Update 13/12/2021:

• Added honorable mod mentions section to the guide for extra survivability in case you don't have/want to subsume defense skills.

If you're willing to invest an Umbral Forma into this warframe, remove Augur Message for Narrow Minded and run Hildryns Pillage instead.

For this build your survivability comes from Sevagoths Gloom. Why Gloom? Because you're already running double efficiency mods to reduce the channeling cost of your Peacemakers. With this amount of energy efficiency it hurts not to use Gloom. At 100% ability duration your energy drain consumption is also capped so this is the lowest cost Peacemakers/Gloom you'll ever see. Now all that's left is how to boost these two skills.

For Gloom, besides capped efficiency and 100% duration for the minimal energy consumption, we need range and strength. Without range we won't be slowing anyone and without strength the slow won't be noticeable. If you're running Gloom with a slow of around 50% you may as well just run a cold status effect on your weapons then... With 235% ability strength we have a 82% slow which is basically a stun. All you need to do is cast Gloom after you apply a status effect on an enemy and just keep it on for that extra 25% ability strength from Growing Power, the bonus will last as long as you don't turn your Gloom off.

Same rule goes for your Peacemakers. If you want to maximize their damage output, apply a status effect to get 25% ability power from Growing Power and then use Shooting Gallery to get a 59% damage bonus. Now finally use your Peacemakers that now have an increase in damage as well. With this amount of ability strength we can also mod our [Regulators] differently, for example we can fully drop Hornet Strike or Galvanized Shot and run faction and elemental mods.

Synth Reflex is an essential QOL mod that allows you to spam 4 to recast your Peacemakers. Without it you'd be having a small but very annoying delay. If you think this mod is useless to you feel free to drop it for Power Drift for a 87% Gloom slow or Cunning Drift for +2m range on Gloom. If you really dislike Growing Power and It's mechanic you can even go for Speed Holster as aura and then Power Drift as exilus. That way you'll be having a 79% Gloom slow without needing to pay attention if you've proced [Growing Power] buff or not.

Primed Flow is there along with Arcane Energize to give us even more energy economy so that we can sustain that Gloom and those Peacemakers.

Transient Fortitude and Umbral Intensify are there to give us power strength so that we can achieve a higher Gloom slow. Because of the negative duration coming from Transient Fortitude and Fleeting Expertise we are running Augur Message and Primed Continuity to balance it out.

Umbral Vitality is there for a higher health pool in case we get hit by a status proc so we don't get instantly deleted. [Mesa] has amazing base hp and Gloom will help us [Recover] it. Also remember that not equipping a melee weapon on [Mesa] gives her extra 50 flat hp.

Lastly Arcane Velocity is a must because it allows us to drop Anemic Agility from our [Regulators] builds. Free 120% pistol fire rate, compared to measly 90% with a 15% dmg decrease from [Anemic Agility].

As for the other two abilities that [Mesa] has, Shooting Gallery and Shatter Shield might be some of the most broken defensive abilities I've seen!

Shooting Gallery jams guns of 3 nearby enemies, but please don't let this ability fool you. It will jam the guns of all nearby enemies, it just applies on them 3 by 3. It is not hard capped on working on 3 enemies. That's why killing your ability range feels really bad because you're missing out on the amazing defensive utility this ability provides. But wait...there's more. This ability also applies a sort of stun on melee enemies as well, they will simply stop charging at you.

Shatter Shield makes us basically immune to any enemy that shoots projectiles at us. You will take no damage from them at all. The only problem is that you will be vulnerable to status effects, melee and aoe hits. But that's where Shooting Gallery helps us by stunning the melee mobs and disabling the guns from aoe shooters such as Bombards. To top it all off Gloom provides us with an extra safety by slowing them all and giving us free life leech to sustain any status effects applied on us. It also prolongs the animation of Shooting Gallery on mobs because they are slowed, essentially increasing the duration of the skill itself.

If you're still reading this guide and you're not yet sold on Gloom then I don't know what to say.... Besides mentioning Pillage!

