Prime Warframes almost feel like they’re the final stage of the basic, “vanilla” Warframes. They have slightly better stats, they’re easy to obtain, they come with even more cosmetic releases, and most importantly, they look and feel absolutely incredible. Below are the four Prime Warframes that will release in 2022, an overview of how each Warframe works, and a good build for each one.
How do we know the order of Prime releases? It’s simple. Vanilla Warframes were released in a certain order, and even though their Prime Warframes are coming out years later, they have always followed the same order of release. For example, Nidus was followed by Harrow in the original set of releases, and Nidus Prime will be followed by the Prime Warframe release for Harrow.
Harrow Prime
Releases: Late 2021 or early 2022.
Harrow is all about weapons and gunplay. He can have up to 2400 Overshields and is pretty much a Crit machine. All of his abilities revolve around buffing your damage or crit chance, and he is also great team support. His second ability also boosts your reload speed and fire rate for a while, and if you use him with weapons such as Acceltra, you’re probably going to explode enemies to another dimension and back (and you’re also going to empty your ammo reserves in under 20 seconds).
He can restore Energy, be incredibly hard to kill, can shred through enemies with the most basic weapon, and is great even at Level 1. As long as you’re timing his abilities right, he is one of the most undefeatable Warframes in the game. The only problem with Harrow is that he needs you to do a lot of damage on your own, which can be pretty hard if you have great teammates.
The biggest reason why most people would be waiting for Harrow Prime is because of how hard it is to get his vanilla frame. The game requires you to grind Kuva fortress pretty hard for a while, and even then the chances of obtaining the specific part you want are pretty slim. Along with Nidus and Khora, Harrow is one of those frames that always came with a “just get it with Platinum instead” recommendation from players. He’s definitely a Prime Warframe that needs to release as soon as possible.
Build for Harrow Prime:
- Primed Continuity: +Ability Duration.
- Transient Fortitude: +Ability Strength, -Ability Duration.
- Primed Flow: +Energy Capacity.
- Stretch: +Ability Range.
- Blind Rage: +Ability Strength, -Ability Efficiency.
- Natural Talent: +Ability Casting speed. This is a niche mod, but it makes Harrow a lot more efficient because you are required to also handle gunplay while casting your abilities.
- Augur Message: +Ability Duration.
- Streamline: +Ability Efficiency.
Khora Prime
Releases: Spring 2022.
Here’s one that many players will be waiting for. Khora is great for crowd control, general DPS, and long min-max farming missions where your only goal is optimal loot drops. Khora’s passive ability is having its own, exclusive pet that accompanies you on missions and fights alongside your team. The Venari grants you a movement speed buff and is a great companion to have to distract enemies as well.
Khora’s main strategy is to use her Strangledome ability (which creates a massive dome that traps enemies on its surface) and Whipclaw ability (basically a whip that you can slash around with) in synergy. If you use the whip on the Strangledome, you do damage to each enemy trapped within. For farming missions, you can use the Pilfering Strangledome augment mod that grants you a 65% drop chance for additional loot for each enemy stuck in the dome.
Khora is even harder to get than Harrow. Her parts have about a 10% drop chance from the fourth wave of Elite Sanctuary Onslaught. You can only get one part from that wave, and it could be a part you already own. Khora is one of those frames a lot of people have been getting with Platinum because of how unrewarding her grind could be, but luckily we will have Khora Prime pretty soon. She’s the #1 Prime Warframe whose release will save players from a long and tedious grind.
Build for Khora Prime:
- Vitality: +Warframe Health.
- Constitution: +Ability Duration.
- Primed Continuity: +Ability Duration.
- Stretch: +Ability Range.
- Augur Reach: +Ability Range.
- Overextended: +Ability Range, -Ability Strength.
- Streamline: +Ability Efficiency.
- Intensify: +Ability Strength.
Garuda Prime
Releases: Fall 2022.
Garuda is a Warframe with a lot of latent potential in her ability kit, but unfortunately, she doesn’t stand up to the best Warframes in the game. She can scale infinitely with the synergy between her first and fourth Abilities and is great against Grineer, and she can tank pretty well with Quick Thinking and healing abilities. Altars and Bloodletting let her get virtually infinite Energy reserves, but the problem is that she needs a lot of work to be as good as some of the other Warframes.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s pretty strong and if you enjoy her abilities you can use her in most missions, it’s just that your teammates will be getting the same damage output with fewer clicks. Note that her damage scaling was nerfed after the update which made Slash damage no longer work through Shields.
She’s not a difficult Warframe to obtain if you like doing the open-world missions, with all of her components available through Orb Vallis bounties. Hopefully, the Prime release comes with a well-deserved rework.
Build for Garuda Prime:
- Intensify: +Ability Strength.
- Primed Flow: +Energy Capacity.
- Stretch: +Ability Range, as it affects all of her abilities.
- Primed Continuity: +Ability Duration.
- Vitality: +Warframe Health.
- Healing Flame: +Healing, every time you hit an enemy with your Fire Blast.
- Rolling Guard: +Healing, when rolling.
- Rapid Resilience: -Status Duration.
Revenant Prime
Releases: Winter 2022.
Revenant is a super-fun Warframe in Survival missions where you are surrounded by enemies that just keep spawning endlessly. He’s undergone a few changes since his original release, and is now a good DPS Frame. His first ability, like Nyx, can influence enemies and make them fight for you. Mesmer Skin lets you become invulnerable and immune to stagger or knockdown effects. His third ability makes you dash through enemies, stealing their Shields and Health and making Revenant super-tanky. Danse Macabre, his best ability, is great for clearing rooms, as long as you have high Ability Strength and a lot of Energy and Efficiency.
You simply go around spinning in the room, shooting Eidolon energy beams with his hands and melting enemies all around you. You can move as you spin and hold down entry points, because the lasers will get your enemies before they have a chance to react. Revenant is great for high-level content because of his insane damage potential, and you can safely use him on Steel Path and Kuva Lich missions. He is especially good at solo missions, as the Eidolon energy beams spin in all directions (although not vertically) and deal an equal amount of damage to enemies regardless of where they were standing relative to the direction of casting your ability.
Revenant is the easiest Warframe on this list to acquire on its own, but the Prime will be worth it for the aesthetic upgrade on an already good-looking design.
Build for Revenant Prime:
- Intensify: +Ability Strength.
- Primed Flow: +Energy Capacity.
- Primed Continuity: +Ability Duration.
- Vitality: +Warframe Health.
- Stretch: +Ability Range.
- Narrow Minded: +Ability Duration, -Ability Range.
- Fleeting Expertise: -Ability Duration, +Ability Efficiency.
- Blind Rage: +Ability Strength, -Ability Efficiency.
