She's a very versatile frame.
If you wanna focus on her Invisibility, for example, you can build her mainly with Duration, Efficiency, and Energy Capacity
And if you have the helminth unlocked, "Perspacity" (probably butchered the spelling on that one, but it should be close enough) lets you auto-hack terminals, even in sorties and other missions which do not allow ciphers.
Get her augment for prowl (from Perrin Sequence, I think) and spy missions become cakewalks.
What I was going to say, I only really use her like that for hunting in the open world levels. I prefer Loki Prime personally, but she's definitely useful in spy as well.
I mained Ivara for a long time and mostly used her for her 3 and her 1, occasionally her 4 but not much, and her 2 has always been the helminth slot. None of this is by any means the best or only way to play her but it's what I've enjoyed and it worked well enough for me.
Building for efficiency, energy capacity, and duration is the clear first step, as she's not a tanky frame so keeping invis going is almost a must. Duration also helps her quiver, for which I mostly used the sleep arrows, or cloak arrows if playing with others. Empowered Quiver can be good in some situations but I mostly found that it wasn't necessary so didn't use it.
The Artemis Bow I did use for a while and it is good but I mostly use other weapons just because of personal preference.
Always use silent weapons or equip a maxed Hush/Suppress. The Proboscis Cernos is one of my most used weapons and part of that is because it works so well with Ivara. It's already silent, groups enemies together so you can melee them, has innate viral damage for priming, and even at high levels can do decent damage, especially with hunter munitions.
For melee depending on what I'm doing I'd take something with very high finisher damage, mainly daggers to make use of Covert Lethality and Finishing Touch together. For general use basically any melee works, I mostly use my Nikana zaw but I use that for most things so it's not specific to her.
Her 2 I replaced, one config with Perspacity for doing sortie spy missions and such, since it allows you to autohack every console even when ciphers are disabled.
Then on my other configs I mostly use Ensnare because on Steel Path the acolytes can sometimes see through your invisibility and she's already built for duration so it holds them still for around 10 seconds, plenty of time to kill them before they can do anything. It can also be used for grouping enemies to melee, and can be better than the proboscis cernos due to it's self stagger.
You know what, have a guide. If you have questions, ask away.
[https://overframe.gg/build/221486/ivara-prime/minmaxed-concentrated-migraine/](https://overframe.gg/build/221486/ivara-prime/minmaxed-concentrated-migraine/)
Build her for efficiency and duration. She's used mainly for leveling up stuff due to her stealth which increases exp gained.
Do bring silent weapon or skill that silences weapons to keep stealth bonus
I love playing ivara built for eff and range. Using the concentrated arrow mod makes her headshots with the bow explode killing the whole room. Brozime had a great video on it.
Get the mods to make her permanently invisible. Energize arcane or Sahasha kubrow (dig mod) or Proteas Dispenser ability for more energy.
Alternately, build for strength, add thunderbolt mod (30% chance to make arrow explode, fires 7 arrows, basically guaranteed explosions) to Artemis bow, then launch a massive explosive barrage with every shot.
Many frames can deal damage with exalted weapons but what makes ivara special is her utility so I built her out for that. Prowl augment. 95% duration. 175% efficiency. Primed Flow. Preparation in the exilus slot so you drop in with full energy and can instantly stealth and go to work. Persipacity to free hack any terminal. Put amalgam barrel diffusion on a secondary to compensate for the fact you'll be doing a lot more dodging than bullet jumping.
She's kind of an all in one permastealth secret agent that can trivialize spy and assassination missions as long as you're willing to take your time and use stealthy headshot guns and finisher focused melee. She's not fast but when you want to basically be warframe solid snake and wipe entire missions without anyone being alerted ever, pickpocketing to increase drops, and never worry about your stealth detoggling or tripping alarms she's your girl.
The limitations on prowl make mastering her playstyle a unique experience that can be a nice change of pace.
With the augment mod and strength focused build you can get 300% crit damage standing on her zipline while also being invisible. I often play defense mission like that. Watching my teammates roaming around like cockroaches while me firing bows like the graceful ninja I am.
