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Riven Mods are one of the most confusing systems in Warframe. Players receive one after completing the War Within quest with no context of what they are, how they work, or why you'd ever want to use them.
While tied to layers of RNG, these Mods can provide an immense damage increase to your favorite weapons. If you love a weapon that can't quite hang in level 100+ content, a good Riven Mod can fix most of your damage-scaling issues. This guide will go over what Riven Mods are, how they work, how to reroll them, and covers a few basic strategies for obtaining Kuva—the currency needed to reroll these strange Mods.
Updated August 13th, 2021, by Charles Burgar: Warframe is no stranger to complicated mechanics, Riven Mods being one of the most notorious examples. These incredibly powerful Mods can be cumbersome to understand. Once you receive one at the end of The War Within, you're left with no tutorial on how these strange purple Mods work. Thankfully, that's what this guide is for. We've updated this article to include more in-depth information on how Rivens work, which aspects are randomized, and we've included a breakdown of every rollable stat and Veiled Challenge tied to this system.
What Is A Riven Mod?
Riven Mods are randomly generated Mods tied to a certain weapon family—family referring to weapons that share the same base name (Boltor, Braton, Cernos, et cetera). All Riven Mods can roll with stats found on standalone Mods, including base damage, multishot, elemental damage, combo multiplier duration, and critical damage. The strength of a Riven Mod is determined by its Riven Disposition (explained later).
You can only have one Riven Mod equipped on a weapon at a time. Riven Mods exist for every weapon type—Primaries, Secondaries, Melee, Zaws, Kitguns, Companion Weapons, and Archguns.
Why Use Riven Mods?
While Riven Mods are reliant on RNG and rebalanced every three months, these Mods provide a degree of power that is simply unrivaled. For Rivens with high Dispositions, you can replace staple Mods on your build with an objectively stronger Riven, featuring higher percentage stats and additional stat lines. For Rivens with lower Dispositions, you can obtain a Riven that combines the effects of multiple Mods into one—for example, using a Riven that has two elemental damage types. This allows you to save on Mod space for your build.
Needless to say, Riven Mods can turn a great weapon into a meta contender. However, this power is kept in check by two things: the sheer RNG of the system and Riven Disposition.
How Riven Mods Work
Before you can use a Riven, you must unveil it by completing a challenge listed on the Mod card. This can range from killing enemies to catching multiple fish in a row without missing. Once a card is unveiled, you'll be given a Riven Mod with a whole host of randomly rolled stats.
All Riven Mods randomly roll the following:
Weapon Family |
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Positive Attributes |
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Negative Attributes |
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Polarity |
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Mastery Rank Requirement |
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If that seems like a lot of RNG, that's because it is. The probability of rolling a perfect Riven Mod for your favorite weapon is hard to even imagine. Should you get a Riven Mod for a weapon family you enjoy using, you can invest a resource named Kuva into your Riven Mods for a chance of rolling a stat you desire. We'll go over rerolling Rivens later in the guide. For now, keep in mind that you can change the positive and negative traits on your Riven Mod through the process of rerolling it.
Riven Disposition
Every weapon in Warframe has a hidden Riven Disposition stat that determines the strength of Riven Mods on that weapon. You can only see a weapon's Riven Disposition if you have a Riven Mod that can be equipped on that weapon, Veiled or otherwise.
Riven Dispositions have a scale of 0.5 to 1.55, denoted by circles in-game. The stats on your Riven Mod are multiplied by this Riven Disposition constant. Values under 1 causing the mod to lose its strength. Conversely, values above 1 cause the Riven to gain strength.
