5 Warframes Every Player Should Have

In Warframe, each Warframe is a playable character that generally has 4 abilities and a passive. With a variety of different game modes you will need to complete, having a roster of Warframes built for different roles will be vital to your success.

Today, we look at some of the best frames to pick as a new player that offer the most tools with the least investment, and teach you how they work and where to get them. 

Best Frames for Beginners

Nezha – Offensive and Defensive Flexibility

If you’re looking for a tanky Warframe that can dish out a lot of damage in return, new players are surprisingly spoiled for choice. Among these Warframes, Nezha offers the most for your investment, and doesn’t require you to farm a boss fight for his components. 

Nezha’s bread and butter ability is Warding Halo, a defensive ability that gets stronger depending on how much incoming damage you receive during the 3 seconds of invulnerability you get on ability cast. It also scales with power strength. Your halo also gives you another invincibility buffer when the halo breaks, allowing you to never die as long as you are paying attention. 

The rest of his kit is just as useful. His first ability, Firewalker, is a thematic movement ability that is welcome in Warframe’s fast-paced gameplay. His second ability, Blazing Chakram, builds on this theme even more. This ability shoots out his chakram, and when this ability is recast, Nezha will teleport to it, making traversing the battlefield easier. 

Blazing Chakram interacts differently when hitting an enemy. Afflicted enemies will be more vulnerable to damage, will receive the heat status effect, take heat damage, and have increased chances of dropping health and energy orbs, as dictated by your ability strength. No matter where you are in the game, making enemies more vulnerable to damage is a welcome addition, with very few Warframes able to natively provide it.

Divine Spears, His fourth ability, rounds out his kit, offering a large scale crowd control ability. In the past, this ability has been used to clear low level enemies and briefly stun stronger ones, something that helps his moving tank playstyle. However with the addition of the augment mod Divine Retribution, this ability can be turned into a highly effective nuking tool that scales far more than the ability alone. 

Where to Get Nezha in Warframe

Found in the Tenno lab in the Dojo, you can replicate Nezha’s blueprints for a total of 70,000 credits and some resources you will have found along the way.

Beginner’s Nezha Build

New players should try out this tanking build before investing too much into Nezha, to get a sense for his gameplay:

In contrast, this build will allow new players to try Nezha has an AOE nuker:

 

Nova – A Timeless Support

Despite being one of the older Warframes in the game, Nova still sees play among new and veteran players alike due to her incredible flexibility. Nova was recently given a light quality-of-life adjustment in the Koumei & the Five Fates update that streamlined the way her abilities work to make her easier to build for and smoother to play. 

Molecular Prime, her fourth ability, is what she is most known for. This expanding ability makes enemies take more damage, and slows them down, scaling with strength. This ability can be hold cast to speed up enemies, instead of slowing them. Being able to manipulate the speed of enemies is utility unique to Nova that will be appreciated in any squad in any game mode. 

However, Nova is far from a one trick pony. Her first ability, Null Star, offers up to 90% damage reduction in the form of particles that orbit you, that can seek out and damage enemies. Her third ability Wormhole does exactly what it sounds like, opens a wormhole in front of you that teleports you in the angle of your cast, with a distance based on ability range. 

Antimatter Drop is her second ability, summoning a ball of energy that will follow your cursor and absorb damage you deal to it. On recast, the orb will be shot dealing large amounts of damage to enemies in an area. This ability was most impacted by the light rework, taking it from a situational tool to a weapon befitting her kit. 

Where to Get Nova in Warframe

Parts for the Nova Warframe can be found by defeating the Raptors boss on Europa, on your star chart. 

Beginner’s Nova Build for Warframe

If you’re looking to play Nova, but don’t want to commit an Orokin Reactor, we recommend this beginners build:

 

Volt – The Speedy Jack of all Trades

Players who didn’t start with Volt may be shocked to learn that he wears many hats; Eidolon hunter, affinity farmer, speedster and king fisherman, just to name a few. However, the name Jack of all trades shouldn’t suggest that he is the master of none. In fact, this early game Warframe will take you through much of the content this game has to offer. 

His first ability, Shock, is a basic elemental damage ability with a far more interesting augment, Shocktrooper, giving you and your teammates additional, raw, pure electric damage that scales with strength. His second ability Speed, as the name implies, gives you additional movement speed, as well as extra reload and attack speed. 

His other abilities have a bit more going on. Electric Shield is a barrier that can be deployed or carried, blocking incoming damage and increasing the damage and critical damage of weapon fire that passes through it. 

His final ability, Discharge, is a true AOE ability, stunning and dealing damage to an expanding area of enemies. With the augment mod, Capacitance, it also offers consistent survivability for Volt. 

And for new players trying to get ahead in the many open worlds Warframe has to offer, yes, Volt’s passive does work on fishing poles. There’s not many fish that Volt can’t reel in with a single cast. 

Where to Get Volt in Warframe

If Volt isn’t chosen as your starting Warframe, his component blueprints can be replicated in the Tenno lab of the dojo. 

Beginners’ Volt Build

While there are other Warframes that offer similar things to Volt, such as Titania or Gauss, Volt’s kit overall offers variety and flexibility, packaged in a Warframe that is easy to get and use early on. They aren’t upgrades to Volt, but rather sidegrades whose skill sets overlap with his. For those wanting to try Volt for themselves, we recommend this starting build:

 

Nekros – The Loot Tank

At its core, Warframe is a loot game. So you’re going to want at least one of the few Warframes that has the ability to roll extra loot. For new players, our recommendation is Nekros. Nekros, although best known for his loot ability Desecrate, is still equipped with a well designed, thematic kit that can carry players far into the endgame content Warframe currently offers. 

