Abilities

Abilities
Excalibur using his Slash Dash

Abilities are special skills that all Warframes (Archwings and Necramechs too) possess which are used to provide tactical advantages in battle by either affecting enemies directly or bolstering teammates in some manner. Every Warframe has a set of four unique Abilities that directly influence their gameplay and their role within a team. For example,  Frost's Abilities are based around slowing down enemies and blocking damage, making him more suited to a defensive role.  Nova, with her damage-oriented Ability set, is a good choice for offensive playstyles.

Abilities require Energy, which is spent every time an Ability is used. Warframes have only a limited Energy capacity, so Ability use must be carefully managed to prevent running out of Energy at critical moments. Energy costs vary between Abilities; in general the more advanced/powerful the Ability, the greater its Energy cost.

Controls

Main article: Key Bindings

Default Key Bindings

Platform	1st Ability	2nd Ability	3rd Ability	4th Ability
PC	1	2	3	4
PSN	R1  +	R1  +	R1  +	R1  +
XBX	RB  +	RB  +	RB  +	RB  +
Switch	R Button  + B	R Button  + Y	R Button  + A	R Button  + X

Types

Warframe Abilities are currently officially classified into four different types, according to their function: damage, buff & debuff, mobility, and perception. Certain Warframe Abilities can have two different classifications. For example, an Ability can be both a Buff/Debuff and a Damage type. Currently, the below the classification of powers is used to determine which Abilities are affected by certain enemies, such as Corpus Combas.

Damage

Main article: Abilities/Damage

The most common Ability type, Damage Abilities primarily deal direct damage to enemies. They also typically have a secondary effect, such as applying a Status.

View Damage Powers List▾▾

Last updated: Update 27.1 (2020-02-04)

Buff & Debuff

Main article: Abilities/Buff & Debuff

These Abilities are used to modify a unit's innate stats. Buff-type Abilities enhance a Warframe or their allies, while Debuff Abilities weaken or cripple enemies. Some Abilities can even perform both at the same time.

View Buff & Debuff Powers List▾▾

Last updated: Update 27.1 (2020-02-04)

Mobility

Main article: Abilities/Mobility

Mobility Abilities enhance a Warframe's ability to travel between two points or allow them to reach normally inaccessible places.

View Mobility Powers List▾▾

Last updated: Update 27.1 (2020-02-04)

Perception

Main article: Abilities/Perception

Perception Abilities are used to confuse or distract enemies, making them engage false targets or prevent them from seeing the player entirely.

View Perception Powers List▾▾

Warframe	Abilities
Ash	Smoke Screen
Atlas	Tectonics
Banshee	Silence
Excalibur	Radial Blind
Excalibur Umbra	Radial Howl
Gara	Spectrorage
Inaros	Desiccation •  Scarab Swarm
Ivara	Prowl
Loki	Invisibility •  Decoy
Mirage	Prism
Nyx	Mind Control •  Chaos
Octavia	Metronome??
Revenant	Enthrall??
Saryn	Molt
Wisp	Wil-O-Wisp??
Wukong	Cloud Walker

Last updated: Update 27.1 (2020-02-04)

Ability Mods

Warframes Abilities can be affected by five types of modification: Ability Duration, Ability Efficiency, Ability Range, Ability Strength, and Casting Speed. With the proper combination of mods and gear Abilities can obtain a maximized value (see Power Mods and Abilities).

Ability Duration

Main article: Ability Duration

Modifies the Duration of Warframe Abilities and the Energy cost of toggled Abilities. Hover over each Ability to see how its stats are affected.

—In-game Description

These mods affect how long a Warframe Ability lasts.

Mods that affect Ability Duration positively:

 Augur Message

 Constitution

 Continuity

 Narrow Minded

 Primed Continuity

Maximized at +206% with a negative effect of -66% Ability Range. Note that  Continuity and  Primed Continuity are mutually exclusive; the maximized value assumes the use of Primed Continuity.

Ability Efficiency

Main article: Ability Efficiency

Modifies the Energy cost of Warframe abilities. The minimum Energy cost is 1/4 of the Base value.

