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As an MMO-lite, Warframe rewards co-op players much more than solo enthusiasts. This is most notable when cracking Void Relics, as fighting alongside more players gives you improved chances of landing a higher-tier Primed Part as a reward. Nevertheless, whether due to connectivity issues or as a challenge, many players adopt an independent playstyle. If you have good game knowledge, the Origin System is relatively easy to chew through as a solo player, but the Steel Path is where things get dicey.
Not only do enemies deal and soak up extra damage, but the enhanced spawns automatically make several game modes more challenging. The increased enemy spawns also make a few game modes much more prone to failure when participating solo. Thankfully, a few Warframes in the game are powerful enough to let you beat the entire Steel Path star chart alone.
Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinions.
Top 5 Warframes for Solo players on Steel Path
1) Hildryn
Hildryn ticks the two critical checkboxes for succeeding in the Steel Path: being immortal while making enemies vulnerable. This is attained through a simple exchange using the Pillage ability: stripping enemy defenses and adding to your own.
As an armor-strip ability, Pillage is relatively weak at a base 25% defense reduction. However, the current additive armor strip system enables you to build up to 200% ability strength, which strips all enemy armor in a large area of effect with only two casts of Pillage.
Unlike the average tank Warframe, Hildryn relies purely on a huge Overshield pool to withstand heavy fire. The thousands of shields you can generate will act both as your vanguard and your basic resource for casting abilities. The true potential of this lies in Hildryn's enhanced shield-gating capacity.
Once Hildryn's shields are depleted, she gets a 3-second window of invulnerability. Without needing to use mods like Rolling Guard, this grace period is large enough to ensure you can cast Pillage and regain Overshields. If you have some form of knockdown immunity, Hildryn is unkillable regardless of the enemy faction's type or level.
2) Saryn
Since the beginning, Saryn has consistently remained one of the most coveted nuke Warframes. Her toxic Spores grow stronger as she infects more enemies with them. With a high enough range, these Spores have great scaling potential without even accounting for the rest of Saryn's kit.
The Steel Path has a high enemy concentration by default due to enhanced spawns, making it the perfect playground for Saryn's plague-spreading shenanigans.
However, this is not the sole reason for Saryn's popularity. When built properly, she can provide great returns on your forma investments. The flexibility of the Helminth system makes her a jack-of-all-trades Warframe that delivers on all fronts.
As a damage buff platform, Saryn can make some weapons absurdly powerful with Roar and Toxic Lash. She can play the dual role of nuking and crowd-control through Ensnare or Larva when provided with a high-enough ability range. If you want a more durable playstyle, Saryn can tank hits comfortably with Adaptability and Gloom.
3) Octavia
Octavia has the long-standing reputation of being the infinitely scaling Warframe. Theoretically, she can stand the test of Steel Path endurance runs even on a beginner-friendly budget build.
Mallet and Resonator, her first and second ability, pair together to create a rolling disco-ball of doom as they draw enemy fire and return the damage dealt back. Since her damage output is proportional to how much of it she takes, much like Xaku, you will be able to outgun the enemy no matter what level they are.
All the while, Metronome, Octavia's third ability, can keep her alive indefinitely by granting her permanent invisibility. Octavia can refresh Metronome's invisibility sub-power, Nocturne, by crouching in the beat's rhythm while shield-gating protects her from stray bullets.
4) Revenant
Revenant is arguably the easiest form of gaining invulnerability. Several Warframes like Rhino and Nezha depend on a 'hardening' tanking ability to gain some layer of protection from damage. While theirs reduce damage partially, Revenant's Mesmer Skin is the only utility that completely eliminates all kinds of damage, irrespective of how high the numbers are.
On top of this, Mesmer Skin also gives you status immunity and brief invulnerability frames (i-frames) when stacks deplete completely. You need some form of casting speed or Rolling Guard to ensure you immediately refresh the Mesmer Skin stacks without needing reprieves or downtimes.
The Helminth system, in addition, gives Revenant other tools to amplify his own damage or debuff enemies. Revenant's Dans Macabre is a weak skill in Steel Path, making it the de facto Helminth slot to replace. Here, you can either go for an armor strip like Tharros Strike or a damage buff like Eclipse, depending on your build.
5) Ash
Compared to the other candidates on this list, Ash is not one of the forgiving Warframes that give you innate i-frames, do-overs, or a margin for error. Instead, he is more of a specialty frame that gets better as you master his playstyle.
Ash has two important elements for surviving Steel Path built into his basic abilities: Shuriken (with its augment mod) to strip down enemies' armor and Smoke Screen to give you on-demand invisibility.
However, both these abilities are balanced for precision. Shuriken is not a room-wide armor cleanser, and Smoke Screen lasts only for a brief period. In terms of staying power, this Warframe only appeals to players who like staying on the edge.
Recent community discoveries have made Blade Storm a much more lethal skill with a proper stat-stick setup. While Ash may fall behind in other aspects to other community favorites like Baruuk, he never falls behind in damage.
If the first tick of true damage from Blade Storm shadow clones does not steal the deal, the armor-bypassing Slash ticks will finish off the target. This gives Ash indisputable superiority in his niche: level cap Disruption runs.
Check out other guides on this game from Sportskeeda:
All Warframes tier list || Incarnon weapons tier list || Kuva weapons tier list || All Warframe Twitch drops this week || Best stat-stick weapons in Warframe || Latest Baro Ki'teer Inventory || All Promo Codes || Best weapons for each Mastery Rank
