Warframe In The Playground - The Grustrag 03

[Grif]

On the topic of favourite warframe, I still run Rhino myself, for most things. I do all the "big" story quest as Rhino, usually with a Hek variant, Stubba and Guandao.

That said, I coloured my Valkyr to my liking recently, and I like her cat lady smashiness.

[NeoVid]

I didn't particularly like the new frame's looks either, so I'm using the Excal skin we were given for the 5th anniversary event on it. Which just reminds me how insanely generous Warframe can be compared to most games, especially F2P games.

[Recaiden]

I'm hoping it's a bug that

Spoiler: spoilers

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Umbra can hit you while in Void mode. It makes the fight with him seriously tedious as you get chain-staggered. I feel like for an operator-only fight, they could have done a better job balancing it for the operator's fairly limited range of power.

I found an actual bug where if you fall into a pit at the wrong time, you can trigger a lockdown but be in a part of the level with no way to lift the lockdown, and have to restart. Quite minor.

Fashion-wise, Umbra Skin with Dex helmet.

Spoiler: Post-Quest

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Sacrificial melee mods seem fine. Steel is better that True Steel while being more expensive, plus the little Bane of Sentients. But it's still exclipsed by Blood Rush in many situations so no problem, IMO. Pressure is between Pressure Point and Primed Pressure point, which feels perfect.

Umbral Intensify is more Intense than normal, but still less than Blind Rage.

Umbral Vitality and Fiber are more questionable since they become strictly superior (at the cost of being a lot more expensive). I might wedge one onto Inaros but otherwise I see them as part of the Prime Bonus for Excal Umbra. If they release Shadow Forma or whatever, then we've got a power creep question.

[mangosta71]

There's some weird interaction between Crowd Dispersion (Wyrm precept) and my Vulkar Wraith. Anything that's been affected by the knockback becomes immune to my rifle's damage.

[McDouggal]

Spoiler: Sacrifice spoilers

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There's a lot of great atmosphere to the quest, and some interesting lore. Fighting umbra as the operator was very tedious. As far as I can tell, you can't actually lose the fight, so why was it such a pain in the ***? The story was also disappointing in some ways. The connection between the Lotus and Ballas was only lightly touched on. What Ballas has been up to all this time (and why he appeared now) wasn't touched at all. The Lotus' motivation in going with Ballas... Well, it made for a great cliffhanger. But this was Umbra's story, not even really Ballas' and certainly not the Lotus'. Funnily enough, in light of Wraith's question, I felt kinda disappointed that I couldn't stomp on Ballas as my usual frame Oberon Prime. I had to use Umbra. As mentioned, I have no interest in him. I'd like his scarf as a syandana, but all the goofy bits on his arms, the unpronounceable nikana, and the powercreep mods, are all just meh.

Spoiler: Sacrifice Spoils

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Fighting Umbra as Operator wasn't really tedious for me, but that's because I have a 223 amp, max rank Magus Husk and Magus Vigor, plus the increased operator health waybound unlocked. The most frustrating bit was when he was able to smack me through Void mode. While I was eventually able to escape by void dashing, if I hadn't had those upgrades I would've been forced back into my Frame.

While I was a little frustrated by being forced to use Excal Umbra for that last section of the quest, I understood the decision by the quest designers to force that. As you said, this fight wasn't your fight against Ballas, you were just enabling Umbra's fight against Ballas.

On the topic of favourite warframe, I still run Rhino myself, for most things. I do all the "big" story quest as Rhino, usually with a Hek variant, Stubba and Guandao.

That said, I coloured my Valkyr to my liking recently, and I like her cat lady smashiness.

I ran most of the quest content as Rhino, since he's an excellent generalist frame, although anything stealthy I'd pack Ivara for. However, I took my angry murdercatberserkerlady for Sacrifice, since I've found that screaming at Sentients with your 4 works surprisingly well.

[NeoVid]

Oh damn. Just learned of something that can happen after you complete Sacrifice.

Spoiler

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The Man in the Wall gets new dialogue if he manifests on your ship after completing that storyline.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Yep.

Spoiler

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He's definitely reached a new level of creepiness.
...
And I still want to see more of him.

[McDouggal]

Oh damn. Just learned of something that can happen after you complete Sacrifice.

Spoiler

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The Man in the Wall gets new dialogue if he manifests on your ship after completing that storyline.

Yep.

Spoiler

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He's definitely reached a new level of creepiness.
...
And I still want to see more of him.

Spoiler: Sacrifice

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I'm unsure what role the Man in the Wall actually plays now after that little conversation. My initial thought after Chains of Harrow was that he was the real big bad, but my thought now is that he's closer to Chaotic Neutral in alignment.

