Warframe – Grinding Guide (Skip / Clear / Farm)

Skip / Clear / Farm advice for like every grindable activity in the game.

Guide to Grind

Introduction

“Content Island” is a community slang for gamemodes and activities that are barely if at all connected with other parts of the game. I use this term loosely here, as in “all warframe grind is a patchwork of somewhat connected content islands”. Activities are listed in order of being unlocked by new player.

Earlygame

You have just started playing Warframe and have access to only a couple of planets.

Starchart

Unlocking more planets is your main ppriority. Clearing every mission on every planet (including quest-locked ones) unlocks the NG+ (Steel Path) which is Endgame.

Duviri quest and open world

• Unlock some melee weapons with Pathos Clamps earlygame then bounce.
• Drifter melee weapons can be crafted for normal game once you unlock them. They are heads and shoulders above everything else in their melee classes, beaten only by the top-tier Primes.

The Duviri Circuit

Farm it midgame for missing warframes. Farm for endgame for Incarnon adapters.

Cetus and Plains of Eidlon Bounties

• Farm common mods earlygame then bounce. Return midgame and farm the rest and rankup the Ostron syndicate.
• About half of the mods are outstanding and don’t fall off until the lategame.
• Modular melees are okay midgame, but outclassed by Primes and now the Duviri melees.
• Gara warframe is decent midgame. Revenant is amazing late and endgame. Both have primes.

Ghoul Purge recurring event

Farm it midgame for Hunter’s Mutition and Adrenaline then bounce.

Eidlon Hunts

• Farm them lategame for Focus.
• Then wait couple of years till arcane-shop event to max out the arcanes. Probably not the best advise, but there are less burnout-inducing thing out there than the trodolo caps.

Plague Star bi-early event

Farm it midgame for arcanes, and maybe for the crafted-formas as well, if you feel like it.

Fortuna and Orb Vais bounties

• Begrudgingly grind midgame for syndicate max rank
• Modular guns are good midgame and lategeme, then heavily outclassed endgame. Gun arcanes are worth the grind (half of them).
• The Garuda warframe can be amazing, has prime
• Moa pets are mostly mastery-fodder.
• Mods are predominantly eh with some exceptions.
• Modular hoverboards are mastery fodder.

Vox Solaris Bounties

• Farm them mid or lategame for Archwing mods.
• Lategame learn to Expoiter Orb and bounce, then return when global credit booster is active for 30mil+ credits per hour. Yes, this IS much higher that from Index.

Thermia Fractures event

• Do it once midgame, then maybe repeat for Hildryn boss keys.
• Chain-run it if overlapped with global credit booster to push to the Vails credit booster. Then farm Exploiter Orb for credits.
• Mods are mostly heh, with Amalgam Serration and Amalgam Organ Shatter being decent sidegrades to their normal counterparts. Weapon is great midgame, then fall off.

Mirror Defense

• Grind it midgame
• The Citrine warframe is amazing and won’t get Prime for years, arcanes are meh with maybe one exception. The shotgun is good if crafted at it’s floor MR6 and heavily outclassed later.

Orokin Vaults on Deimoss-the-planet

• Get all the mods
• Some mods are garbage, but the rest are staples and will stay in your build to engame and beyond!

Nekralisk and Combustion Drift open world bounties

• Farm midgame
• Guns are amazing until endgame, melees are eh, mods are eh.

Hemith upgrade modules are must-get!

Modular Companions are okay, but Panzer Vulpafila one of the best companions in the game

Some other Deimos Vaults

• Begrudgingly farm midgame for Necramach parts?
• Arcanes are eh.

Hemith

• Lategame resource-intensive build customization
• The unlockable abilities are eh, But some of the subsumable warframe abilities are absolutely amazing!

Void Fissures and relics

• Run earlygame for some formas. Farm midgame and onward for prime sets to use or sell.
• Most Prime sets are split into low-tier relics (Lith on Earth, Venus, etc.) and high-tier relics (Neo and Axi on Neptune, Sedna etc.) – if you get one part earlygame it is unlikely you can utilize it until late-midgame when unlock high-lvl planets for these high-tier relics and fissures.
• Prime warframes have really low or no mastery requirement, so you’ll be able to craft ’em once you get ’em.
• Prime weapons though tend to be locked at 10-15ish MR.

