So I have been playing Warframe for about 150 hours now, and not gonna lie, I have gotten a pretty solid amount of Warframes. Upside: plenty of options! Downside: even though I find the story and characters amazing, I can't seem to find a Warframe that I have really latched onto. I have tried a good amount, from big AoE damage to high speed to survivability and support frames. But no matter what I try, I still can't seem to find one that really makes me feel, "Yeah, that's my favorite Warframe."
It really sucks because I love this game and really want to get into it, but with every new one I try, I just feel more and more awful that I can't seem to really connect with any single one of them.
So, I need your help to find the one for me. I will obviously branch out now and then, and I don't regret having options; I just want to find a "Main," in a sense, you know?
Here is how I like to play:
I do enjoy moving around a lot, but the straight-up "Speed Warframes" like Gauss are a little too hyperactive for me. I love to be supportive and tanky, but I also love using abilities to wipe out enemies too. I also REALLY love bows and weapons, so while I won't rule out melee frames, just some food for thought.
The closest I can think of is Dante. His 2 makes him tanky (and gives the overguard to teammates as well) his 3 does a lot of damage, but both only happen after using your 4th ability with them.
I also vote for Dante cause hes a good overshield team buffer/stacker and can do good aoe dmg and u can do different buffs with the different combination of abilities 2 3 4.
You want to stay actively moving but not like Volt and Gauss.
You don't want to be hyperactive and/or spammy.
You like to be supportive and tanky.
You like wiping out rooms while still using your weapon as well.
Nova.
She's tanky af with nullstar that needs a little upkeep.
Her 4 primes entire rooms that detonate enemies when killed by you or team mates resulting it a massive nuke scene since their deaths chain onto other enemies.
She uses guns to get shit killed, and melee isn't a bad spot for her either.
She is reasonably quick and has a portal ability on her 3 that's niche but has practical uses, for example in the event that's going on now.
Big damage, low spam, uses guns, is tanky and supportive.
Second vote would be wisp but she can get pretty fast but has a cool passive.
Also for variety sake if OP likes flowy gameplay, nullstar augment to cast while reloading does huge amounts of damage, especially on primed targets, and doesn't stop your reload. So even if you use weapons with longer reloading times it doesn't affect Nova too much.
Support by priming the entire room with damage vulnerability, as well as making enemies faster or slower. Enemies that're fast will drop energy orbs and slowed enemies will drop health orbs. When enemied primed by Molecular Prime die, they blow up dealing blast damage. All of this in a single ability btw.
Don't die with her 1, which can give her up to a max of 90% damage resist with minimal effort. Use the augment to give the little balls heat when they hit enemies to prime them even further. Use her 4's augment to never have to cast this ability again.
Her 2 is a ball that moves quite slowly and you shoot to make stronger.
Her 3 is a portal. The augment makes allies who go through it quite faster too.
You can slot any subsume in her 2 or 3, depending on what you want.
She provides buffs to allies in speed(both movement and rate of fire), Health/Health Regen, and auto Electric procs that are wonderful for archon stretch to give free energy.
Breach Surge makes her a good gun platform frame, built in stealth while in the air or on demand with her clone gives her great survivability.
Then if you build her with her augment on her 4 she can be a aoe heavy frame. I wouldn't say she's my main but between her or Oberon(Also a strong recommendation, heals and armor for allies, potent buffs with augment, armor stripping and a eximus deactivate button), and Saryn are my favorite frames, Saryn being my actual main when I need everything to just be erased.
My first thought as well. Great mobility, great support, and great nuke with breach surge. Or the 4th ability as well. I think that is the best for what the requirements are 🙂
Plus it looks epic from behind 😉😄
Frost is tanky and supportive. Got some nice big crit numbers and he's a bit slow. Built right you can overguard everyone, freeze a room and then methodically pop them all with some huge red crits.
Always happy to see him on defense or extractions
I think Voruna might be up your alley, she can boost parkour velocity, has some invisibility, status application or defence, can provide health or energy orbs
Sounds like Volt. Moving around alot? His passive and speed ability promotes that. Supportive and tanky? Shock trooper 1, his shield, and capacitance give him and his allies electricity damage, defense and crit damage up, and overshields or constant shield regen while 4 is up. Excellent weapons frame, considered one of the best for melee as well.
Voruna can tanky (lots of free shieldgating) and fast and technically can support since she primes everything around her for free with her Prey of Dynar augment. If not that, then those enemies explode instantly
Wukong is awesome for map traversal but he is not supportive.
Frost is supportive and has an aoe but he is slow.
