Warframe, the Nyx

So I've been playing Warframe quite a bit lately. I'm laggy as hell due to my cheap POS computer and my cheap POS internet connection, but that doesn't mean I can't tell you a bit about the game.

Warframe is a MMO shooter, in a sort of vaguely distopic future. Warframes are the powered armor worn by one faction, the Tenno, which is what you are. There are about twenty odd 'Frames, and you can pick one of three at the start.  Each warframe has its own attributes, abilities and play styles... with me so far? Good.

That brings me to the Nyx.  Its not one of the starting three, so officially it is an upgrade, though that's a sort of odd way of looking at it.  Supposedly the Nyx is hard to get, as you farm it from Infestation bosses, but given the number of advance players, even in random groups you can get the Nyx in a few hours as soon as an Infestation on a world you've unlocked (Mars, for example, seems to come up often, and with good computer you could, in theory solo your way to Mars, maybe only grouping for boss runs).  To get it you'd need a minimum of three Phorid kills (Phorid being the boss...), more if the RNG hates you. You'll also need a fair amount of Credits (easy enough to farm from the infestation missions), and some other crafting parts. If you were like me, you won't have everything you need when you first get the parts, but the really rare stuff is buyable with platinum for roughtly a dollar's worth of real money, so pretty cheap. Optionally, you keep playing with other people (do you have three friends? THen you can pretty much do everything in Warframe without ever playing with a stranger. Still, you might want to join a clan for the research and to trade mods...)

Now, actually making the Nyx will take about three and a half days. 12 hours for each component (this can be done simultaniously), and three hours to assemble them into the Nyx itself.

Note that the Nyx is not the ultimate Warframe of Doom or anything, its just the first one I ever talk about, which is why I'm talking so much about what happens in game to get there. The 'Ultimate' Warframes would be Prime war frames, though the Rhino (another easy, non-starter) is one of the most popular.

Once you have your Nyx you'll need to level it for a bit, like you do your starter frame, before you can unlock it. I'll assume you've learned about mods, leveling mods and so forth by this point.

The Nyx is an unusual frame. She's light (Frames have genders, which is an odd choice instead of letting players pick a gender and having two similar designs for each), with very little armor, but played properly she's anything but fragile. I've noticed that she also has fairly low health, but decent shields. She's a caster, which means you'll want to focus on your powers rather than run and gun play, and she's fast and nimble, for the Parkour in game.

However: For a caster, the Nyx only really has a couple of powers you really want to focus on. Of the four powers every frame has, two of the Nyx's are somewhat... lackluster.  Psychic Bolts seems like a good killer power, but while it can do some damage, and doesn't require aiming, the bolts tend to miss more than they hit. Absorb is... promblematic.  Its your 'Ultimate' power, but it's damage output is weak, and the timing sucks. I'd recommend not leveling either power until you've played with them and determined if you want to use the mod-space for something so... awkward.

Absorb DOES have one good feature, in that it renders you immune to damage for as long as its is active, which can be 15 seconds or so with some ease. That doesn't sound like a lot of time, but its more than enough time to get your shields back up and for friends to catch up to you if you're getting swarmed, and when it 'bursts' it does kill weaker enemies.  Just don't expect to get much use out of it in random games except defense missions, as the rest of the party will have long since left you behind.

Your bread and butter is Chaos.  Chaos stuns every enemy around you, then turns them on each other.  Unlike most powers in the game, it doesn't lose any power at the higher levels, and provided you aren't farming XP or worried overly much about killing every mob, its great.  Generally you spam it against large groups, and if no one interferes, half of them will be killed off by their fellows, and the survivors will be weakened.