—In-game Description

These mods affect how much a Warframe Ability costs to cast. Ability Efficiency has a hard cap of 75%. For example, an Ability which costs 100 Energy cannot be reduced below 25 Energy.

Mods that affect Ability Efficiency positively:

 Streamline

 Fleeting Expertise

 System Reroute

 Pax Bolt

Maximized at +90% with a negative effect of -60% Ability Duration. The 75% hard cap mentioned above means it is inefficient to completely level Fleeting Expertise as well as Streamline in the same build, unless also utilizing a mod that decreases Ability Efficiency, such as  Blind Rage, or minimizing the drain of channeled Abilities with as few mods as possible.

Ability Range

Modifies the Range of Warframe Abilities and the Energy cost of toggled Abilities. Hover over each Ability to see how its stats are affected.

—In-game Description

These mods affect the radius and targeting range of Warframe Abilities.

Mods that affect Ability Range positively:

 Augur Reach

 Cunning Drift

 Energy Amplifier

 Overextended

 Stretch

Maximized at +180% with a negative effect of -60% Ability Strength.

Ability Strength

Modifies the Strength of Warframe Abilities and the Energy cost of toggled Abilities. Hover over each Ability to see how its stats are affected.

—In-game Description

These mods and Arcanes affect the damage and the potency of Warframe Abilities (such as Banshee's  Sonar and Energy restored by Trinity's  Energy Vampire).

Mods & Arcanes that affect Ability Strength positively:

 Augur Secrets

 Blind Rage

 Energy Conversion

 Growing Power

 Intensify

 Morphic Transformer

 Power Donation

 Power Drift

 Primed Morphic Transformer

 Transient Fortitude

 Umbral Intensify

 Power Drain

 Pax Bolt

In the arsenal, Power Strength is maximized at +259% (equipping all Umbral mods) with a negative effect of -55% Ability Efficiency and -27.5% Ability Duration. Maximizing together with a maxed  Fleeting Expertise on a Warframe that does not need much Duration is efficient since it will effectively triple the damage of Abilities and also make them 5% cheaper to cast (although it will use up 8 Warframe mod slots).

In-game, without any additional Warframe ability buffs or effects, Power Strength is maximized at +399% (equipping all Umbral mods,  Energy Conversion,  Pax Bolt, and if all players in a squad equip  Power Donation). With the Arbitration bonus, Power Strength is maximized at +699% (equipping all of the above mods/Arcanes).

Using  Empower can raise this cap by 50%, but only for the next ability cast, and Empower cannot stack with itself nor benefit from mods aside from Ability Efficiency.

The theoretical max Power Strength for any Warframe (except  Volt and  Frost because of their Arcane Helmets, and  Ember,  Nidus, and  Protea because of their passives) will be +~1,070.57% taking into account +80% Power Strength from  Equinox's  Peaceful Provocation and 2.235x Power Strength mulitplier from  Nidus'  Parasitic Link when Arbitration bonus gives +300% Power Strength to Nidus.

• To achieve this,  Equinox must first cast  Pacify & Provoke then  Nidus' cast  Parasitic Link on any Warframe.
•  Volt's theoretical max Power Strength will be +~1,092.92% if under the above effects with Arcane Volt Storm Helmet equipped.
•  Frost's (with Arcane Frost Squall Helmet equipped) and  Nidus' theoretical max Power Strength will be +1,104.09% if under the above effects.

Last updated: Hotfix 25.7.8 (2019-09-26)

Casting Speed

These mods affect the casting speed of Warframe Abilities (such as  Nekros'  Shadows Of The Dead or  Mag's  Crush).

The calculation for casting time is (Base Time) ÷ (1 + Speed Bonus).

Mods that affect Ability Casting Speed positively:

 Natural Talent

 Speed Drift

 Savior Decoy

Maximized at +65% (or +115% for  Decoy) casting speed to cast the ability at 60.61% (or 46.51% for Decoy) of its base cast time.

Ability Ranking

Since Update 15.0 (2014-10-24), Warframe Abilities unlock and rank up with affinity. Maximum Rank for Abilities is Rank 3.

