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The OUT OF DATE Eidolon Guide. (August 2021 / pre-Angels of Zariman)
By Seras32. and 2 collaborators
Seeing other guides available atm, all of them are out of date. This guide aims to put all the current viable information on eidolons into one place for people to easily find. This guide goes just as in-depth as the others.
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Intro
If you clicked this with no knowledge of what eidolons are in warframe then thats great, keep reading and everything should be explained. This guide talks about the current squad meta for eidolons and assumes that you want to get into hunting them on a regular basis.

Before we get into specifics, its required that you have completed the War Within & Saya's Vigil quests in order to be able to contribute to eidolons. If you have not done these 2 quests then you will have a hard time actually keeping up with a group, or even hurting the eidolon at all for that matter.

Furthermore, dont take this guide as gospel. some of these builds are not the PERFECT build, notably the wisp, harrow, and rubico builds. This guide is meant to get you into the door for eidolon hunting in a group, its not meant to make you some god tier hunter right off the bat. There is always more you can do to improve at it that this guide doesn't cover.

LATE EDIT: PLEASE check out https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JuzfhprfFsbpu4JUSePe3JlCvtmHDFrhxbJBttetzvg/edit. This is another more up-to-date guide made by other amazing hunters. a lot of information in this guide is still similar but the new guide covers A LOT more information a lot more in-depth and is updated more often. thanks.

With all that out of the way, let's begin :).

Chat Terminology and Lingo
Before we get into eidolons, assuming you know NOTHING of the topic, lets go over some basic terms that you should know before reading this guide.

Tridolon: It just means all 3 eidolons as opposed to just the teralyst/first eidolon.

Xx3: A number in front of x3 means that group wants to do X clears of tridolons in that night cycle. 3x3 is the best place to start after reading this guide if you dont have any experience in it, then moving to 4x3 is good if you can get the rotations for your role down well. a 5x3 requires good team synergy where everyone knows whats going on, and a 6x3 needs everyone to be perfect and perform perfectly.

-1, or -2: When you are in a hunt and someone says -1 or -2 in chat then that means how many lures you are missing to capture the eidolon. try to make sure you have all the lures necessary before killing it, and also make sure there is a charged lure nearby to keep the eidolon from teleporting

Voms: Vomvalysts. you need to kill 3 of these and put them in a lure to charge it. they drop an orb if you kill its ghost form without a lure nearby that you can pick up and take to a lure to give it credit.

Shrine: The thing in the middle of the Gara Toht Lake where you sacrifice your shard to summon the next eidolon.

If there are any other terms you can think of, lmk in the comments and ill add it here.
The Basics of Eidolons
To start all this off, its best to know wtf even is an eidolon? What do they do? Or better yet why do you care?
Eidolons are a boss monster that only spawn during the night in cetus, which is on a 100 minute day to 50 minute night cycle, they have shields that are immune to ALL damage types and debuffs EXCEPT for void damage, and they are also the BEST source for arcanes and operator focus.

Lures
First thing's first. You need to get lures and charge them with 3 vomvalysts (voms) each and get enough of them to capture the eidolon for better loot and a brilliant/radiant eidolon shard to sacrifice in the shrine at Gara Toht Lake in order to summon the next eidolon.

Gara Toht Shrine
When you capture one of the first 2 eidolons, they will drop an eidolon shard that you can pick up and sacrifice in the shrine in the middle of gara toht lake. This is how you spawn the next eidolon for your hunt and make this your #1 priority after the eidolon is completely captured

The Teralyst (Terry)
The first of the trio of eidolons and also the easiest. terry has only 4 synovias, or better known as limbs, compared to his brothers which each have 6. He is the smallest in size, has the smallest amount of different attacks, and requires only 2 charged lures to capture instead of 3 like his older brothers. Needless to say, terry doesn't have a good time most nights and he gets what he ♥♥♥♥♥ deserves cuz he hoards all those arcane nullifiers.

The Gantulyst (Garry)
The second of the trio and the most annoying. as mentioned before, Garry has 6 limbs, takes 3 charged lures, but he has the most annoying attacks you will ever have to deal with in your hunts. THE LIGHT PILLARS. These things just kill you and your lures if you aren't careful but thankfully there are methods to avoid this. No mercy for Garry cuz he always blinds me with those beams seemingly at random. its not funny bro.

The Hydrolyst (Harry)
The biggest and eldest of the trio and the hands down coolest one. Absolute Chad of a sentient. Harry also has 6 limbs and takes 3 charged lures to capture like Garry but comes with a completely different set of relentless attacks like constant lightning bolts and makes areas damage you and apply green rain effects on your screen while inside. Harry doesn't threaten your lures safety as much as Garry does so its not quite as stressful, though if you aren't modded up for enough survival then this guy can be tricky to survive.
The Roles Of The Hunters
In eidolons, there are 4 distinct roles that all do their part to help kill the eidolon and/or protect the players and lures from dying.

