ABILITY BREAKDOWN

PASSIVE: DEATH'S GATE

• Every kill you get with [Garuda] will fill her Death Well by 5%, maxing out at 100%, and providing you with a damage bonus that is calculated independent of other damage sources (final damage multiplier). Damage bonus also applies to both abilities and weapons. This is easily one of the most powerful passives in the game as it basically just doubles all your damage.

1. DREAD MIRROR

• Cast on an enemy to take 10% of their total health and turn it into a shield that absorbs and stores damage dealt to it in the [Dread] Heart. While the shield is up, you get 100% knockdown and stagger immunity. Holding the ability will charge the [Dread] Heart, consuming energy to increase its damage output. Release to launch the [Dread] Heart as a projectile that explodes on impact. [Dread] Heart deals impact damage, however combining this with the 4th ability will allow it to deal slash. Because this ability steals a % of enemy health as damage, it scales with level meaning you can consistently kill enemies up to level cap. This ability can also instantly kill enemies with the pounce if they are at 40% health or lower and will absorb 20% of their health instead of 10%.

2. BLOOD ALTAR

• Cast on an enemy to [Pounce] to them and impale them with [Talons], creating a stationary healing zone out of their body. This ability works well for what it is, and it synergizes with the 3rd ability by providing health so you can continually generate energy. However, there are so many forms of healing that this is always used as the subsume slot for helminth abilities. [Garuda]'s other abilities are just so much more important and vital to her gameplay which makes Blood Altar an easy choice to remove.

3. BLOODLETTING

• Basically, turn your health into energy. This is arguably the single best energy source in the entire game because as long as you have a way to heal, you have infinite energy. Bloodletting also clears all active status effects from your Warframe when you cast it which is very useful in high level content when status procs can deal tons of damage to you.

4. SEEKING TALONS

• Hold to expand a large ring/reticle, then release to send [Talons] towards all enemies within the ring. This has a fixed 60 meter range. This ability force procs slash on enemies hit as well as applies a debuff to them so that all damage received, from any source, is turned into additional slash damage. This ability also has many unique interactions with certain helminth abilities making it very versatile and powerful. It is also an amazing ability for Shield Gating since it has a high energy cost and makes you invulnerable while casting.

5. Extra Note

• The [Dread] Heart from the 1st ability and Seeking Talons are both coded as weapon damage. This means all weapon damage buffs apply to these abilities.

HELMINTH ABILITY

1. NOURISH

• This ability is absolutely insane on [Garuda]. The energy multiplier applies to Bloodletting which allows you to generate huge amounts of energy with a single cast, even at negative efficiency. Since [Garuda]'s 1st ability and 4th ability count as weapon damage, Nourish's viral buff applies to them which means you can now spread viral and slash with just your abilities. The viral damage is so significant that you can brute force kills with the [Dread] Heart alone (don’t even need to prime with Seeking [Talons]). When it comes to your weapons, you no longer need to build for viral or [Hunter Munitions] since Nourish gives you viral damage and Seeking Talons turns all damage into slash.

ALTERNATIVE HELMINTH ABILITIES

1. BREACH SURGE

• This ability is honestly just as insane on [Garuda] as Nourish as it synergizes with her 4th ability by creating a continuous loop of damage. Breach Surged enemies have a chance to release surge sparks when damaged. So, by hitting them with Seeking [Talons], you are forcing them to take constant tics of bleed, which creates tons of surge sparks, which then go hit more enemies creating more bleed and more sparks... yea, you get the point. And because surge sparks actually multiply the damage dealt, this loop will continually ramp up the damage until nothing survives. This ability also provides powerful crowd control for Garuda that can help you survive a bit more easily.

2. ROAR

• A simple yet effective ability that overall buffs all damage from both weapons and abilities. This is especially good on Garuda since she focuses on slash which gets double dipped by Roar.

3. XATAS WHISPER

• This ability is very powerful when combined with Seeking [Talons]. This is essentially the slash version of [Saryn]’s Toxic Lash. The extra void damage instance from Xatas will trigger a slash proc from Seeking [Talons], however this slash proc inherits the void damage’s double dipping multipliers which allows faction mods to triple dip.

4. THERMAL SUNDER

• This ability is already very popular for nuking, but on [Garuda] it's taken to the next level. Seeking [Talons] will make all the damage and burn from Thermal Sunder proc slash as well, which as you can imagine, deletes everything. All you need to change on the build is swapping out [Augur Reach] for [Archon Vitality] rank 0. You don't need to max the mod because we just use it for its special effect, which doubles heat procs from abilities. I will say though, this combo requires tons of casting which can be tiresome.

