can you get away with only playing a select few warframes?

[JakeFromStateFarm]

thinking of getting into the game and from what ive read and seen i guess many warframes have different strengths and such. as a personal thing i dont want to have to hop around to several warframes if thats what it ultimately means. i was watching some tutorials and such and this guy had almost every frame and it seems like a lot. in other words im a player who likes to focus on "one" character so to speak but i dont mind if needed having 2 or 3 warframes. im just curious how this works entirely because it comes off as hey you will need all these warframes for different content.

[Qlone]

Yes, you can. The disadvantage is that you are going to slow down the rank process because you earn experience points everytime you level up your Warframes.

[Donitsi]

Sure, you can do that but keep in mind that some warframes can make life much easier with Mastery Rank tests, Riven challenges, fighting different enemy factions or staying hidden while you are mining, fishing or saving animals or doing Spy missions where you must avoid detection in the Data rooms.

Originally posted by Qlone:

Yes, you can. The disadvantage is that you are going to slow down the rank process because you earn experience points everytime you level up your Warframes.

I want to explain little bit more of this. Each level up to a weapons, companions and warframes give experience points to Mastery Rank until they reach level 30.

Mastery Rank unlocks stronger weapons, more quests, access to relays and Riven mods (Received later in the game) may have 8-15 Mastery Rank limit if I remember right.

[Distant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥]

Yeah. Nowadays I only really play 3 or 4 frames despite owning all of them. Pretty much all content can be done by any frame, it's just that some frames make that more fun or easier. For example it's more fun for me to bring a warframe that gives all buffs imaginable (a stretch there, but my warframe gives a buff to movement speed, firing speed, health regen, health itself, electrical stun and also a damge buff) to players and friendly NPCs while on a survival/defense run than a tanky warframe who has thousands of health.

[casdarius]

honestly you can main octavia and do pretty much everything in the game. maybe pick an eidolon hunter and call it there.

[Iraneth The Goat]

Most players use 2 to 3 frames from what I see. But they do keep nearly all of them for one special mission.

[mleszzor]

i almost always play loki, and i mostly play solo, and i haven't had any big problems anywhere in the game yet, the times when i use something else other than loki is me just testing other characters or, just having a little bit of a different kind of fun by using a different playstyle from my main warframe's one!

[Astasia]

If you look at any specific type of content beyond the most basic mission types, there's going to be at least a handful of frames that make that content considerably easier to do. If you don't like any of those frames, the content is still doable it's just going to take more effort. For example defense type missions frames like Frost and Gara can trivialize most of them because they can place barriers that block enemies/projectiles from hitting the thing you are defending, this removes almost all the pressure from these mission types and you can just focus on casually killing stuff, while without those frames (or other frames that might help) you have to be a lot more on the ball and paying attention to where enemies are and killing them before they damage the objective. Likewise spy missions can be trivialized by frames like Loki or Ivara, and capture missions can be done much faster with frames like Volt or Titania. The differences are pretty massive, some of these frames make the content so much easier, but everything in the game is doable with any frame if that's what you want to do.

You will want to at least level all the frames eventually for mastery rank as mentioned, but a frame can be maxed in like an hour or two solo during a double exp event, probably faster if you have a group to help you. After they hit level 30 you don't have to touch them again.

[uni790]

Honestly I pretty much just play Wisp after unlocking her, with the occasional Nova for nostalgia, or Titania for Jupiter, the rest are just clutter these days.

So yea, you very much can just play a select few, at least as far as the base star map goes, there's nothing scary enough to ever even pressure you. (except the fire aura exemus(spelling that wrong) they can ruin your day, lol.)

[Herozen]

i brought the entire startchart to it's knees with 1 frame. yes you can deffinitly make being a 1 trick work

[BloodravenD]

You could very well play with just a single frame, but you will handicap yourself in the long run. You gain mastery rank, which is like an overall level of your account, as you level pretty much anything, up to their max level, which is 30 for most, with some hitting 40. Without working on those frames, your overall level will be much lower, and there are quite a few things in game that are either completely locked until you hit a certain mastery rank, or will be much harder or tedious with having a lower Mastery Rank.

[Everglow]

you can play every mission with 1 warframe from start to NG+(steel path is what new game plus is called pretty much) if you really wanted

some are better then others for things,
like gara and frost for defense missions
ivara and loki for spy missions

but any frame can do any mission (only mission that kinda changes how you play is spy missions with those invis frames)

[Sceles]

Frames and weapons are very easy to obtain, the game's goal kind of is to collect them all.

You can and will focus on only a handful of frames during your first 100-200h but will end up getting lots of frames in the end.

Of course there are a few do-it-all frames but they're not do-it-all out of the box, they require very specific mods and formas to work. I won't even bother mentioning them so you don't get any ideas.

[Everglow]

oh since no one mentioned it yet, there is a way to put 1 of 4 abilities from one frame onto a DIFFERENT frame (usually not the best ability but good enough) if you like your look but dont wanna switch is also possible, it requires sacrficing the frame the frame to give up its ability though (not the frame you put the ability onto)

[PrawiSucia]

You can have favorite but i don't think maining only 1 is great for long term. Flexibility and adaptation are important in this game. At least for me.
But if you really don't want to do that, you can play just 1-2 frames all the time but you have to put a lot more effort in certain missions.

[Electi]

I played since open beta, and I can tell that my starter loki is still can do any mission thrue whole game. Even when raids were a thing, he was viable.
Personally if you plan to stay in that game for long. You shall not bother. You can get more slots by buy/sell items for platina and getting more slots as you want.
Some people do not even play game and only do trading and they have almost everything.
It's up to you.
But my big advice for you is to find your favourite weapon and frame which you enjoy using. Play for the sake of enjoying the path, rather than running to "endgame, or Finishing" the game. It has no ending. Do not grind like monkey, because you will never open 100% of codex, thus grinding for 100% of everything is doomed if you do not have excalibur prime, cause even if you started at obt and played all events since that time, you will have 99% because of that. Saying you as person who enjoyed to sit for 8+ hours non-stop farming at one mission. But time go and you shall not stick to the old. Accept the truth and live with it, or you're doomed to never meet joy, and feel only regret, emptiness and desperation.(Not only in games tho..)
GL HF, tenno scooom.