Warframe: Immortal Infestation Nidus Build

Nidus Overview

Stats

• Health: 455 (555 at Rank 30)
• Shields: 0 (0 at Rank 30)
• Armor: 350 (450 at Rank 30)
• Energy: 100 (150 at Rank 30)

Looking at Nidus’ stats you can see a few irregularities. Mainly his lack of Shields. Nidus is one of the few Warframes in the game that have no Shields. What this means, however, is that he has an incredibly impressive Health pool and pretty decent armor to keep him alive.

Passive

When using his abilities, Nidus gains Mutation Stacks that provide unique buffs like increasing the damage of Nidus’ abilities, replacing Energy costs with Mutation Stacks, and avoiding death.

Abilities

Virulence (1st Ability)

Nidus unleashes a linear growth of fungal infestation, staggering any enemy struck and dealing damage amplified by the number of Mutation Stacks. It also refunds 10 Energy for each enemy hit.

This is a powerful ability because of how much it can do. Not only does it increase in damage based on Mutation Stacks, but its ability to stagger makes it excellent for giving yourself some breathing room. The Energy refund also means you can infinitely cast this ability as long as you hit enough enemies.

Larva (2nd Ability)

Nidus spawns an infested pod that erupts with tendrils, latching onto nearby enemies and pulling them in. Enemies grabbed by the Larva are ragdolled and any enemy killed while grabbed has a chance of generating Mutation Stacks.

Another great CC move for Nidus, Larva is an excellent ability for clearing an area and generating an easy killzone. Combine this with Virulence for quick Mutation Stacks and high damage, or a weapon with splash damage for quick kills.

Parasitic Link (3rd Ability)

Nidus performs symbiosis with an ally Warframe or enemy. When linked with an ally, both Nidus and the ally gain an Ability Strength and weapon damage bonus. When linked with an enemy the target is incapacitated and Nidus gains Damage Reduction. All negative Status Effects are also redirected towards the linked enemy.

A great ability for solo and group play. The bonus Ability Strength is great for the low cost of 1 Mutation Stack and the Damage Reduction when solo is nothing to sniff at either. Furthermore, a second cast of Virulence spawns from whoever you are linked to making it even easier to build stacks.

Ravenous (4th Ability)

Nidus expends 3 Mutation Stacks to create an infestation that spreads out and surrounds him. Nidus and his allies constantly regenerate health while standing inside the infestation ground. Infested Maggots also spawn from the infestation ground, seeking out nearby enemies, attaching to them, and inflicting continuous damage until the target dies or the Maggot expires.

This is the ability that makes Nidus so hard to kill. His ability to avoid death and high Health pool help, but a constant healing field is hard to ignore. This ability is also perfect for any missions that have you camping at a single point.

How to Get Nidus

The main blueprint for Nidus can be obtained from The Glast Gambit quest or Cephalon Simaris once you’ve completed the quest. To get his other component blueprints you need to complete Rotation C of Infested Salvage on Oestrus, Eris.

Immortal Infestation Nidus Build

This build will focus on Nidus’ ability to deal high amounts of damage with his abilities as well as survive Steel Path enemies with his regeneration and high health.

Mod Choice

The mod choice for this build is as follows:

• Blind Rage: This build needs Ability Strength to ensure Nidus can take enemies out with his abilities. Blind Rage is going to help us reach that threshold.
• Archon Intensify: Like Blind Rage, we grab Archon Intensify to increase our Ability Strength. This mod also has the bonus of giving us an extra 30% Ability Strength when we heal from abilities, which we plan to do often.
• Power Drift: Same reason as above, we want more Ability Strength. You can replace this mod with any other Ability Strength mod you may have or fits better.
• Stretch: All of Nidus’ abilities benefit from Range mods so we add Stretch to ensure our abilities can hit as many enemies as possible.
• Umbral Fiber/Steel Fiber: Since Nidus doesn’t have Shields we need to make sure he has enough armor to stay alive. Umbral Fiber or Steel Fiber will help with that.
• Adaption: An amazing mod for Steel Path, Adaption will help you survive the high-level enemies coming at you.
• Parasitic Vitality: This augment mod is how we increase Nidu’s health to make him harder to kill. Nidus’ health will be directly proportional to his Mutation Stacks, which we’ll be building all the time and will make a huge difference on Steel Path.
• Abundant Mutation: This augment mod increases the max Mutation Stacks by 200. Not only does this mean more damage on abilities that scale from Mutation Stacks, but it also means more health from Parasitic Vitality.
• Corrosive Projection: The choice for aura mod isn’t as important in the long run, but I put Corrosive Projection since it’s useful against high-level enemies. You can add whatever you need, however. 

Arcane Choice

• Molt Augmented: This arcane is a no-brainer for a Warframe like Nidus. Bonus Ability Strength per kill will go a long way since we’ll be mainly using our abilities.
• Arcane Bellicose: Another great mod for Nidus. Since Nidus already has a large Health pool, and we’ll be increasing it with our Mutation Stacks, we’ll be getting a bunch of extra Ability Strength.

Helminth Abilities

• Roar (Rhino): Most of Nidus’ abilities are so good that they are not worth replacing. An argument could be given for Roar since it increases Ability Strength, but I wouldn’t highly recommend it.

Weapons & Gear

Luckily for this build, there are no weapons or gear that is necessary for it to work. Most of this builds power is coming from Nidus himself. You could grab a weapon that groups enemies or has splash damage since we can group enemies with Larva, but you don’t need it.