5. GLOOM

• Gloom is essentially a better version of Blood Altar but instead of being a stationary healing zone, it is a mobile lifesteal aura that also crowd controls enemies with its powerful slowing mechanic. You do not need to use Molt Reconstruct with Gloom since it gives you lifesteal and you can also drop some range on the build for more strength to increase the slow. This ability is more ideal for a passive playstyle where you just want to keep enemies away from you rather than nuking rooms. I also recommend using Arcane Eruption because it will cause enemies within Glooms radius to be knocked over extremely slowly which makes theme even less of a threat.

MODDING NOTES

• Brief Respite in the aura for shield gating. Whenever your shields break, simply press 4.

• Exilus mod can be whatever you want. Could use Cunning/Power Drift for more range/strength, [Nira's Anguish] if you're using a slam melee, Kavats Grace to resist hard landings caused by her 1 and 4, etc. Just choose whatever suits your needs most.

• [Blending Talons] is incredibly useful since it turns Seeking [Talons] into an aoe tap ability. This overall just makes the ability easier and faster to use. By default the aoe has a 9 meter radius but with 235% range that becomes 21.15 meters. You can also still use the hold variant which can be useful in different situations. Imo this is a must use mod for Garuda.

• Garuda does not require a lot of duration, so Primed Continuity is enough.

• Primed Flow for a massive energy pool of 912.

• Since Nourish buffs Bloodlettings energy return, we can comfortably run 45% efficiency with no real drawbacks. However, if you choose to use any of the alternative Helminth abilities, I would recommend replacing Blind Rage with Transient Fortitude or you'll find yourself having to cast Bloodletting constantly.

• 235% range for over 20 meter aoe on both Blending Talons and the Dread Heart nuke.

• High power strength for dealing more damage and increasing Nourishes energy and viral damage multipliers.

• [Primed Redirection] gives [Garuda] enough shields for a 2.4 second shield gate. Because we have negative efficiency and abilities cost lots of energy, it will be quite easy to refill all your shields in just a few ability casts. However, this mod slot is also flexible.

• Molt Reconstruct is similar to [Brief Respite] but it generates health on energy usage instead of shields. This basically gives you infinite energy from Bloodletting since you can instantly heal whenever you want by just casting 1, 2, or 4.

• The second arcane is up to you. Depending on what you use [Garuda] for you could run a melee or gun arcane or simply pump more stats into your warframe with something like Molt Augmented. The possibilities are endless with Garuda.

AUGMENT MODS

1. DREAD WARD

• This is a great augment as you become completely unkillable for a duration after killing an enemy with the [Pounce] from your 1. However, I find it very unnecessary as Garuda already has amazing survivability through her 4 iframes and 3 status cleanse.

2. BLOOD FORGE

• This is also a very good augment and I would actually recommend using it if you're running a weapon with say a very low ammo capacity or lengthy reload speed. Replace Primed Redirection.

ARCHON SHARDS

• I recommend anywhere from 2 to 5 Amber Casting Speed shards depending on how fast you want her abilities to be. If you're going for a pure ability nuking setup then the more casting speed the better. If you want to play her as more of a melee frame with her claws or other melees you could add some Violet crit damage shards. I personally use 3 cast speed and 2 parkour velocity cus I really enjoy that extra movement. There are so many combinations you can do with Garuda as she is extremely versatile and caters to many different playstyles.

FOCUS SCHOOL

• I highly recommend Madurai as it provides an extra 50% casting speed when you swap between operator/drifter and warframe. This is especially useful if you do not have any Archon Shards yet.

GENERAL PLAYSTYLE

1. If using a buff (Nourish, Roar), keep it up at all times.

2. Keep [Dread] Mirror Up at all times for knockdown immunity and frontal shield.

3. Cast Seeking [Talons] to debuff enemies. Hold 1 to cast the [Dread] Heart and nuke debuffed enemies.

4. Cast Bloodletting to turn your health into energy and clear status effects. Cast any other ability to heal to full hp.

5. Use Seeking Talons for shield gating and aroudn 2-3 seconds of invulnerability.

GAMEPLAY

1. Conjunction Survival - https://youtu.be/H7nOzoQ7I8U

2. Simulacrum Demonstration + Conjunction Survival - https://youtu.be/mubEwpuKCtg

3. Damage Cap Nuke (negative numbers) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhIlIFMW4zY

4. Level Cap Kuva Disruption - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBj_yhFgCG8&ab_channel=REAPZ

My Personal/Current Garuda Build and Arsenal

• https://overframe.gg/build/863959/