Archwings!

[Sennex 1,903]

This will grow over time (thats what she said!)

 

First off, Archwing missions don’t suck, they are just not at all in the same vein as the rest of the game, and honestly shouldn’t be in Warframe.

However! Archwing missions can be fun if you treat them as a flight sim. (I pretend I am in the old Xwing Vs Tie Fighter game)

 

First things first. I solo pretty much every AW mission there is, so this writeup will be shaded by being that.

 

Second thing. About 99% of the Mods for Frames are ignored by the Archwing…. However there is that 1%. There are also some Mods that will spontaneously activate when the game swaps host, which honestly don’t ever try to predict, just be happy when it happens. (List of Frame mods that work will be at the bottom)

 

 

Odonata

·         Health   300 (900 at rank 30)

·         Shield    300 (900 at rank 30)

·         Armor   100

·         Power   100 (180 at rank 30)

·         Flight Speed       1.0

 

The Odonata being the starting AW is pretty much what you would expect. It is middle of the road, and it is easy to say that it sucks, but there is some utility to it that the other two AW’s don’t have. Most people frown on it not because the AW is bad, but because the starting weapons are shit. (The Imperator just isn’t that good until you have mods wrapped around it.)

 

·         Energy Shell! Great for taking hits, and adding the Heat status effect to your attacks. The only downside is it’s a front shield only. And if you try to mix it up in melee, the shield pretty much becomes useless. Try to activate it as enemies are either in a tunnel (As in can’t get behind you), or are still approaching. Be careful though, AoE damage will ignore the shield.
 

·         Disarray – Think Flares/ Chaff  and you are not wrong. This scales with level to the point where you release an absolute fuckton across space. If you are mixing it up in melee and hit this, you have a pretty good chance to stun all nearby enemies. So typically I will use this for that and not for the actual ECM value
 

·         Seeking Fire-  Homing Missles…… do I even need to explain here?
(Well, I will say this, do not try to melee after launching this, you can and will blow yourself up…… Learn from my mistakes)
 

·         Repel – Impact damage, Mass disarm to an area. Think Loki in Space, and you are not wrong. It deals decent damage, and pushes back (Knockdown). I don’t honestly use this a lot as the range is weird to predict.

 

 

 

Itzal

·         Health   200 (600 at rank 30)

·         Shield    200 (600 at rank 30)

·         Armor   50

·         Power   200 (360 at rank 30)

·         Flight Speed       1.2

(I do not own this yet, I will add a section once I do own it) From reading I would say this is the Hunter class from Destiny

 

Elytron 

·         Health   450 (1350 at rank 30)

·         Shield    450 (1350 at rank 30)

·         Armor   150

·         Power   125 (225 at rank 30)

·         Flight Speed       0.9

So you want to “Tank” in orbit?

Ever say to yourself, “I wonder what the fuck an A-10, could do against Space Invaders…”

Well here is your chance to find out, because honestly fuck Will Smith, and fuck Independence day!
Fair warning here. I do not enjoy really any of the Elytron’s abilities, however I cannot stop flying this behemoth of slow ponderous death.

 

First off you are slower than shit in this thing, but who cares. You have armor, Shields and health to spare. In fact….. You know how in the Halloween movies, Michael Meyers would just sort of walk around slowly, he would never run or chase anyone. Meanwhile some old fuck with a scar would be shooting like mad at him. Mike would just ignore that shit, walk up, and shove a carving knife in his ribs…… Yea, that’s you when you pilot the Elytron. You become fucking Mike Meyers

Pull the trigger, you're just going to piss me off.....

 

·         Bloomer – A missile that slightly tracks targets, and can be remote detonated… It can be deadly, but honestly in Archwing missions solo, you don’t really have time to set up your shots for either tracking to kick in, or be assed to hit the detonate button again.
When you are able to set up a shot though, it deals pretty decent damage to a wide area.
The missile will show up on your minimap, which will annoy you if you forget to detonate it….
One thing I will say though is in the tight areas of some of the Corpus ships, you can launch this into a wall, and then kite the enemy back to it. Which can be cool. (Honestly just shoot them, it is faster)
 

·         Core Vent – You know those really annoying “Incoming Projective” messages… Yea, all this power does is clear those off your screen so you can get back to walking around the map.
I have read that it will stop all targeting, including the little bastards with laser cannons, but I haven’t had decent luck with that yet.
 

·         Thumper – Another situational weapon, much like Bloomer. Although, I use it more than I use Bloomer.
You designate an area, and then for 30-45 seconds, Spacemom will just bombard the shit out of that marked point.
This is really good for Interception missions as you can hold an area, while not being there. Also, the beacon is tied to itself, and not to the duration of the bombardment. This means, if you set it up right, you can have overlapping Thumpers.
 

·         Warhead – A Reticle guided nuke…. It sounds cool, but it is just as annoying to set up and use as Bloomer. Also, god help you if you need to take any sort of evasive maneuver while guiding this thing. Honestly here, who thought it was a good idea to have Guided weapons when doing Archwing missions?
The AoE of it is decent, and you can cover a decent area with it, but I really only ever use it in tight quarters where I don’t care what it hits, as long as it hits something.

So basically the thing to keep in mind when flying this A-10, is that hitting specific enemies is a waste of time. Aim at objects and hope you thin the numbers a bit before they reach you.

 

Missions –

 

Be prepared to repeat a ton of missions….. Like seriously, Mercury and Venus AW missions are all I ran for the last two weeks before I found out this (also you can get a decent number of AW weapon drops from these missions):

 

Once you are around 16, or have a group, then head to Syrtis on Mars. This will become your Power Leveling spot for any Unranked Wings or Weapons from now on. Just pick a defensive spot you like, and camp it. Enemies will slowly stream at you until you get bored.

 

Next up!

 

Head to Caelus on Uranus (Warning, Level 27+, so either have better than starting gear, or bring a group).

This is the place to be for AW Mod farming. Which you will want to do if you plan on fighting for Atlas drops.

 

Speaking of Mods!

 

Here is a list of all of the AW Mods. (Not weapons, just Wings)

Name                            Description                                      Polarity                Rarity

Argon Plating                 Increases Armor                             Vazarin Pol          Common

Auxiliary Power              Increases Maximum Energy           Madurai Pol         Uncommon

Efficient Transferral       Increases Power Duration               Vazarin Pol          Rare

Energy Amplifier            Increases Power Range                  Naramon Pol       Uncommon

Energy Inversion            Increases Shield Capacity              Vazarin Pol          Common

Enhanced Durability       Increases Health                             Vazarin Pol          Uncommon

Hyperion Thrusters        Increases Sprint                              Naramon Pol       Rare

Morphic Transformer     Increases Power Strength               Madurai Pol         (Legendary) Rare

Superior Defenses         Increases Shield Recharge Rate     Vazarin Pol          Uncommon

System Reroute             Increases Power Efficiency              Naramon Pol       Rare

 

Here are the Frame mods that affect AW’s:

·         Redirection

·         Vitality

·         Vigor

·         Steel Fiber

·         Flow

·         Fast Deflection

·         Fortitude

·         All aura mods.

·         Reflex Guard 

·         Reflection 

·         Diamond Skin 

·         Enemy Sense

·         Any Warframe Speed mod

 

I will add to this as I get more weapons, and time.

 

Hopefully this is helpful for you guys

[Sennex 1,903]

Formatting is off as I typed this up in Word