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Passive
The Infestation dwelling within 
Nidus mutates rapidly when used against his foes, fueling his abilities and yielding various symbiotic benefits. Nidus possesses various passive mechanics highlighted in the tabs below:
Mutation gauge at 100 stacks.
Mutation Stacks are a resource unique to Nidus, indicated by the Mutation counter and gauge displayed in the lower-right on the HUD, above the ability icons.
- The gauge is divided into 5 sections which represent the number of hits dealt to enemies via Nidus' abilities, while the counter at the center of the gauge keeps track of the number of Mutation stacks up to a maximum of 100.
- When generating Mutation, the sections light up clockwise. Once all 5 sections have lit up, the gauge completes a cycle and the sections become unlit again, while the counter increases by 1 Mutation stack. The following abilities generate 1/5th of a Mutation stack:
- Each enemy hit with
Virulence. - Each enemy hit by Ravenous' maggot explosion.
- Each enemy killed from any source while held by Larva at a 50% chance.
- Abilities are not required to deal damage to enemies, only ability contact is needed to increase Mutation stacks.
- When gaining or losing large numbers of stacks, the gauge only changes one at a time, making it difficult to estimate the actual count.
- This can be bypassed by briefly switching to the Operator, as this will instantly refresh to the current amount of stacks.
- Each enemy hit with
- Mutation stacks are stored until used by the player. Stacks will not disappear in the event of a host migration.
- Ability-nullifying enemies such as Nullifier Crewman will drain 1 Mutation stack every 2 seconds, ramping up the drain rate the longer Nidus remains in their radius.
- Each Mutation stack causes the gauge to gradually appear more infested, and upon reaching maximum stacks the counter is hidden and the gauge is overlapped by Virulence's ability icon colored in red and black.
- When generating Mutation, the sections light up clockwise. Once all 5 sections have lit up, the gauge completes a cycle and the sections become unlit again, while the counter increases by 1 Mutation stack. The following abilities generate 1/5th of a Mutation stack:
- The amount of Mutation stacks stored benefits Nidus' abilities:
- Increases the damage of Virulence and Ravenous' maggot explosion.
- Parasitic Link costs 1 stack to activate instead of using energy.
- Ravenous costs 3 stacks to activate instead of using energy.
- Nidus' appearance changes as more stacks are collected:
- With the base skin:
- At 3 stacks, tendrils will protrude from his neck and upper spine, while the carapace around his ribs will open.
- At 5 and 7 stacks respectively, the carapace around his thighs and arms will open to reveal more infested flesh and tendrils beneath.
- At 10 stacks, certain sections of his currently-equipped helmet will open up.
- With the base helmet, the sides of his head extend outward to form a pair of horns, also exposing many more tendrils.
- With the Nidus Prion Helmet, the "mouth" and the ligature open up, revealing Void-like energy underneath.
- With the Nidus Myxini Helmet, the helmet opens up down the middle to reveal a monstrous mouth-like face.
- With the Nidus Phryke Skin:
- At 3 stacks, he gains protective armor on his thighs, and his shoulder pads are covered in a cage-like armor with a protruding spike on the top.
- At 5 stacks, a large curved blade appears on each of the shoulder pad spikes.
- At 7 stacks, his forearms are lined with a curved blade that extends two large spikes.
- At 10 stacks, his face becomes covered with a crown-like visor.
- With
Nidus Prime:
- At 3 stacks, black tendrils form on the left side of his face, as well as his entire left arm.
- At 5 stacks, the tendrils extend to cover his chest and back.
- At 7 stacks, the right side of his fleshy body becomes covered in a black mass as the golden metallic spikes on his right arm protrude outward, while tendrils form on his lower body.
- At 10 stacks, the tendrils extend to cover his entire face and thighs.
- When stacks fall below the required triggers, Nidus' appearance will revert to the appropriate stage.
