The Grineer Manics in Warframe are a special enemy type that’s a common source of farmable drops for certain items. In particular, you want to farm them for Ash components to build the Warframe. There are a couple of common ways to farm them though, making it a decent source of BPs for building Ash, but also a small Platinum faucet as you can sell some of these drops.
What are Manics in Warframe?
There are multiple types of Grineer Manic in Warframe, but all of them are deadly melee fighters. Getting them to spawn is simple, we’ll talk about that below. But it’s fighting them that’s the hard part. There are normal Manic types that spawn on the planets listed below, and then Drekar Manics which are more deadly and spawn in certain other missions.
Fighting them is another matter. Not only do they have a stealth field they can trigger for ambushes, but they also have some really deadly attacks. They have a bleed-stacking Slash proc that will utterly destroy weaker builds. Manics can use Dispel to remove abilities as well, making them potent killers to status builds.
Where to farm Manics in Warframe
Defection Farming
Defection missions are annoying as hell for some players, but once you learn them, they can be very quick. You have to escort small squads of Kavor Defectors, trouble is, they’re bloody useless. I’ve known many different players who avoid these missions because of how irritating the AI can be. The trick is to know what to do. The best way to keep the survivors alive is to keep them pinned at a Med booster.
The easiest way to do this is to not go in solo. Bring a good squad and have some players cover the survivors, while others watch out for Manics. Having someone stay near the Med Booster should force the AI to keep to that person, making it easier to corral the dumb defectors. Once a Manic spawn gets noticed, have the strongest players lure them away and take them out, marking the rare drop if it happens.
Multiple Manics can spawn in a single Defection mission, but only the Normal Manics can drop Ash Blueprints. All the Manic spawns in this mission type begin to trigger on a timer after you open the first Med Booster in a mission. Here are the times when a Manic can spawn during Defection missions:
- Memphis on Phobos has a Manic spawn timer of 10-12 minutes
- Caracol on Saturn has a Manic spawn timer of 6-8 minutes
- Yursa on Neptune has a Manic spawn timer of 5-6 minutes
Disruption Farming
There are some faster nodes you can farm for Manic drops, if you have a good team. Disruption is a harder mode compared to other mission types, and it requires a lot of coordination to defend the various node spawns in missions, as well as taking on bosses. To get the Manics to spawn in this mode, you need to wait for a Pack Hunter effect to trigger.
Conduits in Disruption missions have random effects, one can be Pack Hunter, and it’s dangerous. Not only is there a debuff applied to players, but there’s a chance that these nasty assassins can spawn too. The way to force the Manic to spawn is to let the Conduit be destroyed when it triggers the Pack Hunter effect. This will cause a wave to spawn. You need to get lucky with the timing though, as this happening late in a round can cause too many tough enemies to spawn, overwhelming your team.
You can find Disruption missions on the nodes listed below:
- Olympus on Mars (Levels 15-20)
- Laomedeia on Neptune (Levels 25-30)
- Ganymede on Jupiter (Levels 30-35)
- Ur on Uranus (Levels 30-35)
- Tamu on the Kuva Fortress (Levels 35-40)
- Apollo on Lua (Levels 35-40)
- Kelpie on Sedna (Levels 35-40)
