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Warframe’sCitrine is a geode-themed Warframe that serves a supportive role. Her crystals can mitigate incoming damage, inflict tons of status procs on enemy targets, and paralyze targets with crystalline growths. She’s a versatile Warframe that will find use in every game type and squad configuration, both for Star Chart content and endgame Steel Path missions.
Related:Warframe: Wisp Complete Guide – Drops, Abilities, And Builds
As with most support Warframes, Citrine relies on mods to reach her potential. A good build on Citrine makes her a supportive powerhouse that rivals the likes of Wisp and Harrow. This guide will showcase how to get your hands on Citrine, what each ability does, and we’ll cover some of Citrine’s best builds.
How To Craft Citrine
Citrine’s components may be obtained from the Tyana’s Pass mission on Mars.Players will unlock this node upon completing the “Heart of Deimos” quest. Each rotation of this defense mission has a small chance of dropping a Citrine component. If you can’t get a specific part to drop, you can purchase her specific component blueprints from Otak at the Necralisk. Each component requires Rania and Belric Crystals,both of which drop from Mirror Defense.
Tyana’s Pass (Rotation C, 6.80% drop chance)
Tyana’s Pass (Rotation C, 4.50% drop chance)
Passive
Passive:Citrine grants nearby allies 5 health regeneration per second. Pick up a Health Orb to increase regeneration by 0.1, up to a maximum of 25.
Citrine and all allies within Affinity Range will restore 5-25 HP per second based on how many Health Orbs Citrine has grabbed. Each Health Orb increases this rate by 0.1, capping out at 25 HP per second after grabbing 200 Health Orbs. Mods do not affect the healing rate of Citrine’s passive, including Energy Orbs grabbed while using Equilibrium.
All other sources of passive HP regeneration stack additively with this passive such asWisp’s Reservoir motesand the Rejuvenation mod.
Fractured Blast
Fractured Blast:Slash and stagger enemies with a crystal ball that inflicts Bleed. Enemies afflicted with this Status Effect have an increased chance of dropping Health and Energy Orbs.
This ability can be subsumed withthe Helminth system. The subsumed version of Fractured Blast halves the spawn chance for both orb types.
500 Impact and Slash
Affects ability range
Affects cast Energy cost
Affects damage output and orb drop rate
Citrine creates a diagonal wave of energy with her left forearm, inflicting Slash on each target hit. Enemies afflicted by the Slash proc have a 50% chance of dropping a Health Orb and a 20% chance of dropping an Energy Orb on death. The effect itself deals 500 damage split between Slash and Impact. Despite the animation,Fractured Slash isnota one-handed action.
Fractured Slash scales best with Ability Strength and Range.Strength affects the drop chance of HP and Energy Orbs, allowing you to use Fractured Slash as your main source of Energy if the Equilibrium mod is equipped. Ability Range is useful for tagging more enemies with the Slash proc, making it much easier to spawn multiple Health and Energy Orbs per cast.
Preserving Shell
Preserving Shell:Citrine guards herself and nearby allies with a crystalline shell that gradually decays. Kills and assists increase the defensive power of the shell.
Affects ability duration
Affects initial DR and DR gains
Preserving Shell is a group-wide damage reduction buff that lasts for 25 seconds, affecting both your HP and shields.All allies within Affinity Range receive this buff.The initial damage reduction starts at 40% which can be increased through kills and assists, up to a cap of 90%. Kills grant more DR than assists, although you can increase your initial DR and DR gains through Ability Strength mods. The damage reduction provided by Preserving Shell stacks multiplicatively with other DR sources.This ability may be recast at any time, preserving your current DR value.Bear in mind that the DR value of this ability decays after a few seconds of not killing anything, slowly decaying all the way to 40% DR. This is regardless of your Ability Strength. Keep killing targets to keep your DR at 90%.
Preserving Shell scales best with Strength and Duration. Strength makes the initial damage reduction much higher, making it much safer to use this ability in Steel Path and other endgame activities. Building for some Ability Duration is also recommended to minimize your time recasting this ability. If you want to increase the range of this DR buff,use the Mending Unity passive from the Vazarin Focus School.
Prismatic Gem
Prismatic Gem:Deploy a gem that shoots prismatic beams. The gem targets enemies that are taking weapon damage from Citrine and her allies. Its beams inflict Heat, Cold, Toxin, and Electricity Status Effects. Status Chance and Status Duration increase for nearby allies.
1,000 Heat, Toxin, Electricity, and Toxin
Affects ability radius
Affects damage output and status buffs
Citrine summons a large gem that remains in place, acting as a turret that fires upon any target that enters its 15-meter radius.Prismatic Gem can only damage one target at a time, and it requires line-of-sight to damage a target.Enemy targets damaged by Prismatic Gem take 1,000 damage a second and guaranteed Heat, Cold, Toxin, and Electricity procs.Damaging a target while inside the radius of Prismatic Gem will force the beam to switch targets, damaging whatever is being actively attacked.
The Prismatic Gem also provides status buffs to squadmates within its effective radius. Standing near the gem gives 100% status chance and duration, stacking additively with mods. You can boost these effects further through Ability Strength mods, although the nature of low status chance weapons means you’ll want to adjust your loadout to favor high status chance firearms.
Prismatic Gem sees the most benefit from Range and Strength mods.Ability Range is desperately needed to make the targeting on the crystal more forgiving. Ability Strength makes the crystal hit harder and enhances the status buffs given to allies. In general,we recommend you replace this ability with the Helminth System, as the limited targeting and low damage of this ability make it tough to recommend for hard content. It’s excellent for Star Chart missions, so anyone who obtains Citrine right after “Heart of Deimos” might find uses for Prismatic Gem.