- With the base skin:
Abilities
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 1  40
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Virulence Rupture the ground with a damaging fungal growth that steals energy from each enemy it strikes. For every five enemies hit, the Infestation mutates, multiplying its destructive force. Introduced in Update 19.5 (2016-12-22) |
 Strength:150 / 160 / 175 / 200 ( Puncture damage)
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 Duration:N/A
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 Range:10 / 11 / 13 / 16 m
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Misc:
4 m (fungal growth width) |
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 2 25
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Larva Spawn an Infested pod that erupts with tendrils, latches onto nearby enemies and pulls them in. Introduced in Update 19.5 (2016-12-22) |
Strength:N/A
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| Duration:4 / 5 / 6 / 7 s
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| Range:8 / 9 / 10 / 12 m (grab radius) 5.33 / 6 / 6.67 / 8 m (grab radius for subsumed version) | |||
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Misc:
50 % (Mutation stack chance) | |||
| Subsumable to Helminth |
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 3 |
Parasitic Link Bind to a target with a parasitic link. For allies, both the host and Nidus gain increased Ability Strength. Linked enemies take the damage inflicted on Nidus. Introduced in Update 19.5 (2016-12-22) |
Strength:10% / 15% / 20% / 25% (strength bonus) 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% (damage bonus) 20% / 30% / 40% / 50% (damage redirection) |
| Duration:30 / 35 / 45 / 60 s
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| Range:24 / 28 / 34 / 40 m (ally link) 10 / 13 / 16 / 20 m (enemy link) |
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 4 |
Ravenous Gluttonous maggots swarm nearby enemies, feasting until they burst with Infestation. The maggots benefit from Mutation and each enemy consumed adds to the Mutation stack. Introduced in Update 19.5 (2016-12-22) |
Strength:100 / 110 / 125 / 150 (explosion  Blast damage)10 / 13 / 16 / 20 (health regen per second) |
| Duration:25 / 30 / 35 / 40 s
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| Range:4 m (explosion radius)
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Misc:
8 m (ability diameter) |
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Duration Mods
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Range Mods
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792 comments
The problem with Nidus is that he's really only got one game plan that isn't even compatible with most mission types.
It goes:
1: Start endless SP mission, either Defense or Survival
2: Group up a bunch of enemies with Larva and slam into them with Virulence over and over again to generate stacks
3: Pick a favourite spot
4: Link to an enemy
5: Cast Ravenous
6: Proceed to spam out Larva and Virulence, recast Link and Ravenous when they run out.
Nidus' entire kit basically forces him to hunker down in some corner and just murder everyone who comes at him. You wanna stay on Ravenous at all times for the extra health regen and you wanna be linked at all times for damage redirection and status immunity and both Ravenous and Link targets are stationary.
Also, he's basically useless outside of Steel Path because Mutation Stacks don't generate quick enough if you don't have extreme enemy density.
At the same time, if you lose your stacks in SP in any way, you're screwed. If you run into something that can munch through your healthbar too quickly and that you cannot yourself kill quickly, like the Oni from the Shrine defense gamemode, and that eats through your mutation stacks and immortalities until you actually die, there's no way for you to recover. Once things have picked up, you're taking damage way too quickly to get your stacks back since that basically involves standing still and stomping the ground repeatedly.
Stomp Ground
Gain Stacks
If there's one thing I want changed about Nidus it's why do his abilities have seemingly random lockouts?
If he's got a 1 cast traveling it becomes locked out until it finishes, so it's literally better to spam it into a wall so it travels less.
Man of Cancer
I've got two nidus frames and all i want to say how dead Nidus is unless you use him for obscure grinding
Nidus is nearly unkillable when built correctly.
does anyone know if Hunter Adrenaline and Rage still work?? or is that rewording they got curtains for them
Work
Both still work. Combine with Quick Thinking, Umbra Mods, and 5 Blue Archon Shards (+5 HP/s), and if possible... Arcane Grace, and Arcane Guardian. He'll be nearly unkillable.
