Warframe Tier List: How To Choose The Best Warframe

Warframe is one of the best, if not THE BEST, free-to-play online game out there. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to get the spotlight it very much deserves. Part of the reason why is due to Warframe’s steep learning curve. It features systems on top of systems that you cannot skip since you’re essentially handicapping yourself if you do so.

To add to that, there are also numerous warframes to choose from. These are essentially machine space ninjas each with their own unique set of skills. You can treat them like characters, like in a MOBA to make it easier to familiarize yourself. At the moment, there are 39 available warframes (minus the stronger Prime variants) with more on the way.

Some of them are certainly better than others. Moreover, in choosing the most effective warframe, there are three main categories you need to keep in mind: damage per second (DPS), survivability, and crowd control (CC). With that in mind, here are the top tier warframes that excel in at least one category:

Last updated: December 28th, 2019 to include more relevant information and Warframes.

15 EXCALIBUR/EXCALIBUR UMBRA

That’s right, the easiest beginner warframe and the poster boy of the game. Depending on who you choose in the tutorial, you can get Excalibur for free. If not, then you can get Excalibur Umbra, which is a stronger and more edgy version, also free in a later quest.

On his own, Excalibur is quite formidable and is one of the best DPS warframes because of his Exalted Blade skill. Beyond that, he also has one handy crowd control panic button in the game, which is his second skill, Radial Blind. It stuns enemies for several significant seconds.

What makes Excalibur unstoppable, however, are two mods (modifications): his exclusive Chromatic Blade, and Condition Overload equipped on his Exalted Blade. Both are fairly easy to obtain and can make Excalibur untouchable in Warframe’s endgame content.

14 RHINO

Sometimes you just want to enjoy your weapons and not overshadow them with your warframe’s killing skills. Rhino or his Prime variant (essentially a stronger and flashier version) lets you do just that and not worry about dying. While all of Rhino’s skills are useful and have their own specialties, it’s his third skill, Iron Skin, that makes him one of the few hard-to-kill warframes.

On his own, he is not really that viable in the toughest missions in Warframe. However, with two mods, namely Ironclad Charge and Iron Shrapnel, he becomes a tank with the highest amount of effective health in Warframe. With those two mods, you basically use Rhino Charge into a large group of enemies then activate Iron Skin immediately after. Depending on how many you hit, with the charge, Iron Skin will give you 10,000 to 300,000 additional armor.

13 IVARA

Ivara has permanent invisibility, meaning she is also top tier. She is also a ranger-themed warframe who uses a bow. As such, her ultimate skill, called Artemis Bow, lets her whip out an innate bow that can shoot multiple arrows. This makes Ivara an outstanding DPS warframe because that bow deals insane amounts of damage no matter the enemy’s level.

Paired with her permanent invisibility and other crowd control and specialized skills, Ivara can become an unseen and unstoppable force in Warframe. She is an easy choice in solo endless survival modes for that matter.

12 TRINITY

Aptly called the War Goddess in the Warframe community. Anyone who has ever teamed up with a player using Trinity will know why. She is an infinite source of energy in Warframe, making it incredibly easy for other players to spam their most useful or most damaging abilities. In a sense, Trinity is also a support frame because of such a skill.

However, her specialization does not stop there. Trinity can also link her health to an enemy, making them receive the damage that would have been inflicted on her. Essentially, this also makes Trinity a tank warframe that can survive the strongest attacks.

11 INAROS

Inaros is quite possibly the one warframe in this list that is least reliant on his skills. However, this does not make him less awesome. Because if there is one thing Inaros does best or better than other warframes, it’s shrugging off attacks like they’re just insect bites.

Inaros’ ultimate ability can be cast once and forgotten, as it will give him a ton of armor. Of course, Inaros will still take damage to his health, which, while huge, is not invincible. When that happens, you can easily recover Inaros’ health in the blink of an eye with his first skill, Dessication. It blinds and stuns enemies with sand and attacking them will restore a large percentage of Inaros’ health if they die. Inaros is quite simple and quite immortal.

10 NEZHA

Nezha is a faster and more active version of Rhino. He also has a similar skill, called Warding Halo which gives him a ton of armor and makes him difficult to kill. On top of that, Nezha’s other skills also have great synergy and functionality. His first skill, Firewalker can both stun and damage enemies who step on the trail of fire and also gives Nezha a speed boost.

Meanwhile, his second skill, Blazing Chakram, can give you infinite amounts of healing orbs for when you need to recover health quickly. His ultimate skill, Divine Spears, is just icing on the cake at this point but still serves as a good crowd control ability and incapacitates multiple enemies.

9 SARYN

Ever wanted to obliterate your enemies before you even have them in your line-of-sight? That’s where Saryn excels at; she’s a top DPS frame and is probably the best at dealing damage to every enemy in a 50+ meter radius. What makes her so powerful is her first skill, Spores, which damages enemies, spreads to other enemies, and strips their armor.

