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With the release of Warframe's The New War update, everyone's favorite priest Warframe has received a Prime variant. Harrow is one of Warframe's most ability-intensive characters you can play, requiring you to juggle your shields and three different buffs. However, if you can pull it off, you'll be rewarded with a fast-firing, critically-hitting machine.

Related: Warframe: Rhino Complete Guide – Drops, Abilities, And Builds

But to turn Harrow into such a powerhouse, you're going to need to farm him and create some builds. This guide will go over how to obtain Harrow and his Prime variant, what each Harrow ability does, what his Augments do, and we'll cover five builds that will showcase Harrow's true potential.

Updated February 10, 2023, by Charles Burgar: Harrow has become a much more popular Warframe after his Prime released. Many players have converted to the church of the holy crit, and we've wanted to make that process as seamless as possible. We've updated this build guide with updated Relic drops for Harrow Prime, description updates to include recommended stat investments, added Archon Shard recommendations, and updated our Pillage endgame build to take full advantage of recent armor strip changes.

How To Craft Harrow

Warframe Harrow

Harrow is obtainable upon completing the Chains of Harrow quest, unlocked after you complete The War Within. Once you've completed the quest to obtain Harrow's main blueprint, you'll have to complete Kuva Fortress missions and complete Fissure missions to obtain his other three components. His systems can also drop from Defection missions.

Harrow Blueprint

Obtained

Chains of Harrow quest

Crafting Costs

  • 25,000 Credits
  • 1 Harrow Neuroptics
  • 1 Harrow Chassis
  • 1 Harrow Systems
  • 2,000 Kuva

Crafting Time

72 Hours

Harrow Neuroptics

Obtained

Kuva Fortress Spy or Survival

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 1,500 Rubedo
  • 4,000 Polymer Bundle
  • 2,000 Plastids
  • 5 Neural Sensors

Crafting Time

12 Hours

Harrow Chassis

Obtained

Void Fissure enemies

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 20,000 Alloy Plate
  • 25,000 Salvage
  • 800 Oxium
  • 5 Orokin Cell

Crafting Time

12 Hours

Harrow Systems

Obtained

Kuva Fortress Survival or Defection

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 2,500 Circuits
  • 1,000 Cryotic
  • 25,000 Ferrite
  • 15 Control Modules

Crafting Time

12 Hours

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How To Craft Harrow Prime

Warframe Harrow Prime

Harrow Prime's components all drop from certain Void Relics. He's currently unvaulted, so nearly every activity you play can drop Relics for Harrow Prime. Additionally, you can also purchase Relic Packs from any Syndicate or Teshin for a slight chance of obtaining one of these Relics.

Harrow Prime Blueprint

Obtained

  • Lith P6 (Uncommon)
  • Neo N21 (Uncommon)
  • Axi K6 (Uncommon)

Crafting Costs

  • 25,000 Credits
  • 1 Harrow Prime Neuroptics
  • 1 Harrow Prime Chassis
  • 1 Harrow Prime Systems
  • 5 Orokin Cells

Crafting Time

72 Hours

Harrow Prime Neuroptics

Obtained

  • Lith B10 (Uncommon)
  • Meso P10 (Uncommon)
  • Axi S12 (Uncommon)
  • Axi T8 (Uncommon)

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 2 Argon Crystals
  • 600 Cryotic
  • 1,100 Circuits
  • 4,975 Nano Spores

Crafting Time

12 Hours

Harrow Prime Chassis

Obtained

  • Meso G3 (Common)
  • Meso N13 (Common)
  • Meso O5 (Common)
  • Axi N10 (Common)

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 2 Tellurium
  • 450 Plastids
  • 1,425 Polymer Bundle
  • 5,500 Alloy Plate

Crafting Time

12 Hours

Harrow Prime Systems

Obtained

  • Lith H3 (Rare)
  • Lith H4 (Rare)
  • Lith H5 (Rare)
  • Meso H2 (Rare)

Crafting Costs

  • 15,000 Credits
  • 2 Nitain Extract
  • 3 Neurodes
  • 1,250 Rubedo
  • 3,800 Salvage

Crafting Time

12 Hours

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Related: Warframe: A Complete Guide To The New War Quest

Harrow Abilities

Warframe Harrow Prime Menu

Stats

Harrow

Harrow Prime

  • Armor: 175
  • Energy: 100
  • Health: 100
  • Shields: 150
  • Sprint Speed: 1.0
  • Armor: 175
  • Energy: 125
  • Health: 100
  • Shields: 200
  • Sprint Speed: 1.0

Passive

Passive: Overshield capacity doubled. Start missions at max Energy.

