It might not seem like it, but damage is a currency in Warframe. Players will need to pay enough in order to afford themselves some good item drops or even unlock certain content. The transaction is rather simple in this regard for free players; they pay in damage numbers and they get a piñata-like explosion of rewards. Getting enough damage, however, is the tricky part and can often dissuade beginners from progressing further.
One good way to increase damage in Warframe is learning how elemental combinations work. Combining two elements will produce a new category or class of damage called secondary elemental damage. This is going to be the player's bread and butter when it comes to late-game or endgame content in Warframe. Because most secondary damage types can stack up status effects that are devastating for enemies.
The Basics
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Players do have to familiarize themselves first in the primary elements before moving on to the advanced stuff. Alphabetically, these are:
- Cold - Produces the status effect called Freeze which slows down enemies. This can stack up to 10 times.
- Electricity - This can trigger the Tesla Chain status which deals Electricity damage over time and chains to other enemies.
- Heat - Causes Ignite which makes enemies panic and gives them a few seconds of damage over time. Their armor is also stripped by half.
- Toxin - Infects targets with Poison that deals damage over time and bypasses shields.
In addition to causing status effects, certain elements are also more effective against certain kinds of enemies and will get a damage bonus.
- Heat gets a +25% damage bonus against Cloned Flesh/+25% damage bonus against Infested/+50% damage bonus against Infested Flesh/-50% damage penalty against Proto Shield.
- Cold gets a +25% against Alloy Armor/+50% against Shield/ +25% against Infested Sinew/-50% against Infested Flesh/-25% against Fossilized
- Electricity gets a +50% against Machinery/+50% against Robotic/-50% against Alloy Armor
- Toxin gets a +50% against Flesh/+25% against Proto Shield/-25% against Machinery/-25% against Robotic/ -50% against Fossilized.
The same principles apply to secondary elemental damage types. Players can procure them by combining two of the above elements.
Blast (Heat + Cold)
- Status effect: Inaccuracy - Knockdown and debuff to accuracy
- Damage bonus: +75% against Machinery/+50% against Fossilized
- Damage penalty: -25% against Ferrite Armor/-50% against Infested Sinew
Players can produce Blast by combining Heat and Cold mods in their weapons be it melee, primary, or secondary. It's actually one of the most useful elements in late-game because it causes mini-explosions and will knock down or knockback enemies. In a sense, players can use it for continuous crowd control depending on the weapon's status chance.
Corrosive (Electricity + Toxin)
- Status effect: Corrosion - Reducing enemy armor (yellow HP bar)
- Damage bonus: +75% against Ferrite Armor/+75% against Fossilized
- Damage penalty: -50% against Proto Shield
Corrosive is one of the most common elemental combinations that endgame players bring to high-level Void sessions (level 100+ Corrupted enemies) because it makes the game a lot easier. Corrosive damage has one purpose: stripping heavy armor which is way too tough for conventional gunfire or non-corrosive damage to remove.
It just so happens that enemies with high armor are in the Void or some elite Grineer ones. There are also some exceptions from the Corpus but they're rare. If not for stripping armor, then Corrosive is also generally good for anything since it doesn't get any damage penalty against certain armor types except high-tech Corpus enemies.
Gas (Heat + Toxin)
- Status effect: Gas Cloud - Leaves a gas cloud that deals area damage over time
- Damage bonus: +75% against Infested/+50% against Infested Flesh
- Damage penalty: -50% against Cloned Flesh/-25% against Flesh
Players usually won't see many of their teammates or other players wielding Gas weapons or mods. That's because it doesn't particularly excel against a certain enemy type except for the Infested and those are easy enough to kill. In fact, it's even quite bad against some of the Grineer ground troops. Thus, it's not a popular secondary elemental damage.
Gas merely leaves behind a greenish cloud. Any enemy caught in that cloud will take a six-second Gas damage over time and it can be handy since it affects a wide area. Any other purpose and it simply feels lackluster compared to other secondary elemental damage types.
Magnetic (Cold + Electricity)
- Status effect: Disrupt - Increased damage to shields and prevents shield regeneration
- Damage bonus: +75% against Shield/+75% against Proto Shield
- Damage penalty: -50% against Alloy Armor
Magnetic is fairly useful for some late-game fights but it's not as practical as something like Corrosive. Magnetic is best used against Corpus enemies especially the ones hiding behind their shiny shield bubbles. Against Nullifiers or shielded Eximus units in Corpus, this can be a godsend.
It not only strips enemies of their shield but also prevents the shield from coming back. After that, the enemies are usually vulnerable to any type of damage. Players will only see its effectiveness later in the game as early to mid-game shields are easy enough to break using conventional gunfire and melee attacks. As expected, it doesn't work well against Grineer because those cloned degenerates have no shields.
Radiation (Electricity + Heat)
- Status effect: Confusion - Makes targets attack the closest entity, including their allies and their allies can also attack them
- Damage bonus: +75% against Alloy Armor/+25% against Robotic/+50% against Infested Sinew
- Damage penalty: -25% against Shield/-50% against Infested/-75% against Fossilized
Another option players might want for their endgame grind is Radiation damage type. It's not weak against anything and is even powerful against Grineer elite units or bosses. It's certainly handy for taking out Bombards and other troublesome big dudes in the Grineer army.
Its main contribution, however, is the fact that it causes pandemonium in the enemy ranks. Any enemy that gets hit will attack the nearest person even if it's their ally. Their allies can also damage them. It's a great and easy way to make enemies kill one another. One thing to note is that it's only useful against Grineer enemies. Infested and shielded Corpus snobs might take a while to die from it.
Viral (Toxin + Cold)
- Status effect: Virus - Increases damage dealt against affected enemies
- Damage bonus: +75 percent against Cloned Flesh/+50% against Flesh
- Damage penalty: -25% against Machinery/-50% against Infested
Viral is the lovely result of combining toxic stuff with low temperatures and it works wonders against organic enemies in Warframe, meaning most of them. Any enemy affected by a Virus will take more damage from any source.
This makes them easier to kill since they're essentially sick from biological warfare. Thus, Viral is one of the best-scaling status effects or secondary elemental damage in the game. Heck, the status effect is so good that one can even use it against Infested enemies who resist Viral. Against robots, it's a bit problematic/. Anyway, combined with other damage over time effects such as Bleed from Slash or other sources, this can become a devastating and morally dubious way to kill one's enemies.
Warframe was released on March 25, 2013, and is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.