Player Progression Roadmap
Your visual guide to understanding Warframe's systems. Select your current stage to explore relevant topics.
Remember: You don't have to memorize everything. This guide gives you a foundation to build your own knowledge on, with the ultimate goal being "play how you want to play."
New Player
Enemy Levels 1-50
Learn the fundamentals: Warframes, weapons, mods, missions, and how to earn Platinum. Perfect for those just starting their journey.
Explore 6 topicsEarly Game
Enemy Levels 50-100
Hit a wall with scaling? Learn how to farm Credits and Endo to upgrade your mods and break through.
Explore 6 topicsMid Game
Enemy Levels 100-300
Master mod synergies, Forma, Archon Shards, Helminth, Arcanes, and advanced weapon systems. Prepare for Steel Path content.
Explore 9 topicsEnd Game
Enemy Levels 300-9,999
Survive the hardest content in the game. Learn Shield Gating, Priming, and advanced damage mitigation techniques.
Explore 3 topicsNew Player Experience
Enemy Levels 1-50
Out of the box, quests will be your biggest friend. Playtime is crucial for building up your own knowledge of how the game functions. Tap any topic below to learn more.
Starting Fresh
Your first steps into Warframe
Quests will be your biggest friend. Playtime is crucial for building up your own knowledge of how the game functions. The movement of yourself, the enemies, and how to navigate tilesets.
In this beginning stage of the game, it can be overwhelming and easy to get lost in menu screens or missions.
Important: You do not have to remember everything. Warframe has such a vast pool of systems and resources that attempting to remember everything is an unrealistic expectation.
Warframes & Weapons
Learn the basics of your loadout
At this stage of the game, every Warframe will be essentially equal. Even toward the upper-midgame, all frames will be able to perform at a high level. Because of this, dialing in on how you want to play is a perfect goal to have.
Inventory Slots
Both Warframes and Weapons consume inventory slots. These slots can be purchased through the Market for Platinum (20P for Warframe slots, 12P for three weapon slots). While you can sell items to "reclaim" a slot, it is recommended to keep all Warframes and a select group of weapons.
Ability Power
Barring some instances (Banshee, Nyx), every Warframe has at least one ability that does something very well. These abilities can be divided into two categories: killing things, and survivability.
Pro tip: In the early stages of the game, most Warframes will "kill everything" better than weapons. While mods are scarce or under-leveled, a Warframe will nearly always deal more raw damage than weapons. Lean into your abilities early on!
Learning Mods
The core system that defines your power
Warframe Mods
More Health is always good, more Armor is a good accompaniment to Health. If you want more Shields, less Health and Armor are required.
Weapon Mods
More damage is always the way to go. A bigger number is always indicative of how well your weapon will perform. Rate of Fire is effectively more damage too.
Mod Capacity
All Warframes and most weapons cap at level 30, which allows 30 mod capacity. This can be doubled by installing an Orokin Catalyst (Warframes) or Orokin Reactor (Weapons), allowing 60 mod capacity when fully leveled.
Each mod has a Drain (2-18) which consumes a portion of the total capacity.
Upgrading Mods
Mods are upgraded using Credits and Endo. At most, you will spend 40,000 Endo along with ~2,000,000 Credits to fully upgrade certain mods. For now, just putting a couple levels into a mod as you play through the Star Chart is completely reasonable.
Duplicate mods: Sell them for Credits! While each mod doesn't give a substantial amount, you will pick up hundreds of duplicates as you play.
Missions & Quests
Your path through the Star Chart
At this stage of the game, your eyes should be set on three things:
Explore & Learn
Learn how you want to play. Try different frames and weapons to find your style.
Star Chart
Work through the Star Chart to unlock all planets and mission nodes.
Complete Quests
Quests unlock crucial systems, Warframes, and story content.
Junction Rewards
Completing planetary junctions gives you additional quests, blueprints, and crucial items for progression. Examples: a Warframe slot from the Mercury junction, and Arbitrations access from the Eris junction.
Warframe & Weapon Drops
Some Warframe crafting components are earned from certain missions across the Star Chart. Examples: Hydroid from Councilor Vay Hek on Earth, Mesa from Mutalist Alad V on Eris.
