One of the best aspects of Warframe is how much customization it gives to the player. You can modify your character’s appearance, emotes, idle animation, and the way that character functions with the game’s in-depth modding system.
Augments are a special type of Mod that adds or modifies mechanical components to abilities. Like Mods themselves, not all augments are created equal. Some augments are strong enough to make an ability worth using, while others are so niche that they never see use in peoples’ loadouts. With that said, the strong augments in Warframe truly are game-changing and should be used when possible. Here are the ten best augment Mods you can use in Warframe. This list is in no particular order.
Updated August 1st, 2021, by Charles Burgar: The value of augments has changed significantly since this article was originally written. Deimos’ Helminth segment has fundamentally shifted the power of certain augments, as Warframes can now access certain powers that other Warframes use. We’ve updated our list to account for subsumable abilities, shifts to the meta, and we’ve included the Mod’s description under each entry.
11 Elemental Damage Augments
General Mod Description: Hold to cast will grant all allies within 15m an additional 100% [Element] Damage to their attacks for 40s.
We’re going to cheat with this entry (and the next one) by including multiple augment Mods that do the same thing. Certain element-themed Warframes have an ability augment that grants a damage boost to yourself and nearby allies for 40 seconds, granting 100% of your damage as extra damage of a certain element type.
These augments include:
Grants Fire damage
Can be subsumed
Grants Cold damage
Grants Radiation damage
Can be subsumed
Grants Corrosive damage
Grants Electricity damage
Can be subsumed
Some of these abilities can be subsumed onto other Warframes, allowing you to use these damage-boosting augments on other Warframes. These augments bypass the one damage ability rule that Helminth enforces, so you could put Oberon’s Smite Infusion on Chroma or Rhino if you wanted even more damage. If you’re making a Condition Overload build or just love making your damage numbers grow larger, these augments should be in your collection.
10 Loot Augments
Similar to elemental damage augments, there are a few augments that revolve around loot drops. All of these Mods increase the number of loot enemies drop while affected by a certain skill.
25% chance of more loot when killing petrified enemies
Affected by Power Strength
Can be subsumed
Affected by Power Strength
100% loot drop chance for enemies affected by Tentacle Swarm
60% loot drop chance for enemies affected by Strangledome
These effects stack with each other and boosters. And since Warframe is a game about farming for loot, bringing a Warframe that increases your loot drops is always beneficial. You can even put Altas’ Petrify and Ore Gaze augment onto Khora, Hydroid, or Nekros to further increase your loot drops.
9 Negation Swarm
Negation Swarm (Scarab Swarm Augment): Scarab armor protects Inaros from status effects, consuming 3% bonus armor for each effect resisted.
While Inaros has the largest health pool in Warframe by a large margin, he is still susceptible to status effects and knockdowns that can prove deadly in high-level content.
Negation Swarm is a simple augment that prevents status effects and knockdowns from affecting Inaros while Scarab Swarm is active. It consumes 3% of your Scarab Swarm when this occurs, but it only takes 3% for every status affecting you recently. That means if you get hit by 10 heat procs in quick succession, it will only take 3% of your armor instead of 30%, making this Mod a must-have on any Inaros build.
8 Seeking Shuriken
Seeking Shuriken (Shuriken Augment): Hits expose weaknesses on enemies, reducing their armor by 70% for 8 seconds.
Since enemy armor scales aggressively in Steel Path, it is important to have ways of stripping it quickly. While there are quite a few ways of reducing enemy armor, there are limited options for stripping armor altogether.
Meet Seeking Shuriken, an augment for Ash’s Shuriken ability. This augment causes Shuriken to strip 70% of a target’s armor for a short time. With a little bit of power strength, this can fully strip enemy armor with a single cast, leaving them vulnerable to Viral and Heat weapons.
But wait, this ability gets better. There are two notable things about Shuriken:
The ability to give any Warframe an armor-stripping ability that doesn’t even interrupt your character makes this one of the best augments in the game. If your build seriously struggles to deal with enemy armor, Seeking Shuriken will solve all of your problems.
7 Mesa’s Waltz
Mesa’s Waltz (Peacemaker Augment): Mesa can move at 50% speed while using Peacemaker.
