Manic

Dashing in for quick strikes before falling back to the shadows, the Grineer Manic is difficult to catch and deadly to ignore. Although only a few Manics will spawn in a given Grineer mission, its speed and damage make it a devastating enemy to face.

Manics have a chance to drop Ash blueprints upon death, similar to how Eximus enemies can drop Oberon Parts, making the parts fairly difficult to acquire compared to other frames.

Tactics

 * The Manic will only spawn if the level's alarm is active, and will announce its presence with loud, howling laughter. As its description implies, the Manic is a fast-striking and elusive melee unit, capable of cloaking to close in on foes and having an ability to Stealth Kill unsuspecting players (the player must be facing away from the Manic to have this happen).
 * Should the Manic successfully kill all the targets, it will announce its departure with another loud, howling laughter of satisfaction.
 * Players can still revive if this happens, however they have a chance to re-encounter the Manic later regardless of whether alarms are reset or not.
 * Manics are capable of cloaking for periods of time to close distance across open ground, their masks however will still shine, indicating their current position. When cloaked, they will be able to move very fast and erratically teleport in an unpredictable manner.
 * They cannot teleport to a position that would not normally be accessible to default pathfinding such as on top of boxes or disconnected ledges.
 * When dealing tackle attack, Manic will negate some Warframe toggle abilities, such as Limbo's Rift Walk, which can lead to lethal consequences.
 * Manics suffer reduced effects from Warframe abilities.
 * During abilities such as Radial Blind, the Manic will still move erratically and cloak when attacked, but will not use any of its own attacks for the duration of the ability.
 * Mesa's Shooting Gallery, which stuns for its full duration.
 * Such effects have their full effect on the Manic if they come from a Warframe mod, such as Piercing Roar.
 * Abilities that can ragdoll will not have any affect on the Manic besides damaging it.
 * Pull and Crush is an exception: it will ragdoll the Manic, but similar to Stalker's reaction to the ability, it will recover while flying and lose the momentum from the ability.
 * Rhino Stomp is another: The Manic will be ragdolled and trapped in the time-slow for part of the ability's duration, but shortly after being hit will make a breaking-out motion and cease to be affected.
 * Soul Punch works normally and can be used to knock them down repeatedly with very little effort.
 * Tornado is also capable of ragdolling Manics, yet the Manic needs to be uncloaked and is only pulled sometimes.
 * Manics can be Mind Controlled, however the effect duration will be severely reduced.
 * Manics can be damaged but cannot be killed by Warframe abilities (tested with Rhino Stomp, Rhino Charge, Tornado, Dive Bomb, and Shock). If the Manic does not have enough health to absorb the damage of the ability, it takes no damage from it. Note that the same is not true for weapons that can instantly kill it. This may be a bug.
 * Manics can be killed by Saryn's Venom, Miasma and Mesa's Peacemaker.
 * Manics are also affected by Trinity's Well Of Life and Energy Vampire abilities, with both the health increase and finisher damage portions of these abilities being applied (albiet with drastically reduced duration for the former). Because of this, if the two are cast on the Manic in rapid succession, the mechanic of Energy Vampire which causes its damage dealt to scale off the target's health at the time of casting will ensure that the Manic will die after three tics of the ability, regardless of its level.
 * Manics are affected by Aura mods that have a detrimental effect.
 * Manics can use Dispel even if the ability does not directly affect it (tested with Iron Skin, Hysteria and Blessing).
 * The dispel effect only occurs before a target has been pounced.
 * Manics can be stunned by parrying them or abilities like Teleport, although the former is very difficult to accomplish without the aid of mods like Parry. However, they cannot be Finished, and will instead take a high damage multiplier.


 * Manics can pounce the player onto the ground for heavy damage, leaving the player unable to move. This can occur if the player is facing away from the Manic when it tackles them or is staggered by knockback, with an imperfect chance to happen in either circumstance. If successful, the Manic will slash at the player several times; it is highly likely the player will die unless: the player has enough health to survive the attack, or the the Manic is killed/dislodged by the methods mentioned below (Note: There are reports of the player being able to kick the Manic off before it begins slashing, however this needs to be verified.).
 * The player cannot attack or use Warframe abilities when tackled. Other enemies will also continue to attack the player.
 * The tackle can be triggered even while the player is mid-air, on such occasion, the player is rendered floating along with the Manic.
 * Ragdolled Manics can also trigger a tackle if collided with mid-air.
 * A companion is helpful, though not absolutely necessary in solo missions, as Manics will not necessarily slash a player to death as of Hotfix 16.0.4. A companion/other players will not be attacked by the Manic if it is already on top of a player until they dislodge it.
 * Manics can also tackle Kubrows but not Sentinels (can still kill the latter with jump attacks). Such an attack is near-fatal for the companion as the Manic's tackle attack deals high damage.
 * Teammates can use slam attacks and Warframe abilities to cause knockdown, which will dislodge the Manic from a teammate. Alternatively they can shoot at it until it cloaks. Despite technically being on the ground, Finishers cannot be performed on the Manic when it has tackled a player, possibly due to the risk of hitting the tackled Tenno.


