Alright, so you’ve downloaded the free-to-play, cyber ninja, parkour game, Warframe. Now that you’ve finished the tutorial, you’ve picked your starter frame, but where do you go from here? While there is nothing wrong with Excalibur, Loki, and Mag – you’re going to want to collect and build more frames. With the current seventeen frames (not counting primes) at patch 11.5.0, there is a fair bit of diversity and grinding you’ll have to go through to get the ones you want. Don’t you fret though, everything you’re going to want to know can be found below.
For the non-prime frames, you’re going to need to buy the blueprints from the store. The prices range from 25,000 credits to 35,000 credits. The Blueprint is only one of four components necessary to build a frame though. Once you collect the other three parts, the blueprint is the final step in putting all the parts together. The other three parts are the helmet, chassis, and system. These parts take 12 hours to build and can be all built at the same time. Once you have the three parts built AND the blueprint, then you can construct the actual frame. This action takes three days (72 hours) to compete and will consume all four parts.
Getting the blueprint is the easy part, the hard part is farming the helmet, chassis, and system. While some frames are easy to grind out, others are a huge pain in the a@#. A frame like Rhino, only requires you to complete the Fossa map on Venus over and over again until The Jackal (the system’s boss) is kind enough to drop all three parts for you. The bosses will only drop one piece per run and you won’t know what it is until you complete the level. The component isn’t any sort of physical drop from the boss, the piece is a reward at the end. I consider these the easier frame grinds, with the exception of Nekros. These sorts of runs are the "Boss Drops."
The more difficult farm fests require more steps and a whole lot of luck. Take the Banshee frame for example; you’re going to wish that there was just one boss you could grind to get all her parts. You buy her blueprint from the store, her helmet has a percent drop rate from Orokin Derelict Defense missions (we’ll get to that – just know they are a pain), her chassis is a percent drop from Capture Missions or Corpus Defense missions, and her system has a percent drop rate from Spy Missions and Infested Defense missions. That’s a lot of work, luck, and grinding – I call these "Reward Drops."
Orokin Derelict Missions can only be reached via creation of single use keys; you buy the pattern in the store. There are Orokin Derelict missions for some of normal mission types (defense, exterminate, etc). You use Nav Coordinates found randomly in maps (including Orokin Derelict missions) as components for these keys. On top of all that, in Orokin Derelict missions you can find Golem Nav Coordinates which you need to build Orokin Derelict Assassination missions to fight the Lephantis boss. This difficult to reach boss drops the parts necessary to build Nekros – if you take all these steps, you farm Lephantis as normal.
Prime Frames take aspects from Orokin technology to construct, thus these parts can be found in Orokin missions. Currently there are only four Prime versions of Warframes: Excalibur Prime (no longer available), Ember Prime, Frost Prime, and Mag Prime. The Primes function identically to their non-prime version except they come with one extra polarity slot. So a Mag with one Forma put into it is exactly the same as a Mag Prime (besides the appearance). A Prime frame also differs from other frames in the fact that you can’t buy the blueprint, you have to find like you would the other three parts, and they require a few Orokin Cells.
So with all that said, let’s look where you can find the frame parts:
Ash: Stealth / DPS (Boss Drops)
- System: Uranus
- Planet: Titania
- Boss: Tyl Regor
Banshee: Utility/DPS (Reward Drops)
- Helmet: Orokin Derelict Defenses
- Chassis: Capture Mission, Tier 3 Corpus Defense
- System: Spy missions, Tier 3 Grineer Defense, Tier 2 Infested Defense, Tier 2 Corpus Defense
Ember: Fire / DPS (Boss Drops)
- System: Saturn
- Planet: Tethys
- Boss: General Sargas Ruk
Ember Prime: Fire / DPS (Reward Drops)
- Orokin Void Capture
- Orokin Derelict Defense
Excalibur: All around (Boss Drops)
- An option as a starting frame
- System: Pluto
- Planet: Hades
- Boss: Ambulas
Excalibur Prime: All around (No longer available)
- This frame could only be acquired during the founders program which closed November 1st.
Frost: CC / Tank (Boss Drops)
- System: Ceres
- Planet: Exta
- Boss: Lieutenant Lech Krill
Frost Prime: Defense / Tank(Reward Drops)
- Orokin Void Extermination
Loki: Stealth / Utility (Boss Drops)
- An option as a starting frame
- System: Neptune
- Planet: Psamathe
- Boss: Hyena
Mag: DPS / Magnetic (Boss Drops)
- An option as a starting frame
- System: Mars
- Planet: War
- Boss: Sgt. Nef Anyo
Mag Prime: DPS / Magnetic(Rewards Drop)
- Blueprint: Orokin Void Tower I Survival
- Helmet: Orokin Void Tower I and Tower II Survival
- Chassis: Orokin Void Tower I, Tower II, and Tower III Survival
- System: Orokin Void Tower II and Tower II Survival
Nekros: Pet / Utility (*Unique Boss Drops)
- The boss Lephantis can only farmed from Orokin Derelict Assassination missions. During Orokin Derelict missions, look for Golem Nav Coordinates to make the Orokin Derelict Assassination keys to face Lephantis. The boss is farmed normally once you have these special keys.
Nova: DPS / Utility (Boss Drops)
- System: Europa
- Planet: Naamah
- Boss: Raptor
Nyx: Utility / CC (*Unique Boss Drops)
- The boss Phorid can only be fought if the infested reach a boss planet during these events. The infested boss planet transforms is the Phorid level. At this point, grind him out like you would any other boss. Phorid infested planets are fairly common.
Oberon: Tank / Utility (Boss Drops)
- System: Earth
- Planet: Everest
- Boss: Councilor Vay Hek
Rhino: Tank / Sustain (Boss Drops)
- System: Venus
- Planet: Fossa
- Boss: Jackal
Saryn: Poison / DPS (Boss Drops)
- System: Sedna
- Planet: Merrow
- Boss: Kela De Thaym
Trinity: Utility / Tankish (Boss Drops)
- System: Phobos
- Planet: Iliad
- Boss: Lieutenant Lech Krill and Captain Vor (duel encounter)
Valkyr: Melee / DPS (Boss Drops)
- System: Jupiter
- Planet: Themistro
- Boss: Alad V
Vauban: Utility / Gravity (*Unique Reward Drops)
- All of Vauban’s components are rewards for Alert Missions.
Volt: Lightning / DPS (Rewards Drop)
- In any survival mission, Volt components can drop as a 20 minute reward.
