Abilities are special skills that all Warframes, Archwings, and Necramechs possess, which are used to provide tactical advantages in battle by either affecting enemies directly or bolstering teammates in some manner. Every Warframe has a set of four unique Abilities that directly influence their gameplay and their role within a team. For example,  Frost's Abilities are based around slowing down enemies and blocking damage, making him more suited to a defensive role.  Nova, with her damage-oriented Ability set, is a good choice for offensive playstyles.

Most Abilities require Energy, which is spent every time an Ability is used. Warframes have only a limited Energy capacity, so Ability use must be carefully managed to prevent running out of Energy at critical moments. Energy costs vary between Abilities; in general the more advanced/powerful the Ability, the greater its Energy cost.

Controls[]

Main article: Key Bindings

Default Key Bindings

Platform	1st Ability	2nd Ability	3rd Ability	4th Ability
PC	1	2	3	4
PSN	R1  +	R1  +	R1  +	R1  +
XBX	RB  +	RB  +	RB  +	RB  +
Switch	R Button  + B	R Button  + Y	R Button  + A	R Button  + X

Types[]

Warframe Abilities are internally classified into four different types loosely according to their theme: damage, buff & debuff, mobility, and perception. Some Warframe Abilities fall into more than one classification, while  Reunite is the only ability with no classification. The abilities below are classified by what a corresponding Corpus Comba / Scrambus will disable.

Damage[]

The most common Ability type. Damage Abilities deal direct damage to enemies, however some abilities like  Quiver have nothing damage related but are classified as such anyways. They are disabled by the Sap Comba.

Buff & Debuff[]

These Abilities modify a unit's innate stats. Buff-type Abilities enhance a Warframe or their allies, while Debuff Abilities weaken or cripple enemies. Some Abilities perform both. They are disabled by the Nul Comba.

Mobility[]

Mobility Abilities alter a Warframe's ability to travel between two points. Some abilities like  Speed make the Warframe faster, while others like  Undertow make it slower. Some abilities like  Rhino Stomp have nothing mobility related but are classified as such anyways. They are disabled by the Slo Comba.

Perception[]

Perception Abilities are used to confuse, distract or disappear from enemy sight, fooling some to engage false targets or prevent them from seeing the player entirely. They are disabled by the Fog Comba.

Diminishing Returns On Bosses[]

Some Bosses have a mechanic where they are immune to certain effects from abilities or apply a "diminishing return" effect on repeated uses of a single ability, reducing their duration by 25% on subsequent casts. This mostly pertains to abilities that have crowd control effects since bosses have high resistance to them.^[1][2]

Examples of diminishing returns or CC resistance:

Examples of CC immunity:

Outliers:

List of Abilities[]

Main article: Category:Warframe Abilities

Injectable[]

Main article: Helminth#Ability Replacement

Some abilities can be injected into other Warframes, replacing one of their abilities via the Helminth. These include:

Raw Data[]

Main article: Module:Ability/data

For a community-contributed list of player abilities in WARFRAME, see Module:Ability/data.

Ability Mods[]

Warframes Abilities can be affected by five types of modification:  Ability Duration,  Ability Efficiency,  Ability Range,  Ability Strength, and Casting Speed. With the proper combination of mods and gear Abilities can obtain a maximized value (see Power Mods and Abilities).

Ability Duration[]

Main article: Ability Duration

These mods affect how long a Warframe Ability lasts.

Mods that affect  Ability Duration positively:

Maximized at +221% with a negative effect of -66% Ability Range. Note that  Continuity and  Primed Continuity are mutually exclusive; the maximized value assumes the use of Primed Continuity.

Ability Efficiency[]

Main article: Ability Efficiency

These mods affect how much a Warframe Ability costs to cast. Ability Efficiency has a hard cap of 75%. For example, an Ability which costs 100 Energy cannot be reduced below 25 Energy.

Mods that affect  Ability Efficiency positively:

Maximized at +105% (or +135% with an active Pax Bolt buff) with a negative effect of -60% Ability Duration. The 75% hard cap mentioned above means it is more efficient to combine a fully-leveled Fleeting Expertise with Boreal's Hatred in the same build, unless also utilizing a mod that decreases Ability Efficiency, such as  Blind Rage, or minimizing the drain of channeled Abilities with as few mods as possible.

Ability Range[]

These mods affect the radius and targeting range of Warframe Abilities.

Mods that affect  Ability Range positively:

Maximized at +180% with a negative effect of -60%  Ability Strength.

Ability Strength[]

These mods and Arcanes affect the damage and the potency of Warframe Abilities (such as Banshee's  Sonar and Energy restored by Trinity's  Energy Vampire).

Mods & Arcanes that affect  Ability Strength[]

Maximization[]

In the arsenal, Ability Strength is maximized at +285% (equipping all Umbral mods) with a negative effect of -55% Ability Efficiency and -27.5% Ability Duration.

In-game, without any additional Warframe ability buffs or effects, Ability Strength is maximized at +465% (equipping all Umbral mods,  Energy Conversion,  Pax Bolt, and if all players in a squad equip  Growing Power). With the Helminth Invigorations, Ability Strength is maximized at +665% (equipping all of the above mods/Arcanes).

Using  Empower can raise this cap by 50%, but only for the next ability cast, and Empower cannot stack with itself nor benefit from mods aside from Ability Efficiency. The same way,  Power Drain can provide an additional 50% bonus for the next ability cast after performing a Mercy kill.

The total Ability Strength can then be doubled by a corruption buff from opening Void Relics, bringing it up to +1630%.

The theoretical max Ability Strength for any Warframe (except  Volt,  Excalibur and  Frost because of their Arcane Helmets, and  Ember,  Nidus, and  Protea because of their passives) will be +10,862.0% taking into account +80% Ability Strength from  Equinox's  Peaceful Provocation and 5.8x Ability Strength multiplier from  Nidus'  Parasitic Link with an Invigoration and a corruption buff on both the warframe and Nidus.

Last updated: Hotfix 31.0.10 (2022-01-20)

Casting Speed[]

These sources affect the casting animation speed of Warframe Abilities (such as  Nekros'  Shadows of the Dead or  Mag's  Crush).

The calculation for casting time is (Base Animation Time) ÷ (1 + Speed Bonus).

Sources that Ability Casting Speed positively:

Ability Ranking[]

Since Update 15.0 (2014-10-24), Warframe Abilities unlock and rank up with affinity. Maximum Rank for Abilities is Rank 3.

Warframe / Archwing / Necramech Rank	Ability and Rank
	First Ability	Second Ability	Third Ability	Fourth Ability
Unranked	Unranked	Locked	Locked	Locked
3	Unranked	Unranked	Locked	Locked
5	Unranked	Unranked	Unranked	Locked
7	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked	Locked
10	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked	Unranked
12	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked
14	Rank 2	Rank 1	Unranked	Unranked
16	Rank 2	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked
18	Rank 3	Rank 1	Rank 1	Unranked
20	Rank 3	Rank 1	Rank 1	Rank 1
22	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 1	Rank 1
24	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2	Rank 1
25	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2	Rank 2
27	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 2	Rank 2
28	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 2
30	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3	Rank 3

Ability Disrupting Enemies[]

Ability Immune Enemies[]

Full Immunity[]

Partial Immunity[]

Notes[]

Patch History[]

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