Miracle of Builds in Warframe - Knowledge issues

[Al]

Hello everyone, i'm playing Warframe since 2018 on PC.
i was always pretty casual about making builds and trying stuff.
Recently after new 1999 update i wanted to try and make new builds which would make me a little bit more powerful but- they all suck.

I really don't understand how builds work in this game.
I get to steel path, i complete archon hunts i deal with stuff pretty good but 90% of my builds are copy-paste from overframe or random youtube videos.

I tried to make my builds based on the stuff i see on the internet but when i'm not copying 1:1 they just suck.
Recently i tried building my 60% Magnetic Kuva Nukor and when i check some youtuber making pretty close build to what mine is, he's build just kill everything in a 1 second when my Nukor need like 4-5 seconds to kill one grinner.

I want to ask you all:
1. Are sentinels really this big of a deal to deal any significant damage?
Do i really absolutely need to make all my loadout synergise with ONE weapon to make this weapon even remotely good?
I want to make builds which are powerful on they own, i don't wanna use SPECIFICALLY some sentinel / entire loadout just for the one weapon to be better.
If i really need to use this kind of approach i want one sentinel or animal to buff my overall damage of all weapons, not just one.

2. Is priming necessary?
I don't like using my secondary/primary/sentinel to put status on enemy and then kill them.
When i can use something like Torid Incarnon or Glaive Prime to kill them right away.
I don't like this type of gameplay but i still want to know your opinion about this.

3. I see people demolishing high lvl enemies but on Steel Path even at high lvl even my Glaive Prime isn't killing them in 1 hit but more like 3-6.
I want to make some upgrade but again - making builds in this game is confusing and i literally can't understand what synergise with what.
I understand crit chance, status effects and what they do and still making builds is like black magic to me.
I don't understand why some things works better but when i try to combine some different mods it totally doesn't work.

Watching people play it looks like they kill everyone so effortlessly but when i try to play it's suddenly little bit harder, i feel like i am struggling lately.

Was Glaive nerfed recently or Steel Path had a buff or something?
I'm confused about making builds i started to hate this out of fear loosing my forma and resources.

This topic is stuck in my head I think i'm gonna take a break from the game because of how unbearable making new / good builds is for me.
Please save me because i love this game but i'm flustrated as hell at builds since forever.

I want to add one thing: Builds for Warframes are easy for me and the one i do are pretty good in my opinion.
I can be wrong but the only issue i have is with weapons and sentinels/animals.

[Sephylon]

1) Depends how you build it but my hound can out dps other players
2) under level cap no
3) pay attention to the buff bar of the videos you're watching. Willing to bet you're missing several buffs they have

Originally posted by Al:

Was Glaive nerfed recently or Steel Path had a buff or something?
I'm confused about making builds i started to hate this out of fear loosing my forma and resources.

Yesnt
Base armor was reduced at all levels while base hp was buffed. The reason glaive was op was due to its forced bleed.

Leme put it this way:
Prior to the rework, enemies would have a huge wall of damage reduction with a small hp bar under it. Slash would ignore that wall and go straight for the tiny hp. Now, they reworked it so that wall has shrunk, and the tiny hp behind it was made significantly bigger. So now bleed is ignoring a small wall to hit a big hp.

[Vexillarius]

Okay number one overframe builds are generally total trash. Anything by Themoon85 is usually terrible but because they included a giant guide explaining why they made awful decisions they made they get upvoted heaps for some reason.

As far as your questions. Sentinels are generally primers most of the time and stat buffers with the new bond mods. They also carry really helpful utility like enemy radar and loot detection. Which mean you don't need to waste space on your frame. They can also heal you and replenish shields. They also have a million other niche uses.

My advice would be to get a Panzer Vulp. These shoot viral quills priming your enemies. It also remains active when it dies and keeps shooting viral spores. You can run stuff like tenacious bond and reinforced bond to get 60% increased fire rate and boost on your crit damage.

Also magnetic is generally pretty bad for everything. The meta is pretty much viral/fire if you have armour strip and your not running nourish or corrosive/fire if you are running nourish or don't have armour strip. It sounds like you just have a bad build on your glaive. Go watch some Knightmareframe videos as he does a good job of explaining all mechanics involved in builds.

