Affinity (2024)

Affinity is the in-game mechanic for experience points. Warframes, Archwings, Companions and weapons are all capable of earning Affinity. It is earned by killing enemies, hacking terminals, completing objectives/Missions, using Warframe powers, or picking up Affinity Orbs.

Overview

Affinity is only shown numerically in the player's profile. Elsewhere, they are shown only as progress bars to the next level for that piece of equipment, such as in the Arsenal, during missions, or in the end-mission report.

Upon gaining enough Affinity, equipment will rank up and (once the equipment's rank exceeds a player's Mastery Rank) gain one extra point of Mod capacity (two points when supercharged via an OrokinCatalyst or OrokinReactor), used for applying mods. Affinity is stored in each specific item, not the player's character/account; if an item is sold or used in crafting, it loses all of its associated Affinity and ranks.

Affinity indirectly affects a player's Mastery Rank. A player gains 200 Mastery points per Affinity level on a previously unranked Warframe, Archwing or Companion, and 100 Mastery points per level on a previously unranked weapon. Once a player has acquired sufficient Mastery points, they can take the test to increase their Mastery Rank.

The amount of Affinity a weapon or frame has earned during a mission can be seen in the post-mission report, just to the left of the reward info box, where it is referred to as XP (experience).

Using the Affinity Booster, purchasable for 40, doubles Affinity gain for 3 days, 7 days with the 80 booster, or 30 days with the 200 booster. SmeetaKavat's Charm also has a chance to provide double Affinity gain for a duration.

Some Prime Access packages also have special 90-day Affinity boosters.

Acquisition

Warframe Affinity

Warframes and weapons gain Affinity for several types of actions, detailed below. Unless specified otherwise, all Affinity gained uses the split according to the general rule: 25% of the amount goes to your Warframe and 75% of the amount is divided evenly among all equipped weapons (18.75% each for four weapons while Archgun is summoned through Archgun Deployer, 25% each for three, 37.5% each for two, or the full 75% if only one is equipped).^[1]

Deployable gear, such as Archwings and Necramechs, only gain affinity when deployed.

• Kill with Warframe abilities: All Affinity goes to the Warframe.
• Kill with weapons: Half Affinity goes to the Warframe and half to the killing weapon.
• Shared Affinity from allied Tenno kills: When within 50 meters of an ally (200 meters while using a Fosfor, 250 meters in Landscape missions) when they kill an enemy, you gain the same total Affinity, distributed according to the general rule specified above. This doesn't reduce the Affinity gained by the killing player, and doesn't reduce the Affinity gained by other nearby allies.
  • No weapons equipped: All Affinity goes to the Warframe.
    • This applies when the only equipped weapons are overridden by ability-created ones (E.g. Using ExaltedBlade while only having a melee weapon equipped).
• Parazon Mercy kills: Half Affinity goes to the Warframe and other half goes to last equipped weapon.
• Kills with Railjack turrets: All Affinity goes to the Plexus.
• Crewship Kills via Railjack Artillery:
  • While In A Warframe: Gets shared according to the general rule above, and is also duplicated in a 50/50 split to your Companion and its weapon, or 100% to a living Companion without a weapon
  • While In Operator Mode: Half Affinity goes to the Operator and half to their Amp.
• For Archwing missions, the shared affinity range is increased to 200 meters (800 with a Fosfor).
• While in Railjack, the shared affinity range is infinite, and the above rules still apply to affinity gain.

Operator Affinity

Operators gain their own Affinity, similar to a Warframe. They only receive affinity when deployed.

• Kills with Operator abilities: All Affinity goes to the Operator's equipped Amp when possible.^[2]
• Kill with Amp: 100% of Affinity goes to the killing Amp.
• Shared Affinity from allied Tenno kills: When within 50 meters of an ally (200 meters while using a Fosfor, 250 meters in Landscape missions) when they kill an enemy, you gain the same total Affinity. The Affinity is distributed by 25% for the Operator, 37.5% for the Amp, and 37.5% for their unused melee slot.
  • Because only Operator Amps can gain Affinity, the 25% gained for the Operator and the 37.5% for their unused melee slot is lost resulting in only 37.5% of shared Affinity being earned for the Amp.
• No Amp equipped: Affinity is lost.
  • Only Operator Amps gain Affinity and not the Operator themselves.