Syndicate Systems
Quest completions grant access to planetary syndicates (Fortuna, Deimos, Sanctum Anatomica) where you can purchase Warframes, weapons, and companions, or unlock missions to progress power scaling (Archon Hunts).
Mastery Rank
What it means and why it matters
Mastery Rank at this stage of the game is a critical resource for unlocking additional items of interest. Past rank 18, however, Mastery Rank holds no in-game advantage until rank 30, at which point additional bonuses become available.
How to Earn Mastery Rank
Mastery Rank is earned by leveling Warframes, weapons, companions, archwings, and necramechs. Additionally, MR can be earned in smaller quantities for completing Star Chart missions.
- Weapons give 3,000 mastery points
- Warframes give 6,000 mastery points
- MR0 to MR1 requires 2,500 points
- MR10 to MR11 requires 52,500 points
- MR29 to MR30 requires 147,500 points
MR vs Skill Level
Mastery Rank has no bearing on skill level within the game. A MR14 player can be "better" at the game than a LR5 player, depending on personal ability to learn and adapt.
Mastery Rank is indicative of time spent within the game, which corresponds to a player's knowledge of the game world.
There is no shame in holding a lower Mastery Rank. It is simply a way to gauge playtime and general understanding of the game's systems.
Platinum & Trading
Premium currency and how to earn it
Platinum can be earned in-game via trading at a clan dojo or Maroo's Bazaar on Mars, or purchased for real currency. It's used for cosmetics, XP boosters, and everything in between. This is not pay-to-win, but pay-to-win-faster.
Earning Platinum (Free-to-Play)
Earning your own Platinum as a free-to-play player is tricky at first. Most of the game's items can be sold to other players for Platinum. If something requires more playtime to unlock, or is seen as rare, the price will be higher.
- Prime Warframe sets: 40-200 Platinum
- Arcane Hot Shot (max level): 600-800 Platinum
- Rare Riven mods: 1,000-20,000 Platinum
- "Easy-but-tedious" mods (like Shocking Claws from Fortuna): 9-15 Platinum each, making an hour of farming equate to ~200-300 Platinum
Price Checking: For all items you wish to trade, look at the prices on warframe.market before conducting a transaction.
Early Game
Enemy Levels 50-100
By now you'll have seen that things kind of "cap out". You'll hit walls with enemy level, where you no longer deal very much damage. This is normal, and by design. The solution is almost entirely due to underleveled mods.
Playstyles
Nuking vs Sustain
Warframe, at its core, really has only two playstyles: nuking and sustain. How you choose to interact with those systems is what brings such a diverse series of playstyles to the game.
Sustain Playstyle
Play to get kills and stay alive. Examples: Valkyr, Hildryn, Mesa, Excalibur
Nuke Playstyle
Clear the entire tileset of enemies. Examples: Saryn, Nezha, Sevagoth
The base abilities of a Warframe decide this for you. Valkyr doesn't have any abilities that cover a wide area, whereas Saryn does. Excalibur is great at getting kills and staying alive, when Nezha can clear all enemies in a huge area more quickly.
Why Use Anything Other Than Nuke Frames?
It depends on your stage of the game:
- Early game - Reliance on self-sufficiency; killing your own enemies, keeping yourself alive
- Mid game - Shift to complex builds to eliminate large groups at once
- Late game - Nuke builds fall off in damage output, things shift back to self-sufficiency
Play how you want to play. Your mods and choice of companions will get you through missions scaling into levels 200+ without the need for "meta" builds. Meta is fun, but so is playing the game how you want.
Advancements in Modding
Why you're hitting walls
There appears to be a knowledge disconnect between guides on YouTube and where players are at in the game. It's either "Here's how to get into Warframe" or "Here's a build with a million different mods that you don't have and don't know how to get".
At the end of the day, getting past the initial hump of hitting a scaling cap with level 50-70 enemies is almost entirely due to underleveled or improper mods.
Leveling a mod up can become quite expensive, and a huge drag if done improperly. You'll need two resources to level mods: Endo and Credits.
For this portion of the game, you can almost throw any old mod onto a Warframe or weapon and it will do well-enough. Having upgraded variants of mods that increase Health, Armor, Ability Strength, Damage, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage will perform at a higher level than their non-upgraded counterparts.