I (personally) think it's pretty clear that he gave us the Void powers in the first place, and is basically the consciousness of the Void. My only question is whether the other Tenno (keep in mind that canonically the Player Character is the only Tenno to have done the quests) get the same visits from Mister Creep that we do. He seems to have taken a personal interest in the Player Character, but he could also be dropping in on the Orbiters of other Tenno.

[NeoVid]

My hopes for what they'll do with the character in the future:

Spoiler

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Wally is a Void manifestation, and the Void is completely inimical to the Sentients. Wouldn't it be entertaining if we could give him the idea that it would be hilarious to go screw over Hunhow.

[Leon]

Well the UI is as bad as i expected it to be, the Quest aside from some interesting lore is as bad as normal (Operator Combat is Bad any place and this just ramps it up to stupid levels) and all you get is a some questionable mods and a crappy excalibore from it (Free warframe slot i suppose aswell) One hopes that Tennocon bring something really good since this is a overall letdown for the length of time it took to arrive and what it contained.

[Wraith]

Spoiler: Sacrifice Spoils

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Fighting Umbra as Operator wasn't really tedious for me, but that's because I have a 223 amp, max rank Magus Husk and Magus Vigor, plus the increased operator health waybound unlocked. The most frustrating bit was when he was able to smack me through Void mode. While I was eventually able to escape by void dashing, if I hadn't had those upgrades I would've been forced back into my Frame.

Spoiler

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Whereas I am at completely the opposite end of the spectrum; I have the starter Amp at level 17 and never, ever use it. I have none of the other upgrades and I didn't even know that Operators had a 'melee' attack until I was halfway through The Sacrifice and the on-screen prompts told me about it.

This made the Umbra fights a freakin' nightmare of frustration. When your energy pool is so low and your damage output is so small, there is no tactics or strategy to speak of; I had no choice but to stand my Warframe up in the rafters, where Umbra can't aim his sword's blasts, and zerg-rush the guy with 20+ resurrections.
It very much broke all immersion for me. I stood up there and unloaded all 2000 rounds of my Soma Prime into Umbra and not a single thing happened, then he couldn't kill be because I was stood more than 10 feet above him, and I 'died' 20 times in a row chipping away at him for no penalty whatsoever.

I appreciate what DE is doing with the plot - it's become completely clear that the story and lore really isn't about the Ninja Robot things, but about the human children who are piloting them, and I'm down with that. I certainly enjoyed the new story and hope to see more high quality stuff from them.

I just... don't want to be forced into using the unarmed kid to fight with, because the only reason I do so is because they say I have to and that's not fun at all. I much prefer the multi-stage Warframe battles, such as Lephantis, where I can really enjoy the core gameplay and my unique, customised loadouts.

[NeoVid]

Fortunately, you can upgrade the Operator's gear and abilities enough for them to be effective and even fun... though it would be great if the game actually gave you a clue that was possible. In another discussion with someone frustrated at the Sacrifice, I mentioned the design of Amp I use and got the reply, "What's an Amp?" That talk also went places like "Wait, you can get focus lenses without spending plat?"

[Wraith]

I know they can be upgraded, I just honestly can't be bothered to grind them, because it means spending more time in Spoiler Mode. 850 hours into Warframe, and I finally found the gameplay loop that I have no patience for. I make no claim that it is necessarily Good or Bad, it's just not for me.

[mangosta71]

FYI: Mastery rank 24 test is Operator mode. Honestly, the way to do it is die as fast as possible because you start without your amp, but you respawn with it.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Say what now?
I swear I didn't see that when I failed the practice test, that will make it soooooo much easier.

[NeoVid]

I know they can be upgraded, I just honestly can't be bothered to grind them, because it means spending more time in Spoiler Mode. 850 hours into Warframe, and I finally found the gameplay loop that I have no patience for. I make no claim that it is necessarily Good or Bad, it's just not for me.

You don't have to spend any time in spoiler mode to get the parts for amp upgrades, you can just run Plains bounties and incursions. If all you've got is the Mote amp, no one will even expect you to bother with spoiler mode when you're on Eidolon hunts.

I've learned (from painful experience) the way to deal with gameplay types I hate isn't to ignore them, because that makes them much harder and more frustrating when they're required. My method is to minmax the hell out of the mechanics so they take the minimal amount of time and effort to get through. Since the main story is certain to put more and more emphasis on the Operator in the future, preparing for the inevitable will be less painful. Same as Archwing mode, really. If you hate it so much you refuse to improve your gear for it, it'll just get worse and worse.

[mangosta71]

You don't have to spend any time in spoiler mode to get the parts for amp upgrades, you can just run Plains bounties and incursions. If all you've got is the Mote amp, no one will even expect you to bother with spoiler mode when you're on Eidolon hunts.