If you have an Umbral Forma and you're really enjoying [Mesa] as a warframe and you're ready to invest, I suggest you try Hildryns Pillage. It will strip enemies shields and armor and give it to you, allowing you to shield gate any damage you receive as well as removing all status effects on you and your allies. The stripping part of the ability will also allow you to deal more damage to the enemy. Pillage is also amazing because it requires no ability range and scales great with ability duration so we can freely run Narrow Minded, and now that we're not running Gloom anymore, we don't need that much ability power so you can think about using other quality of life mods such as Enemy Radar or Corrosive Projection in the aura slot.

The only downside of the Gloom build is the fact that we only have 100% ability duration which means that we will need to recast our Shooting Gallery and Shatter Shield every 30 and 25 seconds. But that's what the Pillage build fixes giving us a 1 minute long Shooting Gallery. Sadly it will also mean that our Shooting Gallery will only be affecting melee mobs and we'll need to invest an Umbral Forma in order to fit the whole build. It's up to your choosing.

Other fun Helminth combos would be Roar and Eclipse because of the raw damage bonus they provide but I advise you to go for survivability for solo play instead.

With all this written down, the last thing I want to mention is that Mesas Peacemakers scale really poorly into higher level mobs so if you're looking to do SP survival againts lvl9999 mobs, you won't be using your 4th ability at all, you'll be relying on a different weapon. The reason why they are so bad is because they have no status chance and they are impact based. They also can't headshot and have no aoe damage. So you will be standing there shooting one mob at infinite fire rate speed with no need of reload for 5 minutes when instead you could've brought a melee or primary weapon that can apply 30 hard hitting bleed procs that would bleed the enemy to death in a second no matter their hp, no matter their armor.

Other than that last note, the utility her 2nd and 3rd abilities bring as well as the clear speed of her 4th ability for regular content as well as the 50 meter map coverage of her pistols for open world bounties make Mesa an S tier warframe so be sure to pick her up! A notice of warning tho, you might get bored/burned out from the game while playing her real fast.

TLDR: When building Mesa you want:

• as high duration as possible so you don't need to pay too much attention at your 2nd and 3rd ability buffs if they're up or not
• 175% ability efficiency (that's btw the cap, go any higher than that, such as maxing out Streamline and Fleeting Expertise and you'll be wasting precious mod capacity or ability duration).
• no range because it doesn't influence the 50m range your Peacemakers have, the only thing that will hurt with negative range is Shooting Gallery
• not a lot of strength, the way your damage bonus scales from Shooting Gallery and Peacemakers is quite sad mathematically so even with 150% ability strength you are good to go, the only difference it will make is the fact that you will need to now add extra raw damage mods into your Peacemakers to compensate for the loss of the ability strength from your warframe.

Honorable mod mentions would be Rolling Guard, Adaptation and Muzzle Flash.

*Rolling Guard is an amazing defensive mod allowing you to cleanse status effects off yourself as well as gain invulnerability, allowing you to go for more offensive subsumes such as Roar or Eclipse, pairing it with Mesa's Waltz also allows you to roll during your 4th skill, tho I'd recommend againts using this augment since you can just get used to spam casting your 4 while bullet jumping in the air.

*Adaptation fixes the issue your 3rd skill Shatter Shield is facing, which is damage from melee hits, aoe and status effects. It will give you 90% dr againts the types of damage that are hitting you, but it would require you to get hit in the first place in order to stack it up, this is an unsafe method of survivability so i'd recommend Rolling Guard or survivability subsumes over it. Tho with it you can now run offensive subsumes such as Eclipse and Roar. Adaptation also stacks with the damage reduction your 3rd provides giving you 95%+90%=99% dr for projectile hits.

*Muzzle Flash works when soloing as well, it has positive and negative effects from modding for ability duration and it scales off of your ability duration and range. I'd saying modding for 100% duration and 175% range would be great for it. It's a simple blind, like the one from breach surge and it opens up enemies for finishers. Essentially another method of survivability.

Oh and here are the links to my Regulator builds:

• General Viral+Heat: https://overframe.gg/build/228328/
• Lich/Deimos Corrosive: https://overframe.gg/build/228453/
• Index Radiation: https://overframe.gg/build/228454/