Warframe / Archwing / Necramech Rank	Ability and Rank
	First Ability	Second Ability	Third Ability	Fourth Ability
Unranked	Unranked	Locked	Locked	Locked
3	Unranked	Unranked	Locked	Locked
5	Unranked	Unranked	Unranked	Locked
7	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked	Locked
10	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked	Unranked
12	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked
14	Rank 2	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked
16	Rank 2	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked
18	Rank 3	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked
20	Rank 3	Rank 1	Rank 1	Rank 1
22	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 1	Rank 1
24	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2	Rank 1
25	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2	Rank 2
27	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2
28	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 2
30	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3

Notes

• The majority of Warframe abilities with duration or changes to the user/enemies will be canceled if the player falls into a pit (e.g.  Shadows Of The Dead,  Invisibility, and  Iron Skin).

Patch History

Update 25.6 (2019-08-08)

• Added numerous Warframe Ability Augment stats to the Ability Screen. We debuted this with Wukong’s rework, and you will now be able to directly see the Stat changes associated with Augments on the Abilities!

Hotfix 25.5.2 (2019-08-02)

• Fixed the Warframe Ability screen breaking if a given Warframe didn't have any Ability hints.
• Fixed the width of the Passive button textbox on the Warframe selection screen being too small for some languages, resulting in text wrapping awkwardly.

Hotfix 25.5.1 (2019-08-02)

• Fixed missing Warframe Ability Tips section when playing Warframe in Korean and Russian.

Update 24.6 (2019-04-04)

Warframe “In Air” Ability Changes

Right now, there are certain powers that just cannot be cast in the air. Some of those powers are easy to address, and we simply remove the restriction. A full breakdown can be found here in the Developer Workshop: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1079249-dev-workshop-cannot-cast-in-the-air-friend-or-foe/

• Removed "cast on ground" requirements for the following Warframe abilities:
  • Trinity Well of Life
  • Trinity Energy Vampire
  • Trinity Link
  • Frost Avalanche
  • Atlas Tectonics
  • Mag Crush
  • Chroma Effigy
  • Loki Radial Disarm
• Additionally, the following abilities require ground to activate, but can now be cast in the air and will do a melee-esque slam to the ground:
  • Rhino Stomp
  • Banshee Sound Quake
  • Oberon Hallowed Ground
  • Khora Strangledome
  • Nidus Virulence
  • Harrow Condemn

Update 22.20 (2018-05-17)

• Updated several ability stat descriptors to make them clearer:
  • Standardized format across all Warframe ability descriptions.
    • E.g. Range (Meters) # to Range #
    • E.g. “Health over Time #” to “Health / Sec #”
  • Added units of measurement to the abilities where appropriate - M (meters), S (seconds), % (percentage), X (multiplier), etc.
  • Converted decimals to whole numbers (e.g. Equinox’s Rest & Rage Wakeup Health Threshold has been changed from 0.5 to 50% for max rank).
  • Changed “Range” to “Radius” for several Warframe abilities.

Update 17.5 (2015-10-01)

Warframe Changes

Toggled Abilities and Energy Drain: The following adjustments have been made to Abilities that can toggle on or off with the intention of making each Ability more rewarding to use in a wider range of scenarios. We will continue to monitor the balance of all Toggled Abilities after launch.

• Duration Mods now have an effect on toggled Abilities.
  • For example: Mods that added 100% duration will make a 10 Energy drain become a 5 Energy drain.
• Drain-Per-Second and other adjustments has been made on the following Toggled Abilities:
  • Chroma’s Spectral Scream now drains 3 Energy.
  • Chroma’s Elemental Ward’s Electric elemental discharge effect is now affected by range Mods instead of strength Mods.
  • Chroma’s Elemental Ward Poison holster and reload speed are now affected by duration Mods instead of strength Mods.
  • Ember’s World on Fire now drains 3 Energy and has had its maximum duration removed.
  • Equinox’s Rest & Rage has had its base range doubled.
  • Hydroid can now recast Tempest Barrage and Tentacle Swarm with no cooldown.
  • Nyx’s Chaos no longer has a cooldown, and enemies affected by Chaos cannot be stunned by additional casts.
  • The minimum energy cost of an Ability cannot go below 25% of the base cost.