One of the dearest people in my life is a huge fan of Yareli in Warframe, so you know that the first thing I was doing when the game added Yareli Prime was starting to farm for that frame. And lest you wonder, yes, I have been boarding around on Yareli Prime for a while since she released, leveled her to cap already, and so forth. I have to say that having the Dual Coda Torxica around the same time is a real treat; since Yareli already relies on having a good secondary, some super kino pistols really helps matters.

But with the release of Yareli Prime, I think there’s an obvious question to ask: Does Yareli just suck?

Obviously, I put the answer to that question right in the subtitle, and I think most of our readers know I wouldn’t open a column with that if I thought the answer was yes. But there’s a reason I want to ask the question because it ties into an interesting thing that’s worth considering about Yareli. Because there is definitely an argument to be made there, but I think Yareli being bad is actually better than if she were better.

Let’s start with the broad strokes of Yareli’s kit for those who are unfamiliar. Her passive gives her a 200% crit buff on her secondary via Critical Flow so long as she’s been moving for 1.5 seconds. First ability, Sea Snares, summons seeking water globules that damage and hold anything they hit. Her second ability summons Merulina, functionally her Exalted Weapon (albeit not actually a weapon) who is a K-Drive she can ride anywhere. Merulina does work exactly like a K-Drive, right down to tricks and such; the only difference is that by default her secondary weapon is drawn. Her third ability summons a point-blank shield of orbiting blades, and her fourth creates a big column that groups enemies and eventually bursts.

Functionally, you can see two real problems with her kit right off the bat. The first is that Yareli’s abilities don’t really flow very naturally. Aquablades asks her to get right up into enemy groups, something that Merulina facilitates, but neither Sea Snares nor Riptide is really about doing that or offering any benefit to doing so. Both of those abilities are strong control options, but they don’t really help when she always wants to be on the move. Her strongest tool is basically “having a good secondary weapon,” which is not something about her but about her weapon, and it makes her feel like a weapon platform.

The second problem is Merulina. Merulina is obviously her signature ability, but the thing about K-Drives is that they work best on maps with lots of long, flat stretches. Open-world areas, obviously, have that (it’s no coincidence that this is where K-Drives were introduced), but actual tilesets are more varied. Like, parts of Hollvania are made for that style of movement… and other parts make that style horrid.

Hollvania, of course, was designed with the Atomicycle in mind. But that sort of lends itself to the problem. The Atomicycle is not a key part of anyone’s kit, but Merulina is key to Yareli’s kit, and while there’s an augment that turns her into a pet that feels like trying to make Yareli be not Yareli. Sure, a lot of Corpus ship maps are very well-suited to gliding through on Merulina. But what about the Kuva Fortress tileset? Ugh.

So I’m not going to argue these weaknesses aren’t there; instead, I’m going to argue those weaknesses are good things.

The fact that Yareli’s kit is a little over the map is theoretically a problem, but there’s a benefit there in that you actually have more spot to sub in another ability over one of her abilities via Helminth depending on how you want to play her. For example, the build I’m using on her makes heavy use of Sea Snares and occasional Riptide, which means that Aquablades can easily be subbed over with something else. You could sub in Qorvex’s ability, for example, or Roar, or Fire Walker. On the other hand, if you want to build for Aquablades? Replace Riptide with Wyrd Scythes and give Yareli a solid shotgun, make her more of a melee contact character.

It also means that Yareli has the benefit of being pretty non-reliant on energy for the most part. She doesn’t need to maintain something long. She really can make a lot out of a good secondary weapon and just surfboarding around all day, and that makes her versatile enough to serve as a weapon platform-esque frame without completely removing her individual identity.

But the map thing is a real problem, obviously. Some maps are just like pulling teeth with Yareli. Railjack missions on Yareli can be a mixed bag at best. There are maps that hate how she moves. How could I argue that’s a good thing? How can it be good that Yareli is bad on certain maps?

And the answer is… that it’s good because that means the answer for every single mission is not “bring Yareli.”

One of my favorite frames is Mesa. I enjoy Mesa and I have a very well-built Mesa, and playing Mesa is fun… but it also is a problem, because a lot of times the answer to every problem is “bring Mesa.” It both makes me less likely to build other frames (Mesa already serves that purpose) and less likely to bring other frames (“oh, I could bring Gyre… or I could just kill everything with Mesa just as easily”) and that is… y’know, a little more boring!

Warframe has a lot of different frames. Some of them are better than others, yes. But the thing about Yareli is that on maps where she’s good she’s really good and fun and cool to watch. You’re playing Tony Hawk’s Warframe Skater and flipping in the air while spraying automatic weapons fire at everything. That’s just cool. Yes, I know, on maps where she’s less good you probably don’t want to bring her, but there are dozens of other frames to bring! You can bring different frames that do different things and are fun in their own ways!

Truth be told, I think the game is more fun when we have favorite frames that don’t perform great in every situation. Obviously I cannot change my favorite frames, but Yareli Prime has fast become one of my favorites because she’s imperfect. She’s not great on every map. But she’s so much fun on the maps where she is great that it becomes more fun than just another map wherein I use the same solution.

It’s why I’m excited to see the improvements coming to Valkyr, why I’m looking forward to the new spider-frame that might not be top-tier, why I enjoy playing Zephyr even though she’s not really as good at raw efficiency as some other frames. With a good weapon and careful play, the imperfect can be better than the perfect. So here’s to you, Yareli. You ain’t the best frame a lot of the time, but I love you for your magical girl skater routine, and despite your song, I’m looking for more ways to say that I like you.

Pick a ‘Frame, any ‘Frame! The Warframe galaxy is in danger, Tenno, and Space Mom needs help to combat it. Are you in the right Warframe of Mind to join in? The MOP writers have enlisted, suiting up in their favorite ‘Frames to fight the good fight, blasting the Grineer and Infected into smithereens.