[Douchebag Extraordinaire]

It all comes down to what mods you have and the fundamental use of modding. Stacking the same ♥♥♥♥ used to be good because it was technically the only way to pump damage, now it's all about how many multipliers can be stacked instead, which is the reason why a lot of builds forego the old serration for merciless. Merciless (or any base damage mult) basically adds a mod option, usually something like Bane, because not only is it a different multiplier it some cases, weapon damage double dips into it pushing damage much further. This whole "stacking different stacks" echoes into pretty much every other mechanics in the game like EHP.

So for when you think of modding a weapon, think about having as many multipliers you can put on based on the weapon's inherent stats. For example, a weapon that has 30% critical damage and 40% status would be a pretty decent candidate to have both critical and gunCO (unless AoE). Of course, since the mods themselves have different

1) No BUT it's good to have anyway because this flexibility allows you to mod for optimized weapon elementals without sacrificing the benefits of other elements. This also allows you to prime enemies without having to pull out a different weapon. Like for Glaive P right now, the slot space is tight due to the new galvanized mods, so with a companion that can spread viral, you can get rid of the mods that make viral and slot the new mods to do much more damage overall.

2) Priming is generally not necessary unless A) you are romping around in endgame where damage is excessive or B) just having a hard time generally surviving due to having a squishy frame or having mediocre player skill. Killing as much stuff as quickly as possible is the best way to lower the chance to get hit by something and in some cases, something like your second or third glaive throw could get you killed. In earlier games, it's not a big deal,

3) Again, it's all about stacking multipliers but also the stuff outside of it like buffs and mod conditions. In your example, if you've copied what is on overframe (probably a max out gunco+fire rate build), you probably got rid of hornet strike, making it need to "ramp up" (arc merciless, galvanized gunCO+multishot, etc) to get to nuking enemies. If the games you are playing don't need that kind of stuff, you can use the hornet strike instead so the ramp up isn't as noticeable. The damage is so crazy anyway that the top end damage isn't going to matter as much in SP matches.

[Grognak]

Lots of good points are mentioned here already, I can add that it helps spending some time in simulacrum, sometimes it can help to figure out if a mod really is as good as you thought.
Whenever you think, should I use one mod or the other, go test it. This will help a lot in the long run to understand how stuff works, Ik this sounds like a beginner tip but if your actually take you time and do that, you will quickly get an understanding for what works and what doesnt.

Also if you build a weapon, read the wiki, read about everytihng around your build and you can find some interesting stuff like:
-The damage increase of Vigorous Swap and Holster Amp is mujltiplicative for thrown Glaves contact and heavy explosion damage.
-How does Slash actually work? which mods can increase slash proc's? does the initial hit damage matters for Slash or only base stats, mods and if you crit or not?
-In Steelpath you will fight agains Acolytes, are some weapon types better than others against them?

If you want an easy solution for everything, go Saryn with Nourish (on her 4) and Venom Dose, build for Toxic Lash. If you have, 2 normal green shards for higher corrosive stacks and maybe more green shards for more Toxic proc damage.
She gives armor strip, Viral and very potent, guaranteed Toxic proc's to every weapon.
(although its an easy solution for everytihng, if you read into it, really understand how this works, you can make some pretty insane builds;)

For sentinels I would recommend:
-Wyrm Prime, any sentinel weapon with good crit chance, Tenacious Bond and Reinforced Bond
-Diriga, Helstrum (build for Viral/Rad), Arc Coil, Calculated shot

[AYAYA]

The core idea is to get as many numbers with different words on them as you can. Damage, Critical Damage, Weak Point Damage, Multishot, Fire Rate...

Originally posted by Vexillarius:

Also magnetic is generally pretty bad for everything.

It's good against Overguard. You can make a weapon specialised in taking the overguard off an Eximus to make it weak to crowd control.
Also does bonus damage against the new Techrot faction, especially important since they don't have anti-faction mods.

[Sceles]

You need to understand what is multiplicative and what is additive and optimize your builds based on that. It's not rocket science.

[Al]

Thank you guys for so much amazing info but i want to point out a few things.

