Overguard is a special health buffer that grants immunity to most crowd control effects.

Overguard is an additional layer of defense that protects Health and/or Shields from being damaged. It is neutral to all damage types except for a 50% vulnerability from DmgVoidSmall64 Void damage, though there are a few sources that increase damage dealt to Overguard:

On players, Overguard will negate all Status Effects, including RollingDroneAvatar Stagger and Knockdown b Knockdown. It additionally has a 0.5 second invulnerability gate when fully depleted, preventing any excess damage from leaking into their shield or health pool. Even enemy crowd control effects that still affect players with Mod TT 20px Primed Sure Footed (such as fire waves by Arson Eximus) will be ignored with Overguard. However, grapple hooks from enemies such as a Scorpion will still interrupt the player for a moment and pull them in.

Only Warframes and Companions are able to receive Overguard. Abilities that grant Overguard do not apply to Specters, Defense Objects, or other allied NPCs.

On enemies, crowd control effects that units protected by Overguard will ignore include RollingDroneAvatar Stagger, Knockdown b Knockdown, StunIcon b Stun, MindControl130xWhite Mind Control, DmgRadiationSmall64 Confusion (including DmgRadiationSmall64 Radiation procs), UnidentifiedItem Slow, Ragdoll b Ragdoll, RadialBlind130xDark Blind, and Lifted b Lifted, and can only receive a maximum of 4 DmgColdSmall64 Cold procs. Once Overguard is removed, the unit will receive crowd control and status effects as per normal.

Overguard is independent of enemy health and shield scaling. Overguard will scale by level but will be the same amount across all Eximus enemy types.

Because of their immunity to crowd control, Overguarded enemies are a threat that should be prioritized; crowd control will still affect their allies and they will still target confused and mind controlled units which helps level the playing field. In the case of Ancient Healers and The Severed Warden, which provide Overguard to their own allies but not themselves while alive, the Ancient will still receive crowd control as normal and should be targeted instead. Shooting off a Nox's helmet will immediately remove their Overguard.

Overguard is a unique health buffer to Eximus, though normal units can get overguard in unique situations (like after a Overguard Exodamper is destroyed during Void Armageddon).[1]

Stat scaling between 45-50 inclusive is interpolated from the two functions using smoothstep.

This is a short list of Warframe abilities that will slow enemies with Overguard until it is removed, after which the ability will affect them like normal:

Note that non-CC effects (e.g. damage, armor/shield removal) of these abilities will still apply to enemies with active Overguard.

Update 37.0 (2024-10-02)

Hotfix 36.0.5 (2024-07-20)

Update 36.0 (2024-06-18)

Magnetic

Magnetic has received a few buffs to increase its effectiveness against Shields and to hammer home the power fantasy of overloading enemy Shields.

Magnetic Changes:

Ember Changes

Fire Blast (3rd Ability):

Stat UI Changes & Fixes
TOP FIXES

Update 35.6 (2024-05-15)

Hotfix 35.5.6 (2024-04-10)

Updated Overguard Interactions With Vex Armor, Rage, & Hunter Adrenaline

As announced last week, we’ve changed how Overguard interacts with effects that benefit from receiving damage on Warframe to make it more co-op friendly. Specifically, Chroma’s Vex Armor and the Rage and Hunter Adrenaline Mods. The conversations regarding Dante’s abilities with Overguard became a driving factor to look at these interactions and find ways in which we can make them work to benefit co-op play. Overall, these changes aim to create a harmonious arrangement between the often unpredictable Overguard gains from allies and Vex Armor, Rage, and Hunter Adrenaline.

The following changes are in addition to their existing functionality.

Chroma’s Vex Armor

Previously, Overguard would prevent Chroma from benefiting from his Vex Armor buffs (since it blocked damage on Health and Shields). So, we’ve made the following change to allow players to receive the buffs through all sources of Overguard:

Now: Melee kills now grant a 15% Armor increase and ranged kills a 15% increase to Weapon Damage (doubled to 30% for ranged weak point kills).

This has the additional perk of self-sufficiency where players have far more control over the buffs, instead of having to rely on the unpredictability of damage dealt by enemies.

Rage and Hunter Adrenaline

Previously, Overguard granted by allies could prevent you from gaining Energy from these Mods (since it blocked damage dealt to Health). So, in an effort to create a more co-op friendly experience between the two, we’ve made the following change:

Now, Rage and Hunter Adrenaline can convert the Damage on Overguard granted by allies to Energy while Shields are inactive.

