History Characters / WarframeTenno

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox.png]][[/labelnote]]

Equinox, introduced in Update 17, is the first Warframe able to switch between two modes, a day mode and a night mode. Equinox's Yin & Yang theme was suggested in the Design Council, like Nova before.

* DualModeUnit: Able to swap using ''Metamorphosis'', granting temporary stat buffs upon doing so.
** {{Lunacy}}: Grants Equinox mostly supportive abilities, with a boost to personal defense.
** ThePowerOfTheSun: Grants Equinox mostly damage-increasing abilities, with a boost to personal movement speed and damage.

!!Equinox [[labelnote:Click to see Main form.]][[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox.png]][[/labelnote]] [[labelnote:Click to see Day form.]][[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_day.png]][[/labelnote]] [[labelnote:Click to see Night form.]][[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_night.png]][[/labelnote]]
Equinox, introduced in Update 17, is the first Warframe able to switch between two modes, a day mode and a night mode.

!!Lotus

* AmbiguouslyHuman: Its hard to say what she is, since she appears to be a human with a wired helmet, but still manages the daunting task of micromanaging every Tenno cell in the solar system. That, and she's apparently been around since the Old War..
* ArtificialIntelligence: This is the most likely explanation for exactly what she is, considering how long she's been around. The developers let slip during a dev-stream that she is one, but it's unclear whether this is technically canonical.
* BenevolentBoss: She gives you monthly gifts and keeps you well informed instead of just throwing you at places to slaughter.

* MoralMyopia: She challenges Cephalon Simaris for withholding information from her despite withholding a lot of information from him. Subverted in that Simaris calls her out on it instantly and rudely reminds her that he's not her subordinate.

!!Equinox [[labelnote:Click to see Main form.]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox.png[[/labelnote]] [[labelnote:Click to see Day form.]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_day.png[[/labelnote]] [[labelnote:Click to see Night form.]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_night.png[[/labelnote]]

!!Equinox
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[labelnote:Click to see Day form.]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_day.png[[/labelnote]] [[labelnote:Click to see Night form.]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/equinox_night.png[[/labelnote]]]]

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Ember was [[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140905092353/warframe/images/9/94/NdxZJV_CSRc.jpg originally male]] in the closed beta.

** DifficultButAwesome: With the new June 2015 update, slash dashing at enemies to the next requires aiming precision to target multiple of mooks one at a time without spamming. With perfect aiming, he can entirely wipe the floor of a line of enemies with out spamming slash dash.
* GameBreaker: ''[[EnergyWeapon Exalted Blade]]''. Easily the most powerful melee weapon in the game, with nearly double the base damage of the strongest heavy melee (before Power Strength, which can up to triple ''that''), the ability to copy your melee weapon's equipped mods, and a higher speed to boot. The low upkeep of the ability is supposedly offset by it locking you out of firearms for the duration, but the wide, long-ranged SwordBeam attacks easily make up for that. To top it off, the ability can enhance his ''Slash Dash'', and benefits from the finisher openings created by his ''Radial Blind''.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130424234331/warframe/images/a/a4/Ash_Female_Concept.png Early concept art]] shows a rather feminine Ash.

* DifficultButAwesome: ''Bladestorm''. The ability has hands-down the longest animation time of any ultimate and occasionally pauses mid-cast to give the server time to calculate where you'll strike next, during which time your allies can (and probably will) kill your targets- especially since they're marked with bright a red indicator of being targeted, which can be easily mistaken for several damage-increasing debuffs such as ''Molecular Prime'', ''Terrify'' or elemental status effects that bear a similar appearance. On the other hand, it's a OneHitKill on most enemies, makes Ash mostly invulnerable while active, and has easily some of the most badass-looking attacks in the game. As of Update 13.5, the animation time has been reduced by the addition of a pair of clones of Ash, and marked enemies can be hit multiple times if their allies have been killed, making it a much stronger execution skill for a limited number of heavier units compared to most ultimates.
* DoppelgangerAttack: As of Update 13.5 ''Bladestorm'' will spawn two clones of him to help attack more enemies.

* GameBreaker: ''Exalted Blade''. The low upkeep of the ability is supposedly offset by it locking you into a melee EnergyWeapon and zero firearms for the duration, but the high damage of the melee (scaling with your equipped melee mods) and wide, long-ranged SwordBeam attacks easily make up for that.

