I wasn’t expecting to be a big fan of Nokko when he first released, admittedly. I was initially put off by his outward silliness, but he hides a surprising amount of tactical depth beneath that fungal cap! It’s easy to write him off as just a goofy lil’ fella until you realize just how effectively he can control the battlefield, on top of supplying teammates with powerful buffs.
Nokko Build Guide
In this guide, I’ll show you how to build Nokko to deal staggering amounts of damage while Nokko himself remains mostly out of harm’s way. This build has been stress-tested in both Arbitrations and Steel Path, and clears them both with ease. You’ll need two forma to follow this build to the letter.
What To Mod For
Your most important stat for Nokko is going to be range, followed closely by strength, with duration being a nice quality-of-life addition so you don’t have to constantly recast his mushrooms. Since you’re going to want to run Overextended to maximize Nokko’s range, Blind Rage helps make up for the loss of strength, and its efficiency loss barely matters since Nokko’s Brightbonnet ability restores energy every time it pulses (or whenever you bounce on it). If anything, Blind Rage’s efficiency loss is a boon, since the more energy you spend casting abilities, the more shields will be restored by the two augur mods in this setup. Nokko doesn’t strictly need the survivability, since he can reconstitute himself so long as he has mushrooms up nearby, but a little redundancy goes a long way once you hit Steel Path. All told, I’d recommend getting Nokko to around a base of 200% strength if you decide to change any mods around, which will work itself out to well over 300% strength once Brightbonnet, Growing Power, and Molt Augmented are further boosting your strength in-mission.
Since Nokko deals toxin damage with his fourth ability, Sporespring, Archon Continuity is a must-have mod, even if we didn’t want the extra ability duration it offers. With it, every toxin status applied by your bouncing ball of death will also apply corrosive status, weakening enemy armor and further compounding your effectiveness against them (especially since Toxin bypasses shields). Precision Intensify works wonders here, as well, with its +90% strength to your fourth ability, considerably increasing the DoT inflicted by your toxin procs. You could always run a more generic strength mod if you’d like more power across all of your abilities, but I wouldn’t recommend using Transient Fortitude specifically, since you’ll be struggling to keep your mushrooms active thanks to the reduced duration.
Beyond The Mods
The secret sauce to this build is a combination of Arcane Crepuscular, Emerald Archon Shards, and Ivara’s Quiver subsumed over Nokko’s third ability, Reroot. That mixture will ensure Sporespring is melting any enemies who dare to enter the area-of-effect zones created by your Stinkbrain and Brightbonnet mushrooms (since they’re the connective tissue it bounces along). The +3x critical damage while invisible that Crepuscular provides makes your Sporespring toxin procs hit like a truck, and Quiver’s cloak arrow ensures you’re consistently invisible at the time of casting. While using Reroot technically counts as ‘being invisible’, you can’t cast abilities or use weapons while it’s active, which doesn’t feel great, making Quiver a better alternative for on-demand invisibility. With emerald archon shards further boosting your toxin damage, your enemies will be wondering why they even bothered wearing shields that day.
Quiver Alternatives
You have a few options to trigger invisibility besides subsuming Quiver if you’d rather keep Reroot slotted or use a different Helminth ability, but I found Quiver to be the easiest to manage. You could run Shade as your companion with the Ghost precept slotted, but that requires enemies to be within 24 meters for invisibility to trigger, and also breaks whenever you use weapons. A Huras Kubrow companion with the Stalk precept allows for weapons use, but still suffers from the same range requirements. Since this build can easily keep enemies from getting close enough, relying on your companions to trigger invisibility isn’t exactly consistent. Quiver is more conducive to Nokko’s somewhat stationary playstyle, since you can pop down an invisibility bubble wherever you want (including right on top of whatever mushroom you prefer to bounce on). Even if you prefer a more mobile setup, you can always run a sentinel companion and attach your cloak arrow to them instead.
The Gameplay Loop
This build shines in defensive missions, where you can easily establish a near-impenetrable border around any defense objectives. Your first move should always be to drop a Brightbonnet somewhere central for the increased ability strength and energy regen, ensuring you’ll have the resources to further cultivate your mushroom fields of death. Once you’ve established a ring of mushrooms around the objective, you can drop a cloak arrow on your favorite vantage spot, which for me is bouncing atop a Brightbonnet mushroom to keep the squad’s energy reserves topped off. Once that’s all set up, all you have to do is cast Sporespring (while invisible!) and watch the mayhem unfold, occasionally replanting your mushrooms and recasting Quiver as you go. As far as weapons, just grab something that can inflict status effects to keep Growing Power’s ability strength bonus active (I’m a big fan of the Cedo or Epitaph). Besides that, shooting anything is pretty much optional with this build.
Just coming back to Warframe? Check out our guide on the Shadowgrapher update! We encourage you to leave a comment below if you have any questions about this build or any of the mods, arcanes, or tips contained within. Keep checking GameObserver for more Warframe guides and news!
