Eximus specters are the WF equivalent of "the boss when you fight him vs the boss when you unlock him as a playble charcter (or summon in this case)"

I like to use Excalibur Umbra as my specter, because it's like roleplaying that it's not a specter, it's just Umbra coming along and helping you out.

I'm just happy to see so many fellow Specter users in the comments. I love those rare moments when the whole squad uses specters and everyone deploys one of everything and the game just can't handle it.

I feel like it's important to note that because Specters can benefit from auras, stacking Power Donations in a coordinated squad can make the Nidus specter give significant Power Strength bonuses. This is often utilized in the meta Arbitration groups, where everyone but a Wisp takes Power Donation, the Wisp has subsumed Roar, and the Wisp pops a Nidus Specter in order to lead to extremely powerful Reservoirs and Roars so long as you cast while linked, and the link has surprisingly high uptime when you stay in place.

I once stumbled into a hydron lobby where a nekros decided to drop an ancient healer, I, of course, having every syndicate specter in my gear wheel, decided to also drop an ancient healer for the memes long story short, by the end of the next wave we had all individually dropped every single syndicate specter + all dropped a warframe specter + all of nekro's summons and had a small army, most fun I've ever had in a lobby Every once in a while I'll see somebody drop a specter and instantly drop all of mine in the hopes to recreate that lobby Specters are worth it to keep in your gear wheel for those funny moments alone

Vauban works amazingly as a specter as well, specially for defense-related missions. He uses most of his kit and diversifies a lot his playstyle, variations of his second skill included.

Don’t forget about throwing proboscis cernos on your specters, especially if you want them to swap back and forth between primary and secondary often with something like a nukor

Note that the ancient healer specter does also provide knockdown resistance which is actually useful in lower mr‘s that dont have the unairu focus tree or primed sure footed

There is also the Desert Skate spectre from doing baro's weekly mission that you can buy from him if you are equipped with Inaros Prime

The Trumna is absolutely ridiculous on specters or on-call crew. No recoil, no reloading, decent range, love it.

Octavia is a classic specter as well, and Mag can be fun. Octavia saved me quite some times when I forgot to equip the right stuff etc., great panic button. Her energy passive is nice as well, and she keeps herself alive a lot of the time. Great call on Covenant btw., never stopped to think that ability doesn't need stats whatsoever.

personally i use frost specter, if you tell him to stand still he will reliably cast snow globe to defend some objectives. niche but easy to use and reliable

"I wouldn't use this one" Corrupt lancer heat inherit builds flowing to my brain still tho

the ancient healer specter should also prevent all status effects in range. I would also highly recommend trinity as a specter since she gives good healing and energy regen

I literally looked if you had posted a video on soecters like 2 days ago. Thanks a ton man! Your videos are to the point and absolutely full of useful information. Without your content i would never understand MOST of the systems in warframe, let alone be able to feel like im makong proper use of them. I dont reccomend youtubers, but your channel is one i reccomend at every relevant oppurtunity.

My latest specter build is Citrine with Arca Plasmor. She's great, and my theory with the weapon is that a few radiation procs are more valuable to me than any damage specters can do, and something that mediates their horrible weapon accuracy is a good thing. Plasmor is pure rad, has body PT and a wide projectile...and will kill a few things too. I was a little surprised Oberon didn't make your list. Particularly great for point defense like solo Interception. Probably worth mentioning under "Restrictions" : Specter behavior in Nightmare missions, lol.

In my experience Vauban is a decent specter, especially in interception and defense. Surprised you didn't mention him.

Shield osprey underrated imo. He is really good for defence missions. He keeps the objective shielded when nobody has a defence frame, you just have to keep it put at the objective, otherways it floats away lol

Ive enjoyed a Wisp specter with Basmu, kronen prime, and a custom kitgun i made. It was based off of a post i read that recommended it. However, glad to see a real pro knowing what they're talking about making an up to date look at specters. Really help me on defense missions or times when my allies arent...the most skilled

As a Nekros Main, I love specters because they just add more to my ever growing army. Its so much fun in public and LFG lobbies because my teammates never know what the enemies are!!

Caliban Specter sounds very interesting! Especially the fact that he himself can defense strip thanks to his Fusion Strike. You should mention Octavia Specter as she also passively give Energy Regeneration as well... not to mention her to compete against Styanax. But if Styanax just straight up does better than Octavia in terms of Energy Economy, then I might try him as well.

Every single video of yours is perfection. Just want to say thanks

I love the grendel specter , it's just amazing lol Great video, i'll try to Kahl's next

Nidus is awesome for any mission that needs defending. He doesn’t cast tentacle but he does cast his 4 a lot! It’s surprisingly reliable and effective

Tenno Specters Recommendations 11:20 Caliban Citrine Harrow Hydroid Nidus Nyx Protea Styanax Wisp Special Mention: Grendel (Where's Octavia and Oberon specters?!)

