Steel Path - some questions

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

So I ran my first couple missions on Earth in SP. The first was an exterminate which took me about 16 minutes to complete solo. Afterwards I received a grand total of 2 steel essence (forget what it's called, the teshin currency) and next mission was capture which I completed ok, in about 3 mins, but got a grand total of zero SP essence. Is this normal? I wanted to get a rifle arcane slot but figure it's going to take me a couple hours of grinding to get enough currency.

Also, not sure if my dual keres prime are strong enough for SP. I died once on the exterminate mission even though I was spamming RevPs .esmer skin fairly regularly. 16 min on an exterminate WA a thumb-numbing B-thumping experience I'd hopefully like to shorten a bit. My primary is acceltra. Any tips on these weapons?

[EdinaMonsoon]

you probably had an acolyte spawn on you during your extermination mission. from the wiki:

Steel Essence is primarily obtained from The Steel Path:

- Eidolon Teralyst, Eidolon Gantulyst, and Eidolon Hydrolyst guarantee 1 Steel Essence upon defeat, regardless of kill or capture.

- Acolytes that spawn in any Steel Path mission guarantee 2 Steel Essence upon defeat.

      - This value is affected by Resource Boosters and Smeeta Kavat's Charm.

      - Acolytes typically spawn in any non-Archwing and non-Assassination Steel Path missions once every 3-8 minutes. They are guaranteed to drop 2 Steel Essence, as well as one random Steel Path Arcane upon defeat.

- Every day, five Steel Path Incursion Alerts are available. Each reward 5 Steel Essence upon completion, to a total of 25 Steel Essence per day.

- 25 are awarded upon fully clearing all of a planet's mission nodes. A total of 475 are guaranteed for completing the entire Star Chart.

- 1 is rewarded upon opening a Void Relic in a Steel Path Void Fissure mission.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Steel_Essence

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

1 hour ago, EdinaMonsoon said:

Every day, five Steel Path Incursion Alerts are available. Each reward 5 Steel Essence upon completion

This sounds like a decent avenue to accumulate some SPE. I'll check the alerts drop down when I log in next thanks. 

[quxier]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Player244024418 said:

This sounds like a decent avenue to accumulate some SPE. I'll check the alerts drop down when I log in next thanks. 

and they may show on nodes you haven't unlocked (SP level). When you beta them you unlock that node.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Hello. 

As others have mentioned, for most normal Steel Path missions, you'll only get Steel Essence from the Acolytes that spawn. You will get 2 from them, unless you have a Resource Drop Booster, in which you will get 4. Or if you have a Smeeta and it gives a random occasional buff, then you might get more. 

There are a few other ways to get Steel Essence though. Daily Incursions. If you check your upper right tab menu, there should be a list of 5 missions daily, that are in Steel Path, which are random, but will award you 5 Steel Essence, just for completing the mission. This is an especially good way to get Steel Essence for those starting out in Steel Path, as they are popular, so you'll usually get a full squad, unless you specifically play solo. Plus they can unlock different Nodes across the Star Chart. Also you don't have to care about an Acolyte. Though if one shows up, thats a minimum of 7 Steel Essence, so not bad. 

There are also Relic Steel Path missions now, though the enemies can much tougher, so if you are just starting out in Steel Path, maybe not yet. Those though will give you 1 Steel Essence per run or round in endless missions. 

Build wise... Steel Path can be a pretty dramatic wall of sorts for many people. It requires your builds and modding knowledge to have purpose and understanding. For example, questions, like "How will I deal with Armour?". Its been a while since I used Acceltra in Steel Path, what is your build for it? How does it deal with Grineer armour? In star chart, Acceltra is very powerful, it blows away most enemies, but in Steel Path it may drop off a bit. Like... hypothetically, Corrosive is ideal against Armour right? Except Acceltra has low status... It also has no slash right? (I can't remember) which is also good for armour. It is however quite a strong crit weapon, so you could build for Hunter Munitions to get Crit that way, and go viral to try make most of the slashes. Again though, haven't used Acceltra in ages so can't remember good builds. 