DPS
In the past, this role used to be played by Chroma but ever since the removal of self damage Chroma has fallen off HARD. The new meta pick for DPS is volt with the build further down. With that said, the DPS is usually the host of the squad due to being the one that fast charges lures, which is best if he gets out of the gate faster and so that he can more reliably break limbs as soon as the shield goes down.

VS (stands for Void Strike, a trait in the madurai tree)
VS is played exclusively by another volt, no real exceptions to this. The reason why is because volt's shield is the only warframe ability that can buff operator shot's crit damage, which is crucial in 1 shotting its shields. you have no other real responsibility other than getting those shields down for the DPS to break a limb.

Magnetic Proc Immuner
This is best suited for harrow since not only does he make all players completely immune, but he buffs crit chance afterwards as well. That being said there are still some frames that can also do this job albeit it's a lot more difficult. This role is also considered the 2nd VS user as a tag in while the VS volt charges their stuff.

Lure Sitter
This role is most accessible to newer players since it doesn't deal as much with the eidolon directly. With that being said, its not some walk in the park to do well at. Trinity and Wisp both fill this role equally well and offer different things for the team and require more or less attention to lures themselves. Once you finish charging all the lures, or know there are no voms around to pick up, its a good idea to help the VS users to break shields
Main Weapon Choices
Compared to warframes, weapons are a bit more nuanced when it comes to eidolons. The general rule is snipers > all and crit is a must have. All the eidolons are weak to radiation so hellfire + stormbringer are must haves. on the top end, there are 2 sniper rifles that are hands down the better pick than any other option. the Vectis and Rubico prime.

Rubico Prime
The Rubico Prime is by far the easiest to get your hands on and also the easiest to mod. Critical delay gets the rubico up to 100+ crit chance so you never have to worry about missing a crit. Rivens are not necessarily needed for this gun, especially because its disposition is 1/5 so even if you get your hands on one its gonna take a lot of kuva to be worth putting into the build.

Vectis Prime
The Vectis Prime is my personal weapon of choice, but that doesnt mean its better. It is MUCH harder to build, requiring Primed Chamber and a riven with at least crit chance on it. it is possible to go rivenless if you use Argon Scope and remember to headshot the eidolon before going for a limb break in order to get 100% critical chance. The reason you do not also take Depleted Reload with Primed Chamber is because your first shot should kill a limb anyways and you can always just reload so its on the first shot every time. the second shot in the chamber also helps with stacking your shot multiplier which can get you more damage.
This is my main build, so i took off charged shell since shock trooper creates radiation with hellfire already, allowing me to fit on vigilante armaments. you can do the same thing with the rubico if you want.

"But What If I'm Too Low MR For Either Of These? Or What's The Point If The DPS Is Breaking The Limbs Perfectly Fine Already?"
That is fine, there are other sniper rifles that can get you by for 3/4x3s no problem. the normal vectis is an MR 2 weapon so if you want to use that for the time being, go right ahead. The Lanka is another viable option since you can pack A LOT of radiation onto it due to it's innate electricity.
There is another option as well if you trust your DPS player to do his main job perfectly as well. You could take a shotgun with Amalgam Shotgun Spazz since it gives bonus revive speed, helping you pick up others in case they go down.

Secondary Weapons
The normal base weapon can be some sort of beam weapon like the Gaze, Kuva Nukor, or Tenet Cycron. These weapons all function basically the same and are used to beam voms to destroy their shells so lures can take them.

This is a gaze built with (Gaze/Haymaker/Splat) as it's parts. For other beam weapons the mods can be around the same.

Melee Weapons
There are 3 different choices here that have any significant impact.
  • Sarpa
  • Vastilok
  • Redeemer
  • Zaw
  • Empty Melee Slot
The Sarpa with Shattering Impact is an amazing tool to strip armor off of the eidolon (Vastilok can do the same but less accurately), the Redeemer Prime is able to break a limb with a heavy attack albeit very close range, and no melee at all in order to avoid doing a slam attack when dismounting from your archwing, which would use a VS stack if you are VS volt or harrow. You can also use a Zaw with exodia contagion which is listed below in Advanced Tips and Tricks.
Ideal Companions
You have a lot of versatility in this slot but first thing's first, REMOVE VACUUM/FETCH. Just make another config to replace vacuum/fetch and use it in your loadout. The DPS makes these tiny wisps that anyone can pick up which doubles operator damage so it is very bad if you steal them from the person who really needs it at the time.

Another thing to consider before bringing, specifically, a kavat/kubrow is the fact that they have their own ai that is random, and are prone to jumping around and blocking your propas, so be wary before picking one as it could end up being a detriment if there are 3 other members and 3 pets running around that you have to dodge while trying to shoot your propa. Sentinels also can block your shots, however they're always glued to your back and will never jump out and surprise you.

Now onto actual companions to consider:

Carrier Prime
This is my go-to pick. Carrier helps with ammo sustain with its ammo conversion and bonus max ammo and is also tied for tankiest sentinel companion. This is a great choice for the DPS role for better ammo management but for the other roles there are better picks.