I've found Wisp's specter to be the most useful for general play. Her buffs are just all around helpful for every frame and mission. Gave her the Nataruk, Tenet Cycron, and Stropha.

Here is my caliban's army build: Caliban with nyx's 1st ability from helminth + nyx's specter(she converts enemies) + kalh's ship + crew summon + syndicate summon + a hound(with the mod to divide in 3 mini hounds) or a companion with the mod to multiply itself from son. Enjoy the battle

Wukong spectre is a good "look at me" spectre, you can get a 1+1 deal with him not to mention he's hard to kill. Other than that Trinity is also good for the heal, and energy

I like using Volt for hallway survivals. He maintains almost 100% uptime on his shield and uses his ult when enemies get too close.

I'm surprised you didn't include Trinity in the useful Specter Frame list. Give you energy from time to time, reliable source of healing, a solid support if you ask me.

Surprised you didn't mention Octavia. She uses her full kit and while her unmodded 3 doens't give great bonuses, it still gives an armor boost and can be used to go invisible. her passive is up nearly all the time, meaning pretty consistent energy trickle, and her 1 and 2 still do decent enemy distraction and scaling damage. She's eben my go-to for a while, but i'm stoked to try out a few of the ones you've suggested to see how I like them. I do also hope you do a video on Wukong's celestial twin sometime. I feel a lot of people completely misuse him as an excuse to go afk, or avoid stagger. Even when people try to use him, they use weapons and mods that don't work as well since the clone can't trigger buffs like the galvanized mods or get combo. Honestly a lot of modding philosophy with Wukong's cone that also applies to robotic weapons, though DE did us a favor by limiting the mod selection so people stop doing bad modding practices. Thanks again, for another great, well researched and tested video!

Qorvex specters can provide status immunity and sometimes do decent damage with his 4th ability. doesn't use pillars at all.

I have also found Vauban is a solid control specter, stun-locking with rollers, puncture nading, nuking and pulling in foes with bastille. If I need a point held while I go do something else, pretty good option.

8:00 tenno spectre blueprints are level/planet based. The wikis is king here. Comics are stupidly east to get because of this as most people tend to clear the missions via stealth killing wardens. The Vapor come from actively “failing” some of the side objectives but each can create 10 spectres (10,5,3,1) and are the technically hardest bps to get as you have to fail a bonus or2 in a mission difficulty where companion weapons can clean house.

Just want to note that I've dropped a vapor wisp at the start of most arbitrations , cedo, kuva nukor, hate. and its still been standing at the 2 hour mark without being renewed or noticibly dropping off damagewise, I think if the loadout it geared towards status effects completely the scaling is solid. Imho, can't wait to see your breakdown on the new shield gating, and the mod that makes the whole thing a waste of time. XD

thanks finally a proper specter guide, all the other guide where people showing of, not explaining what they do

Wow I never gave these things any thought. Might have to try them out 👍

Octavia uses mallet. Mallet absorbs enemy damage, allowing the specter to effectively create a zone if instant death regardless of enemy level. Octavia also gives buffs and turns off enemy AI with resonator. Solid option.

My go to is styanax with a probosis cernos for the random grouping and viral. Also, of i rock a frame with nourish, his rally point gets buffed and provides a significant energy regen. I will definitely be making a hydroid spector now though, and will be using the envoy.

This Mechanic In The Gae Made It Easier For Me To Do Defense Missions And Even Bounties In The Early Game When I Was Struggling To Do Missions On My Own. I was missing on a greel one XD imma try it on my vauban to have a six roler squad lmao

Ancient healer specters also prevent knockdowns for those without primed sure footed

Wisp is also a very good option in my option, with as use with being used as a specter. I was able to completely solo 2 hours on a Railjack Fissure Survival with Mesa with Protea's subsume on Mesa's one ability.

I do also enjoy using a Mag specter because she is constantly casting Magnetize and it’s definitely quite helpful

Octavia is a good one too, mostly because the specter uses metronome to provide buffs

My favorite specter to use is Trinity. I'm 100% convinced that dang thing is literally IMMORTAL. Back when Kuva Survivals were still rather new, I went in there with a full squad; and spawned a 2 star Trinity specter almost immediately after loading in for the additional firepower, her kit, and to get some additional Corrosive procs from the Scourge I had equipped on her. And she NEVER died. Even when the Grineer got to a point that all 4 of us were getting one-tapped, Trinity was standing tall and at full health. And she was SERIOUSLY trolling us too. There were multiple times where no one in the squad caught sight of her in a while, leading us to be convinced she finally got killed; only for her to come running around the corner STILL alive and STILL at full health.