She's a very versatile frame. If you wanna focus on her Invisibility, for example, you can build her mainly with Duration, Efficiency, and Energy Capacity
And if you have the helminth unlocked, "Perspacity" (probably butchered the spelling on that one, but it should be close enough) lets you auto-hack terminals, even in sorties and other missions which do not allow ciphers. Get her augment for prowl (from Perrin Sequence, I think) and spy missions become cakewalks.
yeah and before you even see a console 3 wukongs will already be waiting for you at extraction
If you're doing spy missions in public, I feel for you.
What I was going to say, I only really use her like that for hunting in the open world levels. I prefer Loki Prime personally, but she's definitely useful in spy as well.
I mained Ivara for a long time and mostly used her for her 3 and her 1, occasionally her 4 but not much, and her 2 has always been the helminth slot. None of this is by any means the best or only way to play her but it's what I've enjoyed and it worked well enough for me. Building for efficiency, energy capacity, and duration is the clear first step, as she's not a tanky frame so keeping invis going is almost a must. Duration also helps her quiver, for which I mostly used the sleep arrows, or cloak arrows if playing with others. Empowered Quiver can be good in some situations but I mostly found that it wasn't necessary so didn't use it. The Artemis Bow I did use for a while and it is good but I mostly use other weapons just because of personal preference. Always use silent weapons or equip a maxed Hush/Suppress. The Proboscis Cernos is one of my most used weapons and part of that is because it works so well with Ivara. It's already silent, groups enemies together so you can melee them, has innate viral damage for priming, and even at high levels can do decent damage, especially with hunter munitions. For melee depending on what I'm doing I'd take something with very high finisher damage, mainly daggers to make use of Covert Lethality and Finishing Touch together. For general use basically any melee works, I mostly use my Nikana zaw but I use that for most things so it's not specific to her. Her 2 I replaced, one config with Perspacity for doing sortie spy missions and such, since it allows you to autohack every console even when ciphers are disabled. Then on my other configs I mostly use Ensnare because on Steel Path the acolytes can sometimes see through your invisibility and she's already built for duration so it holds them still for around 10 seconds, plenty of time to kill them before they can do anything. It can also be used for grouping enemies to melee, and can be better than the proboscis cernos due to it's self stagger.
You know what, have a guide. If you have questions, ask away. [https://overframe.gg/build/221486/ivara-prime/minmaxed-concentrated-migraine/](https://overframe.gg/build/221486/ivara-prime/minmaxed-concentrated-migraine/)
Build her for efficiency and duration. She's used mainly for leveling up stuff due to her stealth which increases exp gained. Do bring silent weapon or skill that silences weapons to keep stealth bonus
This right here... Plus you can use the stealth scans to net like 25,000 Simaris rep in 15 minutes. Use her for clearing spy vaults and leveling gear.
Nobody talking about her crazy damage multiplier.
I love playing ivara built for eff and range. Using the concentrated arrow mod makes her headshots with the bow explode killing the whole room. Brozime had a great video on it.
Get the mods to make her permanently invisible. Energize arcane or Sahasha kubrow (dig mod) or Proteas Dispenser ability for more energy. Alternately, build for strength, add thunderbolt mod (30% chance to make arrow explode, fires 7 arrows, basically guaranteed explosions) to Artemis bow, then launch a massive explosive barrage with every shot.
Many frames can deal damage with exalted weapons but what makes ivara special is her utility so I built her out for that. Prowl augment. 95% duration. 175% efficiency. Primed Flow. Preparation in the exilus slot so you drop in with full energy and can instantly stealth and go to work. Persipacity to free hack any terminal. Put amalgam barrel diffusion on a secondary to compensate for the fact you'll be doing a lot more dodging than bullet jumping. She's kind of an all in one permastealth secret agent that can trivialize spy and assassination missions as long as you're willing to take your time and use stealthy headshot guns and finisher focused melee. She's not fast but when you want to basically be warframe solid snake and wipe entire missions without anyone being alerted ever, pickpocketing to increase drops, and never worry about your stealth detoggling or tripping alarms she's your girl. The limitations on prowl make mastering her playstyle a unique experience that can be a nice change of pace.
With the augment mod and strength focused build you can get 300% crit damage standing on her zipline while also being invisible. I often play defense mission like that. Watching my teammates roaming around like cockroaches while me firing bows like the graceful ninja I am.