Khora, the crazy cat lady, joined Warframe in early 2018 as a later part of Update 22 (“Beasts of the Sanctuary”, which included the Sanctuary Onslaught game mode). Initially touted to be the flag bearer for the Damage changes to IPS, this was later shelved, as the team realised that these changes would have a greater impact on the game overall. We are still waiting on Damage changes at the time of writing, but hold no great expectations that we’ll see them in 2019…
Initially, players were disappointed with Khora -first because she wasn’t what was expected, and secondly because her Abilities needed some tweaking. A few tweaks and a good amount of time to settle later, and Khora is now a favourite of many, mostly for her CC and defence Abilities.
Note: Khora can be frustrating to acquire, as her components are random drops from specific Sanctuary Onslaught rotations. As this mode is time consuming, and there are other rewards in the drop table, many players have complained that acquisition of Khora requires far too much grinding. Good luck, Tenno.
Passive
Khora’s passive, Beast Master, is probably the coolest out of all Warframes – she gets her own pet. Venari (and no, you can’t change the name) is permanently at Khora’s side – until she dies, of course. Khora can then cast her second Ability to get her back, or Venari will reappear after 45 seconds.
As a permanent companion, she can of course be modded individually (think of her as an exalted Kavat). Her base stats are actually pretty good for a companion – 900 Health at rank 30, and 350 Armor – note she has no Shield, though. She also has good Crit and Status Chance, at 20% and 30% respectively.
Lastly, for those MR hunters out there, note that Venari actually provides an additional 6000 affinity towards Mastery – above and beyond the 6000 provided by mastering Khora. So she’s worth chasing down. Also note that Khora can still equip another companion, so she can have two cute battle cats if she wants.
Whipclaw
Khora, being the beast tamer that she is, always has her trusty whip by her side. Casting this Ability will send the whip flying, causing an explosion with a 5m radius at a 10m distance. Enemies within this radius are dealt 300 Damage (all stats base at max), and enemies struck by the whip are ragdolled.
This Ability is affected by Ability Strength and Range mods (note that the explosion radius maxes out at 200% Range).
Ensnare
She’s crafty, young Khora. Not content with just whipping her enemies into submission, she also uses her whip to trap them. Casting Ensnare will cause Khora to once again crack her whip in the direction of an enemy within 30m, wrapping them in a metal coil for up to 15 seconds. This coil, though, has a life of its own, and will drag in any enemies within 10m, ensnaring them as well.
Any enemies that are Ensnared will receive an additional 200% Damage from Whipclaw and Venari. An additional bonus is that Ensnared enemies struck by Whipclaw will refresh the spreading of the coil, causing it again to seek out and ensnare further enemies within Range.
Ensnare is affected by Range and Duration mods.
Venari
Khora’s third Ability is focused on her trusty pet, Venari. Casting this Ability after Venari is killed will instantly bring her back from the dead (not as a zombie, I should add). However, this is not the core focus of this Ability – there are two further aspects.
On the one hand, casting this Ability on an enemy will mark the enemy with Venari’s mark above their head. On doing so, Venari will chase them down, only to perform a specific task once she reaches them. These tasks are defined by the stance that has been assigned to Venari, which can be cycled by holding the Ability key (note that changing stance will remove the mark, so you want to do this prior to marking an enemy).
These stances and their effects are:
- Attack: Venari will use her own version of ensnare, cleverly called “Snare”, which will chain enemies in place for 2.5 seconds. During this time, she will hit them 5 times, with each hit inflicting 350 Slash Damage with a 100% Status Chance. Very useful on tanky enemies, such as a Nox or Bombard.
- Protect: Venari will protect Khora from the enemy, keeping them at bay with Tail Whip, and Ability that causes knockdown and disarming them. Note this only affects a single enemy.
- Heal: Venari will use her Revitalise Ability, which will imbue her with a 10m radius healing aura whenever Khora or one of her teammates Health drops below 90%. The aura will heal anyone within this aura by 50 Health per second. Note that this Ability DOES heal rescue and defence targets.
The Venari Ability set is only affected by Strength mods.
Strangledome
Khora channels more of her chains, somehow managing to create a dome out of them. The base dome has a radius of 5m and lasts 20 seconds. Enemies within a 10m radius of Khora when she casts the dome are ragdolled and held in place within the dome by the chains, taking 250 Damage per second. Note that Khora can create up to 2 Strangledomes at once.
While enemies trapped by Strangledome will take 200% extra Damage from ALL weapons and Warframe Abilities, casting Whipclaw on a single enemy will ALSO cause 50% of the Whipclaw Damage to all other enemies trapped by the dome. This is important to remember, as Damage can be spread across enemies.
Strangledome is affected by Strength, Duration, and Range mods.
Khora is an incredibly versatile frame, with CC and defensive Abilities, as well as a very useful companion with some useful support Abilities of its own. Provided you take the time to learn some of the intricacies in terms of their synergy, Khora can be a very powerful frame in any group.
Greg
