Loadouts: Operation Plague Star (U30.7.3)

Operation: Plague Star (alternatively known at times as Operation: Forma, Operation: Augur Message and Operation: Naramon Lens) has returned, lasting from 08 Sep 2021 to 30 Sep 2021 EDT. I'd done an article on it long, long ago during one of its previous re-runs. The event itself has not changed and only a few rewards have been added, but it is nonetheless worth farming for its many different rewards.

Plague Star Bounty

Stage 1: Acquire Toxin

As mentioned just before, the actual Bounty itself has not changed. The first stage is simply to go into the marked cave and retrieve the Toxin canister.

Stage 2: Mix Toxin

Once you have acquired a Toxin canister, you will need to deliver it to a marked Mixer. This will begin a 3-minute defence of the Mixer, during which enemies will try to attack it. Keep an eye out for melee Grineer units in particular (Tusk Butcher, Tusk Predator, Tusk Flameblade), these enemies seem to deal massive amounts of damage to the Mixer.

It is during this time that you can add up to 4 of each of Eidolon Phylaxis and Infested Catalyst. They need to be equipped in your Gear wheel, but can be used at any time and anywhere during this Stage. Both affect what you will face in the final Stage. Each one added increases final Standing reward by 250.

Stage 3: Deliver Toxin via Drone

Once the Toxin is mixed, retrieve it from the Mixer. You will then be directed to take the Toxin to a Drone, which will be used to deliver the Toxin into the Boil.

Once the Drone is activated, escort it to the Boil. You must remain within 50m of the Drone for it to move on its own.

Stage 4: Kill Infested 

When the Drone finally reaches the Boil, it will kick off the final stage of the Bounty. In this stage, simply kill all the Infested to fill the Purged meter. Keep in mind that the Infested Pods that are deployed seem to act as spawn points for the Infested, so keep them intact where possible for fastest progression.

Be aware that the Boil deals significant Toxin damage to anyone who stands on it

Each Eidolon Phylaxis added will increase the level of the Infested by around 10, to a maximum level of around 55.

Each Infested Catalyst added will spawn a Hemocyte at set periods. One IC added will spawn a Hemocyte at 99% purged, while two ICs added will spawn two Hemocytes, one at 50% and one at 99%, and so on. Note that when a Hemocyte is alive, the Purged meter will not progress.

Each successive Hemocyte has an increased level that is also affected by the Eidolon Phylaxis. With 4 Phylaxes and Catalysts used, the first Hemocyte will spawn at level 45, and the last one at level 75.

Hemocytes are essentially a recolour of Lephantis Stage 2, a single entity with three separate heads. As such, they retain the same damage-per-shot cap that Lephantis is subject to, limiting the damage that a single pellet can deal.

There is one key difference however, Hemocytes have Infested Sinew Armour. This is particularly troublesome as this Armour type takes super-effective damage from Radiation, but the Hemocyte health type, Fossilised, strongly resists Radiation. As such, you will deal by far the most damage by completely removing the Hemocyte's armour. In the Loadouts section, I've discussed how to deal with this.

Once all the Hemocytes are killed (if any) and Infested purged, the Bounty will complete. You can then return to Cetus, or run it again from one of the Bounty tents scattered in the Plains.

Rewards 

Being an actual Bounty, doing Plague Star will give a reward from its drop table for each Stage completed.

Additionally, the Hemocytes will drop one of the six Hunter mods, one Hemocyte Cystolith, and have a 20% chance of dropping a Nidus Prime Access relic. Between the Bounty rewards and the Hemocyte drops, many of my runs have awarded two Relics, sometimes even three.

Finally, completing the Bounty rewards Operation Standing, to a maximum of 3,050 per run. After ranking up a few times (requires 6,000 Standing total to reach maximum rank), you will have full access to Nakak's Operational Supply.

 

The first priority if this is your first Plague Star is to get the Eidolon Phylaxis blueprint, for the extra Standing it will give your future runs. However, it is offered as the first rank-up reward, and should be acquired then.

The Ghoulsaw and its Stance are the only new items to this iteration of Plague Star. The only other method to acquire them, for now, is buying them with Plat from the Market. I expect that they will either periodically return in future Plague Star and other events, or be permanently added to one of the Cetus vendors.

