I Think the Ignis Wraith is Fine

The Ignis Wraith came out as one of the most used weapons in 2020. Frankly, I’m not surprised. Despite being a top tier weapon, it’s damage isn’t amazing. It’s just a cool flamethrower that’s fun to use. However, just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Still, plenty of people will probably complain about a flamethrower being so popular.

Well, of course it is. We’re playing a hoard shooter.

There’s a constant stream of enemies running at us. While, originally, Warframe was a lot stealthier than it is now, there’s always been lots of enemies. A big part of the game’s appeal is having a myriad of ways to mow enemies down. The Ignis Wraith in particular does a very good job of that. Not only does it spew flames, but it has a nice area of effect and passes through most enemies.

The Ignis Wraith also spreads lots of status effects, and, since it has a higher crit chance than the base Ignis, can potentially deal slash damage with Hunter Munitions. It combos very nicely with Condition Overload builds as well.

The Ignis Wraith actually needs a lot of work.

An Ignis Wraith on its own actually doesn’t do much. It comes with no pre-installed polarities or anything. Really, to make the most of your Ignis Wraith, you need to forma it at least 4 times. The best number of formas, allowing for build flexibility, is 5, but if you want to include a Riven, you might need another Forma. That being said, the disposition on Ignis Rivens is so bad that it’s better to just skip rivens entirely.

Not only that but you need to be MR9 to even obtain a blueprint. Now, low level mastery is pretty easy to obtain. But the MR9 test is notoriously tricky. Ironically because it requires stealth not used anywhere else in the game. Not even spy vaults quite work the same way the MR9, and later MR19, tests do.

It is NOT worth 50 platinum. Or 1 platinum.

Sure, only 10% of all clans have the Ignis Wraith research. But those 10% of clans can make new Ignis Wraith blueprints whenever they want. For the minuscule price of 15,000 credits, you can create one Ignis wraith blueprint. Hence why so many players opt to give out the Ignis Wraith for free. Add in the 2,000 credits trade tax, and you’re only spending 17,000 credits. That’s basically nothing. The supply of Ignis Wraith blueprints is literally infinite.

And, honestly, unless you’re on Nintendo Switch, it’s not worth buying from Baro Ki’Teer either. The only reason Baro beings the Ignis Wraith is because the Nintendo Switch community never participated in Pacifism Defect. So there are no Nintenno clans to have the research.

Ideally, I’d like the Ignis Wraith blueprint to be available elsewhere as well though. Perhaps via Simaris, or maybe in Invasions. After all, most other weapons have alternate paths of acquisition, so the Ignis Wraith should too. But for now, there’s always people willing to give out Ignis Wraith blueprints. All you have to do is ask in anywhere but trade chat, and someone should jump to help. Or you can just ask me, and I’ll give you three Ignis Wraith blueprints.

Either way, it’s not overpowered.

The Ignis Wraith is popular for a lot of reasons, but it’s not that insanely powerful. In fact, the Ignis Wraith actually falls off at around Sortie level. For more difficult content, like Steel Path, the weapon falls off entirely and plenty of other weapons surpass it. While the Ignis Wraith does do a lot of status effects, the damage behind it is still rather low, and more heavily armoured enemies start shrugging off the damage.

However, for the rest of the star chart, the Ignis Wraith is amazing. It’s quick, clean and efficient. And you can use it to easily smash open containers and other things that need destroying. After all, the main reason though is because the Ignis Wraith is easy to use. And in a game where you kill a lot of things, occasionally you just want to turn your brain off for a bit.