Warframe: Dante Complete Guide – Drops, Abilities, And Builds (2024)

Dante is Warframe's closest 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 the Armatus 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.

Dante Blueprint

Dante Neuroptics

Dante Chassis

Dante Systems

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Dante Abilities

Stats

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 Grimoire that 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

See Also

Warframe: Dante Unbound

Noctua: Open Noctua, Dante's Exalted Tome, and unleash a tale of woe upon his enemies.

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 to equip every Invocation mod simultaneously. We highly suggest building the Noctua for utility rather than raw damage; that's what your third and fourth abilities are for.

Primary fire releases 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 fire releases 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.

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:

1. You are invulnerable while writing this verse.
2. Casting this ability fills your Noctua with a Light page.

In essence, you can use Light Verse as a panic invulnerability button when 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.

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:

1. This ability always inflicts Slash status.
2. Casting this skill adds a Dark page to the Noctua.

The Slash status from this skill is significant and can kill Steel Path armored targets with minimal investment. Spam this skill, and you can 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.

Final Verse is easily the most complicated ability in Warframe, as it's four abilities in one. If you've played an Invoker in DOTA 2 or a 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.

Invoking the Final Verse with two Light pages will 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. All players 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.

Writing two Dark Pages and 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.

Writing a Light page and Dark page will 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.

With a Dark page and Light page invoked 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 to maintain 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 wants Ability 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 use all Tome 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 Strength are all excellent options.

We highly recommend at least two Amber Shards to buff Dante's cast speed, allowing you to drop Natural Talent for another mod.

Starter Build (Zero Forma, No Subsume)

• Forma: 0
• Subsume: None

This Dante build is a jack of all trades configuration that builds for a little bit of everything. Going all-in on Strength isn't necessary thanks to Precision Intensify giving 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 is Natural 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 Flow is needed to give Dante a large Energy supply.

Beyond that, the rest of the build is quite flexible. We use Stretch and Augur Reach for some Ability Range, Primed Continuity for Ability Duration, and Transient Fortitude for some extra Ability Strength. Throw on Streamline to 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 Invocation will restore Energy with your alt-fire, allowing you to spam abilities to your heart's content. Vome Invocation will also scale your Ability Strength. Finally, we use Anemic Agility for added fire rate.

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Endgame Caster Build (Five Forma, No Subsume)

• Forma: 5
  • Dante: V and –
  • Noctua: 3V
• Subsume: None

This endgame build for Dante isn't much different than our starter configuration. We drop Streamline for Constitution, add Cunning Drift, and equip some Arcanes to enhance the build's effectiveness. We recommend Arcane Velocity to buff the Noctua's fire rate and Molt Efficiency to extend your Ability Duration. Molt Augmented is also a great choice.

Most of our investment went towards the Noctua, as it can offer a plethora of stat buffs if we use all Invocation mods. We use Xata, Vome, Netra, and Ris. You'll gain four buffs for using your alt-fire.

• +60% Strength.
• +60% Duration.
• +60% Efficiency.
• +10 Energy per second.

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.

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