Warframe Beginner’s Guide

The Wiki’s Beginner Guide is good. I have tried to cover areas they do not.

What Starting Frame should I get?
Any of them are fine, and you can get all of them eventually. Don’t agonize over the choice; each warframe has advantages and disadvantages, but they are fairly balanced.

Excalibur is a balanced frame. His first ability, “Slash Dash”, causes him to shoot forward killing everything in front of him. Radial blind is a good crowd control ability and Radial Javelin is an AOE damage power. He’s got the best durability of the starting frames, although he is not durable enough to be a tank.
Excalibur build guide.

Mag has the best offensive powers of the starting frames. In update 10, she received a good buff, and so is now viable even in late game play. If you want to play a “mage type” character, she is your choice. Her first ability, Pull, ragdolls enemies and is a cheap crowd control ability. Shield polarize depletes the shields of your enemies and recharges them for you allies and is an excellent support ability. “Bullet Attractor” increases damage to one enemy and makes them easier to hit, making killing bosses easier. Crush is an AoE damage ability.
Mag build guide

Volt is a speedy electricity based Warframe. His powers are fairly diverse. Shock will kill a handful of enemies. Speed makes your team run really fast for a few seconds. Electric shield blocks enemy shots and makes you do more damage when you shoot through it. Overload does a lot of AOE damage to everything around you, boosted by lights, panels, and other objects. He has a good amount of shields, medium health, but low armor.
Volt build guide.

What Starter Weapons Should I get?
The game currently offers new players a choice between 3 primary, 3 secondary, and 3 melee weapons. Overall, I think each choice is fairly well balanced. Youn can buy the other starter weapons in the market for credits, so don’t worry about picking the wrong weapon too much.

Primaries:
Mk1 Braton – Fast firing, accurate, but low damage assault rifle.
Mk1 Strun – Semi Automatic shotgun, good against Corpus, bad at long range.
Mk1 Paris – A bow with low rate of fire. Good against Grineer, silent and accurate, but arrows have travel time and drop over distance.

Secondaries:
Mk1 Kunai – Silent throwing daggers. Powerful, but hard to hit with.
Lato – Semi automatic pistol. Accurate, but low damage.
Mk1 Furis – High rate of fire, low damage, medium accuracy, poor ammo economy. Good against Grineer at mid-close range. The best starting secondary, in my opinion.

Melee:
Skana – Single handed sword. Medium speed, medium range, medium damage.
Mk1 Bo – Slower swinging, but higher damage. It can stagger and ragdoll enemies, which is useful in 1 on 1 fights. The best starting melee weapon, in my opinion.
Mk1 Furax – Tenno boxing gloves. High damage, but limited range.

The starting weapons aren’t nearly as powerful as weapons you can get later in the game.

Primary
Any of the “second tier” weapons are fine:
DPS is listed at the basic unmodded level.
Braton (126 Damage Per Second) – A more powerful, but less accurate version of the MK 1 Braton (85 DPS). Average against all factions, and can be purchased for only 25,000 credits.
Boltor (161) – Fully auto bolt rifle. Good vs. Grineer.
Burston (195) – A balanced burst fire rifle.
Latron (152) – Semi Auto precision rifle. Good against Grineer.
Strun (114) – Semi auto shotgun. Good against Corpus, and can be purchased for 75,000 credits.
Hind (206 DPS)- Burst fire weapon average against all factions.
Grakata (154 DPS) – High rate of fire SMG average against all factions.

It’s not a big deal to try a weapon out for 10 or 20 levels and sell it if you don’t like it. Although it will cost you in terms of materials and credits, you’ll build up some mastery rank, which will unlock better weapons.

Secondary
The Sicarus (115) is powerful considering it only costs 20,000 credits, although the bullet spread is pretty substantial. You can drag the mouse down while firing to increase accuracy. The Bolto (158) shoots bolts which pin enemies to walls and is good vs. Grineer. The Bolto can be upgraded to a dual version, the Akbolto (253).

Melee
The Amphis and Dual Kamas are the best mastery rank 0, non-Prime weapons. The Dual Heat Swords are also good and are cheap to make.

Sentinels
A Sentinel is a floating support robot that gives you various buffs while you are playing. Shade gives you temporary stealth, which is great in a pinch. Carrier is the best if you just want extra damage, and it also picks up items for you. The other three Sentinels are not as good. Kubrows are extremely expensive and less effective than Sentinels.

What should I buy with Platinum?
Free players: Get one warframe slot and 4 additional weapon slots (2 purchases of 2 slots each), for a total of 12 weapon slots. Since each faction is weak against different weapons, this will allow you to have a set of 3 weapons for each and have 3 extra slots for weapons you are leveling. To buy weapon slots, go to your inventory, click on Arsenal > Inventory > Buy Slots. Don’t bother with catalysts, reactors, or forma, since you can get these through alerts and log in rewards. The extra slots will allow you more versatility and room to expand into the higher tiers of equipment.

The 170 Platinum pack is $10 and 370 Platinum is $20, which can be reduced by coupons. Personally, I would wait for a 50% off coupon or sale, which happen fairly frequently. If you get the 75% off coupon, you should get the 1000 Platinum package for $12.50, which is a great deal.

Get Catalysts and a Reactors for your favorite Warframes and weapons. Don’t put Catalysts on starter weapons, but starter frames are fine to supercharge. Get plenty of Warframe and weapon slots; I recommend having at least 4 Warframe slots (Tank, stealth, caster, support), and 18 weapon slots (60 platinum worth). If you have Platinum left over, get some cosmetic accessories or color palates. Sentinels are also a good deal for 75 platinum each.

In addition to the stuff above, get lots of Catalysts, more warframe and weapon slots, a Sentinel, some cosmetics, such as more colors, attachments for your Sentinel, syandanas, etc. You can go to trading and buy prime parts as well.

Steam packs are not a good deal unless they are on a significant sale (50%+). If you want to throw a lot of money at the game (as I have), just buy a ton of Platinum.

What are the best next Frames to get?
Get Rhino first. He’s versatile and extremely durable, and you can get his blueprints on Venus (Fossa) almost right away. He requires Mastery Rank 2, but by the time you’ve ground out the parts and gotten your starter warframe to level 30, you should be there.

Try to get a variety of Warframes. Go on youtube to watch some gameplay of a warframe before you buy it, if you are unsure about which to pick.

Other Tips
Remember to fuse and equip new mods you get to increase the power of your weapons. Check out my build guides if you need help determining how best to modify a weapon.

You can buy prime weapon parts from other users in the trading chat. Prime weapons are better and less expensive than buying a similar weapon in the market (30 platinum instead of 150+). You will have to buy weapon slots and a catalyst for it separately, but even after that it should still be cheaper. The Latron Prime, the Burston Prime, or the Boar Prime are all good options.

Mod testing website – Try out various builds even if you don’t have the mods.
The Official Quick Start Guide
Which weapons are the best?
Archwing Weapon Guide