I am feeling a bit old lately, i have so many things to do irl i feel like doing this huge research and reading wiki is overwhelming in itself.
Adding my private life to this makes this impossible to catch up with this knowledge in warframe.
I feel like time slips away everytime i ever dare to try to understand that.
One YouTube tutorial about this is like 1 hour long and this is only like simplified 5% of knowledge about builds.

I waste 4 hours watching video's and researching internet to find builds for single weapon and when i try to combine stuff which isn't 1:1 it again sucks.

Few more questions:
Is there some way for me to understand and not be overwhelmed by every single mod/status and synergy?
I know you said about multiplicative stuff etc. But when it comes to modding i'am having an art block like IT IS Rocket science.

Can you tell me from where should i even start to learn things step after step? It would be really helpful for me 🙏

Thank you also for recommendations which status i should use on what, what is good and meta etc.

Warframe feels like it's just math and welp i'm bad at math sadly.

[Al]

Also - Again, thank you all, this community is amazing and i'm pround i'm part of it.
I would take a little break and try again with this black magic later.

[Al]

Originally posted by Vexillarius:

Okay number one overframe builds are generally total trash. Anything by Themoon85 is usually terrible but because they included a giant guide explaining why they made awful decisions they made they get upvoted heaps for some reason.

As far as your questions. Sentinels are generally primers most of the time and stat buffers with the new bond mods. They also carry really helpful utility like enemy radar and loot detection. Which mean you don't need to waste space on your frame. They can also heal you and replenish shields. They also have a million other niche uses.

My advice would be to get a Panzer Vulp. These shoot viral quills priming your enemies. It also remains active when it dies and keeps shooting viral spores. You can run stuff like tenacious bond and reinforced bond to get 60% increased fire rate and boost on your crit damage.

Also magnetic is generally pretty bad for everything. The meta is pretty much viral/fire if you have armour strip and your not running nourish or corrosive/fire if you are running nourish or don't have armour strip. It sounds like you just have a bad build on your glaive. Go watch some Knightmareframe videos as he does a good job of explaining all mechanics involved in builds.

Knightmareframe have very confusing video's, most of his builds are about gimmick or entire loadouts which interrupt my gameplay because i don't like choosing every single mod/arcane which will only benefit to buff one weapon.

My Glaive Build is pretty much the one and only everyone runs, i can't f up Glaive Build, there are aways the same mods there everyone use.
It can only be LITTLE BIT outdated because of the new mods.

I don't like armor strip, there are plenty of weapons capable of killing without that, it's not my style unless it's convinient like i'm using specific frame with specific ability - but i'm not.
I'm not gonna use any primer when i can just use weapon to kill things.
I don't understand phenomen of priming things, it's time consuming and just not convinient or fun.

I already have panzer vulp, i need to make some build on her tho..
And when i try - well - this post comes here.

[Al]

Originally posted by Sephylon:

1) Depends how you build it but my hound can out dps other players
2) under level cap no
3) pay attention to the buff bar of the videos you're watching. Willing to bet you're missing several buffs they have

Originally posted by Al:

Was Glaive nerfed recently or Steel Path had a buff or something?
I'm confused about making builds i started to hate this out of fear loosing my forma and resources.

Yesnt
Base armor was reduced at all levels while base hp was buffed. The reason glaive was op was due to its forced bleed.

Leme put it this way:
Prior to the rework, enemies would have a huge wall of damage reduction with a small hp bar under it. Slash would ignore that wall and go straight for the tiny hp. Now, they reworked it so that wall has shrunk, and the tiny hp behind it was made significantly bigger. So now bleed is ignoring a small wall to hit a big hp.

Thank you, your answers is really helpful 🙏
Yes, i didn't checked the buff bar at the top.
Also the guy from the video used sentinel AND arcane on weapon.
Which i don't use when trying the weapon on simulacrum because i wanted to check if the build is working remotely close.
It didn't so i'm guessing only Sentinel + Arcane make THIS HUGE difference?
It's almost impossible to think these two can buff weapon THIS much.
It's weird to me lol

[Al]

Originally posted by Douchebag Extraordinaire:

It all comes down to what mods you have and the fundamental use of modding. Stacking the same ♥♥♥♥ used to be good because it was technically the only way to pump damage, now it's all about how many multipliers can be stacked instead, which is the reason why a lot of builds forego the old serration for merciless. Merciless (or any base damage mult) basically adds a mod option, usually something like Bane, because not only is it a different multiplier it some cases, weapon damage double dips into it pushing damage much further. This whole "stacking different stacks" echoes into pretty much every other mechanics in the game like EHP.