Nekros’ first ability isn’t the most interesting. Soul Punch is a cheap, damage dealing ability that is more thematic than useful; it’s not something you’ll spend much time casting. The rest of his kit is far more interesting. It does ragdoll enemies, however, which is fun. And in Warframe, fun matters a lot.

His second ability Terrify, in comparison, is far more useful. This aoe ability makes enemies flee, reducing their armor based on power strength. Armor stripping is a big deal in Warframe, and while it’s not as essential after the Jade Shadows update, it’s still a welcome addition in any game mode. In Warframe, armor accounts for a lot of damage reduction an enemy has. An enemy with no armor is far easier to defeat, as you’d expect. Terrify also has an augment, Creeping Terrify, that slows affected enemies, for game modes where you want enemies CC’d instead of defeated, like in interception.

As mentioned earlier, Desecrate is Nekros’ third, and most well known ability. This toggle ability provides additional loot while active. Desecrate will roll extra loot based on enemy bodies, which is important since some factors can increase the loot you roll. Weapons with high slash damage, or weapons with an additional ‘dismemberment’ chance create more bodies for Desecrate. This ability generates a lot of health orbs, which when combined with the Equilibrium mod give Nekros an incredibly consistent energy economy. 

His final ability, Shadows of the Dead, is a thematic, defensive ability whereby defeated enemies are brought back to life to act as shields for Nekros. Reanimated enemies attack and absorb hits meant for Nekros, and can be further improved with the Shield of Shadows augment mod, allowing even more damage you sustain to be mitigated. 

Where to Get Nekros in Warframe

Blueprints for the parts for the Nekros Warframe can be earned by defeating the Lephantis boss on Deimos. NOTE: For new players, this boss can also drop Orokin Cells and Neurodes; two resources even veteran players are always in need of. 

Beginner’s Nekros Build

For players learning to play Nekros, this build will keep you going well throughout the early stages of the game:

 

Loki – For Everything Else

Although some players often overlook him, Loki still has a meaningful place in this game, especially for new players. There are many game modes where you want to get in and finish, with as few interruptions as possible, which is where Loki lives. 

While there are other Warframes that can do what Loki does, arguably better in some cases, Loki’s simplicity is where he shines. While Ivara offers invisibility as well, she has an annoying acquisition grind and is far slower than Loki. Voruna offers better speed and invisibility than Loki but takes far longer to get. As a new player, Loki needs very little to get going, can be built early and is very easy to use. 

His first ability, Decoy, as the name implies, creates a decoy that is not particularly survivable. There are augments that allow it to do different things, like spread status effects and reflect damage, albeit situationally. Although, it can be used as a target for his third ability, Switch Teleport, to allow you to access hard to reach areas. This is especially useful in spy missions, where some vaults can be completely cheesed with this combination. 

Switch Teleport also has a fairly impactful augment, Safeguard Switch, which gives you and your squadmates refreshable invincibility and status cleanse that is affected by duration mods. As you can imagine, refreshable invincibility is a powerful tool in any game, and Warframe is no exception. This augment is one tool that makes Loki a popular option for ‘level cap’ runs, a player imposed challenge attempting to survive in a mission long enough to see the strongest enemies the game can spawn, with several hours worth of loot as a reward.

Loki’s second ability, Invisibility, is what he is most known for. Scaling on duration alone, Loki becomes and stays invisible. This ability does what it says on the tin, and works when you need it. Remember, even in Warframe enemies can’t hit what they can’t see. Or, at least, have a harder time. Invisibility has many other uses later into the game, like farming standing for some syndicates, or using stealth affinity mechanics to level up faster.

Radial Disarm is Loki’s fourth ability. Again there is no ambiguity in this ability, you simply disarm enemies in an area. Although the game has changed quite a lot since this ability was designed, and since a dead enemy doesn’t need to be disarmed, it’s often overlooked. But in game modes like interception or mirror defense, the disarm does offer some slight utility.

The main reasons we recommend Loki for new players instead of other Warframes that fill similar roles, is because:

• He has low modding requirements, making him easy to build for
• He can be acquired early and easily
• His kit has aspects that scale into late game
• There is virtually no learning curve

Where to Get Loki in Warframe

To get Loki, you need to defeat the Hyena Pack boss on Neptune. They will drop the blueprints needed to craft Loki.

Beginner’s Loki Build

For people wanting to get a quick sample of Loki’s gameplay, we recommend this build:

 

Rhino – The Most Honorable Mention

Rhino is by all accounts, a must-get Warframe. His kit works incredibly well, he isn’t particularly hard to farm and can be done early on, and his ability Roar, is one of the best damage buffing abilities in the game. On top of that, an upgrade to your Orbiter down the line will allow you to share that ability with other Warframes. So why does he only receive an honorable mention? 

Rhino and Nezha overlap in several areas. Neither is strictly better than the other. The reason we recommend Nezha slightly more than Rhino is that for new players, he offers a lot more for a lot less. Rhino, when modded correctly, can handle everything this game has to offer. But Rhino requires more of the late game tools than Nezha to shine. 

Additionally, Nezha has augments that change the way he plays, or the roles he can fulfill. While Rhino has great augments, they don’t deviate much from his core gameplay loop.

When you only have limited Warframe slots, you need to make the most of them. That said, once you have a former understanding of the game, and have more slots at your disposal, you should absolutely pick up Rhino.

Disclaimer: The information this article contains is based on update 37 build of Warframe. 

Post written by Carra384