Mind control is a cheap version of Chaos, single target. Its got one advantage over Chaos, and that's that the controlled mob will not attack you if you stray too close.  If you're energy starved (and you should be running Energy Siphon Aura for the extra mod space and the lovely, lovely energy it gives you), Mind Control can help you eliminate a hard target by making every enemy on the map see it as an enemy (and likewise, it will be attacking them back. I've used it on Corrupted Heavy Gunners in Tower 2 runs and just waited for energy to come back as mobs died taking down the gunner...).  If you're laggy, like me, then Mind Control is hard to aim and get off, though using the third mouse button can simplify things.

Curiously, with the exception of a rather nasty No-sheilds Nightmare run, the Nyx has proven somewhat more durable than my Rhino, despite being absolutely starved for Mod space in comparison. The rhino 'tanks' damage by, well, taking damage, but the Nyx tanks damage by making enemies turn on each other.

However: Never, ever, expect to see high kill and damage numbers at the end of the mission. You get no credit for the damage done by Chaos, and you lack a good spammable 'kill everything' power that almost every other warframe gets.   Trying to use Absorb for this role will disappoint you, and it seems to invite other players to abuse your aggro by coming over and AoEing the mobs you want to pop while you're waiting for Absorb to explode.  This can be especially frustrating if you're trying to collect thirty kills for a mini-mission for the bonus XP, but good weapons can offset it.

I don't see too many Nyx's running around, so it seems to me a lot of players undervalue it because of the low damage output and its relative numeric fragility.  On the other hand, I did a Mobile Defense with a second Nyx player, and with creative positioning and alternating our powers we more or less kept everyone else alive by just owning the Mobs, not that they were at huge risk.  

I suspect the Nyx shines in the Freerunning 'rank test', due to her speed and mobility, but I cannot attest to that due, in no small part, to my lag. I can't even quite run up stairs without occasionally spazzing out and falling off the map, much less handle multiple wall-runs at different angles in a row.  I may take that test on a friend's computer when it is due, just in case.  I have noticed that compared to the chunky Rhino, she does feel more nimble, almost too nimble for my machine.  While I am not constantly way behind the other players, sometimes I get left behind because I am so responsive that I wind up being unable to traverse an obstacle due to the fact that I overshoot and bounce off.

On that note, I've noticed that a number of 'wall run' paths in Warframe seem to deliberately run you into tight corners when you land, while a few others seem to force you to roll to a landing on a tiny ledge and overshoot.  For a game that want you to Freerun as much as you can, this seems an odd way to reward you.


Now: Simple advice for 'grinding' experience, or affinity as they call it.  Most people will tell you to run Defense or Survival runs, which are both good with a good, tight knit group.  The problem with Survival runs, aside from people wanting to leave as soon as possible (Ditto Defense), is that the map is big enough  and spread out enough that the high end players tend to roam off and kill solo, too far for you to gain experience from their kills.  Some defense missions seem to have this issue to. THis costs you both experience and loot drops.

Mobile Defense, however, tends to force the party to stay grouped in a single area and seems to send a similar number of mobs as several waves of Defense. I've done mobile defense runs and gotten 30+ mod drops and several midrange levels on multiple items of equipment, and the rest of the party can't really get selfish and wander off with the kills, going solo.  Well, a little on some maps, but not as bad as defense.  You're pretty much garaunteed a good six to ten minutes of hard farming on a Mobile Defense, compared to the less concentrated five minutes on Survival, or the five smallish waves in 'Endless' Defense.  For experience farming, try to find a group outside of any of the special events (Infestation, Invasions or Alerts), as anyone doing one of those is bound to do the bare minimum for credit for the mission and move on, while someone doing a Defense or Survival outside of an Event is likely to go for as long as they can, or at least 15 minutes on Survival (for the tower key), and twenty to thirty waves on Defense, which is concentrated awesome.  I've never seen a party handle more than forty waves, due to the sheer mass of health the Mobs have at that point, but from the patch notes I guess some groups regularly run to the Hundred Waves or more. Wether they'd be willing to do that with one underpowered Frame (since you are farming XP you are explicitly NOT maxed out, duh) is another question.