Review: Rhino (Prime) (U24.1.4)

Rhino is one of the original Warframes, being available since the Closed Beta. Rhino Prime was released in U12.4, alongside Boltor and Ankyros Primes. With a diverse set of abilities, he is a fairly simple but very effective and versatile Warframe.

Acquisition

Rhino is the easiest Warframe for a new player to acquire. His three parts can be acquired from the Jackal Assassination on Venus, while the main blueprint is available directly from the Market. This is the earliest new Warframe that a player can obtain, as the Mercury boss, Captain Vor, does not drop Warframe parts, while the Earth boss, Vay Hek, is a much higher level.

Rhino Prime, as standard, requires four different blueprints, three of them to make constituent parts. As he is currently Vaulted, his parts cannot be acquired from currently available relics.

Stats

Rhino has above average Armour and Shields at 190 and 150 respectively, average Energy and Health at 100 each, and slightly below average Sprint Speed of 0.95. Rhino Prime has further increased Armour at 275, and boosted Sprinted Speed at 1.

Notably, as Rhino's Iron Skin (2) scales with armour, Rhino Prime is one of the few Prime Warframes who has a boosted ability compared to its base model.

Abilities

Passive: Heavy Landing

Landing on the ground at a sufficient velocity (i.e. dropping from significant height) will emit a shockwave that deals miniscule damage to nearby enemies, and knocks them over. This stacks with Heavy Impact, which offers other Warframes the same effect.

This passive is, to be frank, practically worthless. It is true that it offers a minor defence against any enemies nearby your landing spot, but it does not affect enemies further away, who are still quite capable of attacking you during your hard landing animation. Furthermore, it does not eliminate the hard landing animation, which lasts long enough to leave you quite vulnerable and be annoying to have to wait through. With practice with Warframe's movement system, it is much better to simply avoid hard landings, through maneuvers like Aim Glides and Sliding.

1: Rhino Charge

Rhino charges forward a distance of 12 metres (+Ran), dealing 650 Impact damage (+Str) to all enemies within 2 metre range (+Ran) and ragdolling them. Rhino is invulnerable during the charge. Damage is doubled on enemies affected by Rhino Stomp (4), and will inflict a Blast proc if Iron Skin (2) is active. Charge interrupts your current actions and costs 25 energy.

Rhino Charge has a simplified combo system, which lasts for 1 second (+Dur). Casting Charge again during this combo window will double the damage, increase range by 0.25x, and halve energy cost from the previous cast, to a maximum of 4x damage, 1.5x range and 0.25x energy.


The damaging effect of Rhino Charge is pretty much meaningless beyond low levels, but this ability does have some uses. Since it ragdolls all enemies hit, and makes you invulnerable for a short time, it is a useful panic button ability that is also cheap to cast, especially in succession. With high Range, it can also be used to cover long distances quite quickly.

2: Iron Skin

Rhino creates a barrier that absorbs all incoming damage, with 1200 base health (+Str). Rhino's current armour is multiplied by 2.5x (+Str) and added to this. The total health is displayed in the buff/debuff bar in the top right (see below images), and the ability icon in the bottom right will show the percentage of its health remaining. This barrier blocks all status effects, including knockdowns. Iron Skin interrupts your current actions and costs 50 energy.

Upon casting, Rhino will be made invulnerable for 3 seconds. During this time, any damage that would be received is instead absorbed, and added to Iron Skin's total health. This does not include self-damage. The amount absorbed is displayed in the buff/debuff bar in the top right.


Iron Skin is an amazing defensive ability. Blocking all status effects is very useful, as is absorbing huge amounts of damage, while the damage absorption period keeps the ability relevant at really high levels. There are two main problems with Iron Skin. The first is that it encourages complacency with regards to mobility, as it makes you extremely tough and minimises the need for evasive maneuvers to survive. The second problem Iron Skin has is its inability to be refreshed or recasted safely....at least without Augments.

3: Roar

Roar increases all damage dealt by all allies (including yourself) within 25 metre range (+Ran) by 50% (+Str) for 30 seconds (+Dur). It interrupts all actions on cast, and cannot be recasted while active. Roar costs 75 energy.


Roar is the only ability in the game (so far) that boosts both weapon and Warframe ability damage directly, and boosts them by a substantial amount, applying after all other damage modifiers. The biggest problem with Roar is the inability to recast it while it is active, which would otherwise make it practically perfect.

