The Best Warframe Gauss Prime Build Guide

It’s time for Gauss Prime. Okay, well, we might have been a little too early, but what do you expect from Gauss mains? He’s the fastest Warframe in Digital Extremes’ action-RPG and if you want him to leave Volt in the dust, you’re going to want to peruse our Warframe Gauss Prime build. This is also applicable to the regular Gauss and the build is very much viable in Steel Path (and races against Volt).

Gauss Prime Build Guide | Mods, Arcanes, Archon Shards

You can either build Gauss Prime or Gauss for maximum Duration (speed build) or Thermal Sunder (high Ability Range). Or you can have the best of both worlds, which also works fine.

Regardless of what you choose to build, our Warframe Gauss Prime build can be expensive since you’re going to want to put in at least two Archon mods. On top of that, the build won’t work as ideally as it should without Arcane Energize since Gauss needs Energy to both keep moving fast and spamming Thermal Sunder.

Here’s the mod configuration:

• Energy Siphon
  • For Energy regeneration.
• Rush
  • Gauss thrives on moving (and moving fast) to charge up his battery.
• Primed Continuity
  • Added Ability Duration helps Gauss in just about every way.
• Archon Flow
  • More Energy capacity and you also need that secondary Cold effect to top up your Energy. Feel free to use regular Flow or Primed Flow.
• Archon Vitality
  • Here’s where the build gets interesting. This mod adds more Health; with it, you also get more mileage out of Thermal Sunder (2x hold cast for Fire damage and 1x tap cast for Cold damage). We’ll give a more detailed explanation of the playstyle later. Put Quick Thinking in this slot if you don’t have Archon Vitality.
• Narrow Minded
  • More Duration at the cost of Range. Consider replacing this with Constitution if you don’t want less Range (since Thermal Sunder benefits from higher Range).
• Stretch
  • To offset Narrow Minded’s negative Range.
• Augur Reach
  • For more Range for Thermal Sunder
• Augur Message
  • For more Duration. You can replace this Constitution for this if you use Narrow Minded assuming you still have enough Drain capacity.
• Adaptation
  • For tankiness and to survive Steel Path

Quick Thinking is also a good way to add more survivability though it’s unnecessary for most cases. Feel free to replace Archon Vitality with Quick Thinking if you find yourself dying too often.

Also, the existence of Archon Mods means you need to have completed the New War and Kahl’s Veilbreaker quest. After that, you will also need to grind a bit for his Break Narmer missions to afford the Archon mods.

Arcanes for the Gauss Prime Build

For Gauss, you’re going to want Arcane Energize for added Energy security. After all, he can be Energy-hungry, especially during the start of missions. Just use whatever rank of Arcane Energize you have, because if you pair it with Archon Flow

The other Arcane is up to you though something more damage-focused such as Arcane Fury can help with any enemy that survives Thermal Sunder.

Archon Shards for the Gauss Prime Build

You also get several options here for Gauss but here are our recommended shard colors for the playstyle:

• 3x Crimson Archon Shard (Ability Duration)
• 2x Amber Archon Shard (Casting Speed)

With this setup, you can afford more Ability Range for Gauss and you can likely replace Narrow Minded with Constitution.

Of course, the Tauforged variants are preferable, especially for Duration since they add even more seconds to Gauss’ Abilities.

Playstyle for the Gauss Prime Build

With just how fast-paced Gauss Prime is in Warframe, it can be easy to mess up his rotations. So here’s a step-by-step guide on setting him up for speed and taking advantage of Thermal Sunder.

1. As soon as the mission starts, activate Kinetic Plating (2nd Ability).
2. Find a way to activate Redline (4th Ability) either by using Squad Energy Restore, etc.
3. Keep casting Mach Rush (1st) and hit walls or enemies to charge up the Battery to 100 percent past the Redline.
4. Once the Battery is fully charged, get in the middle of an enemy cluster and use the hold variant of Thermal Sunder (3rd Ability) twice then use the tap variant. Those who don’t die will have their armor stripped.
5. Finish off the stragglers either with another Thermal Sunder cycle or using weapons.
6. Keep using the Thermal Sunder cycle (2x Heat then 1x Cold) if your Battery is at 100 percent. If not, keep moving or casting Mach Rush and crashing around walls to get it to 100.
7. Don’t forget to refresh your Kinetic Plating and Redline once the duration runs out.

Take a break from time to time as well, since you might need to vomit from all the jittery screen movements. But we trust you’ll overcome this skill issue as a Gauss main and with the help of our Gauss Prime build.