Top 5 Warframes for beginner players, ranked

Warframe Wukong Prime Prime Access digital cover art
Wukong Prime is one of the most popular Warframes in the game (Image via Digital Extremes)

Warframe is a lengthy MMO filled with diverse content fuelled by numerous game mechanics. The staggering breadth of options and depth of complexity can prove most challenging to newcomers. To add to this, the scaling of enemies in this game is no joke. Even though the early planets can be handled by almost any rag-tag squad, post-level 30 missions can often spiral out of control for the inexperienced.

The factors for this difficulty ramp are not only a simple DPS check but also a test of your durability and mobility in the game. Thankfully, there are also several powerful Warframes you can access very early in the game that can help you surpass these odds one at a time.


Five best beginner Warframes you should use when starting out, ranked

5) Volt

Volt Proto Skin can be purchased for 165 Platinums from the Market (Image via Digital Extremes)
Volt Proto Skin can be purchased for 165 Platinums from the Market (Image via Digital Extremes)

Objectively speaking, Volt is the best starter Warframe among the choices that you get. He provides a lot of utility to almost all scenarios you can imagine in the game. Speed hastens the entire squad and, by extension, gives you better mission runtimes. In an early game all about clearing out the star chart, this minor boon really adds up over time.

Electric Shield gives you protection from frontal damage and lets you join in gunfight exchanges with relative freedom. This utility cannot be found in any other starter frame, indirectly making Volt the most durable option. Discharge, on the other hand, also gives him significant nuking capacities.

The great thing about Volt is how much he scales as you acquire more powerful mods. He is a top-tier choice in a number of mid to late-game activities, including but not limited to focus-farming, speedrunning boss farms, and even raids like Eidolon hunts, Profit Taker, and Exploiter Orb.


4) Zephyr

Zephyr Prime was released in 2018 (Image via Digital Extremes)
Zephyr Prime was released in 2018 (Image via Digital Extremes)

Zephyr is easily the most underrated Warframe on this list in terms of being beginner-friendly. In her earlier days, Zephyr was found scraping the bottom of the global usage charts. The Update 29.10, however, introduced a long overdue rework that completely flipped the script.

In her new state, Zephyr provides new players complete immunity to all gun damage from enemies when Turbulence is active. Tail Wind can also be used to ease into early-game platforming challenges, including Lua puzzles and Ayatan treasure hunts.

The shockingly overlooked part of Zephyr's skillset is the utility of Tornado. Not only is it a long-lasting crowd-control tool, but it also makes gunplay easier for all Tenno in the squad with popular mid-game weapons like Ignis.


3) Nezha

Nezha's Empyrean Collection contains the Deluxe skin for the Warframe (Image via Digital Extremes)
Nezha's Empyrean Collection contains the Deluxe skin for the Warframe (Image via Digital Extremes)

Nezha is a roundabout way to achieve some of Rhino's specialties, with the added benefit that she can be picked up and crafted easily from a Clan Dojo. Other than an incentive to join a clan, Nezha brings one of the only universal crowd-control tools to the table.

Divine Spears is peerless in its niche use case across the entire game. While there are many crowd control abilities that reach a wide area, Divine Spears is the only one that goes through Corpus Nullifier bubbles.

Warding Halo couples this with one of the cheapest tank-up skills in the game. Due to how much damage it absorbs by its base health alone, this ability makes the early game a cakewalk. Moreover, Nezha has the innate benefits of being a highly mobile Warframe, granted that you can get used to the momentum of sliding long distances.


2) Rhino

Rhino remains a durable frame even late into the game (Image via Digital Extremes)
Rhino remains a durable frame even late into the game (Image via Digital Extremes)

One of the poster boys of Warframe, Rhino's reputation as the new player's best friend is hard to top. He grants the player both components necessary to win any confrontation in this game — durability and damage.

Rhino's Iron Skin is the original prototype for the one-tap tank skill in Warframe. It grants you Overguard that scales primarily with armor and ability strength. However, even without these mod investments, the ability can generate a good amount of Overguard to its damage-storing mechanic in the first two seconds.

On top of this, Rhino has one of the best weapon buffs in the game in Roar. Its numbers are seemingly low compared to alternatives like Vex armor and Eclipse, but it can easily outpace them on damage-over-time builds as a universal faction damage bonus.


1) Wukong

Wukong Prime was released in 2019 to record-breaking Prime Access purchases (Image via Digital Extremes)
Wukong Prime was released in 2019 to record-breaking Prime Access purchases (Image via Digital Extremes)

Wukong has been the most popular Warframe in the game per the official usage charts since his rework in Update 25.2. However, this does not stem from the monkey frame's excellence in any department. Instead, Wukong is simply the best jack-of-all-trades to coast along the gameplay loop with minimal inhibitions.

The first factor behind this is how many safeguards this provides the player with the Steel Path mission variants. Both Wukon's Cloud Walker and Defy grant him complete invulnerability when they are up, and the latter boosts his overall damage mitigation by a significant amount even after it expires.

If these two abilities are not enough to seal the deal, Wukong passively gains three free lives per mission, instantly respawning with full resources and a special 30-second buff. Couple this with the mobility and laser-bypassing nature of Cloud Walker and the extra helping hand from Celestial Twin, and you have the recipe for the best ease-of-use Warframe.


Check out other guides on this game from Sportskeeda:

All Warframes tier list ||Warframe 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 Warframe Promo Codes || Best weapons in Warframe for each Mastery Rank

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