The eldritch storyteller, works out in a library, overguard overload - Dante!
Release date: 2024-03-27
Passive: Enemies slain by Noctua’s primary fire, alt-fire, and page fragments are scanned into the Codex upon death, with each enemy death recording 1 scan entry. Enemy types with completed Codex research become permanently debuffed with Chronicler’s Mark, which grants Dante’s equipped weapons, including the Noctua itself, and Final Verse’s Wordwarden Noctua copies an extra 50% Status Chance versus these foes.
Noctua - Open Noctua, Dante’s Exalted Tome, and unleash a tale of woe upon his enemies.
Light Verse - Dante’s vitalizing composition grants him and his allies Overguard and increases their Max Health.
Dark Verse - Dante’s composition draws blood from nearby enemies, inflicting Slash Damage upon them.
Final Verse - Dante must compose two other Verses before his Final Verse.
Acquisition: Main and component can be obtained from Rotation C of Disruption Armatus on Deimos.
It’s been over half a year since his release and the previous time he appeared on Weekly Warframe, and given he was the next frame in line anyway I thought it’s a good idea to revisit the owl librarian (especially as we only have 2 frames left!)
This guy turned out to be incredible, even post his LoS nerfs (he was OP before, they were more than warranted). Insane overguard generation for the entire team, slash procs everywhere and a way to cash in all that DoT damage instantly for a huge nuke. Noctua can either be a weapon capable of nuking crowns by itself or an incredible utility tool for Dante if slotted with all of the Tome mods. One of the best caster frames in general, if you want to just spam abilities and completely ignore your weapons Dante is your frame!
I loved him at release and then kinda just stopped playing him and forgot about him. I never really managed to make a noctua build that works well, it feels kinda like hildryn’s balefire in that by the time I switch to it, I could have just used my weapons to kill stuff (and at least hildryn can use a powerful version of it during aegis storm nowadays thanks to that augment). The rest of his abilities feel kinda bland - the overguard is amazing but I didn’t really vibe with the dark verses spam for damage and the other 2 abilities are just self buffs that you maintain.
I think I’m also a bit disappointed with the verse mechanic, it’s 3 buttons for ultimately only 4 outcomes. They might as well have avoided the gimmick and made it the standard single press / button hold. Press #3 for light verse, hold #3 for Triumph. Press #4 for dark verse, hold #4 for Tragedy. Press #2 for Wordwarden, hold #2 for Pageflight. Same outcome, less button mashing 🤷♂️
Hands down my favorite support/buff frame. Roar over 1 combined with his other abilities just gives so much survivability and damage in any form of content. Honestly my most played frame since his release.
I played him a bit before the LOS nerfs, because he was really funny. After that, he’s still one of the strongest frames, but idk, he’s just kinda boring. Being constantly invincible and all…
