Banshee Gameplay Guide

[Banshee] has a varied toolkit capable of multiplying damage, crowd controlling enemies, and nuking entire rooms. She also has some mild stealth capability through her sound manipulation but it's best used as a supportive survivability tool rather than a replacement for invisibility.

📝 Build Overview 📝

This builds attempts to use multiple aspects of [Banshee]'s kit with a slight focus on Sonar. Silence and subsumed abilities can give her flexibility against various types of missions even though they aren't as impactful.

🔢 Helminth Options 🔢

Sonic Boom is fairly weak without the [Sonic Fracture] augment and due to the Helminth system it can replaced by abilities that provide more flexible armor stripping options anyway. Sound Quake is more expensive than it's worth in most content so it can be replaced instead.

Fire Blast provides less armor stripping but it hits the entire room rather than a small group directly in front of you. Shuriken has better range than Sonic Boom but takes up your Helminth ability slot. Pillage has more range and provides some defensive survivability but it strips less armor without significant stat investment.

Almost any other ability can work in this build due to the normalized ability stat spread. Utility abilities like Spellbind or Infested Mobility work in any content but aren't very impactful. Defensive tools like Elemental Ward are usually redundant on Banshee as she wants to utilize crowd control effects to stay alive.

📊 Ability Stats 📊

Stats are normalized but Strength gets a slight edge over the other options to boost Sonar damage multiplication. Thankfully the base stats of some abilities is high enough that we can get away with this while still feeling powerful.

Helminth Invigorations, Arbitration Buffs, Ally Abilities, Arcanes, and other external stat boosts can save you multiple mod slots but may rely on specific team compositions, loadouts, or sheer luck. Plan around these situations and modify your loadout to hit desired ability stat breakpoints.

⏲️ Duration ⏲️

Duration doesn't need to be too high as Sonar and Silence already have good base duration. [Transient Fortitude] can be replaced by [Blind Rage] for a more greedy build with less casting but it can cut into your energy economy. Going below the baseline isn't advised as the Resonance augment becomes far less useful.

⛽ Efficiency ⛽

[Streamline] is good enough to keep the build's energy economy above board. [Fleeting Expertise] doesn't help as much as it probably should for the base abilities as all of them are heavily influenced by Duration which makes the Efficiency boost get counteracted by the Duration loss.

📏 Range 📏

Range isn't touched as all of the abilities can already hit entire rooms without any stat investment. Stretch can be slotted in over a flex mod for larger tilesets.

💪 Strength 💪

Strength is boosted by a few mods so that Sonar's damage multiplication hits even harder. [Blind Rage] can be slotted in over [Transient Fortitude] or [Primed Continuity] but your energy economy will be so negatively affected that you'll most likely need some form of secondary energy support. Augur Secrets is a secondary flex mod replacement option.

↔️ Alternate Playstyles ↔️

Most builds utilize tools that can be swapped out to serve the same purpose albeit in a different manner. The following suggestions are an outline and aren't exhaustive.

🔧 Mods 🔧

• [Brief Respite] is a powerful survival tool on a frame that constantly spams abilities. In this case we use Sonar so many times that you should be constantly getting shields back and a Decaying Dragon Key only accentuates this interaction. Other auras can be run at your discretion on easier content.
• [Primed Sure Footed] is a powerful survival tool that completely negates many forms of hostile crowd control. It also allows weapons with a large area of effect to be fired with impunity. It's an expensive login reward so replace it if you have other forms of status effect immunity.
• Transient Fortitude and Streamline are flex mods if you want to mess around with your energy economy. Blind Rage or Constitution/Augur Message are some easy replacement options to try out.
• [Rolling Guard] is most likely not replaceable in content past the regular star chart. Shield gating is too unreliable to be your only form of survivability. Replace it only if you're planning on heavily abusing the invincibility from transference into operator mode.
• [Resonance] grants additional Sonar procs for free but it can be replaced for any other augment or mod that fits into the polarity plan.

⚙️ Arcanes ⚙️

Arcane Energize pairs well with [Primed Flow] and allows you to be extremely greedy with your ability casts. It can be replaced if you're confident with your energy economy or you're playing with an ally Warframe that provides energy. Offensive arcanes like Arcane Strike or defensive arcanes like Arcane [Guardian] are usually the call on most content.

Arcane Aegis synergizes with shield gating to make you nearly invincible. It can be replaced if you're using multiple other forms of survivability. Tertiary offensive arcanes like Arcane Velocity or Arcane Avenger are the best choices against most content.

📋 Final Notes 📋

Sonar doesn't increase the damage of secondary effects like Slash procs or Toxin procs so the damage potential can be limited against some enemies. Spamming it enough times will eventually allow you outpace any enemy damage resistance scaling but at any point DE could change the secondary damage resistance formula to scale properly with damage buffs similar to Sonar.

Silence is a redundant stealth ability due to [Banshee]'s passive. After it was added as a Helminth ability many builds that use Silence are now better on other frames. If you're confused why a specific Silence interaction isn't being used it's most likely because the build has been moved to another frame that uses it better. Loadout slots are limited and putting the exact same gimmick build on multiple frames isn't suggested unless there's a good reason to run that frame instead such as Arbitration buffs or utilizing a specific ability interaction.

🔄 Linked Builds 🔄

Frames

• Damage Buffs Shared Polarities
• Resonating Quake Shared Polarities
• Finisher Nuke Shared Polarities
• Roaming Crowd Control Shared Polarities
• Stealth Affinity Shared Polarities

Weapons

• Kuva Nukor: Condition Overload Primer Shared Loadout
• Kronen Prime: General Use Melee Shared Loadout
• Kronen Prime: Naramon Alternate Melee Shared Loadout

Other Necessary Tools

• Smeeta Kavat: General Use Shared Loadout
• Panzer Vulpaphyla: General Use Alternate Loadout
• Adarza Kavat: General Use Critical Chance Loadout

📧 Contact Information 📧

Remnants of the Void / Phantom Vanguard Discord Server
If you have any questions or concerns please contact us through the Discord server. We appreciate all forms of support and welcome any criticism designed to help us improve. If you enjoyed this guide you can also support us by giving it a 👍 and sharing it with your friends!

This build is part of a collection that you can either find on the builder's profile or through a special bot we have in the Discord server. We have builds for every item in the game and we're adding new ones frequently. Come check it out!

🏆 Credits 🏆

• NICHE - Developed tools that made generating builds far easier.
• Dragazer - Helped to clarify certain melee interactions.
• Marr - Helped with proofreading original build format.
• Fz0ul - Optimized overarching polarity plans to save forma.
• Dystopia - Tested several strategies to the level cap.

🛑 Disclaimers 🛑

This build may make certain assumptions about mechanics that can change after a patch. Multiple unnecessary forma may be used to facilitate more options across multiple builds with one polarity plan. Certain sub-optimal mods may be run to fit them into the forma polarity plan. We do not make builds that purposely attempt to abuse mechanics that aren't intended by the developers. None of these previous statements are excuses for a fundamentally incorrect build and we ask that you please contact us when we're wrong. We do not consent to anyone other than the original author of this guide posting it without permission.