Warframe: What does Legendary Core do?

Modified Mar 16, 2025 19:45 IST

warframe legendary core — Is a Legendary Core worth the long wait? (Image via Digital Extremes)

Legendary Core (otherwise known as Legendary Fusion Core) is the most elusive Sortie reward in Warframe. Due to its extremely low drop rate and time-gated source, only a fraction of the entire player base has ever obtained one. In fact, it's very likely for a veteran Warframe player with thousands of hours in the game to never have come across one.

Due to this great scarcity, even Tenno who have beat through most of the mid-game content will never have heard of a Legendary Core or what it does in Warframe.

How does Legendary Core work in Warframe?

Be conservative about which mod you want to max out with it (Image via Digital Extremes)

Simply put, a Legendary Core is a unique consumable that lets you max out the mod rank of any mod in Warframe without the usual resource cost. Once you have a Legendary Core in your inventory, you can tick it at the bottom right when upgrading a mod's rank to consume it instead of the prerequisite Credits and Endo.

To clarify for the beginner Tenno: all mods in Warframe require Credits and Endo to upgrade, and the amount needed increases with each rank. To max out common mods like Point Blank or Split Chamber, the resource cost is quite manageable.

However, mods that have high max rank (usually 10), such as Vitality, Serration, Narrow Minded, or Blind Rage will take much higher amounts to max out. The cost also goes up with mod rarity, with Primed mods obtained from Baro ki'Teer taking almost 2 million Credits and 40,000 Endo to max out.

This is where a Legendary Core comes in handy. They do not distinguish between mod rarity or max rank and can simply max out any given mod, withdrawing the resource cost it would have otherwise taken. In other words, the maximum value you can get out of this item is to max out an unranked Primed mod.

How to get Legendary Cores in Warframe

Legendary Cores can only be acquired from Archon Hunts (0.18% chance) or Sorties (0.19% chance) as a reward for completing all three missions. However, it can occasionally be given away as Twitch drops or other event rewards, such as last year's QTCC Campaign.

Legendary Cores can also be acquired from other players via trading. Currently, the going price on the open market is about 100 Plats. However, it's probably not a good idea to buy it as anything other than a trophy item since once-niche methods of efficiently farming Endo or Credits are popular and, therefore, relatively more accessible now.

Edited by Shraman Mitra