The Plague Star Emblem is a cheap and exclusive cosmetic. Sacrifice in recent times has only been available from Plague Star and Naberus, and is worth getting one of. The Snipetron is event-exclusive and this is one of the events that has it, so is worth getting for Mastery. Fulmination is also exclusive to a small number of events, although Baro does have Primed Fulmination on occasion.

The two Exodias, Contagion and Epidemic, are exclusive to Plague Star and the Naberus event, so are worth considering at very least for completion's sake. Contagion in particular is a meta piece of equipment for Profit-Taker, and I've heard for Eidolons as well (though I have far less experience with the latter). It is also incredibly strong overall if you can handle its somewhat unusual use method.

The Plague Zaw parts are also exclusive to Plague Star and Naberus. The two Strikes in particular (Kripath and Keewar) offer above-average Zaw stats as well as innate Viral damage. These two Strikes now face significant competition from regular Melees since the Melee 3.0 rework and newer weapons, but they are still very solid weapons. At very least, they are still both worth getting for Mastery.

The Forma reward is the main farmable purchase of note. There are few ways of acquiring Forma that do not require Plat and circumvent the once-a-day build time of Forma blueprints. With a decent setup, Plague Star allows you to buy a Forma after a single 10-15 minute run, which is quite fast and consistent for a reward of that nature.

The Fosfor blueprints can be acquired from Nakak normally, so can be ignored. The Resources can all be acquired from regular Plains activities more efficiently than doing Plague Star for them, but they aren't worthless. The Ether Daggers Blueprint is a reward for completing the Stolen Dreams quest, and it also being here is simply a legacy band-aid fix before it was added to Cephalon Simaris' store. It is safe to ignore.

Loadouts

Warframes

There are three main roles to fill that can significantly improve the efficiency of your Plague Star runs.

Hemocyte DPS

One of the main gear checks during the Plague Star Bounty is killing of the Hemocytes. If you are not adequately prepared for them, it can be an absolute slog. With appropriate equipment however, it is more Standing and rewards for minimal extra time and effort.

Being an almost carbon-copy of Lephantis, the Hemocyte uses the same damage cap/resistance mechanic that incentivises Crit and high Fire Rate/pellet count for the most efficient damage output.

Like with Lephantis, my preferred method for this is my beloved Titania. High Strength, Razorwing Blitz (Augmented 4), and a Corrosive + Crit built Dex Pixia tears through Hemocyte heads once their armour is stripped. Blast is technically a little better against the Hemocyte as Dex Pixia has access to Primed Heated Charge, but is much worse against most other targets. Eclipse has been subsumed too for a potentially massive (but inconsistent) damage boost.

Brief Respite provides a small cushion of safety in the form of Shield-Gating. I've heard of some people using an unranked Combat Discipline to more reliably trigger Arcane Avenger. Peculiar Bloom is there purely for fun, something like Aviator or Power Drift would be a much more sensible option.

Using Razorwing also allows Titania to ignore a vast majority of threats, whether it is the Hemocyte's various attacks or the horde of Infested spawning on the ground, as well as affording great maneuverability to take on each individual head.

Mirage is an extremely strong weapon-buffing option. Eclipse (3) is still inconsistent and unreliable, but when it decides to co-operate, the damage boost it can provide is insane. Additionally, unlike standard weapon buff abilities, Hall of Mirrors (1) creates clones that use a copy of Mirage's weapons. It effectively causes Mirage to fire triple the number of pellets, which circumvents the Hemocyte's damage cap mechanic. As such, a high Strength Mirage with an appropriate weapon can blitz through the Hemocytes with ease.

This also applies to Melee, allowing Mirage to strip the Hemocyte's armour with Shattering Impact extremely quickly.

 

If neither of the above Frames is available to you, other Damage-boosting Frames like Rhino and Chroma are also serviceable in this role and can also benefit allies. However, they do not have the unique benefits that Mirage provides when considering the Hemocyte damage-cap.

It is very much worth noting that both Roar and Eclipse are subsumable abilities, albeit weaker than when used on their base Frames. As such, any Frame can be retrofitted for the DPS, granted not quite optimal for the role.

