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Dante isWarframe’sclosest version of a mage. This noble scholar can turn the pages of his Noctua tome into a lethal weapon or a potent boon for his team. Similar to Equinox, Dante has a whopping seven abilities to master, each offering a unique form of damage or utility.
Mastering this Warframe will be a challenge for most, but those who can wield Dante’s chronicles with mastery will be rewarded with a high APM playstyle that can suit any situation. Give your team Overguard and a floating Tome, or obliterate your foes with a flurry of potent Slash procs.
How To Craft Dante
Dante’s components and main blueprint can be found in theArmatus node on Deimos,an endless Disruption mission that unlocks upon completing the “Whispers in the Walls” quest. All of Dante’s parts drop from Rotation C and have a fairly low drop chance.
If RNG isn’t in your favor,Dante’s parts may also be purchased from Loid in the Sanctum Anatomica.Each part costs Vessel Capillaries, a resource that drops in the Armatus mission. You’ll need a total of 540 Vessel Capillaries if you wish to purchase every component blueprint.
Passive
Passive:The Noctua scans targets, recording information for your Codex. Status chance increases by 50% on fully scanned targets.
Dante’s signature weapon is the Noctua,a powerful Grimoirethat he can wield with his first ability.While you’re wielding the Noctua, all kills will automatically scan slain targets, similar to a Codex Scanner. If the target is fully scanned in your Codex, your status chance against that target is increased by 50%. This applies to all weapons and abilities, not just the Noctua.
Noctua
Noctua:Open Noctua, Dante’s Exalted Tome, and unleash a tale of woe upon his enemies.
Affects Energy drain
Affects Noctua damage
The chronicles of Dante may be wielded as a weapon of immense power, fueling the rest of his kit.Dante’s Noctua is an Exalted Grimoire that has no Tome mod restrictions, allowing you toequip every Invocation modsimultaneously. We highly suggest building the Noctua for utility rather than raw damage; that’s what your third and fourth abilities are for.
Conditional Energy Drain
Unlike traditional Exalted weapons, the Noctua only drains Energy when fired. This allows you to benefit from passive Energy sources like Zenurik’s Wellspring, Energy Siphon, and Xata Invocation.
Primary firereleases an energy blast that will detonate on impact, dealing Slash damage with high status chance.This projectile will then detonate and spawn four seekers that will attack nearby targets.It’s unaffected by Strength modifiers and blast radius mods, but you can scale multishot to spawn a swarm of seeker projectiles with each shot. This makes the Noctua ideal for status priming.
Secondary firereleases a wide energy projectile with infinite punch through. It’s functionally identical to the Arca Plasmor, dealing massive Radiation damage with high critical stats. The alt-fire is only available when your Noctua’s energy gauge is filled. Hitting targets with your primary fire, including seeker projectiles, will charge your alt-fire. Hitting targets with the Noctua’s alt-fire can also trigger Tome Invocation mods.
Light Verse
Light Verse:Dante’s vitalizing composition grants him and his allies Ovarguard and increases their HP.
20% HP
On Cast:+500 Overguard to you and nearby allies
Affects ability radius
Affects cast Energy cost
Affects bonus HP, Overguard generation, and Overguard cap
Dante invokes a tale of heroism that strengthens his team’s resolve.You and nearby allies gain a flat amount of Overguard, up to a maximum cap.Both the Overguard generated and the Overguard cap are affected by Ability Strength. Every ally will also gain +20% max HP while they have Overguard, which is also affected by Ability Strength.
More importantly, Light Verse has two unique properties:
In essence,you can use Light Verse as a panic invulnerability buttonwhen combat gets tough. This is seldom needed since Dante can build so much Overguard with his ultimate, but it’s a useful feature nonetheless. The Light page is also tied to his ultimate, Final Verse. Two pages are needed to cast it, and its effects vary based on which pages Dante has written in his Noctua.
