Specter (Tenno)


 * For the Specters in Solar Rail Conflict, see Specter (Enemy).

"A replicant cloned from a Warframe that can be deployed to assist Tenno on missions."

- In-Game Description

Specters are AI-controlled replicants of a Warframes. These Specters act autonomously from the player, and can provide support by engaging enemies with their weapons and Warframe powers. There are four ranks of Specter based on their acquisition difficulty, namely Vapor, Phase, Force, and Cosmic. Specters can be customized with any Warframes and weapons that the player owns, allowing for a wide range of versatility in Specter loadouts.

A Specter is crafted from the Foundry by copying the player's current loadout. However, this does not copy any installed mods or appearance. Instead, Specters utilize the Warframe and weapon's base unranked statistics then scale them according to the Specter's level. Additionally, Specters gain increased damage based on their rarity, with rarer Specters dealing higher damage. All weapons and frames will have their default appearance.

Like the Syndicate Operatives, Specters can be commanded to Hold Position or Follow by interacting with them. By default, Specters are set to Follow.

Usage
Specters can be crafted in the Foundry (under Gear section) and once crafting is finished they must be equipped from Gear in Arsenal.

Before a Specter begins building, a Specter loadout screen appears where a player must first set the Warframe and loadout that the Specter will use. Specters of a particular Blueprint grade use a template loadout that is derived from a player's current Warframe and weapon loadout in their Arsenal. Players can choose to change a Specter's loadout by changing their own loadout, which the Specter will replicate upon creation. Once a Specter has begun construction, the template loadout used is saved, and can be used for future Specters to be built, allowing Specters of a certain loadout to be built even if the player changes their own loadout. The template loadout can be changed upon creating another Specter of the same grade, or the player can choose to use their previously saved loadout. Note that the loadout it copies only reflects the base statistics (scaled by level) and not the mods.

Up to four different loadouts can be saved, one for each Blueprint grade; Vapor, Phase, Force, and Cosmic, from lowest to highest grade.

Acquisition
The blueprints necessary to build Specters are automatically rewarded by Rescue missions upon completion, with the type of Blueprint dropped depending on the node that was played, and how many points were acquired. In total, three points can be attained in a mission: one point for rescuing the target, another point for not triggering the execution sequence in the process, and one more point for killing all the Wardens.

Vapor= The Vapor Specter (or Bronze Specter) blueprint is rewarded from Easy and Medium difficulty Rescue missions, and yields 10 Specter uses per build. Spawns at the starting level of the enemies in the current mission.

The Phase Specter (or Silver Specter) blueprint is rewarded from Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty Rescue missions, and yields 5 Specter uses per build. Spawns at the starting level of the enemies in the current mission, plus three levels.
 * -|Phase=

The Force Specter (or Gold Specter) blueprint is rewarded from Medium, Hard, and Nightmare difficulty Rescue missions, and yields 3 Specter uses per build. Spawns at the starting level of the enemies in the current mission, plus five levels.
 * -|Force=

The Cosmic Specter (or Platinum Specter) blueprint is rewarded from Hard and Nightmare difficulty Rescue missions, and yields a single Specter usage per build. Spawns at the starting level of the enemies in the current mission, plus ten levels.
 * -|Cosmic=

Warframes
Tenno Specters spawn with half of their total energy and can regenerate energy on their own. However, they cannot gain energy through any other means, while still being vulnerable to Energy Leech Eximi, that can quickly deplete any energy they have stored.

Specter seems to have preference for spamming the cheapest ability, so it is usually not worth to plan for this aspect and it is better to concentrate on pure durability, since their Effective Health will scale way over usual limits of players' Warframes.


 * Rhino : A solid choice. Fairly tanky and he will use Iron Skin.
 * Valkyr : Tankier than Rhino.
 * Atlas, Chroma : Fairly tanky; a decent substitute for Valkyr.
 * Inaros : High armor and health, will sometimes use Desiccation, so he can heal himself a bit.
 * Frost : Will sometimes use Freeze, but mostly he is fairly durable.


 * Volt : Might use Electric Shield and even Discharge, which is uncommon for spectres. Fairly durable due to shield capacity.
 * Oberon: Decent armor, spreads procs with abandon via Smite.
 * Saryn : Only ever seems to use Toxic Lash, but she is fairly durable too.
 * Mirage : Not very tanky, but Hall of Mirrors allows for decent damage output.
 * Equinox : Will use Rest, so can do some surprisingly good CC.

Avoid : Ivara, Limbo, Loki, Mag, Nyx, Vauban – squishy and lack any abilities to make up for it. Some (like Ivara, Mag, or Vauban) do not seem to use any abilities at all.

Weapons
The most important part about Tenno Specters weapons is that they are not bound by normal ammo limitations. This allows them to use otherwise extremely ammo inefficient weapons and reduces the importance of melee. Reloading time still should be taken into account though.

Tenno Specters prefer to closely guard you or their assigned position, and rarely move out of close range to take on enemies itself, a specter never chooses to melee the enemies out of range of their melee weapon, even despite having better damage than its rifles, and capability of performing finishers (if they attempt to melee an eligible enemy). Thus you might prefer to give them long range heavy hitters such as whips, polearms, and heavy blades.