Companion Affinity

Companions gain their own Affinity, similar to Tenno.

• Tenno kills: 100% of Affinity gained by Tenno kills by any means (weapons or abilities) and with any deployables (Necramech, Operator mode, etc) also goes to the companion.
  • Affinity is split between the Companion and its weapon 50/50%.
  • 100% Affinity to the Companion in the absence of a weapon.

• Companion kills: Total Affinity upon kills is equal to that gained by Tenno. The owner of the Companion gains no Affinity.
  • Kills with its weapon (mechanical pets only): Affinity is split between the Companion and its weapon 50/50%.
  • Kills (living pet without a weapon): All Affinity goes to the Companion.
  • Kills with an ability: All Affinity goes to the Companion.
• Companion uses an ability: Amount varies by ability.^{[investigation needed]} 100% goes to the Companion.
• Allied Tenno, but not the Companion's owner, kills an enemy: Affinity gained by the Companion does not detract from that gained by its owner.
  • Affinity is split between the Companion and its weapon 50/50%.
  • 100% Affinity to the Companion in the absence of a weapon.

Other Affinity Sources

• Use a Warframe/Archwing ability: Affinity equal to the base energy cost, in most cases.
• Hack a terminal: 50 Affinity.
• Complete an objective.
• Collect an Affinity Orb: 100 Affinity.
• Scanning with the Codex Scanner:
  • Scanning objects: 10 Affinity.
  • Scanning enemies: Affinity equal to 1/3 of gain upon killing the enemy (rounded down).
    • Stealth scan: Affinity equal to gain upon killing the enemy.

Stealth Kill Affinity Bonus

Killing unaware enemies will trigger a Stealth Kill Affinity Bonus, which increases the amount of affinity that a player gains from killing said enemy. A notification appears in a player's HUD to the left of the shield counter upon performing a stealth kill, which will display the bonus affinity value for that kill, as well as the time remaining for the combo. The default bonus affinity value is 100%, which can be increased by performing a subsequent stealth kill within 30 seconds of the previous one, which will add another 100% to the bonus value, e.g. killing a second enemy stealthily will grant a 200% affinity multiplier, the third granting 300%, and so forth until it caps out at 500%, whereupon any successive stealth kills will provide said bonus as long as they are made within the time limit. Stealth kill affinity bonuses can be initiated using any attack as long as the enemy is unaware of the player's presence, though melee weapons grant twice the amount of stealth kill affinity compared to ranged weapons or abilities.

The stealth kill affinity bonus resets if a kill is made on an alert enemy, or upon being attacked by an alert enemy. Only enemy units will trigger these affinity bonuses. Environmental objects like Corpus Turrets, Security Cameras, Sensor Bars, and Storage Containers will not reset the multiplier nor do they count as a stealth kill. Certain units like Sensor Regulators are also considered objects, and thus will not initiate stealth affinity bonuses.

Oddly enough, certain Warframe powers (like Paralysis) and Melee Combos that initiate stagger may initiate stealth kill affinity bonuses upon performing a Counterattack Finisher, even if the enemy was previously aware of the player.

Killing an enemy that spawned within 5 seconds will not count towards the stealth affinity multiplier.

Bonus Affinity

If a player completes a mission successfully they gain bonus Affinity based on the amount gained during the mission. Bonus Affinity is shown as white in the end-of-mission report and is an additional 125% of the base Affinity earned for each item.

Due to bonus Affinity, leveling an item up to a certain level in a single mission, and completing the mission, will result in that item becoming max rank:

• Getting an item to Rank 20 will result in that item becoming Rank 30.
• For Rank 40 weapons that require 5 Forma such as Kuva Weapons, Tenet Weapons, or the Paracesis, getting to Rank 26 and two-thirds will result in a Rank 40 weapon.

Affinity Range

When playing with other players, Affinity will be shared among the squad if they are within a 50-meter radius. This can be increased with Fosfors to 200m or Vazarin's MendingUnity (+25m at max rank). Some Warframe Abilities and Warframe Augment Mods also have their ranges tied to this particular range.