Amp upgrades are Quills rep. Only way to get that is hunting Eidolons. And after a couple tiers, you have to get pieces from Teralysts to continue progressing.

The good news is that if you get into a good group, they can carry you through 5-6 Teralyst kills per night phase. And if you do enough damage to the Synovia, your group won't care if you can't do much to burn through the shield.

[Serafina]

The best way to get Quills standing is to kill Eidolons - any of the three Eidolons will do.
And you can contribute perfectly fine to killing Eidolons without ever going into spoiler mode. Yes you won't be able to help taking down it's shield without it, but you can still shoot Vomvalysts and it's weak spots once it 's shields are down.

The difficulty in quickly taking down Eidolons is usually in getting the damage output to quickly destroy their weap spots, and keeping the Lures alive. The latter is done via Trinity or Harrow, the former massively benefits from Chroma or Rhino.
Sure, for the two harder Eidolons or really quick runs you want to take down their shields quickly, but you don't have to do that if you just want to get a decent Amp.

Speaking of decent Amps, the second Prism - the Shwaak - is usually seen as the best one. It's basically a wide-angle energy blast, so you hit a lot with it and it's easy to aim, and it does a ton of damage and has a good rate of fire.
And you can just the first scaffold and brace and have a perfectly good Amp. The Pencha gives you the longest-range attack you can get from Amps, which can be pretty nice. You might want to go for the reduced recharge over the increased ammo capacity, but there's a huge debate over that so eh.

[mangosta71]

A lot of people swear by the 223 amp, but I'm really liking the third scaffold; it fires a smart tracking laser. Don't even have to aim it; if something is in range, the laser will seek it out. I actually burn vonmalysts down faster with the scaffold than the prism in my 333 amp, though the prism shreds Teralyst shields...

I've been doing Eidolon hunts as Trinity. I should look into Harrow builds. Or maybe Chroma, though I don't want to start formaing my Chroma now since the Prime is only 3 months away. I have Rhino Prime, so that's another option. Also, you left Oberon off your list; he's really good at keeping lures and teammates alive, too. Especially since he can make people immune to the magnetic pulses (like Harrow, and unlike Trinity).

[Leon]

Well its done now, i think i might keep the frame at the very least but man was that Operator combat obnoxious, Shame you cant remove the horrible bits of whatever on its arms

[Lethologica]

Hi y'all, just got into this game a couple months ago. I'm on PC - IGN is Lethal_Logic, clan name is Eidolon Memorial (membership 1, lol). Currently leveling Trinity/Nekros P so I can slide into farming squads more easily. Otherwise I spend a lot of time on Ember/Oberon to farm and Valkyr P for higher-level stuff. Just finished TWW, so I'm only beginning to learn about the Cetus/Kuva content, and haven't researched Solar Rails so I haven't reached that section of the game yet. I'm on pretty regularly (evenings PST), so feel free to hit me up for whatever.

[Toastkart]

This may seem like a silly question, but I have a riven that requires me to scan a synthesis target without using traps or abilities and while holding a hobbled dragon key. Does the restriction against traps and abilities apply to the synthesis target itself, or only me? That is, can another player set a trap or use an ability like Vauban's bastille to hold the target while I scan it and it'll count, or it has to be done the hard way?

-edit-

Any tips for someone who hasn't done much in the way of synthesis scanning?

[Brother Oni]

This may seem like a silly question, but I have a riven that requires me to scan a synthesis target without using traps or abilities and while holding a hobbled dragon key. Does the restriction against traps and abilities apply to the synthesis target itself, or only me? That is, can another player set a trap or use an ability like Vauban's bastille to hold the target while I scan it and it'll count, or it has to be done the hard way?

I'm not sure on other players' abilities/traps causing an autofail of the challenge, but I know that that last time I did it, only your abilities used after the synthesis target has spawned count, so you can pop Ivara's Prowl or Rhino's Iron skin at the very start of the level before hunting for the target and can still succeed.

Alternately Inaros with a full tank build will give you plenty of time to scan without worrying about your health.

[Toastkart]

I'm not sure on other players' abilities/traps causing an autofail of the challenge, but I know that that last time I did it, only your abilities used after the synthesis target has spawned count, so you can pop Ivara's Prowl or Rhino's Iron skin at the very start of the level before hunting for the target and can still succeed.

Alternately Inaros with a full tank build will give you plenty of time to scan without worrying about your health.

Turns out it wasn't as difficult as I assumed it would be. I got kind of lucky as my target was a low level trooper at the end of an exterminate mission, and artax slowed him down more than enough to do the job. Thanks for the advice.

