On Using Low Forma Warframe Builds

I don’t like using Forma on my Warframes. Having done so much leveling stuff up over the years, I generally dislike the idea of having to level something again. I’m Legendary Rank 2 and have done my fair share of leveling things up, and using Forma means exactly that, more leveling. I also dislike having things that are not leveled up, they look messy in my arsenal, and the only weapons I allow to be under-leveled are Kuva and Tenet weapons, which require five Forma EACH. While I don’t mind leveling weapons that much, I really dislike leveling Warframes for a second or third time. So over the years, I have kinda developed my own builds.

All my Warframe builds generally have only one or two Forma in them. They’re designed to be incredibly cheap, so I don’t have to forma them. I’ll include mods that aren’t fully maxed out, or I’ll avoid using heavy mods like the Umbral mods. I actually have two Umbral Intensifies, one maxed out and one that’s only partially leveled up so I can fit it into frames with not much capacity. While these builds aren’t perfect, they work fine for the majority of the star chart. Sure, I can’t really go for multiple hours Steel Path Survival, but I don’t want to do that anyway.

That being said, I do try and fit Primed Sure Footed on a lot of Warframes. The quality of life upgrade outweighs the massive cost of the mod. Plus, a lot of Warframes already have a D slot in them. Being able to ignore anything that can knock you down or make you flinch just feels so much better. And explosive weapons no longer feel like a problem at all. Although that being said, apparently there are rumours that explosive weapons will go back to having some form of self damage in the future, so Primed Sure Footed might fall out of favour.

Admittedly, they have changed how forma on Warframes work. Now, if you forma a Warframe, depending on your mastery rank, your freshly forma’d Warframe will have the ability levels equal to your mastery level. So if you are MR10, for example, you’ll at least have your 4th ability unlocked and ready to use, even if the Warframe itself is at rank 0. This means that a MR30 player will have all their abilities unlocked at rank 0, which is very handy. This makes leveling a Warframe up less of a chore.

This kinda means that I don’t have an excuse any more. The tedious part, unlocking abilities again, is no longer a problem. And being over MR30, I have all slots available as it is. A newer player might struggle to fit a build in while leveling up their Warframes, but I don’t have any such worries.

But really, once you get the primed version, you only need a couple of forma anyway. Most modern primed Warframes come with LOTS of polarities already installed, meaning you can get a workable build going pretty darn quickly. For example, even though my normal Volt has 4 Forma in it, it still works as well as my Volt Prime, that only has two Forma in it.

At the end of the day though, I should probably start using more Forma on my Warframes. I don’t have an excuse not to, and my builds could probably be improved. At least I don’t need to unlock abilities any more…