Mind you, ideally, you experiment and try different builds, and apply that new knowledge in mission. My first Steel Path took me about as long as yours, I died even as Rhino, I thought I was using some of my strongest weapons... (my modding was only decent though). You will get faster and better though, and it gets easier, just takes time, and experience, knowledge and probably also some certain items. Like Galvanised Mods, Primed Mods, etc will also help. Not necessary or mandatory... but will help. I take subpar off meta weapons into Steel Path all the time now, with incomplete builds, due to lack of Forma, and they do decently, just off knowing elemental combinations, enemy weaknesses, good synergies between Warframe and weapons. 

Feel free to ask more questions about anything. Good luck in the mean time! Again, it will get easier, you'll get faster! 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

I forgot one important additional detail that is worth mentioning. 

You will get a decent amount of Steel Essence and a Decoration whenever you completely clear a Planet of its Steel Path nodes. Can't remember the exact amount, I think around 20 to 25? If you are trying to get some Steel Essence so you can get Arcane Unlockers or stuff from Teshin, its a nice bonus source.

[MutoManiac]

I have an Acceltra with a lot of forma, a good riven and expensive mods, so it does ok for mostly everything including steel path using Eclipse or Xata's Whisper on Wukong. That said get the Phenmor or even better the Felarx. The Felarx needs about 8 forma and the most popular build on overframe one shots most SP enemies, it's very OP. The dual keres prime should also be good if you throw enough forma at it also. After that, like everyone is saying, the daily SP incursions should be easy even solo.

I also like to use the eximus specters to make my life easier. They are worth it except the corrupted lancer specter which likes to take cover behind objects and stays there for the entire mission and can't even follow you to where you are on the map. The specters you get from rescue missions are also very good. The on call elite crew from railjack are also OP with a good weapon. Those take out the Acolyte when I'm feeling lazy. GL

[RobWasHere]

My tips for specific missions:
-Exterminate, Capture, Sabotage, Spy, Survival: Nyx with 'Pacifying Bolts' and 'Assimilate'. Physic Bolts will remove armor AND shields + stun the target they hit. Chaos will make enemies less likely to target you. Assimilate when in pinch. You can subsume Banshee's Silence onto Mind Control to disable Eximus and Acolyte abilities.
-Defence, Interception: Max range Vauban. Enemies that are ragdolled by Bastille or Vortex are not count as occupying the zone, allowing you to cap points even if enemies are curled in the ball there. And it will keep the defence target out of harm. If defence target take too much damage with Vauban, you can try using Harrow, he will rapidly heal the target back to full health when under influence of Penance, cast it when under effect of Covenant to be safe. Spam Condemn to reset your shield gate.
-Mobile Defence: Option1: Vauban to keep enemies out, Frost to shield, Harrow to constantly heal the console or Limbo on non-corpus missions. Option 2: Volt with melee that have wide angle of blocking. Equip Guardian Derision on it, put some Electric Shields around the console, get your melee out (hold E) then periodically hold and let go of block. All enemies near you will ignore the console and attack you instead, while blocked shots do no damage. No need to do a single kill to finish mission.
-Infested Salvage: any frame honestly. Watch for Ancient Disruptor's hook, any hit will drain all your energy down to zero.
-Defection: Harrow and Trinity will keep the defectors alive. Watch for Ancient Disruptors, Toxic Ancients and especially Toxic Eximus as those can be deadly for you and defectors.
-Disruption: Back when I was doing it Ash Fatal Teleport worked on almost all Demos except Jupiter and Bursas, not anymore. Option 1 is to subsume Sickening Pulse, shoot Epitaph modded for Viral and status duration once, use SP then spam force slash heavy attack melee until it bleeds to death (scythe, dagger, nikana, heavy scythe, rapier, machete, 2h nikana). Option 2 is to subsume Gloom on a frame that can remove armor then shoot with strongest weapon you have while staying out of null bubble range. You just need to kill one demo to clear the stage. On Kuva Fortress, one demo is Kuva Guardian that is immune to damage until you Void Sling through it.
-Lua Spy: Limbo, Wukong to bypass the rooms with lazers on the timer.
-Kuva Fortress in general: all missions have very high number of Eximus units. If overguard is a  pain to you, use Xaku. He/She can remove armor with Gaze and Xata's Whisper will shred through Overguard.
-Kuva Fortress Spy: whatever frame, do vaults with Operator.
-Kuva Fortress Rescue: due to how annoying the cell layout is, Loki can search the enter without worrying of tripping alarms and running out of time.
-Sedna Arenas: same as Disruption. Having backup weapon that is battery based is recommended just in case ammo problems.

