Warframe‘s Cyte-09 focuses on using his weapons to take out foes, and his abilities help him make the most out of his deadly accuracy. With the right build, you can take enemies packs of enemies with a single bullet, even if there’s a wall or two blocking your way.
The 59th unique Warframe can be devastating with his kit, especially when using his exalted sniper rifle, the Neutralizer, or his powerful invisibility skill, Evade. He’s a truly versatile frame, so there are multiple ways to build him. Here are some of our favorite Cyte-09 builds in Warframe.
All Cyte-09 abilities in Warframe
| Ability | Effect |
|---|---|
| Passive | Weak spot kills increase Cyte-09’s weak spot crit chance until the end of the mission |
| Seek | Sets down an antenna that scans nearby enemies and highlights them through walls. Cyte-09’s weapons get Punch Through. |
| Resupply | Throw two elemental ammo packs that refill your magazine and grant damage and status effect based on the chosen element. Snipers get a bigger buff. Bonus disappears on manual reload. |
| Evade | Become invisible for a short duration. Kills while invisible give you more cloaked time. This is Cyte-09’s Helminth ability, but it’s altered to have a shorter duration when subsumed. |
| Neutralizer | Bullets from Cyte-09’s deadly Exalted sniper ricochet off weak points and seek critical spots from nearby enemies. Its secondary fire freezes enemies with a Cold grenade. |
Seek highlights enemies and their weak points, making it a particularly perfect ability to kick off Cyte-09’s offense. The Punch Through you get from it is quite helpful, either, since it lets you shoot enemies from behind cover and even take them out through walls. Use Resupply for more elemental damage, status procs, and bullet damage, especially on snipers (with the upside of an instant magazine refill).
Cyte-09’s third ability, Evade, is his biggest survivability tool, and aiming for duration keeps you invisible for longer. The Neutralizer rounds out his abilities with deadly bullets, especially in tandem with the rest of his kit (and a little help from Spectral Serration, a 1999 mod that gives you more damage when invisible).
Cyte-09 has a strong, cohesive kit, and using it properly can easily demolish most foes that come across your Warframe’s path. Since his ability set is so well-rounded, you may have a hard time finding a skill to replace with the Helminth—though you have more than enough to work with before you sit him in the chair.
Best Cyte-09 builds in Warframe
These builds don’t take the Helminth system into account, but you can always subsume one of his skills and put something else in its place. Roar is good for pure damage, while Breach Surge, Gloom, Nourish, and Pillage can work with pretty much every frame. We’re also fond of Condemn for shields, though Cyte doesn’t need them that much if you’re using Evade.
Duration build: Evade, Seek (zero Forma)
This build focuses on giving you more ability duration so you can keep Evade up for longer. Duration affects both the maximum time you can have on the clock and how much time each kill grants you, so it’s key. Seek also benefits from this.
Since the aim is on Duration, you can use Narrow Minded and (Primed) Continuity to bump up your duration, but balancing everything out takes a bit of musical chairs with your mod collection. You can get a satisfactory zero-forma build without too many downsides like this one.
Suggested changes:
- Augur Secrets over Augur Message (223 percent strength, 254 percent duration, 109 percent range)
- Augur Secrets over Augur Reach (223 percent strength, 278 percent duration, 79 percent range)
- Dead Eye over Growing Power (if using Neutralizer)
- Putting a Naramon (—) polarity for Primed Flow
- Putting a Madurai (V) polarity for Primed Continuity
- Adaptation or Vitality over Augur Message
- A — or V polarity to make room for an Exilus mod.
Strength build: Neutralizer, all-rounder
The goal is to get your ability strength way up and reap a bigger weak point damage bonus from Seek, more bonus damage from Resupply, and deadlier bullets on your Neutralizer. We added Vitality to the build, since you may not get as much use of Evade without high duration, but this one comes with a three-Forma version for more power.
Suggested changes:
- Growing Power over Dead Eye if you don’t have it
- Vitality over Umbral Vitality to make room for Primed Continuity (three-forma build)
- More Forma to make room for the Exilus slot.
Balanced build: A little bit of everything
Our balanced zero-Forma build for Cyte-09 is similar to the duration-based one, though it trims a few of the downsides. You can add Primed Flow and Primed Continuity to this Warframe and still make room for everything else, letting you dip your feet in most attributes (though with a penalty to efficiency).
Suggested changes:
- Formas on Primed mods to open up more space.
How to get Cyte-09 in Warframe
Cyte-09 drops from the first three Hex bounties in Höllvania or from the Hex Syndicate. Each part has around a 12 percent chance of dropping from their respective sources, so it may not take too long to obtain all of them if the RNG favors you.
- Cyte-09 Blueprint: Acquired after finishing the first Hex quest.
- Cyte-09 Chassis Blueprint: Höllvania level 55 to 60 bounty (12.20 percent)
- Cyte-09 Neuroptics Blueprint: Höllvania level 65 to 70 bounty (11.63 percent)
- Cyte-09 Systems Blueprint: Höllvania level 75 to 80 bounty (13.33 percent)
- All component blueprints can also be acquired from Amir for 20,000 Standing each.
- Cyte-09’s main blueprint is also available from Amir for 50,000 Standing after reaching rank four (Hot & Fresh) with the Hex.
