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Wukong is arguably one of the strongest characters inWarframe. This trickster takes the best aspects of stealth Warframes and combines them with potent melee attacks. Played correctly, Wukong can destroy screens of enemies with their Iron Staff, travel great distances with Cloud Walker, and trivialize Steel Path content with their clone.
Even after numerous nerfs, it’s tough to rank Wukong as anything under S tier. Today, we’ll be going over everything you need to know about Wukong, ranging from in-depth ability breakdowns to endgame builds that make Wukong one of the strongest Warframes in the game for all content.
How To Get Wukong
Wukong is a Warframe you can acquire throughclan dojo research.All of Wukong’s components can be found in the Tenno Lab aboard your clan’s dojo. If you aren’t part of a clan, you’ll need to join one and create a clan dojo key before you can access the building. New clans will need to create the Tenno Lab and research Wukong’s components first.
If you aren’t part of a clan, you can also get Wukong throughDuviri Circuit, a roguelike game mode that you unlock upon completingThe Duviri Paradoxquest.
Wukong Systems
How To Get Wukong Prime
As with all Prime gear, Wukong Prime is obtained fromVoid Relics. You can find Void Relics as end-of-mission rewards, Relic Packs sold by syndicate factions, and through in-game trading with other players. If Wukong Prime is currently vaulted, you’ll only be able to obtain his Void Relics through player trading. Get your hands on a Void Relic, boot up a Fissure mission, collect ten reactant, then complete the mission to receive your reward. If Wukong is in the relic, there’s a chance his part will drop.
you’re able to also trade Wukong Prime’s uncrafted component blueprints with other players.
Passive
After taking fatal damage, Wukong automatically uses one of his mastered survival techniques. These techniques may only be invoked three times per mission.
Wukong’s passive is acheat death effectthat can proc up to three times per mission. Whenever Wukong loses all of their HP, you become immune for two seconds, restore 50% of your lost HP, and gain one of the following buffs at random:
This passive may only activate three times per mission. Once your passive has been triggered three times, Wukong will enter a downed state like normal.
Celestial Twin
Shedding part of himself, Wukong creates a twin to fight by his side. Attack at range and the twin will melee; pull a blade, and the twin will lay down covering fire. Use again to command the twin to attack a target with increased damage.
x2 HP
x3 Damage
Affects cast Energy cost
Affects HP and damage multipliers.
Wukong creates a copy of himself at his current location, cloning Wukong’s current stats and equipped weapons. The clone lasts indefinitely and functions identically to a specter, aggressively fighting targets near Wukong’s vicinity. If you need your clone to target a certain enemy, you can reactivate Celestial Twin on a target to mark them. Your clone will also copy any abilities you cast.
Your clone’s equipped weapon is the opposite of what you’re currently using. Wielding a melee weapon will equip your clone with your primary or secondary, and vice versa.
Celestial Twin shares Wukong’s ammo reserves and mods, so be aware if you’re using any weapons with low ammo reserves like the Kuva Bramma. Galvanized mod bonuses don’t seem to affect Celestial Twin, but every other mod is fair game. To scale its survivability and damage, you’ll want to scaleAbility Strength.
Cloud Walker
Evaporate into a cloud of mist and float through the battlefield, dazing any enemies encountered while healing Wukong and his twin.
1% HP per meter traveled
Affects cloud duration
Affects stun radius
Affects HP restored per meter traveled
Cloud Walker is afantastic movement ability that doubles as a stealth tool. Wukong flings himself into the air and turns into a cloud of smoke, drastically increasing Wukong’s movement speed. Enemies you travel through are dazed, and moving with this ability active restores your HP over time.
Outside of fast mobility,Cloud Walker is mostly used to skip laser grids in Spy missions. Making contact with lasers won’t detect Wukong, which trivializes virtually every Spy tileset.
Defy
Wukong and his twin become invulnerable and defy enemies to attack. All damage is captured, stored, and dealt back in a single furious strike of Wukong’s staff. Bonus armor is then granted relative to the damage captured.
7.5x
1.5x
Affects invulnerability and buff durations
Affects strike radius
Affects Defy’s multipliers
This ability may be applied to other Warframes throughthe Helminth system.
Wukong begins to levitate and project an invulnerable aura around himself,absorbing all incoming damage to charge his Primal Fury staff and subsequent armor buff.Once Defy’s duration ends, Wukong will swipe his staff around himself to damage nearby targets. This will trigger anarmor buff for the next 25 seconds, affected by Ability Strength and Duration.
