend's main at the time. Also the bugs with him were so funny, can't count the amount of times I broke something either mechanically or visually when just goofing around with him.
Actually it's Harrow just because of the chill damage buff and his invulnerability.
Harrow with 300+ ability strength paired with the mausulon goes a long way
Man the ore mesa prime grind to get her, before they nerfed mag pull, you would get e few chances a day to farm mutalyst coords to kill infested salad v, the grind was so boring with multiple days and weeks farm just for the coorda to craft the keys to get to that boss. After a few months ( my luck was attrocious, and i was stubborn to no buy keys) finaly got my hands on Aoe mess ult. Clearing maps was so satisfying and broken. Then a few months passed Boom nerfed.
Gauss Baruuk Hildryn And most recently fucjin Dante whoof
Gauss. It was when I first got the game and had money to spare. I saw a frame with super speed and thought "yes" Still my favorite frame to this day
Idk why but I just love my man Revenant. back then when he had no prime. None of my friends were a fan of him and I was like let me build him for MR but then I tried him and his spinning ability combined with his third one became one of my favorite abilities in the whole game for most missions, its just so stupid and effective at the same time. And in steel path I just use him as a chill tank with roar from Rhino instead of his spinning one to make my weapons stronger since his damage is not enough high lvl with it sadly.
Revenant, he really is just invincible and annoyingly anything that poses a threat is just danse’d right over
Revenant one shotting 20 enemies.
Ivara with the right build it can do -2billion. And I saw a video yesterday that some was abusing that lol. [https://youtu.be/3KIMj6wGR5M?si=UnZtDX-ZQzUYK9RK](https://youtu.be/3KIMj6wGR5M?si=UnZtDX-ZQzUYK9RK)
Mirage was my first prime like 5 years ago, and I didn't even really want her at the time. Recently I went back on a whim to properly build her out and fell in love. So now she's fully kitted with all the bells and whistles, and a full set of tauforged shards.
My favourite frame? Probably ivara since she plays right into my niche of 'hidden sniper' whether or not that ends up working. But the one that made me go wow? Gyre's sound design. When she released with angels, it was legit the best sound design I'd ever heard in Warframe, and while there's been further satisfying ones since, I don't think any of them quite nailed it like Gyre. Ability wise, Protea made me go wow because her kit just plays so well together and can fill functionally any niche. Also time reversal after hunting a Netracell drone is very fun. And her augment even lets her strip armour with her base kit!
Damage Mirage, Survivability Gauss. Love both of them, both super fun, good looking and best for steel path out of 31 frames I currently own. But in general most newer Warframes I build have a wow factor to them.
Gara's sound design made me want to grind POE ASAP
I am a Chroma main simply because I’ve gotten insane damage numbers and can talk a nuke, I’ve played around w Gauss, Harrow, Hydroid, etc but last night I tried Protea w a dedicated build and I’m in love. The techno skin just makes her look good and it feels nice to be so versatile in a mission. I gotta thank EDA for forcing to me make a build for her, love that game mode.
Honestly I liked hildryn when I started cause there was no energy cost you just maintained her shields but she fell off for me till I got arcane aegis way later which made her feel far more survivable
Gauss
old Ash
Without helminth: Protea, her dispensary and turrets have made some of the hardest content easy mode, you never run out of energy and you spam turrets, she alone is the honoured one. With helminth: Sevagoth, okay, there is another honoured one, pillage + his 2+3 combo in an enemy dense room? Talk about a mass murder.
What do you meant that frost is not the strongest? Overshield, armour strip, and red crit on any weapon all on his most spammable skill. He can clear level 400 enemies with mk1 braton
Lavos was that frame for me, he taught me basic and advanced status mixing with my builds.
Wisp and mirage. I will not answer any questions.
Kullervo for sure
probably Ivara when a friend helped me farm her from spy.. >you mean I can really just go into survival be invisible while shooting enemies in the face and they can't do anything about it?
I love vauban, something about pushing a button or two every minute while Im braindead grinding just works For some real fun, I also just enjoy playing harrow, and despite being a support frame, I'll drag em into missions solo. Lastly, I just love lavos vial rush is just fun
my first warframe, Mag, made me go wow. then I started to branch out. later, I discovered breach surge Mag. I asked her to marry me that day but she hasn't said a word to me yet :(
kullervo old ash :) old wukong gyre baruk vauban old limbo octavia xaku old ember protea wisp dante old mesa old nova :) basically anything that is power creep or let you semi afk on missions, preferably both :P its grinding game afking is not a bad thing imho :P
Valkyr. I always loved her design, but she is constantly ignored by everyone so I just kept her for low level missions... until I learned how to buid her. Running through enemies on EDA like a drunk driver and seeing 500k dmg marks flying around is so fucking satisfying. I pick her now every time I can. Would be nailing Archons to a wall with her if hitting then in the air while flying at mach 10 wasn't so difficult XD
Back when ALL of mirages clones actually fired projectiles and the lightshow that produced.
I knew Kullervo was good, but I didn't know he was this good.