I feel like I am getting WEAKER the further I go; how do I actually get stronger?
I'm half-way through Sedna right now. I have just 1 Warframe (though I did start building Limbo last night when I remembered I did that quest) and it, a long with my best weapons, are maxed out and either at mod capacity or damn near (still need endo for a few). MR5.
I have a railjack, I unlocked the Operator, and I have so many resources and credits. But everything is starting to take forever to kill and hurts me so much. When I did the whole Drifter quest thing, I choose everything I already used but it was so much stronger. The Warframe had way more shield and health even though I have Redirection and Vitality maxed out on it. The Boltor had a super high ROF compared to what mine has and did way more damage.
How the hell do I get that kind of power on my normal stuff? I know about Forma but I haven't even seen some of the mods for the weapons I have I've seen suggested for maximum damage, so I'm just hanging onto those until it makes sense to use them. Is that really the only way to get stronger?
My suggestion would be to watch a new account/F2P playthrough on YouTube and learn from that - I know Brozime did one fairly recently. Iflynn had a pretty great beginner guide too, but it's slightly older, 2022 I think?
The answer is basically mods though - you need to learn how to mod both frames and weapons, and it can take a while (and can seem super complicated and daunting at first). The free to play playthroughs are a great starting point, since they show it step by step, without spending real money or platinum.
+1 for Brozime. Great content creator and all of his videos for warframes and weapons usually have a budget-build more accessible to new players. He does a free-to-play run almost yearly and he's due for another one soon since some minor things have changed.
Watch his free-to-play run and join a clan to help get up to speed.