Overview: Quick, versatile and cheap, this frame is shockingly good for its price. Thanks to stunningly good radial crowd-control and a deployable shield/weapon amplifier, Volt scales extremely well in high level content. You can pick up the blueprints from your clan “Tenno” lab, or select it as your starting frame.

Prime: Volt prime is currently vaulted – though his relics are sometimes available from Baro Ki’Teer, the Void Trader that appears every second week. Other than that, you could try bugging friends, clanmates or the trade channel.

Special: Build up to 1000 static charge as you move around, applied to the next attack you make as electric damage. This doesn’t sound very good, but it gets multiplied by critical effects and can be good for gimmicks.

Pros: Massive area damage potential against unarmoured targets, Electric Shield (3) can grant massive durability and huge damage buffs with clever positioning, Volt Speed (2) can have great utility when people are ready for it, high base shields provide a little help when starting out.

Cons: Can be a bit energy hungry, squad-mates may object to the speed buff.

Powers: Shock (1) hurls an arcing bolt of lighting for mild damage and good crowd control, while the Shock Trooper augment allows you to hold the ability down and grant you and nearby allies bonus electrical damage.

Speed (2) does what you might expect – faster movement, reload and melee attack for you and nearby players – but be warned, at high ability strength you will end up bashing into a lot of walls! The Shocking Speed augment will electrocute anyone you bump into while Speed (2) is active.

Electric Shield (3) not only blocks incoming fire, allies firing through the shield will gain additional electrical damage and double their critical damage multiplier – making this a great tool for killing tough targets or even Eidolons. You can charge the shield to stun enemies wandering through it using Shock (1) or simply pick it up and amble around using it as a riot shield – and with the Transistor Shield augment, allies can do the same. Try the Recharge Barrier augment for further utility, causing the barriers to restore shields to allies that pass through them.

Discharge (4) stuns everyone in a large radius and causes them to electrocute any others nearby, creating a potentially huge amount of damage in densely packed areas – especially if combined with a high ability range. Used alongside the Capacitance augment, a portion of this damage will be converted into overshields shared between yourself and allies.

Opinion: Volt is a very good choice early game – while his power-based damage potential does fall off later on against armoured enemies, it will devastate almost anything else. The sheer utility of Electric Shield (3) can buy Volt a place in much harder content, making him a good choice for hunting Eidolons. He also has a good selection of augment mods that can turn him into more of a support class. He’s fun to play, has showy powers and can contribute to every mission type – I’d recommend him.