One of the only negatives tied to Mesa’s ultimate is it locks her in place. Once you deploy your Peacemakers, you can’t move at all until the ability ends. That changes with Mesa’s Waltz.
Originally a PvP augment, Mesa’s Waltz allows Mesa to walk and roll while in her ultimate. Your default walk speed is quite slow, but the ability to roll allows Mesa to quickly reposition mid-fight. This is also an Exilus Mod, meaning this Mod has virtually no opportunity cost. If you main Mesa, this is a must-own.
6 Spectrosiphon
Spectrosiphon (Spectrorage Augment): Enemies that die within Spectrorage have a 50% chance to drop an energy orb.
Spectrosiphon went from trash to treasure with the release of the Helminth system. This augment for Gara’s Spectrorage causes affected targets to have a 50% chance of dropping an Energy Orb when slain. Most agree that this has limited use on Gara since she doesn’t spam her abilities much.
But for Warframes that love spamming their abilities, Spectrosiphon is a fantastic augment for an already highly underrated ability. Specrorage’s effective range is much larger than it appears, providing a decent bit of crowd control. When you pair its large range with Spectrosiphon, you can create a sea of Energy Orbs with a single ability cast and a few kills. It’s an excellent way of fixing a Warframe’s Energy issues without investing in Arcane Energize, Energy Pads, or the Focus system.
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4 Lasting Covenant
Lasting Covenant (Covenant Augment): Headshot kills increase crit chance bonus duration by 3 seconds.
Covenant is one of the strongest damage buffs in Warframe, granting Harrow and allies in the initial casting range up to 50% increased critical chance with all weapons. If you land headshots, that bonus increases to 200%. This ability is normally offset by Covenant’s limited duration, but that all changes with Lasting Covenant.
With this augment, landing headshot kills while Covenant is active will extend its duration, up to 3x its initial duration. Giving your entire team a permanent 200% critical chance buff is nothing short of absurd, allowing the likes of the Kuva Nukor to instantly kill bosses and Acolytes in Steel Path. Even if Harrow’s kit requires him to do all the legwork to benefit his team, getting Covenant to reach its maximum critical chance buff is fairly easy.
3 Eternal War
Eternal War (Warcry Augment): While active, Warcry’s duration is increased by 2 seconds for each melee kill.
Valkyr’s Warcry Augment allows her to maintain Warcry’s attack speed and armor buffs indefinitely through killing targets. Every time you defeat an enemy with melee while Warcry is active, it extends its timer. The timer cannot exceed 2x its normal duration.
This augment is extremely powerful for two reasons:
You can put this augment or Baruuk or Excalibur and use their Exalted weapons with this augment, allowing them to attack much faster than normal. If you love melee weapons in Warframe, this augment is a must.
2 Safeguard
Safeguard (Warding Halo Augment): Can now be cast on allies with 50% effectiveness.
After his rework, Nezha is now a formidable frame that can provide great crowd control while taking a significant amount of damage.
With Safeguard, his protective Chakram can now affect allies as well. Simply cast your ability on an ally, and they will receive a copy of your Warding Halo ability, allowing them to absorb enemy damage, status effects, and even stun melee targets that get too close. “Ally” is a much broader term than you’d expect. You can apply this to friendly players, companions (MOAs, Sentinels, etc.), and even defense objectives. Nezha becomes a solid support option for your team with this augment.
1 Accumulating Whipclaw
Accumulating Whipclaw (Whipclaw Augment): Hitting 3 enemies will grant a 35% stacking Damage Bonus to subsequent Whipclaws. Bonus will decay after 10s.
Accumulating Whipclaw is an augment for Khora that grants a stacking 35% damage buff if three or more enemies were hit with Whipclaw recently.
Since her Whipclaw already does absurd damage, Khora can easily one-shot foes with this augment. The bonus decays after ten seconds, but it decays slowly at a rate of 2.5% per second after the grace period. If you can keep this buff going, you can get a massive 350% damage increase that can be further amplified if enemies are in your Strangedome ultimate. Few abilities can deal as much damage as Whipclaw with this augment.
