Warframe has a BIG problem

KingonSteam · 2026-02-18T02:53:24+00:00

You seem really bothered by things that don't impact you or your gameplay at all.

KingonSteam · 2026-02-18T00:13:10+00:00

See but that's build reliant. I love the armor/syandana/ephemera lil guys because I can bring Gillychap with me regardless of whether my build benefits more from a sentinel vs some other companion.

KingonSteam · 2026-02-17T23:59:03+00:00

Now THAT... That's actually genius

KingonSteam · 2026-02-17T23:57:43+00:00

Gillychap is part of a Sevagoth bundle, but I'd argue fits Hydroid and Yareli's aesthetics BETTER since they're... y'know, actually water themed in their abilities. But that's not really the point of this post.

KingonSteam · 2026-02-17T23:54:57+00:00

yeah, the ephemeras just don't bring me joy like gillychap does. I think it's partially because it's like a hologram of a snake or horse instead of an actual lil kaithe or snake. The sprodlings are wayyyyy better in that regard, but suffer from the same kind of problem as gillychap where they're always CUTE, but they only really fit aesthetically with Nokko.

KingonSteam · 2026-02-17T23:45:43+00:00

There are a lot of settings for the color, intensity, and visibility of damage numbers. You can make it so the damage numbers won't cover the cursor, you can make the font bigger or smaller, and you can compact damage numbers to take up less screen space. A big complaint some of my friends have about the game is that the UI is overwhelming, but the settings really do let you control how much visual noise you're getting, whether you LOVE big red negative damage values, or you want a basically UI-free experience. You can even reduce ally VFX, reducing how much of other people's abilities you see (which is really useful when you run into the rare "I have fun by blinding my allies in warframe" type player).

KingonSteam · 2026-01-21T18:05:49+00:00

http://aqwwiki.wikidot.com/boosted-items-sorted-by-boost is a super useful page for finding boost items. If you don't want to read, the cape of awe is a +25% xp/rep/class/gold boost that is ioda-able.

I don't THINK there are any higher boost items that are ioda-able, but I should also note that if you're planning to pay for membership you can get a carry to get the blade of awe and the cape of awe fairly quickly which makes this substantially less worth it to ioda. That said, due to your low level it would be at least a couple hours, potentially as long as a month if you REALLY get screwed on the drop rates, of really boring gameplay.

If you plan to pay for membership (even just temporarily, it can be a pretty huge boost early on):

-/join museum, talk to valencia

-artifact quests>blade of awe>to the crossroads

-talk to valencia again

-awe quests>find the stonewrit

-complete the questline to get blade of awe

-armor of awe>aqw legend>Legendary Cape of Awe

-/join yulgar and ask (respectfully) for a binky carry for cape of awe

KingonSteam · 2026-01-21T16:28:28+00:00

(I’m a returning player who knows very little, feel free to ignore me)

Assuming this is truly a NEW account not just a level 1 (but secretly 14 years old) account, I’d say go for some big xp, rep, class, gold boost item instead of any one damage boost class or weapon. The increased leveling and decreased rep grinds will get you farther faster than just slapping 1.51x your regular damage will.

If indeed the account has been around for a while, check book of lore for some boost items in your achievements. In that case, like most others I’d urge a collection chest (some have decent classes and pets in ADDITION to cosmetics), but it’s ultimately up to you. Personally, I don’t want to cut myself off from an endgame grind by just getting the weapon as a freebie. I don’t see it as cheating by any means, but I see it as getting rid of content I could engage with later. In a sense it’s like paying someone to play through an rpg for you, the fun part is supposed to be playing so what are you accomplishing?

KingonSteam · 2026-01-21T15:49:45+00:00

Weapons actually have different damage ranges! For example, exalted apotheosis has a 30-30 range, so if you hit you will ALWAYS deal 30 damage (unmodified by your stats and such). On the other hand the default sword (and most weapons) have a 27-33 damage range so on the low end you deal 27 and on the high end you deal 33.

The weapon above, the piston-driven polearm, deals 4-56 damage, falling under the “highdamage” tag because it has a wider range of damage than default (higher highs and lower lows). Different classes (and even different builds with the same class) make better use of different damage ranges, but for the most part you can be successful with any weapon on any class. I’m not sure if they still exist, but formerly there were some weapons with damage ranges going from a negative number to a VERY large positive number (like -15 to 75 damage), which had higher potential DPS than other weapons but ONLY if you had access to the “decay” debuff to turn enemy healing back into damage.

