Grendel is the newest Warframe coming to, well, Warframe. This large and powerful war machine was officially named and announced at TennoCon 2019 — alongside another character called Gauss. And he’s awfully unique among the many playable classes in-game. Rather than a strange, writhing mass of flesh and circuitry, Grendel is a solidly built battler. Their unique silhouette seems to reflect their abilities, too. Learn all about those and more in our guide to Grendel in Warframe!
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Grendel Abilities: Warframe Guide
Grendel is basically the Kirby of Warframe characters. Feast, his basic ability, can consume multiple enemies at a time and store them inside Grendel’s stomach. This doesn’t just provide some okay crowd control! Grendel passively gains armor for each enemy he consumes, too. The skill does consume more energy time you eat, though. To counteract this, you can “evacuate” the stored foes all at once in a frontal blast of bile and bodies.
Otherwise you can use Nourish. This fully eliminates the first enemy stacked inside of Grendel. In exchange, he and his nearby allies gain a radial buff to armor, damage, and energy.
Regurgitate is exactly what it sounds like. You barf out a single enemy away from Grendel as a “toxic projectile.” It seems to have more range than releasing Feast, and only expels a single baddie at a time. The extra Toxin damage also sounds like a bonus.
Finally, we have one Grendel ability that doesn’t involve eating folks. Pulverize transforms the Warframe into a rolling ball of death. While in this form, Grendel can move around and knock down enemies like a bowling ball. He can also jump. Doing so does area-of-effect damage and knocks enemies flat on their butts in a wider radius.
How to Unlock Grendel: Warframe Guide
Grendel is acquired through the “Arbitration” mission type. This is a special type of activity unlocked by opening the entire Warframe star chart. After which point you can access it from the “Alerts” menu of your mission lists. There is only one Arbitration available at any given point and it switches out in real-time.
Arbitrations pit you against waves of extremely difficult enemies, making this a fairly endgame activity. More than that: the missions will spawn “Arbitration Shield Drones” that make large clumps of enemies immune to damage and abilities. This lasts until the drones are destroyed by weapons. This makes it impossible to rely on very passive, ability-focused gameplay and Warframes.
Completing Arbitrations, as well as killing Arbitration Shield Drones, will award a currency called “Vitus Essence.” You can then take this to any in-game player Relay — such as the Strata Relay above Earth — and approach the Arbiters of Hexis Syndicat on the southeast corner of the area. Inside, just to the left of the entrance, is an NPC labeled “Arbitration Honors.” This is where you spend Vitus Essence. You need 75 Vitus Essence in total to unlock Grendel. That’s 25 for each “Grendel Locator” sold in the Arbitration Honors.
There’s still more… Purchasing a locator doesn’t actually unlock Grendel. Instead, it unlocks a special (and very difficult) mission on your star chart. These missions feature Level 40-45 enemies. Which wouldn’t be hard on its own, except that the missions also deactivate nearly all Warframe and weapon mods, as well as Operator powers and Gear items. You basically need to play “naked” in each instance. Luckily, if you fail, you can keep trying again without purchasing a new Grendel Locator. They only expend after a successful mission!
The various Grendel Locators are as follows:
- Grendel Chassis Locator
- Grendel Systems Locator
- Grendel Neuroptics Locator
Each of which is then tied to a preset mission location and type:
- Archaeo-Freighter: 20 minutes of Survival the mission type (Grendel Neuroptics Locator)
- Icefields of Riddah: 15 waves of the Defense mission type (Grendel Chassis Locator)
- Mine of Karishh: collect 800 Cryotic on the Excavation mission type (Grendel Systems Locator)
Grendel Farm in Warframe
Farming for Grendel is as simple as farming for Vitus Essence. Unlike most Warframe farm methods, there is no random chance associated with gathering the blueprints themselves. You just need a lot of Vitus Essence.
This is best achieved by going into an Arbitration with the Survival mission type and continuously farming (by destroying Arbitration Shield Drones and simply surviving) for as long as possible. Since there is nothing to escort or protect, such as during Defense, you can extract any time things get too dicey while soaking up more and more Vitus Essence.
The real sticking points, then, are the locator missions themselves. Though they’re not too troublesome if you know who to bring.
You should prioritize a Warframe that can enhance its own durability and deal serious crowd control to keep enemies off your back. Wisp and Hildryn are two great choices. The former can use “Reservoirs” to stun enemies and keep herself alive with minimal investment. Hildryn, on the other hand, is both quite tanky and can use “Pillage” to weaken enemies while recharging her own shields (which double as her energy source).
How to Play Grendel Tips: Warframe Guide
Grendel is interesting and sometimes even fun. He’s also far from the most beloved Warframe in the game right now. This is probably due somewhat to the extremely high requirements to farm his blueprints. Since he doesn’t live up to the hard process of getting him, it disinclines players to want to play him.
The issues boil down to two things: energy cost and damage. Grendel invests way too much energy into way too little impact — most notably with his ultimate “Pulverize.” His third skill, “Regurgitate,” actually does decent damage. Just make sure you vomit enemies close to other enemies. The range is absolutely atrocious.
Your best bets right now are to focus on eating heavy enemies with “Feast.” Especially those who are armored. Consuming them will strip their armor (albeit slowly) while taking them off the field of battle. You can also use “Gourmand,” an Augment mod for Grendel’s eating ability that drains health instead of energy, to counter his high energy drain.
While that may sound like a bad thing, “Nourish” heals you in addition to its teamwide buff. In fact, “Nourish” is probably the best Grendel ability at the moment, allowing you to play him a bit like a support / dedicated buff-giver. You can also use the Helminth system to acquire even more ways to bring lost health back.
And there you have it! This has been our guide to Grendel in Warframe — including tips, how to farm him, and where to unlock this brutal creature. Be sure to check out the rest of Fanbyte for more Warframe news, guides, features, and more. Good luck in the meantime, Tenno!
