Review: Nezha (Prime) [U29.3.2]

Nezha is a Warframe introduced in U18.1, inspired by the Third Lotus Prince Nezha in Chinese folklore. Nezha Prime is much more recent, having been released in U29.3. A varied and versatile Warframe, he is a solid jack-of-all-trades, offering a unique and effective range of abilities.

Acquisition

The blueprints for regular Nezha are available from Clan Research, in the Tenno Lab. 

The blueprints for Nezha Prime, as standard for a Prime frame, are available from various Void Relics that are (as of writing) currently available.

Stats

Nezha has above-average Armour, Energy, Health and Sprint Speed, with below-average Shields. As will be further discussed later on, the lack of Shields is largely a non-issue, giving Nezha an overall great stat-spread.

Nezha Prime has increased Armour and Sprint Speed, both of which are useful boosts.

Abilities

Passive 

Nezha slides 60% faster, and can slide 35% further.

The value of this Passive depends entirely on how you feel about sliding and its (lack of) friction. If you like sliding and want to go faster, naturally it is brilliant. If you rarely, if ever, slide then naturally it has no value. If you are used to regular sliding Friction however, it may be problematic.

1: Fire Walker

Nezha ignites his feet for 30 seconds (+Dur), leaving a trail of flames that lasts for 10 seconds (+Dur). These flames will deal a small amount of Heat damage (+Str) to enemies that walk into it, with high Status Chance. Any allies (including Nezha himself) who walks onto the flames will instead have all Status procs removed, and will be immune to further procs (including knockdowns) while standing on the flames. Fire Walker also increases movement speed by 25%, and can be cast while moving but will interrupt all other actions.

 

Fire Walker is a very useful ability. It has quite a good base Duration and offers several useful benefits. Increased movement speed is quite useful, as is Status cleansing/immunity. The Heat procs it inflicts on enemies are extremely useful, not just for a short-CC, but also for the partial armour-strip that Heat procs now offer.

2: Blazing Chakram

Nezha throws forward the Chakram on his back. Upon hitting an enemy, the Chakram will deal some Heat damage (+Str) with forced proc, as well as increasing the damage taken by that enemy by 100% (+Str). Enemies under this effect are also guaranteed to drop a Health orb on death, and have a 35% chance to drop an Energy orb. These effects last for 15 seconds (+Dur). The Chakram will bounce between a number of enemies before returning to Nezha.

 

Alternatively, the ability can be charged, which will significantly increase the damage dealt by the Chakram, as well as causing it to travel in a straight line through enemies, rather than bouncing between them up to 5 times. Additionally, if the ability is cast again while the Chakram is still in flight, Nezha will be teleported to its current location at no energy cost. If Fire Walker is active for this teleport, it will create an explosion at the destination, dealing some Heat damage (+Str) with high Status Chance.

 

Blazing Chakram will appear on your minimap as an orange ring - see the above screenshot. It can be cast while moving, but will interrupt all other actions.

 

 

Blazing Chakram has a lot of different effects, but it can be (over)simplified as such: hit enemies with it for significant benefit, or use it to teleport. It is particularly helpful for marking a priority enemy, making it significantly easier to kill them. Its bouncing mechanic is also quite useful for marking multiple enemies, though its targeting AI can be very wonky at times. The Charged cast gets around this problem quite handily, but of course requires a short charge time. The extra Health and Energy orbs generated by Blazing Chakram allow Nezha to be relatively more self-sufficient than most Frames, and helps to fuel several very useful mod options.
 

3: Warding Halo

Warding Halo creates a protective ring around Nezha that gives him 90% Damage Reduction, and deals a small amount of damage (+Str) with forced stagger to nearby enemies (+Ran). It will last so long as it has health, determined by Strength and Armour. During the initial 3 seconds after casting, Warding Halo will also provide total invulnerability and will absorb any damage taken, adding it to its health pool. Any damage taken afterwards reduces its health. Upon expiring, it will explode, inflicting nearby enemies with a Heat proc and granting Nezha invulnerability for 1 second.

