Builds: Meta & Niche

A beginner-friendly guide to Warframe builds, covering meta and niche choices for Warframes and weapons up to MR 12. Learn what gear works best as you progress!

Warframe Equipment Guide

This game has a lot of equipment, and you may find yourself unsure of what to use as you progress. For that reason I have made this guide. This is aimed at people who are still earlier in the game and not sure of what gear is best to use as they work their way up to later content. This is not a guide as to what the best-of-the-best weapons are - there's plenty of resources talking about that already. As a result, I'll only cover up through MR 12 or so. That's solidly into the mid-game, and at that point you can start building towards the best-of-the-best and probably have an idea of what you want.

As a final note, Warframe is not a game that will ever require you to go and get the 'best in slot' or meta weapons. The meta weapons are powerful, but with enough investment you can make most weapons at least workable in high-level content. Weapons are important, but the mods are what make the weapon actually good. To be very clear, even if you have the most powerful meta weapons in the game you will not do good damage unless it is modded well, and the worst weapons in the game are serviceable with the best mods in the game. Don't sweat getting the 'meta' weapons, enjoy the journey to endgame, and find the weapons you think feel good to use.

Warframes

All Warframes are available at MR 0, even the Prime ones. However, not all of them are easily available from the start. For an idea of when you can access those frames, check out my other guide. Warframes are listed in the approximate order that I recommend them to new players, thought not necessarily based on being the best. This includes consideration for how easy they are to get - Rhino is easier to get than Grendel, but I don't necessarily think Rhino is better than Grendel overall.

While ease of access is a consideration, it's also worth noting that trading farmed items for Platinum is very viable in this game, especially with the help of the Warframe Market site. This makes getting access to Prime Warframes a question of dedication (or real-money transaction) and not level of progression. If a prime frame looks good to you and you're willing to farm relics/trade you