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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

AbilityDurationBuff Ability Duration linearly affects the duration of many Warframe and Archwing abilities. Increased Ability Duration usually extends the length of time that an ability is active, but there are some unorthodox or otherwise counter-intuitive interactions the stat gives: for example, the maximum amount of charges for TeslaNervos130xWhite Tesla Nervos increases as a factor of added Ability Duration. There are some instances where negative Ability Duration is desirable, usually because it speeds up periodic effects like TrinityIcon272 Trinity's EnergyVampire130xWhite Energy Vampire or MesaIcon272 Mesa's ShootingGallery130xWhite Shooting Gallery when augmented with Mod TT 20px Muzzle Flash.

All Warframes and Archwings have a base stat of 100% Ability Duration.

Final Ability Duration = Base Ability Duration × Ability Duration bonus

The remaining duration of an ability is displayed on the ability's icon in the bottom right corner as a number with two places. Hence, if the remaining duration of an ability is greater than 10 seconds, it displays to the nearest second. If the duration is less than 10 seconds, it displays down to the nearest tenth of a second.

Energy Drain for Channeled Abilities[]

DurationEfficiencyTable

There are abilities like GaussIcon272 Gauss's MachRush130xWhite Mach Rush or ChromaIcon272 Chroma's SpectralScream130xWhite Spectral Scream which last for an indefinite amount of time but drain energy with each passing tick until canceled or if no energy remains. As of Update 17.5 (2015-10-01), Ability Duration affects the energy drain for these abilities: if, for example, an ability normally has an energy drain of 1.0 energy per second, at 200% Ability Duration that ability would drain a point of energy every 2.0 seconds - resulting in a total of 0.5 energy per second drain.

Final Drain Rate = Drain Rate ÷ Ability Duration

  • The Drain Rate is the amount of energy that gets drained per second.
  • When energy drain is less than about 10 per second, energy will be drained once per tick, and the time between ticks will depend on the drain rate. For example, with an ability that drains 2.5 energy per second, the game will actually consume 1 energy every 0.4 seconds. It is unknown what the minimum time is between ticks (for especially high drain rates).
  • This mechanism behaves essentially opposite of how Ability Efficiency affects the cost of abilities.
  • Without any other mods to compensate for the reduced Duration, a "High Strength and High Efficiency" build - achieved by slotting a maxed Mod TT 20px Blind Rage (+99% Strength, -55% Efficiency), a maxed Mod TT 20px Fleeting Expertise (+60% Efficiency, -60% Duration), a maxed Mod TT 20px Transient Fortitude (+55% Strength, -27.5% Duration), and a maxed Mod TT 20px Streamline (+30% Efficiency) - will have a very high energy drain.
  • The resulting Duration penalty is -87.5%, leaving a Duration stat of only 12.5%, which results in a penalty of 800% before calculating efficiency. At 135% efficiency, this results in a final 520% penalty.
Final rate = Base rate × (100% - 35%) ÷ 0.125 = Base rate × 5.2
  • If efficiency mods are not included in the build, then the resulting increase is even greater: a massive 762% (without Streamline), 1000% (without Fleeting Expertise), or 1240% (without either).

Because energy drain is also affected by Ability Efficiency, the chart to the right can be consulted to determine a Warframe ability's real energy drain per second. [1]

  • Note that using Mod TT 20px Fleeting Expertise with Mod TT 20px Streamline adds up to 90% total Ability Efficiency. The maximum final efficiency is 75% - the extra 15% efficiency can be used to compensate for a low Ability Duration. At 90% efficiency, this means that using 40% Ability Duration will still reach the maximum 75% Ability Efficiency.
  • Using the above combination alongside Mod TT 20px Boreal's Hatred or certain Arcane Helmets, it is possible to reach 100% or higher efficiency before factoring in Ability Duration. This will result in a 75% final efficiency, regardless of the value of Ability Duration.

Similar to Ability Strength, energy drain is calculated when the ability is first used. If something later changes the value of Ability Efficiency or Ability Duration, it will not affect energy drain unless the ability is re-cast.

Exception : A change in Ability Efficiency from Mod TT 20px Seismic Bond will update the energy drain of the ability without having to re-cast it.[2]

Cooldowns[]

Most abilities do not have a "cooldown" period, which is a mechanic in many similar games that disallow a player from recasting the same ability too frequently. However, abilities in WARFRAME can often instead prevent you from recasting while the first instance is still active. Hence, if you have an ability that lasts 5 seconds long, you can only cast it once every five seconds. If you extend its duration to 8 seconds, you will not be able to cast it more frequently than once every eight seconds. This increase in uptime can be undesirable for certain abilities, such as Silence130xWhite Silence, which can be used as an on-demand stun.

If a player casts an ability too frequently in Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, then the game will put an explicit cooldown by disabling abilities from 8-15 seconds, depending on the ability slot (i.e. second, third, or fourth abilities will experience a cooldown timer).

Abilities With Casting Cooldown[]

Abilities with casting cooldown timers:

Modifiers[]

Modifiers combine additively to the Ability Duration stat.

Final Ability Duration = Ability Duration + Modifier 1 + Modifier 2 + Modifier 3 + ...

Mods[]

Mod TT 20px Continuity, Mod TT 20px Primed Continuity, Mod TT 20px Constitution, Mod TT 20px Narrow Minded, Mod TT 20px Augur Message, Mod TT 20px Nira's Hatred and Mod TT 20px Efficient Transferral can each be equipped to increase Ability Duration. Note that as a primed mod, Primed Continuity cannot be equipped simultaneously with Continuity on the same Warframe.

Mod TT 20px Fleeting Expertise and Mod TT 20px Transient Fortitude both reduce duration of abilities.

Arcanes[]

MoltEfficiency Molt Efficiency is currently the only Arcane Enhancement that affects Ability Duration.

Arcane Helmets[]

Arcane Helmets can also reduce (or increase) Ability Durations. The following helmets affect Ability Duration:

Archon Shards[]

Archon Shards can also increase Ability Durations.

Abilities[]

There are no Warframe abilities that increase or decrease ability duration.

The following Archwing ability increases ability duration:


VengefulRushMod VengefulRush
4
EnergyOrb100
Vengeful Rush

All damage taken is transformed into Energy, while abilities gain enhanced range, duration and power. Affects the caster and nearby allies.


Introduced in Update: Specters of the Rail 0.0 (2016-07-08)

AbilityStrengthBuff Strength:100% Conversion
AbilityDurationBuff Duration:15 / 20 / 25 / 30 s
AbilityRangeBuff Range:160 / 240 / 320 / 400 m

Misc: 10% Ability Range/Strength/Duration bonus

Expand/Collapse


References[]

Patch History[]

Update 17.5 (2015-10-01)

  • 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.
    • The minimum energy cost of an Ability cannot go below 25% of the base cost.
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