in this guide i'll explain how to power level your gear. Its easy and quick. BUT. I'll have to explain a bit about the whole Affinity system and other stuff. in order that you can get the max out of it!

• Affinity
  
• Do's and Dont's
  
• Levels
  
• The sheep effect (mainly on Hydron)
  
• Archwing
  
• Ending

i'll explain how afffinity works. since lots of people don't quite understand how affinity works.


Affinity is the in-game mechanic for experience points. Warframes, Archwings, Companions and weapons are all capable of earning Affinity. It is earned by killing enemies, hacking terminals, completing objectives/Missions/challenges, using Warframe powers, or picking up Affinity Orbs.

Affinity is only shown numerically in the player's profile. Elsewhere, they are shown only as progress bars to the next level for that piece of equipment, such as in the Arsenal, during missions, or in the end-mission report.

Upon gaining enough Affinity, equipment will rank up and (once the equipment's rank exceeds a player's Mastery Rank) gain one extra point of Mod capacity (two points when supercharged via an Orokin Catalyst or Orokin Reactor), used for applying mods. Affinity is stored in each specific item, not the player's character/account; if an item is sold or used in crafting, it loses all of its associated Affinity and ranks.

Affinity indirectly affects a player's Mastery Rank. A player gains 200 Mastery points per affinity level on a previously unranked Warframe, Archwing or Companion, and 100 Mastery points per level on a previously unranked weapon. Once a player has acquired sufficient Mastery points, they can take the test to increase their Mastery Rank.

The amount of Affinity a weapon or frame has earned during a mission can be seen in the post-mission report, just to the left of the reward info box, where it is referred to as XP (experience).




Using the Affinity Booster, purchasable for Platinum64‍ 40, doubles Affinity gain for 3 days, 7 days with the Platinum64‍ 80 booster, or 30 days with the Platinum64‍ 200 booster.

Some Prime Access packages also have special 90-day Affinity boosters.

Acquisition
Warframes and weapons gain Affinity for several types of actions, detailed below. Unless specified otherwise, all Affinity gained uses the same split: 25% of the amount goes to your Warframe and 75% of the amount is divided evenly among all equipped weapons (25% each for three, 37.5% each for two, or the full 75% if only one is equipped).



All of the Affinity goes to the Warframe.

Half of the Affinity goes to the Warframe and half to the killing weapon.

When within 50 meters of an ally when they kill an enemy, you gain the same total Affinity, distributed as specified above. This doesn't reduce the Affinity gained by the killing player, and doesn't reduce the Affinity gained by other nearby allies. This applies to Archwing mode with much larger ranges for shared affinity.



Companions gain their own Affinity, similar to Tenno.

Total Affinity upon kills is equal to that gained by Tenno. The owner of the Companion gains no Affinity.

50% Affinity is split between the Companion and its weapon.
100% Affinity to the Companion.

Affinity gained by the Companion does not detract from that gained by its owner.

50% Affinity is split between the Companion and its weapon.
100% Affinity to the Companion in the absence of a weapon.

Bonus Affinity

If a player completes a mission successfully they gain bonus Affinity based on the amount gained during the mission. Bonus Affinity is showed as yellow in the end of mission report and is an additional 125% of the base affinity earned for each item.

Level Requirements

To reach a given level from unranked, a Warframe or Sentinel needs 1000 × level2 Affinity in total. A weapon needs half that amount.

To reach the same level from the previous level, a Warframe or Sentinel needs 1000 × (2 × level − 1) Affinity. Again, a weapon needs half that amount.

Originally posted by author:

Pie chart illustrating the proportion of each level of the total affinity required to rank any item from unranked to 30.

this is the most important section of the whole guide. i'll explain the common mistakes people do and from what've seen in the times ive been leveling my weapons.

The Dont's people do:

Reason why this is a DONT.

the more stuff you equip the less affinity goes to the weapon you want to level. since affinity spreads. even your maxed weapons keep gaining affinity. thats why you'd have like over millions of exp. on your weapons you always use.