-Archwing Pursuit: equip Fluctus as your weapon to bypass the annoying hitbox of the ship
-Archwing Mobile Defence: Amesha's bubble will protect the sattelite.

Zariman:
Recommended Operator setup:
Amp: Raplak-<whatever>-Certus
Amp Arcanes: Eternal Eradicate, Eternal Onslaught
Operator Arcanes: Magus Melt (optional, adds damage against Angels)

-Void Flood: usual Titania strat works best. You can throw some specters for drawing fire away. Unairu recommended for removing armor from Thrax units.
-Void Cascade: I used Nyx here but any frame should work. No need for any kills other than Thrax units. Unairu recommended.
-Void Armageddon: probably the hardest mission to solo, I used Frost to hold the dampers, but they are not required, only relic drive need to be shielded. The problem was the Angel to kill before enemies kill the drive. Use Madurai to do maximum damage with the Amp and put some turrets in the Drive room to keep some of enemies away. Do not let the Angel follow you to Drive room.
-Mobile Defence: Volt Guardian Derision trick is recommended here, Thrax units are capable of one-shot the console. Keep your distance of the console a bit so the Scythe dude spinning attack wont damage it.

Plains of Eidolon:
-Pray so you wont get the 'Capture the Camp' stage. If you do, put out specters, on-call crew with long range weapon while you jump in Voidrig and just Arquebex your way through. Forget the bonus objective and ignore the Thumpers.
-Eidolon bounties do not count towards SP star chart progression.
Orb Vallis:
-Unairu Magnetic Flare creates a huge zone that removes shields permanently if corpus enemies start to be a problem. If big raknoids happen to spawn, remove its armor with Caustic Strike.
Deimos:
-Infested are not that hard to kill in SP, they just do ton of damage. Beware of Jugulus gas glaive attacks. I used Wisp here, motes heals me and any kind of defence target, while shock mote stuns everything around. There is no SP isolation vault nor Arcana.

Some specific bosses:
-Jordas Golem, Mutalist Alad and Prelate are optional and don't count towards SP star chart completion.
-Vay Hek: Mag and any projectile weapon with high punch-through, put a bubble then shoot. Arcane Nullifier on the frame recommended or subsumed Hideous Resistance.
-Lech Krill: I think Stropha (or Catchmoon kitgun) works the best for the pesky cable on the back.
-Tyl Regor: remove armor with Unairu then Mesa Regulators go brrrr.
-Sargas Ruk: Stropha modded for Radiation works wonders.
-Kela the Thaym: Use Ignis or Lega amp to bypass annoying platform mechanic then just shoot after removing the armor. The missiles do ton of damage though.
-Ambulas: Nyx again, but even without armor Ambulas have ton of hitpoints. Destroy leg armor then shoot console. 
-Ropalolyst: hide behind crates in shield phase. Taking the shields with the Amp might take a while. The bug zapper or synovia phase shoudnt be much of a problem.
 

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

On 2022-11-20 at 5:03 PM, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Mind you, ideally, you experiment and try different builds

Thx for the detailed info and yes I'm doing that for sure. Need more formas! I have a lot of weapons just not sure which to go with. I thought acceltra wells good but now I'm working on phage. Is that any good? Also Knell Prime. I'll try to add some forma to my dual keres as well. I do ok but rarely get orange, never red. Already at two forma ontl those.

 

21 hours ago, RobWasHere said:

My tips for specific missions

Lots to digest! Much is foreign to me I don't have most of these frames you discuss: Loki, xaku, wisp etc. 

