Warframe: Steel Path Conquered

PSA: Veilbreaker  has been released! Log in to the game before September 22 to get the newest warframe, Styanax, for free! Now onto the post...

Just hours before the Veilbreaker update I managed to finally complete the Steel Path! Huzzah! The little planet decorations now adorn one of my orbiter's shelves. I thought I'd post what worked for me but with the new changes these might be moot now anyway...

A perma invis 1 forma Loki with a 3 forma Xoris and a 1 forma bleed Nataruk was the main stay since both are basically AoE and infinite ammo. While I mostly used the firewalking Loki variant I also used regular Loki with irradiating disarm for some of the hijack missions. I did make heavy use of specters though, with Frost, Moa and Osprey being the champions in defense and mobile defense and a Vauban being instrumental in interceptions too (I'm literally out of specters and salvage now).

Big thank you to veteran and crazy fashion framer, theclownpriincee, for assisting with the interceptions on Mercury and Ceres and those maps were too small for me to outrace the horde. Turns out actually playing a Vauban and using the vortex grenade skill is an easy way to recapture points as "lifted" enemies get no capture.

As energy siphon is a permanent aura mod for me, I only used a Taxon sentinel throughout the whole thing because it "looks" where the closest enemy is - a good way to tell if something is behind me without radar. More importantly it has a max vacuum mod to help collect all those health and energy orbs because I don't use the item versions of those restoratives.

Operator wise I just stuck to the Naramon school (low 5/18) the whole way and the Sicorro that you get from New War is good enough to solo SP Ropalolyst with some patience. It is not good enough to defeat a steel path Void Angel though (thank you again theclownpriincee)! Archwing wise a mix of Velocitus and Mausolon (from the necramech) was fine, as was the Odonata starter wings - just have to use the "4" (repel) a lot for the space mobile defense one.

I did use Revenant for the two Deimos bosses though as his "1" (enthrall) can skip through some Zealoid Prelate phases and his "2" (mesmer armor) can keep him alive through the freaking long fight against Lephantis (longer than Ropalolyst).

I used the Mausolon again in this fight as well as my 1 forma radiation tomb finger kit gun sidearm "Chernobyl" while waiting for the Archgun deployer timer to cool down. While I brought that pistol to every mission it really only got used against Lephantis. With the Veilbreaker changes to ammo I'm not sure how feasible that is anymore.

Stuff I didn't use: any health / energy restores. Any bonuses past rank 6 intrinsic everything (no on call crew etc), no lich/sister support or gear because I've not yet managed to kill my first one, and no necramech because at this point I am stronger outside of it.

Special note with Disruption on Lua: this is an utter piece of garbage since you need four conduit "wins". Definitely get help here. I was lucky enough to squad up with two others since it was a steel path alert and we still almost lost with one guy becoming perma-dead and only being able to "win" one out of four conduits per round. If you can't kill the exploder in time, you can still win by keeping him away for two minutes. Loki's switch teleport can help, but only when their red aura is off!

Warframe: Specters and the Proboscis Cernos

While my Loki can handle a lot of the steel path now thanks to the Xoris and the Nataruk bow (both quest rewards you can't miss), defense style missions are challenging enough that I rebuild a Frost to handle them as well defense specters (2 Star Vauban for infested, 1 Star Frost for the rest) armed with Proboscis Cernos bows, which actually starts out as a Cernos that you buy from the market. You then use upgrade it into a Mutalist Cernos and again into the Proboscis form (note: each form gives mastery!).

As a main weapon it has a very low ammo count and each arrow takes time to fire as you need a full draw. Whatever the arrow strikes, be it terrain or an enemy, becomes the spawn point for tentacles that grabs every enemy nearby with a short immobilize and stun then pulls them close before exploding with viral damage (meaning survivors will take extra damage to health from subsequent attacks). It's pretty neat, but there are better things for you to carry.

Specters on the other hand, don't care about ammo count or mods since they and their weapons level up based on when you summon them. The whole tentacle thing is another awesome form of crowd control which works nicely with my AoE weapons. Now to work out how to handle interceptions, which are "capture the point" scenarios.

Obviously the easy answer is to bring more players but until my crew is ready I'm going to try be soloing these. So far I've only completed Steel Path Phobos. Lots more places to go! :)

Warframe: Harrow and Mesa

The priest and the gunslinger.

Harrow

Only available after completing the "Chains of Harrow" quest (after which you might need to grind a little for some of h8s other parts), this clergy like warframe has a strong focus on shields and teamwork - enjoying a double capacity over shield (shield on top of a shield) and starting each mission with full energy.

