An Ivara Guide from an Ivara Main

This is a guide about the Warframe, Ivara. This will include modding tips, ability information and general play styles for her.

Abilities and Basic Info

Ivara's 1 is a multitude of arrows. First off Noise Arrow, this arrow makes a sound that attracts non alerted enemies. It is almost useless because you can ether walk by them in invisibility or shoot them. This arrow is only useful in very high level steel path. Secondly Dashwire, this arrow makes a zip line wire thingy that you and your teammates can go on. It is pretty self explanitory but it can be good when you are invisible, you can go faster. Thirdly Cloak Arrow, this arrow makes an area (with an area size depending on you range mods) that makes you and your teammates invisible until the duration ends. Lastly Sleep Arrow, this arrow (arguably her best) SLEEPS enemies in the range you built for. This is very good for incapacitating enemies very quickly. I personally like to build for it.

Ivara's 2 is navigator. It takes control of the next projectile you throw/shoot.This ability is not that great but can do a lot of damage, just at the cost of a lot of energy. Most people (including myself) take it away to use for Helminth, I agree with this. Although it can take control of a thrown glaive which is good for damage but takes sooooo much energy.

Ivara's 3 is Prowl. This ability allows you to go invisible, not based on a timer but by a drain of you energy slowly. It does restrict your movement and you have to use the "Hush" mod to be able to shoot in this state but it is mainly used to lock down an area and not get shot.

Ivara's 4 is Artemis Bow. This ability deploys her exalted weapon. Unlike other bows it shoots an array of arrows. The more you pull back the bow, dictates the orientation of the array of arrows. Pulling it back does NOT make it do more damage. I would suggest building for viral damage for the best effect (corrosive works too).

Modding Tips

I like to build Ivara from range for her sleep arrow, but others build for efficiency for her 3 (invisibility). Both are fine but I think range is better for an all rounder and more invisibility is missing out on potential damage you could be getting with more range.

With this build I like to use AOE weapons to hit them all when they are asleep. This includes weapons like the Acceltra, Kuva Bramma, Kuva Zarr... Even weapons like the Soma Prime can get good DPS quickly, so you can take enemies down before they wake up, or you can just kill them while invisible.

My Builds

My all rounder Ivara build (It's a roar Helminth build. I prefer it to Navigator sometimes.)-

My most used Artemis Bow build-

Helminth Builds

(Note: for all of these builds I like to swap out Navigator, which is Ivara's 2 ability. Navigator can be an extremely good damage tool, but it is also sort of situational)

Ivara Artemis Bow Damage Multiplier Helminth-

Fusing Mirage's Eclipse onto Ivara turns her into a slash proc machine. The ability itself is a damage multiplier based on ability strength. The build you can use for it is very simple. All you need is quite a bit of ability strength and enough duration to be sustainable. On my build, I got around 360% increased damage or 3.6x damage. You can reach a lot more damage, but it messes with build variety.

Ivara Max DPS Helminth-

Fusing Empower, which you get from leveling up Helminth (not achieved from another warframe). Since Empower increases the ability strength of the next ability cast (great name for it, I know), you can get increased DPS with her Artemis Bow. The Artemis Bow isn't the "best" exalted weapon but is still very good for one hitting level 80 trash or lower, but if you build for it, it can do so much more. Using hunter munitions, the Artemis Bow can scale into the highest steel path enemies with slash procs and crits. This way, by adding Empower, it can very improve an Artemis Bow raw DPS build.

Ivara CC Helminth-

Fusing Mag's Pull ability to get good CC with a small set up time. First you run a range build with Mag's Pull on it. In a mission, you can pull a group of enemies and then sleep them with Ivara's quiver. You can repeat this until you have enough enemies close to you. You can kill them however you want because since you are Ivara, you can remain invisible and execute groups of enemies without being seen.

Ivara Armor Strip Helminth-

Fusing Ember's Fire Blast (Ember's 2) will give you very strong armor strip that will allow you to slash enemies with ease. By grouping up enemies and using Fire Blast can very easily get kills on high level steel path enemies. I like to use AOE weapons like the kuva bramma with this build just because you can hit clustered and stripped enemies for a lot of damage in a very large area, especially while using fire storm (a mod that increases AOE range).