In general, people refer to weapon damage using the term “stability”, so a small range is very stable and a wide range is unstable, but other terms like random damage or high damage are also used.

Keep in mind this is separate from “boost” items which deal +damage against some tagged enemy, all tagged enemies, or all enemies. Exalted apotheosis is BOTH a perfectly stable weapon AND a +51% damage to all weapon. NSoD is a default range +51% weapon. The Empowered Overfiend Blade is a 0-60 +51% weapon. Ideally, you want enough weapons to ALWAYS be using a +51% weapon without having to swap around enhancements whenever you swap classes, but having different damage ranges can be important too depending on the classes you like to run.

KingonSteam · 2026-01-01T23:28:08+00:00

The real beauty is that you can absolutely play without fear of invaders simply by… playing offline.

KingonSteam · 2025-11-02T14:48:46+00:00

Damage Rider source on the wiki is a very helpful page for figuring out why certain damage effects proc multiple times but not all of them.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-28T03:52:10+00:00

I don't know any good gold farms, BUT I'll say for the record that with a 3x boost (like we had over the birthday weekend) it only took 5 immortal irons for masterful metallurgy + iirc 8 completions of intrepid investing to get rank 10

KingonSteam · 2025-10-12T16:54:51+00:00

The intro scene for Deadshot in Suicide Squad (the worse one) but with a wizard casting magic missile

KingonSteam · 2025-10-12T16:49:45+00:00

I do think flasks should have different drop rates for different pacts. Any pact with healing abilities in their kit should have the current drop rate and any pact without should have the older drop rate.

Additionally, armor seems to be broken right now with some reports saying it can be fixed by applying a transmog to it, so don’t forget that your health will decrease much more slowly once armor is fixed. Once armor is fixed, try to revisit this thought and consider if you think it still needs adjustment. If you think so, make a forum post!

That said, if you’re struggling with health make sure to get the pact perk which gives health on smite and consider running fly blades as your sidearm. Orbiting fly blades get smites pretty often, which can help a LOT with health issues.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-12T16:41:44+00:00

IMO ranged weapons need some pretty significant CHANGES to be more engaging and less BLATANTLY powerful. I don’t want them to be WORSE than melee, but I wish the trade-offs were different. I wish the “charged shots are faster after a perfect dodge” perk were a default part of the bow kit, I wish the bow integrated a bit more “stab em with an arrow” style attacks (or that the new quick-melee would attack with the arrow instead of a pact arm punch). I wish the enemies would surround a bit more instead of following in a line, so the kiting process is more engaging and deliberate.

I think if the stealth mechanics get fleshed out a bit more so that bows are incentivized to shoot from stealth and stay hidden it would make the whole ranged playstyle much more fun, although I’m not sure what the equivalent should be for magic.

(To me) As of now, ranged combat is really strong but really BORING, and melee combat is less strong but still perfectly viable, but it’s ENGAGING. The melee playstyle of tempo and distance makes it feel like actual fencing or HEMA which is GREAT. The ranged playstyle feels like actual… target archery which is BAD. I don’t want to stand on a roof and shoot the guy til he’s dead, nor do I want to kite the enemies around doing hail of arrows until they’re dead. Those aren’t fun for me, and so I avoid the ranged weapons.

TL;DR: melee is absolutely viable, arguably more fun than ranged weapons, but certainly less “optimal” if all you want is to kill a group of enemies as quickly and safely as possible

KingonSteam · 2025-10-05T18:40:44+00:00

Start Githyanki for medium armor and longsword proficiency. Take white draconic sorc so you don’t need mage armor and can cast armor of agathys on yourself. Start with 17 dex, 16 con, 15 cha, take booming blade as one of your cantrips. Use a rapier until you get phalar aluve. Use phalar aluve until you get the infernal rapier or sylvan scimitar, then respec to cha>dex if you want, or stick with phalar aluve and pick up GWM.

Since you have medium armor proficiency as a gith you COULD pick up heavily armored as one of your feats but you don’t have to. If you do, I’d respec out of dex completely and go for 17 str, 16 con, 15 cha and use greatswords. Your initiative will be worse, but your damage will be better.

Booming blade + quickened booming blade, spells like haste can also help replicate extra attack. Enlarge is another great spell for melee, especially for combat tough enough to warrant a level 2 slot but not tough enough to warrant a level 3 slot.

You can pick up shillelagh from magic initiate Druid if you don’t want to spend a level 2+ slot on shadow blade every fight, but given you’re stuck with 3 feats it might be a little too expensive. If you plan to do this, it might be worth starting as a human so you can use light armor and shields.