Combined with her third skill, Toxic Lash, and her ultimate skill, Miasma, she can erase any enemy on the map as soon as they spawn. However, Saryn is not very good at surviving and is quite fragile, a glass cannon, if you will. Hence, this is where her second skill, Molt, comes into play as it will draw enemy fire and even regenerate her health when modded.

8 NOVA

Nova is a warframe fitting of her name. She can kill anything she sees and all her skills are useful on their own. However, what makes Nova truly formidable is her ultimate skill, Molecular Prime. Depending on how you mod the said skill, it will slow enemies down or make them faster and also makes them take double damage, all in a huge radius.

Unlike Saryn, however, Nova is no glass cannon. She has high survivability thanks to her first skill, Null Star. This can give her up to 90 percent damage reduction. So, not only is Nova untouchable, but she can also shrug off any attack that gets through her Molecular Prime field.

7 MESA

One of the recent warframes to receive her own Primed version, Mesa is among the best warframes you can own. Whether you’re rocking the regular or Mesa Prime, she is easily the top warframe in terms of DPS. All this is due to her ultimate skill, Peacemaker which kills any enemy unfortunate enough to cross your crosshairs. This is no matter their level.

Beyond that, Mesa also has two additional skills which also puts her in a tank or survival frame category. The first one is her second skill, Shooting Gallery which disables nearby enemies’ ranged weapons and momentarily stuns melee enemies. The second is her third skill, Shatter Shield, which reduces any ranged damage Mesa takes. Pair those two with Peacemaker and you become an unkillable killing machine.

6 OCTAVIA

Octavia is a jack-of-all-trades warframe and is perhaps the most overpowered in the game right now. She can draw enemy fire and she can also buff damage a lot. However, Octavia usually shines due to her infinite invisibility skill which can be shared with the whole team, meaning all four of you in a squad can be invisible thanks to Octavia.

Essentially, Octavia makes other good invisibility warframes like Loki quite irrelevant. After all, she can be permanently invisible and still do insane amounts of damage. That’s like cheating in Warframe.

5 LIMBO

Most warframes, even the ones included in this list have more than one weakness when it comes to enemies. Then there’s Limbo. Limbo has only one weakness and that’s Nullifiers which cancel out other warframes’ skills. Thankfully, Nullifiers are easy to deal with, this makes Limbo pretty much invincible thanks to his Rift mechanics.

This banishes enemies, makes players and Limbo themselves untouchable, and also stops projectiles mid-air. Give Limbo a sustainable energy pool (which is quite easy to achieve), higher skill duration, range, and efficiency and you have yourself a killing machine that practically has no weakness.

4 NEKROS

In most loot-based online games or aRPGs, there is always that one build or class that excels in finding better loot, making them a crucial investment. Nekros fills in that purpose in Warframe. He’s essentially the best magic-find build or class in the game thanks to his third skill, Desecrate.

This makes any fallen enemy corpse to drop loot even if they already have once you kill them. It’s based on a set percentage but it effectively doubles all the loot you get and in turn, increases your chances of getting rare items or mods. Do you want to be rich in Platinum in Warframe without spending real money? Nekros is one of the keys.

3 NIDUS

Inaros might be the toughest or tankiest warframe in this list, but Nidus is the king of resilience. Once you understand how his skills synergize with one another, Nidus is pretty much unkillable regardless of how high-level your enemies are in-game.

This is all thanks to Nidus’ passive skill or mechanic called Mutation which can stack up to 100; every time Nidus dies, he can spend 15 Mutation stacks to resurrect immediately. Given how easy it is to accumulate those Mutation stacks, one usually won’t have a problem keeping Nidus immortal.

2 VOLT

When you’ve shaken off the training wheels in Warframe, you’ll soon realize that the game is all about grinding. Pretty soon, you’ll want to complete every mission in the fastest way possible to maximize your time or growth as a player. In that regard, Volt is a godsend for players in a hurry.

His second skill makes him the fastest warframe there is even despite a potential throne-taker named Gauss which was released this year. Volt’s speed buff skill remains unparalleled and consistent. Meanwhile, his other skills are also no slouch; one of them can mitigate all projectile damages while another can wipe out hordes of enemies in a 360-degree radius. He’s a utility and damage frame you don’t want to miss.

1 EQUINOX

Equinox is one of the most complicated warframes in this list thanks to his Day and Night Form dynamics but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be rewarded with one of the best endgame-scaling warframes at the moment. When not dealing damage, Equinox can put her enemies to sleep and kill them for added affinity, making solo affinity farming painless.

Where Equinox shines is with her final skill which makes enemies bleed to death and scales on a percentage calculation, making it viable for any enemy of any level. Switching to a different form makes Equinox a healer and support for the whole team. Not many frames come in that complete a package.

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