Wyrm Prime
Being as tanky as carrier, the main use of Wyrm prime is its mod, Negate, which prevents knockback and clears status effects, which it can do once every 5 seconds, preventing vomvalyst knockdowns occasionally, and preventing the mag proc from draining energy if harrow casts late (this doesnt help if harrow doesn't cast at all, however), and keeps vs alive during hydrolyst by clearing the lightning procs so they don't stack up too high over time. It also has access to Crowd Dispersion which knocks back vomvalysts when they approach in groups, helpful from keeping them from getting too close and knocking you over.

Sahasa Kubrow
I love taking this pet with lure sitters since they basically provide free energy orbs sometimes and put more ammo on the ground. Energy is always nice especially when its free but its annoying to pick up when it goes down.

Adarza Kavat
This pet is a good tool since it can give you and your allies bonus ADDITIVE crit chance, which really helps you hit those red crits. This is mostly useful and applicable when using offmeta weapons/frames, or for players who are attempting to use lower CC snipers, such as vulkar or vectis prime, while not using a riven that has critical chance stat on it.


Pets other than these are not really useful but it doesnt really matter what you bring AS LONG AS IT DOESNT HAVE FETCH/VACUUM ON
Gear to bring with you
There are 3 KEY gear items you need to bring with you on any hunt:
  • Archwing launcher
    (You can upgrade some stats of the archwing with intrinsics IE: rank 8 tactical for reduced blink cooldown. You'll want to get all of these at some point for QoL)
  • Energy pads
  • Ciphers (press Y to instantly use it in the hack terminal btw)
in any run you will use these 3 gear items just about every time, only semi exception is VS probably wont touch lures at all so you wont end up using ciphers.
I tend to use about 5 energy pads per run, so about 25 per 5x3 on average.
Other great gear items to consider are:
  • K-drive since for some reason hopping on it fixes all the soft-lock bugs
  • Health pads
  • Ammo pads, pads are self explanatory
  • A necramech, but not for actual use.
You can summon your necramech near the door to cetus to keep it open for everyone. its a courtesy thing to do but its not really required for anything. Voidrigs are slower for DPS than any warframe with a good sniper rifle so please dont actually consider using for dps. Though it is handy for soloing if you dont have the best loadout.
Warframe and Operator Arcanes
You're probably doing Tridolons for arcanes anyways so some may not be maxed but if you do run them long enough then these will help future runs go smoother.

Warframe Arcanes

Arcane Nullifier
If you aren't already doing amazing runs of Tridolons then Arcane Nullifier [warframe.fandom.com] is just the base and put that on all your eidolon builds. Even if you have a Harrow or someone to immune magnetic procs, you only want to take that off if you know what you're doing which you probably don't need this guide anyways. This is like the training wheels of eidolons until your squad is ready to do 5/6x3.

Arcane Momentum
If you are DPS then Arcane Momentum[warframe.fandom.com] is a best in slot arcane. This is a cheap and easy to get arcane that you will use as DPS and its unreplaceable. Realoading faster = shooting more = higher shot multiplier and that's exactly what this arcane does. If you aren't dps then you don't have to worry about this arcane.

Arcane Acceleration
Again if you are DPS Arcane Acceleration[warframe.fandom.com] will help get your shot multiplier up. You should have enough damage in your build already so more attack speed just makes your job of stacking shot multiplier easier.

Arcane Energize
If you don't like dumping energy pads every run then Arcane Energize[warframe.fandom.com] is for you. Each limb drops an energy orb so they aren't terribly hard to find even if you don't have ways of producing energy orbs, like sahasa kubrow or protea's dispenser ability

Operator Arcanes

Magus Vigor + Magus Husk
Mentioning both of these together since they both serve the same purpose essentially. These arcanes make your operator tankier and are great for starting out since they are cheap. If you want to swap one out and keep another, then keep magus husk since it will give more effective HP especially when you have all the unairu and vazarin waybounds unlocked.

Magus Cloud
This is a good arcane to pick up if you are still inconsistent with your face dashes to proc virtuos shadow. Ideally you shouldn't need it, but if you don't have other arcanes to bring then this one helps out.

Magus Repair
This is a good pick especially for VS users since it will heal your friends with 0 effort while you stack your VS. its practically free healing so highly recommended.

Magus Lockdown
Super handy when dealing with voms since it will keep them still, allowing you to pick them up with your lures easier, or to just beam them without them retaliating. also helpful with stunning enemy grineer that wander up on you for whatever reason. highly recommended for ALL roles.

Magus Nourish
This arcane is a bit like a selfish version of magus repair, but its a good arcane to take as a dps in order to heal yourself and avoid using health pads. There are other arcanes you could take over this but its definitely one of the better ones to consider, especially if you don't have a trin.

Virtuos Shadow
This is your 1 Amp arcane, you take Virtuos Shadow[warframe.fandom.com] and you are done. Critting as often as possible is the most important thing in all of eidolons. This gives more crit, so its the best to use.