 * A Manic's attacks can inflict an extremely deadly proc. Any Warframes without extensive health reserves can easily fall victim to this attack, as the bleed DoT ignores armor.


 * Manics can be knocked down by weapons with very high slam attack radius, such as the Jat Kittag, and most fist weapons. They will get up at an extremely fast rate, but they are susceptible to ground finishers while in this state. Unlike ragdoll effects inflicted by Warframe abilities, Manics cannot recover mid-flight from slam attacks.

Tips

 * Desecrate will work on the Manic, thus giving you an extra chance at obtaining Four Riders, Final Harbinger and Ash component blueprints.
 * Due to their erratic movement, it can be very difficult to defeat in large rooms. Lure them into corridors or side rooms for an easier fight; they cannot travel through doors without opening them, betraying their presence.
 * In large, open spaces such as those found in the Grineer settlement tileset, the Manic's erratic behavior plays to its disadvantage as it will often juke erratically rather than chase a player in a straight line. Should the Manic prove too difficult to fight, fleeing into other rooms is always an option; if the alarm has been reset since the Manic's appearance it will change to unalerted status once the player gets far enough away (usually into the next room).
 * Speedrunners can ignore the Manic altogether: despite its speed its movement pattern is erratic even when chasing a player, which slows Manics down.
 * Manics can be killed with Bullet Attractor easily, as they are not immune to damage from weapons with an addition of a vastly increased hit area to compensate a Manic's erratic teleporting.
 * Due to the Manic's sporadic and rapid movement, it can be exceedingly difficult to scan for the Codex. Freezing it with Frost's Freeze ability, or otherwise hitting it with a proc, slowing it down using Molecular Prime, or other abilities may the scanning process easier. Additionally, a Helios can scan the Manic whilst the player defends against it.
 * As Manics will only spawn after the level's alarm has been raised, completing a mission as stealthily as possible will prevent them from appearing.
 * Manics can be tagged using the Waypoint system. Though tricky, aiming directly at it and applying a Waypoint (default key "G", on PC) will mark the Manic with an "Enemy" Waypoint whenever it is not invisible. This can make it easier to track the Manic's movement.
 * Fighting Manics while inside Frost's Snow Globe, especially with Chilling Globe augment, makes Manics much easier to fight.
 * The Manic's tackle can be blocked using two methods, blocking and channeling.
 * While blocking is pretty straight forward, channeling is an alternative. Channeling does not require you to block, instead will auto block and prevent the Manic from tackling you no matter what you are doing, so long as you have channel active. Keep in mind this will count as a channeled block and will consume 5 energy.
 * Blocking a tackle in this fashion, versus the normal block, will always stagger the Manic, opening up free hits.
 * Interestingly enough, blocking the tackle will not damage Rhino's Iron Skin, as blocking any other attack would.
 * Casting Saryn's Miasma can be an effective method of tracking Manics, regardless of whether they are visible or not. All one needs to do is follow the particles emitted by the Manic due to Miasma, which can be seen even when the Manic is invisible.
 * Manics can move fast and teleport or stay invisible, one way or the other if the Manic doesn't see you he will just stay invisible and you can still see it by the red lines he leaves on his way but you can't attack them.

Trivia

 * The Manic is the first of the winning fan entries from the Enemies Of The Tenno Contest to be implemented, designed by player Kadabura.
 * According to Kadabura's original concept art the masks on the Manic's back belong to its fallen comrades.
 * Manic refers to a person who suffers from mania, which is a mood of abnormally elevated arousal energy level and is often associated with bipolar disorder.
 * The Manic appears in amounts of 15-75 during the Blackout Tactical Alert mission.

Media

 * The laughter heard when the Manic spawns:
 * GrineerManicLaugh.ogg


 * Sound of a Manic dying:
 * 1ManicDead.ogg

Manischer Grineer Maniaque Grineer