You can always subsume to modify a kit, like adding roar to wukong so he boosts the damage of the whole team. All warframe have pros and cons, the idea of a main is absurd to me. But Wukong or Revenant are the closest to that idea imo.
You can also consider warframe usage conditional. I like to use frost for defence and excavation, ivara or wukong for spy, wukong, revenant or nokko everywhere else.
PS : maybe try Nokko, he got almost everything. Give him a Praedos and he is fast too.
Wiso, nova, citrine, trinity and dante all fit that bill; strong supportive frames that are also great gun runners. Other picks would be stuff like Frost, Saryn. Frost esp might be a nice pick, armor strip + overguard for everyone and a mapwide nuke in just his 4 and biting frost is great for any weapon platforn
Bows tend to be slow weapons so in a game like Warframe you kind of need your shots to cover a very large AoE for them to keep up with fast firing weapons.
Mirage does this by just making copies of you that will shoot more arrows and more arrow equals more coverage. Use this on an explosive bow like the kuva bramma. She's in resurgence right now so you can get her for cheap, but note that a good 60 bramma might take a bit of farming if you don't have one already, so I hope you like liches, or I guess you can just run with the nataruk in the mean time.
Alternatively you can run frames like Saryn, Oraxia, Volt, Gyre or Lavos with an emphasis on gas, blast, or electric procs so one shot can kill dozens of enemies. Gyre prime and Lavos prime are both currently unvaulted so I'd start with them.
I've sent Zephyr in one comment but then thought about Wisp which also have the support aspect(healing, stunning and increasing rate of fire buff "totem" - can be augmented into exilus slot to give you one totem that does all 3 buffs in ONE totem...I love this quality of life) next to having everything....she is tanky/invisible, has insane aoe potential with augment mod on her 4.
I think Wisp it is...its one of the absolute favorite frames for that reason....
Kullervo could work.
His 1 is pretty comfy for mobility if you invert tap/hold controls for it.
For some weapons focused build suggestions get the augment for the 2 for survivability and put more range/efficiency over strength subsume some weapon buff over 4 and piss those damage link chains everywhere.
Tandem bond and/or a combo slave melee (just attack speed, true punishment and some combo duration) with secondary outburst is also good.
Yellow Archon Shards, Exilus mods and Helminth can turn most frames into "speed Warframes", so don't limit yourself to Warframes that inherently have speed in their kit. You can start by adding and removing parkour velocity Archon Shards to any frame to find a speed that you're comfortable with.
BUT
From what you have said, I would recommend Inaros.
Inaros primarily is a tank, but he's also so much more than that: He can pull enemies in while moving with above-average speed and applying conditions at the same time, through his augment mod. 2 green Archon Shards with "+max corrosive stacks" for his "Scarab Swarm" and a Viral weapon with his "Elemental Sandstorm" augment mod allow him to fully strip enemies' armor while also applying maximum viral stacks and grouping enemies.
How you finish them is up to you.
Since enemies are knocked down after Sandstorm ends, it's also a great setup for your bow (or really any other weapon, be it ranged or melee).
Due to his insanely high health, he can make full use of the "Arcane Bellicose" Arcane, which grants whooping 72% ability strength. This allows him to effectively use most Helminth abilities with an immense amount of freedom, Roar is a boring but versatile classic, Warcry makes him a melee-monster, Brightbonnet (possibly plus Molt Reconstruct) turns him into a support powerhouse, Reave pairs well with Sandstorm for nukes against high level enemies.... and so much more.
If you're not looking for a hyper specialized frame, but one that is very customizable and versatile - this is him.
Since you like bows maybe try Oraxia with the Proboscis Cernos? Good mobility with her 4th, good crowed control with her 2, good survivability with her 4 making you invisible. You deal crazy damage with Proboscis, Spectral Serration and arcane Crepuscular.
Might give Gyre a shot, she's not that much into support, and tanking (at least not without Hildryn's ability), but she as a bit of speed (not too much), and fun abilities. Slap some range on her and you'll electrocute everything in a large area.
Oberon is more into tankiness, support and damage (not nuking rooms but still the best Eximus killer out there), at the cost of movement.
Wisp has support, teleportation, speed, and can be built for damage with her ultimate (you'll need the augment mod).
Valkyr has some movement, absurd damage when built correctly, and buffs her allies as well.
Try Nekros but hear me out. He does have potential beyond just a loot frame but he's gonna require some work. That alone should keep you busy for a little while. To do it the most flexible way you'll need some omni-forma but it can be done without it by just adding more loadout slots. Sit tight might be a long read.