Drone Transportation

The other main part of Plague Star that can be significantly sped-up is the Drone escort stage. There are a few ways of speeding up the Drone to complete this stage faster.

Loki is fantastic option with a high Range build. His Switch Teleport (3) can be used to swap Loki and the Drone, and with a base Range of 75 metres, can be drastically increased to cover even more distance in a single cast. Note that there are some locations to which the Drone cannot be teleported. If you attempt to do so, you will simply be teleported to the Drone.

Nova's Wormhole (3) can also be used to great effect, though this requires greater skill than Loki. The Drone will not enter a Wormhole unless meets some specific criteria which I am not properly familiar with - I've heard that you get best results if the Wormhole points towards the ground.

Hemocyte Speed-Up

Though it has less effect than the other two, this role still saves a bit of time. The Hemocyte takes some time to exit the Boil, and does not become vulnerable until it has exited. Thus, the faster the Hemocyte leaves the Boil, the faster you can complete the Bounty.

Nova appears here once again as Molecular Prime (4), with sub-70% Strength, will speed up affected enemies. With Overextended and Power Donation bringing her to just 10% Strength, this provides a +60% Speed boost to affected enemies.

Equinox's Rest and Rage (2), in Day form, also speeds up affected enemies and makes them more vulnerable to damage. It does not have the same area-of-effect as Nova's Molecular Prime, but as the priority here is speeding up the Hemocyte, this is not a big issue. Most importantly, Rest and Rage is Equinox's subsumable so can be used on any Frame you like - including one of the above Frames.

Other 

Doubling up on any of these roles can further improve completion times. Having two Hemocyte DPS can shave off some time on each Hemocyte kill, while two good Drone Transports can cut Stage 3 time down to sub-30 seconds consistently. Two different Hemocyte Speed-Ups can shave a couple more seconds from each Hemocyte spawn.

Volt is a strong alternative option who can fill many of the desired roles quite effectively on his own. When Augmented, Shock (1) adds a good amount of Electric damage which of course can combine into Corrosive. Electric Shield (3) adds non-combining Electric damage, but also significantly increases Crit Damage of any shots through it. These can make Volt a very solid Hemocyte DPS. Speed (2) enhances mobility both on-foot and in Archwing, so is very useful particularly for Stage 1 and traversing between Stages. It also speeds up Melee attacks, useful for armour-stripping of the Hemocyte with a Shattering Impact Melee. Finally, Discharge (4) can be used to quickly clear out Infested in the final Stage. Probably the biggest drawback is that these four abilities want different stats, so it is not possible to optimise all four at once - you are better off picking two or three to max-out, then Subsuming a new ability over the least-optimised one to cover roles more effectively.

 

If all of the primary roles are filled adequately, you can of course consider more general support Frames. If your squad is relying on a Shattering Impact Melee for Hemocyte armour-strip, buffs that increase Melee Attack Speed like Volt's Speed (2) and Wisp's Reservoirs (1) are very useful.

If you do not have an armour-strip Melee, there are some Warframe abilities that can do so, for instance Mag's Polarise (3), Oberon's Hallowed Ground (2) + Reckoning (4) combo, and Trinity's Augmented Link (3). Notably, Ash's Augmented Shuriken (1) can be easily built for total (temporary) armour strip and is subsumable onto any Frame.

An AoE Frame like Saryn or Ember can help to quickly clear out the Infested in Stage 4 without risking damage to Infested Spawn Pods.

If you do not have enough damage output to kill the Hemocyte heads quickly, you can consider slowing down the Hemocyte while their weakspots are vulnerable. This of course gives you more time to pump rounds into them, however this will also lock invulnerable heads for longer. Additionally, the effects of such CC abilities have diminshing returns if used repeatedly. Of note, Nova's Molecular Prime with positive Strength will both slow down the Hemocyte and increase damage dealt to it. Rhino's Stomp (4), Harrow's Condemn (1) and Sevagoth's Gloom (3) are just three examples of abilities that can also slow down/stop the Hemocyte.

