Now that we’re not locked into 1 or 2 companions that can’t die, we can finally start using them to fill the gaps in our warframe’s arsenal! Did you find any good uses like that yet?
Looks like Helios is a pretty good armorstrip bot now, combining the Deconstructor with Vicious Bond.
Dethcube seems like a good fit on energy starved warframes thanks to its energy (orb) generator, possibly combined with Duplex Bond? Dunno if companion weapons ever get strong enough to kill high level enemies on their own though
I was thinking about trying out a Chesa for survival missions when you don’t have a Nekros but I dunno if Retrieve helps at all since it only fires off every 10 seconds with a 45% chance of success
What kind of stuff have you tried?
Never changed for me, Smeeta is still Smeeta, just now I don’t have to get the bleed out timer super high
Ngl I’m gonna miss the 10 minute bleedout timer from running oberon and the bleedout mods
Hounds have always had some useful abilities, like Repo Audit, Synergized Prospectus, and even Null Audit, while being able to equip the robotic mod Guardian, and they’re now buffed by the new Bond mods like Manifold letting them use the abilities more frequently. Without perma-death it’s great being able to take them into higher level stuff and benefit from their CC and utility - they do very nice aoe status priming for any situations where that’s a benefit
I’ve found Sentinels most useful in terms of companion up-time, as they have the shortest base recovery of 25 secs with Primed Regen equipped, before the assistance of Bond mods, with a guaranteed 10 seconds of invulnerability when they recover. Plus since they naturally follow you around over your shoulder, any efforts you take to avoid enemies and damage naturally applies to them and benefits them too (simple parkour to reduce enemy accuracy, using cover from gunfire, Vazarin dashing the frame also catches the Sentinel, Zephyr’s Turbulence covers the Sentinel with enough range, etc). The other companions still get the benefit of manual revives, but the situations where you’re too busy to manually revive still apply the same as before the update so it’s not always a positive you can make use of
In very high level stuff all non-Sentinel companions still tend to spend more time on the floor recovering than up and active, so carefully choosing Bond mods that give you the most realistic and practical ways to quickly revive them becomes more important
Dethcube is awesome for reliable energy generation with gas moded Helstrum, Adarza is great with Tenacious Bond and Bite, Nautilus is really good now with it’s Cordon ability and Manifold Bond (and Helstrum to help apply statuses). I haven’t touched any of the dogs (either biological or robotic) or Moas as their abilities were rather unimpressive even if they could stay alive forever. Here’s hoping Phase 2 makes them better with it’s companion ability rework. Oh, and good old Panzer is still really good, baseline 30sec revive while still spitting viral everywhere makes it remain a reliable option (it’s also hella tanky now).
Is Adarza the only companion that can get above 50% crit chance? Seems kinda wasteful to dedicate the whole companion just for x1.2 crit damage but then again, maybe they do decent damage on their own nowadays.
I was planning to try Hunter Synergy and see if that counts in potentially activating Tenacious Bond on any companion
All cats can get to over 75% crit chance with Bite alone, and a +1,2 crit multiplier is well worth 2 mod slots on a companion. Adarza just also has Cat’s Eye, so you get to often double dip on the buffed crit damage with orange/red crits. Whether that’s better than something like a Panzer is up to your frame/weapons, but it’s a worthy contender now.
Ohh, cat’s eye, I see. A bit annoying it only has 1/3 uptime overall but it does seem like a nice additive bonus, and as an overall solid buffer for crit builds.
It’s actually around 40% uptime with Tek Enchance. It’s pretty useless during high mobility missions when your kavat spends most of it’s time trying to catch up to you, but during more stationary ones it’s pretty good. It’s also affects teammates, so that’s a little extra added utility.
Why gas?
You want Dethcube to tag as many enemies as possible so he gets credit for Energy Generator, gas leaves a lingering AoE on enemies so if they run next to a guy your Helstrum didn’t hit, that enemy is now damaged by Dethcube and contributes to Energy Generator stacks.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that Gas procs linger on the spot even after the afflicted enemy dies, so you get even more chances for free tags for our dethly cube to generate energy for you.
If your frame has a dash polarity aura and no overwhelming reason to use something else, you’re sleeping on a LOT of DPS by not using the full Mecha set.
Someone here commented elsewhere that Mecha is a gimmick and I disagree—unless “Extra 60% armor and huge DPS bump” counts as a gimmick.
I’m going to have to play with this. Maybe even + Marked for Death if the base kit isn’t too tight and doesn’t absolutely need something else.
Hmm, it’s one marked target every 15 seconds and the spread is only 7.5 meters but it does seem interesting, it could have some good synergy with citrine perhaps? Maybe even new hydroid with all the corrosion going on, or excalibur with chromatic blade? Not sure which other frames want to go for lots of status dmg.
I’m planning on pairing this with Marked For Death from Helminth and a sniper rifle or bow. Turn the marked enemy into a bomb.
Mecha set has excellent synergy with ANY frame that has high single target damage. Kullervo, Baruuk, Voruna, Citrine, Explosive Legerdemain Mirage, Saryn even. Because killing one enemy can kill a ton of enemies around you.
Yeahh but mecha mods are so underwhelming on their own :/ I need to spend 2 warframe mod slots on shield recharge and additive armor increase, which is an even bigger waste than the aura’s bonus to damage against a single random enemy.
Kullervo can already spread his damage around with his third ability as well, I much prefer dethcube on him for more energy generation.
Dunno, I’m just glad lil Cornelius won’t die every moment
I’ll only say that Covert Bond is TERRIBLE for any stealth frame. Once it kicks in, the sentinel decides it can shoot enemies any time it likes, regardless of the fact that by doing so it alerts enemies.
So don’t use Covert Bond without also equipping a silence mod on the sentinel weapon… which of course will weaken the weak weapon even more.
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I just like being able to use my Carrier for the passive loot crate breaking in higher missions now. But I put the pair of bond mods on it. It only takes one reload to trigger the shield one.