Credit Farming
The Index on Neptune
The most straightforward credit farm in the game is via The Index on Neptune.
Time per Run
~10 minutes per rotation
Credits per Run
250,000 credits
Generally speaking, this farm will be enough to upgrade your mods enough to reach the Mid Game, where better farms become available.
Pro tip: If you have a Credit Booster active (from login rewards, Nightwave, or the market), your earnings will be doubled!
Endo Farming
Multiple methods available
For Endo, there are several methods at this stage of the game:
Rathuum Arena (Sedna)
The most straightforward Endo farm. Preferably done on Steel Path, using Warframes like:
- Nekros with Despoil
- Khora with Pilfering Strangledome
- Nidus for the Larva
Alternative Methods
- Planetary bounties - Endo in smaller quantities
- Railjack Missions - Endo as rewards
- Selling duplicate mods - From the mod kiosk in your base of operations
- Ayatan Sculptures - Sell them (slotted with Ayatan Stars) to Maroo at Maroo's Bazaar on Mars
Mods to Prioritize
Which mods are worth your resources
There are thousands of mods in Warframe, so how do you know which ones are worth pouring resources into?
Picking good mods at this stage of the game is largely subjective, but understanding your playstyle and areas in which your build is lacking are crucial in advancing past the initial hump.
Survivability Issues
If your Excalibur deals good damage but is constantly at low health, you could use (or upgrade):
- Vitality and Fiber mods (preferably both)
- Healing Return on Exalted Blade for constant regeneration
- Equilibrium for energy management
- Arcane Blessing or Arcane Grace if you have them
Damage Issues
If you can survive well enough, but your abilities don't deal enough damage:
- Intensify - Critical for Ability Strength builds
- Transient Fortitude, Blind Rage - More Ability Strength
- Molt Augmented Arcane - Additional Ability Strength
- Body Count or Drifting Contact - For combo-based abilities
- Condition Overload, Blood Rush, Weeping Wounds - Scaling damage
Prime vs Normal
Understanding Prime variants
Prime variants of weapons and Warframes are better versions of the normal versions. But in which ways are they actually better?
Prime Weapons
Prime weapons have increased base stats and usually higher base damage. Examples:
- Baza vs Baza Prime - Same base damage, but +2% Crit Chance, +4% Status Chance, +20 magazine capacity
- Gram vs Gram Prime - 160 vs 300 damage, 15% vs 32% Crit Chance, 2.0x vs 2.6x Crit Multiplier. Nearly double in every department!
These differences allow Prime weapons to 'scale' to higher levels, handling higher difficulty content more easily.
Prime Warframes
Prime Warframes have similar stat increases:
- Atlas vs Atlas Prime - 270/270 Health/Shields vs 550/555, 175 vs 215 Energy, 475 vs 500 Armor
- Mesa vs Mesa Prime - 365/180 Health/Shields vs 500/280, 150 vs 190 Energy, 105 vs 135 Armor
Note: Abilities themselves (like Mesa's Regulators) don't get bonuses from being Prime.
Substantial bonuses, yes, but the difference is not game-breaking. If you're performing well on a normal variant, the Prime version will simply make things easier. Prime variants also come with additional pre-polarized mod slots.
Mid Game Experience
Enemy Levels 100-300
Welcome to Steel Path territory. At this stage, understanding how mods interact becomes the single most valuable knowledge you can obtain. Quality over quantity is now critical.
New Systems
Quality over quantity becomes critical
Simply throwing Health, Armor, Shields, Ability Strength, Range, Duration, and Efficiency onto your Warframe will no longer be enough to carry you through these missions.
The quality of mods that you choose to use matters more than the quantity. Having a mod in every slot will be outperformed by having a few fully-leveled mods of specific synergy with your Warframe or weapons.
For instance, on a Warframe like Excalibur, using the finite number of mod capacity on Shields, Duration, and Range will be noticeably worse than using Health, Armor, Strength, and Efficiency.
Companions Matter Now
Your choice of companion actually starts to matter. Nautilus does more things than Helios (crowd control and damage potential).
Use Your Codex
The in-game Codex will be your best friend when trying to track down mods or companions that you do not own.
Warframes
Forma, Archon Shards, and Helminth
At level 30, with an Orokin Reactor installed, Warframes have a maximum of 78 mod capacity (60 from the Warframe, 18 from the Aura mod).
