Event: Operation Buried Debts - Exploiter Orb

The Operation has been manually progressed by DE (who overestimated the community's willingness to scan the data-hashes), enabling the Exploiter Orb fight. This post is a rough guide of how the fight progresses and its rewards, as well as my opinions on it. Do not continue reading this post if you want to avoid the fight or lore spoilers.

Prologue: Starting the Fight

The door in the cave north-east of Harindi Crater is now unlocked, allowing you to progress into Deck 12 - the site of a Solaris massacre that temporarily suppressed Solaris United.

Once you reach the end of the tunnel, you will find this area, which looks very similar to Fortuna, except abandoned and badly damaged.

On one of the balconies on the left side, you will find this terminal. This machine was apparently designed by Zuud and her sisters specifically to defeat Exploiter's defences with Thermia. Interacting with it will consume one Diluted Thermia (obtained from the Thermia Fracture defences) and trigger the Orb fight.

Exploiter Orb will then enter through the giant hole in the roof.

Phase 1: Inside Deck 12

The first order of business is to destroy two rocks holding up Exploiter's legs. They will shine like other destructible objects, so should be relatively easy to spot if you wait a few seconds.

Once both rocks are destroyed, Exploiter will drop to the ground and expose four vents around her body. These vents can be damaged, and you need to destroy them all to proceed to the second Phase. To start off with, you need to destroy one to continue the fight. Notably, as I've just found out, good use of Nova's Antimatter Drop (2) or Octavia's Mallet (1) can destroy all four vents simultaneously, skipping immediately to Phase 2.

If you don't destroy all the vents at once, Exploiter will freeze the remaining vents, rendering them invulnerable. Zuud will start up four Thermia Canister dispensers, located around the middle of Deck 12. You need to pick these up and throw them (using secondary fire) at the vents to defrost them.

You do not need a direct hit, as the Thermia canisters have a decent sized AoE on impact. Hitting roughly the right area will do the job, as will shooting the canister to detonate it instantly. Once the vents are defrosted, they will be rendered vulnerable again. Destroy two more to progress to the next stage of the fight.

With one Vent remaining, Exploiter will crawl up high and summon several Coolant Raknoids, which you need to kill to progress. She will then drop back down to the ground, and you can continue lobbing Thermia at her to defrost the final vent, and eventually destroy it.

Once all four vents have been destroyed, Exploiter will crawl back out the hole in the ceiling, and you need to exit Deck 12 the way you came. With good throws, I can complete this Phase in around 5 minutes solo.

Phase 2: Outside

When you get out of the cave, you will find Exploiter Orb outside. Now that her vents have been destroyed, Exploiter will progressively build up heat (see the bar between the minimap and Eudico), which will eventually lead to her overheating and becoming vulnerable. However, without further action, this process is very slow, and the Coolant Raknoids she controls will cool her down, preventing this from happening. In her current form, Exploiter is completely invulnerable.

Naturally then, the first step is to kill any and every Cooland Raknoid you see, though this is easier said than done. They spawn from all directions, move quickly, and if they get within a certain range of Exploiter, they will expend their coolant to cool down Exploiter, reducing the heat bar. This also prevents them from dropping a Cooland Cell on death - which you need for the fight.
If a Coolant Raknoid manages to expend its coolant on Exploiter, it will start to take damage-over-time, and will die on its own even if not attacked.

At some point, Exploiter will begin bashing the ground. This reduces her heat, however produces many Thermia Fractures. You need to take a Coolant Cell and use it to close a Fracture - unlike the Operation Fractures, this occurs instantly and the Canister is immediately filled with Thermia.

You then need to detonate the Thermia Canister near Exploiter, either by direct hit or by shooting it once it is close enough. Doing so will increase not only her heat bar, but also the rate at which she passively generates heat. While Coolant Raknoids and Exploiter's own cooling abilities will reduce the heat bar, none of them will reduce the rate she passively generates heat. As such, even if you let her cool down, if you keep pelting her with Thermia Canister, Exploiter will eventually overheat.

Once the heat bar is filled, Exploiter Orb overheats, and is temporarily disabled. To progress, you simply need to move near her. This will trigger a short cutscene of your Warframe ripping out an important component.

Said important component starts spewing fire, and becomes a weak spot in which you can deal damage to Exploiter. After depleting one-third of her health, Exploiter becomes invulnerable again, and you need to repeat the overheating process twice more. Each time, her passive heat generation resets to a lower level, and she starts to perform her heat venting ability more frequently. I typically find that the first round only takes maybe 3-4 minutes, but the other two can take anywhere from 5-7 minutes solo.

Once you rip off her face (the third component) and deplete her remaining health, Exploiter will fully immolate and drop her loot, but shortly after, dies in a massive, ~500m wide explosion. The most convenient way to escape this is to simply switch to your Operator (assuming you have it unlocked) and enter Void mode. Once this is all over, you can pick up the loot and return to Fortuna.