• Citrine

• Ember

• Harrow

• Revenant

• Styanax

• Trinity

• Helminth

See Also

How to Improve Your Concentration Skills: 15 TipsFocus/MaduraiENERGY PULSE SYSTEMS - EIT FoodFocus Lens

	2 50	PreservingShell Citrine guards herself and nearby allies with a crystalline shell that gradually decays. Kills and assists increase the defensive power of the shell. Introduced in Update 32.3 (2023-02-15)	Strength:10 / 20 / 30 / 40% initial damage reduction +3% damage reduction per kill +1% damage reduction per assist
			Duration:18 / 20 / 22 / 25 s
			Range:N/A
			Misc:50 m Affinity Range 8 m Stagger radius 2 m Knockback distance 1 s initial decay delay 10 / 20 / 25 / 25% minimum damage reduction -1%/s decay rate at 25%-75% -3%/s decay rate at 75%-90% 2 s kill/assist decay delay 90% max damage reduction

Main article: Immolated Radiance

• Penance

• Covenant

  See Also

  How to Get Focus Lenses in Warframe

	2 50	Penance Sacrifice shields to boost reload, and fire rate while converting damage inflicted on enemies into health for Harrow and nearby allies. Introduced in Update 21.0 (2017-06-29)	Strength:50% (initial heal) 5% (lifesteal on hit) 20% / 25% / 30% / 35% (fire rate bonus) 40% / 50% / 60% / 70% (reload speed bonus)
			Duration:4 s (base time) 1.25 / 1.33 / 1.43 / 1.54 s (bonus per 100 shields)
			Range:N/A
			Misc:50 m (affinity range) 120 s (max duration)

	4 100	Covenant Protect nearby allies with an energy force that absorbs all damage and converts it to a Critical Chance bonus for all those under the Covenant. Headshots are amplified even further. Introduced in Update 21.0 (2017-06-29)	Strength:5% (base critical chance) 1.50% (critical chance per 100 damage)
			Duration:3 / 4 / 5 / 6 s (invulnerability time) 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 s (critical chance time)
			Range:N/A
			Misc:4.0x (headshot multiplier to bonus critical chance) 50% (bodyshot critical chance cap) 200% (headshot critical chance cap) 50/250 m (affinity range/open-world affinity range)

Main article: Mesmer Shield

Main article: Intrepid Stand

	4 100	Blessing Restore the health and shields of allies within Trinity's Affinity aura while giving them some damage immunity. Introduced in Update 4 (2012-11-02)	Strength:40% / 50% / 75% / 80% (shield/health restoration) 25% / 30% / 40% / 50% (damage reduction)
			Duration:3 / 5 / 7 / 10 s (buff duration)
			Range:N/A
			Misc:50 m (affinity range) 75% (damage reduction cap)

	N/A 50	VoraciousMetastasis Consume Energy to heal yourself and grant matching Energy to each ally. Introduced in Update 30.5 (2021-07-06)	Strength:200 / 300 / 400 / 500 (health restored)
			Duration:16 / 14 / 12 / 10 s
			Range:N/A
			Efficiency: 50 (energy restored, equal to cost)
			Subsumable to Helminth

The range limit is increased to 200m in Archwing missions and 250m in Landscapes (Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, and Cambion Drift). The range limit is ignored entirely in Empyrean missions due to their sheer scale.

Level Requirements

To reach a given level from unranked, a Warframe or Sentinel needs 1000× level² Affinity in total. A weapon needs half that amount.

To reach the same level from the previous level, a Warframe or Sentinel needs 1000× (2 × level− 1) Affinity. Again, a weapon needs half that amount.

*Only for Paracesis, Kuva Weapons, Tenet Weapons, and Necramechs. Note that this chart does not accurately reflect on total cumulative Affinity needed to rank up to 40 as you have to Forma the weapons five times in order to increase the max rank to 40.

The cumulative Affinity to rank for the Paracesis and Kuva Lich weapons including Forma cycles is as follows:

Enemy Affinity Scaling

Main article: Enemy Level Scaling

When you kill an enemy, the Affinity gained is shown on screen underlined in blue. The formula enemy affintiy scales at is as follows:

Note that the base affinity multiplied by the Affinity Multiplier value is also rounded down to a whole number, e.g. 62.7 affinity will be rounded down to 62.

