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What To Do After the Star Chart: Warframe Endgame Checklist (2026)
Endgame and returning-player checklist
Last Updated on September 10, 2026
Finishing the regular star chart is the halfway point, not the end. This is the order to open the real game: story quests first because they gate everything else, then Steel Path, Helminth, Archon Shards, and Incarnons. Coming back after a break? Skip to the returning-player section.
What to do next, in order
DO FIRST
Steel Path variants, Archon Hunts, Netracells, Deep Archimedea, the Duviri Circuit, and the newer Focus content are all locked behind this quest sequence, so nothing else fully opens until it's done
Do The New War first (mandatory, resets your Operator/Drifter framing), then Zariman and Duviri in either order (many prefer Duviri after New War since it references later reveals), then Whispers in the Walls, then follow the Hex chain into 1999
Requires: The New War completed
Steel Path is the actual endgame difficulty floor. It drops Steel Essence (needed for Weapon Arcane Adapters), more endo, and gates the harder mission variants that later systems build on
Clear essentially every connected star chart node from before The New War (Mutalist Alad V, Jordas Golem Assassination, and Brutus are exempted, and Duviri/Zariman/Hex nodes are not required), then find Teshin at any Relay and ask about "Steel Path?"
Requires: All Star Chart nodes accessible before The New War completed, including quest-locked ones (Tyana Pass, Ropalolyst, Saya's Visions, all Lua and Kuva Fortress nodes); Speak to Teshin at any Relay and choose 'Steel Path?'; For the Duviri Steel Path node specifically: The Duviri Paradox plus its three base nodes cleared in normal mode
Helminth grafts one warframe's ability onto another, which is how most endgame builds patch a weak 4th ability or add survivability and CC. It's a permanent build upgrade across your whole roster
Complete Heart of Deimos, reach Mastery Rank 8+ and Associate rank with Entrati, then buy the Helminth Segment Blueprint from Son for 15,000 standing and build/install it in your Orbiter
Requires: Heart of Deimos completed; Entrati syndicate Rank 3 (Associate) to buy the Helminth Segment from Son; Helminth Segment built (Mastery Rank 8)
Learn void fissures and relic cracking properly
This is the core gearing loop for the rest of the game. Nearly every Prime frame and weapon comes from cracking relics, and doing it inefficiently wastes hundreds of hours
Run Void Fissure missions matching your relic's tier (Lith/Meso/Neo/Axi), collect 10 Reactant, and crack in a full squad running the same radiant relic for roughly a 34 percent shot at the rare drop instead of a 10 percent solo shot
DO SOON
Archon Shards are the main stat upgrade for your frames, including Tauforged versions for bigger bonuses, and the hunt is the most reliable weekly source
Complete Veilbreaker (unlocked after The New War) to get shard slots, then clear the rotating 3-mission Archon Hunt every week, chasing the color tied to that week's Archon (Amar, Nira, or Boreal)
Requires: Archon Hunts (or Netracells/Deep Archimedea) completed for shard drops; Helminth Archon Shard Segment installed (granted by completing Veilbreaker)
Incarnon adapters turn cheap early weapons into legitimate Steel Path damage dealers and are one of the best time-to-power systems in the game
Play Circuit on Steel Path difficulty, pick 2 of the 5 rotating adapters offered before the run (awarded at rank 5 and rank 10), or buy older ones from Cavalero's Incarnon Market with platinum
Requires: Steel Path Circuit access; An Incarnon Genesis Adapter earned from a Tier 5/10 Steel Path Circuit reward; Ownership of the specific base weapon that week's adapter targets
Build standing with the open-world syndicates: Ostron (Cetus), Solaris United (Fortuna), Cavia (Deimos), Holdfasts (Zariman), and the Hex (1999)
Each one gates specific Arcanes, mods, and weapons. Cavia rank 5 specifically is required just to queue Netracells and Deep Archimedea
Run bounties in the Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, Cambion Drift, the Zariman, and the Hex district, turning in resources and tokens between runs to push rank
