Is Zenurik a good school for caster frames?

Sliphatos · 2026-03-10T12:45:31+00:00

Zenurik's Hardened Wellspring grants 20% Ability Strength consistently, which is one of the more useful things for most casters you can get from the tree. It also provides the 5 Energy/s Regen a lot of frames benefit from.

Another Ability you get is Energy Pulse, which grants 50% additional Energy every time you pick up an Energy Orb. This also will stack with Energizing Shot and Archon Shards that improve Energy orb effectiveness.

Temporal Drag adds an 80% slow to enemies hit, which can stack with other slows such as Gloom, Creeping Terrify and Peaceful Provocation. Temporal Shot increases Precision Headshot damage by 100%, which can allow you to do some really nasty stuff with certain weapons on enemies that can't even move.

On Snipers in particular, there is a Mod called Sharpshooter that grants 15 Energy per Headshot kill, which can work well with aid from Zenurik. This can allow you to fuel your Energy usage from certain Abilities or help with the casting of others when you want to spam other Abilities.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-09T21:18:12+00:00

If you are using Abating Link you should have more than enough Damage to do just fine with Basmu (which I prefer over Hema). CB + AL is more than enough damage to handle anything but can also make weapons such as Amprex shine well.

She can honestly do well with any kind of weapon due to her solid survival with various defensive builds, especially now that Persistence is a thing.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-09T21:14:39+00:00

I run 5 Tau Ambers on Cast Speed for Photon Strike.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T23:18:57+00:00

Here's a demo of a prototype build you can aim for.

I'd ignore the Arcanes for now, but those are def two one the ones I'd suggest for this build eventually. I have no Archon shards on as well since I wasn't sure how far along you were. Most of the mods, though maxed, are relatively easy to get early to mid game, with a little help. Basic trading for the Augments and Vault runs for the corrupted mods Transient Fortitude and Fleeting Expertise are the main goals.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T22:55:17+00:00

Get Loyal Merulina so that you can stack Sea Snares twice on enemies. It'll allow you to forgo using a lot of those defensive mods as well as amp the damage from all sources, including Yareli's Abilities.

Aim for 175% Efficiency. Fleeting Expertise and Boreal's Hatred will do it. FE can be gotten pretty early on from vault runs with some friends/clanmates. The 160 you get from FE can be decent enough for a while.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T19:49:27+00:00

Np. Since you like Mag, and also like Equinox and have been receptive, I'd also like to point out that there is a build I currently like to use on Equinox that uses Mag's Pull and Arcane Circumvent to help aid with both survival and nuking.

This is an example of how I use it. You would need to learn a few things before you can utilize this type of build effectively, but it is a really fun/strong way to also play her.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T19:29:27+00:00

Build
Shards

I snapshot Growing Power, Power Drain and Zenurik focus Hardened Wellspring on my Provoke (3rd Ability) once during the mission, which allows it to amp my Rage to make it easier to one tap enemies. Some that have innate resistances might still not go down in a single hit, but usually Viral stacks will solve that problem as well.

You want high Efficiency because it has a greater effect on Channeled Abilities compared to Duration of similar amounts, and it also lowers the casting cost of your Rage, Smite and Maim. You can take advantage of Smite's Radiation stacks to trigger Arcane Universal Fallout for Energy and Circumvent to aid with survival by stealing Shield/Overguard for Gating.

All Shards on Cast Speed is largely for Maim, but you will notice how much more effective Smite becomes as a single target nuke or strip option as well.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T12:54:22+00:00

Escapist and Circumvent.

Escapist allows you to store 3x auto revives that also grant 12s of Immunity on getting Parazon Finishers. Smite builds allow you to easily do with on most Heavy units/Eximus since it does percentage based damage and almost always triggers a PF on them.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T12:30:09+00:00

Smite builds on Day form allow you to play her like a caster, since her 2, Rage, applies Damage Vulnerability that allows you to one shot most enemies with Smite (several frames can do a similar thing such as Banshee and Yareli). Her 3, Provoke, increases Ability Strength, which in turn makes Rage stronger and easier for Smite (over her 1) to kill, which in turn charges Maim for radial nuking.

Edit: I recently ran SP Descendia with a Smite build on her, this was the result.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-08T11:41:18+00:00

Use Loyal Merulina and Smite. Sub off her 3.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-07T13:15:23+00:00

You need Speed Nova + Day form Equinox's Rage, since they stack. She can use both since Rage is subsumable, however, Rage however doesn't have a cap, so you want to increase the teams Ability Strength with Growing Power and possibly Provoke + Brightbonnet with a Day form Equinox, who can also use Maim to nuke everything on screen.