Fashion Frame

I like to use deep, slightly dark tones for the "primary color" and lighter tones, like orange (from the fire pallet) or a yellow (from the Hallow's Eve color pallet). This way it sticks to the jellyfish aesthetic like in the second photo. The deep purple in the second photo also made a more undersea look just the fit with the theme of the prime skin.

This one is with the Skathi, Ivara skin (this one is also my favorite one to rock in game!)-
[previewimg=21725339;sizeOriginal,floatLeft;Screenshot (3).png] Another tennogen skin for you lot!- [preview


This one is for if you don't want to spend money on tennogen-
















































Another tennogen skin for you lot!-

What makes Ivara A Viable Warframe?

What makes Ivara viable is her all in one play style. She can do good DPS, CC and survivability. She is my favorite frame mostly because I have always had her and grown very used to her kit over the years of my play time.

Her kit is very well put together. You wouldn't be disappointed to have an Ivara on you squad especially for an Eidolon fight. Otherwise she scales well and can defeat all the content that the game throws your way.

My YouTube Channel (Trying Not To Plug)

Yes, I have a YouTube channel, so if you want to see more warframe content I would recomment checking it out. I make Warframe, Super Smash Bros., Krunker, Apex Legends, and Paladins content if you like things like that, then this is the link (Warframe IGN, SaneAtlas BTW)-

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4HPQAx1CG8tfM9gqnTGm6g

Ivara's role

Ivara can be played mostly as a dps frame but can be used for a "nuke" frame. Hearing this word "nuke" implies many things like being able to destroy maps of enemies quickly, as a wide DPS tool. Although the definition isn't very clear, that is probably what you picture when the word is heard. With this acknowledgment you could say any frame is a "nuke" frame as long as it can do any potion of ranged DPS even on level 1 enemies, no matter how small.

The play style and build I would use is mostly ability strength and efficiency because you can reach very high DPS and stay invisible and not run out of energy. You should also run Zenurik because the skill energizing dash is a good safety net if you need energy. Remember you are going to invisible most of the time in steel path so you can sacrifice all you heath and armor mods. Adaptation is also useless on Ivara because you shouldn't be hit during missions. Instead, use rolling guard so you can stay alive if your invisibility is broken.

Also, another thing is after reading this, I hope you will never think of Ivara as just another stealth frame or the frame you use for spy missions, ever again. You should see Ivara as she is. Which is a very good utility frame with a high damage output.

THANKS FOR READING!!!

[Kevin.of.Glendalough]

Thank you for this! You mention that Ivara is especially helpful during an eidolon hunt. Could you explain why? Thank you

[ArrowGile]

I like the way you build her, she is indeed capable of many things, altho majority of players say she is bad choice for steelpath I still am sticking to her that she have so many potential in terms of ways you can roll her, I sometimes for fun of it just use my invis and sleep arrow and just one shot enemies with mellee takedowns with lacera on steelpath

[ArrowGile]

I can't access 2nd screenshot mod build to sshot it on my phone

[EvilPasta]

If I remember correctly, Click the Quiver ability to switch the arrow - hold to use the selected arrow

[Aethis]

nice guide, just one thing...how do i switch arrows?

[EvilPasta]

A side note... Getting Opticor early in the game, years ago, might have influenced my view on Ivara's abilities, and the builds I've made. Maybe that's why I never saw navigator as useful as other players. (/profile EvilPasta)
Also, I used to have a dagger with a Covert Lethality to instakill any enemy on 100+ lvls if I had to... Until they nerfed it. But silent melee assassinations still remain an option

[EvilPasta]

2nd build is focused on power, without maxing it out too much. I still like my main build. 299% power, 63% duration, 100% range, 105% efficiency. And empowered quiver, this time for the additional +299% damage on a dashwire. (If I remember correctly, it is x4 damage). Power also increases damage of the bow - 4th skill.

[EvilPasta]

1st build is focuses on the 1st skill. I've found Sleep and Invisibility bubble very useful for defense scenarios (especially sortie-like defense), you can control enemies, stun them etc, and also keep you and your team invisible to be able to avoid most of the damage. 1st build also allows to have high efficient 3rd skill invisibility. 202 duration, 250% range, 40% strength, 100% efficiency. Also empowered quiver, mostly for the anti-status bubbles.

[EvilPasta]

Hey, maybe I can share with you my builds? I have 2 builds on 1 ivara, using just 2 formas on Ivara Prime

[EvilPasta]

Ivara mains can differ so much