For example on this image. is one of my weapons wich has lots of Exp gain and keeps getting exp even tho i do missions with max ranked gear:

Affinity spreads over weapons even tho they are maxed out. so in order to get more affinity to your weapon to level is to ONLY EQUIP YOUR WARFRAME AND THE WEAPON YOU WANT TO LEVEL.



like this:


If you do the following like this, you will gain more affinity to your weapon.

BUT. dont start nuking or massively do AOI damage with your frame

i will explain soon

Reason why this is a DONT.

in order to GAIN affinity to your weapons is either KILL or collect AFFINITY ORBS (wich look like this)



most people THINK they gain affinity while nuking the whole map or do massive AOI damage since the other squad members try to get an kill while the player is nuking with their frame.

so they see the weapon is getting a small bit of EXP and think the nuking method works.

Also Hydron used to be one of the FOCUS farm maps. but now the onslaught is out its mainly aimed to do focus farming there. (i am not telling to stop nuking on hydron / helene but it will make it super boring for other players who want to play.) ((some like it some dont))

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO!

Originally posted by author:

even stalker approves on these Do's

for example if you are about to go for 5 or 15 waves of defense in order to level up your gear. its best to take a supportive or buffing frame in order to make it easy for you and the other players!

• Rhino
  (for weapon dmg buff)
  
• Speed nova
  ( make the ability strength under the 100 in order to speed up the whole defense)
  
• Trinity
  (to heal or give your allies energy.)
  
• Octavia
  (While crouching on the ''song beat'' you make yourself ivisible. shooting on the beat makes buffs your low tier or weapon a bit more to do damage overall. Octavia is a good frame for buffs. like rhino for example.)

the frames i dont really reccomend is:

• Frost
  (hes good for defense, but lots of people start to place random bubbles. And for me then its annoying if they dont pop them and the elevaitor on the hydron / helene map is already annoying itself and since you cant trough the frost bubble from the outside it might be annoying when you try to shoot enemies. (not all people know this.)
  
• Gara
  (because she can make a huge glass wall makes the process in the defense wayyy slower than it can be. since the most people aim for max range on these defense maps (talking about hydron and helene)
  
• Limbo
  (Limbo is one of those frames who just has a bad reputation / status since lots of people assume they dont know how to play limbo. since limbo is a Quest gifted frame in the beginning of the game. lots of beginners start to banish all enemies they see and dont quite understand the whole rift concept. and they dont know they can shift slide their allies in the rift / banish them in the rift. (i use limbo in Sorties a lot and lots of people just leave since theres a limbo (there are lots of salty people on Sorties btw) You can use limbo but all you have to do is make a pure strong ability strength build with range on limbo and just spam his riftbubble (4) you clap one and then you press 4 again to remove the bubble. and it continues (but i dont reccomend Nuking if you want to level your weapons)

if you want to level your weapons fast and you have only your frame and the weapon you want to level i reccomend playing as speed nova. i can level my weapon in less than 8 minutes to 30 and have done 10 waves on hydron. (you should do this if you want to level VERY QUICK and are in a hurry for example)

BIGGEST PRO THING YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO HYDRON OR HELENE. OR ANY OTHER NON INFESTED DEFENSE IS EQUIPPING THIS COOL MOD

This mod is an AURA mod. and aura mods STACK. so 4x CP (corrosive projection) strips the whole armor of the enemy and they are easier to kill.

So wich levels are the best for powerleveling?

from what ive all done i have 3 levels. one is Seimeni on Ceres.
one is Helene on Saturn
And the most known one is Hydron on Sedna.