4: Rhino Stomp

Rhino stomps the ground, dealing 800 Blast damage (+Str) in a 25 metre radius (+Ran). All affected enemies are forced into a special tumbling/knockdown animation, and have their speed reduced by 97.5% for 8 seconds (+Dur). Stomp must be cast while on the ground, and interrupts all actions. If recast while still active, all previously affected enemies will be dealt the damage, but their slow duration will not be reset. Stomp costs 100 energy.


Stomp is a very effective CC ability, completely disabling all enemies within range for its duration, and even a little longer since they need to get up afterwards from the knockdown. Like Rhino Charge, its damage is negligible outside of lower levels, but this is hardly a problem. The inability to refresh the slow duration is not a big issue since you can just Stomp again when enemies are starting to get up from the previous knockdown.

Augments

1: Ironclad Charge 

When you cast Rhino Charge with Ironclad Charge, every enemy hit in that charge will increase your current armour by 50% (+Str) (e.g. hitting 4 enemies increases your current armour by 200% at base). This lasts for 10 seconds (+Dur). Casting Charge again and hitting enemies will override the original armour bonus with the new one, which may be lower.


Even just on face value, Ironclad Charge is a decent, if a little finicky, Augment. Since it multiplies your total current armour, not just base, and scales with Strength, you can reach absurd armour values with a well aimed Charge cast. For instance, with just Intensify for +30% Strength, hitting just 4 enemies with a single charge will increase your armour by 260%, from 190 to 684. With higher Strength and some Armour mods, a good Charge cast can get your armour easily into the thousands, potentially even tens of thousands.

While this makes Rhino's health much tougher, Ironclad Charge has another, very noteworthy interaction. Iron Skin scales with Rhino's current armour - and takes into account the bonus armour from Ironclad Charge. High Strength and a well aimed Ironclad Charge with a follow-up Iron Skin cast can result in an Iron Skin with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of health. Strength is especially good for this, as it not only increases Ironclad Charge's armour multiplier, but also Iron Skin's overall health multiplier.

With all that said, the extra armour is worthless if you can't cast Iron Skin in time. If your Iron Skin is still active, it cannot be recast until it is depleted, which requires jumping into a pit, being Nullified or being attacked by enemies. That or using...

2: Iron Shrapnel

Iron Shrapnel allows Iron Skin to be detonated on command with no energy cost. It can be detonated at any time without interrupting actions. The remaining health is dealt as Puncture damage (+Str) to enemies within 8 metres (+Ran), with a chance for Puncture procs. Affected enemies are knocked down. Iron Shrapnel automatically triggers when Iron Skin is dispelled by Nullification or falling into a pit, but not if it is depleted by damage.


That first sentence alone makes Iron Shrapnel worth taking. Being able to dispel and recast Iron Skin on command is fantastic (and would be great if it was part of the base ability...), as it gives you much better control over Iron Skin health. For instance, if Iron Skin is low on health, you would otherwise have to either jump in a pit, run into a Nullification field, or risk getting shot at to remove it and allow recasting. Alternatively, you may have just made a perfect Ironclad Charge and now have tens of thousands of bonus armour that you want Iron Skin to benefit from. Iron Shrapnel allows you to refresh your Iron Skin when it best suits you, rather than as enemies and the environment allow. The detonation damage is negligible, though the radial knockdown is a nice extra.

3: Piercing Roar

Piercing Roar makes Roar inflict 150 Puncture damage (+Str) and a Puncture proc to all enemies within range of Roar (+Ran).


This Augment is basically useless. As I discussed in my damage types article, Puncture procs are pretty much worthless currently, as 70% of a lot of damage is still a lot of damage. Again, the damage dealt is basically worthless. If Puncture procs are buffed to be substantially more effective, this mod may be worth using, but until then, don't bother. The inability to recast Roar also hinders this Augment.

4: Reinforcing Stomp

With Reinforcing Stomp, every enemy hit by Rhino Stomp heals your Iron Skin by 80 health (+Str). This cannot exceed the original maximum health of your Iron Skin (e.g. if you had 5,000 Iron Skin health on initial cast, no amount of Stomping will heal your Iron Skin above that).


Reinforcing Stomp is notably a way of healing your Iron Skin without having to dispel it first. It does not heal a particularly large amount. A standard Rhino's base Iron Skin health is 1675, so you would need to catch 21 enemies in Stomps to fully heal this. Strength does not affect how many enemies are required for a full heal, since it scales both Iron Skin health and Reinforcing Stomp heal. However, additional Armour will increase the required number of enemies. With just Steel Fiber, the number of enemies required increases to 28. Rhino Prime's additional Armour increases this further.