Really din't knew what i was doing wrong before Parasitic vitality came to save my dumb ass from dying all the time, i just couldn't make nidus (before the augment) tanky without needing the damage reduction from parasitic link
Still haven't figured out to this day
His playstyle is quite niche, the best way to play him is to abuse his passive, but that pretty much locks him to endless missions and keeping maximum mutation stacks. Parasitic vitality is a great augment and makes for funny health numbers tho
At levelcap I literally ran him with the augment mod for his 4 to generate more than 15 mutation stacks in the 5 second window after dying, before dying again.
It did effectively make me completely invincible even with no defense investment.. but also made me do no damage because too busy casting 1 to shoot guns.
So what happens if you link to a mind controlled target? will it count as an ally or is it still considered an enemy?
Tested it, you cant link to it at all :/ i hate Parasitic Link
Buggy appearance. Every time you end a mission or look at your profile your nidus will switch to his full form and switch back immediately and when you aim he will look up.
Prime
My Nidus got injected with the virus but it is my Loki who got the cyst, I don't have the Helminth Segment, so Loki can't get there
No idea if this actually works but you can theoretically get a 4 and a half minute duration on Parasitic Link with all the duration mods and 5 Tauforged Crimson shards. Not sure why you'd want to but someone out there definitely does want to because funny numbers
Up until this moment, I never knew nidus had a prime, or that nidus even existed
I blame infested salvage.
Yup, that's among the most painful grinds imo
With Parasitic Vitality and Abundant Mutation + some strength from either mods, arcanes or Grimoire he can build full tank and survive lvl cap more easily without losing stacks.
Parasitic vitality + Abundant Mutation adds another 5x+ to ehp for my super tank build.
You could add Eclipse for even more max ehp+dmg or just Gloom.
For lvl cap I recommend Gloom for full auto heals (linked enemies in Gloom range auto-heal you when you take dmg).
Was able to face tank 9999 before without losing stacks, but now it is much, much more comfortable.
(Using all possible, conditional dmg reduction mods like Aviator, Adaptation, Arcane Double Back, 2x Boreal set mods, etc. and 5x Tau armor shards + Unairu)
So the new augment is interesting. Takes the place of normal vitality mods but much stronger with a caveat. Takes time and investment, but significantly improves nidus' durability in long missions.
Tested with his passive augment and around 270 power strength: Reached an hp level of 21k health.
It's also fun messing around with an Inaros teammate, giving them hp thus giving Scarabs more damage
I subsumed Tharros Strike over Ravenous so he has some kind of defense strip. Otherwise he isn't doing much in late game Grineer or Corrupted.
Just use Unairu for grineer. He has a gathering skill anyway
So, do maggots from ult apply corosive if using archon continuity?
The maggots only deal toxin damage, and not apply the toxin proc, so it does not.
Are there any downsides to linking to an ally?
Yes, you don't have the damage reduction
He looks so much cooler in prime form
Parasitic Link needs an augment (or just a fix) to hold-cast it on a linked enemy (and maybe all enemies currently held in Larva?) to drain it (hold for ticks every second? a single cast animation?) for Overguard that scales with the enemy's health+armor and your own armor+strength. Or just make it baseline even. Nidus needs some mobility and more direct ways to survive that don't involve face tanking without shields until you get a layer of 15 mutation stacks. Then you could just be double casting those Virulence clones from your own position while the Overguard is active.
Having to recast Parasitic Link due to lacking duration, range, your link simply dying (lol), and it costing the same resource that would already make you immortal if you just had more of it... just doesn't feel good. And his 4... well we'll just subsume over it as always.
^lol. lmao even
Honestly I don't even think anything should be subsumed onto Nidus, least of all a CC ability. If anything I think I'd actually recommend subsuming off Link if you're using a CC ability, because Nidus' natural bulk in combination with Ravenous healing leads to a nice feedback loop of nidus surviving the initial burst of damage, CCing the enemies, and then regening back to full during the enemy downtime.(Adaptation+Vitality, and especially with Arcane Guardian should be enough EHP to start building up the mutation gate alongside CC spam). Plus unlike Link, Ravenous' utility outside of survivability is much more noticeable, especially if you don't have an ally to link to.