The overshield cap in Warframe is 1,200 for most Warframe. Thanks to Harrow's passive, your overshield cap is increased to 2,400. Overshields stack on top of your standard shield capacity and are unaffected by shield mods like Redirection.

Whenever you join a session or start a mission, Harrow will spawn with maximum Energy reserves. This has great synergy with Flow and Primed Flow, allowing Harrow to easily accrue a high Energy on kill effect with his Thurible ability. Bear in mind that Harrow's Energy does reset between Sanctuary Onslaught waves.

Condemn

Warframe Harrow Condemn Ability

Condemn: Cast a wave of energy that chains them where they stand. Each enemy held reinforces Harrow's shields.

This ability can be subsumed with the Helminth system.

Condemn Stats

Drain

25 Energy

Radius

Effective Range: 20 meters

Width Increase Per Second: 4 meters

Duration

6 seconds

Shield Gain

150 shields per enemy chained

Applicable Mods

Duration

Range

Efficiency

Strength

Affects enemy chain duration

Affects Condemn range and width increase

Affects cast Energy cost

Affects shields restored

Condemn is your bread and butter for increasing Harrow's shields. Activating this ability will cast a one-handed action that will project a wave from Harrow's position for two seconds that follows the ground. Enemies that are touched by the wave will be chained in place for a short duration. Targets are chained in such a way to expose their head, making it much easier to land headshots. Each enemy hit will restore a portion of Harrow's shields. Should his shields be full, Condemn will generate overshields instead. The Condemn wave can chain targets through walls.

Bear in mind that targets already affected by Condemn will not grant additional shields if affected by the ability again. You must wait for Condemn's duration to end before that target will grant you shields once again. Chaining a target that's already affected by Condemn will refresh the ability's duration. Due to Condemn's range affecting both its maximum length and width expansion, we highly recommend you put some range on Harrow to make full use of this ability. It doesn't take much for Condemn to chain an entire room.

Penance

Warframe Harrow Penance Ability

Penance: Sacrifice shields to boost Reload Speed and Fire Rate while converting damage inflicted on enemies into health for Harrow and nearby allies.

Penance Stats

Drain

Energy: 50 Energy

Shields: All shields and overshields

Buffs

Fire Rate / Attack Speed: 35%

Reload Speed: 70 %

Life Steal: 5%

Duration

Base Duration: 4 seconds

Added Duration / 100 Shields: 1.54 seconds

Duration Cap: 120 seconds

Initial Heal

50%

Applicable Mods

Duration

Range

Efficiency

Strength

Affects base duration and added duration

N/A

Affects cast Energy cost

Affects buff magnitude and initial heal

Harrow flagellates himself with his Thurible, sacrificing 50 Energy and all of his shields for three buffs:​​​​​​ increased fire rate, reload speed, and life steal from all damage dealt. While all of these buffs only affect Harrow, any healing dealt from Penance's life steal can heal any allies within Affinity range, including Companions. Range mods do not affect this radius, although it is affected by the Mending Unity passive from the Vazarin Focus school. You also regain a chunk of health upon casting this ability.

The duration of this ability looks terrible on paper, but it's quite easy to reach Penance's duration cap of two minutes. Every 100 shields will add 1.54 seconds to the base timer. Assuming you have 3,000 shields to sacrifice, Penance will last for 50 seconds without any duration mods installed. With a little bit of duration, you only need to cast Penance twice with max overshields to reach the two-minute cap. To get the most out of your Penance buff, build for Ability Strength.

Thurible

Warframe Harrow Thurible Ability

Thurible: Channel Harrow's Energy into the Thurible to generate a buff. Once finished, kill enemies to bestow nearby allies with bursts of energy. The more Energy channeled, the greater the reward for each kill. Headshots produce extra Energy.

Thurible Stats

Drain

25 Energy per second

Energy Conversion

15%

Radius

20 meters

Duration

35 seconds

Headshot Multiplier

x4

Applicable Mods

Duration

Range

Efficiency

Strength

Affects buff duration

Affects buff radius

Affects Energy drain

Affects Energy conversion

Harrow will begin to swing his Thurible, converting 15% of Energy used into a buff that grants Energy on kill. The channel portion of this ability ends when you either recast Thurible or run out of Energy. When you finish channeling, all kills from Harrow will grant Energy to himself and all nearby allies. Should that kill be a headshot, the Energy received is quadrupled. Ability Strength affects the Energy conversion and, therefore, the magnitude of this buff. Strength does not affect your headshot multiplier.

