To those who play Warframe

1. None of the Warframes are locked behind a paywall? Complete the star chart and you have the means to acquire every Warframe.

A number of Prime variants, which have small stat bonuses, are 'Vaulted' and no longer accessible outside of player trade. They're super optional, and a bunch of Warframes don't even have a Prime version.
One Prime variant, Excalibur, is no longer obtainable at all: was part of the Founder package.

2. I don't know how the early game is right now, but as someone who's already got a solid baseline of stuff: the grind for crafting is really tame. As in, you can actually craft shit in Warframe, unlike PoE. 2400 Polymer Bundles? That's half an hour or so on Uranus and you're done. Easy. I need five Neural Sensors? Sure. Ignis makes that real smooth.
So, your assumption is bollocks tbh. At the start of the game, you of course don't have access to every material, but once you gain access, it's not that big a deal. Plus, there are actually Warframes and gear and boosters that can expedite the process.

(admittedly, Nitain Extract is a little more annoying than usual for time-limited players)


What I personally find fun about Warframe? I can spend an hour and make tangible progress. Acquire some rare material for an item I want, or crack a bunch of Relics for Void Traces and Prime bits, or improve standing with a faction. There's always something that I can work towards, even after a thousand hours. My collection of gear and Warframes is "pretty sizable", allowing for a lot of different setups that have their own strengths and weaknesses - and there's more to acquire or improve on still. Sorties can actually be challenging, and are freely accessible once unlocked, no need to find a tier 15 Map every time you want to face high-end content.

It's a really fucking long game though, if you want to get almost everything. If you're looking to spend maybe 40 hours on a game, Warframe is an odd choice. Looking for a 300 hour or more investment? Yeah, hop on.



alt;
Maps are terribly simplistic and the AI is irrelevant (and hella dumb) because you one-shot everything before it registers your presence :/ How do you enjoy that?

lateEDIT: I should probably clarify that statement eh. What I mean with that is, "there is more to it than that" (also: opinions). There's more to PoE than just one-shotting 15000 enemies - there's more to Warframe than fighting level 5 Grineer on Earth :P

Well, you can always dump questions in this here off-topic subforum :P We're around. Of course not the fastest response time, but it's a start?

Not all Warframe Blueprints are bought in the Market, yeah. Various 'frames are tied to Quests, and for example Ivara is acquired entirely through Spy Missions. Quite similar to Path of Exile, Warframe sometimes leans on the community to share information (which is to say, the wiki).

"

Sarno wrote:

Frame suggestions for newbs? :P

I got Ember, and I like her abilities - but either she’s a glass cannon or I am very bad. Haven’t been dying much, but I have died a bit and since I’m only in Noobland that doesn’t bode well.

I'm going to talk about Ember first, she's awesome. Scatter-shot thoughts here we go!


Ember is indeed on the glassier side. Fairly decent Shield, Health and Armour, but:
1. Split values are mediocre :P Can't focus on all of 'em
2. No defensive abilities beyond the crowd-control nature of Heat Damage

Redirection + Fast Deflection is a fairly key setup in my opinion, for starting out with; I ran it on just about every frame for a good while. Shields recover naturally, and Fast Deflection makes this so much faster. It's like having infinite health.
Health and Armour are more interesting if you have Health recovery, and that shit's rare. Health does provide a buffer against Slash procs and Toxin Damage however (they ignore Shields), which is A+ to have; Grineer and Infested both burn well! Not really important to Mod for though.


Ember's most powerful abilities are Accelerant and World on Fire:
- Accelerant is a fast-casting AoE Stun that makes enemies vulnerable to Heat Damage.
- World on Fire is a channeled ability that automatically blows up nearby enemies. Guaranteed Heat proc, which deals additional Damage over Time and causes enemies to panic.

Ability Strength 'double-dips' if you apply Accelerant: once to improve base Damage on WoF, once more to increase Heat vulnerability. Sick damage!
Efficiency is great to keep World on Fire rolling. Duration also reduces the over-time cost of channeled abilities, but is unimportant otherwise (Accelerant has plenty duration).
These two abilities make Ember a very potent frame for level 1-35 Missions; WoF will one-shot most enemies and Accelerant solves the rest, once properly modded.

Fireball is an okay CC in a pinch; the impact guarantees a Heat proc (and thus panic), the explosion has a 50% status chance. Eventually becomes redundant, but for the early game being able to 100% CC a Heavy Gunner is valuable.


Weapons that deal innate Heat Damage (list) are of course very attractive due to Accelerant making them so much more powerful. Slamming a pack with Accelerant and throwing Javlok in their midst is devastating. With the Flash Accelerant Augment you can further boost this effect, and even improve the Damage of your buddies.

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Now, to answer your actual question:
Rhino is an "easy" frame to play with; my early frame of choice! Iron Skin offers a sizable buffer to play around with, and it scales with both Ability Strength and Armour modifiers. If you keep Iron Skin active, you don't even need Shield Mods :> With the Ironclad Charge augment, it continues to scale well into the late game to boot.

He can also fulfill other roles besides just being tanky with Iron Skin, which is always a nice bonus!
- Roar is currently the most powerful Damage buff that you can apply to the whole party; I think it's only outclassed by Chroma's Vex Armour, which is self-only (at the time of writing). Helps a ton against bosses, and with Efficiency + Duration it can be maintained through the entire mission.
- Rhino Stomp is an incredible crowd control ability. Modded for range and efficiency, it can keep entire rooms under control; Grey and I used and abused this on Infested Defence a lot.
Stomp builds tend to have fairly weak Iron Skin (generally don't need it much), but Roar builds focus on Ability Strength all the same. Just a matter of watching your Energy levels ;)


Volt has strong Shields, and comes with some interesting abilities:
- Shock is a quick Stun to a group of enemies, similar in function to Fireball. Instead of being an AoE, it fires chains from the targeted location or enemy, with 100% proc chance. This allows it to reach around corners, and is somewhat more reliable at range. Shorter CC than fire though!
- Speed is my drug of choice. I mostly run around with high Strength and Duration when playing Volt, using Speed to make my melee weapons extremely devastating. Shocking Speed offers crowd control to keep me running, and even clears out low-level enemies on its own. It's easy to overextend and die however :P
- Electric Shield creates a barrier which stops almost all gunfire - but not your own. In fact, shooting through the Shield adds bonus Electric Damage and Crit Mult! Perfect for chokepoints and versus more stationary enemies. You can also pick up the shield and run around with it, but it'll drain Energy when you move with it. Really cute.
- Discharge is a large-AoE Stun which chains Damage between CC'ed enemies; looks pretty dramatic too. Currently has a Damage cap (it's that good :P ), but this will be removed Soon (TM); holy shit! Using Shock on an enemy under Discharge also causes sizable additional Damage, which is cute.


Loki can go invisible, forever. That's pretty good. :P My Loki has far more affinity than any of my other frames, due to Spy-grinding to level up weapons, and Focus farming with a dagger. Good times. Fun at parties too with Irradiating Disarm.