Here's the value range tied to each in-game Disposition circle:
- One Circle: 0.5-0.69 Riven Disposition
- Fairly weak attribute values
- Two Circles: 0.7-0.89 Riven Disposition
- Below-average attribute values
- Three Circles: 0.9-1.1 Riven Disposition
- Average attribute values
- Four Circles: 1.11-1.3 Riven Disposition
- Above-average attribute values
- Five Circles: 1.31-1.55 Riven Disposition
- Strong attribute values
Riven Dispositions are meant to keep meta weapons from having overpowered Riven Mods. Digital Extremes have stated that Riven Dispositions are only tied to usage rates of that weapon type, not their inherent power. Riven Dispositions are updated every three months, typically around a new Prime Access release.
Note: Riven Dispositions are per weapon, not family! A Boltor and Boltor Prime can use the same Riven, but the Riven Disposition between the two weapons will vary. In general, variants of a weapon family have lower Dispositions than their default counterpart. |
How To Obtain Riven Mods
You can obtain Riven Mods from the following sources:
Source |
Notes |
---|---|
"The War Within" Quest |
One time only |
Sortie Reward |
27.9% drop chance; once per day |
Teshin's rotating stock |
Once per week |
Gift of the Lotus Alerts |
Happens after a Devstream |
Tactical Alerts |
Seldom occur |
Evergreen login Rewards |
Every 200 days past day 1,000 |
Arbitration Honors |
Only sells Archgun Rivens |
Cephalon Simaris |
Only sells Companion Weapon Rivens |
Riven Slivers |
Give 10 to Paladino at Iron Wake; can only be done once a week |
Nightwave |
Given at a certain rank once per Nightwave |
Excluding Alerts, the best means of earning Riven Mods is by completing the daily Sortie. The last Sortie mission has a small chance of granting a Riven Mod upon completion. Beyond that, check Teshin's stock at any Relay to see if he's selling any Rivens for Steel Essence, a currency tied to the Steel Path.
It's also worth noting that you can purchase Rivens from other players through Warframe's trading system. Finding a specific Riven through trade chat can be a nightmare, so most players use third-party websites such as warframe.market to find Rivens with stats they're interested in. Due to the sheer RNG of this system, don't be surprised if some players are asking for thousands of Platinum for their Rivens.
Unveiling Rivens
Before you can use a Riven, you must unveil it by completing a challenge listed on the Mod card. This can range from killing enemies to catching multiple fish in a row without missing. You only need to unveil a Riven once before it's usable; subsequent rerolls don't re-veil the Mod. Should you find a particular challenge difficult, you can automatically complete a veiled challenge by using a Veiled Riven Cipher. You can purchase one from Teshin each week for 20 Steel Essence.
Click here for a list of every Veiled Riven challenge.
Rerolling Rivens
While it's referenced as "cycling" in-game, nearly every player refers to this system as Riven rerolling. By spending a rare resource named Kuva, you can reroll the positive and negative traits tied to your Riven Mod, keeping the weapon family, polarity, and Mastery Rank requirement the same.
When you reroll a Riven, you'll be given the choice of either taking the new roll or keeping your old one. This is as far as the system extends for progression. There are no ways to lock in traits, maximize stat percentages, or use Kuva to target farm a certain stat. It's complete RNG.
The first ten rerolls on a Riven Mod will increase the Kuva cost on subsequent rolls. The cost for each roll is as follows:
Roll |
Kuva Cost |
---|---|
Roll 1 |
900 |
Roll 2 |
1,000 |
Roll 3 |
1,200 |
Roll 4 |
1,400 |
Roll 5 |
1,700 |
Roll 6 |
2,000 |
Roll 7 |
2,350 |
Roll 8 |
2,750 |
Roll 9 |
3,150 |
Roll 10+ |
3,500 |
All rolls following the tenth reroll will cost 3,500 Kuva.
Farming Kuva
Digital Extremes have added quite a few ways of earning Kuva throughout the years, although most players stick to one or two farms to get as much Kuva as possible. The best sources of Kuva are Kuva Floods and Requiem Kuva Survival missions on the Kuva Fortress.