 

Warding Halo is a very good defensive ability. 90% DR to all damage sources is very strong, especially alongside Status immunity. It also staggers enemies who get too close, dealing minimal damage to them. This is useful against melee attackers but not ranged enemies. Warding Halo's health means you don't have to keep an eye on a timer, and the explosion and invulnerability on expiration gives you an obvious (and relatively safe) trigger to refresh it with.

Warding Halo offering 90% DR rather than complete damage absorption like Rhino's Iron Skin (2) is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, at sufficiently high enemy levels, Nezha can still be killed even through his DR where Rhino will be able to survive. On the other, it allows you to trigger on-damage arcanes, which Rhino cannot do without dropping his Iron Skin.

4: Divine Spears

Nezha impales enemies within 19m (+Ran) for 12 seconds (+Dur), dealing damage (+Str) both on initial cast and on expiration or decasting. If Blazing Chakram is cast on a Speared enemy, an additional Chakram will be spawned, which will target another nearby enemy. This can occur for each new Chakram spawned as well.

Divine Spears is a solid CC ability, completely disabling nearby enemies for a reasonable length of time. Its interaction with Blazing Chakram is quite good as well, greatly increasing the damage dealt to affected enemies as well as dropping a large number of orbs.

Augments

Passive: Controlled Slide

Disables Nezha's Passive. Increases PStr by 15%.

Naturally, this Augment is for those who like Nezha's kit, but don't like his slipperiness. It reverts his sliding behaviour back to normal, while also giving the Str boost of Power Drift (the chance for knockdown immunity is irrelevant while Warding Halo is active). If you like the Passive, Power Drift offers the same +PStr without loss of sliding.

1: Pyroclastic Flow

All of the damage dealt by Fire Walker is accumulated. When Fire Walker is cast again, it releases forward a 20m trail of fire that lasts for 10 seconds (+Dur), dealing the accumulated damage multiplied by 1.5x. This will reset the damage accumulation.

This Augment offers a large burst of lingering AoE damage that is passively built up just from having Fire Walker active. It is naturally far better with high enemy density, allowing you to both build up much more damage, as well as hit a lot more enemies with the resultant bonus trail. Its main weakness is the amount of time required to build up damage - the more damage you want, the longer it'll take to accumulate.

2: Reaping Chakram

Each enemy hit by Blazing Chakram, including extras spawned by Divine Spears (4), doubles the damage dealt by Blazing Chakram. Hit enemies also have a further increased chance to drop Health Orbs

 

 

This Augment allows Blazing Chakram to scale far beyond what its base damage would normally be capable of. Even without significant Str investment, the exponential damage multiplication allows it to deal major damage provided enemy density is high. It is especially potent with the Divine Spears - Blazing Chakram interaction, since the damage boost is increased by and affects all of the extra Chakrams created. If you enjoy using Blazing Chakram, this Augment is an absolute must.

3: Safeguard

Safeguard allows you to cast Warding Halo on allies, including other Warframes, Companions, and even Defence Objectives. These Halos have half the base health they would as if they were cast on Nezha himself, however still have the 3-second damage absorption period. When cast on Defence Objectives, it will only offer 50% Damage Reduction rather than the full 90%.

Safeguard offers no direct value to Nezha himself, but gives him a great support ability. Being able to give anyone 90% DR is incredibly valuable for keeping squisher teammates and companions alive. The status immunity it offers is also very useful to share. I'm personally a big fan of this Augment, but it has less value if you are more of a solo player.