He can shield the entire team, throw out a corridor of chains that give him more shields for each enemy he tangles up, flagellate himself to remove all shields to buff the entire squad based on how how much shields he lost, and wave some incense around to help everyone regenerate energy (so that he can use all those abilities again). His power loop is a pretty straight forward one and provided he doesn't tangle with any toxin type enemies (because toxin goes directly for health and ignores shields) this makes him super durable - but not as durable as the Revenant. Because of that and because I'm not into team focused powers, this priest is worm food.

Mesa

This gunslinger is locked behind the mutalist Alad V assassination mission (avoid that collar) which you'll need to craft keys for. On the plus side, you'll probably get a Nyx from all that key building. As expected all of Mesa's abilities are gun (mainly pistol) focused, and she gets benefits for not being armed with melee. She can jam enemy guns, briefly shield herself from bullets, re-apply stored gun damage with the next shot and lastly become a stationary (or slow moving) turret of doom for as long as her energy allows.

While she might be one of the higher DPS frames currently available she suffers from being not too sturdy. That bullet shield lasts mere seconds, enough time to get to the next cover I suppose but against melee hordes (hello infested) she'd be in trouble "turret" form or not. Might be one I'd like more if I got her earlier in the campaign when I still played it like a shooter all those years ago, but after seeing how quickly Steel Path grunts can shred through unprotected warframes I don't think she'll last in my arsenal for very long.

Warframe: Nyx and Rhino

Mind and body.

As I'm leveling the Helminth I've decided to rebuild a few old frames before feeding them for worm XP and helping me remember what they were like.

Nyx

At first glance you might think it's hard to get this warframe as her pieces only drop from Phorid, an infested invasion boss, but in reality you'll get so many blueprints for her when you start going after the Mesa warframe, because Phorid invasions drop a key component to hunt for Mesa. My suggestion is to hunt for Mesa directly and you'll get a Nyx on the way.

That said Nyx is one of those warframes who feels super fragile out of the box but she has some pretty nice abilities if powered up correctly. She can make enemies fight each other, go into an invulnerable sphere that absorbs and then returns damage and she can shoot a mass of psychic bolts that strip armor and shields of enemies that sounds really great once you get into the Steel Path. Still just didn't click for me though, certainly not enough to spend resources to get her to a useful level. Worm food it is.

Rhino

Collected from the Jackal (aka mercy kill training) in Venus, this is a beast of a frame right from the get go and is perhaps one of the best frames for new players to get. He can charge to rag doll enemies, roar to increase damage (of team mates too), stomp to crowd control a radius of enemies and activate iron skin which boosts his armor. I'm  pretty sure all of these enjoy a lot of invulnerability frames which makes this guy a sturdy choice for anyone early in their Warframe career.

Tank wise I think he does get eclipsed later on by the undying Inaros or ultra-shielded Revenant though as these two have in-built healing abilities (and longer invulnerability phases) which are almost mandatory for late game but until then he's an easy one to recommend.

Warframe: Chroma and Xaku

The dragon and the skeleton who are both piece-meal frames.

Chroma

After collecting his main blueprint from the quest "The New Strange", you'll notice Chroma is actually made up of a bunch of other warframe pieces - Volt, Ember, Frost and Saryn. Thanks to that last one being locked behind Kela de Thaym on Sedna who requires you to win Sedna arena matches before you can fight her, it might be awhile before you can make this guy. It is quite thematic though since he can use any of the elements (Lightning, Fire, Ice and Toxin) in his abilities.

He can breathe [element], ward an area with [element], use his pelt like Dr. Strange's cloak as a buddy to guard an area using [element] or Vex Armor which improves your armor if your shields are hit and improves weapon damage if health takes a hit. Do you see a problem with Vex Armor? Yep. You must get hit to benefit from it. Since his pelt is not mobile and doesn't use your weapons it isn't as good as a spectre or Wukong's twin, and the whole mechanic of tap this button to cycle something and hold it down to use isn't great for me. Not a frame I ended up keeping for very long.

Xaku

With the main blueprint available from "the Heart of Deimos" quest, you can collect the rest of his blueprints from Cambion Drift bounties. Lore wise this frame is actually composed from remnants of lost warframes which might explain its unique skeletal look. It is the only frame so far that can add void damage, pull enemy firearms away and then have them float along and fire back at his foes, explode his outer layer and run around as bones which lets him move faster and autododge 75% of any damage, and "cycle through a trio of powers" ugh. Boiled down these are charm, hold person, and damage beam.

