The Warframes I Enjoy Playing the Most (So Far)

I haven’t written here for years.

Things had happened which kept me from properly gaming and writing. That’s over, and I am at a pretty comfortable place in life now. But most importantly ^{for this article and the site in general}, I started playing Warframe.

I am currently trying to get to MR17 so that I can buy Coda Hirudo and Coda Bubonico, weapons I’ve been eyeing for some time. To that end, I’ve played quite a few different Warframes in an effort to raise my MR. Some I’m indifferent to (Dagath, Mag), some just refused to click for me (Gauss, Gyre), one that I lack key Augments for when I first tried him and I still haven’t gotten around to buying them yet (Sevagoth, which is a shame because I do think Sevagoth Prime is one of the best-looking Warframes around), and one that pissed me off to no end trying to play her (Yareli, I swear trying to play her in most maps is an exercise in frustration, Merulina has the maneuverability of a sunken barge). But I do enjoy most of the Frames I’ve tried so far.

Of all the Frames I’ve played so far, there are two I enjoy playing the most. Before I talk about them, I’ll go through a few others that I like playing more than most:

Ember: I like the heat gauge management, and raining meteors from above is quite cathartic. Honestly the main reason I don’t play her much is because she really needs a lot more work than I have the energy for to be playable in later content. DE please buff her.

Ivara: Turning invisible and nailing enemies to walls is fun.

Rhino: As with most players, Rhino was the first frame I farmed for, and my second frame after my starter. I had the Kogake on him and had an absolute blast brawling across the star chart while face-tanking damage. Incidentally, that was why Lephantis was my least favourite boss to fight for a very long time, because I can’t reach it to punch its faces in. I should get his Prime.

Khora: This part was originally going to precede my Top 3 Warframes that I played with Khora being #3. However, I realized I played Khora far less than my Top 2, to the point where making a Top 3 feels really forced.

Still, I do enjoy playing Khora. I like playing her mainly because her Whipclaw feels great to use, it’s snappy and it strikes with a satisfying crack. Strangledome snares enemies in a radius for her to dispose of at her leisure, and the Augment that increases mob drops by 65% makes her indispensable for resource farming (man I hate Tellurium farms). Also, Venari getting the zoomies, dashing around and taking down enemies is quite a sight.

And now, for my top 2 favourite Warframes gameplay-wise:

Number 2: Lavos

Two words: Valence Formation.

The ability to imbue any element onto guns with guaranteed status chance makes Lavos an amazing weapons platform. I like being able to switch weapon elements on the fly depending on who or what I am fighting. This proves extra useful in The Circuit, where the weapons you have access to is random and you fight multiple different enemy factions at the same time, each with different elemental weaknesses. In regular gameplay, this means you can forgo any mods for status chance or elemental damage and use weapons that otherwise aren’t suited for status-based damage.

Number 1: Valkyr

I just really enjoy slashing everyone into ribbons. Going absolutely feral tearing through hordes is fun.

Aside for that, her Rip Line works more or less the same as Just Cause 2’s grappling hook, which is amazing for a melee-focused frame for getting into people’s face. Moreover, it also just gathers all nearby enemies to the one you latched onto in one spot, making it convenient for you to dispatch them. As of the time of writing, Operation: Belly of the Beast is up right now, and the main game mode of the event is Ascension. The map for it features a large elevator column which you have to move up and down along it to pick up special beacons to summon a miniboss for extra loot. I’ve been using Rip Line to dash through the elevator column. It is probably the second fastest method of traversal there after flying and definitely the most fun.

Her increased defenses and conditional revive also helped me a lot in early Steel Path when I was woefully underprepared. Honestly, she’s pretty much my go-to Warframe for difficult missions since she just doesn’t die.

So far, I’ve really been enjoying the game and I do want to try out a few other Frames. Atlas looks fun, and so does Qorvex. I’ll probably spend some time to gather their blueprints next month*. In the meantime, I have Zephyr and Wukong being fabricated in my Foundry right now, and I really want to try out Wukong just so I can find out why he’s so popular. I swear he’s in at least a third of the public games I play in.

* I did not check the Circuit rewards while writing this and I just found out Atlas is on the rotation this week. Guess I’m getting him early.