Builds

Nezha's abilities appreciate all of the stats. Strength improves the health of Warding Halo (3), increases the damage multiplier of Blazing Chakram (2), and the damage of Fire Walker (1) and Divine Spears (4). Range increases the explosion range of Fire Walker upon Blazing Chakram teleport, the stagger and Slash damaging range of Warding Halo, and the range of Divine Spears. Duration increases the duration of Fire Walker, the Heat proc and damage increase of Blazing Chakram, and the duration of Divine Spears. As such, which stats you focus on will be dictated by which ability/ies you want to emphasise.

 

In terms of Augments, they are all worth considering, again depending on the abilities you want to emphasise and the role(s) you want to fulfil. Controlled Slide (Passive) makes Nezha slide like a normal Frame, while giving the +Str of Power Drift. Pyroclastic Flow (1) allows you to build up a large burst of damage with your Fire Walker, which in high enemy density environments can build up to quite a high level. Reaping Chakram (2) massively increases the damage dealt by Blazing Chakram, as well as further increasing health orb drop rates.

Because of all the extra orbs that Blazing Chakram spawns, Equilibrium can be a very strong option for keeping both Health and Energy supplied. Accordingly, Health and Energy Conversion are both solid mod options as Nezha can trigger them much more frequently than most Frames, thanks to the extra orb drops from Blazing Chakram. Both offer significant benefit - Health Conversion not only greatly increases Armour, but also improves Warding Halo health; Energy Conversion is a drawback-free Strength boost. The inability to pick up Health orbs at full health can be solved by using Synth Fiber on your companion. Adaptation offers up to 90% Damage Reduction on top of Warding Halo's 90% DR, making you nigh invincible until enemy levels in the high hundreds. Its stacks are also trivial to build up. As a result of the many strong Damage Reduction options that Nezha has, he is one Frame on whom I don't install extra Health.

Looking at Arcanes, there are several solid options to consider. Arcane Guardian is trivial to proc and significantly increases Warding Halo health. Arcane Energize procs regularly thanks to the increased Energy Orb drops from Blazing Chakram, and fuels further ability use. Arcane Avenger can be safely and reliably procced since Nezha can comfortably tank a lot of hits. Arcane Grace can also be procced relatively safely, and can comfortably keep your Health topped up. Arcane Aegis and Barrier are similar options for Shields, but as Nezha's Shields are so low, they can be inconsistent to proc before your Shields go down entirely.

 

Nezha has one innate V and D polarities. Nezha Prime has an extra - polarity. Both have a - polarity in the Aura slot. There are several good - polarity Auras to consider: Corrosive Projection is helpful against armoured enemies, Sprint Boost gives everyone a small speed increase, and Enemy and Loot Radars are quite useful for locating their corresponding targets. Looking at other polarity Auras, Growing Power is always a decent option for any Frame that benefits from Strength.

 

Basic - General Purpose

This example build sticks to basic, easy-to-acquire mods, offering all-round benefits. Because of the low drain of most of the mods, there is significant space to experiment and try out differnt Augments. Armored Agility and Augur Message are the two least important mods, so would be the ones you'd replace first.

Primed Basic - General Purpose

This build is simply a slightly updated version of the above Basic build, incorporating two Primed mods and replacing Armored Agility with an Augment. Safeguard is my favourite of all the Augments.

Defensive - Warding Halo

With up to three Forma, this above build makes Nezha massively tankier. As previously mentioned, Health Conversion is easily fuelled with Blazing Chakram and greatly increases both Armour and Warding Halo health. Adaptation takes a bit of time to build up, but can greatly reduce what little damage you are already taking. More Strength also helps to increase Warding Halo health, while being beneficial to the Blazing Chakram in particular as well.

Strength and Range - Reaping Chakram

This build gets a little more Range for Divine Spears to hit more enemies. This in turn gives Blazing Chakram many more ideal targets to hit, greatly increasing the damage multiplier from Reaping Chakram. Combined with high Strength, this setup allows Blazing Chakram to deal impressive damage, greatly weakening any enemies who survive.

High Range - CC

This build forgoes Strength to instead have a much larger CC range. Reaping Chakram naturally synergises with this as Blazing Chakram will have even more speared enemies to hit and duplicate off of.