While it is an interesting one to use, it mostly caught my attention for the void damage bonus. 75% evasion is not as good as the 100% god-armor (mesmer skin) of the Revenant or 100% not being attacked of an invisible Loki. Eventually I ended up burying this skeleton back in the ground.

Warframe: Equinox and Revenant

Night and Day and Dead?

Equinox

Farmed by punching Tyl Regor at Uranus over and over, this one is a bit of a pain to build since it requires more blueprints than most other warframes - naturally eating more resources. Luckily those resources are pretty common so it's more the credit cost that will sting. Once done you have a warframe that functions as two warframes!? Unfortunately this isn't in the cool way like the Wukong twin, but instead the Equinox has a night and day mode each with their own set of powers. Basically for one frame you get SEVEN powers! Isn't that cool!?

She can enrage enemies or put them to sleep, reduce enemy damage or increase ally damage, and lastly can make enemies bleed or increase allies shields. Just from that list you can tell that she is heavily weapons reliant, and designed with a squad in mind. Obviously I didn't like it. :P

Revenant

While you need his main blueprint from the Mask of the Revenant quest, his other parts are available from the higher level Earth Bounties. This thing feels like a much better Nekros in theme and power. It can force enemies to fight for it (which is viral in that afflicted enemies "charm" the next enemies they hit and so on), turn into mist that does a % damage to enemies while being immortal and restoring health and shields, twirl around with lasers that automatically use the damage enemies are least resistant to, and my favorite - a spammable "turn on armor" with a set number of charges that absorbs all damage per hit making him effectively immortal.

I'll describe that last one a little better: turn on the armor gives you say 6 "charges". Take a hit of 1 damage or 1 million damage absorbs one charge. You can be hit 5 more times without taking any scratches to your shields or health. Or you know, turn on the armor again so you are back to 6 charges. Whaaaat? He is pretty simple to use and is great even unmodded, which is why he's now going to be permanently in my stable while I plug reactor potatoes and formas into him. Fantastic frame, just a little power hungry.

Tales of the Blight: Sit! Stay! Bad Dog!?

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

With the majority of the city still closed to us we traveled next to the to the forest to meet the Dalish elves. They are quite stand offish from the get go so I bring Leliana along for peace keeping duty, at least in the camp. Seems they have a werewolf problem and their mysterious and ancient leader Zathrien tasks us with killing the alpha wolf and get its heart to help cure his infected people. After talking to a few other elves I strongly suspect Zathrien -is- the wolf but whatever.

More importantly I find this place to be an unending supply of the healing herb elf root and spend a bit of money on it. Soon it is time to enter the woods so I task Leliana with keeping an eye on the elves while Morrigan comes along for the action. It's a decent sized zone full of werewolves, ents, some maleficar and a few undead who are really the only ones who give us any grief. Those revenants are mean! The poet tree and the mad hermit who talks in questions were pretty cool though.

Almost as cool as this fellow.

After learning they could speak early on, I tried my best to talk to the werewolves but they were only interested in trying to kill us, or running away. Eventually we tracked them to some ancient ruins where they locked themselves behind an unopenable door. Sigh. Of course there would be a way around, but it would be somewhere deep within those ruins huh?

Crisscross Scouting

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The next day I decided to try finish a few more quests at the Station so I made my way back towards the apartment complex via a different route, encountering Revenants! These zombie guys were a little scary but alone were still no match against automatic rifles. I eventually came across a "gate guard" manning a large metal fence to a walled off zone. He let me through back into the misty dusk of the Station area where I then proceeded to sweep through the various sectors in the grid, killing a lot more brownies in my house to house searches.

Someone should have put this sign up. :P

A fenced-off section in the North East was home to large numbers of mutants too, dangerous due to the numbers they came in be they rats, brownies or spiders in the playground.

Eventually I found the Palace of Culture which I had somehow missed earlier) which had the entrance to the underground beside it. Followed the stairs down into the Labyrinth to
find it wasn't at all as mazey as I had first hought. It was big, but easily navigatable. Once outside I explored to the edges of the train track to the South finding only more large packs of wild dogs roaming the streets.

After spending the night with the next gate guards I awoke to the sound of gunfire - another stalker named R4wEC was shooting down the mischevious canines so I went to help him. We partied up and decided to try head for "the city" but on the way there encountered a pair of other stalkers heading the opposite way, giving us a warning that a duo of well-armed bandits waited up ahead. Just as well as my new companion had tasks to complete in the Station area anyway, so we hoofed it to the nearest gate and returned to the fog.