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As a pregnant flying cyborg space ninja, Jade in Warframe is already on top of each enemy encounter. She’s the 57th Warframe and as is the case with newer Warframes, they come with more than four or five abilities. Jade is undoubtedly another support Warframe who can also make it to the hardest content in the game, which would be level-cap enemies in endless missions. To get this menacing mom to that point in the game, however, I recommend following our ultimate Jade Warframe build, for Steel Path and other endgame activities.
Warframe Jade Build Guide | Mods, Arcanes, Archon Shards
Jade has a little bit of Wisp and Dante in her in that one of her abilities branches out to three purposes. She’s also more unique compared to other Warframes since she can accommodate two Aura mods.
This leads to better build variety and versatility, but for a Jade build that you can take just about anywhere, this would be my recommended mod setup. It’s not too expensive, thankfully, but it requires 3-5 Forma.
| Mod Name | Effect | Alternative |
| Growing Power (Aura) | On Status Effect with Weapon: Squad increases personal Ability Strength by 25% for 6s. | Power Drift for more Strength and fewer knockdowns. |
| Brief Respite (Aura) | Squad converts 150% of Energy spent to Shields while Overshields are inactive | Aerodynamic if you’re going to focus on Jade’s 4th Ability. |
| Primed Sure Footed (Exilus) | +100% Chance to Resist Knockdown | Power Drift / Cunning Drift |
| Primed Continuity | +55% Ability Duration | Regular Continuity, but you will have less duration unless you get Cunning Drift. |
| Primed Flow | +185% Energy Max | Regular Flow will do just fine if you don’t have this. |
| Primed Redirection | +180% Shield Capacity | Regular Redirection or Adaptation or Archon Vitality if you’re going to focus on Jade’s 4th Ability |
| Umbral Intensify | +44% Ability Strength +11% Tau Resistance | Regular Intensify/Archon Intensify. |
| Transient Fortitude | +55% Ability Strength -27.5% Ability Duration | Blind Rage if you don’t want the negative hit to Duration. |
| Overextended | +90% Ability Range -60% Ability Strength | Stretch |
| Rolling Guard | On Dodge: Become invulnerable for 3s and remove all Status Effects. 7s cooldown. | Archon Vitality if you’re fighting enemies below level 300. |
| Augur Secrets | +24% Ability Strength | None |
The big compromise here would be the choice between Rolling Guard and Archon Vitality. Archon Vitality will further increase Jade’s Heat status effects, letting her be less dependent on weapons. However, when you get to a high enough level, enemies will shred your Shields and Health too fast.
In such cases, I recommend exchanging Archon Vitality for Rolling Guard.
Arcanes for the Jade Build
Jade is an Energy-hungry Warframe, so you know what that means. You need the most expensive Arcane right now, Arcane Energize. Luckily, the Operation: Belly of the Beast event lets you obtain as many as two max-rank Arcane Energize (you have 30 days before it expires).
That’s the only expensive part of this build. Everything else is manageable for most players. In summary, pick these two Arcanes:
- Arcane Energize
- Molt Augmented
It’s worth noting that you don’t even need a max-ranked Arcane Energize. You can stop at Rank 4 and that will be enough.
Archon Shards (& Helminth Options) for the Jade Build
Archon Shards aren’t that important and you can even opt to use what you prefer. Still, I do recommend the following for general use and convenience:
- 2x Red Archon Shards (Strength & Duration)
- 2x Yellow Archon Shards (Casting Speed)
- 1x Blue Archon Shard (Shield Capacity)
Ideally, you want all of them to be Tauforged, especially the blue shards. Regular or non-Tauforged red shards are fine. Also, you will be spamming your 2nd Ability and relying on your 3rd Ability for survival most of the time, so you want to make sure that you can cast fast enough to deal with enemies, hence the yellow shards.
As for Helminth Abilities, don’t replace the 2nd and 3rd Abilities. They are too good to lose. You can replace the 1st Ability with anything you want.
Playstyle for the Warframe Jade Build
Jade doesn’t exactly nuke as well as other recent Warframes like Dante, which is why you still need to take good weapons with you. Hence, Incarnon, Tenet, or Kuva weapons are almost mandatory here if you’re going to take on Steel Path.
For enemies below Level 200, you can get away with Jade’s 4th Ability and Glory Exalted weapon (just refer to the alternative mod column from the mod list above if you want to build her for permanent flight).
Regardless, here’s how you open up combat with Jade.
- Cast Jade’s 3rd Ability. Keep recasting it as soon as it runs out.
- Cast Jade’s 2nd Ability (Shield) whenever her shields run out or she gets health damage.
- Use Jade’s 1st Ability on enemy clusters. Keep recasting it on enemy clusters.
- Activate the 4th Ability, fly high, and rain death and fire on enemies. Alternatively (for those without Arcane Energize), you can just stay on the ground and kill enemies with Incarnon, Kuva, or Tenet weapons.
- Keep in mind that you need to constantly have the 3rd Ability up at all times and don’t let enemies sneak behind you.
The slow from the 3rd Ability should make the game easy, but occasionally, some pesky enemies might attack from behind, that’s when you can use the 2nd Ability as pseudo-Shield-gating. Hopefully, with enough mindfulness, you won’t die.
Warframe is available on the PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, and iOS.
