Warframe Companion Guide: Best Kubrows, Kavats, and Sentinels

Picking a companion is one of the first real choices you make after the opening quests in Warframe, and it pays off for the whole Star Chart. A solid pet scoops up loot you'd otherwise jog past, tops up your shields, lights up the radar with enemies and resources, and chips in damage while you do the heavy lifting. The catch is the menus are kind of a mess, and a lot of older guides still talk about feeding DNA stabilizers and pets dying of old age, which hasn't been a thing in the game for years.

The good news is companions are far more forgiving than they used to be, since a late 2023 rework means your pet just revives itself instead of dying for good.

Kubrow vs Kavat vs Robotic Companion Basics

Three families, two rule sets

There are really three flavors of companion, but for modding purposes they all fall into two camps. Beasts are the living ones: Kubrows (the dog things), Kavats (the cats), plus the Infested Predasites and Vulpaphylas you dig up on Deimos. Robots are the mechanical ones: floating Sentinels, the chicken-legged MOAs from Fortuna, and the Hounds you pull off Sisters of Parvos. The split matters because beasts and robots draw from different mod pools, so a mod that turns your Kubrow into a wall of hit points often won't fit on a Sentinel at all.

The modding divide

The big one to know about is the Link family. Link Vitality, Link Redirection, and Link Fiber (they used to be called Link Health, Shields, and Armor) copy a chunk of YOUR Warframe's health, shields, and armor onto the pet. That scaling is the whole reason a beast can get hilariously tanky later on. Beasts, MOAs, and Hounds can all run the Link mods. Sentinels can't, so they lean on flat-stat mods like Enhanced Vitality and Metal Fiber instead. The flip side is that sentinels get Guardian, a precept that refills your shields for free, and beasts don't.

Companions don't die anymore

This trips up everyone reading older guides. Before October 2023, a companion that ran out of health was gone for the rest of the mission (sentinels) or needed a frantic revive during a short bleedout (beasts). The Abyss of Dagath update changed all of it. Now every companion, sentinels included, just goes Incapacitated when its health hits zero, then stands back up on its own after about 60 seconds. There's no cap on how often that can happen in a mission, and you can revive it by hand to speed things up. Mods like Regen still exist, but they just shave time off that timer instead of being the only thing keeping your sentinel breathing.

Loot pickup is automatic now

Every companion can pull loot toward you now, no extra gear required. Robots use the Vacuum mod and beasts use Fetch, and as of late 2024 they've got identical range, about 13.5 meters at max rank, tugging mods, energy, and ammo straight to your frame. Slap whichever one fits into the top slot and more or less never think about it again.

Best Sentinels for New Players

Sentinels are the easy on-ramp for a new player, mostly because the good early ones are cheap or free and skip the breeding and scanning entirely. None have a Mastery Rank lock anymore, so credits and a little standing are the only gates.

Taxon, the free one you'll already have

Taxon is the companion the game basically hands you. You pick up its blueprint for finishing the junction from Earth to Venus, or buy it for 5,000 credits on the market. Its signature precept, Molecular Conversion, fires a radiation beam at nearby enemies and funnels the damage into your shields, which is a quietly huge deal when your frame is still fragile. It also comes with the Artax, a cold beam that slows whatever it hits. For a brand-new account, Taxon is the no-brainer first pick.

Carrier, fixes your ammo problem

If you're running low-tier guns that chew through ammo, Carrier is the answer. Its Ammo Case precept converts ammo pickups you don't need into ammo for whatever you're holding, and it bumps up your total ammo capacity on top of that. Add Looter, which cracks open containers in a radius around you, and Carrier turns into a walking supply crate. The blueprint is 100,000 credits. Ammo Case lost a little shine once Vacuum became universal, but for ammo-hungry weapons it's still a top pick.

Dethcube, energy on tap

Dethcube leans toward offense and energy. Its Vaporize precept fires a radiation beam that stuns enemies on a short cooldown, and the real prize is Energy Generator, which drops energy orbs as Dethcube racks up kills. Energy Generator isn't free, you buy it from Cephalon Simaris for 75,000 standing, but once you have it, Dethcube is a clean fit for any frame that burns through energy fast. Blueprint is 100,000 credits.

