(I was going to number this list, but we’re Bottled Fuchsia, not Buzzfeed)

Never underestimate your enemy

Usually when I get a new weapon I like to rank it up on Mercury or Earth where the Grineer are clumsy and squishy. Recently I’ve been ranking my new Ninkondi up on Tower I Defense missions. In my infinite wisdom I took two weapons below rank 15: a rank 5 Dread Bow and rank 12 Ninkondi, figuring that my excalibur was built for wiping out small clusters fast and besides, my sentinel will help. 6 minutes later I’d used up all my revives and the cryopod was destroyed by a nightmare mob of Corrupted that appeared out of nowhere and surrounded me. And for the record, my sentinel really did try, but it’s hard to fight a handful of creatures 5 times your size, made of metal.

MOA’s are the worst

If you’re reading this and haven’t played Warframe, MOA’s are giant mechanical ostriches equipped with lasers. Somehow there is always a MOA waiting for you when you go up a flight or stairs or round the corner or even crawl into an air vent. They are obnoxious and I’m not convinced they don’t spawn from hell itself. However, one time we used Nyx’s Mind Control on one for part of a mission and so had our very own pet MOA following us around. It’s name was Momo.

 

Always say “Lasers”

My girlfriend and I play quite a bit of Warframe and we’re more or less in sync, that is she does most of the killing and I get lost numerous times in each mission. One thing we are terrible at is alerting the other when firing lasers. Lasers hurt. Like a lot. Like really, a lot. And on the higher ranking missions, they insta-kill you, leaving you to bleed out and watch the gangs of whatever you’re fighting amble by to kill your teammates. So, always say “lasers” when you’re about to fire them. It’s just polite.

It can always get worse

Most runs you can kind of predict, if you know the people you run with or the level well enough. Sure, an exterminate mission on Uranus is going to be difficult but you’ve got good gear and you know what you’re doing. Then the lights flicker as you enter a room filled with Grineer. Now you’ve got your own personal
assassin to contend with on top of the mass of over-armored clones coming at you. Fortunately, the Stalker will leave as soon as you’re dead, whether by his hand or someone else’s. The Juggernaut is another matter. The one thing the Juggernaut wants more than anything in the whole wide world is to ruin your day. Just like the Stalker, its presence is preceded by flickering lights, then a beastly howl. Then all of a sudden everything near it is buffed and you’re wondering if you really need that Prime blueprint this level is supposed to drop. I’ve only encountered the Juggernaut once, but the collective cry from my group at the time was “Oh fuck!”. ‘Nuff said.

Budget your energy

You will always run out of energy at the worst possible moment and then the game seems to dole out energy like it’s about to run out and no you can’t have any more until everyone else has gotten their energy, now go kill that Corpus Lancer and wait your turn. If you’re not wise about using your powers you may find yourself flailing desperately while corpus dispassionately shoot you in the face. I have a bad habit of panicking and hitting my first ability over and over, usually in places where it will be least effective. Don’t do that either.

Kubrows will get you killed

I was really excited when I got my first kubrow. I named him Squeaks and I fed him and petted him and took him on missions. Squeaks really got excited on missions, so much so that he had a habit of running headlong into the first cluster of Infected or Grineer that he saw. Every mission, this over-enthusiastic
mutt got himself killed at least once and on some of the higher ranking ones, got me killed too as I attempted to revive him. The upside of him dying so much was that everyone on Teamspeak took to yelling “Squeeeeeaks!” very dramatically when he once again went down. There are a lot of cool things kubrows can do, but I swear they need a leash or obedience training. Eventually he just became a liability and I switched over to a sentinel.

This is what I’ve learned from Warframe, or “Sexy Space Ninjas” as it really should be called.

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