My Builds

My default build is one that focuses on strong, shareable Halos and general survivability. Adaptation stacks overkill DR on top of Warding Halo's 90% DR, rendering Nezha basically invincible while a Halo is up. Health Conversion offers far more Armour than any typical +Armour mod, and is extremely easy to stack up with Blazing Chakram's bonus orb drops, and Synth Fiber allowing Companions to collect Health orbs at full health. Boosted Strength increases the health of Halos as well as the damage boost from Blazing Chakram.

This build sacrifices a little survivability and Safeguard for a much heavier Chakram focus. The increased Range allows Divine Spears to affect a lot more enemies, offering many more targets for Blazing Chakram to hit and multiply off of. With the greatly increased orb spawn rates, Equilibrium allows you to keep topped up on Energy even with regular casting, and Energy Conversion is frequently active.

Finally, this build allows Nezha to travel quite fast, with massively increased Sprint Speed, Slide speed, as well as Infested Mobility replacing Divine Spears.

Roles

Nezha is a jack-of-all-trades, though is least consistent at DPS. Though Blazing Chakram (2) has quite a high damage ceiling with its Augment, it requires very high enemy density to work well, and its targeting/bouncing AI can be wonky. Even with Augment, it does not compare to a proper DPS frame such as Saryn, Mesa, Khora, etc.

 

Divine Spears (4) is a strong radial CC with good duration, while Fire Walker (1) with its Heat procs is a decent light extra CC. Blazing Chakram's damage multiplier on affected enemies, combined with its guaranteed Heat procs, are great targeted debuffs. It also drastically increases Orb spawn rates. When Augmented, it is also a surprisingly effective damaging ability when used on a group of speared enemies (when the targeting AI works...). Warding Halo (3) is a great defensive ability that makes Nezha quite tanky, and with Augment can even be casted on allies.

Combat Use and Summary

The base gameplay of Nezha is simply to keep Fire Walker (1) and Warding Halo (3) active at all times. Fire Walker is cheap to cast, lasts quite a while and offers reasonable benefit, while Warding Halo offers great survivability. Blazing Chakram (2) has multiple uses, including weakening priority heavy enemies and spawning extra health and energy orbs. Divine Spears (4) is a generally solid CC that synergises with Blazing Chakram extremely well.

The Heat proc rework in U26 was a massive buff to Nezha, as a significant chunk of his kit inflicts Heat procs. Their partial armour strip and stacking damage-over-time make his forced procs significantly more useful than Heat procs used to be.

The versatility of Nezha's kit allows him to prepare for and adapt to most mission types depending on his equipped Augments. Fire Walker should always be active, and offers a mobility boost, Status cleansing for allies, and a light CC. With Augment, it can also provide bursts of high damage. Blazing Chakram offers a strong enemy debuff as well as light support with the extra orb generation. When Augmented, it also becomes a viable damage-dealing ability. Divine Spears offers a strong radial CC that also significantly improves Blazing and especially Reaping Chakram. Warding Halo with Safeguard allows him to protect both allies and Defence Objectives. 

 

Overall, Nezha is a solid Warframe who can be adapted to your own preferences and playstyle. With a full set of solid abilities and several great Augments, he is useful in most missions and quite fun to use.

Weapon Combinations

There aren't any particular weapons that I think work uniquely well with Nezha. The guaranteed Heat procs and damage increase offered by Blazing Chakram is great for pretty much every weapon. Melee weapons with Condition Overload appreciate the extra element for more damage.

 

Perhaps the most notable combination would be weapons with explode-on-death Augments like the Sobek's Acid Shells. On top of being able to kill the main target much more easily, the Blazing Chakram damage boost also results in the subsequent explosions dealing massively more damage than they normally would. However, this isn't anything too special compared to stronger conventional AoE weapons like the Ignis Wraith and Kuva Bramma.