How To Get Orokin Catalyst on Warframe in 2022

Last Updated on October 17, 2022

If you’re like me who’s always short on blue potatoes, then you probably know that Orokin Catalysts remain one of the most valuable materials in Warframe. This is because it’s the one and only item in the game that’s capable of supercharging all of your weapons to double their mod capacities—yup, all weapon types, Arch-guns, Arch-melee, and Sentinel weapons included! The good thing is that the grind for these isn’t as difficult as other materials in the game, so getting your hands on one of these should be easy peasy as long as you follow this guide. 

So, how do you get an Orokin Catalyst? Well, there are a few ways to get an Orokin Catalyst on Warframe in 2022. Some straightforward, while some a bit more complicated. Let’s start with the easiest ones and make our way to the tedious and difficult methods.

Buy from the Market for 20 Platinum

This method is as straightforward as it looks. All you need is 20 of your precious platinum and you can buy 1 built Orokin Catalyst from the in-game market.

Don’t got any platinum? No worries! As Warframe is known for its grindy nature, you can be assured that there are plenty of free-to-play friendly methods for you which we’ll get into right away in this next method.

Nightwave System and Offerings

An alternative to spending your platinum would be to complete daily and weekly challenges from the Nightwave System. 

The Nightwave System consists of daily and weekly challenges that you can play and complete to earn Nightwave Standing, which is then utilized to rank up through Nightwave’s 30 levels. The cool thing is that with every level up, you get rewards that get better with each level, and one of these rewards is the aptly named Nightwave: a currency in Warframe that is used to purchase items from the Nightwave Offerings shop. 

You also get 1 built Orokin Catalyst at certain Nightwave ranks, namely:

  • Rank 11 – Series 1: The Wolf of Saturn Six
  • Rank 13 – Intermission I
  • Rank 9 – Intermission II
  • and Rank 5 – Intermission III

Going back to the Offerings shop, one of its purchasable items is a built Orokin Catalyst for 75 Nightwave. That may sound a lot, but it shouldn’t be hard as these daily and weekly challenges are easy in nature. In most cases, you’ll complete them just by casually playing the game. 

To access the Nightwave System, you can either go to the Main Menu, find it from the Orbiter’s Navigation console, or interact with the Orbiter’s radio scanner. 

From the Razorback Armada mission

If you’re up for a challenge, then the Razorback Armada mission is a solid method to get built Orokin Catalysts from. 

During the Razorback Armada mission, your objective would be to kill the Razorback boss. Although it may sound simple, you may find yourself struggling during your first few runs versus this boss as he has a few tricks up his sleeve. 

It’s important to note that the Razorback is immune to all damage during the start of the boss fight. In order to make him vulnerable, you’ll need to hack the marked consoles to summon a Bursa, which you’ll also need to hack for it to become your ally and make the Razorback vulnerable to your Warframe. From there, rinse and repeat 3-4 times until you eventually defeat the Razorback. 

Of course, this can be done quicker with a squad (approx. time of 3-5 mins per run), but with the right gear, it’s totally doable solo with an approx. time of 5-10 mins per run. Once you finish this mission three times, you will be rewarded 1 built Orokin Catalyst and 200k credits alongside it.

To start the Razorback Armada mission, you’ll need to complete Corpus-sided Invasion missions to reach 100% construction in your Invasion menu. You will then see a node appear next to any active Relay, followed by a message from the Lotus about the Razorback threat and a Razorback Cipher Blueprint which is required to enter the node and start the mission.

From the Fomorian Sabotage alert

Just like the Razorback Armada mission, the Fomorian Sabotage alert is a challenging task but also a solid method to get built Orokin Crystals from. 

In this alert mission, you will be in your Archwings to make your way into the Fomorian. Once inside, you or a player from your squad should activate their Fomorian Disruptor as this will cause the Fomorian to remove its power core’s shield and be vulnerable to player damage for 30-40 seconds. During this time frame, it is essential that you also target and destroy the 16 large power nodes on the core to increase your damage to the Fomorian’s power core. Why? Because in order to get 1 built Orokin Catalyst (and 200k credits) from the mission rewards, the objective is to deal 1 million damage or more to its power core. 

With a solo run, the Fomorian Sabotage mission should take you about 5-15 mins to clear, while with a squad, expect to be done in just 3-5 mins.

In contrast to the Razorback Armada mission, you will need to complete Grineer-sided Invasion missions instead to reach 100% construction in your Invasion menu and start the mission. The Fomorian Sabotage will then appear on your Star Chart menu as a mission node.

Orokin Catalyst Blueprints

Last but not the least, you can build an Orokin Catalyst using a blueprint and by combining other materials. You can obtain Orokin Catalyst blueprints from any of the following: 

  • Sortie missions
  • Daily Tribute
  • Upon completion of the Stolen Dreams quest
  • Gift of The Lotus
  • Some Tactical Alert rewards
  • And rarely from Invasion battles/missions

Once you have 1 blueprint, you can build 1 Orokin Catalyst with these materials:

  • 1x Control Module
  • 1x Gallium
  • 1x Morphics
  • 1x Orokin Cell
  • 25,500 Credits

As expected, the blueprints method is not the most straightforward method of the bunch as it won’t get you that sweet blue potato right away. However, they can be a decent alternative if you’re too early in the game to solo and complete the bosses and missions we mentioned earlier.

That concludes our Orokin Catalyst farming guide! As a bit of advice, Nightwave missions are definitely the easiest out of the bunch, so if you’re looking for an easy way out of the grind, we advise you to go for that method.