Forma
Equipping a Forma onto a mod slot will halve the Drain of a mod with a matching polarity. It will add 50% more cost to a mod that doesn't match. You can also change the polarity of already polarized slots.
Frame Performance
This is the stage where frames like Ember and Banshee fall off in terms of damage output and survivability. Ember because the quality of mods needed far exceed the new-player inventory, and Banshee because she is a product of a different time in the game's history.
Archon Shards
Smaller improvements via Archon Shards, earned from Archon Hunts, Netracells, Deep Archimedea, and Temporal Archimedea. These provide buffs (e.g., 10% Ability Strength). You can equip five per Warframe, and the buffs add up.
Limitation: A single Archon Shard can only be equipped on a single frame at a time.
Helminth System
Warframes can be "subsumed" at the Helminth (purchased from Son on Deimos). Subsuming completely removes the Warframe from your inventory and allows that ability to be placed on another Warframe.
Warning: Subsuming completely removes the Warframe and doesn't refund Archon Shards, Forma, or Orokin Catalysts. Make sure you have a duplicate frame before subsuming!
With good mods and a decent understanding of how the game's systems interact, nearly any Warframe can tackle level 200+ activities. The Archon Shards and Subsumes are just the icing on the cake.
Weapons
Multishot, Galvanized mods, and tiers
Weapons at this stage are drifting into less of a "big number equals big damage" hierarchy. Enemies with more health will easily take multiple mag-dumps to eliminate without proper mods.
Multishot
Multishot is "more" bullets per "bullet". A weapon with 1,000 damage with 3 multishot shoots three bullets per one bullet expended from the magazine, each doing 1,000 damage. More bullet per bullet.
Galvanized Mods
Galvanized mods generally have a "normal" equivalent. Example: Argon Scope (135% crit chance for 9s on headshot) vs Galvanized Scope (120% + stacking 40% per headshot kill, up to 200% additional).
Base Stats vs Base Damage
A weapon with lower base damage but higher base stats (crit chance, crit damage) can be made better than a similar weapon with higher base damage and lower stats. Baza Prime vs Braton Prime is a good example - Baza requires fewer mods to become a "crit build" weapon.
Weapon Tiers
Base & Primes
Good through most activities. Fall off around level 300 enemies. Use weapons-platform frames (Mirage, Saryn) to extend their usefulness.
Nemesis Weapons
Variants with additional damage and higher base stats. Earned from Kuva Liches, Sisters of Parvos, and Technocite Codas. Can level to 40 via Forma.
Incarnon Weapons
Currently the best weapons in the game. Available from Steel Path Circuit in Duviri (two per week) or purchased from Cavalero on The Zariman.
Mods and Arcanes
Advanced modding philosophy
Weapon Modding
Modding at this stage becomes more niche; the focus shifts from "big number" to "big stats". Mods like Serration and Heavy Caliber matter less than before. Opting instead for something like Primary Arcuity and the Primary Deadhead arcane will net more damage in reality.
Note on Bane mods: Using Bane mods is generally a blunder. You will reach a point where enemies are killing you just as fast as you're killing them, at which point the utility of Bane mods falls off. Bane mods (and Prime Sure Footed by extension) are for tools.
Warframe Modding
Instead of utilizing a variety of mods to 'round out' a Warframe's abilities, switch to a specialized setup. Pivoting from 'jack of all trades' to dialing in on the one or two abilities that your Warframe of choice excels at.
Example with Excalibur: Spec into Ability Strength with Blind Rage, Umbral Intensify and Transient Fortitude, Health and Armor via Umbral Vitality and Umbral Fiber, throw in the Adaptation mod = a warframe that will absorb damage from enemies into the 1,000+ level range.
Weapon Arcanes
Generally exist to do one thing: increase your damage. Overall, you'll probably be using one of two sets:
- Primary/Secondary Deadhead
- Primary/Secondary Merciless
Niche examples include Primary Blight (crit damage and multishot on Toxin status proc) or Cascadia Flare (damage on Heat status proc).
Warframe Arcanes
Warframe Arcanes are best suited to fill in a gap in a Warframe's kit, or to expand a Warframe's strengths.
