All the Warframe Archwings, ranked

Update 15 added Archwings as the first vessel of outer space gameplay in Warframe. Even though it was a highly anticipated addition in 2014, the early fanfare tapered off gradually. Archwings eventually became vanity add-ons to the players' arsenal as it was separate from the mainline gameplay. For the longest time, they had only seen action in events like Plague Star and the occasional Fomorian Sabotage.

Railjacks and open-world activities have lately given it some more opportunity. Even though investment into diversifying your Archwing collection is arguably still optional, they do serve various purposes in mainstream activities like Profit Taker or Eidolon-hunting. This rundown of all the obtainable Archwings should serve as a guide on which one is the most useful.

Warframe Archwings ranked in order of overall usefulness

4) Elytron

• Health: 1350
• Armor: 150
• Shield: 1350
• Energy: 225

Elytron's entire gimmick is being a pure nuke-centric Archwing. The foundation of its abilities, while somewhat uninspired, sticks to this idea well. The main issue here is that its nukes do not have any meaningful scaling potential.

Archwings were released when the game did not have the likes of Steel Path. Many legacy Warframes like Ash have undergone quality-of-life changes to give them extra scaling when necessary. As the rest of the game moved forward with its power creep, Archwings were left as outdated relics of the past.

They are long overdue for a revision to bring them up to speed, and Elytron is an exemplar of this. All the Archwing nukes primarily deal Blast damage type. While thematically apt, it barely scratches the enemies you are likely to face beyond level 60.

To worsen the deal, Archwings do not even have the aid of high power strength. The best-in-slot mod you can gun for is the Baro-exclusive Primed Morphic Transformer for only +55% Ability Strength at max level. Ultimately, these factors leave Elytron with the label of Mastery Rank fodder and not much else.

3) Odonata

• Health: 900
• Armor: 100
• Shield: 900
• Energy: 180

Odonata bears the starter equipment's curse of mediocracy. Its blueprint and components are gradually handed out to you over the course of the Archwing quest. By the end of the quest, your starter Archwing is ready to go but will leave you unimpressed.

Arguably, its most useless ability is Seeking Fire, which suffers from the Elytron syndrome of not dealing enough damage. The other three abilities, while they sufficiently pull their weight, cost quite a lot of energy for a starter Archwing.

Energy Shell is the Archwing version of Volt's Energy Shields, blocking all enemy projectiles that try to head you head-on. Even though its projectile-blocking functionality is inconsistent, this ability doubles as the only Archwing damage buff. Your shots and other allied projectiles that pass through it gain a bonus of +50% fire damage and +100% Critical Damage.

Odonata is also the only Archwing to have its own Primed variant. It does not fundamentally change anything, as is the case with all Primed gear, but it does come with roughly 30% more Health and Shields.

2) Itzal

• Health: 600
• Armor: 50
• Shield: 600
• Energy: 360

From a design perspective, Itzal fills the niche for a glass cannon among Warframe Archwings. It is the most fragile of them all and arguably has the highest sustain DPS through abilities alone. However, as discussed before with the case of Elytron, DPS is not a viable crutch to assess Archwings.

Thankfully, Itzal finds great use in a popular secondary niche. It just so happens to be the fastest Archwing as well. With Hyperion Thrusters, the Aeronaut perk from the Piloting Intrinsics tree on Railjack, and Volt's speed boost, Itzal far outpaces any other forms of traveling in the open world nodes.

Cosmic Crush is an otherwise ordinary nuke that becomes noteworthy for its augment mod, Cold Snap. Cold Snap makes it so that enemies caught within the inner half of Cosmic Crush's range are frozen solid outright, akin to Frost's Avalanche ability.

Itzal also has the unique claim to Penumbra, the only camouflage ability among Archwings. Almost similar to Ivara, this completely handicaps your movement while in use. Rather than a mobility tool, it is supposed to be used as a cloaking utility, as it also makes allies in range invisible.

1) Amesha

• Health: 1200
• Armor: 200
• Shield: 600
• Energy: 360

Amesha is almost unanimously considered the best Archwing by the Warframe community. The actual usage statistics do not project the same sentiment, but this is because a large part of the playerbase does not build a second Archwing.

Amesha's role in Warframe Archwing gameplay is that of the sole tank. On paper, Elytron has more EHP and Shields compared to Amesha. However, Amesha is the only one able to not only completely negate damage but also heal other Archwings.

Warframe's in-game ability descriptions undersell the infinite utility of this Archwing. Here is an alternate rundown that recapitulates why you should use Amesha:

Firstly, Amesha is the most self-sustaining piece of gear not only in the Archwing domain but arguably in all of Warframe. To boot, the fourth ability makes you immortal up till you regain maximum Energy.

Secondly, Amesha has the Archwing variant of god-mode through its own version of Mesmer Skin. Watchful Swarm not only negates damage instances but also provides full status immunity whilst active.

Finally, Amesha alone can trivialize Thermia Fracture runs. Dropping two Benevolent Decoys on the coolant objectives will guarantee them near-impunity from enemy fire. The same is often also applicable for allies if they remain within Benevolent Decoy's range.

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