Even More Tips for Warframe Sorties

Sometimes I forget how much of a struggle Sorties can be if you’re a newer player. I forgot how much of a struggle they were for me, and I didn’t really feel that struggle go away until I hit MR16. At that point, I’d forma’d all my favourite gear and I had a nice, reliable arsenal of weapons to choose from. But before then, sorties feel like nothing  but bullet sponges while you die with ease. So, following on from my other articles, here are yet more tips for Warframe sorties.

Get Tanky

Enemies in sorties tend to do more damage than enemies in normal missions. So it’s worth bringing a tankier Warframe so you don’t die too much. The easiest tanky Warframes to obtain are Rhino and Valkyr, their parts obtained by killing the bosses of Venus and Jupiter. Both Rhino and Valkyr offer buffs to yourself as well as being harder to kill, and Tenno in any squad will also appreciate those buffs. Other good, easy-to-obtain frames include Nezha and Wukong, available from clan Dojos, and Gara, whose Splinter Storm will give 90% damage resistance and can easily be kept up by pressing 4 occasionally.

Get a good weapon for every weapon type

This means you need one good Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Bow, Rifle, Secondary Weapon and Melee Weapon. What these weapons are is up to you, but pick one weapon that you like from each of these categories and spend some time on it. Put a Potato and some Forma into it. Maybe even get a Riven Mod for it. Love it and nurture it. Because when the X Weapon Only missions pop up, you don’t want to be caught off guard.

As for what weapons to bring, that’s up to you. The Hek, Tigris, Arca Plasmor, Phantasma and the new Exergis are all very good shotguns; the Vectis, Vectis Prime, Rubico, Rubico Prime and Lanka are all very good sniper rifles; the Dread is the best traditional bow but many people use the explosive Lenz, while there are tons of good secondary and melee weapons to use.

Read the Sortie Missions Carefully

Sure, the Ignis Wraith is my favourite weapon, but I can’t just take it into any Sortie as it is. Sometimes you need to step back and plan before you jump in. If an Enhanced Armour sortie mission pops up, you take Corrosive weapons, even if you’re playing against Infested. If it’s an Enhanced Shields mission, then you take Slash, Toxin, Gas and Magnetic damage to kill enemies quickly.

For example, I recently had trouble with an Ambulas Assassination Sortie, the type was Elemental Enhancement: Radiation, the main element Ambulas is weak to, so I had to look up other elements to use. I ended up taking Valkyr, who can easily kill Ambulas with her Hysteria. But I also spoke to my team mates, splitting us up into two teams to make sure we could cover the two Ambulas that would spawn.

You don’t need to kill everyone, unless it’s an Exterminate or a Defense mission

This sounds like dumb advice, but you don’t actually need to kill anyone in most missions. Most of the time, some good old crowd control will do the job. Heck, if you do a rescue mission, you don’t need to kill anyone! All you need to do is free the hostage then get to extraction before the hostage dies. In fact, not killing enemies can sometimes be beneficial – if you do an Interception and don’t kill anyone, then you get less enemies spawning. Spy missions require no killing what so ever, you just get into the vault, hack the console and get out.

Even with Exterminate missions, you can somewhat pick and choose who to kill. Why waste time killing a Nox when you can kill three other enemies in half the time? Defense missions are the only missions which require every single enemy to be killed.

Don’t jump into Sorties if you don’t think you’re ready

The first sortie I did was at MR4. I didn’t complete it and and my Volt and his Braton were completely steamrolled by the level 60 enemies. I wasn’t ready for Sorties and I didn’t do them properly until I was MR9, when I at least had a few more good weapons and a Rhino so I didn’t instantly die. With the current star chart now, you can’t even start sorties until you hit MR5, and you need to have completed the War Within as well.

Really, if you find the enemies on Sedna difficult, then it’s worth waiting a bit before you jump into Sorties. Get yourself some frames and weapons you like.

Finally, there are two tips from the previous articles that are worth mentioning.

Firstly, ask for help!

There are always people around to help. You can always ask in Recruitment Chat to get a squad to help you. You can ask clan mates to help if needed. Heck, you can set matchmaking into Public and wait to join a squad that will help you through a mission. If you get carried by your team mates, so be it. Not everyone can be the best, and frankly the end of mission text has no value anyway. As long as you try and do your best, no one minds.

Lastly, if you really can’t do a sortie, then don’t worry about it.

There’s always another sortie tomorrow. Don’t worry about not doing a sortie, because you can always just wait until there’s an easier one. There’s no loss when you don’t do a sortie, you can just get your Anasa Ayatan Sculpture tomorrow. The rewards aren’t even that rare, there are regular invasions and Gift of the Lotus alerts for Orokin Catalysts, Reactors and Exilus Adapters, Forma can be obtained via Sorties and Riven Mods can be obtained via other players.

Really, don’t worry about not being able to do a Sortie. You just need a bit of practice, that’s all.

In the mean time, there are plenty of other things to do. There’s standing to earn for Syndicates, Fortuna, Cetus and Cephalon Simaris, there’s Invasion missions, there are planets and nodes to unlock and relics to open. So don’t worry too much about doing or not doing sorties, you can always do them later.