Example with Hildryn: Use Molt Augmented (extra 60% Ability Strength), Arcane Expertise (100% of Ability Strength bonuses to max shields), and five Crimson Archon Shards for Ability Strength = ~15,000 shields.
Companions
Choosing companions for your playstyle
Companions become quite useful at this stage. All of them are largely equally viable. There is a spectrum of utility - from dealing damage to a single enemy, to clearing entire rooms.
Companions are subject to the same limitations as Warframes and weapons: they will only perform as well as your mods allow them to.
Survivability
Huras Kubrow and Shade sentinel provide invisibility, keeping you safe during revives or objectives.
Nuke Potential
Nautilus sentinel or the Bhaira Hinta Hound can clear rooms with the right builds.
A companion should provide a quality of life improvement specific to your playstyle. There's no single "best" choice.
Operator & Drifter
Focus schools, Amps, and Arcanes
Choosing a Focus School is less critical now than it has been in the past, but unlocking the different passive buffs is still very important. An excess of millions of Focus is needed.
Focus Farming
Focus conversion via Eidolon Shards is far superior to daily Focus standing. Farming only three rotations of Eidolons in a single night period on the Plains of Eidolon can net close to two million Focus.
Amp Recommendations
The meta choice is the x/7/7 combination, which requires rank four access to Little Duck on Fortuna.
- 1/7/7 - Best for Eidolon Hunts
- 7/7/7 - Best for general gameplay
Duviri Intrinsics
Two Duviri intrinsics carry through to the Star Chart:
- Muscle Mass (Rank 9 Combat) - Increases damage by 25%
- Tough As Old Boots (Rank 9 Endurance) - Increases health regen to 5 HP/s
Operator/Drifter Arcanes
Some synergies provide additional damage (e.g., Magus Melt + Virtuos Forge = 210% damage for amps). Others provide health for Operator/Drifter, health restoration for Warframes, or temporary damage bonuses via transference.
A base Amp with the Madurai Focus school will do well enough to get you through 99% of the game's content. The question becomes how quickly you want to complete activities.
Damage Types
What actually matters
Damage types in Warframe are simultaneously straight-forward and ass-backwards.
Understanding that Corrosive strips enemy Armor, and that Magnetic strips enemy Shields is great and all, but understanding that Corpus (or other shielded enemies) blow over if you breathe on them hard enough while Grineer simply do not, means that you can effectively use Corrosive damage on all of your weapons and not be punished for it.
Slash functions similarly - it completely bypasses Overguard, Shields, and Armor, dealing direct damage to the Health of the enemy, though Slash builds have fallen off in recent years.
Trying to build weapons around specific enemy factions isn't really worth the time and resource commitment necessary to upgrade all of the mods. Just use Corrosive and move on.
Primed Mods
Substantial upgrades from Baro
Primed mods are substantially better than their normal counterparts.
Primed Continuity
55% Ability Duration vs 30% (normal)
Primed Cryo Rounds
165% Cold vs 90% (normal)
While the bonuses are substantial, and you will notice a stark difference between the two variants, when playing base Steel Path or normal-mode missions, the difference will be negligible when enemies are dying quickly regardless of mods.
Drifting into higher difficulty activities, however (like Elite Deep Archimedea), utilizing the Primed variants will make what would have been a painful activity at least manageable.
Primed mods are purchased from Baro Ki'Teer using Ducats and Credits. He visits a relay every two weeks.
Baro Ki'Teer
Farming Ducats efficiently
Farming Ducats for Baro can be a drag, and you will absolutely go broke buying things from him. Here are efficient methods:
Capture Fissures (Most Efficient)
The absolute most efficient way to farm relics using Titania or Wukong to quickly navigate tilesets, with a full squad with Radiant relics. Done in less than 90 seconds, netting 40 Prime parts per hour.
Defense/Disruption/Interception
If you value your sanity - 2-4 minute rotations, netting 15-30 Prime parts per hour. Use frames like Mirage, Saryn with Kuva Ogris, or Cyte, Nezha, Nova for optimization.
