Guide: Fissure Excavation - Primed loot + Cryotic farm

[Proscriptor]

the goal: to make 9k cryotic in an hour or less while getting a lot of primed loot as well (this is both the fastest way to crack relics and to farm cryotic)

prerequisites: booster and smeeta kavat

• tip: sell the prime loot you get playing this to buy a booster

squad composition:

• initiator - Frost
• CC - Nyx
• defender - Khora
• nuker - Saryn (or another Khora; for clarity i'll stick with Saryn)

the general idea: this mission is played by keeping tab on certain mission states at all times, and knowing which action to take depending on the current state

• the states and corresponding actions form a procedure which can be divided into several discrete steps, which are easy to remember
• the first four steps are reserved for the first round
• the second and every subsequent round is composed of modified steps

 

~~~ THE FIRST ROUND (ONLY ONCE) ~~~

Quote

STEP 1: mission start

starting state:

• cryotic: 0/200

• excavators active: 0

• reactant: 0/10

squad actions:

• start: yes - A is started (naturally, Frost goes in first and casts the globe)

• fill: yes - A is filled four times

• kill: selectively - the squad concentrates on killing corrupted and power carriers while mostly ignoring regular enemies

• CC: no

• nuke: no

Quote

STEP 2: A has finished

starting state:

• cryotic: 100/200

• excavators active: 0

• reactant: cca. 6/10

squad actions:

• start: yes - B is started

• fill: partially - B is filled three times

• kill: selectively

• CC: no

• nuke: no

Quote

STEP 3a: B is halfway done, everyone has 10/10 reactant

starting state:

• cryotic: 100/200

• excavators active: 1 (B)

• reactant: 10/10

squad actions:

• start: yes - Frost and Nyx rush in close formation to start C, carrying power cells; Saryn and Khora stay on B

• fill: yes - all to full

• kill:

  • B: yes - Khora and Saryn can freely kill on B

  • C: no - Frost and Nyx only kill the power carriers needed to power C

• CC: yes - Nyx CCs C

• nuke: 

  • B: yes

  • C: no

STEP 3b: excavators active: 2/2 (B is about to finish and C is about halfway done)

• Saryn quickly moves to C to be on site when it's time to nuke, taking care not to nuke it prematurely; Khora stays behind, keeping B as clear of enemies as possible 

Quote

STEP 4: B is done, fissure reward counter starts ticking (note: this still happens in the same round as the previous steps!)

 starting state:

• cryotic: 200/200 | fissure reward counter: on

• excavators active: 1 (C)

• reactant: 0/10

squad actions:

• start: no

• fill: yes (C should be full or almost full at this point)

• kill: yes

  • since B has finished, Khora moves to join the rest of the squad at the C, clearing the map of stragglers along the way

• CC: no

• nuke: yes - Saryn nukes C, and so does Frost (he should be able to as well)

as a consequence of these actions, even before the end of round 1, most of the players will have at least 4/10 reactant, which will have dropped from the amassed corrupted which were nuked, who were kept alive for the countdown

this is how excavation can really be sped up

~~~ THE ACTUAL LOOP (THE SECOND AND EVERY SUBSEQUENT ROUND) ~~~

Quote

STEP 1': an excavator is inherited from the last round - i'll call it Excavator Zero, hereafter E0

note the letter pattern:

1. C is inherited in the 2nd round as E0, D is E1, E is E2

2. E is inherited in the 3rd round as E0, F is E1, A is E2

3. A is inherited in the 4th round as E0, B is E1, C is E2, and C is then inherited as E0 in the fifth round, continuing the three-round letter pattern

starting state:

• cryotic: 0/200

• excavators active: 1 (E0)

• reactant: cca. 5/10

squad actions:

• start: no

• fill: yes (E0 will probably already be full)

• kill: selectively

• CC: no

• nuke: no

Quote

STEP 2': everyone has 10/10 reactant before E0 has finished 

• if E0 has already finished, that's ok too, and doesn't change anything substantially

starting state:

• cryotic: 0/200

• excavators active: 1 (E0) 