Notably, if you want to run the fight repeatedly, you can simply re-enter Deck 12 and re-trigger the mission to start the fight again.

Epilogue: Rewards

First up, Exploiter Orb will reward a piece for Hildryn, either Chassis, Neuroptics or Systems, with typical Boss Warframe drop rates (i.e. Systems are the rarest). The main blueprint is available from Vox Solaris at the second level. Exploiter also drops a Lazulite Toroid, worth 12,000 VS standing each (twice that of the Crisma Toroid from the Profit Taker Orb). She also has a chance to drop her articula, much like Profit Taker, and can rarely drop an Ephemera blueprint (footstep cosmetics).

Most notably however, Exploiter rewards a large amount of Servofish parts, and Vallis Ore and Gems. She can reward fish parts, Ore and Gems of any rarity, from Noctrul to Amarast and Thyst gems, Axidite to Hesperon Ore, and Parallel Biodes (from Mirewinders) to Ecosynth Analysers (from Synathids). If you prefer combat to mining and fishing, but still want those resources, Exploiter offers a fantastic alternative that awards decent amounts of such resources (especially while the Vallis has doubled resources thanks to the event!).

My Opinions

I have completed the Exploiter Orb fight six times so far, the last of which finally awarded me Hildryn's Neuroptics blueprint. All but the first were completed Solo, and all but one with Nezha (the other as Saryn Prime). My best time so far is around 21 minutes round-trip from Fortuna's lift. I have no doubt that this could be greatly reduced with a well coordinated squad.

Overall, I find the Exploiter Orb fight alright. I like that it uses unique mechanics and is very different to the usual boss mechanic, which is usually "shoot the boss in the face/weakspot". It doesn't deal absurd amounts of damage, meaning that non-Tank Frames can survive the fight with some skill. It also doesn't have a high requirement for damage output, thus not mandating a Chroma/similar DPS Frame to be efficiently completed. Unlike Eidolons, Profit Taker and Exploiter both have very different boss fights, which I'm quite happy with. However, I generally feel that Phase 2 drags on quite a lot, especially the final stage. When playing solo at least, it does feel like it gets tedious and repetitive.

The following are a few of my specific categorised opinions.

Good:

• Not just a DPS race - many bosses (e.g. Profit Taker, Eidolons) are often primarily about dealing as much damage as quickly as possible, and have a huge amount of health. As such, damage boosting frames are nearly mandatory to reduce such fights to a tolerable duration. In the Exploiter Orb fight, only a small component of the fight is actually about dealing damage - destroying the starting rocks, destroying her vents, and damaging her weakspots. The amounts of damage needed to progress through these phases is extremely small relative to many other such bosses, easily doable with any decent, well-modded weapon. Most of the fight revolves around pelting her with Thermia canisters.
• Emphasises Warframe's movement system - Warframe's movement is one of the best aspects of the game, and is widely praised as being very smooth and a lot of fun. A lot of Exploiter Orb's fight revolves around your ability to move quickly to obtain the necessary Cells/Canisters, and getting into the right place to detonate them for maximum effect. This relies entirely on your skill with the movement system, and the fight is significantly faster if you are experienced with it. I feel that this sort of system is something Warframe should do much more often - in the same way that Legend of Zelda bosses usually require the item you just found in that dungeon to expose them, Warframe bosses should make better use of its movement system as a fight mechanic (and less extreme health, bullet sponging, insane damage output and arbitrary invincibility).
• Useful rewards - mainly talking about the fish parts, Ore and Gems here. Since the Plains of Eidolon, players have been asking for ways to acquire fish parts, Ore and Gems outside of fishing and mining. Fortuna made a little progress towards this, giving Orb Vallis containers a chance to drop some fish parts, Ore and Gems, however Exploiter Orb takes this to the extreme, dropping a wide variety of them, in significant quantity. This allows players who don't like fishing and mining to acquire these resources at a decent rate.
• Relatively low requirements of the fight offers much more player choice - interlinked with the first point, the relative lack of need to deal massive damage means that you can complete the fight reasonably well with most any Frame. Pretty much the only requirement for the fight is that you can survive the various sources of (not insignificant, but not insane) damage. Relative to Profit Taker and Eidolons, the Exploiter fight seems to deal a lot less damage - I was able to survive with Saryn Prime relatively comfortably, which I absolutely cannot do in the aforementioned fights. The only true meta choices so far are Nova and Octavia, and they are only to speed up Phase 1, which is by far the shorter Phase already.
• Much easier for newer players to contribute, provided they understand the mechanics - this is something Warframe has struggled with at times, balancing content for newer players, and content for veterans. I think Exploiter has a reasonable balance of this, certainly better than a lot of other content in the game (e.g. Profit Taker). Newer players who are less experienced with movement and have weaker weapons can still help to (slowly) ferry Thermia Canisters to Exploiter in Phase 1. In Phase 2, they can help to kill the (very weak) Coolant Raknoids, or take the Coolant Cells and convert them to Thermia Canisters to throw at Exploiter. There are pretty much always dozens of unused Cells sitting around on the ground when I do my runs, which would offer a way for newer players to help. Ironically though, this event is perhaps one of the harder ones for newer players to get in to. Getting the Diluted Thermia requires successfully defending a Coolant Cell four times in regular Thermia Fractures, which attracts level 45 Vallis enemies, who are insanely powerful and tough for their level.
• Quite satisfying cutscenes - referring to the short sections where your Warframe rips off components from Exploiter during Phase 2. These scenes are just really satisfying to watch, at least the first few times, though they definitely drag on when all you want is to speedrun the fight.

