Void Relic Rotation/Vaulted?

[setcamper]

It dawned on me today that there must be a crap ton of relics not in the loot table and sure enough, checked out the wiki and it shows there are 262 "vaulted relics".

So I assume there's some kind of relic rotation or are these relics kind of gone for good (besides trading and maybe some premium vendor windows).

How does DE balance all their relics and choose what to give the players. I assume the collection we have is curated in some way so that all the rewards can create completed items, right? Like there isn't a reward for a component you can't make because the other prime part is gated behind a vaulted relic?

How often do these relic collections change? Do they all disappear at once or, for example, all LITH relics change? As a new player I've picked up a piece of a prime Warframe that was easy to farm as a Lith relic, but maybe there's another piece as a rare on a Axi relic I haven't even come close to farming yet?

I've been using relic farming just for Forma for the most part, and barely doing much of them as my supply is high enough I always have days worth of Forma building. But now I'm worried I might miss out on something because I'm not farming relics enough that might be disappearing?

[MisterYurei]

Relics rotate in and out of the Prime Vault constantly. Any Prime that is vaulted has its subsequent relics vaulted until the Prime Vault opens again. Once the Prime Vault is open, select frames and items will become available again through either newer relics or reused older ones. There's no real "balancing" as far as loot is concerned, rather it's just two frames and their subsequent weapons. (meaning all parts to the frames and weapons, of course)

There is no set schedule as to when a Prime is unvaulted, however it's not hard to make predictions.

Also there is no need to worry, since all vaulted primes and relics to come back around eventually. You may not have the same EXACT relic as last time, but the rewards will be strikingly similar.

I was in the same boat as you before I figured it out, so I understand your confusion.

And to answer: Only the relics containing the specific parts or blueprints that are being vaulted disappear. It wouldn't make sense to vault every single Lith relic, especially the ones that don't need to be vaulted.

Hope this helps!

[Dom-yBoi.]

"Vaulted" relics mean that those relics contain weapon parts for "Vaulted" weapons. All this means is that they've temporarily been removed from the loot tables. When the weapons are "Unvaulted", multiple relics containing those weapon parts (which don't contain the parts of another "Vaulted" weapon), are also "Unvaulted". All "Unvaulted" weapons have at minimum one relic containing each of their required parts. The vaulting cycle is a multiple-month long cycle, so you would have plenty of time to farm for the "Unvaulted" weapons.

[setcamper]

Okay, I guess I didn't realize that all the frames/weapons are "packaged"- If I'm understanding you correctly. Like right now Mesa is a prime warframe reward in relics. I assume there's a primary, secondary, and melee weapons that's associated with her and if there was a rotation all those weapons would rotate out with her?

[MisterYurei]

Just now, setcamper said:

I assume there's a primary, secondary, and melee weapons that's associated with her and if there was a rotation all those weapons would rotate out with her?

2 of the three types, but yeah. You'll normally hear from the news console or from the forums when and what frame is getting vaulted, along with their subsequent weapons. Then you just have to wait until they're unvaulted again to start farming for them again, or buy from other players (which I don't suggest to newer players)

[setcamper]

I guess one final question- specially looking at Wukong Prime and noticed his Blueprint isn't in the drop table of available relics. How common is that, to have an item with all the pieces, but no instructions to put it together? 

[MisterYurei]

2 minutes ago, setcamper said:

I guess one final question- specially looking at Wukong Prime and noticed his Blueprint isn't in the drop table of available relics. How common is that, to have an item with all the pieces, but no instructions to put it together? 

currently his Blueprint is in the Axi W1 Relic. Sometimes you might miss it or you might already have the relic, so it won't show up in the missing table.

[(PSN)H-Refr]

3 minutes ago, setcamper said:

I guess one final question- specially looking at Wukong Prime and noticed his Blueprint isn't in the drop table of available relics. How common is that, to have an item with all the pieces, but no instructions to put it together? 

All the parts for currently not vaulted warframes and weapons are in the drop trables. Wukong Prime Blueprint is a rare (gold) part, it was in some Lith relics previously, now it moved to Axi. You can search the parts in your Relics console.

[setcamper]

1 minute ago, MisterYurei said:

currently his Blueprint is in the Axi W1 Relic. Sometimes you might miss it or you might already have the relic, so it won't show up in the missing table.

Oh yeah, I actually have that one, only Axi I own, so I guess that's why I was confused why it wasn't grayed out with the rest of them.

[(PSN)H-Refr]

As for the schedule. New primes come out approximately every 3 month. They are usually released in the order of original frames with the female/female/male/male cadence. They go into vault approx. after 2 years in the same order. When a new prime warframe and 2 weapons come out, another frame and 2 weapons (of the respected prime access) go to vault.

Unvaulting happens like 2 or 3 times a year, I believe. And there are usually 2 frames and 4 weapons come back from the vault. But there's no predictable order, they unvault what they feel like unvaulting. Unvaulted relics are available from bounties and Void missions.

[(PSN)Dr_Bruiser]

1 hour ago, setcamper said:

I've been using relic farming just for Forma for the most part, and barely doing much of them as my supply is high enough I always have days worth of Forma building. But now I'm worried I might miss out on something because I'm not farming relics enough that might be disappearing?

I think you're going about this the right way so far.  As you advance further in the game, you'll begin to accumulate more and more relics.  As you do, you can start running void fissure missions more often to begin using them up.  Look for a match between a relic you have a few of and a void fissure mission that would be relatively easy and quick for you to complete. 

There are always players running fissure missions in public, so ALWAYS run your missions on public.  You never know what relics the other players will be opening (often they will be opening vaulted relics or relics that they have refined to a higher quality), which means that you can often pick up prime parts that you wouldn't have easy access to from your own collection.  When you get to the reward screen, look for gold and silver rewards and parts that you don't have. 

After running a good number of missions this way (maybe 100 or more?), you'll find that you have acquired most of the parts for a few prime weapons or warframes and you can then begin targeting the remaining pieces by searching your relic inventory for the weapon or warframe to find the parts you are missing.  I managed to acquire a couple of vaulted prime warframes by just randomly running void missions with other players.  It took a lot of missions, but it just happened while I was farming forma or other primes.  Keep at least 1 copy of everything you find and only start trading excess parts for platinum or ducats (for Baro at the relay). 

You can even run dedicated "rad share" missions, where all four players in the squad are opening a particular relic that they have all refined to Radiant by investing 100 void traces, by recruiting a team in the recruiting channel.  This is the best way to obtain stubborn rare/gold rewards.  When a particular set of relics has just been unvaulted (or when it is going to be vaulted soon), you'll find a lot of players looking to farm the specific items in this way.