Weapons

Hemocyte Killing 

Hemocytes are essentially a copy of Lephantis, so they also inherit the unusual damage-per-shot cap. As such, the best weapons are those with high Fire Rate/pellet count and Crit. As mentioned previously, the best Damage types to use are Corrosive and Blast. Corrosive has a higher multiplier, is far better if the Hemocyte still has armour, and is much more versatile. There are more Primed Elemental mods that contribute to Blast however, which can give it a slight edge on Rifles and Secondaries.

Despite the armour type, Radiation is actually very bad against Hemocyte as it does just 25% damage to Fossilised Health.

Due to the Hemocyte damage cap, a well-built weapon can give any Frame reasonable Hemocyte DPS. The difference between a dedicated Hemocyte DPS Frame and any other Frame with a top Hemocyte killing weapon is not significant unless you are aiming for absolute maximum efficiency.

The Pyrana Prime is often cited as the best Hemocyte killing weapon. It has all of the desired attributes - high pellet count, Crit and Fire Rate, all resulting in immense DPS at close range. A well built Pyrana Prime in the right spot can melt Hemocytes even without a dedicated Hemocyte DPS. Due to pellet spread and Damage Fall-Off, it is best to Aimglide or Archwing very close to the Hemocyte heads for maximum damage output.

Above is just a selection of Primaries I have used to reasonable effect on the Hemocyte - Baza Prime, Kuva Hind (named Titania Prime), Prisma Gorgon and Tenora Prime. All except the Kuva Hind have exceptional Crit, while the Kuva Hind is just my do-everything Rifle.

Above is a selection of other Secondaries that can also perform well - Aksomati Prime, Kuva Brakk (works best if you Archwing/Aimglide up close due to its fall-off and spread), and Tenet Diplos. Again, all of these have great Crit and high shot output.

Of course, Archguns can also serve the Hemocyte killing role. I have had good success with the Mausolon and Imperator Vandal especially, as the latter has an extremely high Fire Rate and very good Crit.

AoE

If the Hemocyte killing role is already comfortably filled, consider bringing an AoE weapon to clear out Infested in the final Stage more quickly. There are of course a lot of weapons that can fit this role well.

Above is just a small selection of popular and strong AoE weapons - Tenet Cycron, Kuva Nukor, Ignis Wraith, and Kuva Zarr. When using such weapons, take care not to destroy Infested Pods in the last Stage, as they spawn more Infested and thus speed up Stage progression.

Melee

In Plague Star, the Melee slot is often reserved for a Shattering Impact weapon. Shattering Impact is one of the few methods of stripping Hemocyte armour that is Frame-agnostic. By far the two best weapons for it are the Sarpa and the Vastilok. Both are Gunblades that fire bursts of Impact-dealing pellets, allowing them to strip armour much faster than any other Melee. The Vastilok fires more pellets so strips armour faster, but it was only available as a Tennocon 2021 Twitch Drop, whereelse the Sarpa is available in-game normally.

For the sake of Hemocyte armour-stripping, the only mods that matter are Shattering Impact, then high Attack Speed for fastest armour-strip. Besides that, everything else is to preference for what else you want the Melee to do.

Of note, Hemocyte armour can be stripped even while it is invulnerable, such as when it is still exiting the Boil. You will know that the Hemocyte has had its armour completely stripped when its health bar shows as red rather than yellow (with default UI colours).

If armour-strip is already covered by other squadmates or Warframe abilities, feel free to bring along any Melee of personal preference. A Heavy Attack-built Redeemer Prime can serve as a Hemocyte DPS weapon due to its pellet count, but something with higher Fire Rate/Attack Speed (ie ordinary firearms) tend to be more efficient.

Necramech

Since Plague Star takes place on the Plains of Eidolon, you can call down your Necramech. This allows you to use your Archgun without having to worry about call-down animations, cooldowns and ammo max. Necramechs are also very tough and immune to Status effects and knockdowns. Finally, Voidrig's Necraweb can be used to slow down the Hemocyte when its weakspots are open.

Note that again because of the Hemocyte damage cap, Voidrig's Arquebex is not especially effective against it, but will still work in a pinch. You are better off sticking to a high Crit/Fire Rate Archgun.