Dark Verse
Dark Verse:Dante’s composition draws blood from nearby enemies, inflicting Slash damage upon them.
50°
Affects ability radius (not the cast angle)
Affects damage dealt.
Dante makes two violent slashes in front of himself, dealing Slash damage with guaranteed status to all targets in a frontal cone.The distance of the Dark Verse can be modded with Ability Range, but the cone angle is unaffected by mods.Ideally, you’ll want to bullet jump away from the group of enemies you wish to slash before invoking this tale. You must also have line of sight with the target for the slashes to deal damage.
As with Light Verse, casting Dark Verse comes with some unique benefits:
The Slash status from this skill is significant and can kill Steel Path armored targets with minimal investment. Spam this skill, and you’re able to inflict dozens of Slash procs on your foes in a manner of seconds. All of these Slash procs can then be detonated with one of Final Verse’s invocations, allowing Dante to effectively execute an entire group of enemies. You’ll spend most of your time casting this skill.
Final Verse
Final Verse:Dante must compose two other Verses before his Final Verse.
45 Seconds (all variants)
30 Meters (all variants)
Light + Light
Effect
Grants Overguard on cast. Gain bonus Overguard on kills and assists.
+5,000
+50 for 2 seconds
Dark + Dark
All remaining damage over time (DoT) status effects on the target are dealt in a single blast.
3x the remaining DoT damage
Light + Dark
You and nearby allies get a copy of your Noctua, attacking nearby foes. Behaves like a Sentinel.
30% of your modded Noctua
Inherits modded elemental damage
Dark + Light
Summons three phantasmal birds that attack nearby enemies. They draw aggro and afflict status vulnerability on targets.
50%
Affects buff duration on all invocations
Affects ability radius on all invocations
Affects cast Energy cost on all invocations
Affects the damage, buff effect, or Overguard generated from your current invocation.
Final Verse is easily the most complicated ability in Warframe, as it’sfour abilities in one.If you’ve played an Invoker in DOTA 2 ora Runemaster in Last Epoch, the concept is similar.Each time you cast your second and third ability, you create a page for your ultimate.Light Verse makes a Light page, while Dark Verse creates a Dark page. You need two pages to cast your ultimate. Pages are also consumed once you invoke your Final Verse.
Overflowing Pages
If your Noctua is full and you cast another Verse, one of your pages will get overwritten. The logic for page swaps is somewhat odd:
Triumph
Invoking the Final Verse withtwo Light pageswill activate Triumph, a buff that grants a massive chunk of Overguard to yourself and nearby allies, including companions. Additionally,while Triumph is active, kills and assists will restore Overguard over time.There’s no limit to how much Overguard you can generate this way.Allplayers affected by Triumph can generate Overguard, not just Dante.
The regeneration effect occurs over two seconds and cannot be modded for. You can increase the Overguard generated through Ability Strength.
Tragedy
Writingtwo Dark Pagesand casting Final Verse will activate Tragedy, a much stronger version of Helminth’s Expedite Suffering.All remaining damage-over-time ailments on the target are inflicted in a single instance.This damage is also tripled by default, affected by Ability Strength.
Cast your Dark Verse a few times to prime your targets, inflict Viral with your Noctua or a status primer, then cast Tragedy to obliterate every living thing near Dante. Few things will survive this tale.
Wordwarden
Writinga Light page and Dark pagewill reinforce you and nearby allies with an ephemeral Noctua. Similar to Citrine’s third ability, this Noctua will attack anyone you’re directly hitting.The Noctua clone is only affected by elemental mods;it doesn’t inherit any damage, multishot, or Tome mod properties. We suggest modding your Noctua for Viral or Corrosive to get the most out of this tale.
Pageflight
With aDark page and Light pageinvoked into your Noctua, casting your ultimate will cast Pageflight.Three ephemeral birds will spawn and attack any targets near Dante.They’ll follow you throughout the ability’s duration and draw enemy fire. Additionally, any targets hit by these birds will be debuffed with status vulnerability, increasing the likelihood of status effects on the target. This vulnerability can be enhanced with Ability Strength mods.