ViRtUoS sTrIkE
Probably the worst amp arcane you could take, especially into eidolons. This doesn't help you 1 shot the shield at all since you have to crit in the first place to even activate it, meaning that first shot that crits would have already killed the shield if shot through a volt shield. Don't take this. Ever.
Operator Focus Schools
Let's be honest, your most likely here for this exact reason. Brilliant and radiant eidolon shards give you free operator focus for any school you want without counting towards your daily focus cap so its quite appealing for leveling your operator. That being said, there is a bare minimum you will need to be able to really clear eidolons.

TL;DR First three unbounds order: Void Flow (zenerik) > Void Siphon (zenerik) > Mind Sprint (naramon)
After that, it's preference but ideally Enduring & Rejuvenating Tides (vazarin) for survivability.

Waybound Traits
Each of the operator focus trees have 2 waybound traits in them that you can eventually unbind and use in all the other focus trees. Unbinding them requires you to max them out, then invest 1,000,000 standing + a brilliant eidolon shard. Under each header will be a rating for what waybounds to prioritize first

Madurai
Void Strike (VS) is the most important trait in eidolons ever. the clear speed of eidolons would just not be achievable without it boosting operator damage. 3/4 of the squad will take this on average, with the 1 being the DPS taking unairu instead.
Waybond: 4/5. pretty important for all the roles since they let you shoot more more often.

Unairu
This is basically reserved for the DPS to take due to the Unairu Wisp trait helping the VS users. The invis aura trait is good but only when paired with the damage reduction trait and isnt required at all for a 4 man squad. Still helpful to prevent lure deaths but not something you should focus on doing.
Waybound: 2/5. The main good one is the bonus armor, but you can use magus husk until you have it, or keep it on and make your operator insanely tanky if you have nothing else to use. void blast radius is definitely helpful but there are other more useful things to get first.

Vazarin
The vazarin protective dash can heal and protect lures, but thats something that trinity and wisp and limbo for that matter can do. Your better off just taking one of the 2 schools above.
Waybound: 3/5. Vazarin gives more health + health regen to the operator, but for starting out you can just use magus vigor + magus husk to make your operator tanky.

Zenurik
I guess if your the lure sitter and you trust the other VS users you can use this to help with energy but its honestly insignificant compared to energy pads and protea dispensers if others have them. This tree has nothing else worth consideration.
Waybound: 5/5. What i would recommend you unbind first. more operator energy means you get to dash more, void blast more, and stay invis longer. the energy regen is also really important.

Naramon
Why? wtf you using the melee tree for? shooting guns > swinging swords against eidolons.
Waybound: 1/5. This isnt to say naramon's waybounds are bad, they are really good for quality of life. If you want to keep vigor + husk on and get naramon's waybounds before them then go right ahead. Operator void dash speed is a huge deal in terms of mobility that even beats out a full speed archwing if you have the zenurik traits unbound.

Operator Amps


Basically, you have 2 options here.
  • Shraksun (x2x) (C2 scaffold)
  • Propa (x7x) (F3 scaffold)
These are your secondary fires and what you will be using to break shields 90% of the time. They both have their advantages and disadvantages but are similar enough in effect that its not a big deal, especially for low clear amounts like 3/4x3.

You also have the lohrin(xx3) (C3 brace) and certus(xx7) (F3 brace) braces which increase critical rate by 12% and 20% respectively. Certus brace is obviously better but if your not rank 5 with little duck then you can settle for lohrin for the time being. 6x3s are still possible using an amp with shraksun and lohrin.

As for primary fire, the 2 most popular are Klamora (7xx) (F3 prism) and Raplak (1xx) (C1 prism)and for 2 very different reasons. Raplak is great for VS users since its crit chance is considerably higher than the propa's, meaning if your multiplier is high enough then you can 1 shot the eidolon shield more reliably. Klamora is a great pick for the DPS and lure sitter roles since they will most often be killing voms in their ghost forms to get the orbs they drop and the Klamora prism is the fastest at it + it pierces through all enemies in its beam.

Video going into the mathematical depth of these 2 amp secondary fires. highly recommend you watch this
(ignore the stuff about Magus Melt, its outdated but everything else still applies)
[The prisms, or primary fire, is personal preference in the end, but raplak has become a meta pick due to its higher crit chance for more consistency compared to propa since the time of this video, and klamora does the job for everything else like killing voms as fast as possible.]
DPS Role In-Depth
Starting off with my primary and most comfortable role, DPS has arguably the most responsibilities in the run. In this role it is important that you have your weapon loadout squared away and ideally have the Unairu Wisp trait leveled.
In order of what you need to do:
  1. Fast charge a lure
  2. Take the lure to the teralyst
  3. Break eidolon limbs
  4. Create Unairu Wisps for the VS users so they can pop shields faster
  5. Charge 2 lures during the Teralyst fight while doing #3 and 4
    (To help charge these lures you can beam unders with either Klamora amp or secondary beam weapon, there's more in depth talk about unders in lure sit role)
  6. Fly to the lake with the charged lures so the loot drops near the shrine for easier summoning
  7. Repeat #3 and 4 for Garry and Harry
This listing is loosely what you will be doing in an ideal eidolon hunt if everyone else does there part.