So for when you think of modding a weapon, think about having as many multipliers you can put on based on the weapon's inherent stats. For example, a weapon that has 30% critical damage and 40% status would be a pretty decent candidate to have both critical and gunCO (unless AoE). Of course, since the mods themselves have different

1) No BUT it's good to have anyway because this flexibility allows you to mod for optimized weapon elementals without sacrificing the benefits of other elements. This also allows you to prime enemies without having to pull out a different weapon. Like for Glaive P right now, the slot space is tight due to the new galvanized mods, so with a companion that can spread viral, you can get rid of the mods that make viral and slot the new mods to do much more damage overall.

2) Priming is generally not necessary unless A) you are romping around in endgame where damage is excessive or B) just having a hard time generally surviving due to having a squishy frame or having mediocre player skill. Killing as much stuff as quickly as possible is the best way to lower the chance to get hit by something and in some cases, something like your second or third glaive throw could get you killed. In earlier games, it's not a big deal,

3) Again, it's all about stacking multipliers but also the stuff outside of it like buffs and mod conditions. In your example, if you've copied what is on overframe (probably a max out gunco+fire rate build), you probably got rid of hornet strike, making it need to "ramp up" (arc merciless, galvanized gunCO+multishot, etc) to get to nuking enemies. If the games you are playing don't need that kind of stuff, you can use the hornet strike instead so the ramp up isn't as noticeable. The damage is so crazy anyway that the top end damage isn't going to matter as much in SP matches.

I have plenty of plat and endo right now in addition of a couple of prime mods and rare mods.
I'm pretty sure i can get powerful mods/things i need if i need it - or i already have that.
The problem is i can't combine the resources i have to create something good.

Hmm, ok i think i get it.
I need to choose many multiplicative mods AND try to buff certain things weapon is good for.
High crit = mod for crit.
High status = mod for status.
Or both.
Ok that's common sense.
But i saw people putting Critical Damage on Nukor when Nukor have like 10% crit chance. (I can be wrong i don't remember and i'm not on pc rn)
That's why i'm confused asf sometimes because i don't understand logic behind decision of people making this builds.

1) Ok so i can use sentinels / Animals AS PRIMERS and utility tools.
I like THIS instead of using secondary or something to priming things.
I just diminish their fighting capabilities because it seems they didn't do much during mission in my opinion but maybe it's just me because i didn't ever tried making any builds for them instead of Simple utility like sucking resources from afar or minimap detection mods.
I need to check some builds for Animals / sentinels and maybe i will cook something for them to buff myself as well :/

2) Im doing steel Path, archon Hunts, Netracells and the only thing i can't do is Deep Archimedia.
I just sometimes feel like struggling to kill something fast enough and i constantly use Torid and Glaive that's why i created this post.
I feel like i capped myself using only one or two loadouts without any change.
I want to kill something faster rn.

3) Well i literally don't understand what are you said to me.
But yeah - multiplicative mods, got it.
Mod conditions???
The only buff i have is sometimes roar, eclipse or something.
I will stick for one with learning how to mod and then add new things like abilities - maybe.
I can't always use damage buff on any frame can i? So in this situation i must focus on weapon more than abilities.

[Al]

Originally posted by Grognak:

Lots of good points are mentioned here already, I can add that it helps spending some time in simulacrum, sometimes it can help to figure out if a mod really is as good as you thought.
Whenever you think, should I use one mod or the other, go test it. This will help a lot in the long run to understand how stuff works, Ik this sounds like a beginner tip but if your actually take you time and do that, you will quickly get an understanding for what works and what doesnt.

Also if you build a weapon, read the wiki, read about everytihng around your build and you can find some interesting stuff like:
-The damage increase of Vigorous Swap and Holster Amp is mujltiplicative for thrown Glaves contact and heavy explosion damage.
-How does Slash actually work? which mods can increase slash proc's? does the initial hit damage matters for Slash or only base stats, mods and if you crit or not?
-In Steelpath you will fight agains Acolytes, are some weapon types better than others against them?

