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Warframe has become one of the biggest action role-playing games with continuous content from new story beats, weapons, and warframes released over the past eight years with very little slow down on updates or downloadable content. With the game’s deep well-written narrative, worldbuilding, insightful lore with excruciatingly detailed and nuanced characters, Warframe has managed to grab millions of new players in a short amount of time.
But it’s also daunting. You could play hundreds and hundreds of hours, while still not knowing the vast majority of what this game holds. Even when reaching 500 hours of playtime, you may still be considered a beginner in some ways. With crossplay alongside cross-save support approaching, this is a wonderful time to begin.
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This guide will focus on helping new players who may be starting out in Warframe. With it, you’ll be able to dive into long-term goals that will keep you engaged throughout your adventure, alongside some general tips to take into account.
Star Chart
The Star Chart is the primary way to embark on missions through the Navigation on the Orbiter. Trekking through the Star Chart will open up new planets, locales, and even open-world environments with your first major landscape being the Plains of Eidolon on Earth, Cetus. The Star Chart is used similarly as a tutorial for new players.
At first, the Star Chart will introduce you to low-level missions with various objectives, such as Spy, Sabotage, Defence, Excavation, Survival, Assassination, Mobile Defence, Rescue, Hijack, and Exterminate. There are close to 250 points on the Star Chart to complete, and when traveling to a new planet you will face off with tough bosses and gain access to even more planets.
Increasing difficulty on missions, different enemy types, and other vigorous situations will be your on-ramp to the hardened battles ahead. The Star Chart will be your first journey as a player, teaching you how to complete the core types of Warframe missions.
Daily/Weekly Missions
Invasions are missions, where you will be tasked to choose to help either the Grineer or Corpus for three missions. After completing the chosen side after three missions, you will be rewarded with a resource reward, either the Detonite Injector or the Fieldron. Detonite Injectors and Fieldrons are used to craft many different types of weapons. Invasions are the ideal/swiftest way to earn Detonite Injectors and Fieldrons. You can craft them too, but it is recommended to get these resources from Invasions. Sometimes Invasions will reward you with weapon parts or blueprints to craft weapons. You will know beforehand the rewards you can obtain. Completing each set of Invasion missions can take less than 20 minutes.
Clem’s Weekly Mission is a 10-minute Survival mission where you will be tasked to protect Clem. This is a great way to level up weapons, warframes, and obtain resources scattered about. It requires only low maintenance to complete these weekly missions, and they’re helpful practice for more difficult Survival missions in the Star Chart.
Sorties are the last important set of daily missions to complete. These can only be attempted with a Level 30 Warframe due to the enemy levels reaching up to 100. These are extremely difficult missions due to the added conditions such as Energy Reduction, Enemy Elemental/Physical Enhancement, or requiring you to only use specific weapon types such as only Bows, Snipers, or Assault Rifles. The rewards from completing daily Sortie missions can be 3-Day Boosters, Endo that can be used to upgrade mods, Forma that can be used to change weapon polarity, and other impressive rewards can be received from Sorties.
Weapons
Warframe has dozens of different weapons to collect and use. Initially, weapons are sorted into three main categories: Primary, Secondary, and Melee. Primary Weapons can be Snipers, Bows, Shotguns, and Assault Rifles. Secondary Weapons can be Submachine Guns, Throwing Knives, and Pistols. Melee Weapons can be Whips, Daggers, Swords, Dual Swords, Scythes, Great Swords, Fists, and Staffs.
Every Weapon except the Paracesis reaches Level 30 for Max Rank. But it does not stop there! You can implement a Forma on the weapon at Max Rank to change a slot’s polarity, which will allow the weapon to go back to Level 0. When the same mod polarity type is placed onto that specific weapon slot, if the polarity is the same, it will allow a reduced cost to equip. By doing this, you can place more mods on a weapon by matching the same mod polarity.
You only need one of each mod. Any duplicate or flawed mods should be dissolved into Endo. This is an optimal approach to earn Endo as a new player. Some of the mods you should consider maxing are Pressure Point, Serration, Intruder, Thief’s Wit, Enemy Sense, Rush, Vitality, Redirection, Fury, Fetch, Intensify, Continuity, Reach, Vacuum, and Stretch.
Orokin Catalysts can be placed in a weapon to double its mod capacity. If there are specific weapons you are using such as Proboscis Cernos, Paracesis, or Rubico Prime–three of the best weapons in the game, you should think about adding a Forma and/or Orokin Catalyst.
Weapon Mastery
When reaching Max Rank on any weapon the first time, it will be completed for increasing your Mastery Rank. A higher Mastery Rank will allow you to wield stronger, much more powerful weapons. Fulfilling each Mastery Rank will allow you the option to complete a Mastery Rank Test. Upon completion, your Mastery Rank will increase by one.
At the start, you do not have much choice in the way of weapon selection, but there are several weapons you can buy that do not require any Mastery Rank. After maxing each of these weapons, you will have fulfilled it for mastery experience so you can then sell it. Later on, you will need blueprints alongside specific resources to craft weapons except for a short list of specific weapons. This includes the Braton, MK1-Braton, MK1-Paris, MK1-Strun, Aklato, Lato, Lex, MK1-Furis, MK1-Kunai, Sicarus, and MK1-Bo.
These are all starting weapons, and their main purpose is to help increase your Mastery Rank so you can actually craft good weapons. These weapons will help you early on so you can better understand the core weapon types. You do not need to use any weapon you do not enjoy using after achieving its Max Rank. If you are not a fan of Shotguns or Assault Rifles, you really do not need one outside of the best of each type. For example, having one powerful Bow at your disposal is ideal due to some Sortie missions stopping you from using anything else. Have a diverse gallery of weapons, but many of the starting ones that require up to Mastery Rank 15 are not ideal options for spending your Forma.
Joining Clans
Many Warframe players and folks in the Global/Region Chats will help in answering questions or even aid you with support in missions. Make sure to say you are a new player and looking for an active Clan. Clans are not recommended to start alone. It is absolutely a full-time job, and it is beneficial to join a Clan that has already been around for a few years.
One of the best benefits of being in a Clan, outside of having a community to aid you as a new player, is you can craft weapon blueprints from Clan Research. These weapons will have a higher Mastery Rank requirement but are locked away with only being available in Clans.
Every Warframe player starts out as a “leecher,” a nomenclature for new players soaking up experience or minimally helping; but everybody starts like this. There is no harm in being carried by more experienced players, and most understand the situation you are in because they were once there, as well.
Choose Yourself
Do you want to go Eidolon Hunting of huge Kaiju monstrosities? Spend hours Fishing or Mining for resources on the Plains of Eidolon? How about completing low-level Bounties on Cetus? Warframe allows you to do what you want as a player. You will have to go through the Star Chart, but you will find an immense amount of activities to do just from Earth. Start by earning Standing from different in-game Syndicates such as on Cetus to unlock more of the game from new Warframes, Companions, or Weapons. Earning Relics on Cetus will allow you to use them in Void Fissures, which can give you more powerful Prime weapon parts that are immeasurably more lethal than their original weapon counterparts.
Hopefully, this guide has helped give you ideas or information in your introductory hours to Warframe. Take your time in approaching the game with ease doing what you yourself find enjoyable. Later on, you can engage in gargantuan space battles, delve deeper into this game’s lore/narrative/characters, control your own mecha, and more. Please, do not hesitate to search anything up online, no matter how superfluous you may think it might be. There is a colossal amount to discover in Warframe, and no harm in checking online or asking Clan members for help.
