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
Void damage, though there are a few sources that increase damage dealt to Overguard:
On players, Overguard will negate all Status Effects, including
Stagger and
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
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
Stagger,
Knockdown,
Stun,
Mind Control,
Confusion (including
Radiation procs),
Slow,
Ragdoll,
Blind, and
Lifted, and can only receive a maximum of 4
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)
- Celestial Stomp no longer stuns crowd control-immune enemies, such as Eximus units, to bring Celestial Stomp in line with similar crowd-controlling abilities.
- Molecular Prime Changes:
- Added a Tap / Hold functionality: Tap to cast a Slowing effect on enemies. Hold to cast a Speed-Up effect instead.
- Bonus damage multiplier now applies to Overguard, Health, and Shields.
- Previously it only applied to enemy Health!
- This multiplier has also been added to the Ability screen so players can better understand Molecular Prime’s mechanics.
- Speed-Up effect will bypass crowd control immunity (ex: enemies with Overguard).
- Unleashed (SUNIKA Kubrow):
- Instead of targeting "VIP" enemies, a category which is somewhat poorly defined and doesn't come up very often, this will now target Eximus units, doing 300% damage against Overguard.
- Beast melee Postures! Have you ever wished to have a little more control over specifically how your pet chooses to engage with enemies? Then check out these new melee Posture Mods that shape the behavior of your Beasts:
- Assassin Posture: Your pet will prefer to attack Eximus and VIP enemies. Increases damage to Overguard done by your pet by 300%.
- Can be acquired with Conservation tags from The Business’ “Trade Tags” menu in Fortuna, Venus.
- The following abilities now apply their Damage Vulnerability against enemy Shields and Overguard (previously they only applied to enemy Health):
- Xaku’s Vast Untime
- Mag’s Magnetize
- Titania’s Beguiling Lantern Augment
- Bonewidow’s Firing Line
- Gara’s Mass Vitrify
- Gara’s Splinter Storm
- Nezha’s Blazing Chakram
- Nova’s Molecular Prime
Hotfix 36.0.5 (2024-07-20)
- Fixed Overguard preventing players from parrying.
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:
- Upon Shield/Overguard Breaking a target, the enemy will now be dealt Electric Status damage for a percentage of Max Shields/Overguard per Magnetic stack while also forcing an Electric Status Effect.
- Magnetic stacks on an enemy with Overguard now allow for bonus damage to Overguard, similar to how Magnetic affects Shields.
- Ember Changes
Fire Blast (3rd Ability):
- Augment Mod Changes:
- Healing Flame: Now converts all over healing (gaining Health points while as max Health) into Overguard.
- Description now reads: “Each enemy hit heals by 25 to 50 depending on current Immolation level. With Ember, over healing grants you Overguard.”
- This only applies to Ember herself and not to Fire Blast on other Warframes via Helminth.
- Stat UI Changes & Fixes
- Added a Void Damage tooltip in the Operator stats UI to show its efficacy stat and Status Effect description.
- Now reads: “Damage Efficacy: X damage to Zariman.
- Status Effect: Highly effective against enemies with Overguard Health and Sentients as it resets their damage adaptation. Void creates a bullet attractor sphere on the target that attracts and concentrates further attacks.”.
- Added an Overguard tooltip to Rage, Archwing, Necramech and Hunter Adrenaline Mods, due to their new interactions with Overguard as of Update 35.5.6.
- TOP FIXES
- Fixed the Pack Leader Mod reducing the amount of Overguard on a Companion if they already have the Mod's max amount (+1200).
- Fixed being able to apply 5 Puncture Stacks to VIP enemies with Overguard, instead of the intended 3.
Update 35.6 (2024-05-15)
- Fixed players with Overguard being affected by the Gruzzling’s slow AOE.
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:
- Rage: +40% (same effectiveness as the base functionality) of Damage on Overguard granted by allies to Energy while Shields are inactive.
- Hunter Adrenaline: +45% (same effectiveness as the base functionality) of Damage on Overguard granted by allies to Energy while Shields are inactive.
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:
- Necramech Rage: Convert +15% of Damage on Overguard gained from allies to Energy.
- Kinetic Diversion: Convert +40% of Damage on Overguard gained from allies to Energy.
General Overguard Change:
- Frost’s Icy Avalanche Augment Mod will now grant Overguard to non-player allies in radius (i.e. Sentinels, Companions, Specters).