Specters will rarely ever use secondaries unless when they go into bleed-out, and since it is quite short one (~5 seconds or less) you won't really get a chance to see them in action, if ever. The Kulstar can be good as a "flare" gun of sorts that can let you know if they are down, otherwise just use whatever.

Since Specters will mostly use unmodded primaries, cannot compensate for travel time, and their DPS will be limited by reload times the most useful would be hit-scan, non-crit weapons with decent base damage output and magazine size. Avoid: snipers (crit-weapons with low fire rate and low magazine size), the most of projectile weapons, and special weapons such as Synoid Simulor (specter AI does not understand them). Syndicate weapons will not proc their effects while used by specters.

Range-limited weapons might be less effective since specters do not account for that behavior and do not move around much by themselves. But Glaxion, Amprex, Phage, and shotguns are seems to be exceptions and will produce a good "bodyguard" specter for the cost of efficiency at long distances.

Weapons with innate elemental damage, high base proc chance, or CC potential will make Specter useful past being just another source of damage. For example, a Specter equipped with an Amprex will quite often trigger procs, which helps with crowd control in close quarters.

Tenno Specters have some specific behavior towards some specific kinds of weapons:
 * Bow weapons are an exception for non-projectile weapon rule, as specters will always charge a full shot before firing and have almost pinpoint precision, meaning they will never miss unless the enemy is behind cover, and will usually land headshots, which does not happen with other weapon types.
 * Supra is also an exception, since travel time is fast enough.
 * Tenno Specters using throwing explosives will only detonate the grenade when the substance limit has been reached. They will, however detonate the Penta's grenades when it is in proximity of an enemy. They aim the weapon so as to try to hit the enemy with the projectile. It does not seem that Specters are affected by self-inflicted damage due to close proximity detonation. Generally, specters seem to be better with Penta than with Tonkor due to better aiming and sustainability.
 * Dera has not pinpoint accuracy with Specters, instead, it has some deviation per shot, much like a Crewman, although the fire rate and overall damage output is still that of a players' Dera.

Equinox set up for long-duration Duality can be used to test out how Specters handle different weapons since it is the same AI just without the ability to swap weapons. Note that weapons had to be unmodded to mirror their specter behavior.

Survivability

 * Tenno Specters are affected by the Rejuvenation Aura and Trinity's Blessing, but not by Oberon's Renewal, nor can they pick up Health Orbs.
 * Ancient Healers under Mind Control, or their Shadow and Specter variations can heal Tenno Specters.
 * Tenno Specters do not lose shield or health after life support runs out in Survival missions.
 * Tenno Specters are not affected by the Shield loss from Cryogenic Leakage, the No Shields challenge of Nightmare Mode, and the Toxic Ancient's aura.
 * It is possible to revive your Specter if it hasn't bled out yet, though they appear to have a negligible bleedout health limit and often die immediately.
 * Tenno Specters can revive other downed Tenno Specters, but cannot do so to a teammate.
 * They can also revive the objective during Sortie's Defenses.
 * Stationed Tenno Specters are quite vulnerable to ground slamming enemies, Arson Eximi and such, since they tend to quickly displace them into bad positions.

Other

 * Tenno Specters are spawned from silver balls similar to those used by Vauban's skills. This allows Specters to be spawned at a desired spot by throwing the ball to that location.
 * Tenno Specters cannot spawn if the Specter Ball is thrown to an out-of-bound place, e.g.: behind a container, at the corner of the hallway.
 * Only a single Tenno Specter per player can be active at any time during a mission. Attempting to summon a second Specter will result in the previously active Specter being killed when the second one spawns. This does not apply to their Syndicate counterparts though, it's possible use them together.
 * Following Tenno Specters will always teleport to a player if left behind far enough.
 * Pre-built Specter Gear acquired as special mission rewards will use the previous loadout saved under the player's Specter tab in the Arsenal. If no previous loadout was saved, the Specter summoned will use randomized weapons and Warframes in the same manner as enemy Tenno Specters, along with the Specter using the enemy Specter's phased blue energy glow.
 * Once Crafted, you can view your saved Specter loadouts under Specters in the Equipment menu.

Trivia

 * Each Specter type can be visually distinguished from each other via their color:
 * Vapor Specters have a bronze energy glow.
 * Phase Specters have a silver energy glow.
 * Force Specters have a golden energy glow.
 * Cosmic Specters have a white energy glow, with thin rings emanating out of them.
 * Before their release, specters were referred to as Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum specters, matching their current color distinctions.
 * As of, Conclave restrictions have been removed from crafting Specters.

Bugs

 * Tenno Specters may be labeled as "Phantoms" to players who did not cast the hologram, perhaps due to lag or hidden code where Specters may have been originally called Phantoms.
 * Specters may occasionally get stuck or hung over in such out-of-bounds place, like behind containers or trapped in obstacles. Leaving behind the stuck Specter will eventually cause it to respawn near the player who spawned it.
 * Tenno Specters cannot use the Ogris properly, as they will never charge a shot enough to fire it.