Midgame

You have reached Saturn and can kill enemies there

Clantech

• Get the Vault Keys, the x10 medium team restores if you low on resources or x100 larges if you’re good.
• Most of the clantech weapons are now obsolete with little exceptions.
• Warframes are okay, all have primes.
• Archwiths are mastery fodder exept for Amesha

Sanctuary onslaught

• Farm Khora from Normal SO then bounce.
• Farm Elite SO lategame for focus, relics and gun leveling. Guns are mastery fodder though both have rather good Incarnon Adaptors, and both were CBT-exclusives at one point.

Syndicates

• Space ninja passive income. Max out as soon as you can.
• Relic packs are great endgame, after you buy-out the rest of the inventory.
• Syndicate weapons are mastery fodder now. So as archgun weapons
• x10 large restores have x100 clan-tech alternative.
• Weapon augments are safe to skip.
• Warframe augments are hit or miss BUT there are build-defining ones, so it’d be nice to have your own and save the plat for something else.
• Syndicate specters and emotes are joke.

Invasions

Farm them lategame for mastery-fodder weapons. Keep an eye on their tab though, as sometimes Reactors / Catalysts are given away!

Infestation Outbreaks

Farm midgame for Alad V nav coordinate – which is Mesa’s boss key.

Nightmare missions

Grind all mods once then never touch again. The mods are good midgame, but fall off later, with notable exceptions of Shred, Animal Instinct and Chilling reload which are amazing.

Archwing

• Not worth the time
• Jouin a clan and build Amesha archwihg midgame. Then wait till Necramechs for the Mausolon Archgun, then farm the AW mods from missions.

Railjack

• Build it, then bounce, unless you enjoy the gamemode.
• Two Primes and three normal warframes are RJ content. Some nice parazon mods from corpus spies
• Currently two quests require you to own a Railjack

The Silver Grove specters

Farm the Growing Power and overshield aura then bounce.

Fomorian Sabotage recurring event

• Complete once, every time it’s up for a free potato! Play with open party if you don’t have geared Archwing, evidentially you’ll get a geared player to carry. Farm lategame for dual-stat AW-gun mods.
• Imperator Vandal is good, but outclassed by Mausolon that you get for free by building a Necramech.

Razorback Armada recuring event

• Complete 3 times, every time it’s up (if you have time to spare) for a potato.
• Chipper-mats can be framed in endless RJ missions now!
• The weapon is mastery fodder. Non-AW Mods drop from Eidolon Hunts.

Riven mods & Kuva

• Avoid midgame, unless you happen to unveil one for a weapon you own. Instead learn how damage system works and how to mod for each fraction. You can go to LVL-cap with just good good build on a good weapon, Riven mods only expand the pool of what considered a “good weapon”.
• Lategame and beyond – learn what weapons and stat combination are currently valued by trading community. Farm for plat.
• Buy two weekly rivens from Steel Wake once you have completed Chains of Harrow.

Kuva Liches

Avoid stabbing a kneeling grineer until lategame. Then maybe farm for cosmetics and weapons – some are great, about half are eh.

Lategame

You have unlocked all planets, dealt with the Sentinel treat and have 13+ Mastery Rank to equip most of the weapons

Sorties

At most days an eh Endo source, but can drop some nice rewards once in a while.

Sisters of Parvos

Maybe farm for weapons and cosmetics – some guns are excelent, some are eh.

Zariman

• Get everything! (maybe not the housing stuff)
• Incarnon weapons are amazing and some arcanes are great as well. Some cool cosmetics also.

Sentient Anomalies

Well.. they exist. Do them if you like the fraction and have nothing better to do with your time I guess

Kuria

Well.. they exist. Do them once you hit a wall of nothing else to do.

Endgame

You have unlocked Steel Path, the Warframe’s NG+, and can kill stuff there.

Arbitrages

• Farm out the mods then go Steel Path
• Okay place to farm Endo if you don’t mind permadeath. By far not the most efficient though.

Steel Path

• Current endgame
• Re-playing starchart is mostly worth to unlock the nice farming spots. Though steel essence bounties for completing a planet are good.
• Gun arcanes are amazing

Archon Hunts

• Optional endgame
• Archon shards are really nice to have