Even if an ally is inside the Thurible aura, only kills from Harrow will give them Energy. Enemies do not have to be in Thurible's radius to generate Energy. Channeling your Thurible before the ability ends will prematurely remove your previous Thurible buff. You also can't attack or use other abilities while channeling this skill. Spec for Strength and Range to get the most out of Thurible.

Covenant

Warframe Harrow Covenant Ability

Covenant: Protect nearby allies with an energy force that absorbs all damage and converts it to a Critical Chance bonus for all those under the Covenant. Headshots are amplified even further.

Covenant Stats

Drain

100 Energy

Duration

Protection: 6 seconds

Retaliation: 12 seconds

Crit / 100 Damage

1.5%

Headshot Multiplier

x4

Applicable Mods

Duration

Range

Efficiency

Strength

Affects buff duration

N/A

Affects Energy drain

Affects Critical conversion

Covenant is Harrow's strongest ability, arguably one of the strongest buffs in the entire game. Harrow breaks his chains, causing himself and all allies within Affinity range to become impervious to all damage for a short time. Damage taken during this time is tracked on your HUD. When the invulnerability period ends, all affected players will gain an additive critical chance buff that scales with how much damage your team received while invincible. This critical chance buff cannot exceed 50%, regardless of Ability Strength and damage taken.

Just like Thurible, headshots quadruple the strength of this critical chance buff, granting your weapon 200% additive critical chance. That allows any weapon you're wielding to orange crit, regardless of its critical chance. We want to emphasize that the critical chance given by Covenant is additive; the effect is added after your weapon's critical chance is calculated. For example, a weapon with a 10% critical chance with Point Strike would normally have a 25% critical chance. With Covenant active, that chance goes up to 75%—225% if it's a headshot. This buff also stacks with Arcane Avenger.

This ability doesn't need any stats. Duration is great for extending the invulnerability and critical buffs, and some players might opt for Strength to hit the 50% critical cap faster.

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Related: Warframe: The New War Set Mods Explained

Harrow Augments

Warframe Harrow Deluxe Skin

Harrow has three Augment mods: Tribunal (Condemn), Warding Thurible (Thurible), and Lasting Covenant (Covenant). All of Harrow's augments may be purchased from the Red Veil or Arbiters of Hexis Syndicates for 25,000 Standing each. You must be max rank with either Syndicate to purchase these mods. Alternatively, you may trade this mod from other players.

Tribunal

Warframe Harrow Tribunal Augment

Tribunal: Condemn Augment: Other players will trigger 50% of the effects of Penance and Thurible when attacking chained enemies.

Tribunal does nothing when applied to other Warframes using Condemn.

Tribunal allows Harrow to become a proper support Warframe for his team, allowing allies to gain the benefits of Thurible and Penance by defeating chained targets. Any enemies that die while chained will give both themselves and Harrow Energy. This fixes one of Harrow's issues of needing to be the group's main DPS to properly support the team. With this augment, you just need to keep your buffs active and have a supply of chained targets for your allies to kill. To make good use of this augment, build for Ability Range. Ability Strength does not affect the effect percentage of this augment.

Warding Thurible

Warframe Harrow Warding Thurible Augment

Warding Thurible: Thurible Augment: Allies in range take 40% less Damage while channeling Thurible and grant 0.5 additional Energy charge whenever damaged.

Warding Thurible gives your team a benefit while Harrow is channeling his third ability. The damage resistance it gives looks lackluster on paper, although this can be increased up to 90% by building for Ability Strength. The extra Energy gained from taking damage is also affected by Ability Strength.

Despite the immense amount of damage resistance and bonus Energy you can receive from this augment, Thurible shouldn't be used like this. Most Harrow builds use Natural Talent to speed up Harrow's long cast times—an anti-synergy with this mod. If you want to become a mobile DR aura and nothing else, build for Ability Efficiency. But for most builds, it's tough to recommend Warding Thurible.

Lasting Covenant

Warframe Harrow Lasting Covenant Augment

Lasting Covenant: Covenant Augment: Headshot kills increase Critical Chance bonus duration by 3s.

Lasting Covenant allows Harrow to maintain the Retaliation part of Covenant for an extended period, potentially for an entire mission. This comes with two caveats:

  1. You can't recast Covenant, meaning you lose the on-demand invulnerability this ability would typically grant.
  2. You're using a mod slot.

Even with both opportunity costs, the damage increase provided by Retaliation is so good that Lasting Covenant is a compelling option for most Harrow builds. The duration increase is affected by Ability Duration, and the maximum duration Retaliation can have is equal to triple its original duration. For example, Retaliation usually lasts for 20 seconds. Assuming you land enough headshots with Lasting Covenant, you can extend that time up to 60 seconds. This duration cap is also affected by Ability Duration.