Because the square root is taken of the enemy's current level, the actual benefit of facing high-level enemies is minimal. For example, killing a level 100 Napalm would give 1213 Affinity, less than twice the Affinity you would get from a level 3 Napalm (623). Therefore, "farming" Affinity is easier when killing many low-mid level enemies instead of taking on high level enemies.

For further reading on this subject, consider the Affinity and Affinity Density chapters of the Enemy Level Scaling article.

Notes

• Fully ranked equipment still accumulates Affinity even though the mission end screen does not display it. The total Affinity can be seen from a player's profile page.
• The Affinity count in the profile page for specific equipment does not increase upon polarization, only when the amount of cumulative Affinity earned prior to the polarization is exceeded.^[3]
• Until they were polarized 5 times they do not gain affinity when they are at their temporary max level (eg. 1 Forma level 32, 2 Forma level 34). This is only noticeable in the profile page.
• Enemies in the Simulacrum when killed do not reward Affinity.
• Mastery Rank Tests will not reward Affinity upon completion.

Farming Tips

• Do not bring max ranked weapons alongside the ones you intend to level up if are in a team as they will continue to leech Affinity.
• Mass crowd control abilities (e.g. Equinox's Mend&Maim, Mirage's SleightofHand, Saryn's Spores, or Volt's Discharge) generate a lot of affinity for teammates.

Locations

These are based on opinions and may not be 100% true. These should be viewed as advice for farming Affinity until better facts are proven.

Star Chart Missions

Target	Planet	Name	Type	Level	Tile Set
	Sedna	Hydron	Defense	30 - 40	Grineer Galleon
	Saturn	Helene	Defense	21 - 26	Grineer Galleon
	Pluto	Oceanum	Spy	32 - 36	Corpus Ship
	Sedna	Adaro	Exterminate	32 - 36	Grineer Asteroid
	Veil Proxima	R-9 Cloud	Skirmish	80 - 90	Free Space

• Hydron is a common spot for general Affinity farming, with Helene being a more accessible alternative, albeit netting less Affinity overall due to the lower level of enemies.
• Oceanum can be stealthily speed ran by more advanced players, hacking all three data vaults without being detected to farm for Affinity for a particular weapon.
• Adaro can award an extreme amount of affinity when utilizing Stealth Kill Affinity Bonus from stealth Warframes (Ash's SmokeScreen, Ivara's Prowl, Loki's Invisibility, or Octavia's Metronome), Warframes that can force enemies to sleep (Baruuk's Lull, Equinox's or Helminth subsumed Rest&Rage, or Ivara's Quiver), or silenced weapons (Banshee's or Helminth subsumed Silence and a weapon modded with Hush, Suppress, or SilentBattery if not innately silenced).
• R-9 Cloud is the highest leveled Empyrean mission. It also allows bringing Archwings, Archguns, Archmelee, and Necramechs.

Archwing Missions

Target	Planet	Name	Type	Level	Tile Set
	Neptune	Salacia	Mobile Defense	27 - 32	Corpus Ship (Archwing)

• Salacia is arguably the best location for leveling up Archwings, Archguns, and Archmelees outside of Empyrean missions.

Other Locations

• Dark Sector missions are scattered throughout the Star Chart. These provide bonus Affinity gain to specific weapon classes.

• Eximus enemies give a large amount of Affinity and are abundant in Sortie Eximus Strongholds.
• Sanctuary Onslaught and Elite Sanctuary Onslaught are the best locations for Affinity farming, spawning a high volume of enemies in a short amount of time. Note that the elite version restricts access to only max ranked Warframes or a Mastery Rank 30 player whose Warframe has been polarized once.
  • Gear is restricted in Sanctuary Onslaught, preventing the use of Archgun Deployers.
• Endless Void Fissure missions provide Affinity gain bonuses for the duration of the mission after opening a certain number of Void Relics, up to a maximum of 2x Affinity gain at 16 relics opened.

References

See Also

• Mastery Rank

Patch History

Game System Mechanics Edit
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