Working on building Eternal Eradicate, Eternal Onslaught into fully leveled arcanes not there yet. Also will check out magus melt (great more toroid farming, my favorite! Lol). Thanks for the tips. I use a 247 with Madurai and it's ok but if that will help that would be great. The higher level angels are almost impossible for me solo

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

18 hours ago, (XBOX)Player244024418 said:

Thx for the detailed info and yes I'm doing that for sure. Need more formas! I have a lot of weapons just not sure which to go with. I thought acceltra wells good but now I'm working on phage. Is that any good? Also Knell Prime. I'll try to add some forma to my dual keres as well. I do ok but rarely get orange, never red. Already at two forma ontl those.

 

No worries, am glad you felt it helpful. 

Acceltra is still really good, Warframe is just odd when it comes to scaling and certain mechanics, like armour. Since you are on Earth, the Grineer mainly use armour, so they are going to be extra study. Phage is pretty good, especially as a complimentary weapon to the Acceltra. Its more status focused, and its a beam weapon, plus it comes with innate Viral. Which lets you build it to apply Corrosive and Heat on top of Viral, and thats pretty potent and will help against Grineer. If you can try get Galvanised Savvy, should be able to put together something strong. 

If you do like the Phage, I'd also recommend the Phantasma too. Cedo is another good weapon that scales well into Steel Path. 

Also if you are still finding Steel Path a bit tricky, can be good to try do some Kuva Lich missions, to get a Kuva weapon. Not just for the sake of getting Kuva weapons, but because the Grineer there are tougher than normal Star Chart but not as tough as Steel Path. So in a way, they are like a practice or conditioner for Steel Path. Help you refine your builds, without as much pressure! 

Also yeah, Forma issues can be a progression slower for sure. I am glad those days are mostly behind me. After a while it gets easier! 

Good luck and take care! 

[ShadowStarx1]

just unlocked steel path.

not going to even try the missions as didnt expect a One HUNDERED level increase.

 

need to get better mods and improve the ones i have, prolly have to polarize a bunch of slots too which means froma...

 

uggg think for now ill stick to Holdfast bonties and trying to get the Khora Prime weapon parts I need..

 

and Ivara. keep forgetting her cause she's deep hidden in spy.

[(XBOX)Player244024418]

17 hours ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

If you do like the Phage, I'd also recommend the Phantasma

I'll look for GalSaavy. I have some virus and will check next login. I'm looking at the phage bc I saw some comments on how it could be very good. Forma-d twice so far. Working on a third. Good to hear it might be better for SP but it's a primary so not sure how it would compliment acceltra since that is a primary as well. 

I also just got the Kuva Seer. First lich defeated this AM. !!

16 hours ago, ShadowStarx1 said:

not going to even try the missions as didnt expect a One HUNDERED level increase

Haha. Yeah, I'm in that same boat. I have run about 8-10 SP solo and won so far. And about another 5 with a rando squad. Thankfully those were the harder ones like spy, etc. I would not be able to do those. I would recommend picking the easier ones and stick to mobile defense or exterminate type missions that you can take your time. It's good practice to use abilities which I need to spam to win but hey, I get through and get 5 essence to get a primary arcane adapter which makes me stronger. Baby steps

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

9 hours ago, (XBOX)Player244024418 said:

I'll look for GalSaavy. I have some virus and will check next login. I'm looking at the phage bc I saw some comments on how it could be very good. Forma-d twice so far. Working on a third. Good to hear it might be better for SP but it's a primary so not sure how it would compliment acceltra since that is a primary as well. 

I also just got the Kuva Seer. First lich defeated this AM. !!

 

Basically because how enemies scale. The Acceltra should still be amazing against Infested and Corpus still, If I recall correctly, it has a decent amount of impact damage, which will help with Corpus shields, and Infested aren't that sturdy (no armour or shields), so Viral/Slash and the fast fire rate properties of Acceltra should make it choice. Against Grineer though you might want to swap between the two or use different builds. 

The more tools you have, the more you can start to specialise to make everything easier. Again though, may take some time, but thats sort of the game Warframe is. 

Congrats! I just realised you created the other thread about Liches too, I didn't realise at first lol.