* InASingleBound: His now-retired third skill, ''Super Jump''. His new Slash Dash ability allows him to do so.
** InvisibilityCloak: Granted one while super jumping.

* EnemyScan: Her ''Sonar'' ability sends out a radial sonic ping. Any enemy touched by it temporarily gains an orange glow on some part of their body. See the above trope.

* AwesomeYetPractical: ''Bladestorm''. Yes, the ability has hands-down the longest animation time of any ultimate and occasionally pauses mid-cast to give the server time to calculate where you'll strike next, during which time your allies can (and probably will) kill your targets- especially since they're marked with bright a red indicator of being targeted, which can be easily mistaken for several damage-increasing debuffs such as ''Molecular Prime'', ''Terrify'' or elemental status effects that bear a similar appearance. On the other hand, it's a OneHitKill on most enemies, makes Ash mostly invulnerable while active, and has easily some of the most badass-looking attacks in the game. As of Update 13.5, the animation time has been reduced by the addition of a pair of clones of Ash, and marked enemies can be hit multiple times if their allies have been killed, making it a much stronger execution skill for a limited number of heavier units compared to most ultimates.

* AwesomeYetPractical: ''Exalted Blade''. The low upkeep of the ability is supposedly offset by it locking you into a melee EnergyWeapon and zero firearms for the duration, but the high damage of the melee (scaling with your equipped melee mods) and wide, long-ranged SwordBeam attacks easily make up for that.

* AwesomeButImpractical: ''Bladestorm''. The ability has hands-down the longest animation time of any ultimate and occasionally pauses mid-cast to give the server time to calculate where you'll strike next, during which time your allies can (and probably will) kill your targets- especially since they're marked with bright a red indicator of being targeted, which can be easily mistaken for several damage-increasing debuffs such as ''Molecular Prime'', ''Terrify'' or elemental status effects that bear a similar appearance. On the other hand, it's a OneHitKill on most enemies, makes Ash mostly invulnerable while active, and has easily some of the most badass-looking attacks in the game. Inverted of Update 13.5. The animation time has been reduced by the addition of a pair of clones of Ash, and marked enemies can be hit multiple times if their allies have been killed, making it a much stronger execution skill for a limited number of heavier units compared to most ultimates.

* UselessUsefulSkill: ''Silence''. While an interesting take on stealth mechanics and a nice way to flesh-out Banshee's potential as a ColdSniper, it's widely considered to be completely useless the moment the alarm is sounded, as it provides no crowd-control, protection, or damage bonus (as stealth damage modifiers only apply to melee weapons) to the Banshee unlike Ash and Loki's stealth skills.
** This no longer applies as of Update 13.3, where Silence has gained the ability to reset enemy AI, making it both a potent CC and viable stealth mechanic.

* CrutchCharacter: Somewhat. Throughout most of the game ''Slash Dash'' hits like an atom bomb, insta-gibbing virtually everything and being cheap to boot, while ''Radial Javelin'' clears crowds in a hurry. In high level Defense and Survival missions however, the enemies eventually become tough enough that all pure damage abilities lose their luster, and at that point frames with more utility, like Frost or Nyx, are preferred. Thankfully unlike Ash, Excalibur still has team supporting utility with his ''Radial Blind'' which is quickly cast and will stun any enemy nearby, giving breathing room for himself and the team, while ''Slash Dash'' is still usable as mobility.
** Furthermore, he has found a niche in high level gameplay due to ''Radial Javelin'' becoming a very good way to damage everything in a very wide area after some updates. Combined with four instances of ''Corrosive Projection'', an aura that makes enemies lose all armor, and a Trinity, providing a constant supply of energy, one can kill wipe an entire defense map of enemies with ease, and can continue to do so later on in the mission with some damage buffs. This doesn't diminish his value as an useful starter Warframe, however.
** [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap No longer true since an update made in June 2015]], which added a noticeable amount of armor to it, removed his previous third skill ''Super Jump''[[labelnote:*]]ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, and not even a good skill for mobility, severely outclassed by Valkyr's Rip Line and Nova's Worm Hole.[[/labelnote]], moved his previous ultimate to its position, and granted it a new ultimate, ''[[EnergyWeapon Exalted]] [[SwordBeam Blade]]''.