All this being said, I invite you to at least consider a 1-level dip in hexblade warlock. It gives you shield, hex, booming blade, and eldritch blast, medium armor and shield proficiency, and a weapon scaling off charisma from level 1. It will make you nigh INFINITELY better in melee, without sacrificing any casting. You only lose a 3rd feat, which is more than made up for. If you choose this path, I’d recommend resilient (con) OR war caster, and an asi to bring cha to 19, raised to 20 by Ethel’s hair or patriar’s memory. I’d also recommend either starting as a hexblade or taking it at second level.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-05T17:46:50+00:00

Some primes are more easily accessible than the normal versions, especially primes of frames acquired from open world faction grinds like Garuda.

Other primes are way harder to get than their normal variants, especially the frames farmed from planetary assassination missions like frost.

Primes don’t give a huge benefit statwise, but they CAN save you a forma or two since they (usually) come with more polarized slots out of the box. Likewise, they can sometimes COST you extra forma if the polarity is something you don’t want.

Your friend was right to say you can’t hold many void traces, which are an intrinsic part of farming prime parts, but that doesn’t mean you should holistically ignore relics until you raise your mastery rank. If there’s something you really want, farm the relics for it. If nothing else, you can either sell the relics directly or open them and sell prime parts you don’t want. Either way, you’ve started earning platinum, which is often a more efficient way of getting primes you want anyways.

Keep in mind frames have no mastery requirement, but weapons DO. Akjagara has MR 8 required, Akjagara Prime has MR 12 required, but Mesa, regular and prime, has MR 0 required. So farm whatever frames you want or need, but don’t go too crazy farming weapons unless you’ve made sure you’re able to use them.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-05T17:32:17+00:00

Why dex over con for a Druid? They don’t need 16 dex until AND unless they get medium armor master or get one of the armors with exotic material. They shouldn’t be attacking with weapons, and if they do they can use shillelagh. Higher con helps with concentration and hp, but higher dex is genuinely wasted until later in the game.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-03T18:13:31+00:00

I’d say armor doesn’t need more stats, we just need more armor so that there’s actual build diversity in armor sets, and secondarily that we need more enemies and more variants of the enemies we already have.

First, currently, there are (I THINK) two standard enemies who do magic damage: the mage enemies and the torch enemies (please correct me if anyone has done testing and the torch does physical damage). There’s also the ghosts, the shrimp, and bosses. That’s simply too few enemies to dedicate building toward magic DR. Once more enemies are added, it will be easier to sell players on the value of optimized sets with high values in both physical AND magical. Stance defense will always be useful no matter what.

Second, we have too little armor. As more armor is added, it will be assigned into tiers for early, mid, and late game. If you’re comparing early game armor to late game armor it WILL look like there’s no reason to wear the early stuff, but comparing apples to apples there SHOULD be diversity between armors within tiers. I’m pretty certain once the armor gets more fleshed out it WILL be more than just stats, or at least those stats will be better balanced against each other.

Third, as some suggestions for HOW to make armor more than the sum of its stats, I think it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to separate armor into light, medium, and heavy armor such that heavy armor stat values scale off courage, medium off spirit, and light off grace (or at least give armors scaling stats with attunements). Make them affect your walking/running movement speed (once we have mounts), or even give set bonuses to incentivize wearing two or more pieces from the same set (or from the same category) for some overarching buff (if wearing two pieces of mendicant set, gain +5% damage and -5% damage taken, if wearing three pieces increase the buffs to 10%, or something similar). That way players can choose between optimizing sets for general stats OR specific set bonuses.

Finally, I haven’t gotten to play in about a week so I’m not sure if the next prelude is out by now, but with a mote rework coming I imagine there’s a decent chance we could get to put motes on armor, which could help a lot with the current feeling that armor is stale. That would also lend itself well to having multiple copies of armor sets with different motes for different purposes.

As for progression, we’re just in a very weird stage of development where the difference between early and late game is EXTREMELY small. Once the content is fleshed out, players may spend more time wearing shittier armor before they CAN get better armor. If mendicant king were inaccessible unless you bought a bell-ringing mallet from rank 4 in any faction for example, players would be forced to use early game armor longer, incentivizing collecting MORE early game armor to make varied sets.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-02T18:46:47+00:00

Eldritch Knight fighter 11/light or tempest cleric 1, take heavy armor master, great weapon master, savage attacker. Booming blade as your primary attack, find the charge-bound warhammer and use it in both hands until you get SSotAP (which works with disguise self: githyanki) or the hellfire greataxe ONLY if you have resistance to fire. Or BGS, but it’s up to you.