Wyrm, crowd control and status protection

Wyrm is the defensive utility pick. Crowd Dispersion fires off a magnetic shockwave that ragdolls groups of enemies, but only when two or more are nearby, on a 15-second cooldown. The standout is Negate, another Simaris purchase at 75,000 standing, which cancels a status effect on you outright and protects against knockdowns from grapples and ground slams. On missions full of fire and knockdowns, Wyrm quietly earns its slot. Blueprint runs 100,000 credits.

Diriga, the one that snipes

Diriga is the gunslinger of the group. It carries the Vulklok, an actual sniper rifle, picks off distant targets with Calculated Shot, and chains lightning between enemies with Arc Coil. It doesn't hand you shields or ammo, so it's a pure damage helper. Blueprint is the usual 100,000 credits.

Nautilus, pulls enemies into a pile

Nautilus is the favorite for players who love area-of-effect abilities. Its Cordon precept yanks nearby enemies toward a point about five meters in front of you, gift-wrapping a crowd for your big abilities to delete. It's got a 15-second cooldown and targets the closest enemy within 30 meters. Nautilus Prime comes from Void Relics, and if your frame clears rooms, Cordon makes it clear them way faster.

Helios, fills out your Codex for you

Helios is less about combat and more about bookkeeping. Its Investigator precept automatically scans enemies and objects to fill out your Codex as you play, a quiet upgrade most new players don't realize they want until they have it. Add Detect Vulnerability (another 75,000 standing from Simaris) and Helios marks weak spots on enemies you've already scanned for bonus damage. The catch is the blueprint is Clan Dojo research in the Energy Lab, so you need a clan to grab it.

For a quick reference, here's what each starter sentinel brings and what it costs to begin.

| Sentinel | What it's great at | Cost to start | | --- | --- | --- | | Taxon | Free shield restore, easy first pick | Earth→Venus junction reward (or 5,000 credits) | | Carrier | Ammo conversion for hungry guns | 100,000 credits | | Dethcube | Energy orbs on kills | 100,000 credits | | Wyrm | Status cancel and knockdown protection | 100,000 credits | | Diriga | Auto-sniping distant targets | 100,000 credits | | Nautilus | Groups enemies for your abilities | Nautilus Prime from Void Relics | | Helios | Auto-fills your Codex | Clan Dojo Energy Lab research |

So which one first?

For a fresh account the order is pretty simple. Grab Taxon first, because it's free and builds your survivability from mission one. Pick up Carrier once 100,000 credits feels comfortable, because solving your ammo problem removes a real early annoyance. After that, branch out by what bugs you: Helios for the Codex, Dethcube or Wyrm for energy and status, Nautilus once you start one-shotting rooms.

Precepts and Loadout Mods to Prioritize

Companions have eight mod slots, and a new player's instinct is usually to cram in as much damage as possible. Resist that. A companion that grabs loot, survives a hit, and lights up the radar is worth a ton more than one that does slightly more scratch damage.

The two you slot first

Vacuum (for robots) or Fetch (for beasts) goes in first, no debate. That's your automatic loot pickup. Right behind it goes Animal Instinct, which adds a loot radar and an enemy radar at max rank, so resources and threats both show up on your minimap from pretty far out. There's a Primed Animal Instinct from Baro Ki'Teer that's strictly better, but you can't run both, so the base version is plenty until he rolls into town.

Beast survival, the Link trio and Pack Leader

For beasts, MOAs, and Hounds, survivability starts with the Link mods. Link Vitality copies about 125% of your Warframe's max health onto the pet, Link Redirection does the same for shields, and Link Fiber does it for armor. Because they piggyback on YOUR stats, the tankier your frame, the tankier the pet, which beats the flat mods sentinels are stuck with. Pack Leader is the other half: every melee hit you land heals the pet for 100 health, and any healing past full stacks as Overguard up to 1,200. Swing a fast melee and the pet basically can't stay down. Medi-Pet Kit is a nice extra, adding passive regen and shaving 15 seconds off the revive timer.

