How do I increase my damage in Warframe? Know your enemy
If you sometimes wonder why you deal less damage to one enemy than to another, the answer lies in their resistance.
In addition to the four elemental damages of electricity, poison, fire, and cold, there are still more. You can trigger these by combining the aforementioned elements. It is important that you place the two element mods, which you want to combine into a secondary damage, next to each other. What combination options exist can be seen in the image below.
Damage against Grineer, Corpus, and Infested
Now you just need to find out which enemy type is more sensitive to what. However, this is not so simple, as not every enemy of one faction necessarily has the same vulnerability. Generally, you can say that
- The armor of the Grineer can be countered with corrosion,
- Corpus don’t care much for radiation and magnetism, and
- Infested are allergic to fire and corrosion.
If you want to know more precisely, you can scan enemies yourself or have them scanned by a specific companion. Otherwise, you still have the values of impact, puncture, and slash, with the latter being effective especially against Corpus and Infested.
A small tip on the side: If your weapon, for instance, does not deal slash damage, you do not need to equip a mod that increases slash damage. This may sound silly, but this mistake is often made. Just remember: What isn’t there can’t be improved. 😉
The status effect
Now let’s talk about the elusive status effect. Many wonder what this actually is and if it’s worth increasing it with mods. My answer to that is: Yes, with limitations.
If the base status effect is relatively low, such as 10%, then it hardly makes sense to increase it. However, if it is around 20% and the critical hit chance is possibly also low, it is definitely worth it. The status effect indicates how high the chance is to deal additional damage with each shot on an enemy.
But if you have a weapon with a high critical chance AND a high status effect, then upgrading the former is usually more sensible. Still too cryptic? Okay, here’s an example: If you shoot a weapon that deals fire damage at an enemy and trigger a status effect, that enemy will burn for a while and suffer additional damage as a result. If your weapon mainly deals slash damage, the result will be the target bleeding.
In principle, multiple statuses can occur simultaneously on a target. However, which status occurs cannot be controlled by you. You can see if your target is affected by a status under its health bar.
So much for the basics of destruction. Now let’s take care of progress in the game, leveling, rank, and what it brings to increase it.
Level and Rank – where lies the difference?
As already mentioned, the maximum level for Warframes, weapons, and companions is 30.
When it comes to a Warframe, you unlock their various abilities with rising levels, which can then be further improved and enhanced with the right mods. As you level up things, a bar under your profile name and picture fills up. This becomes visible when you open the menu. When it is blinking, you have gathered enough experience to increase your rank.
However, you must complete a small test. You need to kill a certain number of enemies using only the melee weapon or rescue a captured NPC without being noticed. The task changes with each rank. If you fail on the first attempt, you must wait until the next daily server reset (which occurs overnight here) to try again.
But why should you even go through that?
Simply because certain weapons and quests become accessible only upon reaching a higher rank. Furthermore, some Warframes can only be found through quests without purchasing them with real money. Additionally, you have a higher chance of receiving something better as a login reward. By the way, since update 18, you no longer need to log in daily to receive something good. Your login days are simply continuously added, and at certain fixed milestones, for example, at 100 days, you will receive a special reward.
Tips for leveling up
If you want to reach a higher rank, you need to experiment with weapons and Warframes. This is quite fun due to the variety.
It’s also advisable to approach a given mission with a completely different strategy. Whether you would rather rush through the level like a bull in a china shop or take a quieter, stealthier approach, everything is possible. Make yourself invisible with Loki and use bows and throwing stars to silently surprise enemies, or grab a grenade launcher and use Rhino’s Iron Skin ability. As long as this is active, you will take no damage.
Moreover, you can only trade with other players starting from rank 2. With each additional rank, you can conduct one additional trade per day, meaning that reaching rank 5 allows you to trade 5 times a day.
Here are two quick tips that beginners often overlook:
- The Start Platinum, the real money currency of Warframe, cannot be used for trading; however, purchased Platinum can.
- Resources are also not tradable. You must collect these yourself in missions.
What can be traded will also be briefly explained to you in the trade chat window. And now we are directly at the next topic: resources, credits, and the star map. Where can you find these? Right, on the next page.
The star map and farming resources
The star map is your point of contact for selecting various missions. At the beginning, however, you only have access to a single planet.
To access more, you must complete the specified tasks at the bridges to other planets. Once this is done, you need to travel to the corresponding bridge, face a Warframe phantom, and defeat it. After successful activation, the first mission of the next, generally harder planet will be available to you.
Each planet has 4 resources. One of them is usually rare, appearing less frequently than the others. These include items like Neural Sensors or Orokin Cells. But don’t panic. Identical resources are found on other planets; for example, Ferrite or Rubedo are not exclusive to a single planet.
Resources can be dropped by enemies and can also be found in various crates, containers, and lockers of a level. It can be worth it to open everything that is not nailed down.
Here’s a little tip for collecting resources: The boss of a planet generally has a higher chance of dropping the rare resource. So repeatedly taking him out can be a quick way to stock up on your supply of rare resources.
In general, endless missions, such as Defense and Survival, are also well-suited for filling your bags. Endless because they can theoretically be played indefinitely – although the difficulty increases over time. In contrast to non-endless mission types, such as extermination (killing a specified number of enemies) or sabotage.
Derelict and Void – What is that?
If you’ve looked closely and are now wondering what this ‘Void’ and this Orokin wreck are, let me tell you that there are also different mission types.
However, you will only be granted access to derelict missions if you have certain resources to build a key for them. Additionally, you may find a vault here that can only be opened with one of the four Dragon Keys, which you must craft and equip. Inside, you will find very good and rare mods that can help you a lot, especially in the later stages towards the endgame.
Tip: If you want to go there early, find a team, as each player can only equip 1 key. This way, at least one of you will have the right key. But be careful: Each of the four Dragon Keys has a different penalty that will affect you as long as it is equipped. For example, one key will greatly reduce your damage, another will significantly deplete your health.
To access the Void, however, you do not need a key. If you explore the levels of the Void thoroughly, you’ll find some secrets and perhaps even rarer mods. So keep an eye out for one of many parkour rooms.
And now we have arrived at an important topic: Is Warframe as a free-to-play title truly f2p? Or is it more pay-to-win? Find out.
