Warframe is notorious for its complexity. Once you finish the tutorial, you're left with a star chart to clear, Warframes to farm, and a cumbersome modding system to learn.
Modifying your gear is single-handedly the most important part of Warframe. The best guns in the game are exceptional not because they do lots of damage by themselves, but they have great base stats that can be enhanced through Mod cards. This extends to your Warframes as well, allowing them to use abilities more often or simply take more damage. Here are the best Mods every player should have.
Entries are in no particular order.
Updated July 5th, 2022, by Charles Burgar: With how many Mods are in Warframe, it's difficult to only cover ten great Mods. We've updated this list to include five more Mods that cover the difficulty jump experienced during the mid-game. Some entries also saw some slight changes to make them easier to read.
15 Mobilize
Parkour speed is an underappreciated stat in Warframe, especially when you're just starting out. This Mod increases your parkour velocity by 20%. That sounds low on paper, but it makes your bullet jumps fling you significantly further than normal, allowing you to speedrun missions much faster. And with how many missions are tied to the Star Chart, this Mod can single-handedly save you hours of time. You can farm this Mod from the Mariana mission on Earth or any Uranus mission.
14 Primed Shred
Upon logging in for a certain number of days, you'll be able to select a unique Primed Mod as a login reward. Most of these Mods are niche, but there is one you should get right away: Primed Shred. This rifle Mod grants 55% increased fire rate and 2.2 meters of punch through while equipped.
This Mod is effectively Speed Trigger and Metal Auger fused into one, drastically improving your weapon's killing potential. Most rifles in Warframe struggle in corridors where enemies pile up on one another, something this Mod single-handedly fixes. Even if you can't max this Mod right away, getting it to rank seven is enough to truly start benefiting from the increased fire rate and punch through. For your first login reward Mod, we recommend this one.
13 Damage Mods
It should come as no surprise that damage-scaling Mods are worth using in Warframe. Mods like Serration, Hornet Strike, and Pressure Point increase your weapon's overall damage by a large percentage. That alone makes them solid Mods, but these Mods truly shine when used alongside multishot and elemental Mods.
Base damage Mods like Serration scale multiplicatively with elemental damage and multishot sources, giving your weapon a massive damage bonus. Serration, Split Chamber, and an elemental combo are all you need to push through the star chart and beyond. While these Mods become obsolete once you unlock Weapon Arcanes, they nonetheless serve a crucial role in upgrading your weapons for most of your journey.
12 Primed Flow
Similar to Primed Continuity, Primed Flow is a massive upgrade over its default counterpart. At max rank, this Mod provides a whopping +275% max Energy capacity. That nearly quadruples your max Energy reserves, allowing you to spam far more abilities when your Energy reserves are full. Pair this Mod with the Zenurik Focus tree, and you'll have very few Energy issues for most missions.
11 Multishot Mods
Multishot Mods are just as important—if not more important—than raw damage Mods. Multishot gives your weapons a chance to fire multiple bullets with each trigger pull. Not only does this multiply your damage output, but multishot also makes your weapons more likely to inflict a status ailment or land a critical hit since you have multiple chances of either occurring with each shot. Every weapon build you use should have at least one multishot Mod installed. Be sure to obtain the Galvanized variants of each multishot Mod as soon as you can.
10 Umbral Mods
After completing a late-game story quest titled "The Sacrifice", players will obtain these incredibly powerful Mods for use on any Warframe. Two melee Mods that are part of the Sacrificial set are also included. The Umbral set increases your Ability Strength, Armor, and Health. The Sacrificial set increases your melee weapon's damage, critical chance, and gives it a damage multiplier against Sentients.
Not only are these Mods upgrades or sidegrades of their normal counterparts, but they are also part of a set. The more Mods from that set you use, the stronger they get. The problem is they use a unique Polarity that requires an extremely rare Umbral Forma to add it on, but it is worth the trouble involved. If you want to maximize your items, find a way to install these Mods into your builds.
9 Galvanized Mods
While not in the realm of beginner Mods, you should have your eyes out for Galvanized Mods once you clear the Star Chart. Accessible by completing Arbitration missions, Galvanized Mods are upgrades over some of Warframe's most essential Mods. These Galvanized variants scale off of kills, granting two or three times as much power as their default Mod variant.
As for what these Mods do, here are a few examples:
- Galvanized Chamber: +80% Multishot. On Kill: +30% Multishot for 20s. Stacks up to 5x.
- Galvanized Savvy: +80% Status Chance. On Kill: +40% Direct Damage per Status Type affecting the target for 20s. Stacks up to 2x.
- Galvanized Crosshairs: On Headshot: +120% Critical Chance while aiming for 12s. On Headshot Kill: +40% Critical Chance when aiming for 12s. Stacks up to 5x.
If it wasn't clear, these Mods are absurdly powerful and give your weapons the power they need to clear Steel Path and beyond. For more info on Galvanized Mods, check out our Galvanized Mods guide.