Sentinel survival, Guardian and the flat mods

Sentinels take a different route since they can't use the Link mods. Guardian is the star, a precept that instantly refills your shields to full the moment they drop to zero, on a 30-second cooldown, so drop it in the top-left precept slot. After that, Enhanced Vitality (+250% health) and Metal Fiber (+110% armor) bulk up the sentinel itself, and Regen trims the revive timer by 20 seconds and grants a few seconds of invulnerability when it pops back up. Regen isn't mandatory anymore since sentinels revive on their own anyway.

Offense lives on the weapon now

Don't sleep on the fact that beasts have their own separate weapon slot these days. Bite (+330% crit chance and +220% crit damage at max) and Maul (+330% melee damage) sit on the Beast Claws weapon, not the companion itself, so they don't eat your survivability slots. Sentinels each come with a signature weapon you can mod on its own, like Carrier's Sweeper shotgun or Dethcube's Deth Machine Rifle. Pet damage is gravy, not the main course, but a well-modded weapon still mops up trash mobs.

Bond mods, the newer trick

The 2023 rework added a whole category called Bond mods, and they're worth knowing about. They're not mutually exclusive, so you can stack a few. The standouts for a newer player: Tenacious Bond trims the revive timer on headshot kills and hands you a big crit-damage multiplier if your pet's crit chance is high enough; Contagious Bond makes enemies your pet kills spread their status effects to neighbors, which snowballs fast; and Restorative Bond makes health orbs heal for more and chip time off the revive timer. Manifold Bond is robots-only and shortens your other precepts' cooldowns, so it pairs beautifully with Guardian.

For a quick priority checklist, here's roughly how to fill the slots for each type.

| Priority | Beast / MOA / Hound | Sentinel | | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Fetch | Vacuum | | 2 | Link Fiber (armor) | Guardian | | 3 | Link Vitality (health) | Enhanced Vitality | | 4 | Pack Leader | Metal Fiber | | 5 | Animal Instinct | Animal Instinct | | 6 | Bond mod or Medi-Pet Kit | Bond mod or Regen | | 7 | Maul / Bite (on Claws) | Signature weapon mods |

Feeding, DNA Stability, and Imprinting

This section confuses new players the most, because about half of what you'll read online is outdated. So let's clear the air first.

The old pet starvation loop is gone

For years, Kubrows and Kavats had a DNA Stability stat that slowly drained over time, and if it hit zero your pet could die of old age. You had to buy DNA Stabilizers (they ran about 75,000 credits for a pack of six) and feed them to your pets to keep them alive. Digital Extremes cut the entire system out of the game back in 2020. There's no DNA decay, no stabilizers to buy, no loyalty meter, none of it. Your beasts don't starve, age, or die between missions. If an old guide tells you to keep stabilizers stocked, that guide is years out of date.

The Incubator and Power Core

If you want a beast companion, the Incubator is where it happens. You hatch a beast by slotting whatever egg or genetic material you've collected into the Incubator and feeding it an Incubator Power Core, which gets consumed each hatch. Power Cores come two ways: buy one fully built for 35 platinum, or grab the reusable blueprint for 50,000 credits and craft them yourself out of credits, Nano Spores, a couple of Control Modules, and an Argon Crystal. You also get a free Power Core from the Venus to Mercury junction, enough to hatch your first Kubrow for nothing.

Stasis is just storage now

Stasis used to be the panic button that paused DNA decay. These days it's just where your idle companions wait. Keep a whole roster of pets, pop the spares into stasis, and swap your active companion whenever you like. The base Incubator even auto-stasises a downed companion, so there's no scramble to manage them.

Where each species comes from

Beasts all start from different places, and knowing that saves you a lot of running around.

• Kubrow comes from an egg. You crack Kubrow Dens on Earth for one, and the "Howl of the Kubrow" quest (unlocked through the Venus junction) walks you through the whole process, including getting your Incubator.
• Kavat needs 10 Kavat Genetic Codes. You get them by scanning wild Feral Kavats on Earth with a scanner, with about a 25% chance per scan to nab a code. It's kind of a pain, so a lot of players just buy codes for 5 platinum each or grab the Kavat Starter Kit. A Synthesis Scanner with the Cross-Matrix Widget doubles your odds.
• Predasite and Vulpaphyla come from Deimos conservation. You capture wild ones on the Cambion Drift, trade the tags to Son at the Necralisk, and combine them with a Mutagen and an Antigen to revivify your own Infested pet.
• MOAs are built by Legs in Fortuna. They're modular, so you pick a model, gyro, bracket, and card, and each combo shifts the stats. Components cost Solaris United standing.
• Hounds drop from Sisters of Parvos. Vanquish a Sister and you inherit her Hound, with a guaranteed random part thrown in.

