Recommended Augments for Warframes
Warframe has a huge amount of, uh, Warframes. And with lots of Warframes comes lots of mods. But we also have plenty of Augment mods, which alter the abilities of various Warframes. Now, some Augment mods are simple tweaks and changes. Some of them alter how an ability works. Others are basically straight buffs to various abilities. While a lot of augments are situational, some augments are kinda too good to not use.
Let’s look at some of them.
Oberon’s Phoenix Renewal
Phoenix Renewal is an augment for Oberon’s Renewal ability, which heals you over time. Phoenix Renewal revives you if you die under Renewal’s effects. Okay, it’s not 100% guaranteed (I’ve died in Arbitrations because Phoenix Renewal hasn’t procced) and it has a 90 second cooldown per player… but damn, a free revive is a free revive. You just flat out don’t die at all. And this applies to everyone affected by Renewal.
There area handful of other revival mods, but they are all based on the Warframe itself. Both Savior Decoy and Venari Bodyguard rely on having Loki’s Decoy or Khora’s Venari die instead of the Warframe. Venari Bodyguard though has a much longer cooldown and Loki’s Decoy is… not… very tanky. Really, Savior Decoy only works if you can hide the Decoy somewhere where enemies can’t attack it.
Nekros’s Despoil
Despoil is an augment for Nekros that changes Desecrate to cost health instead of energy. While this initially seems like a bad downside, Nekros’s Desecrate creates SOOOOO many health orbs that it doesn’t matter! In fact, you can actually combine this with mods like Health Conversion and Equilibrium to make Nekros weirdly tanky and filled with energy. Despoil also means you can get extra loot without the fear of running out of energy.
Frankly, all loot augments are useful. Hydroid’s Pildfering Swarm and Atlas’s Ore Gaze mean even more loot. Khora’s Pilfering Strangledome is also a very useful mod if you’re not building Khora for her Whipclaw ability.
Icy Avalanche, Vampire Leech, Capacitance, Safeguard
Some augments though are more about sharing and caring. These augment mods all allow you to share protection with others, so your team mates don’t die. Nezha’s Safeguard is a relatively cheap augment that easily gives team mates (and operatives and stuff) a nice 45% damage reduction, while Trinity’s Vampire Leech gives overshields as well as energy. Sure, the rest of Trinity’s kit also keeps people alive, but Shields are far stronger than they used to be, due to Adaptation working on them and Shield gating stopping you from insta-dying.
On the other hand, Frost’s Icy Avalanche basically gives nearby allies a temporary Iron Skin! How is that NOT cool?
Infiltrate
Ivara actually has a really nice set of augment mods, but damn, Infiltrate is just too good. You can just waltz in to literally any spy vault you want to with ease. I honestly see no reason why you wouldn’t at least have a mod loadout with Infiltrate, if only so you can make sorties a cakewalk.
The Limits of Augments
Unfortunately, sometimes, a Warframe’s abilities just aren’t that good, once you’ve completed the star chart. Nyx is one such frame (and probably the only one right now). She kinda needs most of her augments to allow her to keep up.
But the problem with this is that you have limited mod space available. There needs to be space left over for vital mods, like Vitality and Intensify. You can’t fill all of those slots up with augments and still be genuinely useful. So you have to pick and choose which augments you’re willing to sacrifice. This actually happens with all Warframes, but since Nyx’s augments are nearly required, it’s more obvious for her.
Really, it’s a bit of a balancing game. But at least most frames tend to have room for one augment without suffering for it…