[Garuda] is my favorite warframe in the game and has been for some time now. She's so incredibly powerful, versatile, and outright badass. She hasn't really been a super mainstream popular warframe, in fact, she has remained somewhat underrated for most of her existence. I think she definitely has picked up more traction as time has gone on, especially after the amazing buffs she received when her Prime version dropped. But it's for all of these reasons that I want to share my knowledge of [Garuda] to everyone and anyone who comes across this guide so that you too can experience the pleasure of playing our resident blood fiend. Enjoy!

ABILITY BREAKDOWN

Passive: Death's Gate - Every kill you get with [Garuda] will fill her Death Well by 5%, maxing out at 100%, and provide you with a damage bonus that is calculated independent of other damage sources. Damage bonus also applies to both abilities and weapons. This is easily one of the most powerful passives in the game.

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 begin charging the [Dread] Heart, taking 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, compared to other forms of healing, this ability is not that great and is always used as the subsume slot for helminth abilities. [Garuda]'s other abilities are also just 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 generating ability 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 - This ability force procs slash on enemies 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. Special 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 amazing on [Garuda] and synergizes with her 4th ability by creating a continuous loop of damage. Surge Sparks from Breach Surge will proc slash from Seeking [Talons] which procs more Surge Spark which procs more slash... I think you get the idea. The longer it loops the higher the damage will get and the larger the group of enemies the faster they will die. 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.

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.

• [Kavat's Grace] for resisting hard landings caused by [Garuda]'s 1 and 4. You can alternatively just slide or aim glide after casting those abilities in the air to negate the hard landing, and then replace Kavat’s Grace with Power/Cunning Drift.

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

• [Primed Flow] for a massive energy pool of 912. Higher energy pool means Bloodletting can generate more energy per cast which is important since we are running negative efficiency.

• 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.

• 265% range for over 23 meters of range on Seeking Talons and Dread Heart explosion.

• High power strength for dealing more damage and increasing Nourishes energy and viral damage multipliers. If you want even more strength you can swap Augur Reach for Transient Fortitude or Augur Secrets. You will still get over 21 meters of range on the 1 and 4 at 235% range.

• [Blending Talons] is incredibly useful since it turns Seeking [Talons] into an instant tap AOE. You will no longer have to aim or wait for the ability to charge up which means faster nuking and overall improved ease of use. This augment also makes it much easier/faster to shield gate and abuse the iframes.

• 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.

• Molt Augmented for more strength, however this slot is also flexible for any other arcane of your choosing.

ARCHON SHARDS

I. Amber Shard: Casting Speed
II. Amber Shard: Casting Speed
III. Amber Shard: Casting Speed
IV. Amber Shard: Casting Speed
V. Amber Shard: Casting Speed

SHARD BREAKDOWN

-- AMBER

• [Garuda] has some of the slowest and clunkiest abilities out of any frame which really limits her potential. For this reason, I have equipped my [Garuda] with 5 casting speed Amber Shards. This gives [Garuda] more than double her normal casting speed which makes her abilities considerably faster and more responsive. Faster ability casting directly increases your ability DPS which is very important if you're wanting to mainly use Garuda for nuking. However, if you would like to add different shards of your choosing then you can drop 1-3 of the Amber Shards (only drop 3 if you're using a different source of casting speed like Madurai), but I would recommend staying around at least 100% casting speed to be most effective.

NO ARCHON SHARDS? NO PROBLEM

1. Use the Madurai focus school for the ability Power Transfer, which gives you 50% casting speed for 20 seconds after switching to operator (at max rank).

2. You can also replace Augur Reach with Natural Talent until you get at least 2 Amber Shards.

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.

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