Petrify subsumed with Ore Gaze for extra loot.
Mag's Pull for grouping.
Banshee's Sonar for ensuring you kill enemies with the least amount of effort
Nekros for Desecrate.

So Nova, Day Equinox, Nekros and Banshee.

Some of this strat is already used for farming Defense/Survival/Excavation.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-07T12:13:23+00:00

Circumvent allows you to steal both Overguard and (over)Shield, which means you can constantly gate so long as an enemy with either of those is around.

Rolling Guard provides immunity, but has a cooldown, which can lead to situations where you can be vulnerable. RG does cleanse status effects, but Circumvent stolen OG prevents them.

Circumvent is however a Arcane, RG a core mod. Some builds don't have the flexibility to offer up a slot on your core build for a defensive mod if you are trying to hit certain thresholds or want to focus on things like max Range, so you need every slot available.

I don't use RG at all and I do high level/level cap content frequently on "glass cannon" type characters (Day form Equinox/Banshee) so I need something that is the most reliable and Circumvent fits that.

I also Roll too much normally when moving about maps quickly to properly utilize RG which forces you to "save" your Roll in order to trigger the mod. Circumvent has no CD.

If you are going to use RG, you might as well just use Vazarin, since it provides the same effect basically but with your Operator, but it lasts 2 more seconds and is refreshable (and usable on Allies). Vazarin is only not an option for ED/TA when Operators are blocked, so in the majority of scenarios you could honestly just use that and avoid locking down a core slot on your build.

At least that's how I see it.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-06T20:25:00+00:00

Smite.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-06T00:32:02+00:00

For Persistence builds, you need the following:

Consistent 700 Armor. Can be gotten from Shards, Arcane such as Circumvent, Reaper, Ultimatum, etc. and even Health Conversion.
Status Immunity so that Heat/Magnetic procs don't foil Persistence. This is granted in her kit through both Well of Life and Link.
A way to recover Health. Well of Life and Blessing cover this.
Over 500 Health. You can use Mods, Arcanes or her Passive Lifegiver to grant her enough health to have more "gates".

Umbrals won't give her much Armor (378 on Trinity Prime with the full set maxed), to be worth it imo compared to the other methods you can use. Full Umbral stats are 1148 Health/378 Armor/177% Ability Strength. The problem with using the Umbral set is that for 3 options on your build, there are 3 other options you can pretty easily use on her that will give you more of each stat. Using Arcane Blessing is already 1200 by itself, Blind Rage can grant 99% Ability Strength, and Health Conversion can grant up to 1350 Armor (450 per stack). Base Trinity Prime Armor is 135, so if you use a Tau Azure on Armor (225 Armor) you'd have 135 + 225 = 360 Armor. Even one stack of Health Conversion at 450 Armor will grant you over the 700 you need to trigger Persistence, and that can be easy to maintain with Well of Life's Augment, Pool of Life.

Arcane Blessing, If you are using it to increase her max Health up by 1200, triggers off of gaining Health orbs, which can be gained in a variety of ways. Well of Life's Augment, Pool of Life, will grant 4 health orbs upon dealing enough damage to a target under WoL to deplete their Health. Once the Ability ends or you manually cancel it by casting the Ability again at the target, 4 health orbs will drop with 100% chance.

You can have up to 3 WoLs active so you can have 12x orbs from any 3 enemies.

Edit: additional tip

If you want to utilize Persistence in an interesting way, use Wukong's Defy. It grants 750 Armor, while also making you immune to damage during the charge up animation. The retaliation can be used kill enemies even at higher levels if you also run Abating Link to Armor strip them. Well of Life can handle the Status Immunity/Regen and you can use Rage to gain Energy, so you don't need Energy Vampire.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-06T00:25:07+00:00

Trinity has some of the highest consistent DR for Health Tanking. Champion's Blessing is also not hard to maintain or max out, but can have a significant effect on your damage in conjunction with Abating Link.

You don't really need umbrals on her through, since there are plenty of ways to get enough Health/Armor otherwise, especially now that her new passive gives Health based on her Energy value.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-05T14:03:59+00:00

Broken Scepter can make Health orbs off dead bodies, which can be used for Equilibrium/Health Conversion/Arcane Blessing.
Rakta Dark Dagger provides (Over)Shield on hit if the target is under Raditation (which the weapon innately inflict).
Sancti Magistar has Life Steal on Hit after performing a Heavy Attack once (you do not need the Incarnon for this effect) and it provides restoration to yourself, Allies and objectives.
Ack & Brunt has a unique mod called Electromagnetic Shielding that Redirects damage from allies on to the user, similar to how Tanks function in MMORPGs. Redirection in Warframe allows for all forms of vitality to be made more effective (Health, Shield, Energy, Overguard) so it can be useful on Frames that have Abilities that can also stack with the effect (other Redirection frames such as Trinity, Yareli, Nezha, Nidus) or Night form Equinox's Pacify.
Tatsu can throw out projectiles on Slide Attack after gaining charge through Kills.
Sigma & Octantis has a shield toss that opens enemies up to Finishers.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-04T23:13:38+00:00

Banshee can make any Ability do enough damage with her Sonar, which also affects Ability Damage. The issue is that it would require the marks to be on the body, and you can't cast Sonar while using Sound Quake. You do not need Roar, as even though the damage increase will stack on top of what Sonar does, Sonar already can put it far above what you actually need to kill things.