• reactant: 10/10

squad actions:

• start: yes - Frost starts E1, and then E2, as soon it's available (likely producing a third active excavator)

  • Khora stays on E0 to defend it

  • Saryn follows Frost to E1 and stays to defend it

  • Nyx follows Frost to E2 (carrying a power cell!) and stays to CC

• fill: yes - all to full

  • when E0 finishes, Khora joins Frost at E2 carrying a power cell (she bypasses E1)

  • Frost can then go back to get a power cell from E1, but it probably won't be needed

• kill: 

  • E0: yes

  • E1: yes

  • E2: selectively - only carriers, not the corrupted, let them mass up and CC them (this is the whole point of this guide)

• CC: yes - Nyx CCs E2

• nuke: no 

STEP 3' - subsumed into step 2' (since squad already has 10/10 reactant)

STEP 4' - same as STEP 4 (E1 finishes, Saryn moves to E2 to nuke when the timer starts, for some quick reactant)

TO CONTINUE GO BACK TO STEP 1'

- - -

note: this is different from the "2-2 excav" which is two pairs acting independent of one another: this approach is too rudimentary for Fissure excav! 

excav is simple and repetitive but not a completely braindead game mode like most people seem to perceive it; in fact, from my observation, most people don't play excav efficiently, be it regualr excav, arbitration excav or fissure excav

[Proscriptor]

reserved

[HelNite]

Ok ill admit you know your way around excavation missions but the point still stands: cryotic (no matter how hard you try) is still not a worthwhile resource in terms of time and efficiency so i will now give you a very brain dead solo farming example which requires no specific build or boosters aside from a Nekros with the Despoil augment

Here is a solo run i did in the void using Nekros (who is noticeably not Khora as she does not have to worry about desecrating bodies before they disappear and actually does dmg and cc making her better for steel path farming) i did not use a Smeeta Kavat as you can see bcs although it would massively increase my yield it is very very unreliable and can skew results heavily, i got 3 Argon Crystals in around 6 minutes (about 1 every 2 mins) and took 1 minute to extract from my mission (as i was camping at spawn) i had none of the boosters active and have not subsumed any abilities to allow synergies such as Ore Gaze+Desecrate on my Nekros
And normally if i had entered a public squad finding a random meta farming frame Khora/Nekros/Equinox/etc.. would not be difficult to come by in this mission
and had i a dedicated farming squad, an active Smeeta Kavat and both boosters active i would be able to get more than 5 clicks worth at least (10+ in best case scenario)
and it should go without saying but enemy spawns will increase the longer the mission goes on and thus the yield will also increase so you could potentially get anywhere between 20-40 clicks or even more should you decide to stay an entire hour (as you have done with excavations and with a yield of only 3 clicks)
https://imgur.com/Mp8ihGs
 

[HelNite]

obviously i havent gone even 10 minutes long bcs i dont think you should have to grind for hours every time you want to use a feature you spent days grinding for
and also bcs endurance runs of any kind are just not the way i like to play this game every day 
but ofc you could go all out if you wanted and get massive yields as you can see many guides by other people on farming any uncommon-rare resource without needing to look all that hard as this is common knowledge

[HelNite]

i will now retreat to my bed bcs its late night here and i need slep

and also im sorry if i came across as a jerk or anything in the posts at the HoD Prime vault post
but it was kinda warranted tbh, i was just riled up by you giving me a blatant, childish and narcissistic insult simply because i (along with many many others) disagreed with you on something (and i still do)

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

Cryotic will always be garbage to get, I remember it was a possible reward in railjack  until they removed it -_-

 

[Xion_Deimos]

@HelNite I'm unclear as to your point in relation to the guide as posted. As far as I can tell you're saying that because of your entirely anecdotal evidence based on your one run in the void in which you managed to acquire three argon crystals is that one does not need boosters or preparation to farm. And you're absolutely right, however, this has no bearing on what @Traubenzuckr has accomplished here which is a wonderfully laid out clear and precise way to extract the maximum amount of cryotic in the least amount of time in the most profitable way. As for your comment "cryotic... is still not a worthwhile resource in terms of time and efficiency" I would argue you have completely failed to appreciate that this guide detailing an extremely efficient method of acquisition has precisely reduced the time needed to collect the 138,735 (+47,240 for research) cryotic needed to build every item in Warframe that requires it. The mapping of each players actions was beautifully done in this guide and I, for one, greatly appreciate the time and effort that went in to create this. If efficiency isn't your preferred way to enjoy your time in Warframe and you instead appreciate a more casual approach to the game you are absolutely entitled to that point of view. What I would advise you against @HelNite is making less of someone's hard work and dedication towards a laudable goal with what seems to be baseless claims and anecdotal evidence with no real points of substance. Enjoy Warframe however you please and allow others to do the same, thank you.

Links:
https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Cryotic -click to view the blueprints requiring cryotic

[HelNite]

@Xion_Deimosi get what you mean m8 but i am the one who requested this guide based on an argument me and OP had in a previous post regarding Helminth resource balancing
there was simply no way for me to make my point without it seeming out of place here

[Xion_Deimos]

Not knowing the original argument it would seem that the point proven here is that cryotic is an abundant byproduct when running fissures for prime parts allowing for higher values in the balancing for the Helminth which I would agree with based purely on the consistency of extraction when looking for endless fissure missions. It is a viable alternative to defense and survival missions that grants a unique resource at the same time as prime parts while also being faster then either, I believe. If there is an opposing point I would love to hear it.

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

 

10 minutes ago, Xion_Deimos said:

Not knowing the original argument it would seem that the point proven here is that cryotic is an abundant byproduct when running fissures for prime parts allowing for higher values in the balancing for the Helminth which I would agree with based purely on the consistency of extraction when looking for endless fissure missions. It is a viable alternative to defense and survival missions that grants a unique resource at the same time as prime parts while also being faster then either, I believe. If there is an opposing point I would love to hear it.

sadly Excavation fissures are rarely so perfect. a prebuilt group will always preform far better than random players or a single solo player. additionally they are usually unpopular in random groups, with most players avoiding them due to how easy it is to complete the objective before gaining enough reactant to open a relic. OPs post outlines the exception sadly.

if the arguement is for Helminth efficiently, in the same time frame you could have gotten enough thermal sludge for 5 feedings, 10 if you have a booster by running Valis free roam solo.

[HelNite]

2 hours ago, Xion_Deimos said:

Not knowing the original argument it would seem that the point proven here is that cryotic is an abundant byproduct when running fissures for prime parts allowing for higher values in the balancing for the Helminth which I would agree with based purely on the consistency of extraction when looking for endless fissure missions. It is a viable alternative to defense and survival missions that grants a unique resource at the same time as prime parts while also being faster then either, I believe. If there is an opposing point I would love to hear it.

the point is that:
-other resources that are far more efficient and easy to farm exist
-they dont rely on boosters
-they dont need you to have a fissure active to give you incentive to play
-they dont need a well coordinated squad or even any squad at all
my screenshot may as well look irrelevant at first but the only way i could give myself worse circumstances would be if i used a warframe that holds no bearing on resource drops
and yet i still managed to get 1 click worth of the resource in less than 10 minutes and that last fact was where i asked OP to show me how cryotic farming could be anywhere near more efficient than that
he did not and instead offered to give a guide to excavation missions after saying that i know nothing about how excavation missions work and ill admit that im not that into this mission type but i never doubted that it would not be that hard to get 9k cryotic if you had a well coordinated squad
simply put there are far better resources that we are actually incentivised for for farming and they dont restrict you this much
im leaving out a lot of information here so i will simply post a link to where the original argument started and it does continue on to the last page (currently 14) as we are both stubborn arseholes

keep in mind judging from my visit to OPs profile i enter in quite late to the argument

[BahamutKaiser]

There's a few ways you can optimize this, starting with putting this in players helping players. 

Nyx isn't necessary, you'll probably want to automate the challenge as much as possible, so Saryn, or any other wipe frame leads to you hunting down power supplies rather than bringing them to you. 

Frost and Khora are staples, especially since the highest level natural excavation is dark sector vs infested. Any loot frame helps spawn more power supplies, but beside stacking pilfering dome, you could add Hydroid for CC and loot. 

The major missing component is mobility. Classically Nova allowed the team to relocate, while also making foes twice as easy to kill and less deadly. Now you can also use Wisp to offer local buffs and relocation speed.

The last QoL choice to replace an option would be Vauban. This is far better CC than Nyx, since you can vortex local enemies into a nice murder ball, with the added benefit of pressing all the loot into a convenient location as well. With Vauban present, your best loot frame probably becomes Nekros, who has a great creeping terrify for CC that most players sleep on, including armor strip. 

Cryotic pretty much become irrelevant though, once you get that Ice Hammer. Incidentally, that's also around the time players are talented enough to construct this farming set up. If your going to put this much effort into Excavation, you may consider doing so on Steel Path, so you can farm Essence simultaneously. Fissures are nice, but you really only need frost to carry newbs through it. 

[quxier]

 

11 hours ago, HelNite said:

Ok ill admit you know your way around excavation missions but the point still stands: cryotic (no matter how hard you try) is still not a worthwhile resource in terms of time and efficiency so i will now give you a very brain dead solo farming example which requires no specific build or boosters aside from a Nekros with the Despoil augment

Here is a solo run i did in the void using Nekros (who is noticeably not Khora as she does not have to worry about desecrating bodies before they disappear and actually does dmg and cc making her better for steel path farming) i did not use a Smeeta Kavat as you can see bcs although it would massively increase my yield it is very very unreliable and can skew results heavily, i got 3 Argon Crystals in around 6 minutes (about 1 every 2 mins) and took 1 minute to extract from my mission (as i was camping at spawn) i had none of the boosters active and have not subsumed any abilities to allow synergies such as Ore Gaze+Desecrate on my Nekros

RNG is very unreliable for small quantities like the Argon. I can just pick whatever frame/companion I want and get 3-5 while just "speedrunning" mission and I can get 0 doing the same mission with the Nekros, the Smeta kavat and opening all containers.
And even Ore Gaze on Nekros is.... I don't know. I don't feel like this is good thing just for loot (for freezing it might be nice). I don't see huge improvement (but I'm not running high-strength build).

 

11 hours ago, Traubenzuckr said:

as a consequence of these actions, even before the end of round 1, most of the players will have at least 4/10 reactant, which will have dropped from the amassed corrupted which were nuked, who were kept alive for the countdown

Hmm.... so you can get reactant after getting 10/10, interesting.

[HelNite]

23 minutes ago, quxier said:

RNG is very unreliable

while this is true the chances of you not getting argon crystals in that amount of time is very low unless your kill speed cant keep up with the mission if i can accomplish this with a solo nekros it should be much easier with a full squad or even just a solo khora
and even then most players will still take light RNG over guaranteed 60 minutes of time spent in one mission with a fully coordinated squad to get what you could on average get from a solo run in 15 minutes if ur VERY unlucky add that to the fact that corrupted vor has a very high spawn chance per run and 100% chance to drop argons and with your boosters active (50% without) as Corrupted Vor can in fact be desecrated by Nekros you will get a guaranteed minimum 4 argons in 10-15 mins again if your luck is VERY bad
if you still dont get the argon crystals then go buy yourself a lottery ticket m8

also keep in mind that this is doubled further in steel path so you are looking at 8 argons if you kill Vor with both boosters active (not mentioning the  result if you wait for your smeeta kavat buff thus giving you 16 argon crystals in 10-15 mins from a single pickup only)

[quxier]

5 minutes ago, HelNite said:

while this is true the chances of you not getting argon crystals in that amount of time is very low unless

Then I'm on that part of statistical curve. I usually get 3-5 argons via 3 runs. I rarely get 1-2 argons on my first mission (unless it's some kind of fissure mission which yields more chance).
And I'm not saying this is bad. It's much easier, even solo, to farm 3 argons than 3k cryotic. It's just very RNG.

[HelNite]

since i mentioned Corrupted Vor as a major jackpot fro argon farming just keep this in mind and you can easily reduce (although not completely eliminate) the RNG
When in a mission, there are three different algorithms calculated in his spawn mechanic after a certain condition has been met; a 50% chance that Vor will spawn upon the first minute, a 75% chance upon first three minutes and a 100% chance upon eight minutes.
again i remind you that he CAN be desecrated so even without boosters your luck would need to be real bad as there should be a 1-15% chance of not getting the argons to drop even without boosters or buffs of any sort

[Proscriptor]

On 2020-10-08 at 12:01 AM, HelNite said:

 i got 3 Argon Crystals in around 6 minutes (about 1 every 2 mins) and took 1 minute to extract from my mission

this won't make DE lower the cryotic feeding cost

  

On 2020-10-08 at 8:12 AM, BahamutKaiser said:

There's a few ways you can optimize this, starting with putting this in players helping players. 

Nyx isn't necessary, you'll probably want to automate the challenge as much as possible, so Saryn, or any other wipe frame leads to you hunting down power supplies rather than bringing them to you. 

Frost and Khora are staples, especially since the highest level natural excavation is dark sector vs infested. Any loot frame helps spawn more power supplies, but beside stacking pilfering dome, you could add Hydroid for CC and loot. 

The major missing component is mobility. Classically Nova allowed the team to relocate, while also making foes twice as easy to kill and less deadly. Now you can also use Wisp to offer local buffs and relocation speed.

The last QoL choice to replace an option would be Vauban. This is far better CC than Nyx, since you can vortex local enemies into a nice murder ball, with the added benefit of pressing all the loot into a convenient location as well. With Vauban present, your best loot frame probably becomes Nekros, who has a great creeping terrify for CC that most players sleep on, including armor strip. 

Cryotic pretty much become irrelevant though, once you get that Ice Hammer. Incidentally, that's also around the time players are talented enough to construct this farming set up. If your going to put this much effort into Excavation, you may consider doing so on Steel Path, so you can farm Essence simultaneously. Fissures are nice, but you really only need frost to carry newbs through it. 

the guide is very optimal, and there might be ways to optimize it but not the ones you mention

have in mind that this guide is only for fissure excav, not regular excav

nyx is necessary because you don't want to be wiping mobs all the time, you want not to kill them at all for certain periods of time actually

vauban is probably okay for cc but he is risky because it's easy for someone to recklessly kill the corrupted before time

nova isn't that useful because the rhythm of excavations gives you enough time to get everywhere by foot

cryotic has become relevant again for people who want to feed it to helminth

[HelNite]

6 hours ago, Traubenzuckr said:

this won't make DE lower the cryotic feeding cost

because people like you encourage them to not, despite the vast majority of the community (including vets) asking for change
DE has shown time and time again that as long as there are 2 sides no matter the balance between them they will always choose the easier way out usually because people like to believe they are right most of the time (basic human psychology) and are more likely to agree with people who agree with them you can see examples of this everywhere you look
and in the end the developers of this game are humans the players have the right to provide feedback to the devs and telling us to not do it just bcs you believe they wont ever listen is simply going to sabotage the game and community, there is a reason these developers have built up a stronger trust with their playerbase than most other larger game devs and that is because although it does take them time and convincing they do listen or at least try

 

6 hours ago, Traubenzuckr said:

cryotic has become relevant again for people who want to feed it to helminth

not while argon and thermal sludge still exist, making it a possible substitute for something that is downright better does not make it relevant to anyone unless they enjoy the game mode as much as you seem to, and that is fine as long as you do not claim that it is balanced because it is not

Heck with the dropped costs of railjack resources even those would be easier to farm (not tested so dont quote me on that) they do however suffer from an opposite effect to the cryotic incentive issue as they are simply required in such larger quantities to craft many other things (unless the player dosent care for those things or already has them)

For the record i would like to clarify that i like excavation missions too as a game mode that is relatively entertaining to play (not as much as you do ofc) but as time goes on i feel like playing them is a waste of time i could use doing other things in the game be it more productive or not, which as repeatedly shown by me and other people you have talked to usually is (unless i just so happen to want to crack a relic that fall into the tier of excavation fissure that just so happens to by some chance be active at the same exact time) 
another fact is that very few people i know like excavation missions and i dont want to have to ever force someone to play a mission they dont like with me for hours with a specific play style this results in me mostly just doing them solo or outright ignoring them

although i agree that excavation is the most efficient and easy way to crack relics but even then the difference in output compared to nuking a defence mission or speed running exterminates/captures is not noticeable enough to make it the non-option you seem to think it is even with your guide to efficient farming as the same idea of cooperative squad runs can clear these game modes since no matter what game mode you play the fissures will only show up at the fixed intervals of this equation: time = 30sec × tier
in the end it comes down to being able to clear the mission objective and being able to extract/move on to the next round by the time 10 traces have dropped and  excavation just so happens to be the most brain-dead (although not actually brain-dead as you mention)and easy to organize way to get this difficult timing right


Thank you, for coming to my Ted-Talk

[Proscriptor]

2 hours ago, HelNite said:

because people like you encourage them to not, despite the vast majority of the community (including vets) asking for change

not important enough to bother changing anymore, they had a shot at doing it when they revised bile and they decided not to. the cryotic hysteria is over, you and i are the only people talking about it now in the forums. 

they'll simply never do it. 

[HelNite]

You are correct, they might not, but you could have said the same for every community voiced issue that took months or even years of rising and falling hype to eventually get fixed (despite DE making open claims that they do not intend to change some of these things previously)
 

• Universal Vacuum
• Companion stasis
• Most (if not all) warframe reworks
• Melee re-balancing
• Status re-balancing
• Crit re-balancing
• Armour rework
• Shield rework
• Derelict public squad accessibility
• Focus rework
• Relic system rework
• Guides of The Lotus revoke

And likely many more that i am not able to recall

[Berzerkules]

You are really going all in on this cryotic thing aren't you?

[HelNite]

i am indeed a very stubborn arse ig 🤷‍♂️
anyways im not going to be replying to any more posts here while i still have brain cells left
and in hindsight i should have just engaged OP in private messages

but before i leave, my stupid brain does need to make sure that i get a petty last laugh so it can be satisfied:

"the cryotic hysteria is over, you and i are the only people talking about it now in the forums." (u sure m8?)

 

[Proscriptor]

yeah there's him too, i have him on ignore so he doesn't pop up in the forums search results for "cryotic", and that's the criteria i used

[Pyus]

On 2020-10-07 at 3:01 PM, HelNite said:

Ok ill admit you know your way around excavation missions but the point still stands: cryotic (no matter how hard you try) is still not a worthwhile resource in terms of time and efficiency so i will now give you a very brain dead solo farming example which requires no specific build or boosters aside from a Nekros with the Despoil augment

Here is a solo run i did in the void using Nekros (who is noticeably not Khora as she does not have to worry about desecrating bodies before they disappear and actually does dmg and cc making her better for steel path farming) i did not use a Smeeta Kavat as you can see bcs although it would massively increase my yield it is very very unreliable and can skew results heavily, i got 3 Argon Crystals in around 6 minutes (about 1 every 2 mins) and took 1 minute to extract from my mission (as i was camping at spawn) i had none of the boosters active and have not subsumed any abilities to allow synergies such as Ore Gaze+Desecrate on my Nekros
And normally if i had entered a public squad finding a random meta farming frame Khora/Nekros/Equinox/etc.. would not be difficult to come by in this mission
and had i a dedicated farming squad, an active Smeeta Kavat and both boosters active i would be able to get more than 5 clicks worth at least (10+ in best case scenario)
and it should go without saying but enemy spawns will increase the longer the mission goes on and thus the yield will also increase so you could potentially get anywhere between 20-40 clicks or even more should you decide to stay an entire hour (as you have done with excavations and with a yield of only 3 clicks)
https://imgur.com/Mp8ihGs
 

This is the best guide to getting 3 argon crystals that I have yet to see on the forums.

[(PSN)Double991]

That's a great guide. Good stuff!