Get ready, Tenno. (Warframe)

[rhoenix]

New frame got released - Octavia. You have to have completed the Natah and Second Dream quests to get it, and you receive it from Cephalon Suda on any Relay.

The recent quests have slowly begun to feel more like adventures, instead of formulaic mission types with fancy window-dressing - which in fairness is still what they are, but the gameplay variety is getting far better. The characters involved all made sense, they all had clear motivations, and it ended well. The way the writing is improving on the quests is a good thing, and I hope the trend continues.

Yes, Octavia is worth getting, btw. She makes a great squad damage support frame.

Limbo got a rework, and he is no longer awful. In fact, Limbo can be setup to be a nuker now, or a solo artist due to the wide variety of void bullshit you can do.

[rhoenix]

So, killing Eidolons on the Plains of Eidolon at night is basically the new raid-type challenge. Doing so I think is far more fun than the raids previously released, as much as I like the idea of raids or dungeons being present.

To get started, you have to have completed the Second Dream and War Within quests. They're good story missions anyway that give good character lore, so that's no real bad thing - except for how long it takes to open them up. But, I digress.

Eidolon Teralysts show up at night on the Plains of Eidolon, randomly wandering around, killing Grineer, and making the ground shake when they walk. The idea is that you get some friends together, beat up the Teralyst, and then go to the shrine in the middle of the Great Lake. You and your team then sacrifice the Brilliant Eidolon Shard you get from defeating the Teralyst, which then summons the Gantulist. Doing this for the Gantulist will summon the Hydrolist, which is the third and most difficult Eidolon to kill.

The dream team frame setup as a squad for taking out Eidolons is Trinity/Oberon (for healing), Rhino/Harrow (+dmg for team), Volt (for his Electric Shield), and Chroma (as a heavy dmg dealer). You at least need Trinity (or Oberon) to help make sure your team doesn't die like rats on a sinking ship if things go south. Rhino & Harrow both are there to boost damage (and therefore speed up the fight), Chroma using Vex Armor and a self-damaging weapon to boost it up can make his damage output terrifying, and Volt's Electric Shield makes pretty much every stage of the fight easier for both offense and defense.

For weapons, you want high damage per shot, and you want Radiation (fire + electric) as your elemental addition. Status effects (including slash) cannot proc on the Eidolon, so using high status weapons is a waste. The Lanka, Rubico, and Vectis (Prime) are all good choices, but the Lanka has worked by far the best for me. You'll need to make the Lanka from the Corpus Lab in the Dojo.

As a bonus note, the Sarpa melee weapon with the Shattering Impact mod equipped is truly excellent for dropping the armor rating for the shootable parts of the Eidolon through the floor. To do the most damage, you don't want to erase all of its armor, amusingly enough - just most of it. I've found that five quick blasts of the Sarpa is my sweet spot, doing slightly more damage per shot of my Lanka afterward than if it had no armor at all. If you do erase all its armor (change the health bar from orange to red), that's okay - it's not like it having no armor where you're shooting it is a bad thing. It's just that you'll do a little more damage per shot if it has a tiny shred of armor left than if it doesn't have armor at all, amusingly enough.

(Using the Sarpa in this way can actually make more primary weapons viable, since you'll be reducing the armor enough for them to actually work. If you use this strategy, the Buzlok and Soma (Prime) rifles are both good choices. You don't really want to use shotguns, as shotguns split up the damage they deal amongst the pellets they fire, which can reduce their damage to near-nothing against the Eidolons. The Arca Plasmor just shoots one big blast, which makes it better than the other shotguns, but still nowhere as good as other options such as the Lanka or Vectis.)

There are many strategies for fighting them, and I'll give you some of my favorites if you ask - but basically, this is a fun series of fights to have with a few friends, and give pretty good rewards - including Arcanes for your warframe, and an Eidolon action figure for your ship.

A quick note about operator Amps, however:

Spoiler: show

You'll likely end up making several Amps anyway while you're on Cetus, but basically, here's how assembly works: the prism is your main attack, the scaffold is your alt-fire, and the brace is your passive stat booster. You usually want one fire mode with high damage to bring down the Eidolon's shield at each stage, and another that has good AoE to clear out Vombalysts.

For prisms:
- the tier 1 amp (Raplak) you can get shoots like a rifle for its main fire. It's better than the amp you start with, yes - but not by much.
- the t2 amp (Shwaak) shoots like an Arca Plasmor shot, with a wide-area blast. Can't crit much, but inflicts status well, and works great.
- the t3 amp (Granmu) shoots three grenades that arc, and explode on impact. Can crit pretty well, and does good AoE damage, but less of an area affected per shot than the t2.

For scaffold:
- the t1 scaffold (Pencha) is pretty good - it gives you a charged shot with good range, and good damage.
- the t2 scaffold (Shraksun) fires a heavy bolt that has short range, but has no charge time, and does very high damage.
- the t3 scaffold (Klebrik) fires an enemy-seeking beam that does low, but rapid damage, and eats amp energy quickly. Great for clearing out Vombalysts.

For braces:
- t1 brace (Clapkra) gives 40 more to your amp energy pool. Not great.
- t2 brace (Juttni) gives a -1 second reduction to amp recharge delay. Very nice.
- t3 brace (Lohrin) gives +12% to the crit chance of the amp. Excellent for both the Raplak and Granmu crystals, as well as all three of the scaffolds' alf-fire modes.

Personally, I'd recommend a 222 (for good reliable close-range damage), a 333 (for versatile damage), or my favorite, the 323. Don't take my word for it though - killing Eidolons and Vombalysts will give you more than enough sentient cores to trade with the Quills vendor for amp parts, and other things - including operator arcanes, which seem small but are actually amazing additions. Mix and match, and see which you like most.

In short, Eidolon hunting is definitely fun to do. You can take on the first Eidolon with just two people, or even solo if you're using Oberon or Trinity and you're careful - but you're not going take on the next two without a full group. Even so, they're a rush to fight - if you try doing so, I hope you enjoy it.