Imprinting and breeding

Imprinting is how you breed for looks. Once you've got a Kubrow or Kavat you like, you can make Genetic Code Templates from it that capture its dominant genes, meaning the colors, pattern, and body type. You buy the reusable template blueprint for 50,000 credits, or a single premade one for 15 platinum. A Kubrow yields two templates and a Kavat yields three.

The fun part is cross-breeding. Slot two templates from the same pet into the Incubator before hatching and you get a clone. Slot two from different pets and the offspring blends both, with each template carrying roughly half the weight. That's how players breed for specific colors or rare patterns. Templates are tradeable between players too, so the market for pretty pets is alive and well. Predasites and Vulpaphylas use the same idea to mix their Mutagens across generations.

Keeping Your Companion Alive in Late Missions

Early on, keeping a companion alive is mostly about not forgetting to mod it. By the time you're pushing Steel Path or level-100-plus missions, enemies hit hard enough that an underbuilt pet folds in a single shot.

Link mods are the whole ballgame for beasts

This is where the Link family earns its keep. Because Link Vitality, Link Redirection, and Link Fiber all scale off your Warframe's maxed-out stats, a naturally tanky frame turns a squishy pet into a wall. Run Link Vitality on Inaros Prime and the pet can hit somewhere around 17,000 health. Run Link Fiber on Valkyr Prime and you're looking at roughly 4,700 armor on the pet, which is over 90% damage reduction. Hildryn with Link Redirection can push the pet's shields past 6,000. The flat mods sentinels rely on just can't compete at those levels, which is why beasts pull ahead on a chunky frame.

Pack Leader is the cheap heal

On top of the bulk, Pack Leader gives you a heal you barely think about. Every melee swing patches the pet for 100 health, and the overflow stacks as Overguard up to 1,200. Any fast-hitting melee, an exalted blade, or Khora's Whipclaw keeps the pet topped off without you babysitting it. Add Hunter Recovery and it runs both ways, with the pet's damage healing YOU, which is great on something like a Panzer Vulpaphyla that spreads viral quills across a crowd.

Sentinels lean on Guardian and the auto-revive

Sentinels can't use the Link mods, so their late-game survival is simpler and a little weaker. Guardian is doing the heavy lifting, refilling your shields for free every 30 seconds, which indirectly keeps you alive long enough to protect the sentinel. Beyond that, the innate 60-second auto-revive is your safety net. Since sentinels come back on their own now, a lot of veteran builds skip Regen entirely and spend that slot on a Bond mod or more health and armor. The sentinel will still get knocked out, but it'll get back up, and that's usually enough.

Shrink the revive timer with Bond mods

If the 60-second downtime bugs you, Bond mods are the fix. Restorative Bond trims the timer every time you grab a health orb, Tenacious Bond trims it on headshot kills, and Momentous Bond knocks off up to 18 seconds per Eximus kill while piling on an elemental damage buff. Stack a couple of those and the revive timer collapses to almost nothing under combat conditions, which keeps your pet fighting instead of napping. That compression is the real late-game survival tech, more than any single tank mod.

Match the pet to the frame

The single biggest mistake at high levels is running a beast on a fragile frame. If your Warframe has low health and low armor, the Link mods barely add anything, and the pet will fold fast no matter how you mod it. Glass cannons like Banshee or Loki are rough homes for a Kubrow. Save your beasts for the chunky frames, Inaros, Valkyr, Grendel, Nidus, Chroma, Hildryn, the ones with the stats to make Link mods sing. On a squishy frame, a sentinel with Guardian is usually the safer call.

The cleanest example of how much this stuff matters: a Kubrow on Inaros with Link Vitality and Pack Leader can shrug off Steel Path fire that would delete the same pet several times over on a Loki. Match the pet to the frame, slot the Link mods before anything fancy, and your companion stops being a liability and turns into a second health bar that grabs your loot for free.