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:
- Frost's Ice Wave Impedance Augment (specifically the frozen trail that slows them)
- Rhino’s Stomp (slow effect)
- Primary Obstruct (weapon jamming)
- Exodia Epidemic (enemy suspension)
- Zenurik Temporal Drag (slow effect)
- Wisp’s Breach Surge (blind)
- Halikar (disarm)
- Mesa’s Muzzle Flash (blind)
- Proboscis Cernos (stun and pull)
- Mag’s Counter Pulse Augment (robotics disabling and disarm)
- Mag’s Fracturing Crush Augment (immobilization)
- Malicious Code (immobilization)
Player Overguard Changes:
- Players with Overguard will no longer be pulled towards Trauma Clamps in the Undercroft.
Update 35.5 (2024-03-27)
- Fixed the Rakta Dark Dagger and Sancti Magistar not giving Shields and Health respectively for damage dealt to enemy Overguard (it previously only counted damage dealt to enemy Shields & Health).
Hotfix 35.1.2 (2024-02-28)
- Players with Overguard are now immune to the slow effect from enemy Necramech’s Necraweb ability.
- Fixed Overguard earned on Warframe in Duviri from the Killer’s Confidence Decree causing players to be indefinitely invulnerable in the Undercroft.
- Now, Overguard earned from the Decree will be cleared from Warframe after entering the Undercroft.
Hotfix 34.0.6 (2023-10-30)
- Fixed enemies with Overguard being pulled by Magus Anomaly.
- Enemies with Overguard are immune to crowd control abilities/effects, and should not be affected by Magus Anomaly until after Overguard has been removed.
Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)
- Companions can now gain Overguard (behaves the same as player Overguard).
- Gaining Overguard now provide more gradual feedback in the health bar instead of instantly changing.
- Fixed Overguard disappearing from the UI while riding K-Drive/Merulina.
- Fixed enemies with Overguard being affected by the Malicious Code Parazon Mod when they should be immune to crowd control effects.
Hotfix 33.6.4 (2023-08-15)
- Player Overguard now protects against Arctic Eximus’ slow auras.
- Overguard granted by Styanax’s Intrepid Stand Augment Mod is now capped at 15k (at 100% Ability Strength), which scales with Ability Strength.
- Outside of maintaining the status quo (excluding Rhino’s Iron skin, which requires skillful timing to scale), the Augment allowed for infinite amounts of Overguard to be stacked effortlessly and quickly, which could trivialize challenging content and limit future design space. The survivability and team support element that players have been enjoying on Styanax is still preserved, just at a more practical level to encourage more dynamic play.
- Overguard granted by Frost’s Icy Avalanche Augment Mod now stacks on cast (up to 15k, which scales with Ability Strength) instead of keeping the highest value from the original or recast.
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)
- Fixed moving in slow motion after interacting with ally slowing effects (like Vauban’s Vortex and/or Zephyr’s Tornado) while Overguard is active.
- This was particularly prevalent with Rhino (Iron Skin), Frost (with the Icy Avalanche Augment Mod), Kullervo (Recompense), and Atlas (Rumbled Augment Mod) as their abilities grant Overguard.
- Fixed several issues with Warframe Overguard reducing the effectiveness of the following supportive abilities/effects:
- Fixed Gara’s Splinter Storm damage reduction being capped at 50% instead of the intended 90%.
- Fixed Trinity’s Blessing healing over time for a fixed amount instead of restoring the full intended amount on cast.
- Fixed Garuda’s Blood Altar not healing.
- Fixed Mirage’s Eclipse damage reduction being capped at 50% instead of the intended 95%.
- Fixed Hydroid’s Curative Undertow Augment Mod being capped at 100 Health.
- Fixed Nezha’s Warding Halo damage reduction being capped at 50% instead of the intended 90%.
- Fixed Volt’s Capacitance Augment Mod (Discharge) being capped at 250 Shields and not granting Overshields.
- Fixed Baruuk’s Desolate Hands damage reduction being capped at 50% instead of the intended 90%.
- Fixed Harrow’s Penance heal being capped at 50 health/s.
- Fixed Equinox’ Mend & Maim heal being capped at 500 Health over 5 seconds.
- Fixed Sancti Magistar’s heal being capped at 500 Health over 5 seconds.
- Fixed Vazarin’s Protective Sling capping at 500 Health over 5 seconds and not providing damage immunity.
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.
- Rhino’s Iron Skin
- Atlas’ Rumbled Augment Mod
- Frost’s Icy Avalanche Augment Mod
*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)
- Fixed Grendel’s Regurgitate slowing enemies with Overguard.
- Enemies with Overguard are intended to be immune to slow effects. However, if Overguard is cleared while Regurgitate’s slow is active, then it will apply to the target for the remaining duration.