Every hour, one node on a planet near the Kuva Fortress will become a Kuva Flood, granting around 1,200 Kuva upon completion. These missions take a few minutes at most to complete. Complete the Flood, then see if the Kuva Fortress has a Kuva Survival Fissure mission. If so, hop in and crack as many Requiem Relics as possible to earn large bundles of Kuva every few minutes. You can farm Requiem Relics from Kuva Siphons and Kuva Liches if you don't have any.
If you can handle the Steel Path, consider completing Teshin's daily Steel Path missions. Each mission grants three Steel Essence, giving you 15 in total. You can then exchange that 15 Steel Essence for 10,000 Kuva by speaking to Teshin at any Relay. You can also farm Requiem Kuva Survival missions while in Steel Path, granting Steel Essence atop Kuva. If your squad can handle the difficulty, this is easily the best Kuva farm in the game.
Use Boosters
Finally, if you decide to farm Kuva, be sure to purchase a Resource Booster. They don't cost much Platinum and double the amount of Kuva you receive from Floods, Siphons, and Survival missions. Pair a booster with a Smeeta Kavat for a chance at earning four times as much Kuva as normal.
Every Riven Mod Attribute
Most Riven attributes are shared amongst all Riven Mod types, although there are some exclusive properties found on weapons and melees.
Shared Riven Attributes
Gun Attributes |
Melee Attributes |
---|---|
Base Damage |
Melee Damage |
Cold Damage |
Cold Damage |
Critical Chance |
Critical Chance |
Critical Damage |
Critical Damage |
Damage vs. Grineer |
Damage vs. Grineer |
Damage vs. Corpus |
Damage vs. Corpus |
Damage vs. Infested |
Damage vs. Infested |
Electricity Damage |
Electricity Damage |
Fire Rate |
Attack Speed |
Heat Damage |
Heat Damage |
Impact Damage |
Impact Damage |
Puncture Damage |
Puncture Damage |
Slash Damage |
Slash Damage |
Status Chance |
Status Chance |
Status Duration |
Status Duration |
Toxin Damage |
Toxin Damage |
Weapon-Specific Attributes
Weapons have eight unique attributes, while melee weapons have seven unique attributes.
Gun Attributes |
Melee Attributes |
---|---|
Ammo Maximum |
Additional Combo Count Chance |
Magazine Capacity |
Combo Duration |
Multishot |
Critical Chance on Slide Attack |
Projectile Speed |
Finisher Damage |
Punch Thorugh |
Heavy Attack Efficiency |
Recoil |
Initial Combo |
Reload Speed |
Range |
Zoom |
Every Veiled Riven Challenge
There are 20 Veiled Riven Challenges as of writing, most of which can roll with one potential modifier.
Challenge |
Potential Modifiers |
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Catch Fish without missing a throw. |
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Catch one Fish, Mine one gem or metal, and kill one enemy in 30 seconds. |
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Complete a Defense mission with level 30+ enemies without the defense objective taking any damage. |
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Complete an Extermination mission with level 30+ enemies without being detected. |
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Complete an Interception mission solo with level 30+ enemies with a Hobbled Dragon Key equipped. |
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Complete a Survival mission with level 30+ enemies without killing anyone. |
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Destroy Dargyns with a bow. |
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Destroy Vruush Turrets while in Archwing. |
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Find Caches. |
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Find Syndicate Medallions. |
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Get headshot kills with a single aim glide. |
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Get consecutive kills while wall dashing/clinging without touching the floor. |
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Kill Sentients. |
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Kill airborne Condrocs within 5 seconds. |
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Kill Dargyn Pilots before they hit the ground. |
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Kill enemies. |
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Kill wild animals with a fishing spear. |
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Land consecutive shots while in Archwing on the Plains of Eidolon. |
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Sustain a 6x melee combo multiplier for 30 seconds. |
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Synthesize a Simaris target without using traps or abilities while having a Hobbled Dragon Key equipped |
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