With that said, Reinforcing Stomp is a neat convenience mod, as dispelling Iron Skin to recast it leaves you vulnerable for a moment. Personally I prefer just recasting Iron Skin with Iron Shrapnel, but this is a fun and useful Augment particularly if you Stomp a lot.

Builds

Rhino is a Warframe who appreciates all Ability stats. Strength notably boosts Rhino Charge with Ironclad Charge (1), Iron Skin (2) and Roar (3), and to a lesser extent, Stomp with Reinforcing Stomp (4). Range significantly improves Stomp and to a lesser extent Roar, while also making Charge go further. Duration benefits both Roar and Stomp significantly. Efficiency is always appreciated to make ability casting a lot easier. As such, I strongly recommend ensuring that all stats are at least close to 100%, even if it's not a primary stat.

In Warframe's current modding system, you can either go for a balanced build, boosting all stats a reasonable amount, or maximise one or two, at the cost of the others. One of the many good thigns about Rhino is that just about any combination of Strength/Duration/Range can be effective, with the best setup depending on the mission and your personal preferences. Strength + Duration gives a tough Iron Skin and a strong, long lasting Roar, at the cost of a shorter Charge and smaller Stomp, great for solo play and general killing. Duration + Range gives a wide reaching and long lasting Range and Stomp, perfect for CC. Strength + Range gives a strong Iron Skin with a wide reaching and fairly powerful Charge and Stomp, particularly effective with Ironclad Charge and Reinforcing Stomp, and for map wiping at low levels.

General speaking, I find the Balanced or Strength + Duration builds to be the most overall useful, being effective in both solo play as well as buffing allies. Duration + Range is mainly useful in defensive type gamemodes where killing is less or not necessary (e.g. Mobile Defence, Interception). Strength + Range is useful mainly at lower levels, or for Iron Skin shenanigans with Augments.

Since Iron Skin completely absorbs any damage received, Health and Shields are not necessary. Armour does significantly improve Iron Skin, especially in conjunction with Strength, so is worth building for.

Of the four Augments, Iron Shrapnel (2) is by far the most generally useful. The ability to refresh Iron Skin at your own convenience is fantastic. Notably, since ranking up the mod only improves the mostly useless explosion, this Augment can be left at Rank 0 to save mod capacity. Ironclad Charge (1) is mainly up to personal play style. If you enjoy or are willing to regularly Charge into enemies, Ironclad Charge can be a very powerful Augment. If you're lazy like me and prefer not to, it's not worth it. Piercing Roar (3) is not worth it as Puncture procs are terrible, and Roar is not recastable while active. Reinforcing Stomp (4), like Ironclad Charge, depends on your personal playstyle. If you Stomp a lot, Reinforcing Stomp can be worth slotting in. If not, I'd leave it off.

Rhino has two native D polarities, with Rhino Prime having an additional - polarity. They both have a V Aura polarity.

General Purpose 0-Forma:

This is a very simple, balanced build using mainly basic mods. All ability stats are boosted a little, with Steel Fiber for armour for Iron Skin. Iron Shrapnel is there at minimum rank for recastable Iron Skin. Armoured Agility has been slotted in because it's a fairly easy to obtain D polarity mod that is useful for Rhino. This is a multi-purpose build that you can try out, then go on to modify depending on your personal preferences.

Rifle Amp has been used as the Aura as it's a fairly easy to acquire V polarity Aura with standard capacity. Steel Charge offers a bit more capacity, but is an anomaly in this respect.

Range + Duration 1-Forma:

An added - polarity allows the use of both Primed Continuity and Primed Flow. This build focuses on Range and Duration, in exchange for low Strength. Stomp is especially effective, stunning all enemies within around 60 metre radius for about 14 seconds. However, Roar only offers a 20% damage boost, and Iron Skin is particularly weak. With such high Range and fairly high Duration, this build is exceptional for keeping enemies at bay.

Strength + Duration 2-Forma:

With an added V polarity, this build has space for more Corrupted mods, focusing on Strength and Duration instead. This gives a fairly tough Iron Skin and an especially potent Roar, with a +92.5% damage boost lasting for over a minute. Stretch ensures that Range is not totally ruined, so you can still catch allies in Roar radius, and Stomp is still reasonably effective.