I farmed with specters on void armagedon missions for some weapon part, they were nice distraction from defend targets and nice cc. Thanks to them that missions became bearable.

Crewmate only has to reload once for shotguns where you have to reaload single rounds individually (unlikely intended). Coupled with his infinite ammo pool and god like flickshot aim the felarx makes a great choice.

I'm curious what you know about Incarnon perks on specters? I tested Phenmor pretty extensively a long time ago and found Specters were killing far faster with Devouring Attrition activated than not, but it was harder to tell with other perks. And I've not tested any of the newer Incarnon options at all. Question on Caliban: did you notice if the the specter's passive work on the squad?

I was literally just thinking about what the best spectre load-out would be so I can finally use the blueprints I’ve been saving

As a solo SP Player, I use spectres alot, mostly Trinity, Wisp and Rhino. It's fantastic how regularly they use their powers.

From reading the comments here, I feel like this could have been a multi-video series. Feels like a lot was not talked about. Could probably do like 3-5 minute videos on many different frames when used as specters.

I have always used specters and weirdly enough i use gauss. He may not bring the goods like citrine or styanax(2 of my other specter loadoats) but what he lacks in support he makes up for in fun. He shreds enemies and runs them over till they die 😂 Thanks for a great video another practical problem solved 🎉

You can increase your army with new duplex mod on sentinels/companions with good weapons sentinels will mow through steelpath. Feels really good, I don't think contagious bond works sadly.

I see you’re using the new highlight feature, neato

i generally use a Vaubaan spectre a lot of the time because something that has a lot of immobilising crowd control helps with builds needing accurate shots (Like headshot madness with harrow and knell :3)

I do like using a Valkyr specter. Will occasionally use warcry for the atk speed buff which is nice if I'm not running it and want to melee. Will also occasionally pull enemies to her to kill.

I had a thought, remeber baruuk and his desolate hands ability? can you get the daggers from that specter?

Do any of the incarnon evolutions or progenitor bonuses carry over to the crafted warframe spectres? Examples: fire rate, punchthrough, range, attack speed, etc.

Octavia is a strong specter too. Her roller is good cc and her 3 can give you stealth on any frame. Also her passive gives energy regen I think.

Something not mentioned here I think is worth noting is that warframe specters while active contribute to the time played on said warframe on your profile, currently one of my most played warframes is nidus due to how much ive used his specter despite almost never actually playing him. So if you want to for some reason heavily boost the time played on a warframe, activate a specter of said frame and also play as them.

Cosmically are generally not worth the effort but the other warframe spectres are easily replaced so eventually ended up with a protea (unlimited resources), wisp (any boost is a nice boost),vauban in those slots. A few frames refuse to case a load of their abilities but these always being something to the table. Core issue it that with the ammo changes finding a good weapon can be a PITA, battery weapons they bug out and s lot if kitguns have abominably low ammo reserves once an NPC starts firing at max rate continuously.

Use volt specters for camping setups since he casts shields often, also random speed buffs are nice

I really enjoy Varuna as a specter. Also can work as an ok primer for condition overload. Although now Varuna is now my melee main, so I think I should try citrine as a specter

Sevagoth casts gloom which provides a small amount of healing and slight slowing of the enemies

I love to use Nekros with a bunch of spectres for a massive army. I also replace Soul Punch with Nourish, because it buffs your death squad to have the damage output you're looking for (or, at least it did; haven't played in a month or two, so I'm not sure if DE patched it out)

While the specters do use primary ammo, they seemingly have infinite secondary ammo, i've been using a nidus bramma/akarius specter for the last couple of years and i've never seen him run out of ammo for both (albeit i only use him in long defence/interception so he's constantly having enemies die and potentially drop ammo around him) On an additional note, the maggots from nidus' specter provide great distractions/cc at any level

I'd love the "best frames & weapons" section in text format.

I’ve only messed around with specters once, because I think it was a requirement for one of the junctions. Well over 5 years and 3,000 Steam hours later, my specter loadout is still Excalibur w/ Boltor, Aklato, and Skana 😅

Can’t you also get a desert skate specter from the baro kiteer mission accessed with inaros prime?