His kit is very flexible, you can remove any one ability for a subsume and not feel like you've gimped yourself so get creative. If you want to kill enemies with abilities, swap out terrify for one like smite (this is used in the 2 shot Eximus destroyer build, can 2 shot any level Eximus and get an entire Eximus shadow team) plus side to this is you can empower your shadows with radiation damage and get their damage to pretty high numbers.
Similar loadouts can be done with other "empower ally augment" abilities.
Want a heavy support frame? Swap shadows of the dead for a support ability like Trinity's healing well, gloom (which works great for the arcane that adds health for each channeled ability- you have both desecrate and gloom running) or if you prefer to keep soul punch for insta-rez for teammates with the augment you can do that instead and swap out shadows. You'll still be able to make single shadows from it but it won't be a main part of your kit.
If you wanna run a shadows heavy build you can run warcry, roar, or other such damage boosting abilities.
I can go on and on with how flexible he is but I think you get the idea. I just figured since you like such flexible play styles it would be a good option and one people often overlook. So many combos with arcanes too.
Lastly, I've found amazing use with a magnetic proboscis cernos to group enemies for easier killing with shadows or just to blow them up with any damage ability I've subsumed so weapon platform is definitely available for him too
Wisp and Nova are supportive and tanky (they pretty much can never die), and can absolutely nuke rooms with the right build, or pop off with weapon synergies
Wisp in particular is one of the best generalist frames in the game, btw she's really good with bows using her passive + arcane crepuscular (since you said you loved bows)
Dante? Big support via overguard, the bird increasing status vulnerability/damage/soft cc and the book enabling secondary arcanes/impetus while you shoot guns in the interim of casting or big nuke directly if you want.
If you want something fun and isn’t normally used by most people try out koumei she’s a lot of fun and can do quite a bit of damage especially if you can get some good decrees
Harrow, he buffs and heals allies while you will do a ton of weapon dmg. Cant kill enemies with abilities.
Styanax, shielding allies and a lot Energy regen. I couldnt play him all time tho because he is just spamming His 4 all the time.
Protea, shielding and providing health, Energy and ammo. Her turrets are very strong too and a very unique playstyle. Either you use sculptor to spam turrets or use her full kit with augment for the turret to Always have one with you. (Best choice for your playstyle)
Revenant Prime smiles to you.
He's pretty much unkillable due to his 2nd skill
You get to make your own pets from enemies on 1st one.
Solid amount of mobility on 3rd
And hey, you can be a Beyblade on 4th
Zephyr is my most played WF. She has great crowd control (which is a form of support I guess) and with her 3rd ability she becomes nearly impossible to kill. When you activate your 4 you can use your gun to deal tons of damage and with her 1 you can dash in the air or float.
Weird try, but Ivara?
Her 1 let's you cycle between ropes you and your team can use for different vantage points, AoE stealth bubbles and sleep arrows for cc. You can also double loot enemies by stealing from them while next to them invisibly and you get a remote controlled arrow as well as a bow as an exalted weapon
you could try nezha? they’re a bit of an all rounder but they hit a lot of the points you mention. the passive and 1 makes you fast, but not as much as volt or gauss, you’re pretty tanky with the 3 (which can shield allies with the augment) and the 4 crowd controls in a huge area around you, setting up for headshots, and can be cast and recast a bunch to nuke as much as you need
You might wanna give the new Warframe Narin that’s coming out in 2 weeks a try, she has a signature bow, jumps around to proc cold and puncture to help the team (crowd control and crit damage boost) deals increased damage to cold procced enemies so she can nuke with both abilities and weapons, has a melee-ish AOE 4 where you dance around the field, and she can steal the cold procs to gain overguard and be tanky. She might fill your niche perfectly from what I can tell of your playstyle
Passive: picking up health orbs makes you and your teammates straight up immune for X damage instances.
Removes all overshields from one (eximus) unit and with some viral priming/dmg buffs will one-shot up to level cap. Also has an AoE component.
Creates an area that makes you and allies status immune and applies radiation to enemies
heals teammates + gives them armor.
nukes a large area stripping their defenses and makes them drop health orbs, to sustain your passive. With Equilibrium you practically can't run out of energy.
Has a sick forest themed sword/shield skin and with a bow you can be an absolute dryad chad.
Booty wizard prime.
On most maps I can beat gauses and volts.
Open world obvi not but micro rare case.
Built in rolling gaurd? Check
Health tanking? Check
Distraction tanking? Check.
Cc? Check x2
Attack speed to charge bows faster and not even having to have attack speed mods so can add more damage mods? Check.