This is an alternative with Ironclad Charge, losing a bit of Strength, but having massively more Iron Skin potential. Hitting even just one enemy with Charge will get you an Iron Skin of comparable strength, while hitting multiple enemies will net you a substantially stronger Iron Skin. This of course comes at the cost of a noticably weaker Roar, at only +77.5% damage.

Strength + Range 2-Forma:

This is an alternate setup, dumping Duration in exchange for Strength and Range. This setup has a tough Iron Skin, as well as a surprisingly powerful Stomp, but pathetic Duration. Fleeting Expertise has been used to get Efficiency back above 100%, but Streamline could be used instead to not completely ruin Duration. Reinforcing Stomp is also quite effective with this build. Personally, I wouldn't bother with this sort of build, as I feel it does not offer enough benefit compared to the others.

My Builds

This is my general purpose build, with high Duration and fairly high Strength. Range and Efficiency have been kept reasonable. This offers a pretty good Roar and reasonable Iron Skin especially with Steel Fiber, while still having a usable Stomp. Iron Shrapnel makes Iron Skin much easier and safer to refresh. Corrosive Projection is of course the default Aura, though there are a number of decent alternatives, including Growing Power and Enemy Radar.

Arcane Guardian, though it does not trigger while Iron Skin is up, can be useful. If Iron Skin is taken down by enemy fire, Arcane Guardian has a fairly good chance of activating, which will boost Rhino's armour and thus enhance the next Iron Skin casted. Arcane Energise helps a little with energy economy, though as a Zenurik user, this is rarely a problem anyway.

This is my dedicated Roar build intended primarily for weapon levelling. It has even higher Strength, at the cost of Efficiency. With such a long Roar, Efficiency is not a big problem, as I easily regain the necessary energy from Zenurik. However, this does make all other abilities a lot more expensive to use, which is why this isn't my general purpose build.

This is my build specialised for the Index. It has boosted Efficiency as Energy is harder to come by in the Index, while completely dropping Range as I usually go solo. Speed Holster and Arcane Momentum are used as I typically use Radiation + HM Vectis Prime and Magnetic + Toxin Mara Detron, and switch between the two frequently. Vigilante Pursuit gives enemy radar as Index disables companions.

Roles

Rhino is a versatile Warframe useful in just about every mission type. In offensive missions that require damage dealing and killing power, he can increase all damage dealt by himself and all nearby allies by a significant amount. In more defensive missions, he can help keep objectives safe by Stomping any enemies who get too close, or knocking them away with Charge. Through it all, Iron Skin can keep Rhino (relatively) safe.

With Roar, Rhino is one of the best offensive Support Frames, offering a simple but substantial universal damage buff. His Stomp is also one of the best CC abilities in the game, completely disabling enemies in a fairly wide area for a decent amount of time. Charge likewise offers a little bit of CC. Iron Skin makes Rhino one of the Tankiest Warframes in the game, especially if armour boosting and damage absorption mechanics are taken full advantage of.

Combat Use and Summary

Rhino is a rather simple but quite effective Warframe. He is useful in just about every mission type, and is very easy to acquire and learn. Even without good mods, his abilities are good enough to provide quite decent benefit. Perhaps the only weakness, if you can call it that, is that at higher levels, Rhino relies entirely on his weapons for killing power.

The first order of business in a mission is to put up an Iron Skin (2), and it should be refreshed as necessary. With Ironclad Charge, this may be preceded by a Charge (1) into a group of enemies for the extra armour, and thus Iron Skin health. Roar (3) should be kept active as much as possible, while Charge and Stomp (4) are used as necessary. In missions where CC is ideal and killing is less necessary, this could mean a lot of Charge/Stomp casting, while missions that require killing to progress would more likely see a minimum of it, only casting to survive or protect the objective. If Ironclad Charge is equipped, Charge should be casted shortly before recasting Iron Skin.


If you're looking for a simple, solid and useful Warframe, or even just your first new Frame after your starter, Rhino is a great one to go for. He is easy to acquire, easy to get good use of, and can be made very powerful. I personally don't particularly enjoy him as such, I find him very boring. However, I absolutely cannot deny his usefulness, and use him to level weapons in situations where a Speed Nova would be too dangerous.

Weapon Combinations

There aren't any weapons that combine notably well with Rhino. All weapons appreciate a damage buff as well as stunned enemies for easier headshots.