On call crew do count as specters for the Nightwave mission. So even if they aren't specters lore-wise, I would have counted them too just because the game treats them as such

So, what you are saying is my plan to use a Shadow Haze Sevagoth to get more shadow spawns from Reap probably won't work? 😥

Never been quite clear on how specters work. Used them a lot, but was never quite sure how to streamline it and get the most out of them

Honestly the syndicate specters aren't bad the Lancer blast can proc cascadia flare (and all specters/companions benefit from flares damage boost) and will usually peel off to distract enemies in survival. Shield ospreys are perfect for keeping defense objectives constantly shielded and Rollers draw far more attention than you might think with thier jump attack hitting/aggroing multiple targets (plus any specter that gives energy is a win in my book). Though my favorite is clearly khal my a mile, his constant uptime paired with the possibility of a osprey deploying corpus spawning in with him makes him extremely versatile. Oh and since the Lancer is grineer and has no shields the osprey will tend to stick with him and randomly fire bursts of inaccurate lasers to attract more enemies, turning the Lancer into a mobile support platform. Given how often non-sentinel pets tend to wander off and die in the back end of the map, I've found most times my pet will run into the tag team fighting a small army in another room and have a much better chance at survival with continuous shield support

I use them when solo farming. They keep me company.

A specter army is like what the meme of the CIA buying titanium from the soviets "good luck, im behind 7 proxies." I personally had a vauban specter that was an awesome support specter that did also get a few kills. I think is had either a kuva khom (the kuva machine-gun shotgun) or a more crowd controling primary, a simi-balanced but crit weighted tombfinger secondary, and the Scindo Prime melee.

What about rhino I find him to be like perfect for being a Spector he uses all four abilities, great crowd control for rhino stomp and Ig rhino charge, becomes almost unkillable with iron skin that scales forever and gives u free 50% universal faction dmg buff to u.

My on call crew has an Acceltra. It absolutely rips through anything. I swear he does more damage than I do with the same weapon.

Did you test an Octavia spector ? Also I wonder how powerful you could make a full squad spector deployment !!

Been wanting a specter build guide for a while. I never know what to do with them.

I use a based extremely tanky and resistant and immunity laden level 5 lich as my defender/on call, he seems to scale to whatever i take him to armor or no, guess he's only missing primed firestorm but still has cast stuff too while he reloads.

I might really start using caliban specters as armor strip, even if they patch it, is really nice to have, full or not

Can you do a guide on Hydroid Prime since he got the rework?

Dante spectre uses his combos to great effect. Even more reliable than the average Dante player.

On god gara specter is literally the best, aoe blinds, cast wall and does spectro to distract and also is beefy and is perfect for any defend style mission

I found that Wisp with ignis and kuva nukor is best combo . It gives life regen and cc to hole team and with ignis it burns and cc enemies often + no ammo problem becouse ignis has a lot ammo.

I use the corrupted lancer on solo relic survivals where I plan to camp in one spot as khora of if I'm running gloom cause the fire wave knockback of course is affected by gloom so it's really good CC. But i agree it's not a great general use specter. It rocks on defense missions tho.

Im really surprised i didnt hear anything on Inaros' sand shadows. Particularly with Desiccation's augment allowing for litteral indefinite enemy specters.

Why are damage values across the game lower since the update? All of my friends and I have done extensive testing pre and post Dagath update and seen lower damage values across all levels and activities. (We know that damage displayed has changed some but that wasn't from the Dagath update primarily. 33.6 vs 34).

From time to time I see some huge Corpus soldiers followed by a clone of Clem... how do I get them... I think there are three... Thanks in Advance.

Honorable mention to oberon. He constantly casts his 2 which is CC and proc immunity. Trinity casts ev a lot. You also didn't mention what happens if you summon a spectre in nightmare

Quorvex Spectre is pretty much immortal in low/mid SP and puts down a lot of radiation procs along with giving you permanent status immunity.

i think the fire eximus lancer could be mildly useful for the proc. i mainly focus on the shield osprey and ancient healer because they to me have the most utility. good to know about the roller specter energy leeching but i suspect it doesn't work while i'm channeling which i do a lot. i didn't know how to do the kahl summon, but i'd seen people do it, good to know. I've known you can't mod the tenno spectres so i just use nidus since he links me sometimes, i play oberon and like to have renewal with 100% uptime and make it as strong as i can, so sometimes when i need a little extra bump in an endless mission he comes in handy. I'll keep the other stuff in mind though Personally considering you can't mod the weapons for tenno spectres, i'd also consider cc focused things, like the sonicor for example, if you are looking for that.

trinniy and rhino specters work well too

I like volt for the speed boost I'm surprised he didn't mention it.

Well now I want to do that with a 4-man summon necro party.

I feel like Octavia specter is pretty good for her energy regen passive and 3 ability.

Trinity makes you invincible and perminate energy gain

Coming back to this because my connection is trash and Solo Elite Deep Archimedia got hands

How much plat did you spend on Specter testing? I said years ago once on a Specter video or 2 that a way to test how a Warframe Specter will use it's weapons and abilities for free is to go to the Simulacrum and summon the Amalgam Heqet and let him clone you. You can then watch how the enemy Specter will perform and use their weapon and abilities.

I need to know this, does internal bleeding turn melee moas kicks to slash