Defy is best used as a panic button to make yourself invincible. The invulnerability buff can be juggled with Rolling Guard, shield gating, and other forms of invulnerability to make Wukong virtually unkillable in harder content.
Summon the iron staff and unleash fury.
300 Impact and Puncture
Affects ability drain if efficiency is
Affects cast and drain Energy costs
Affects Primal Fury’s base damage
Wukong summons an exalted staff as his new melee weapon, featuring high critical stats, status chance, and great reach. This makes Primal Fury ideal for slide attack builds, although it’s also a decent option for slam attacks if you spec heavily into them through Primal Staff’s melee mods. Spec Wukong forAbility Strengthto scale your base damage, and you’ll have an S-tier melee weapon for most content.
Wukong Augments
Wukong has access to three augment mods, all of which can be obtained fromsyndicate factions for 25,000 standing each.All three of his augments are available through theArbiters of Hexis and New Loka.Of course, you’re able to always trade for these augments from other players if you aren’t aligned with either syndicate.
Celestial Stomp
Celestial Twin augment: Hold to command the twin to perform a slam attack, suspending enemies in the air within 20m for 25 Energy.
Celestial Stomp forces your clone to perform a heavy slam attack at your reticle, suspending targets caught in the blast radius. Performing a heavy slam attack yourself performs the same function but doesn’t cost energy, making this a poor augment choice for most builds. The mod is affected by Ability Range, but most Wukong builds opt to dump range in place of more duration instead.
Enveloping Cloud
Cloud Walker augment: Allies within 4m of the cloud become invisible to enemies for 14s.
Enveloping Cloud allows Wukong to make his team invisible by moving through them with Cloud Walker. The invisibility range and duration are affected by Ability Range and Duration mods, respectively. Bear in mind that this simply makes your allies invisible; it does not allow them to pass through Spy mission lasers unfazed.
Primal Rage
Primal Fury augment: Killing an enemy increases critical chance by 15%. The increase decays by 1% per second.
Primal Rage increases your exalted weapon’s modded critical chance as you kill enemies,up to a +150% bonus. You cannot increase the critical chance cap with mods. However, scaling Ability Strength will increase how much critical chance you get per kill, thereby reducing the number of kills required to hit the 150% cap. This critical chance bonus is additive with other critical chance mods.
Wukong Builds
We’ll be looking at a powerful exalted build for Wukong today that does a little bit of everything, provided you’re comfortable spamming the slide attack button. Wukong is a character who is fairly easy to play and mod for, as most of his scaling comes from Strength and Duration mods. Consider usingNaramonwith Wukong to greatly extend the duration of your combo counter with Primal Fury. If you aren’t planning on using his ultimate, runZenurikinstead for passive energy regeneration.
Archon Shards
Wukong prefersMelee Critical Damage (Crimson) and Ability Strength (Crimson) shards.Parkour Velocity (Amber) and Cast Speed (Amber) shards are also worth considering.
None
This build is focused on spamming Iron Staff’s slide attack as much as possible, which will effectively wipe the screen of enemies once you ramp up your combo counter. We start by subsuming Defy withKullervo’s Wrathful Advance, a short-range teleport that grants additive critical chance for a short duration. This will work alongsidePrimal Rage’scritical chance modifier to obliterate mobs with red crits.
If you don’t own Kullervo, generic damage subsumes are also a great choice, notably Mirage’s Eclipse and Rhino’s Roar.
Survivability and damage are paramount here. For the former, we runUmbral IntensifywithTransient Fortitudeto give ourselves a hefty Ability Strength modifier. We also runSteel Chargefor more raw melee damage andArcane Striketo scale our attack speed. For survivability, we use Umbral Vitality and Adaptation to scale our EHP. If you’re ever in a pinch, use Cloud Walker to reposition and heal.
You’ll be able to stay in Primal Fury most of the time thanks to our high Ability Duration and Efficiency—achieved throughNarrow Minded,Primed Continuity, andFleeting Expertise. If you need more duration, run Molt Efficiency as your second Arcane.
For Iron Staff, we’ve opted for a fairly genericMelee Influencebuild. This Arcane will spread status ailments to nearby targets when active; you just need to inflict Electricity onto a target first. We can do so by scaling our status chance withWeeping Woundsand Electric damage withVoltaic StrikeandShocking Touch. Scale the status damage withGalvanized Elementalist, and you have some monstrous Electricity procs that will kill Steel Path enemies with ease. Use the rest of your mod slots to scale critical stats and your Iron Staff’s range.
