Credits are the main currency in Warframe, and players will likely use millions of them over time. Here’s a quick guide on how to farm Credits quickly in Warframe
How to farm Credits in Warframe
As I’ll explain below, whatever you plan to do in Warframe, you’re likely to need a tonne of Credits. So what is the best method in Warframe to farm Credits in huge amounts? Fortunately, unlike many Warframe topics, Credits are probably among the only ones with a single clear-case best answer.
The best way to farm Credits in Warframe is by using the Index game mode.
Be aware that any earnings from the Index can be further boosted by the usage of Credit boosters (doubled) or Credit weekends (also doubled) – ideally, you should try to combine these for a 4x Credits modifier. You can farm the Index without either, but make sure to farm the Index when they are available because it cuts down the time needed massively and helps make the farming much less tedious to complete.
While Credits as a currency are widespread throughout Warframe, in that you can find them just about everywhere, you normally only find them in smaller amounts. Even drawn-out missions or events will at most grant 100k Credits at a time. That number on its own is not bad, by any means.
The issue with Credits comes from the fact that many things in the game consume them. On top of that, a number of things are very expensive credit-wise and can easily destroy any small saved up amounts from those kinds of missions. Among these, some are not what you’d consider optional credit sinks, either. For example, leveling up a single Primed mod to rank ten will run you two million credits alone. God forbid your build requires multiple different primed or umbral mods. That causes your credit costs to run into the tens of millions easily.
As an example, my Umbral Nidus build uses four of these types of mods and a single golden rank 10 mod, which is 9.5 million alone. That’s by no means the entire cost either, just some of the mods that are necessary for it. So now that we’ve heard of an example why Credits are important, here’s how to farm them in the most efficient way.
Using the Index to farm Credits
To try the Index for yourself, you’ll need to have a reasonably strong Warframe loadout and have access to Neptune mission nodes. This unique mission is located exclusively on Neptune, so you won’t be able to take advantage of this farming method before getting there.
The mission itself is in the middle of the planet.
The Index is not like other Warframe missions, however. It’s effectively a game mode designed with credit farming and risk/reward strategies in mind. It’s also actually quite fun, though can still get boring if you’re continuously farming the hell out of it.
When you’ve selected the mission node, you’ll be taken to a Personal Investment section.
This is effectively the stake you are gambling on yourself and your team winning the Index match. If you lose, this investment is gone. While that might sound offputting at first, the return on investment is absolutely huge. High-risk Index in particular rewards 200,000 Credits simply for winning a single high-risk round.
Depending on your personal confidence, you can start with any of these risk investment tiers. Low Risk isn’t hugely profitable, but it is quick and easy credits as long as you can compete with the AI. Silver-risk is a safe bet for strong players that are new to the Index.
High-Risk investment should be what you aim for sooner or later though. Many Index teams will go for multiple rounds per match of Index rather than leave at the first payout.
What do I do in the Index?
The Index as a game mode is fairly self-explanatory. You and your team of players get put against a handful of AI.
Kill the AI and they’ll drop “Index points”, small green glowing baubles. Die with Index points, and you’ll drop the amount you were carrying +1. Return these Index points to your base to score, and reach a certain score to win the round (and your prize money.) Additionally, every 5 Index points scored at a single time gives a bonus +2 to your score, incentivizing risky play.
There’s also a clock, which increases by 10 seconds for each point your team scores, or decreases by 10s for each point the opposing team scores. Run out of time and you lose. The clock itself is more of a threat to victory than the AI will be, as it’s quite rare the AI will score a large enough number of points (bronze Index alone needs 50) to win before forcing the clock to run out by the time reduction they’ll cause by doing so.
How to play The Index optimally
Typically though not universally, most Index players will take a role upon themselves.
Some players will take a highly durable Warframe, such as Rhino Prime, and try to gather and hold the points to score the maximum bonuses they can at a time. Each Index point you hold past the first few weakens your Warframe and drains your energy at an increasingly rapid pace, so these “tank” players are extremely useful to avoid points hoarding becoming extremely risky.
Other players will use damage focused Warframes to quickly kill the AI and keep them dead on respawn to maximise the number of dropped Index points. Mesa Prime, the Warframe I use in Index, is an excellent example of this. Others still will use utility Warframes, or simply what they enjoy. Feel free to do any of these, just remember that your teammates may or not be using a meta plan like that themselves.
After scoring enough Index points to win the round, it’s time for the end-match screen. This features your return pay, and the option to leave or stay. Leaving on a win earns you the specified credits plus your original investment back. Continuing starts a new round. Note that the example image given is of a single completed silver risk round.
Be careful with how many rounds you continue here. The AI opponents will increase in both level and team size as the player score increases. This ends up making longer games more difficult. Typically the ideal for most teams will be simply doing two back-to-back rounds of gold Index, and then starting again.
This nets a base rate of about half a million credits a run. Combining that with Credit Booster weekend events and the Credit booster item in the store can boost this up to two million credits per run. With either of those boosts individually, you’re still looking at a solid million credits in profit.