Overall, Lasting Covenant is a powerful option for players that don't want to juggle one of Harrow's abilities. If you plan to use shield gating to keep Harrow alive, we highly recommend you give this Augment a try.

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Related: Warframe: Top Primary Weapons, Ranked

Harrow Builds

Warframe Harrow

While Harrow is advertised as a support character, he's much more of a solo Warframe that supports as a byproduct of dealing damage. Without a dedicated support build, Harrow mostly focuses on himself and occasionally helps his team. Regardless of build, you should use Natural Talent on all Harrow builds. You'll charge Thurible faster and cast your other abilities quicker. As for stats, focus on Ability Strength and Duration.

With how powerful Condemn is, most players will want to focus on shield gating to stay alive as Harrow. Whenever your shields break, you can cast Covenant or spam Condemn to reset your shield gate invulnerability timer quickly. Rolling Guard pairs nicely with this as well. Of course, if you don't like managing shields atop of Harrow's abilities, slap an Adaptation on Harrow and keep your overshields capped. That will be more than enough survivability to stay alive for most content.

For subsumes, Harrow has two good options: Pillage and Thermal Sunder. The former replaces Condemn's CC with a wider area of effect and defense strip, although Pillage does not work on Infested. Thermal Sunder turns Harrow into a DPS carry in activities like Sanctuary Onslaught, making him a fantastic Warframe for farming Focus.

And for your Focus School, run Vazarin or Madurai. Since Harrow's Thurible gives you infinite Energy (assuming you're killing enemies), Zenurik is overkill here. Madurai gives a ton of Ability Strength to buff Penance and Thurible, while Vazarin is useful for extending the effective range of Penance and Covenant.

Archon Shards & Build Note


Warframe New War Archons

Harrow is an amazing Warframe for the Archon Shard system. We recommend equipping two Cast Speed (Amber) shards with as many Duration or Strength (Crimson) shards as you prefer. Cast speed is something every Harrow build requires due to his lengthy cast animations, so equipping two of these shards will save you a mod slot.

We also want to mention that the builds showcased below have a Health invigoration. Your builds will have 1,000 less HP in-game. Base stats remain identical, and no Archon Shards were used for any of these listed builds unless otherwise stated.

Starter Build (0 Forma, No Subsume)

Warframe Harrow No Forma Build
  • Forma: None
  • Subsume: None

This build covers all of your bases for Harrow. We run Blind Rage and a second Ability Strength mod—Intensify on Harrow Prime, Augur Secrets for default Harrow—to build up a sizable Strength value. From there, slot in Primed Flow and Natural Talent to drastically improve the overall feel of Harrow. If you don't own Primed Flow, use normal Flow.

With our bases covered, we'll flesh out the last few slots by building for Ability Range and Duration. Stretch and Augur Reach will give you 175% Range, which should be more than enough for Condemn. Primed Continuity will then give 55% extra duration, giving Thurible a duration just short of a minute. Of course, feel free to use Continuity in its place. Use Adaptation or Rolling Guard in the final slot to give yourself some added defense. With how effective Condemn is at giving shields, we don't need to run Vitality or Redirection on Harrow.

If you're running normal Harrow, not the Prime variant, replace Intensify with Augur Secrets and drop one point from Augur Reach. The Aura can be whatever you like; any dash polarity Aura will work just fine.

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Support Build (1 Forma, No Subsume)

Warframe Harrow Starter Support Build
  • Forma: 1 (V)
  • Subsume: None

This build uses the Tribunal Augment to fix Harrow's selfish means of supporting teammates. Overall, this build is the same as our starter build with two changes:

  1. We replace Augur Reach with Tribunal.
  2. We use an Exilus Adapter to use Cunning Drift.

You'll lose a small chunk of Ability Range in exchange for much better support capabilities. Allies will easily benefit from the effects of Thurible and Penance, and you'll be able to provide excellent crowd control with Condemn. Once again, use any Aura you like.

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Endgame Build (4 Forma, No Subsume)

Warframe Harrow Endgame Condemn Build
  • Forma: 4 (V, –, D (Exilus), Universal (Aura))
  • Subsume: None

With four Forma installed on Harrow Prime, you'll be able to achieve a great Ability Strength value of 243%, a respectable 175% Ability Range, 155% Ability Duration, have two means of going invincible with Rolling Guard and Covenant, and you'll be immune to all knockdowns and staggers with Primed Sure Footed. If you don't own Primed Sure Footed, use Handspring instead. This also means you don't have to polarize the Exilus Slot, saving your one Forma.