[Lethologica]

I'm not sure on other players' abilities/traps causing an autofail of the challenge, but I know that that last time I did it, only your abilities used after the synthesis target has spawned count, so you can pop Ivara's Prowl or Rhino's Iron skin at the very start of the level before hunting for the target and can still succeed.

Alternately Inaros with a full tank build will give you plenty of time to scan without worrying about your health.

I'm gonna have to do it with Rhino (or every shield mod), because my version also has "without taking damage." >.<

[Wraith]

You don't have to spend any time in spoiler mode to get the parts for amp upgrades, you can just run Plains bounties and incursions. If all you've got is the Mote amp, no one will even expect you to bother with spoiler mode when you're on Eidolon hunts.

I very much appreciate your advice, but it still sounds like using Spoiler Mode to be able to use more Spoiler Mode. And I don't want to use Spoiler Mode.

For as often as it comes up - a couple of hours worth of plot every ~6 months - I can forget about it. The Sacrifice's fights weren't so hard that I couldn't do them, just that I had to do them in a sloppy and silly way; I enjoyed the story enough that it was worth it, I think.

Any tips for someone who hasn't done much in the way of synthesis scanning?

There's a few frames that make it much easier. Tanky Frames like Rhino and Inaros let you ignore everything going on around you while you use the scanner, that's the simplest way of doing it. Also consider Limbo; mitigating damage is pretty much the same thing as soaking it all, for this purpose.
Stealth Frames are handy too - most people say Ivara, but I prefer Loki as his invisibility isn't broken by bullet jumping, which is kind of what you want to be doing when Hobbled.

Also I *think* you can use the scanner while in Titania's Pixie form? I'm reasonably sure I've done that before, unless I'm thinking of archwing missions. Anyway, maybe give it a try - being able to hide up on the roof where no one can bother you is kind of fun, too.

Alternatively, join the Cephalon Suda Syndicate and buy the Synoid Heliocor from her (or buy one from Trade Chat). You can grind Synthesis Rep much faster and use it to buy the Scanner upgrades, which makes like MUCH easier overall.

[Leon]

On the suggestion of someone on the forums many Specters of assorted types died so i could do the damn mission. the one that lasted the longest was my Cosmic Nidus

[Brother Oni]

Any tips for someone who hasn't done much in the way of synthesis scanning?

The quickest way to get rep is Sortie Spy with Ivara and scan every bad guy. If you can keep stealth, you get somewhere in the region of 300 Simaris rep per grunt (more for eximi) and you can stealth kill them for additional affinity afterwards.

Unless you're floating in credits, get the battery widget with your first purchase, followed by the scan speed upgrade. The double-scan is nice, but the percentage chance for triggering it makes it less of a priority than the other two.

If you're just after the scans (to complete your codex or to use Simulacrum), then Helios (Prime) and a max range Investigator precept is the best way. Note that he will use up your synthesis/codex scanners to do this and the little bugger will use your codex scanners preferentially. Thankfully, the battery widget will still provide infinite scans, so another reason to prioritise getting that first.

Alternatively, join the Cephalon Suda Syndicate and buy the Synoid Heliocor from her (or buy one from Trade Chat). You can grind Synthesis Rep much faster and use it to buy the Scanner upgrades, which makes like MUCH easier overall.

I thought the scan hammer only gave you scans and not Simaris rep, much like Helios?

[mangosta71]

Stealth Frames are handy too - most people say Ivara, but I prefer Loki as his invisibility isn't broken by bullet jumping, which is kind of what you want to be doing when Hobbled.

1) Loki's invisibility isn't permanent.
2) Ivara can bulletjump without breaking Prowl if you're standing still at the start of it. That said, I prefer rolling (especially with Arcane Consequence) to bulletjumping, which you can also do without breaking Prowl.

I thought the scan hammer only gave you scans and not Simaris rep, much like Helios?

You still get rep from the scans. You just won't get much unless you're getting stealth kills.

[Wraith]

1) Loki's invisibility isn't permanent.
2) Ivara can bulletjump without breaking Prowl if you're standing still at the start of it. That said, I prefer rolling (especially with Arcane Consequence) to bulletjumping, which you can also do without breaking Prowl.

1) doesn't need to be - it's cheap enough to recast that it might as well be, in my experience, and it's not as restrictive on weapons and the likes. That's why I said that it's *my* preferred stealth frame - I suppose I don't have the knack and/or patience to use Ivara "properly", and Loki just lets me brute-force it instead. Also, he's slightly easier to get hold of than Ivara... or at least, he was when I went grinding.

You still get rep from the scans. You just won't get much unless you're getting stealth kills.

Yeah, it's something like 5-10 rep per kill, and limited up to your daily allowance. Still, if you're already grinding for something on a low level map, like Cryotic on Earth for example, it's easy enough to kill two birds with one stone.