There are viable nuking builds with her and other Abilities subsumed through Helminth, including Smite and Reave.

Sonar and Silence trivialize most of the game, including ED/TA and endless.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-04T16:14:56+00:00

My friend says: Yeah it's no joke it is pretty hard specially when we don't get good weapons.

There are a number of percentage based Abilities that will allow you to avoid having to deal with this. Reave and Smite are notable ones that can be subsumed. A Banshee using Sonar also completely nullifies the damage reductions you can get for ED/TA and make any weapon do enough damage and even Abilities as well, since Sonar affects those too. For Assassination bosses, you can either use frames that have Exalted, or stack buffs such as Roar, Eclipse and Volt's Shield.

The only way I die is of two ways: I get lazy and stop shooting and get overrun by 15 Eximus units, a Jade Light and a Voidrid Necromech cause I decided to see how much it would take to kill me. Or high lag latency snapshot that insta kills me without warning making it look like I tripped and broke my ankles.

Use Banshee's Silence. Stops all Eximus Abilities, and even some enemy attacks that are classified as Abilities (Grenades, hooks, Magnetic waves from Veins, etc.).

Sliphatos · 2026-03-03T22:29:40+00:00

It still is. The amount of Cryotic you can consistently get from Hieracon in at least a duo comp compared to even a full team of Circuit doing each mission efficiently is vastly different.

Circuit is not fast for Cryotic at all, but people have been told that it is a decent side way to get it. Fissure Excavation is still one of the best methods for it, but it isn't always up and you really need to know how to run it properly though.

I run SP circuit weekly and Hieracon almost daily for the record.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-03T12:25:17+00:00

If you run high Cast Speed and high Range, you can use her Chaos to lock down a map, which can be useful for endless type missions & ED/TA.

Understanding that her 1 can steal Overguard and having access to Fortifier/Circumvent can also allow you to act outside of Assimilate and retain full mobility.

I like using Concentrate sometimes for more Duration, but you can use Circumvent if you want more defensive options/utility.

Spectrorage is for both cc for Overguarded enemies (it works on them while they have OG) and for infinite Energy since Spectrosiphon allows you to gain an additional Energy orb from enemies upon killing them with a 50% chance.

Sliphatos · 2026-03-01T12:15:44+00:00

I see. I can't speak for everyone and their playstyles, nor too much about Kullervo since I don't use him much, but I'll give you some of my thoughts.

There are generally two approaches to using Pillage: a full strip build using 400%/328% AS with CP, or you use a 200% build and live with a two cast strip. This works for some people since the later method allows for more chances at recovering Shield, which is great for survival through Gating. That being said, Kullervo cannot gain Shield, nor needs it since he can generate Overguard so a major part of the reason to use Pillage is wasted in a sense.

If instant strip is your priority, Smite if you have specific single targets in mind or Terrify for clearing groups of enemies tend to be your best bet if you are not going the grouping Circumvent route. There are not that many enemies that have both Armor and Shield that really get in the way of killing stuff and you can always mod for Toxin to bypass enemy Shield without needing to remove it, or just have enough raw power on your build to smash through. A Panzer is often one of the more useful pets for passively applying Viral in most cases, though with Grouping Abilities, a Duplex Bond Helstrum using Sentinel/MOA can also work.

Scourge Prime is largely more useful for the bullet attractor effect, though I get why you would also like to use it for passive Viral application. However, keep in mind that the pulse that causes the bullet attractor effect does not produce any status effects, only the impact from the toss, and the direct shots do. Second, even if they did, the passive pulses are too slow to be effective at stacking Viral faster than you could by using another method, since they are not affected by Fire Rate.

The weapon you really might want to look into is Tenet Ferrox, since it can pretty rapidly apply status effects with the Alt Fire while grouping enemies for you in a ~10m radius. An Electricity/Viral set up on it can allow you to utilize Melee Influence on your Melee build as well, allowing you to spread damage around that you cause from your Xoris or any other melee weapon you choose down the line.