Steel Path Omnia Fissures (High-End)
Void Cascade on Steel Path is the most profitable for maximizing multiple resources:
- Acolytes spawn every 3-8 minutes for Steel Essence
- Zariman Arcanes as drops
- Prime parts every 3-5 minutes
- 45 minutes: 20-25 Prime parts, 100+ Steel Essence (with booster), 15-20 Arcanes
- Enemies reach level ~700 at 45 min, level cap (9,999) at ~90 min
Survival fissures are one of the slower methods - only 12 Prime parts per hour with no means to speed up.
End Game Experience
Enemy Levels 300-9,999
End game activities in Warframe will feel ridiculously bad if you don't know how to navigate player/enemy interaction. Everything will, at best, chunk your health down to nothing, and at worst, one shot you outright.
How to Survive
Shield Gating, damage mitigation, and more
Survival is a matter of combining a very wide array of systems to your advantage. Things like:
- Shield Gating - When your shields break, you become briefly invulnerable. This is THE meta for survival at high levels.
- Priming - Setting up enemies to take maximum damage (see next topic)
- Companion interactions - Some companions can provide additional survivability or crowd control
- Damage Mitigation - Mods like Adaptation, Rolling Guard, and specific Warframe abilities
Shield Gating is the single most important survival mechanic at this level of play. Many builds intentionally keep shields low so they can be refreshed quickly for more invulnerability windows.
Priming
Setting up enemies for maximum damage
Past level 2,000, utilizing a stat-stick weapon to 'set up' or prime a group of enemies to take maximum damage is crucial to killing things, and staying alive.
The Kompressa Prime
Currently the best weapon in the game for priming due to its high base status chance and bullet spread. Opting for Corrosive, then Viral or Cold on the Kompressa will allow your primary weapon or Warframe abilities to deal maximum damage.
Sentinel Priming
A sentinel can also be used as a priming tool. Specifically the Nautilus or a Hound with the Synergized Prospectus and Manifold Bond mods.
- Nautilus - Will group and prime enemies
- Hound - Will stun and prime enemies in a large area
The concept is simple: spray the room with status effects first, then switch to your primary weapon or abilities to take advantage of the armor strip and damage multipliers.
End Game Credit Farm
Up to 25+ million credits per hour
The absolute best credit farm in the game can net upwards of 25,000,000 credits per hour using niche interactions between Chroma, Secura Lecta, Gas status procs, and enemies dying "multiple" times.
The Basics
This is best done in Steel Path due to increased enemy spawns (note: Steel Path does not yield additional credit multipliers).
- Chroma's Effigy - Grants additional credit drops within a 10-meter radius
- Secura Lecta's passive - Grants bonus credits when it kills an enemy
- Gas and Electricity status - When an enemy dies, it's still "alive" for a brief moment due to death animations. Gas inherits Lecta's passive, causing more credit drops
Chroma Build
Subsume Khora's Ensnare onto Chroma, replacing one of his first two abilities. This groups enemies together.
Mods: Vitality, Hunter Adrenaline, Adaptation, Fleeting Expertise, Streamline, Intensify, Stretch, Overextended
Arcanes: Arcane Nullifier (prevents Energy Leech), Arcane Strike (buffs melee attack speed)
Secura Lecta Build
Stance: Burning Wasp (mandatory)
Mods: Healing Return, Primed Fever Strike, Primed Reach, Volcanic Edge, Melee Elementalist/Galvanized Elementalist, Weeping Wounds, Last Sting
Arcane: Melee Fortification only (other Arcanes negatively impact credit gains)
Companion: Sunika Kubrow
Use a rank zero Unleashed mod - causes enemies to target the Kubrow instead of the player.
Kubrow Mods: Synth Deconstruct, Link Vitality, Fetch, Prosperous Retriever, Primed Pack Leader, Primed Animal Instinct, Tenacious Bond (requires 65%+ crit on primary)
Tileset: Titan, Saturn
Reload the mission until you spawn at the correct location. Place Effigy in the corner behind a medium-sized box to protect it from harm.
- First ~10 minutes: Use Buzzing Sting combo (don't kill too fast)
- After 10 minutes: Switch to Sparking Torture combo
- Target pace: 150,000 credits per minute
1 Hour Results
22.5M credits (base), 45M with booster, ~375K/min with both booster + blessing
155 Min (with Fissure)
After 95 min in a Fissure, 2x Credit multiplier. Total: 76,125,000 credits!