Ash: Wrathful Storm

Ash: Wrathful Storm

Overview of Ash 

Ash is a caster glass cannon specializing in exalted melee to deliver devastating single-target damage. Put simply, he uses abilities to deal damage and relies on invisibility for survival, as his survivability stats are low. His Smoke Screen ability allows him to reposition or evade damage—after all, what can’t see you, can’t kill you. However, its short cooldown leaves you exposed, so careful timing is essential.

His exalted melee excels with finisher-focused attacks using clones to deal damage for him. While Ash lacks crowd control and tanky stats, making his weaknesses apparent, he is still regarded as one of the most powerful Warframes with some of the highest damage potential in the game. He truly embodies the definition of a glass cannon—an assassin in lore and gameplay alike. With the Techrot Encore update, Ash’s arsenal received an indirect upgrade with access to his dagger, getting mods and arcanes. Already strong in its own right, it has now become even sharper.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Ash’s core strength lies in his finisher attacks—exceptionally high but slow in execution. This makes clearing groups of enemies time-consuming, giving him a niche role in Disruption missions against key carriers. These enemies, among the highest-health units in the game, can be dealt with faster by Ash than almost any other Warframe. One of his unique advantages is the ability to bypass damage attenuation, a scaling damage reduction mechanic, in specific scenarios—a rare and valuable capability.

However, Ash has notable weaknesses. Untargetable enemies—those immune to or capable of nullifying Bladestorm—are a significant challenge. Pulsing bubbles in Disruption missions from key carriers, for example, can prevent him from dealing damage if timing is off. Additionally, tick-based damage can be lethal, especially when combined with Ash’s heavy energy dependency. Without energy, Ash loses his damage output, invisibility, and ability to survive, leaving him vulnerable.

How to Build Ash? Two builds are needed here: one for the frame and one for the exalted weapon. This will take a can be investment in Forma, but trust me, it’s worth it. My older build still packed a punch without any Forma on the dagger—a weapon you can’t actually use yourself, but Ash’s shadow clones in Blade Storm do.

The focus is all about Blade Storm, Smoke Screen, and Teleport. These are the core abilities for mobility, manual finisher setups, and dealing damage. Teleport and Smoke Screen fit in nicely as support skills. Shuriken doesn’t really pull its weight here, so you’re better off replacing it with a Helminth option—I’ll explain the options later on.

Stats to aim for:

  • Efficiency: Keeps your energy use in check for chaining abilities.
  • Duration: Keeps invisibility from Smoke Screen running longer.
  • Power Strength: Cranks up the damage output of Blade Storm.

Mods I Use and Budget-Friendly Options: I’ll break down the mods I’ve chosen and give some cheaper alternatives in case you’re just getting started or need to adjust to your collection.

Frame Build

  • Aura: Steel Charge boosts bonus damage for shadow clones and increases mod capacity. You can get this Aura from the Nightwave shop. Brief Respite is another option for shield gating, though it’s harder to obtain.
  • Exilus: Prime Sure Footed prevents knockdowns, improving survivability and quality of life. As this is a login reward, it may take time to access. Handspring or Sure Footed are good alternatives.

Mods:

  • Primed Continuity: Extends ability duration, benefiting Smoke Screen and Blade Storm. If unavailable, regular Continuity is a solid substitute.
  • Fleeting Expertise: Reduces ability cost, making Smoke Screen cheaper when combined with Energy Nexus.
  • Narrow Minded: Extends duration at the cost of range.
  • Stretch: Balances out Narrow Minded’s range penalty, allowing abilities to remain effective thanks to Ash’s high base range.
  • Transient Fortitude: Boosts power strength at the expense of duration, offset by mods like Primed Continuity.
  • Umbral Intensify: Further increases power strength for better Blade Storm damage. If unavailable, standard Intensify works well.
  • Energy Nexus: Provides energy regeneration, ensuring abilities are sustainable. This mod is harder to obtain early on.
  • Augur Message: Adds duration and offers shield gating for survivability. Accessible from Cetus bounties, making it beginner-friendly.

Understanding Mod Synergies

  • Narrow Minded + Stretch: Narrow Minded increases duration but reduces range. Stretch complements this by countering the range penalty, keeping abilities like Smoke Screen and Blade Storm effective.
  • Fleeting Expertise + Energy Nexus: Fleeting Expertise reduces energy costs, and when paired with Energy Nexus, ensures smooth and sustainable energy management.
  • Primed Continuity + Transient Fortitude: Transient Fortitude boosts power strength but reduces duration. Primed Continuity mitigates this downside by maintaining an optimal duration for abilities such as Smoke Screen.

Replacements for Budget Builds

  • Primed Continuity: Extends ability duration, benefiting Smoke Screen and Blade Storm. If unavailable, regular Continuity serves as an effective alternative.
  • Fleeting Expertise + Energy Nexus: Replace both with Streamline for improved energy efficiency in earlier stages.
  • Narrow Minded: Swap for other duration-based mods like Constitution, Nira’s Hatred, or Augur Message to maintain ability uptime while addressing the range penalty.
  • Stretch: Replace with Augur Reach, which is a beginner-friendly mod available from Cetus bounties.
  • Transient Fortitude: Replace with other power strength mods like Blind Rage, Intensify, Amar’s Hatred, or Augur Secrets. Keep in mind that Blind Rage trades power strength for reduced efficiency, so plan accordingly.
  • Umbral Intensify: If unavailable, the standard Intensify mod provides a solid alternative for boosting power strength.
  • Energy Nexus: Until this mod becomes accessible, Streamline is an excellent choice for efficient energy management.
  • Augur Message: For shield gating and duration benefits, consider replacing it with survivability mods like Vitality or Redirection if Augur Message isn’t available.
  • Prime Sure Footed: Replace with Handspring or Sure Footed, which offer partial knockdown resistance as you work toward unlocking Prime Sure Footed via login rewards.

