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.
Behavior
- The Manic will only spawn if the level's alarm is active, including missions where the alarm is active from the start (e.g. Excavation and Survival), 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).
- A Manic will almost always spawn after 14 to 16 minutes in a Grineer Survival mission, or after about 5 Excavators in a Grineer Excavation mission.
- Should the Manic successfully kill all the targets, it will flee much like Stalker, announcing 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.
- Manics suffer reduced effects from most Warframe abilities.
- Blinding effects, such as Radial Blind, will prevent the Manic from attacking but not from cloaking or dodging.
- Mesa's Shooting Gallery, however, stuns for its full duration.
- Abilities that can ragdoll will have greatly reduced effect on the Manic. The damage is unaffected.
- Pull and Crush will ragdoll the Manic, but similar to Stalker's reaction to the ability, the Manic 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, should the Manic be uncloaked.
- Manics can be Mind Controlled and Banished, however the effect duration will be severely reduced (approximately 90% duration reduction).
- Certain Warframe abilities (tested with Rhino Stomp, Rhino Charge, Tornado, Dive Bomb, and Shock) can damage Manics normally but cannot kill the Manic, for unknown reasons. If the Manic does not have enough health to absorb the damage of these abilities, it takes no damage from it.
- Manics can be killed by Saryn's Spore, Miasma and Mesa's Peacemaker.
- Manics are also affected by Trinity's Well Of Life and Energy Vampire abilities. Because of this, the combo wherein both abilities are cast in complimentary intervals (such as to deal massive Finisher damage) works as normal against Manics.
- Manics can use Dispel, even if the ability they are dispelling does not directly affect it (tested with Iron Skin, Hysteria and Blessing, and Rift Walk). Manics can only Dispel as part of their pouncing attack (see below).
- Manics will not Dispel a Decoy, they will simply attack it.
- 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 and tackle a Tenno to the ground, 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 for heavy damage.
- 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.
- 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 Script error: The function "Proc" does not exist. 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.
Variants
| Drekar Manic | General | Drops | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Introduced | Undetermined | Mod Drops: Fast Hands 0.469% Fusion Core 0.469% Point Strike 0.469% Pressure Point 0.469% Final Harbinger 0.141% Fusion Core 0.141% North Wind 0.141% Reflex Coil 0.141% Flow 0.031% Fusion Core 0.031% | |
| Tileset | Grineer Sealab | |||
| Weapon | Claws | |||
| Codex Scans | 5 | |||
| Statistics | ||||
| Cloned Flesh | 450 | |||
 +  +  +++  ‐  ‐‐
| ||||
| Ferrite Armor | 25 | |||
 ++  +++ -  -
| ||||
| Base Level | 1 | |||
Tips
- Desecrate will work on the Manic, thus giving you an extra chance at obtaining Four Riders, Final Harbinger and Ash component blueprints.
- Drekar Manics are valid for the Sands of Inaros quest, spawning a minimum of 3 during the assassination of Tyl Regor on Uranus.
- 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 Script error: The function "Proc" does not exist. proc, slowing it down using Molecular Prime, or other abilities make 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Manics will target Loki's Decoy over companions and Tenno, making it easier to predict where the Manic will attack from.
- Using explosive weapons like the Tonkor, the Penta, or Castanas can help alleviate the need to accurately strike a Manic, especially if used in conjunction with Loki's Decoy.
- Trinity's Link ability will track a Manic even while invisible.
- Nezha's Warding Halo ability will prevent a Manic from attacking you as their AI actively avoids damage.
- Further, Divine Spears will temporarily disable all Manics within range.
- They can be put to sleep with Ivara's Sleep Arrow.
- Likewise, Ivara can pickpocket them while Prowling.
Trivia
- Drekar Manic is one of the few units that can drop all common, uncommon and rare Fusion Core.
- 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.
- Curiously, several of the masks feature elongated eye lenses, which do not correspond to any currently implemented Grineer units. However, they closely match a mask worn by one of the Grineer concepts that later became Guardsmen, Bailiffs, and Artificers.
- 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 appeared in amounts of 15-75 during the Blackout Tactical Alert mission.
- During a Survival mission a manic can spawn even before the alarms are triggered.
Media
- The laughter heard when the Manic spawns:
- Sound of a Manic dying:
