Endless Solo Excavation Builds and Strats

[shootaman777]

I need ludicrous quantities of Cryotic (upwards of about 1.5 million) for a certain goal that I have in mind. While I could grind 15,000+ separate excavators, which would take ~417+ in-mission hours of nothing but Excavation... there also exists the option of grinding an Excavation Void Fissure, with 25% increasing Cryotic gains per each 5 rounds of Fissure Excavation.

Where the problem comes in, is that Excavation Warframes such as Gara and Frost eventually have their defense abilities outscaled into irrelevance by scaling enemy damage, while excavator health/shields additionally do not scale with enemy level. I've experimented with Limbo in the past to make up for this, but eventually Corrupted Nullifiers spawn inside Cataclysm (Void Fissure spawning). This results in both myself and the Excavator getting nuked instantly, since it comes out of nowhere with little warning.

With Eximus being immune to CC, defensive abilities become even more essential than they already were, as enemies cannot be kept from attempting to attack the Excavator entirely. I've recently been experimenting with all-out nuking, but even a single hit from a decently scaled enemy can oneshot an excavator, so that's a non-starter.

Since there are no subsumable point defence abilities, the options are somewhat limited. My current idea is a Chaos Nyx with Resonator subsumed over Mind Control, but that would be a tightrope walk at best.

Maybe Operator abilities are where the solution is at? I've maxed out all focus schools, but even though I've checked the post-rework Operator options, nothing stands out to me as 'the solution'.

Since Void Fissures have a random one or two (if crossfire) enemy factions plus Corrupted enemies, I need a plan for every faction at the same time - ways to defend the Excavators and kill the enemies reliably and endlessly, regardless of scaling. I've been using the Miter + Augment on and off for insta/perma popping Nullifier bubbles, and sticking with viral/heat status cannons as primers with slash to finish the job, as far as secondaries and melee are concerned.

If anyone has some builds they'd be willing to share, I'll try each and every one of them out if I haven't already. Thanks in advance!

[(PSN)IdoThea]

Doing solo excavation and long runs isn't really that optimal. It's better to do in group where players can defend different excavators and contribute power cells. 

I usually use Protea because her shield satellites can be used on excavators but not sure how well they scale when enemies get tougher. I usually do only 10 - 15 digs and leave.

also here's one tip: you can pick one power cell as frame then use operator to pick another but you need to then stay as operator to carry power cell to excavator  (which can be slow) but when you switch back to frame you'll have another power cell to add immediately when frame teleports your location. 

 

[Numerounius]

22 minutes ago, shootaman777 said:

I need ludicrous quantities of Cryotic (upwards of about 1.5 million) for a certain goal that I have in mind.

Dojo Decorations? Most expensive item requiring Cryotic is the Sibear at 30K and the dojo decorations are the other big resource consumable items I know of.

22 minutes ago, shootaman777 said:

there also exists the option of grinding an Excavation Void Fissure, with 25% increasing Cryotic gains per each 5 rounds of Fissure Excavation.

Yeah. . . Good luck with that. Tried doing that but the crappy solo spawn rates absolutely kills your chances of using this method over others.

 

 

My best method I found for getting the Cryotic was to play Steel Path Tikal solo using a Twin Wukong Build wielding a corrosive kuva bramma. I personally used a subsumed eclipse with Total Eclipse and an umbral build.

Pros: Very doable solo, you always have the excavator topped off.

Infested units are usually melee only so a celestial twin with a kuva bramma makes quick work of them. And can't really damage your excavators.

Steel path means you don't suffer from crappy solo spawn rates for power cells.

Acolyte for steel essence as an added bonus.

 

Cons: You have to reset every 20-30 minutes since this build isn't a slash focused one meant to level cap but I personally have used similar builds to reach the 50-60 minute mark in steel path.

Haven't tried it with eximus changes but the changes regarding CC I don't think impacts this strat as much as others that rely on CC or shield gating.

[Uhkretor]

1 hour ago, shootaman777 said:

If anyone has some builds they'd be willing to share, I'll try each and every one of them out if I haven't already.

Did you try throwing Ancient Specters into the mix?

[shootaman777]

44 minutes ago, Uhkretor said:

Did you try throwing Ancient Specters into the mix?

I've never used Spectres before. Is there some trick or a preferred variant to them?

[shootaman777]

2 hours ago, (PSN)IdoThea said:

Doing solo excavation and long runs isn't really that optimal. It's better to do in group where players can defend different excavators and contribute power cells. 

I usually use Protea because her shield satellites can be used on excavators but not sure how well they scale when enemies get tougher. I usually do only 10 - 15 digs and leave.

also here's one tip: you can pick one power cell as frame then use operator to pick another but you need to then stay as operator to carry power cell to excavator  (which can be slow) but when you switch back to frame you'll have another power cell to add immediately when frame teleports your location. 

 

Did not know that Protea grenades applied to excavators, that's good to know, thanks.

The problems with doing excavation in groups, is that I'm looking for such a large quantity of Cryotic that I'd spend more time lfg across the various sessions, than I would spend playing the game. And queueing up pubs at someplace like Hieracon is a 50-50 of having competent teammates, as well as the chance of the dreaded host migration -> lost rewards that has led to me doing as many missions solo as possible.

[shootaman777]

2 hours ago, XHADgaming said:

Dojo Decorations? Most expensive item requiring Cryotic is the Sibear at 30K and the dojo decorations are the other big resource consumable items I know of.

Yeah. . . Good luck with that. Tried doing that but the crappy solo spawn rates absolutely kills your chances of using this method over others.

 

 

My best method I found for getting the Cryotic was to play Steel Path Tikal solo using a Twin Wukong Build wielding a corrosive kuva bramma. I personally used a subsumed eclipse with Total Eclipse and an umbral build.

Pros: Very doable solo, you always have the excavator topped off.

Infested units are usually melee only so a celestial twin with a kuva bramma makes quick work of them. And can't really damage your excavators.

Steel path means you don't suffer from crappy solo spawn rates for power cells.

Acolyte for steel essence as an added bonus.

 

Cons: You have to reset every 20-30 minutes since this build isn't a slash focused one meant to level cap but I personally have used similar builds to reach the 50-60 minute mark in steel path.

Haven't tried it with eximus changes but the changes regarding CC I don't think impacts this strat as much as others that rely on CC or shield gating.

I'm an idiot dumb enough to be collecting every combination of every modular item in the game, which will eventually include K-Drives after finishing getting all the others.

There's the Cryotic total from OG Zaws (before they added the Dokrahm, Shtung, etc). The amount's so high because crafting Pyrol into Pyrotic Alloy costs Cryotic... and man, do I need lots of Pyrotic Alloy.

Each Gaze Kitgun component costs 1000 Cryotic, and I need 200 of them.

It doesn't seem like much at first, but it adds up.

.

Hmmm... will definitely look into Wukong for it. Double Bramma sounds like fun. Haven't done much in Steel Path other than non-endless-mode daily missions, and SP open worlds for more mining nodes/fish spawns, so hadn't considered doing that to fix the spawn problem. Appreciate the suggestion.

[gamingchair1121]

try limbo with maxed narrow minded for min range and natural talent for faster casts because nullifiers

stand away from excavator to draw aggro away from it (so nullifiers walk to you and not the excavator)

[Uhkretor]

8 hours ago, shootaman777 said:

I've never used Spectres before. Is there some trick or a preferred variant to them?

I believe the only Ancient Specters that you can spawn are Sanguine variant, the ones with extra extra health.

On top of applying, and this is actually funny, Overguard on you and your sentinel/companion (with the exact same benefits), they still provide the same damage reduction they did before the eximus rework.

This damage reduction applies on Excavators... I might be wrong but it appears that Gara's wall of glass tend to resist more damage with an Ancient Specter out before breaking.

If you haven't done this step, then its probably better to increase the health of those glass facings. I believe, from what I remember, that Ability Strength increases it.

[cha0sWyrM]

you could just use easy mode khora and call it a day.

subsume resonator over venari (i dont even know why venari is an ability), put your dome up and stand there while you whipclaw everything. dont forget to use pilfering strangledome.

ive soloed steel path like this for as long as i wanted to stay there.

::edit::

just so its even easier....choose an infested map or one with not a lot of open spaces. the only weakness khora has in this mission type is bad guys lobbing ordinance form afar. not really a major problem...but you can get caught out at higher levels and the excavator can get blowed up.

[Lutesque]

7 hours ago, Uhkretor said:

I believe the only Ancient Specters that you can spawn are Sanguine variant, the ones with extra extra health.

That's Weird.... All The Ancient Specters I've Deployed have Been Volatile so Far.... 🤔

7 hours ago, Uhkretor said:

 

On top of applying, and this is actually funny, Overguard on you and your sentinel/companion (with the exact same benefits), they still provide the same damage reduction they did before the eximus rework.

I'm pretty sure you don't get Overguard from Ancient Healer Specters... 🤔

7 hours ago, Uhkretor said:

 

This damage reduction applies on Excavators... I might be wrong but it appears that Gara's wall of glass tend to resist more damage with an Ancient Specter out before breaking.

I mean.... Yes... It does.... But Ancient Healer's are Incredibly Difficult to Micromanage.... 😱

You're either going to have to be Really Careful or Deploy an Ancient Healer for Every Excavator.

18 hours ago, shootaman777 said:

 

If anyone has some builds they'd be willing to share, I'll try each and every one of them out if I haven't already.

You want my Advice ?

I suggested Getting at least One other Person to Help you out because trying to do Endless Excavation into one Shot Territory with Nullifiers and Eximus sounds Practicality Impossible.

Having One Other Person playing Frost to Cast Snow Globes over the Excavators should Solve most of those Issues....

I think the Blitz and Leech Abilities can Still Pass Through the Snow Globes but Everything Else will be Stopped by it....

Standing in one spot is obviously Boring and Tedius.... You might have to be the one Playing Frost While Someone else Has the Actuallly Fun task of Gathering the Power Cells... 😝

 

[CatboyPrincess]

The idea here is to create as many targets for the enemy AI as possible. These spectre and companion based solutions will not be as vulnerable to Nullifiers as frame abilities are.

Having an effective Warframe spectre helps significantly. (You only need the basic Vapor spectre, no need to invest in the other types. I do like to make Phase spectres as a second spectre loadout. I toss the other frame spectres.) For your purpose, I recommend either an Octavia (Resonator) or Nidus (maggots spawned by 4) spectre. Having a good companion would help a lot too. You could go with a Smeeta and they might help with gathering cryotic occasionally, but i think a better idea would be to bring either a hound equipped with Diversified Denial (which transforms your hound into 3 mini hounds) or a custom Moa equipped with CC precepts and a Radiation status based weapon, or even Helminth charger modded for the Strain mod set (produces maggots over time as the set effect).

For your Warframe, I recommend Nezha with the Safeguard augment. With Safeguard, you can put a ring around the extractor. You can also put rings around your companion and your spectres.

Syndicate spectres (ex. Shield Osprey, Ancient Healer, Corrupted Lancer) can be very helpful. Their greatest weakness is that they do a terrible job of following you around. However, with Nezha + Safeguard, you can put rings around each of your spectres, greatly enhancing their already significant survivability (they scale on spawn to whatever the current enemy level is, and the Overguard changes affect your eximus spectres).

You can essentially have a small army of AI spectres following you around all with Nezha rings around them, that will stunlock enemies who get into melee range of them (making even the Charger spectre useful).

Regardless of your Warframe choice, you should equip as many spectres as you can. Having many allies will force enemy AI to split their attention on them, diverting them away from the extractor.

 

Another notable Warframe is Equinox with Peaceful Provocation augment and subsumed Gloom (replace 2). Mod for everything, prioritizing stats for your 3 and your Gloom. Use Arcanes (ex. Pax Bolt, Molt Efficiency) to further augment your 3 and Gloom. This Equinox is what I call a "time dilation" Equinox -- all enemies deal reduced damage from their 3, and thanks to Gloom and the 3 augment, enemies within range are also extremely slow. The biggest con here is that this sort of Equinox can be fragile, and energy consumption is important to keep an eye on (I recommend having Arcane Energize here). But, basically, enemies will be firing maybe one shot every few seconds, and as long as you have allies around you (ex. spectres), their aggro will be very split, keeping them away from the extractor.

 

In this scenario, Nekros with subsumed Gloom over their 2 also works great. All ability stats help. Here again is big area slow + lots of allied targets (from Nekros 4 this time) to distract the enemy AI.

 

Now, out of all these options, I think Nezha is probably going to be the most reliable. The Safeguard ring will give a lot of survivability and lenience to your extractor and let it live a lot longer. You also get a "ring destroyed" sound effect for Safeguard rings that break, so you'll always be able to check if the thing that broke is the extractor's.

 

Another interesting frame option is Zephyr, with Gloom subsumed into 1 or 4 (you'll probably want to choose 1 for your scenario). Then, mod for all stats, prioritizing range and strength, but without cutting into duration and efficiency. You can then generate a very large anti-projectile bubble around yourself and stand on top of the extractor and prioritize melee units. Gloom will help passively as usual. I don't know if enemy grenades are thrown away by the air bubble though. In this case, you'll also have the option of using Zephyr's 4 to help with CC.

 

---

 

I really hope this helps! Please feel free to @ me to let me know how it goes, I'm super excited to hear if any of this advice helps :)

[(PSN)S1ckS1deSold1er-]

On 2022-06-21 at 10:45 PM, Lutesque said:

That's Weird.... All The Ancient Specters I've Deployed have Been Volatile so Far.... 🤔

I'm pretty sure you don't get Overguard from Ancient Healer Specters... 🤔

I mean.... Yes... It does.... But Ancient Healer's are Incredibly Difficult to Micromanage.... 😱

You're either going to have to be Really Careful or Deploy an Ancient Healer for Every Excavator.

You want my Advice ?

I suggested Getting at least One other Person to Help you out because trying to do Endless Excavation into one Shot Territory with Nullifiers and Eximus sounds Practicality Impossible.

Having One Other Person playing Frost to Cast Snow Globes over the Excavators should Solve most of those Issues....

I think the Blitz and Leech Abilities can Still Pass Through the Snow Globes but Everything Else will be Stopped by it....

Standing in one spot is obviously Boring and Tedius.... You might have to be the one Playing Frost While Someone else Has the Actuallly Fun task of Gathering the Power Cells... 😝

 

I'd be down for helping. I love Endurance runs. I could run a support Frame while you dps, or vice versa. Subsume Silence into one of them to keep the Exmius Abilities turned off so they can't sneak in a one hit kill on Excavators.

[nslay]

If I was going to do Endurance excavation solo, I would probably use Gara with Health Conversion, Arcane Guardian and Unairu with armor unlock. That gives each section of her wall something like 30k HP. This wall is good enough to tank level 200 Elite Shield Lancer Tonkors from Scarlet Spear... and that's before scaling changes to enemies IIRC.

[shootaman777]

Been experimenting with different builds in excavation fissures, Hieracon, and SP Tikal since last posted here. Khora + Resonator, Gara with tanky 4, Safeguard Nezha, and Double Bramma Wukong are what I've tested so far. Been ducat farming to stockpile Baro spectres, as well as building all the Syndicate death squad spectre bps and rescue spectre bps that I had stockpiled. Haven't tested out spectres too much yet, since have been saving them for excavation fissures themselves, which can be hard to find sometimes. Haven't tested out Nekros, Equinox, and Zephyr like Gwyndolin suggested yet, since have been power leveling Helminth for Golden Instinct and haven't had spare Helminth to use on infusions. It was weird to find out and put to use the sfx that plays when Safeguard ring gets destroyed, since I generally play Warframe without audio, listening to music unless am playing a quest.

Going to take a bit of a break from Cryotic farming to catch up on Fortuna mining and fishing, since Travoride and Rotoblades are the main items stopping most of my hourly kitgun part crafts. Will need the Cryotic once Cetus daily caps stop preventing me from buying the Zaw part bps that require Pyrotic to craft. There's also Halloween's Naberus coming up soon, and will need to stockpile ~30k Mother tokens for it to buy all the missing Plague Zaw pieces. It's going to be interesting, to say the least.

[shootaman777]

Now that SP Void Fissures have been announced, I plan to do a long endless run of a SP Excavation Fissure. Solo will have good spawns, and it will be a pausable match in case something comes up while I'm in it. Since the starting level is higher, excavators will be more bulky from the get-go. Now, it's just a matter of picking what to use for killing and defending from endless scaling SP enemies.