What is fast charging?
A video on fast charging. This demonstrates multiple fast charge and vom spawning techniques you can use to charge a lure as fast as you can. this is really something that you have to see to understand. I personally like to fast charge on the East Camp, also shown in the video, though it usually has only 2 voms spawn more often than 3 but I trust my friend to manip spawn a pack elsewhere to guarantee the lure gets charged fast. (its called hill insta charge in the video, but it's also known as log spawn.)

Breaking Limbs
This is where the meat of the role is at. This is your #1 job in the role of DPS. A volt DPS build should ideally look something like this:
MY build has 3 formas, one being an umbral forma. You do not need this many formas to do well, This is just min/maxed in order to fit in umbral vitality and intensify together. The core of the build is Vitality, Dead Eye, Shock Trooper, and strength mods. Ideally you should have 200%+ ability strength in the build. Adaptation is highly recommended since it gives you a load more survivability. I would also recommend Vigorous Swap to anyone who thinks they could use it. (if you dont like vig swap, then streamline is a good replacement for energy economy)

Creating Unairu Wisps
For those who don't know, Unairu wisps are summoned when someone has the Unairu Wisp trait and void blasts an enemy. Anyone can pick up this wisp which DOUBLES their operator damage. As DPS, you want to be away from between his legs, then void blast his right knee (their left, the one touching the ground) right after you break their limb. This is why its not good for people to bring vacuum or fetch with them in order to avoid picking up the wisps that someone else needs to get, ESPECIALLY for the dps who doesnt need to pick them up at all.
"But Why Am I Taking Unairu Wisp Instead Of Madurai For The Extra Damage?"
The simple answer to this question is you have so much damage already. Shock trooper + volt shield + ally auras + Vigorous Swap if you use that + consecutive shot multiplier + Sarpa armor shred is more than enough to let you 1shot a limb with considerable overkill, along with the fact that who else is going to use it? the lure sitter is preoccupied with getting lures and voms so they aren't always present and the VS users entire role depends on madurai to boost their operator damage as is. You are just the role best fit to do it.

An example of a DPS Volt Rotation

What Ability Should I Subsume If I Have The Helminth System?
Mirage's and Rhino's subsumed abilities are both pretty good. in terms of damage given Mirage's Eclipse ability Eclipses rhino's but if you dont have it then roar is fine. Replace the 4 on your config since you will end up using the other 3 abilities without question.

If your weapon and warframe builds are not fully complete then thats OK for 3/4x3 and can be made up for with better shot multiplier control. Just remember, it was possible to 1shot limbs with volt even before the helminth system so it is more of a booster than something you MUST have.
VS Roles In-Depth
VS volt and harrow are the big VS users. This section will cover both of them together since they work so closely with each other.

VS Volt
The Volt VS build is actually very customizable. The only serious requirement here is max duration, or at least as high as you can get it. Ability strength doesnt matter at all since the volt shield's bonus crit is a static 2x multiplier. Everything else you add is just for convenience like survivability and casting speed. Ideally the person taking down the shields will have a 127 or a 177 which you will place shields for. When putting down shields for the 177 amp, you can place them in between the legs and shoot the propa[warframe.fandom.com] in the air which explodes after some time. This can be timed right before the foot goes down after the eidolon immunity phase to instantly pop the shields. A way to pop the propa instantly is to place your warframe in front of the shield and shoot it to detonate the propa immediately on impact. Another way is to place the shield directly next to the leg but the warframe strat is much easier and it doesn't make a difference. With the 127 amp you want to angle the shield up to be able to shoot through the leg with the shraksun[warframe.fandom.com] as it hits the eidolon multiple times.

Pre-Shielding
With normal shield placement out of the way, lets go ahead and talk about preshielding. These are shield placements for the Gantulyst and Hydrolyst. There is a total of 4 spots that these eidolons can spawn at in the lake. What's great is that the hitbox for the leg is already at the spot where it steps when the eidolon spawns which means you can break the shields before the eidolon can even rise out of the water for the DPS to break the limb. It is best to use propa for the preshields as the shraksun can't hit all of it's shots in the space where the hitbox is. You should leave to put these shields down when after the eidolon is getting back up because if you leave earlier, you may mess up Vom spawns to get the lures charged. You also don't need to Pre-Shield the "Far" spawn as even if you're perfect with taking shields down, the DPS will have to wait 2 seconds for a limb to be visible.