What makes the maggots Valuable is that each explosion is functionally it's own "virulence AOE", leading to multiplying mutation stacks. Plus the maggots themselves serve as soft CC due to being targeted by enemies and causing enemies to panic when latched on. From lazy testing it seems each hive spawns a maggot every 2 seconds, or in total 1 maggot every ~0.66 second, and you can hold up to 9 during downtime.(which would take ~6 seconds), So those maggot explosions build up pretty quickly too.
As for Parasitic link in a vacuum, I can understand why the base 20M range of enemy links does feel limiting, but I don't really think it's that big of an issue to completely break him(especially with a fair amount of mission types still being "sit around at a location and wait for stuff to happen"). Personally I think just having it match the ally link range of 40 would be enough, especially since it already ignores LoS.
Though if we really wanted to remove the need for nidus to stay in one spot entirely, a much simpler solution is to just make Linked enemies be Mind Controlled and teleport to you when they're out of range.(Also rename it to Symbiotic Link because it's literally not a parasitic when attached to an ally). Similarly making it so Ravenous spawns 3 Brood Mothers that spawn the maggots instead of the current hives would be an interesting change.(on a similar tangent being able to link with non-player allies would be nice)
As for Nidus competing with allies for mutation stacks....Yeah that's the real core issue with Nidus, but also partially by design. I don't think Nidus would be nearly as interesting without the Mutation mechanic, and how else would you get them besides...hitting enemies? Without interacting with enemies, the only other choice is just give him passive mutation regeneration.(Though Nidus also getting 1 mutation stack on assist kills, or from assist kills by a linked allies would help massively)
That being said, I would actually be interested in an augment(or even a base kit change) along the lines of "gain 1/5th mutation every 0.5 seconds, up to 5 stacks of Mutation". Might of even be fun to make a complete rework where Nidus simply doesn't have energy anymore, Such as making Virulence consumes 1/5th mutation, Larva consumes 3/5th mutation, and all helminth abilities use a formula along the lines of 1 stack of mutation=125 Energy.(if you want to keep energy effeciency and max energy revelant, you could have them increase mutation gain and max mutation respectively)
Breach Surge is an Eximus CC, which he lacks (like many other frames, yes, but it hurts him more), and a damage multiplier both casting and weapon focused builds, even at lower strength values. I didn't suggest making the linked target move with Nidus, because I don't expect the ability to ever be reworked *that* much, and it's the only one he doesn't have an augment for yet.
And I don't know. I'm not impressed with 50k blast aoe damage the maggots explosions do, nor am I with their CC. Them generating more stacks is obviously good, but I fucking hate that Ravenous itself is stationary and has so many unmoddable parts. If Nidus came out tomorrow, Ravenous's field size and Virulence's width would scale with range, maggot numbers would scale with strength (and their toxin damage might, too, not that it matters), and Mutation stack gain would scale with strength or duration. And his abilities would naturally apply Viral/Toxin without augments.
I get that not every frame has to be an allrounder, but there 100% are frames you can take everywhere without any struggle (sometimes without even switching loadouts). And it's just sad to see that Nidus isn't one of them.
Personally the whole "consume enemies for overguard" sounds as big a change as "mind control with a link", but fair enough.
I think most of your issues with Nidus comes from how long it takes to build up mutation for you. By the time Eximi become a legitimate threat to Nidus, you should have enough mutation for Undying, and If Eximi are so common that you can't reliably rebuild stacks in time, that's all the more reason to keep Ravenous instead of Parasitic link, because it seems like the 90% DR isn't helping much anyways.(especially because the Insatiable augment further helps with gaining mutation)
I'd agree that Ravenous should properly scale with mods, but The remaining changes really sound like overkill. I Similarly think you're exaggerating how much warframes have been power crept, but that would be a much longer conversation.
Cosmetics seems to be missing quite a few skins.