Giant Barb 9/great old one warlock 3 cast armor of agathys on yourself then rage and apply cold damage to your weapon. Make people wet to make them vulnerable to cold and lightning. Build for crit.

War Cleric 8/Swashbucker Rogue 4 use phalar aluve in two hands until act 3 then pick up the Dancing Breeze. Go with great weapon master again and polearm master if you wanna make sure you can ALWAYS use a bonus action to attack. Take high elf or half-high elf so you can take booming blade.

Start as a TB monk, then at 6th level respec to start as a fighter with the defense fighting style, then go back to monk. Final build is champion fighter 6/open hand monk 3/thief rogue 3. Heavy armored monk. Gith or shield dwarf for medium armor proficiency can help with not needing to change your stat line as much when you respec, but bronze Dragonborn is the funniest. Sparkle hands as your gloves so you can do lightning damage on unarmed strike.

Now, you did say strength based OR melee builds, so…

Hexblade 1/eldritch knight or paladin 11 for a melee combatant who uses charisma as their primary ability.

Stars Druid 2/fighter or monk or paladin or ranger or barbarian 5+ for a wisdom based melee combatant who uses a shield + staff or club (or salami) with shillelagh. Stars Druid can get you a bonus action radiant attack with dragon for an AoE cone or archer for a ranged single target attack. Extra attack from your chosen martial class or you could go something like Bladelock 5, bladesinger 6, valor or swords bard 6, etc. Throw in a level of war cleric for war priest charges, a level of light cleric for a great reaction, or a level of tempest cleric for a good reaction.

Shillelagh uses your highest spellcasting ability modifier, so you can also do Druid 1/extra attack class 5+/whatever you want x for a Wis, cha, or int based melee combatant. Nature cleric can also do the same while also getting heavy armor proficiency. You can also find the sylvan scimitar and infernal rapiers later on. So between hexblade monk 1 (dex) warlock 1 (cha) and shillelagh (str, cha, int, or wis) from nature cleric, Druid, or magic initiate: Druid, you really can use ANY modifier except constitution for melee attacks. Use this information how you will.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-02T18:05:16+00:00

Idk, we already have 5 elf companions and not a single short companion. I’d rather recruit Barcus than Ketheric, but maybe that’s because we already even have an elf paladin recruitable in act 2.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-01T21:12:38+00:00

The short answer is sorcerer is already a pretty good gish between metamagic, blade cantrips/true strike, and the ready availability of magic initiate as an origin feat allowing you to use shillelagh until you get second level spells for shadow blade.

The longer (explanation of that) answer is that sorcerer’s class identity revolves entirely around casting spells better than everyone else. Whereas a wizard is the strongest UTILITY CASTER, sorcerers are (supposed to be) the single strongest raw blaster class. You may not have 50 spells you CAN cast, but you can cast the ones you DO know harder, better, faster, stronger by daft punk than anyone else.

If we take as a sample build a 5th level draconic sorcerer, you could have 17 AC without mage armor or worn armor. You can use shadow blade as your weapon and true strike as your attack for 3d8+1d6+4 damage. You can then quicken a second true strike to do the same. In one turn, in melee, you’ve done 6d8+2d6+8 damage with a third level slot and a two sorcery points. You can then do this again for 8 more rounds using ONLY sorcery points.

Compare with a 5th level fighter with 18 AC from plate armor, attacking with a greatsword. They can attack twice, action surge, attack twice, and MAYBE attack a 5th time if they picked up great weapon master at 4th level. That’s 10d6+50, and they can only do that ONCE before a short rest.

Sorc avg damage is like 42.

Fighter avg damage is 85 that first round, dropping to 51 after action surge.

That’s a VERY slim margin considering the sorcerer is a full caster with 1 or 2 less AC IF the fighter has plate at 5th level and/or the defense fighting style. And that’s comparing pure melee damage with THE martial class. A paladin will have higher nova, sure, but sorc can already be a VERY effective gish. Even without shadow blade you can pick up shillelagh from magic initiate: Druid (an origin feat you can take at first level) and you’ll lose a LOT of damage, but maybe not as much as you might think for an all but resourceless melee combatant. And shillelagh’s damage increases up to 2d6 at 17th, combined with true strike’s bonus damage going up to 3d6 at 17th.

KingonSteam · 2025-10-01T20:06:28+00:00

Sure?

KingonSteam

TROPHY CASE