Nekros Prime
Patch 34.0
Nekros Prime - Gloom Nekros | Infinite Crowd Control 95-99% slow | Steel Path (Patch 34.0)
| PATCH VERSION | 34.0 |
| MASTERY REQUIRED | 0 |
| FORMA REQUIRED | 4 |
| ENDO REQUIRED | 146,430 |
Reaper of Time | Gloom Nekros | Infinite Crowd Control 95-99% slow | Steel Path
Introduction:
Nekros is one of the few frames that can utilise and maintain Gloom at or just near the slow cap of 95% while at low duration/efficiency. This is due to the synergy of desecrate, [Despoil], equilbrium and energize which can generate tons of energy even while Gloom is active, provided you can kill enemies fast enough. This allows [Nekros] to effectively lock down maps while staying near full energy all the time. Terrify also has some synergy with this build as Gloom slows down the rate of running away to a crawl (basically achieving what the augment does), while the high strength benefits armor strip to approximately 53%. You can even add in the augment [Creeping Terrify] to add an 80% slow that multiplies with gloom to hit exactly 99% slow!
There is an extra layer of survivability afforded by shield gating, catalyzing shields/[Rolling Guard] and optional shield [Regen] from [Brief Respite], with soul punch giving you max shields in 2 soul punch or one terrify, for any stray bullets that enter from outside the slow field.
If you prefer a traditional tanking style Nekros, you can use this variant: https://overframe.gg/build/219927/
Why replace Shadows of the Dead instead of Soul Punch?
This is mostly personal preference, but Shadows has a very long animation and consumes alot of energy just to create some mostly unnecessary fodder allies that draw enemy fire, which isnt even that useful when enemies are slowed by Gloom. In addition, Soul Punch can ALSO convert enemies into Shadows even with when Shadows is subsumed over AND heal them to full by just soul punching when the max shadows have been reached. You can convert by either 'marking' an enemy you want to convert with soul punch then killing them OR casting it on an enemy below 25% health to insta kill it. If you prefer to recast shadows instead, just subsume Gloom over 1.
**Update 2023: Due to armor strip changes, Terrify is now an excellent AOE armor strip that also acts as hard crowd control. The usual issue is that terrify makes enemies run AWAY, which is often detrimental to kill speeds. However, Gloom completely fixes that by slowing them to basically a stand still (even more so than [Creeping Terrify]). Since we now spam Terrify alot more to strip and kill enemies, as well as use it to shield gate, I chose to remove Blind Rage from the build and rely on external strength sources such as Molt Augmened and Molt Vigor or even Madurai/Zenurik to allow you to hit slow cap.
Playstyle:
- Tap 3 to activate Desecrate and keep active at all times. Kill enemies with this active to generate health orbs which are converted to energy by [Equilibrium].
- Tap 4 to activate Gloom and keep active (can reactivate gloom after 250 kills and using operator ability to hit 95% slow cap)
- Cast 2 when surrounded by groups of enemies to crowd control them, fully strip armor and reset shield gate as needed, gloom makes them not run away like usual
- Cast 1 on heavy units when low on health (<25%) to instant kill them + spawn a shadow. Usually I tend to spam 1 while shooting heavy enemies since it is onehanded and has a quick cast animation. Killing an enemy within 3s AFTER you soul punch will also spawn a shadow. Once you [Reach] 7 shadows, casting 1 and killing with then heal all current shadows to full health instead.
Here is a sample video showing some shield gating (cast 2 to refill shields immediately after getting hit), the health/energy regen from equilibrium, the insane slow of Gloom and the hilarious 30-40s downtime from Arcane Eruption:
Here is what happens when you combine Gloom and [Creeping Terrify]:
Attributes & Abilities:
Duration
Duration affects gloom drain, shadow decay and terrify duration but is not overly important to invest in, nor should it be completely dumped. Keeping this neutral to positive is fine (100-155%).
Efficiency
Energy economy relies on desecrate producing health orbs (which have been buffed to 50) and [Equilibrium] which converts each orb to give 55 energy. You could go 45% efficiency but this will make terrify cost alot more and gloom drain alot faster, which overall makes the build feel less comfortable to play. I would suggest playing around with efficiency to a level that suits your playstyle, but I find 100% the most comfortable.
Range
This is flexible and down to preference and tileset. Having too large a range on a map with small rooms may mean you slow enemies in other rooms or scare them away from you before you even see them. Having too small a range on large open tilesets may mean you won't be affecting the distant enemies at all. I find 175% is a decent range for most circumstances.
Strength
To hit the 95% slow cap of Gloom, exactly 272% power strength is needed. [Umbral Intensify] + [Augur Secrets] + Molt Augmented + Molt Vigor hits exactly 273% strength. Terrify only needs 167% strength to full strip.
If you run a combination of Zenurik/Madurai and either Molt Vigor or Molt Augmented/Archon Shards you can get between 45%/65%/85%/100% extra ability strength. This means you could drop augur secrets for Augur Message or other flexible options.