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Dante Builds
While Dante’s kit might seem complicated at first glance, playing this Warframe isn’t nearly as daunting as one might expect. He plays similarly to Harrow, requiring you tomaintain as many buffs from Final Verse as possible.Once everything’s up, you blast targets with Dark Verse and Tragedy, occasionally casting your other Final Verse buffs when their duration runs low.
As such, Dante ideally wantsAbility Efficiency, Duration, Cast Speed, and Energy Max.Ability Range and Strength are also good stats for Dante, although they aren’t mandatory for his kit to work. No stat breakpoints need to be met, either, so your choice of mods is somewhat flexible.
Additionally,Dante’s Noctua can useallTome mods simultaneously.If you equip all four Invocation mods on the Noctua, you gain+60% Strength, Duration, Efficiency, and 10 Energy per second.That’s simply too good to pass up on any Dante build, hence why we discourage the use of Helminth. Replacing any of Dante’s abilities either limits his ultimate or has a massive opportunity cost.
Archon Shards
Dante’s caster playstyle greatly benefits from Archon Shards, more so than most Warframes.Cast Speed, Starting Energy, Ability Duration, and Ability Strengthare all excellent options.
We highly recommendat least two Amber Shardsto buff Dante’s cast speed, allowing you to drop Natural Talent for another mod.
Starter Build (Zero Forma, No Subsume)
This Dante build is ajack of all tradesconfiguration that builds for a little bit of everything. Going all-in on Strength isn’t necessary thanks toPrecision Intensifygiving us 90% Ability Strength for Final Verse, our main source of Overguard and burst damage. Survivability isn’t an issue while Triumph (Light + Light) is active, so we focus more on improving Dante’s abilities.
By far the most important mod on this build isNatural Talent.Dante’s abilities are somewhat slow and need to be continuously spammed to make the most of his ultimate, so building for cast speed is mandatory. Similarly,Primed Flowis needed to give Dante a large Energy supply.
Xata Invocation and Zenurik’s Wellspring should be more than enough to keep Dante’s Energy economy under control.
Beyond that, the rest of the build is quite flexible. We useStretchandAugur Reachfor some Ability Range,Primed Continuityfor Ability Duration, andTransient Fortitudefor some extra Ability Strength. Throw onStreamlineto make your abilities slightly cheaper, and the build is finished. Use any aura mod you like.
For the Noctua, we build for pure utility.Your Dark Verse and Tragedy casts will kill everything for you, so the Noctua should be used like a status primer, not a DPS weapon. Multishot mods and Viral damage make this a great Viral primer.Xata Invocationwill restore Energy with your alt-fire, allowing you to spam abilities to your heart’s content.Vome Invocationwill also scale your Ability Strength. Finally, we useAnemic Agilityfor added fire rate.
Endgame Caster Build (Five Forma, No Subsume)
This endgame build for Dante isn’t much different than our starter configuration. Wedrop Streamline for Constitution, add Cunning Drift, and equip some Arcanesto enhance the build’s effectiveness. We recommendArcane Velocityto buff the Noctua’s fire rate andMolt Efficiencyto extend your Ability Duration. Molt Augmented is also a great choice.
If you install two Amber Archon Shards with +Cast Speed, you may drop Natural Talent for another mod.
Most of our investment went towards the Noctua, as it can offer a plethora of stat buffs if we use all Invocation mods. We useXata, Vome, Netra, and Ris.You’ll gain four buffs for using your alt-fire.
With the fire rate buff from Arcane Velocity, you can near-instantly charge your secondary fire and activate all four Invocation mods, allowing you to spam Dante’s abilities with reckless abandon. Refresh your ultimate buffs every two minutes, and you’ll be virtually unstoppable.
