Starting Your Journey: Early Game Progression

The initial hours in Warframe can be overwhelming due to the sheer volume of systems, currencies, and progression paths. This guide will focus on the most efficient steps to set you up for long-term success.

Choosing Your First Warframe and Weapons

Your choice of starting gear is less critical than you might think, as all initial Warframes are farmable later.

• Mag: Excels at stripping shields and controlling groups of enemies in chokepoints.
• Volt: Highly versatile, offering speed boosts for travel and defensive shields for protection and critical damage amplification.
• Excalibur: A powerful damage dealer with strong area-of-effect abilities and excellent survivability for the early game. Recommended for beginners due to his straightforward melee focus.

Actionable Tip: Focus on unlocking the main junction planets first. Each planet offers a new set of materials, missions, and, most importantly, provides access to new Warframe blueprints you can start farming immediately.

Understanding Mastery Rank (MR)

Mastery Rank is your account-wide level and gatekeeper to new weapons, Warframes, and certain daily resource limits.

• How to Rank Up: Gain Affinity (XP) by leveling up new items: Warframes, weapons, Companions, and Archwings. Fully leveling an item provides a one-time boost to your MR.
• Goal: Do not stick to one set of gear. Continuously build and level new weapons and frames to climb your MR. This is your primary source of permanent progression.

The Core of Power: Mastering the Modding System

Modding is the single most important system in Warframe. A properly modded common weapon will always outperform an unmodded legendary weapon.

The Modding Philosophy

Modding is about additive power, not just passive buffs. You need to stack complementary mods to multiply your damage output.

1. Base Damage: Always equip and prioritize upgrading your fundamental base damage mods: Serration (Rifles), Point Blank (Shotguns), Pressure Point (Melee). These provide the largest single damage multiplier.
2. Multishot: For primary and secondary weapons, Multishot mods (like Split Chamber or Barrel Diffusion) are critical. They give a chance to fire extra projectiles without consuming extra ammo, effectively increasing your damage output by the listed percentage.
3. Elemental Damage: Stack two different elemental mods (e.g., Heat and Cold) to create a Combined Element (e.g., Viral, Corrosive). Combined elements are key to stripping enemy defenses or maximizing health damage.

Essential Early Mod Guide: Your first credit sink should be acquiring and maxing out a full set of base damage mods. Without them, you cannot progress effectively.

Warframe Modding

For Warframes, prioritize mods that increase your core stats and survivability.

• Vitality (Health) and Redirection (Shields) for survivability.
• Streamline (Efficiency) and Flow (Energy Max) for ability usage.
• Continuity (Ability Duration) and Intensify (Ability Strength) to enhance your Warframe's core powers.

Essential End-Game Progression Loops

Once you reach Jupiter and beyond, your focus shifts from simply surviving to efficiently farming specific resources and items.

Farming Relics and Prime Gear

Prime Warframes and Weapons are superior versions of their base counterparts and are acquired by opening Void Relics.

1. Acquire Relics: Run Fissure Missions (missions affected by a blue Void trace). Choose missions based on the type of Relic you need (Lith, Meso, Neo, Axi).
2. Refine Relics: Use Void Traces (dropped from Fissure missions) to upgrade your Relic’s integrity (Intact, Exceptional, Flawless, Radiant). A higher integrity dramatically increases your chance of getting a Rare item.
3. Open Relics: Join a public group for a Fissure mission. Everyone opens their chosen Relic simultaneously, and all four players get to pick one reward from the four opened Relics. Always choose the rarest item.

Relic Strategy: Always run a Radiant Relic (max integrity) when trying to get a Rare item. Never run a Radiant Relic alone; team up with other players who are also running Radiant Relics for the highest chance of success.

Syndicate Standing

Join and level up your standing with the various Syndicates (located on your Orbiter).

• Why: Syndicates offer unique, powerful Augment Mods for specific Warframe abilities, high-tier relic packs, and unique cosmetic items.
• How: Equip the Syndicate Sigil and gain standing by completing missions. Be aware that increasing standing with one Syndicate will decrease it with a rival faction.

Advanced Systems and Quality of Life

As you enter the mid-to-late game, these systems become central to maximizing your power and efficiency.

Focus School and Operator

After completing the main cinematic quest line (The Second Dream), you unlock the Operator and the Focus School system.

• Naramon: Excellent for Melee players, providing combo count utility.
• Vazarin: Great for resource generation and support.
• Zenurik: Highly recommended for all players. Provides a passive Energy Regeneration ability, dramatically easing energy management issues for all Warframes.

Actionable Step: Immediately begin investing in Zenurik to unlock its passive energy regen ability. This is a game-changer for ability spam and general mission flow.

Formas and Orokin Catalysts/Reactors

These rare items are used to unlock the full potential of your gear.

• Orokin Reactor (Warframes/Companions): Doubles the mod capacity, an essential upgrade for any frame you plan to use long-term.
• Orokin Catalyst (Weapons/Archwings): Doubles the mod capacity for weapons, essential for late-game damage builds.
• Forma: Allows you to change the polarity of a mod slot, reducing the cost of placing matching mods. Used repeatedly to completely optimize a piece of gear.

Acquisition: These items are primary rewards from certain late-game missions, Alerts, Nightwave, and they often appear in the weekly market. Use them wisely, primarily on Prime frames and endgame weapons.

Mastering Warframe is a long-term process, but by focusing on efficient MR gain, prioritizing base damage and elemental modding, and strategically using your hard-earned resources on Reactors and Catalysts, you will quickly find yourself equipped to face the most demanding challenges the Origin System has to offer.