This video has loc-pin locations for pre-shields which I recommend to put down for your own runs

Harrow/Magnetic Immuner
Here's a not overly forma'd Harrow build which you can mod better. For Harrow you want to keep your duration around 100%, either slightly higher or slightly lower but no more/less than like 15% off or else it will become hard to work with. You don't need range as your 4 is affected by affinity range. This is a 50 meter radius base which can be buffed by Vazarin's increased affinity range node but you shouldn't use Vazarin since your job heavily relies on VS. Depending on your duration you will want to press your 4 some time before the eidolon roars to immune all magnetic procs. After you cast Covenant then you can do the rotation to VS. After DPS breaks the limb, you may still have the crit timer left in Covenant so what you can do is go into your archwing which allows you to recast it for the immunity again. In terms of other ways to immune status like Oberon or Limbo, you just have to get your range good enough to cover everyone during the magnetic screams.

Enhancing Damage
Now that you know the roles of general VS users, let's talk about how to 1 shot or do as much damage to the eidolon's shields. First, you obviously shoot through the Volt Shields. This enhances the critical damage of the amp shots. Second, you're using Madurai for Void Strike so you should be going into your operator stealth mode whenever you can to charge that multiplier for more damage. Third, using Virtuos Shadow[warframe.fandom.com] you can increase the chance to crit drastically for consistent 1 shots. You should proc this by Void Dashing into the eidolon's head. In the Madurai tree, it is also recommended to also unlock Meteoric Dash to have another instance of damage to increase the chance to proc Virtuous Shadow. The last thing to increase damage is by picking up Unairu Wisps which should spawn near the eidolon from the DPS to double your operator damage. All this should allow you to 1 shot an eidolon's shield.

The Rotation
Finally you are ready to VS and have all the recommended things for viable 1 shots. Here's a list of what you should do for the "rotation."
  1. Dash to the head of the eidolon to proc Virtuos Shadow. (This may take multiple dashes to proc so you can use your W and S keys to dash multiple times.)
  2. Pick up an Unairu wisp on the ground spawned by the DPS.
  3. Shoot your secondary fire and profit. (There is still a 1 in 5 chance for your Propa shot not to crit so be ready to shoot another one if it doesn't 1 shot the sheild.)
This is the ideal rotation for normal shields but we know not every team is perfect or crits just don't happen even with Virtuos Shadow. This means if you are using propa it's good to do a double shot to instantly take down the shields. This is where you shoot 1 shot into the air to explode from the timer and a second shot either at your warframe or the leg to detonate the shot instantly. This should reliably get the shields down but with a low VS stack or no Unairu Wisp then you may need to fire 1 or 2 more shots or use the primary fire of your choice to finish the job.

Frame Detonation
This is already mentioned above but it's worth emphasizing. This is where you detonate the propa instantly on your warframe. As a Volt all you have to do for placement to make it easy is face the direction the eidolon is facing, place your shield with no angle, then do the rotation. Your warframe will be at a perfect distance from the Volt shield to get close and instantly pop the the propa shot. If you're not Volt then get your warframe close to the Volt shield for the Frame Detonation. This strat may be easier to learn compared to timing the propa shot midair. As said above if you combine both then you can double shot for an instapop if you have low VS stacks.

A visual VS Volt Rotation Example
A visual VS Harrow Example
These examples are from casual 4x3 but it shows the basic movement of what you want to do.

First Shield Prepops/Water Pops
(This strat isn't needed for 3/4x3s but it's good to learn and in needed for higher)
When you insert the shards into the shrine, the next eidolon will begin to spawn. At this time, the shield is vulnerable at the location of where they normally arrive to. Adding to the rotation, there should be pre-shields left by the volt for the prepop. After dashing at the spot to proc Virtuos Shadow, there should be an Unairu Wisp at/near the shield. Then you should shoot 2 propa shots through the Volt Shield which should take down the shields depending on your VS stacks. Your teammates may need to help take the shields down if a shot doesn't crit, VS stacks aren't high enough, or Unairu Wisp isn't there.

A visual VS Volt Pre-Shield Example
This shows a Preshield rotation that also places DPS shields but not far spawn location. In the linked YouTube video in Pre-Shielding, they also show rotation of volt shield placements.

Shraksun Pre-Sheild + Water Shooting
If you are using Shraksun secondary fire then this video should help with the water pops as it's a bit different from Propa.
Lure Sitter In-Depth
Trinity

To build Trinity, you'll want max/high duration and enough strength to get Blessing's damage reduction to 75%. Your aura is really up to you but corrosive projection and enemy radar are good picks. The reason that you have minimum range is that Blessing, like Harrow's Covenant, affects things in your affinity range. This is a 50 meter radius base which can be buffed by Vazarin's increased affinity range node. You shouldn't use Vazarin but it's a cool mention. Out of all jobs, Trinity is the easiest to learn but is "hard" to master. All you need to do is charge lures and keep them alive by pressing 4. The 75% reduction in damage will keep lures alive even when Garry fires the light beams. Just watch out on the top right for people's health to keep them alive and remember that when entering your archwing, the blessing buff will go away so you'll need to recast it when needed.


