Warframe Grimoire build guide: Tome mod interactions, usage, and more

Grimoire is the first of many weapons in Warframe's "tome" subclass of secondaries, introduced with the Whispers in the Walls update. Besides the novelty of finally using a spellbook to hurl lightning projectile at your enemies, Grimoire exemplifies several quirks that make tomes stand out from the game's futuristic arsenal.

It is an auto-trigger weapon holding infinite ammunition, meaning you can hold down the primary fire button to keep shooting at the maximum fire rate your build allows.

This may make the weapon an experimental alternative to Shedu, where you use it to camp and blind-fire ad infinitum. However, its true talents lie in the utility of tome mods.

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Best Warframe Grimoire build 2024: Should you use it as a stat-stick?

Warframe's Grimoire has the following stats:

Attribute Name	Stats
Damage	100 + 50 radial
Fire Rate	1.5 shots/second
Critical Chance	20%
Critical Damage	2x
Status Chance	26%

In terms of raw stats, Grimoire cannot go toe to toe with Warframe's best secondary weapons. It is far outshined by even non-Incarnon secondaries, and Primes released a few years ago. Instead, its gimmick relies on the modding flexibility and utility you can get out of tome mods.

Divided between "Canticle" and "Invocation" mods, the tome mods allow Grimoire to supplement your casting builds.

• Canticle tome mods are slottable on the Exilus mod slot. They grant you various bonuses when you score a kill with Grimoire.
• Invocation tome mods provide various buffs to your Warframe's ability strength, power, efficiency, or energy regen. However, these are reliant on Grimoire's alternate attack.

Primed Fulmination helps this weapon reach the Invocation stacks faster (Image via Digital Extremes)

The best-case use for Grimoire is as a hybrid between a Viral primer and a stat stick for the utility you can get out of tome mods. You can slot only one Canticle tome mod and one Invocation tome mod at a time to balance out the massive buff they grant.

Builds used primarily for Invocation purposes can be used to quickly regain energy or bump up stats temporarily, such as getting a stronger Wisp Mote. The opportunity cost is that you have to manually switch to the Grimoire to use its alt-fire and catch enemies within at the right moment.

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Warframe Grimoire DPS build

Jahu Canticle can help you armor strip with a few kills (Image via Digital Extremes)

While the numbers of Grimoire are substandard to put out a good performance as a direct source of damage, you can still use it up to base-level Steel Path.

The main crutch here is to Jahu Canticle, which gives a 5% area of effect shield and armor strip per kill scored. In most horde situations, you can kill off the weaker enemies to loosen up the durable elite enemies like Heavy Gunners or Maniac Bombards.

That said, this build still has many practicality concerns. First and foremost, there are many other avenues of achieving full armor strip in Warframe. By comparison, Jahu Canticle is clumsy at best, mostly because Grimoire is not a strong DPS option by the point you reach the Whispers in the Walls quest.

If you want an infinite ammunition DPS weapon, Nataruk does the job much better. Much like Grimoire, you get it for free just by following the main questline. Alternatively, there are other battery weapons you can use for DPS without ammo concerns, such as Tenet Plinx.