Update 33.0 (2023-04-26)
- Fixed Dethcube’s Vaporize Mod not respecting Overguard’s crowd control immunity and bypassing their defenses to deal damage.
Update 32.3 (2023-02-15)
- Fixed the Parazon Mercy Kill Health threshold UI indicator showing over Overguard if you hit an enemy with enough Impact procs (which was confusing since you cannot Mercy Kill enemies with Overguard active).
Hotfix 32.2.4 (2022-12-07)
- Fixed rare case of inconsistent damage being dealt to Overguard.
Hotfix 32.0.3 (2022-09-14)
- Updated the Overguard depletion sound FX on Eximus units.
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.
- Fixed Garuda's Blending Talons Augment not triggering when hitting an enemy with Overguard is affected by a Slash Status Effect.
- Fixed Gauss's Kinetic Plating not generating battery when melee attacking enemies with Overguard.
- Fixed Protea's Temporal Anchor not counting damage to Overguard when building up damage for the temporal implosion blast.
- Fixed Zephyr's Tailwind Target Fixation Augment not counting enemies with Overguard when building up extra damage.
- Fixed Hema not restoring health on headshots against enemies with Overguard.
- Fixed Hirudo not restoring health on critical hits against enemies with Overguard.
- Fixed enemies affected by Frost’s Avalanche not losing any armor while Overguard is active.
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)
- Modified Overguard ratios to bring Eximus Units Overguard down and slightly increase their Health/Shields to balance out the reduction.
- Reduced Eximus Overguard by 50% and transferred the 50% to their Health pool.
- While this may read as a big increase to the Health pool, it is not a 1-to-1 trade due to the overall pool sizes of Overguard vs Health. Imagine you have a watermelon (Overguard) and half an orange (Health). I take away half a watermelon and I give you half an orange - and together we eat a fruit salad. For clarity: Overguard has a larger pool than Health, so reducing it by half still amounts to less HP across Eximus Units across all HP values. By increasing the amount of Health and Shields an Eximus Unit has, it also increases the window for successful Mercy kills.
- Increased Shield Scaling multiplier by 50%
- Nox Eximus Helmets can now be destroyed when Overguard is active. Breaking their helmet will remove Overguard entirely!
- Note that Nox Damage resistance has been decreased and armor increased to balance this change. This change applies to both Nox Eximus and base Nox enemies.
- Fixed Overguard counting as Health and taking damage from Viral Status Effect.
- Overguard situates itself in a new category of “protection”. It differs from Shields, Armor, and Health. That said, Viral Status Effects affecting Overguard was unintentional and has been changed to not only fit the original design for Viral damage, but also Overguard.
- We originally mentioned in the Eximus Reborn Dev Workshop that the only Status Effect that would work on Eximus while Overguard is present is Cold Status Effects (up to 4 stacks!).
- Lifesteal now works on damage dealt to Overguard.
- Considering Overguard is another health pool for an Eximus/Thrax and that Lifesteal already works on Health and Shields, Overguard is now susceptible to Lifesteal to give players another way to tactically engage with them. The fights with Eximus can be quite challenging, so having another avenue of survivability is always encouraged!
- This change was also made in mind to Lifesteal survivability builds, it would be too difficult to lose all of your survivability when encountering many enemies with Overguard at one time (from either Void Armageddon or an Ancient Healer etc.)
- Additionally, there are some Weapons and abilities that aren’t strictly classified as Lifesteal that won’t currently work, but will in a future update! This currently affects specific conditions for the:
- Hema
- Hirudo
- Garuda’s Blending Talons augment
- Gauss’ Kinetic Plating
- Protea’s Temporal Anchor
- Zephyr’s Target Fixation augment
- 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!
- Fixed Baruuk being unable to damage Eximus units with his Serene Storm waves.
- Kuva Trokarian enemies are receiving some changes to make them feel like more of a threat when they appear in-mission.
- Similar to their Thrax compatriots, these foes are intended to add an extra level of difficulty to the player’s gameplay loop, so these tweaks are made with that goal in mind.
- Added Overguard to the Kuva Trokarian (but at a lesser value than the Eximus Overguard)
Hotfix 31.5.8 (2022-05-11)
- Fixed Equinox’s Maim being able to chain stagger Eximus units with Overguard active.
- Overguard as it was designed is resistant to CC, any form of stagger proc present with Warframe abilities is unintended at this time. It’s worth noting that we’re exploring some options on the topic of Overguard and its CC resistance.
- Fixed the Aero mod set bonus putting to sleep ability immune enemies (Eximus with Overguard).
Update 31.5 (2022-04-27)