Arcanes

While there are many viable Arcanes, these are two solid choices that work well with Ash’s playstyle:

  • Molt Augment: Increases ability power as you secure kills, synergizing perfectly with Ash’s damage-heavy gameplay.
  • Arcane Crepuscular: Enhances power strength and critical multiplier while invisible, boosting both Blade Storm and critical weapon setups.

Other Options:

  • Arcane Trickery: A solid choice that synergizes with Blade Storm.
  • Arcane Energize: An excellent premium option for improving energy economy. These two were previously part of my go-to setup and remain effective choices.

Why don’t you use augments? Augments are good, but I don’t see their value in this setup. With Blade Storm’s high damage output, removing armor via Shuriken is unnecessary, especially since I’ve replaced it with a more beneficial Helminth ability. Smoke Screen’s critical chance bonus and ally invisibility are helpful, but my Helminth ability provides better benefits. Teleport Rush, which extends Smoke Screen’s duration and grants parkour velocity, relies on finishers or mercy kills and doesn’t synergize with Blade Storm. Rising Storm boosts melee combo counter and duration, making it viable for heavy attack or finisher-focused melee weapons. However, my build revolves around maximizing Blade Storm’s damage, making augments less valuable compared to everything else.

Blade Storm: Shadow Clones

The Arcane I use is Melee Exposure, which deals corrosive damage combined with finisher damage and slash damage. This combination creates devastating levels of damage that few enemies in the game can withstand. Melee Exposure is also easier to obtain compared to other options, such as Melee Crescendo, which helps maintain your combo counter but can be harder to acquire.

Melee Influence is another choice, but it requires a specific build to maximize its effectiveness. Given the already high damage output of Blade Storm, it’s not worth experimenting with in this setup.

This dagger build is demanding and features a few essential components that, frankly, cannot be replaced. Magnetic damage is utilized in this setup to effectively counter Overguard. The core build includes the following mods:

  • Primed Pressure Point: Boosts overall melee damage.
  • Primed Fury: Enhances attack speed, resulting in faster clone attacks.
  • Finishing Touch: Amplifies finisher damage, synergizing perfectly with Blade Storm’s mechanics.
  • Organ Shatter: Increases critical damage output, which complements your Helminth choice.
  • Primed Fever Strike: Adds toxin damage that combines with Magnetic Rush for devastating elemental synergy.

Additional Mod Choices:

  • Covert Lethality: Enhances finisher damage while providing an initial combo boost.
  • Corrupt Charge: Supplies initial combo at the cost of combo duration, which can be mitigated by using the Naramon focus school. While not essential, this option adds extra flexibility to the build.

Why This Build?

The Helminth choice of Wrathful Advance grants a bonus to critical chance, eliminating the need to prioritize critical stats in the mod setup. This allows the build to focus on finisher damage and maximizing overall damage output, complementing Blade Storm’s mechanics perfectly. From testing, the highs are easy to achieve, and the lows still deliver strong and consistent results.

Now, let’s dive deeper into the Helminth abilities and explore their impact on this setup.

Helminth Options

The ability Shuriken is replaced with Wrathful Advance, which is why the build is called Wrathful Storm. After testing, it became clear that Wrathful Advance is far superior, as Ash doesn’t rely on range, which makes options like Silence less effective.

  • Wrathful Advance (Kullervo): Provides a melee critical chance bonus that directly applies to Blade Storm’s shadow clones, significantly enhancing their damage output.
  • Banshee’s Silence (with Savage Silence Augment): Increases finisher damage and offers valuable crowd control, though it requires range to work effectively—a stat Ash doesn’t typically prioritize.
  • Harrow’s Condemn: A strong defensive option for added survivability. It provides shields and enables shield gating, effectively mitigating incoming damage and helping to sustain longer engagements.

Archon Shards

I made specific choices here that impact my mod setup. For instance, you can swap Primed Flow in place of Augur Message, but I opted for Augur Message because I gain energy maximum from three Azure Shards. This synergy makes Augur Message work seamlessly within my build.

The last two shard slots remain unused, but you could add Violet Shards focused on energy and health to increase the amount gained per pickup. While not essential, this can be a useful addition depending on your playstyle. Alternatively, you could focus on more Power Strength if you prefer to amplify your damage output further.

Other Things to Consider

Tennous Bond on your Companion is another critical damage bonus to take into account. I was using Diriga equipped with Burst Laser Prime, loaded with elemental status mods to efficiently proc effects. Additionally, I used a finisher-focused melee weapon with Melee Influence, allowing me to clear out groups when needed.

My weapon choices here are designed for group clearing and providing another energy generation source. While not essential to the build, it’s something I chose to incorporate to enhance flexibility and utility in certain scenarios.

Closing Thoughts

Ash is the quintessential glass cannon—a high-damage, single-target frame who, even with his changes, remains somewhat slow. However, the sheer power he can unleash is undeniably impressive. The addition of Wrathful Advance through Helminth amplifies this even further, allowing him to eliminate even the toughest foes with surgical precision.

The Techrot Encore update, alongside new mods, has revitalized Ash, reducing his weaknesses and enhancing his strengths. A caster frame who can effortlessly clear rooms with deadly efficiency, Ash leaves devastation in his wake.

Ash continues to embody the role of the original Orokin assassin, executing his mission with unmatched lethal precision. With mastery of his abilities, precision strikes, and finishers, you unlock his full potential as a Wrathful Storm at your fingertips.