More specifically, they will trigger when the last source of Overguard originates from an ally (includes spawned allies, such as Specters). This allows shield-less Warframes, such as Inaros and Nidus, to be able to regenerate Energy via these Mods when they would have previously been blocked by Overguard granted by allies.

Here are the exact stat details:

NOTE: Warframes that grant themselves Overguard, like Kullervo or Rhino, will not be able to trigger Rage and Hunter Adrenaline from their own Overguard. Only Overguard granted by allies is eligible because this is the only interaction that is potentially disruptive to your build (i.e your ally puts Overguard onto your Rage-Build Nidus).

Necramech Rage and Kinetic Diversion (Archwing) have also had the same changes applied to them with Overguard interactions:

General Overguard Change:

Hotfix 35.5.3 (2024-04-04)

Missed Notes from Update 35.5.0:

Observant Tenno may have noticed some Abilities are no longer interacting with Crowd Control immune foes the same way. This is due to a change that went out with Dante Unbound, but was unfortunately missed in Patch Notes. These particular interactions fell outside of the intended design of CC immunity, so we have removed these outliers to restore expected behaviors.

Enemies with Crowd Control immunity (ex: Overguard) have had the following interactions removed:

Player Overguard Changes:

Update 35.5 (2024-03-27)

Hotfix 35.1.2 (2024-02-28)

Hotfix 34.0.6 (2023-10-30)

Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)

Hotfix 33.6.4 (2023-08-15)

Update 33.6 (2023-07-27)

Player Overguard Improvements

With Duviri came the first instance of Warframes using Overguard, and The Seven Crimes of Kullervo solidified this mechanic as a part of various Warframes’ kits.

Now that players have access to Overguard consistently, we have made some adjustments to improve the quality of life in this new health state:

Consistent Proc Immunity
Due to the variety of sources of Overguard, there were occasionally inconsistencies in how it behaved in regard to Proc Immunity. With Echoes of Duviri, all sources of Player Overguard will offer Full Proc Immunity while active.

Overguard Depletion Protection
Similar to Shields, Player Overguard will now offer a brief moment of invulnerability (currently 0.5s) once depleted. This window will prevent players with Overguard from being one-shot, as damage to Overguard will no longer carry over into your Health or Shield pool once depleted.

Upon launch, we will closely monitor feedback on this mechanic change to see if further adjustments are needed.

NOTE: This Overguard Depletion Protection applies only to Player Overguard, not Overguard seen on enemies.

Hit Impact Visuals
Similar to taking damage to your Health or your Shields, Overguard now has its own unique appearance when attacked. Damage will no longer cause blood splatters while Overguard is active, and we have added a unique metallic hit effect that better communicates having a layered shell protecting you.

Additionally, players will no longer flinch while taking damage with Overguard active.

(NOTE: This has no gameplay function other than looking cool)

Hotfix 33.5.3 (2023-06-23)

Update 33.5 (2023-06-21)

OVERGUARD ON WARFRAME ABILITIES

Overguard as a Warframe defense mechanism was introduced in Drifter Intrinsics and Decrees with The Duviri Paradox update - it grants additional Health protection and provides Knockdown Immunity while active.

Overguard has virtually the same function (Health buffs and immunities*) as the listed abilities and Augment Mods, so in an effort to expose the mechanic more and establish familiarity with Overguard as a whole (as it also appears on enemies) we have made it the visual indicator for them.

*The base defensive properties of these abilities and Augment Mods have not changed!

This change also has the added benefit of allowing “On Damaged” Mods and Arcanes to apply to all of the above! Prior to this change, the aforementioned abilities would make the player "invulnerable" until the added survivability was depleted. Now, Mods and Arcanes like Adaptation and Arcane Avenger can now be triggered when damage is taken to Overguard, because it is treated similarly to Health and Shields.

The HUD Overguard element has also had slight upgrades for the purposes of registering for these abilities and Augment Mods:

Hotfix 33.0.11 (2023-05-24)

Update 33.0 (2023-04-26)

Update 32.3 (2023-02-15)

Hotfix 32.2.4 (2022-12-07)

Hotfix 32.0.3 (2022-09-14)

Update 32.0 (2022-09-07)

OVERGUARD LIFESTEAL CHANGES:

On the introduction of Overguard, we mentioned that we would be improving how some ability mechanics function with Overguard, this is a continuation of those efforts. So we have made several changes, the majority of which cover how Overguard reacts with lifesteal.

If there are any other cases where Lifesteal isn’t applying from Overguard, please let us know on the Forums and we will take a look!

Update 31.6 (2022-06-09)

Hotfix 31.5.8 (2022-05-11)

Update 31.5 (2022-04-27)