Wisp

This is a 1 forma Wisp build which can be more optimized. You only really need to build for Duration and Strength as you won't be in the motes for long and strength is your survivability. The difference between Wisp and Trinity is that as Wisp you aren't directly keeping the lures alive by healing them but placing motes down for warframe survivability, movement, and attack speed. You're job when you do have the lures is mostly during the Gauntulyst fight, light beams will come down every once in a while and you'll just move the lures out of those beams. For the other eidolons, they don't have attacks that threaten the lives of the lures.

How To Lure
This information is the same for Trinity or Wisp or anyone lure sitting. The current ideal way to grab lures is to first start out grabbing 2 lures and dropping them off at Terry, dropping them, then going out and grabbing 5 more.

Here is a map of lure spawn locations from this guide.

If you find a set of voms when bringing the 2 lures, you can charge those or try to charge a lure after dropping them off. In general voms will spawn in sets of 2 or 3 which is why you may take Enemy Radar[warframe.fandom.com] or Vigilante Pursuit[warframe.fandom.com] to be able to find them on your mini map easily. Or you can just look for them spawning in a flash of blue lights.

Unders
Unders are a reference to voms spawning under the eidolon when going down and when standing up. After the last limb of the eidolon is down, 4 voms will basically spawn under the eidolon which can help charge lures (if they don't spawn which can happen then there's too many voms in the instance at that moment just go find and kill them). There will also be another set of 4 when the eidolon is standing up after crying/healing phase.

Vom Manipulation and VS
Also linked above in DPS role here's a video on fast charging and vom manipulation spots. The DPS should take the fast charge on the right camp but you can spawn Logs voms (mentioned in the video) and fast charge another lure. If you are in a good group that is charging before night starts then what you should do is charge up VS to solo take down Terry shields so the other two VS users can solo Garry and Harry shields. You will have 8 shots of VS so before or some time during breaking shields you should grab the 2 lures to drop as it only takes 4 shots to take down Terry and 2 shots for the lures which totals 6. The last thing for ANY run is if you are done with charging lures or think you have enough charged (an example is having a total of 4 charged at Garry as you only really need to have 1 charged lure at Harry for no loss of time) then you may help the VS with shields as sometimes those shots don't crit and it can still be an instapop with your extra damage. That's the basics + extra and the best thing to do is practice and learn it by doing it.
Flow of the hunt
Here is an overall order of how things will play out ideally with all the roles doing their stuff.
  1. Get a charged lure over to the teralyst. DPS should be able to do this themselves
  2. Bring 2 more lures to the teralyst for a total of 3, lure sitter does this
  3. At this point, the teralyst's shields should be down and first limb popped.
  4. While the VS and DPS kill the teralyst, the lure sitter should be grabbing 5 more lures to capture the rest of the eidolons
  5. When the eidolon starts getting up, the VS should leave to go preshield all the locations
  6. The DPS should be stacking a lot of shot multiplier during this time and after Terry dies they will teleport the lures to the shrine
  7. Once the loot drops, everyone should be at the shrine ready to insert the shard into the shrine
  8. Garry will spawn in one of the locations in which the VS will dash to proc Virtuos Shadow and DPS will spawn Unairu Wisps for them.
  9. Once the shield goes down then the DPS should take down a limb
  10. Again, VS and DPS take down Garry and when it goes down, the VS volt will go to preshield
  11. DPS will kill and them or the Lure Sitter will teleport the lures to the shrine to spawn Harry.
  12. Harry is basically the same as Garry but when DPS kills, they'll all go to Door.
Advanced tips and tricks
So you want to learn some fancy tricks to use in your hunts? Here is a collection of most all the tricks I know that was not mentioned previously in any of the videos linked or the guide so far.

Binding Hotkeys For Gear: In the keybind settings you can find a section near the bottom to bind gear slots to a button to make them easier to use. i recommend doing this with energy pads and the archwing launcher 100% since you will use these the most out of all.

Not Full Stripping with Sarpa: Due to the high bonus damage with radiation on the eidolon's armor, keeping a tiny bit of armor on them can actually net you more damage than if you fully remove it. if you do 2 light attacks with the sarpa on terry, 2 lights + 1 heavy on garry, and 3 lights + 1 heavy on Harry then you will leave them with a very small amount of armor left. its fine if you overstrip, but its better if you dont.

Pre-Charging

Pre-charging is where you go into the Plains of Eidolon before night even starts (this could be 10 minutes before) to start charging VS stacks. This should make your first run fast and consistent as you have enough charge to easily 1 shot all shields. The chart above shows the VS stacks needed to 1 shot each Eidolon at half sheilds with both the raplak and propa. Again this is another reason for the lure sitter to bring VS as noted under "Vom Manipulation and VS" which talks about getting all the Terry shields.

VS Overcharging: One thing that separates a good VS from a great VS is the ability to utilize this mechanic. when you are at 1 shot left with your VS charges and you shoot immediately when exiting void mode, all the time spent in void mode leading up to that shot will be applied to your next set of 8 shots. This is a key concept for doing solo VSing and the more you can learn to abuse it the better.