If you want an easy solution for everything, go Saryn with Nourish (on her 4) and Venom Dose, build for Toxic Lash. If you have, 2 normal green shards for higher corrosive stacks and maybe more green shards for more Toxic proc damage.
She gives armor strip, Viral and very potent, guaranteed Toxic proc's to every weapon.
(although its an easy solution for everytihng, if you read into it, really understand how this works, you can make some pretty insane builds;)

For sentinels I would recommend:
-Wyrm Prime, any sentinel weapon with good crit chance, Tenacious Bond and Reinforced Bond
-Diriga, Helstrum (build for Viral/Rad), Arc Coil, Calculated shot

I am using simulacrum to test already finished build but idk about testing every single combination.
I feel like i simply don't have time and life to do that.
It feels like i'm gonna waste hours and hours to try every single thing.
And another problem is forma.
To test a build i need to put forma in weapon so i can't test mod combinations i want to test without it.
It would be heaven if Warframe would allow us to mod weapons as we please without any restictions in simulacrum to test thigs.
But for now it's pointless and i'm feeling i'm gonna waste forma and my time just to make something that sucks.

Without freely testing things it's impossible to see difference changing one mod or another.
The problem is i don't understand why this mod works but "this" isn't as good as the third one.

Thank you for protips about Wiki etc. 🙏
But all this information is overwhelming to me i just ignore it all and put what i think is good.
I literally have headache from all this but at the same time i want to understand.

I know for acolytes status weapons are not good but at the same time i saw people killing them fast with status weapons so i'm like - so why i shouldn't use this? It works so- ?

Thank you for Saryn protip and sentinel recommendations 🙏
But recently i want to have fun and choose frames which abilities i like or look.
One day i will get to Saryn tho, i want to check every frame and make build for everyone some day but for now Saryn is out of my list.

Sentinels tho i want to check, i'm interested in them because of yall.
I will try to do something with them maybe :/

[Al]

Originally posted by AYAYA:

The core idea is to get as many numbers with different words on them as you can. Damage, Critical Damage, Weak Point Damage, Multishot, Fire Rate...

Originally posted by Vexillarius:

Also magnetic is generally pretty bad for everything.

It's good against Overguard. You can make a weapon specialised in taking the overguard off an Eximus to make it weak to crowd control.
Also does bonus damage against the new Techrot faction, especially important since they don't have anti-faction mods.

There are so many mods in this game it's easy to forget about some.
Also i can't just put every single mod to buff every single thing in weapon.
Multishot? Alright. But there are also Amalgam mods. Should i put something for crit or no? Maybe status?
When enough % status is enough?
If weapon have both should i abandon crit and mod for status?
What element i should choose?
Why someone elses build is better than mine? We both have similar mods?

There are so many questions and i have so little time i don't want to waste i don't wanna get headache from this at all.

We all neee to choose what mod to put and it seems i'm choosing poorly :c

I know some weapons are better for crit.
Everyone say Viral is meta but there are some people that say it's Gas or Magnetic or Fire.
There are people that say about armor strip and abilities.

There is so much options and paths i can choose i am so overwhelmed to the point i don't know WHO is right and WHY i'am wrong.

It is hard, it is complicated as hell.
I'm starting to think i need to open some notepad and start typing every info just to keep track on things and to not loose my sanity.

[GGX34]

Honestly if you want to make your life a lot easier overall, try to get yourself a sister hound whit manifold bond (adds weapon statuses to there abilities) + "Repo Audit" + "Energizing Prospectus" and maybe "Coolant Leak" if you can fit it.

Then add either Viral/Heat or Corrosive/Cold as main element to your hounds weapon (depending on what you need) + "Focus Radeon" + "Magnetic Rush" mods.

Now you have a companion who still is able to kill things somewhat well and disarms everything/CC's constantly and spreads 7-9 status (10+ stacks) effects on anything in 30m.

(there are more synergies but this is just the basic setup you can build upon)

Combine this whit galvanized mods on most of the weapons and everything will just dissapear the moment you look at them.
No priming needed since you companion does it all.