Bad:

• A fight where CC would be really useful is largely CC immune - the second Phase of this fight is perhaps one of the best examples of a time where a CC Warframe would be fantastic. Being able readily keep Coolant Raknoids away from Exploiter, and being able to pick them off at your own leisure would finally give CC Frames a good role in an otherwise powercrept niche. Unfortunately, Coolant Raknoids are immune to most Warframe abilities, rendering such an idea ineffective. This is quite a shame, because as I just mentioned, CC Frames are losing their usefulness partly through powercreep making killing enemies easier and easier.
• Exploiter Orb's Fire wall ability is incredibly frustrating - during Phase 2, Exploiter will occasionally emit a large fire wall around her. This prevents Warframes from passing through (either exiting or entering), but not Corpus. It also obstructs view, and makes it extremely difficult to see outwards. As such, while players are heavily limited in mobility and vision, Coolant Raknoids are free to approach and cool down Exploiter. Worse still, the range of the Fire wall is very similar to the range at which Coolant Raknoids can cool down Exploiter. This feels rather unfair and unfun, especially considering how unfair Coolant Raknoids already feel (mainly solo, they are much less of a problem in a well-coordinated group).
• Thermia Fracture availability relies on the RNG of Exploiter using her ground bash ability - having Thermia Fractures available to fill up Canisters and piff at Exploiter is essential to the fight. Annoyingly, they are only spawned when Exploiter uses her ground bashing ability. Additionally, Exploiter will seemingly not use this ability if there are Fractures far away - often I would have to travel a few hundred metres just to pick up a Canister to fill with Thermia. During this time, Exploiter would be surrounded by Coolant Raknoids and cooled down significantly, reducing much of my progress. Again, this is relatively less of a problem in a group since you can have members stay behind to kill Coolant Raknoids, but I've also had situations where I've completely run out of Fractures, and am stuck just waiting from Exploiter to bash the ground.
• Exploiter ground bash ability should not cool Exploiter - I just don't like this mechanic. Essentially, this system means that to overheat Exploiter, you have to let it perform an ability that significantly cools her down. This was particularly annoying when I ran out of Fractures to use up, so had to resign to either waiting for Exploiter to slowly passively overheat, or let her cool down to speed up her overheat. I wouldn't mind if this ability temporarily stalled her heat bar, but I don't like the cooling down part of it.
• Coolant Raknoids are too fast - having completed the majority of my runs solo, I have often felt that the Coolant Raknoids move way too fast, and can cool down Exploiter Orb much too quickly. Taking my eye away from one side of Exploiter for just a moment often resulted in two or three Coolant Raknoids getting close by the time I looked back. With their speed, I was usually unable to stop them all from delivering their coolant to Exploiter, partly because that occurred almost instantly upon them getting within range. Additionally, they can do so from almost any direciton, including on the other side of rock formations that you can't see past. I think the fight would feel a lot more fair and fun if the Coolant Raknoids moved slower, and needed to spend a short time "channeling" their coolant (or a similar action) before successfully cooling down Exploiter. This would give players a much better chance at hunting down and destroying the Coolant Raknoids. However, it is entirely possible that this was balanced for a full squad, which I expect would have little issue wiping out all Coolant Raknoids if well coordinated.
• Coolant Raknoid role and behaviour are conflicting - because of how fast Coolant Raknoids move, and how they pretty much instantly dispense their coolant on Exploiter once within range, the safest bet is simply to just snipe them from as far away as possible. However, this also means that they drop their Coolant Cells extremely far away. I feel that the boss fight would be better served if the Coolant Raknoids had to get closer to dispense their coolant, and/or would be vulnerable for a moment. This would reduce the distance players would have to travel for the fetch-the-cell activity, which is required in an insanely high quantity for this boss fight. It feels quite tedious, and having a somewhat reliable way to shorten it would in my opinion likely make the fight more enjoyable.
• Thermia throwing phases get ridiculously repetitive - You spend about 80% of the time obtaining Thermia canisters to throw at Exploiter, and you need to throw a lot at her to be able to progress. The first Phase requires at least 5 or 6, while each stage in the second Phase takes at least about 6, and increases even further with each stage. I don't know about you, but that gets really tedious really quickly.