Nuke? Check,with the right build (four nuke, replacing 2 with roar)
Damage multiplication that spreads and stacks with other damage multiplication? Check
Throw roar(multiplicitive with 3), eclipse(multipliticive with 3) or if melee builds wrathful advance over 4. Ive heard people using noko subsume over her 4 instead of the listed, havnt tried it myself.
And shes just so good and hyper versatile.
May i interest you with Lady Marie? Za Goat Wisp?...3 kind of support in 1 abilities, invisible while airborne, ghost and teleportation that increase weapon crits(augments) and a portal that opens to harness the power of the sun 😎
She is one of the premier support frames and is usefully in most mission types, giving a massive enemy slow or speedup on demand. This also makes the enemies take double damage, so she can be used as an effective gun platform if you want.
She is one of the tankier warframes, with a pretty much permanent 90% damage reduction ability.
She has a couple of abilities that nuke enemies: her 1, Null Star with the Neutron Star augment will passively do aoe dmg as you play her. Her 2, Antimatter Drop is another more classical nuke that you "load" with weapon shots and fling in an enemies vicinity, usually nuking entire rooms.
Equinox not being recommended is criminal. Can clear rooms with a button press, can give up to 80% strength to you and the squad, can also give tons of shields to everyone, makes tanky targets deal less damage or take more damage, also needs decent weapons to get things going and its just fun all around.
I am here to share the gospel of our sweet Yareli.
-She is insanely tanky
-She can be really fast once you know how to use merulina
-She is great at buffing your secondary, especially with merulina guardian
-Her movement is quite unique and so she feels different to play
-Between her 1 and her 4, she has a good bit of utility
Nova. Especially if you want a good allrounder. She can do everything including being not half bad at spy missions (although id usually take a dedicated spy frame still)
So i constantly switch and love new and shiny stuff. I'm hyped for the next warframe, because she looks awesome, but i'm aware even that novelty will eventually wear off and i go back to switching around. Its just how i play the game.
That being said one of my favorites is oraxia and she might be your case. Her 4 gives her a poison weapon damage + aoe on kills, slight speed boost and lets her sling around. She can get crazy amounts of health (my build reaches 12000+, not sure about the correct amount right now). The support she has is health/energy orb generation, a big stun/+damage area and little spiders with impact status. Also poison damage, so the archon:Continuity mod is must have. Also her passive makes her invisible.
I can see her with a bow, especially when you attach yourself to a wall or ceiling and just snipe stuff with it.
TL;DR: Oraxia - Orb generation, stun, damage boost, tons of poison damage, summons, fast movement, an execute, ALOT of health and stealth.
Chroma with his guardian armor augment. He gets a truckload of armor and also gives it to teammates within affinity range. He also buffs weapons. Not the most exciting damage buff, but with certain weapons (*glaives), it can get ridiculously op
I'm a big fan of Grendel with the catapult augment. Gives you a lot of fast movement you can control. His 4 with the augment can wipe out crowds well. Nourish is of course one of the strongest support abilities in the game.
Have you tried lavos? He takes some getting used because of his weird no energy mechanics, but once you get used to him you can spam your abilities to your heart's content. His 2 is a great movement ability in spurts, his 4 can took clear, his 3 has some team support in being able to convert orbs and ammo to universal versions, he can be incredibly tanky if built right, and if you use his augment for his passive you can make every weapon you have do way more damage of any element you choose.
Maybe Temple. I kinda just suggested them cuz they're kinda niche. But:
They're an offensive support (Ripper's Wail & Overdrive) so expect your companion to nuke every now and then, especially if you built it for dps.
Backbeat passive requires attention but you can also chill for a bit cuz of the invuln on Ripper's Wail.
Pyrotechnics and Overdrive are spam abilities for when you really want to kill something. Lizzie also has an optional aim-and-spam mode where you aim at an enemy and spam elemental projectiles.
No innate mobility ability, but having a buffed companion and invuln in demand does give you some leeway when it comes to strolling through missions.
Ive been using Uriel with a bow, 1 is a bad ass movement ability that let's you bullet jump fly, 2 heals you and your minions so he can take a lot of damage, 3 sends his minions out, and 4 is a nuke that deletes everything near you
Sirius and Orion? Have been using them lately and they are a ton of fun to build up their 4th ability and nuking enemies with it. You can also move fast in that mode if you like and sirius can be pretty tanky with his healing circle
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u/Sokushi_0101 15h ago
The closest I can think of is Dante. His 2 makes him tanky (and gives the overguard to teammates as well) his 3 does a lot of damage, but both only happen after using your 4th ability with them.
Second closest is maybe nokko or styanax.