One of the cooler features of Warframe is that you can transfer one ability from a frame and essentially put it onto another. This makes builds even stronger across the board. Though, it does become a bit of a challenge to see what abilities work for who or what’s considered ‘top tier’. In any case, we’ll break down the 10 best Helminth abilities in Warframe along with which frame to sacrifice (or subsume), and what kind of builds benefit the most.
Top 10 best Helminth abilities in Warframe
Eclipse – Mirage
This is an ability that gives you damage reduction when you’re in the dark and a damage boost when in the light. Either way, you’re getting the best of both worlds from a single cast. They usually say “The best defense is a good offense”, but to that, I say, why not both?
Eclipse is best used on builds that focus on ability duration and strength.
Elemental Ward – Chroma
This is a bit of a flexible ability that can be used for tank builds or gun builds. If you’re looking to tank, use heat or cold if you want more armor or base HP. If you are a shield tank, electricity is the way to go. If you want your guns to reload a lot quicker and be holstered faster, the toxin variant will greatly increase your overall DPS.
Elemental Ward is best used on builds that focus on ability duration and strength.
Larva – Nidus
Despite the nerfs this ability has gotten, it’s still one of the best Helminth abilities in Warframe. If you’re in an open space with tons of enemies surrounding you, pop a Larva and now you have a ball of enemies waiting to get decimated. It’s even more satisfying blending a bunch of enemies with a melee weapon in a matter of seconds.
Larva is best used on builds that focus on ability duration and range.
Marked for Death – Metamorphosis Rank 6
One big way to do well in Warframe is to kill things fast. That’s why AoE weapons and skills are the meta. When it comes to high-powered, single-target weapons, they struggle in terms of crowd control. Using this ability distributes the damage you’d deal to the affected enemy. It’s satisfying to hit a headshot for millions of damage and see those numbers spread to nearby enemies.
Marked for Death is best used on builds that focus on strength, duration, and range.
Perspicacity – Metamorphosis Rank 3
The argument can be made that you can just craft hundreds of ciphers and never have to worry about hacking terminals ever again. While that case is valid, they are disabled when it comes to Arbitrations, Sorties, and Nightmare missions. Hacking a console can be the difference between completing and failing a mission, so keep that in mind. It also seems to last forever until you interact with a console.
Perspicacity is best used on builds that focus on stealth. Use it with a frame like Loki, Ash, or Ivara.
Rest & Rage – Equinox
The only reason people use this ability is for the ‘Rest; aspect. Putting an enemy to sleep not only makes them unaware of you but opens them up for an instant finisher. If your enemy is asleep, it also counts as a stealth kill. A free kill and increased XP make this ability highly valuable for solo farming.
Rest & Rage is best used on builds that focus on ability duration and range. Use dark emissive colors in your color picker to enable Rest instead of Rage.
Roar – Rhino
Rhino is perhaps one of the best starter frames to use in the game thanks to his survivability and DPS. As his ability is subsumed, that can now be transferred to other frames, giving them a damage buff upon casting.
Roar is best used on builds that focus on strength and duration. Range is optional if you want to buff nearby allies.
Spectrorage – Gara
This is a good crowd-controlling ability that draws enemy aggro off of you. That might be nice and all, but once you get the Spectrosiphon augment for it, affected enemies will have an increased chance of dropping Energy Orbs. this is a good alternative if no one has energy restoration pads or an Energy Vampire Trinity.
Spectrorage is best used on builds that focus on duration and range.
Warcry – Valkyr
This is perhaps one of the strongest melee buffs in the game. You get an armor buff which increases your damage mitigation, but you also gain a massive melee attack increase. Having this can also make the slower melee weapons feel satisfying to use.
Warcry is best used on builds that focus on survivability (health, armor, shield, damage reduction), duration, and strength.
Xata’s Whisper – Xaku
An important thing to note about the multiplicative void damage is that it can’t be used in Eidolon fights or against the Thrax enemies in the Zariman Ten Zero. Instead, this is the perfect Sentient killing ability. Void damage resets damage resistances so you don’t have to swap weapons so much in battle.
Xata’s Whisper is best used on builds that focus on duration and strength.