Ceres:

Level : 15 - 25
Faction : Infested
(Dark sector)

I reccomend ceres for beginners. the ones who havent Saturn or Sedna unlocked yet.
the strategy you have to follow is :

Step on the elevaitor roll out. and jump down. you will teleport on top outside and its faster. then you play for 5 waves. and leave. and do this over. (the mission end gives you also some credits. as far i remember 40K Wich is nice addition for beginners)

Saturn

Level : 21 - 26
Faction : Grineer (use the Corrosive projection Aura to make it easier)

Helene, is for the people who want to have the same map as Hydron but havent it unlocked yet. Helene is easier but you have to do more waves to get more Affinity.

doing from 5 to 10 waves grants more Affinity than doing 2x 5 waves.

the avarage waves you do on helene is 15 - 20

Sedna

Level : 43 - 45
Faction : Grineer (use the Corrosive projection Aura to make it easier)

The average waves you do is 10. but you should keep an eye on some people.

some people want to continue to wave 10. but if someone extracts already. the sheep effect can kick in.
either some people think (you've been leeching / having low damage in general / kills) and want to 'troll' you and leave you behind all alone. (yes this is a thing and its happening still to this day.

the followed black text is a spoiler in the game, if you havent done the second dream / the war within yet dont read if you dont like being spoiled. if you dont care you can read it.

(some people think you AFK / Leech when you are killing things in operator mode. since your character is doing nothing. (if attacked it might do the normal idle animation and can fool some squad members and think you do nothing and pull the leave - you - behind trick.

ive asked some people if they do it or on wich occation would you pull a troll out like that?
and most have been answering : when people leech. or when i have been carrying them.










also when encountering a leecher. ask if he will do something, and if you are getting annoyed or bothered by the person leeching either leave or just extract right after. since no one likes leechers.

Archwing has the same affinity rules as warframes. in the end archwings themselves give 6000 MR EXP. and Archwing weapons only 3000 MR EXP.


Salacia is an mobile defense mission, i highly reccomend to do public squad. there's always people joining. wich makes things easier. and makes more enemies spawn.

the only problem archwing has is, the map is huge. so you have to watch the affinity range.

Originally posted by author:

i got this image off google so im not going to show the names of these people i dont want to name shame etc.

the affinity range is standard 50M in this game. in archwing its doubbeled. so it will be 100M so the map on HYDRON / HELENE. is the smallest defense map in the game and the easiest one to level since everyone stays in the affinity range (unless you afk in the spawn you get none. its outside the affinity range)


The average round you do on the Archwing map is up to 4 / 5 times. (With booster) without booster you can add 2 or 3 round on top of it. since its mobile defense you should keep killing the enemies after you've defended all satelites. the remaining enemies are still around and you can fetch yourself some extra additional exp. so you wont need to run so many rounds (not everyone enjoys archwing and we all know that)

I hope you have learned additional information and tips trough the Guide!

the main reason i made this guide is just because ive seen lots of people nuking around while they dont know about the whole affinity system! and lots of people who are almost max MR rank even dont know about it!

if you are a high MR rank and just discovered the myth too. you shouldnt feel ashamed! tips are always welcome and upvoting this will mean a lot to me! i try my best to make this guide clear as possible for everyone! even for beginners!

under this line of text and my Speednova sassy thanking you all are some info and tips i tell and im signing off :)

Originally posted by author:

Even Nova says ''YOU CAN DO IT!''

Zaws and amps. they only give MR affinity while gilded and are tied to the "Strike" (Zaws) and the "Prism" (Amp) that are used

if you max a weapon with the balla strike (Zaws) all other weapons that use the Balla strike no longer give affinity.

Originally posted by ☆Futaba Sakura☆:

for making a clear statement. that ZAWS and AMPS only gain Affinity to your MR rank after they are Gilded.

Try not to Trash your weapon after you've maxed. some weapons are required to craft new weapons with it. try to search your weapon on the Warframe WIKI if its an must in a new weapon in order to craft it!! (if you've trashed your old weapon you can recraft it IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE RANK 30 !!)

DO NOT TRASH THE BROKEN WAR after you've done the second dream quest. its an weapon needed to craft the WAR. that can drop from stalker! (stalker does drop the broken war blueprint but in order to get the broken war parts is very painfull to do so.)