* FakeLongevity: Thought farming for Nekros was bad? Hydroid is even worse. First, you need to farm up four different types of Beacons, which only drop from a certain rare {{Elite Mook|s}}, unlike the Nav Coordinates that can be gained from any storage container. To make matters worse some of these Beacons are very rare drops. Then with the Beacons you can craft the Frequency Triangulator needed to find and fight Hek. Once you beat Hek enough times to get the Warframe part blueprints, always subject to the RandomNumberGod, you also need to farm up the rare "Argon Crystals" to actually craft the parts - which deteriorate within 24 hours of obtaining the first, making it a mad rush as each of his parts require multiple crystals.
** Slightly alleviated as of update 15.13, where Vay Hek is now a regular boss that can be fought on Earth after you've reached mastery rank 5. The problem with the Argon Crystals still remains, however.

* NotTheIntendedUse: His ability to send allies and enemies into the rift with ''Banish'' is intended to allow for some hard crowd-control on enemies or unique survival boosts for allies, even buffing allies sent within and opening enemies up to ''Rift Surge'''s damage increase. However, the fact that Limbo's allies cannot attack anything on the opposite side of the rift from them (or pick up items while they are in the rift), and have no control over who is ''Banish''ed or for how long, makes Limbo an ideal {{Troll}}ing Warframe simply by swapping focus on which side is being isolated or kept alive.

** For the longest time until Update 16, ''Crush'' lost its ability to ragdoll targets at the end of its animation, leading many players to firmly place it here; it's frequently noted that the experience of collapsing your opponents in on themselves is dampened when they simply drop back on their feet and continue shooting, only pausing for the animation proper -- and being released from it ''[[http://i.imgur.com/XnlvXfp.gif before Mag herself]]''. On enemies where the Magnetic damage would be relevant, Mag already has ''Shield Polarize'' as a more effective damage source.

* FakeLongevity: Has overtaken Hydroid as the worst frame for this. First you have to hope and pray you're online when an Infested Invasion occurs. Then you have to hope and pray that a single Alad V Coordinate will be an invasion reward. Then you've got to do three missions against Infested, hoping against hope that you've found the invasion early enough so that you can finish the three missions you need to before all the other Tenno descend on the mission and pick it dry because ''they'' all need the Coordinate also. You do this three times, then craft an Infested Alad V key, do the boss fight and get a random one of the three parts you need to make it, so you better pray you're lucky here also. The fact that you need Argon Crystals (that vanish within a day of getting them) to make it isn't even a blip on the radar of the RNG grind for the parts. For an incredibly lucky solo player, or someone without a dedicated invasion team, this is at least 27 missions that are incredibly easy to miss, have a chance of simply not having the right reward or that can pay out with the wrong part.

** In addition, perhaps ''Sleight of Hand'''s most practical use is its ability to temporarily disarm laser traps during speed runs.

* UselessUsefulSkill: ''Terrify'', which provides a damage boost against enemies and prevents them from attacking, but also makes those enemies untargetable (as they flee the room in an attempt to hide). Of course, if the Nekros wants to cast it again to deal with the next horde of enemies, all he has to do is track down and kill ''every last one of the enemies [[HoistByHisOwnPetard he just sent away]]''.
** Not necessarily the case anymore, as Terrify is now recastable.
** One frequent complaint about ''Terrify'' is that it's capped to a limited number of enemies per cast. If you don't meet the target cap in the first try, you won't get a second try easily because of the above. If you ''do'' find yourself in a scenario where you reach the cap, you're likely being swarmed and didn't hit everyone shooting you anyway.
** To top it off, the damage boost is relatively low[[labelnote:*]]At maximum Power Strength, it's about a 50% boost on targets with 600 armor or higher; compare Roar, which reaches 142% universally with the same mods, and is the next weakest damage boost available.[[/labelnote]], does not stack with itself[[labelnote:*]]While it can be stacked with other sources of armor reduction, said other sources can remove 100% of armor on their own while Terrify can't even remove half[[/labelnote]], and only applies to armored enemies (limiting usage to Grineer).