8 Primed Critical Mods
Primed Target Cracker and Primed Pistol Gambit are the two strongest Mod upgrades players can get on their secondary weapons. This duo will increase your secondary's critical chance and critical multiplier by a hefty amount, making the most powerful secondary weapons even better.
Both Mods are obtained from Baro Ki'Teer, a special merchant that appears in Relays every two weeks, similar to Xur from Destiny. While expensive, these Mods provide such a massive damage boost that they are worth every Ducat. You can earn Ducats by farming Prime parts and selling them at kiosks scattered throughout the Relays.
7 Transient Fortitude
Transient Fortitude is a Corrupted Mod that grants a massive 55% Ability Strength buff for the low penalty of -27.5% Ability Duration. This negative can be completely offset with Continuity or Constitution, allowing you to benefit from a massive Ability Strength buff with virtually no downside. It's far better than Intensify and isn't as expensive to use as Umbral Intensify. Out of all the Ability Strength Mods in Warframe, Transient Fortitude is arguably the best.
6 Aura Mods
Auras are unique Warframe Mods that grant your team a buff while increasing your Warframe's Mod capacity. Besides Stances, Auras are the only way to increase the capacity of a weapon in Warframe, hence why every build should have one installed.
It's difficult to recommend a single Aura Mod since there isn't a definitive best one, so we'll give some recommendations:
- Steel Charge: Increases your team's melee damage and gives more capacity than most Aura Mods.
- Energy Siphon: You and your allies regain 0.6 Energy per second.
- Brief Respite: Abilities grant a percentage of Energy spent as shields. This allows certain Warframes to utilize the shield gate mechanic to become nigh-invincible.
- Growing Power: You and your allies gain Ability Strength for six seconds whenever you inflict a status ailment.
5 Primed Continuity
Out of every Primed Warframe Mod currently available, Primed Continuity is arguably the best of the bunch. This Mod increases your Ability Duration by 55%, the second-largest increase out of every Ability Duration Mod. The real boon of Primed Continuity is it allows you to use Fleeting Expertise or Transient Fortitude with little consequence on your build, giving you more Mod space to add other stats into your build. If you can only afford one Primed Mod from Baro, purchase this one.
4 Handspring
Knockdowns will get you killed. Most of Warframe's enemy types have some sort of attack that will knock your Warframe prone, forcing them to get up through a rather long recovery animation. AoE weapons can also stagger your character. That's why Handspring is such an essential Mod.
Handspring speeds up the knockdown recovery animation of your Warframe, allowing you to control your Warframe much sooner after a knockdown. If you can log in for enough days to unlock it, Primed Sure Footed is a fantastic upgrade to Handspring that removes knockdowns altogether. As a bonus, both Mods go in the Exilus slot.
Why Not Primed Sure Footed?
Primed Sure Footed is a better Mod than Handspring, yet it's tied behind Warframe's login reward system. You'll need to log in for hundreds of days to gain access to this Mod. Even then, you'll need enough Credits and Endo to max this Mod, as this Mod's chance of making you resistant to knockdowns gets exponentially more effective with investment. Handspring is a far better choice for players until they can access Primed Sure Footed. With that said, we still think players should prioritize getting Primed Shred as their first Mod, seeing as that Mod doesn't rely on ranks as much.
3 Elemental Damage Mods
Serration and Split Chamber might be massive damage multipliers, but elemental Mods are much easier to rank up and provide just as much damage. These Mods vary for each weapon type, but there is a Mod for each element: Toxin, Cold, Heat, and Electric.
These Mods can be used together to create secondary elements such as Corrosive or Radiation. These damage types come with their own elemental effects and damage bonuses. Generally, Corrosive does massive damage versus armored targets, while Viral does amazing versus fleshier enemies. Combined with damage and multishot Mods, elements can increase a weapon's damage output by unimaginable amounts.
2 Fleeting Expertise
Warframe abilities are powerful, game-changing effects that everyone should use as often as possible. Most abilities cost Energy, however, and usually can not be spammed. That is unless you have high Ability Efficiency.
Fleeting Expertise increases Ability Efficiency by a massive 60% while reducing ability duration by 60%. This bonus is one of the strongest in the game. Combined with Streamline, players can hit the efficiency cap and cast abilities at 25% of their normal cost. The negative duration can be countered with Primed Continuity, Narrow Minded, or other duration-based Mods. The easily countered negative makes this Mod one of the best in Warframe.
1 Vacuum And Fetch
Since Vacuum and Fetch are essentially the same Mod, both are taking our top spot. Both Mods don't increase your DPS or survivability at all. Instead, Vacuum and Fetch allow your Sentinels and pets the ability to grab all nearby loot passively.
Tedious tasks relating to grabbing resources or credits are a thing of the past. This Mod will do all of that while also grabbing nearby ammunition, Health and Energy Orbs, and even Mods. Not only will these Mods make playing levels less frustrating, but they can even keep you alive by supplying you with constant ammo and nearby orbs.