Suggested Aura Mod:
Suggested Exilus Mod:
If you don't own [Primed Sure Footed], [Preparation] in exilus is the next best thing since it allows you to start a mission with max energy which means you can activate gloom straight away. Other exilus options are [Power Drift], [Handspring], [Vigilante Pursuit] e.t.c, depending on your preference
Suggested Warframe Arcane Enhancements (Max Rank Description):
- Arcane Eruption - On Energy Pickup, 100% chance to Knockdown nearby enemies.
- Molt Augmented - On Kill, +0.24% Ability Strength. Stacks up to 250x. - free strength boost to free up sterngth mods and allow you to hit Gloom slow cap. Augmented provides 60% str after 250 kills.
- Molt Vigor - On Operator Ability, 45% Ability Strength on next Warframe Ability Cast. - free strength boost to free up sterngth mods and allow you to hit Gloom slow cap. Vigor provides 45% after using operator ability.
Suggested Archon Shards (Tauforged):
- TWO Amber Archon Shards +25% (+37.5%) Casting Speed - amazing for making terrify cast very fast, and if you want to keep Shadows instead of Soul Punch
- THREE Crimson Archon Shards +10% (+15%) Ability Strength - replace [Augur Secrets] for a flexible option like [Creeping Terrify], [Streamline], [Augur Reach] or [Primed Continuity].
Suggested Focus School:
- Madurai:
Power Transfer - 50% Casting Speed on switching to Warframe.
Sling Strength - Switching to Warframe after a Chained Sling adds 40% Ability Strength for 20s. - Vazarin:
Void Snare - Ability launches a projectile that spins up a vortex trap on impact, or tap 2 again to detonate in-flight. Trap lasts 8s.
Protective Sling - Allies touched by Void Sling are granted immunity from damage for 5s and healed 60% over 5s for 10 energy cost. - Naramon:
Power Spike - Melee Combo Counter now decays while out of combat by 5 every few seconds, instead of depleting completely. - Unairu:
Poise - Gain immunity to slow, stagger, and knockdown effects for 40s after transferring between Operator or Warframe.
Magnetic Flare - Use your first Ability to create a 8m radius field that lasts for 30s and disables the shields of any enemy that enters it.
Caustic Strike - Second Ability launches an energy bomb that explodes with a 8m radius, stripping 100% of enemy armor. Tap 2 again to detonate in-flight. - Zenurik: <- reccomended if you struggle with your Energy Pool
Energy Pulse - Energy pickups grant 50 % additional energy over 5s.
Wellspring - First Ability creates a well of energy for 8s. Allies passing through the well gain 5 Energy/s for 30s. Use your first Ability inside a Wellspring to increase its size, boost its duration by 20s, and grant 20% Ability Strength to those inside.
Temporal Drag - Second Ability emits a radial burst, slowing any enemy it touches by 80% for 10s.
Suggested Helminth Subsumable Abilities:
- Gloom - Crowd Control, Healing.
Suggested Loadout:
-
For maximum looting with desecrate, we want to use weapons that divide enemy bodies into 2 on kill. This allows you to have two chances per enemy to generate loot.
There are TWO main ways to achieve this:- Non-DOT raw or physical damage on a weapon with >50% innate slash bias. This just means the weapon has >50% proportion of its physical IPS damage components as slash, which can be modified by +slash mods but is NOT affected by elemental mods. You can then mod raw damage on like viral, corrosive, radiation etc depending on the enemy you face. Since [Nekros] has armor strip, raw viral damage modded weapons are typically the way to go. Note, kills via SLASH PROCS (aka BLEED PROCS) will NOT split enemies, so be careful not to use high slash status weapons like weeping wounds modded nikana prime etc.
Examples of good raw damage moddable weapons with >50% slash bias include:
- Phenmor
- Miter Incarnon
- Dread Incarnon
- Tenet Flux Rifle
- Soma Incarnon
- Boltor Incarnon
- Braton Incarnon
- Kuva Kohm
- Pyrana Prime
- Vasto Incarnon
- Dual Toxocyst (requires +slash mod)
- Nearly all good slash melees (just mod for raw viral) eg [Nikana Prime], [Kronen Prime], [Hate] incarnon, [Gunsen Prime], [Praedos]. ([Dual Ichor] requires a +slash mod).
- [Amalgam Ripkas True Steel] forces enemies to be 'gored' on death, meaning they will be split from kills from ANY source including bleed procs, AOE damage, raw damage and even ability kills eg thermal sunder. Note, sometimes if your final hit is on the head or a limb, the split body part may NOT be desecrated. Overall this is the most flexible method allowing you to use very strong high KPM primary and secondary weapons to bisect enemies, eg [Torid] Incarnon, [Ocucor]. Amalgam Ripkas also has bonus to increasing shotgun reload speed, so you can pair it with a strong shotgun for maximum synergy:
- Strun Incarnon
- Boar Incarnon
- Phantasma
- Felarx
- Tenet Arca Plasmor
- Cedo
- [Phage]