* NotTheIntendedUse: ''Mind Control'' is supposed to convert enemies into puppet minions for Nyx like a more powerful ''Chaos'', but because the particle effects highlighted affected enemies and attracted allied gunfire, was most often used for its lengthy stunning capabilities on heavy units. Update 15.2 made the minions absorb Tenno damage instead, dealing it when the effect ends instead.

* CripplingOverspecialization: Prior to Update 11. His high Electric damage output absolutely wrecks the Corpus and their dangerous robots but almost every unit on the other two factions has some innate Electricity resistance even before their armor scaling becomes relevant. This limited damage output is compounded by the fact that the stun effect of the damage type is inconsistent on Grineer and Infested, so in tougher non-Corpus missions Volt is limited to using his Electric Shield as a mobile pillbox and serving as a Speed carrier. As of Update 11, his electric damage is very potent against any enemy since armor scaling has been toned down.

* SmallGirlBigGun: Mag is the shortest (and the least decorated female) Warframe by far, and having her carrying a rocket launcher, an oversize pistol and a gigantic hammer is not slowing her down.

* ArachnidAppearanceAndAttire: His 'ribs' and Syandana give the appearance of spider legs, while his Raksa alternate helmet gives him the extra eyes.

** DifficultButAwesome: With the new June 2015 update, slash dashing at enemies to the next requires aiming precision to target multiple of mooks without spamming. With perfect aiming, he can entirely wipe the floor of a line of enemies with out spamming slash dash.

** InvisibilityCloak: Granted one while superjumping.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: With the right melee weapon or mods, his fourth ability Exalted Blade can decimate a high level boss within a few strikes.

** MasterOfNone: There are Warframes who are better than him in almost every single field (as long as his ultimate ability doesn't persist).
* LaserBlade: Erects an energy sword for his Slash Dash or uses it at it's full potential for Exalted Blade.

** InvisibilityCloak: Granted one while airborne.

** MasterOfNone: There are Warframes who are better than him in almost every single field.
* LaserBlade: He erects an energy sword for his Slash Dash or uses it at it's full potential for Exalted Blade.

One of the three starting Warframes and the game's poster boy, Excalibur has the most balanced set of abilities. His damaging DashAttack, [[InASingleBound Super Jump]], blinding crowd control and high damage Uber remain viable at most stages of play while his stats give him the perfect mix of mobility and durability to ease a new player into the game.

* InASingleBound: His now-retired third skill, ''Super Jump''

* InfinityPlusOneSword: With the right build or mods, his fourth ability Exalted Blade can decimate a high level boss within a few strikes.

* LostForever: Excalibur Prime was only available as part of the limited-time Founders program from closed beta. It is incredibly unlikely that he will ever be made available again to normal players. Frost Prime has been archived in the Prime Vault; while players who already have his blueprints can still trade or build them, no new copies will drop for the foreseeable future.

* MegaManning: Each of his abilities has been accused of being a grenade form of another Warframe's: ''Tesla'' is based off of Volt's ''Shock'', ''Bounce'' off of Excalibur's ''Super Jump'' and Banshee's ''Sonic Boom'', ''Bastille'' off of Rhino's ''Rhino Stomp'' and ''Vortex'' off of both Mag's ''Pull'' and ''Crush''.

** [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap No longer true since an update made in June 2015]], which added a noticeable amount of armor to it, removed his previous third skill Super Jump (ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, and not even a good skill for mobility, severely outclassed by Valkyr's Rip Line and Nova's Worm Hole), moved his previous ultimate to its position, and granted it a new ultimate, [[EnergyWeapon Exalted]] [[SwordBeam Blade]].

* InASingleBound: ''Super Jump''
** InvisibilityCloak: Grants one while airborne.

* StandardStatusEffects: ''Radial Blind'' does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
** NotTheIntendedUse: Observant players found that the blindness causes enemies to literally consider Tenno invisible... complete with the stealth melee damage bonus provided, similar to Ash and Loki.
* StormOfBlades: His ultimate ability, ''Radial Javelin'', in which Excalibur does a SwordPlant and multiple blades shoot from it to impale his enemies. [[labelnote:*]]The namesake "javelins" are actually formed from a pair of Skana swords.[[/labelnote]]

* SwordPlant: Precedes ''Radial Javelin'' with one.