Exodia Contagion
Have you ever wanted to kill lures or voms without using you VS stacks? Well Exodia Contagion[warframe.fandom.com] is here to save the day. To really utilize this you need a zaw with crit and stat stick it for damage. What's great is you only need 1 which isn't that bad to get as Plague Star[warframe.fandom.com] only comes once a year.

Bonewiddow Pull
The Bonewiddow necramech's third ability Firing Line can pull the eidolon. To do this efficiently you can stand near the eidolon and look away from it in the direction you want to pull it. There is also a trick to pull it into the water before under voms spawn in which they will constantly be spit out which may make lure charging faster.

On-Call
When you are rank 9 in the Command intrinsic you can force spawn one of your crew members into a mission. To more easily get under voms, you can bring an on-call operative with a nukor or other beam weapon and they will help beam the voms. This is especially helpful for any VS players that don't want to use stacks.



Fosfors: Fosfors are a gear wheel item that increase the affinity range of all allies nearby by 200m. As you may have noticed, both Trinity and Harrow use their affinity range for their 4th ability's range instead of actual range so this is a fun tool to use. There are 2 different kinds of fosfors that work the exact same way and they stack with eachother, meaning you can have a maximum affinity range of 475 units if you use vazarin as well. IDK where you will find a use for this but its here.
What Next?
If you finish reading the guide and want to learn even more, here are some useful people and resources to get more information from.

AznvasionsPlays

DoubleXXF

Bunni and her discord[discord.com]

Sapmatic
(videos are a bit older)

Eidolon Zone Discord[discord.gg]

https://idalon.com/
This resource is really good for analyzing any runs that you do (it shows a lot of data like how much time it takes for a limb to pop) It also has minigames of propa and raplak shields. Credit to kouks for this amazing resource!

Live log analyzer, created by Palindromiq[github.com]

Want to go more in depth with eidolons? Khyuz0's Discord[discord.gg] has so many amazing hunters and resources. Especially the #eidolon-wiki channel which goes really in depth with anything you want to learn like solo 5/6x3s or duo strats. The teachers in here are way better than us (Seras & Max) and are the ones who got us to the point to be able to write this guide.
23 Comments
Markov 23 Sep, 2021 @ 4:04am 
I agree with coot, basilisk gaze massively increases effective damage from propa scaffold. Amazing guide.
coot 26 Aug, 2021 @ 6:00pm 
>Waybound: 2/5. The main good one is the bonus armor, but you can use magus husk until you have it, or keep it on and make your operator insanely tanky if you have nothing else to use. void blast radius is definitely helpful but there are other more useful things to get first.

You should add that void blast radius basilisk gaze node reduce propa falloff. This is a major damage increase for water shield and stacks recovery especially in duo. I had the bad experience of not using in duo as vs and would not recommend.


This is an amazing guide overall. A fantastic job.
defused 14 Jul, 2021 @ 3:15am 
Incredible guide
Desserten 3 Jun, 2021 @ 5:25am 
Thanks for the answer! Makes good sense, having the best choice in Rubico prime that don't need a riven kinda makes the old choices not worth the effort to invest in now and forward not considering the amount already spent. Guess I might as well try it out since it isn't that heavy an investment :-)
Seras32.  [author] 3 Jun, 2021 @ 12:25am 
vulkar with a really good crit chance roll on a riven can still work. its considered less optimal but it still functions just fine. the problem with it is you NEED a riven that can make it work, unlike the rubico which needs none, or the vectis which really only needs crit chance
Desserten 1 Jun, 2021 @ 6:04pm 
Great guide!

I just got back into the game a couple of weeks ago, and oh boy Eidolons has changed a lot since I made my How to: Eidolon hunting guide back in 2018.

While I'm starting to get back into the flow of warframe, and figuring out how all the new stuff like helminth, railjack, kuva liches.. Learning how meme strike whips is gone (rip my scoliac riven), and just yesterday that for general play Corrosive has been replaced by Viral plus Heat procs now halving enemies armor.

So while I'm still farming Fortuna rep to be able to try my first Profit-Taker it seemed like a good time to get back into Eidolon hunting.

I have a quick question to help me understand some of the differences between now and then.
1. For snipers you mention Rubico prime, Vectis (prime) and Lanka.
- Is the Vulkar Wraith + Riven not worth it anymore compaired to the others, did something
change?

Thanks for making a guide for 2021 so everyone can get the up to date info on Eidolons!
maximus lazer  [author] 6 May, 2021 @ 9:35am 
Thanks for the replies! I'll probably touch it up again soon since I've been running higher clears to talk about when to shoot raplak instead of propa and some other things of importance.
Exo_Wein 6 May, 2021 @ 7:30am 
Great work
mittens 21 Apr, 2021 @ 1:17pm 
Excellent guide - Thank you very much!
[IMF] Dirty_Dan 20 Apr, 2021 @ 2:19pm 
Thank you! This guide was really helpful!