Oh and as other have said, don't look at overframe for endgame/midgame setups, only to get a rough idea most of the time but never copy then 1:1.
Builds on overframe are mediocre at best 9/10 times, and it fails to take into account a lot of other outside factors it cant calculate properly.

Oh and one more thing stat weighting is a big factor in status builds.
Having say corrosive and heat on a weapon and your primary way to deal damage is stacking heat procs, then adding more damage to corrosive or adding in other damage types (outside factors like nourish count too) will dilute the heat procs thus decreasing your dps.

If you need any help whit builds or anything else feel free to ask/add me and i'l do my best to help.

[Vexillarius]

Originally posted by Al:

Originally posted by Vexillarius:

Okay number one overframe builds are generally total trash. Anything by Themoon85 is usually terrible but because they included a giant guide explaining why they made awful decisions they made they get upvoted heaps for some reason.

As far as your questions. Sentinels are generally primers most of the time and stat buffers with the new bond mods. They also carry really helpful utility like enemy radar and loot detection. Which mean you don't need to waste space on your frame. They can also heal you and replenish shields. They also have a million other niche uses.

My advice would be to get a Panzer Vulp. These shoot viral quills priming your enemies. It also remains active when it dies and keeps shooting viral spores. You can run stuff like tenacious bond and reinforced bond to get 60% increased fire rate and boost on your crit damage.

Also magnetic is generally pretty bad for everything. The meta is pretty much viral/fire if you have armour strip and your not running nourish or corrosive/fire if you are running nourish or don't have armour strip. It sounds like you just have a bad build on your glaive. Go watch some Knightmareframe videos as he does a good job of explaining all mechanics involved in builds.

Knightmareframe have very confusing video's, most of his builds are about gimmick or entire loadouts which interrupt my gameplay because i don't like choosing every single mod/arcane which will only benefit to buff one weapon.

My Glaive Build is pretty much the one and only everyone runs, i can't f up Glaive Build, there are aways the same mods there everyone use.
It can only be LITTLE BIT outdated because of the new mods.

I don't like armor strip, there are plenty of weapons capable of killing without that, it's not my style unless it's convinient like i'm using specific frame with specific ability - but i'm not.
I'm not gonna use any primer when i can just use weapon to kill things.
I don't understand phenomen of priming things, it's time consuming and just not convinient or fun.

I already have panzer vulp, i need to make some build on her tho..
And when i try - well - this post comes here.

Yeah i dont actually use knightmareframes builds 99% of the time i just watch his videos to explain the relevant changes to mechanics in recent times and good synergies etc. But you are totally right. All yoputube videos are extremely gimmicky and the level of customisation in the game means they 99% of the time not going to be right for the content you are doing or playstyle.

I just went and checked out the glaive prime set up that people are running and i dont use half the mods they are running. Like i dont use power throw, smite or quick return. All these mods are trash except smite and that's just impractical and annoying and not needed. Run killing blow and viral. Atleast that's what im doing and i love glaive prime.

As far as not liking priming or stripping you pretty much need to buff a lot if your not going to do either. Take revenant for example. No armour strip or prime so i run roar or he would just be absolute trash in steel path. But buffing will only take you so far and your still going to need to run something like a Kohm with corro that can just delete armour if needed.

The reason i suggest the panzer is it really addresses a lot of the stuff your are talking about. It will passively prime enemies for you so you dont have to think a bout it. IT will armour strip enemies so you don't have to think about it. It gives passive buffs that will make your weapons stronger and you dont need to think about it. Plus a bunch of extra stuff.

And ill just touch on builds again. I never run faction mods. I never replace serration etc and rely on an unreliable and inconsistant arcane buffs. This is a hot take and 99% of youtube videos will say the complete opposite. Why is everyone in the world wrong and im right you ask. Well it simple these thing rely on best case scenario to make best paper dps. In reality during a mission its only best case scenario like 10% of the time.

I mean if faction mods dont make you want to pull your hair out you should use them but they are a huge investment and i usually just find the extra fire rate or whatever ends up going in the slot usually just as good but doesn't require the maintenance and doesn't have a huge chance of just being a dead slot during a lot of runs.