We recommend you put an Aura Forma on Harrow Prime due to some powerful Aura synergies he can use (as shown in the build below). As for some good neutral game Auras, we recommend either Growing Power for more Strength or Swift Momentum if you wish to use a Heavy Attack melee weapon with Harrow.

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Endgame Pillage Variant (4 Forma, Pillage Subsume)

Warframe Harrow Pillage Endgame Build
  • Forma: 4 (2V, –, D (Exilus))
  • Subsume: Pillage (Hildryn)

This build requires two Cast Speed and one Ability Strength Archon Shard to work.

Since Pillage requires armor or shields to work, this build does not work against Infested.

This build streamlines Harrow's kit significantly while giving you access to full armor strip, making this an absurdly powerful build for endless Steel Path content. We start by replacing Condemn with Pillage. Pillage will strip enemy defenses and grant overshields for every point of armor and shields stripped. While you won't have room-wide CC anymore, the armor strip you gain more than makes up for this. Pillage is also generally easier to use and doesn't require any aiming on your end; just cast Pillage and recast when you need shields.

You'll need roughly 324% Ability Strength and Corrosive Projection for Pillage to strip armor. We achieve this by using Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude, Augur Secrets, Umbral Intensify, and one Strength Archon Shard. This comes with some major downsides to your Efficiency and Duration. Efficiency doesn't matter thanks to Harrow's passive and Thurible ability, so we'll be using Primed Continuity to make up for the Duration loss. If you want more Duration on Harrow, use Molt Efficiency as one of your Arcanes.

Primed Flow will help ensure we have enough Energy to rapidly cast Pillage whenever necessary, and we'll be using Rolling Guard to gain another set of invulnerability frames whenever our shields break. This makes it quite safe to cast Penance whenever necessary. Since we have two Cast Speed Archon Shards, we have an extra mod slot available. We'll be using Lasting Covenant in that slot to extend Harrow's critical buff from Covenant, giving you a red crit buff that can last for multiple minutes if you run a pellet-heavy weapon like the Pyrana Prime or Kuva Kohm. It also completely removes the need to cast your four mid-mission, so your only concerns are keeping Penance and Thurible active.

Why Not Combat Discipline?


Warframe Combat Discipline Mod

We avoid using Combat Discipline in this build since we require Corrosive Projection to achieve 100% armor strip, an important tool in Steel Path. An instant armor strip that covers multiple rooms is just too good to pass up. Molt Augmented is an option if you don't mind double-casting Pillage for your first 250 kills, but we find getting those first 250 kills can be tricky in high-level Steel Path missions like Circulus, Lua.

If you don't mind missing that 100% armor strip breakpoint, feel free to use Combat Discipline instead. Pair it with Arcane Avenger and Archon Intensify for some absurd damage.

FInally, we round off the build with Primed Sure Footed to become knockdown immune. You have another Arcane slot available here to do with as you please. We like using Arcane Pistoleer and pairing Harrow with the Pyrana Prime or Ocucor to deal some serious burst DPS. If you want to improve your stats, Molt Augmented is a solid choice.

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Sanctuary Onslaught Build (3-4 Forma, Thermal Sunder Subsume)

Warframe Harrow Thermal Sunder Build
  • Forma: 3-4 (V, –, Universal (Aura), D or Umbral (optional))
  • Subsume: Thermal Sunder (Gauss)

We're going to turn Harrow into a DPS carry by replacing Condemn with Gauss' Thermal Sunder. This ability is absurdly strong with Harrow, giving you Energy whenever Thermal Sunder kills a target. This lets you spam Thermal Sunder with reckless abandon in Sanctuary Onslaught. Simaris will never disable it either.

This build focuses on two things: Strength and Range. Duration and Efficiency don't matter since you'll be spamming Thermal Sunder to get Energy. With that said, pay attention to your Thurible duration. If it drops and you continue to spam Thermal Sunder, you'll lose all your Energy.

As for the playstyle, it's very simple:

  1. Charge your Thurible.
  2. Kill a few enemies.
  3. Spam Thermal Sunder.
  4. Periodically refresh Thurible.

It's that easy. This build also takes advantage of Penance by using the Brief Respite Aura and Redirection mod, giving you a decent duration on Penance to heal allies. If you find that overkill or unneeded, feel free to replace Redirection with Natural Talent. This will also save you a Forma.

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Next: Warframe: Caliban Complete Guide – Drops, Abilities, And Builds