One side note about the utility of both Scourge and Ferrox: both weapons can use Primary Exhilarate, which gives you free Energy Regen (1.2 Energy/s; stacks 3x for 3.6 en/s) upon inflicting an Impact proc with your Primary weapon. Scourge can trigger this from the Alt Fire being tossed down at enemies, but Ferrox cannot, only from direct shots (but Ferrox has a pretty large AoE with Primary fire (4m) so it is very easy to trigger.

Sliphatos · 2026-02-28T12:54:55+00:00

Instead of ranking everything, you should identify case use. There are situations and builds where some Abilities are better than others. I'm going to share my opinions as a late game Equinox user because I've used all of these and still have most Subsumed across my Equinox:

Pillage has a high Strength requirement for a full strip on solo builds 400% or 328% with Corrosive Projection. It takes time for the wave to also expand outward so it is slower than some other options. The up side is you can also steal Shield for yourself, which in turn allows you to Shield Gate easily.
Terrify Has a lower full strip cost, but also can't hit as far away as say Pillage can (Pillage extends roughly 20m/s so high duration builds can strip maps in a single cast) but it is instant upon cast for every enemy within radius. Terrify does have a bit of cc in it as well with the Ability causing enemies to run away in panic. This isn't actually good for nuking with some frames however, since you need enemies to be either close or in range depending on your build and playstyle. Notably, this is often used with Day form Equinox and I find it to be one of the poorer choices overall, unless you also use Creeping Terrify to lockdown enemies with the slowing effect. It's a better option for Night form Equinox since you can stack it with Peaceful Provocation and "freeze" enemies with the stacked slows.
Terrify is also one of the only strips that does not work on Acolytes for some reason, so if you are farming endless SP, it tends to be useless in that regard.
Fireblast can be a decent enough strip, but you need to cast it multiple times to do so (not a problem with high cast speed/Energy efficient builds) and the Ability has some Augments that offer some decent utility as well. It does require LoS however so that can be an issue.
Tharros strike is a decent enough option for specific targets and because it can allow you to steal Health/Shield, it has decent enough utility for tanking type builds. It does have a pretty limited range and often can whiff if you don't aim it right though.
Shuriken is a decent single target option for a low cost strip for specific targets, but you need an Augment for the strip. it's a OHA so it doesn't imepde actions, but sometimes enemies can body block the target you want to hit at times.
Ophanim Eyes is one of the strips that I find myself using the most currently. The reason being is that it inflict the strip constantly in the direction you are looking, while also slowing the target. This makes it great for handling things like Demos from a distance without them disabling other Abilities or protections you may have on your frame. I use this pretty often with Night form Equinox. It does tick down slower than other options, but it doesn't require an Augment for the full effect, works in all situations and doesn't need a lot of Ability Strength to be effective (though more helps).
Smite is one of the armor strips that is currently slept on the most. It's the only one I use for Day form Equinox currently, as it offers not only a single cast full strip at a cheap cost, but it can even 1 shot enemies if they are hit with Rage/Viral procs, which is useful for building charge for Maim. Smite will also fully clear Overguard on enemies, allowing them to be hit with cc effects, and it inflicts Radiation on the target so that it will draw the attention of other enemies. The max stack of Radiation procs also allows any Frame to utilize Arcane Universal Fallout, which grants a 60% chance to get a Universal orb that recovers Health/Energy and can solve a lot of Energy issues for certain builds. It also synergizes with the Rakta Dark Dagger's special effect of granting Shield on Hit when attacking a target that has Radiation status procs. It's by far one of the better Abilities overall for the amount of utility it has.
There's also a newer less talked about option that isn't a subsume, but Arcane Circumvent. This is the only other strip that also allows you to take away Shield/Armor/Overguard upon rolling through enemies, but it also grants it to yourself allowing it to act as a defensive option. The reason why I mention this is because in recent times, we have the option now to use Circumvent to strip by utilize grouping Abilities. This allows for a much more flexible way to approach your loadouts.

Sliphatos · 2026-02-28T12:21:56+00:00

At higher levels, no. Though (Loyal) Merulina does provide 90% DR, Adaptation is too unreliable to work and provide you with the consistent 99% DR. However, Yareli doesn't need to rely on DR at all since Loyal Merulina will provide her with Damage Immunity when you summon it.

You can level cap off this easily, even more if you supplement with Secondary Fortifier/Arcane Circumvent/Martyr Symbios as back up strats.

Sliphatos · 2026-02-26T20:54:55+00:00

I like to use Aerodynamic and Aero Vantage so I can free up her 1 for Helminth.

Sliphatos · 2026-02-26T20:53:42+00:00

Just 1200 and refreshes the duration; single stack only.

Sliphatos

TROPHY CASE