Crystallize
Crystallize:Citrine summons crystal fractals. The fractals rush forward, seeking enemies. Enemies touched by the fractals are paralyzed by crystalline growths. Hit the growths to deal Critical Damage.
500 Impact (on fractal contact)
+300%
Affects crystalline growth duration
Affects targeting range
Affects initial damage output
Citrine slams the ground with her fists, generating a series of crystal fissures that seek out targets within her cone of vision. Any target hit by the fissure will become paralyzed, growing massive crystals on random parts of their body (similar to Banshee’s Sonar).Hitting these crystals will grant an additive 300% critical chance to the attack, guaranteeing red crits on all weapons.AoE projectiles like the Kuva Bramma and Arca Plasmor do not benefit from this additive critical chance. Enemies remain paralyzed until the ability’s duration ends.
Crystallize benefits greatly from Duration and Range.Strength doesnotaffect the critical chance buff provided by the crystal growths, so we recommended you focus on other stats instead. Ability Range is great for tagging additional targets with the crystal fissures, and Ability Duration gives you more time to damage targets affected by Crystallize.
Related:Warframe: All Damage Types Explained
Citrine Builds
We’ll be looking at two builds for Citrine today, one requiring no Forma and another that’s endgame viable. While there are plenty of ways you can build Citrine, we recommend focusing onStrength and Durationfor most setups. This gives you a stronger initial DR value with Preserving Shell, increasing the chance of spawning orbs through Fractured Blast, and it makes Crystallize’s growths last longer.
Citrine can stay alive through HP tanking or shield-gating.Her base HP can be scaled through Arcane Blessing and Health Orbs through Fractured Blast. Paired with Preserving Shell’s 90% DR, Citrine will have no issues staying alive in most content. Use Adaptation or scale your armor rating to make Citrine durable in high-level Steel Path. Shield-gating works as you’d expect: equip a Decaying Dragon Key and use Brief Respite to gain maximum shields every time you cast Preserving Shell or Crystallize.
For Focus Schools, we recommendVazarinorMadurai.Vazarin increases your maximum Affinity Range, extending the effective range of your passive and Preserving Shell. Madurai is a great pick if you want to buff Citrine’s cast speed and Ability Strength.
Archon Shards
Citrine greatly benefits fromCast Speed (Amber) and Strength (Crimson) Archon Shards.We recommend using one Cast Speed and two Strength Archon Shards on Citrine if you plan on using Pillage to strip armor. Our endgame build uses this configuration (explained below). For the rest of her slots, spec for additional Strength, Duration, Cast Speed, or Parkour Velocity.
No Investment Build (0 Forma, No Subsume)
This build attempts to buff Citrine’s abilities without breaking the bank. If you decide to farm Citrine after completing “Heart of Deimos,” this is the build we recommend. We focus on building up Citrine’sStrengthandDurationwhile moderately increasing herRange.
We start by usingUmbral IntensifyandAugur Secretsto kickstart her DR value at 68% for Preserving Shell. You’ll easily hit the 90% DR value with just a few kills.Primed Continuitywill extend the duration of Citrine’s abilities to minimize recasting.Equilibrium and Flowserve as our Energy economy solution. Use your first ability, kill all afflicted targets, then grab the Health and Energy Orbs they drop. Equilibrium will force both orb types to give HP and Energy, ensuring you’re at maximum Energy at all times. If you get low on Energy, cast Fractured Blast.
We round off the build withAugur ReachandStretchto increase the effective range of Citrine’s third ability, Prismatic Gem. The defensive mod you use is completely preferential, although we recommendVitalitysince Citrine has passive HP regeneration. Do note that our build has an R4 Augur Reach. This is to ensure the build doesn’t require a Forma. Most new players can use an R8 or R9 Umbral Intensify (or normal Intensify) instead.
Endgame Support Build (4 Forma, Pillage Subsume)
This endgame build aims to make Citrine incredibly tanky while enhancing her support capabilities as much as possible. To that end, we focus heavily onStrengthandDuration, dumping Ability Efficiency entirely.We drop Prismatic Gem for Hildryn’s Pillage, giving Citrine a way to restore her shields while stripping enemy defenses. Once you fully replicate this build and recommended Archon Shards, you’ll be able to fully strip enemy armor once Molt Augmented reaches maximum stacks.
We get our Ability Strength fromBlind Rage, Umbral Intensify, Molt Augmented,and two Crimson Archon Shards.The Crimson Archon Shards grant 25% Ability Strength, allowing us to reach an 82% armor strip on Pillage once Molt Augmented is fully active. We then useCorrosive Projectionto strip the last 18% of the target’s armor, allowing Pillage to fully strip enemy armor in Steel Path. You’ll have a panic button for refreshing your shields as well.
Our Energy economy is the same as before, usingPrimed FlowwithEquilibriumto sustain our Energy and HP through Fractured Blast. We useStretchand anAmber Archon Shard (Cast Speed)to ensure this ability feels responsive and tags multiple targets with Slash. The buffs to our Strength make Preserving Shell start at 90% DR, so Citrine can safely benefit fromAdaptationto tank an absurd amount of damage. Since we don’t use Vitality in this build, we useArcane Blessingto scale her HP.
We round off the build withPrimed Continuityand arank four Augur Messageto buff our Ability Duration, making Preserving Shell and Crystallize much easier to use. If you’re willing to invest another Forma on Citrine, you can use a max rank Augur Message for a minor Ability Duration increase. Finally, we usePrimed Sure Footedin the Exilus slot to become immune to knockdowns and self-stagger.