Requires: Mastery Rank 3 to unlock the Syndicates console on the Orbiter; Prior to MR3, only Conclave and Ostron (Cetus) can be joined via their Relay field representatives
Operator focus passives and Amp damage matter for Eidolons, the Zariman, and general survivability once you're past the star chart
Unlock the Operator via The Second Dream, get Amp parts from the Quills after Saya's Vigil, then pick a school based on playstyle (Zenurik for energy economy, Naramon for melee and stealth) and pour focus points in
Galvanized mods scale damage hard and are cheap in Vitus Essence. The general advice is to grind them before pushing deep into Steel Path rather than after
Run Arbitration alert missions (any enemy level works, they rotate on their own timer), then buy mods with Vitus Essence from the Arbiters of Hexis vendor in any Relay
Requires: Completion of a task in the Pluto to Eris Junction (loosened from a full star chart clear as of Update 39); Rank 30 Warframe or MR30 player with a once-polarized Warframe
Forma resets a slot's polarity and is required constantly to make weapons and frames viable for Steel Path, Incarnon, and Arcane builds. Running dry on it stalls every other system
Farm Forma blueprints from Orb Vallis bounties, Nightwave, Baro Ki'Teer, and clan research, and always keep one building in the Foundry, prioritizing Steel Path and Incarnon weapons first
WHEN READY
Eidolons drop some of the game's most impactful universal Arcanes (Energize, Guardian) and large chunks of Focus via Eidolon Shards
Finish The Second Dream, The War Within, and Saya's Vigil, then bring 3+ charged lures (4+ for Gantulyst/Hydrolyst) onto the Plains of Eidolon at night, trading Sentient Cores to Onkko for standing
Another major Arcane and standing source, and a solid gear check before Steel Path bosses
Build standing with Solaris United, bring the required Amp tier for each phase, and run the bounty chain that unlocks the Profit-Taker fight
Weapon Arcanes are a full extra damage or utility layer stacked on top of mods, and Acolytes have a 100 percent drop chance for them
Buy a Weapon Arcane Adapter from Teshin for 15 Steel Essence per weapon, then kill Acolytes, which spawn periodically inside Steel Path missions (21 copies needed to rank an Arcane to 5)
Unlock Railjack through Rising Tide
Railjack gates the Kuva Lich and Sister of Parvos final confrontations and has its own reward loop: Void storms, Empyrean rewards, and its own Intrinsics leveling
Complete The War Within, have your clan build a Dry Dock, run Rising Tide to assemble the ship, then finish the power-source mission on Lua before proper Railjack missions unlock
Requires: The War Within completed
Hunt Kuva Liches and Sisters of Parvos
They're the only source of certain high-roll Kuva and Tenet weapons, plus weapon Arcanes and Ephemeras
For a Lich: be Mastery Rank 5+ with The War Within done, spawn a Larvling in a level 30+ Grineer mission, spare or kill it, then track and finish the Lich with a Railjack confrontation at Intrinsics rank 5. For a Sister: finish Call of the Tempestarii plus The War Within, and get a Zenith Granum Crown from a Corpus Treasurer
Requires: Completed The Deadlock Protocol (Mastery Rank 4, Saturn Junction); Completed Call of the Tempestarii (requires owning a Railjack and the Reliquary Key retrieved during Deadlock Protocol)
Netracells are a repeatable endgame vault mission with better shard odds than the weekly Archon Hunt, and share the same weekly Search Pulse currency as Deep Archimedea
Hit Cavia rank 5 or higher in the Sanctum Anatomica on Deimos, then spend Search Pulses (5 granted per week) entering Netracells through the "Enter the Anchorhold" option
Requires: Archon Hunts (or Netracells/Deep Archimedea) completed for shard drops; Helminth Archon Shard Segment installed (granted by completing Veilbreaker)
Legendary melee Arcanes (Melee Crescendo, Melee Duplicate) only drop here, and it's the closest thing the game has to a true difficulty ceiling right now
With Cavia rank 5+, run the 3-mission Deep Archimedea gauntlet on one fixed loadout, banking Research Points toward the higher reward caches, then move to Elite Archimedea once comfortable
Coming back to Warframe? Start here
Away About 1 year
What changed while you were gone:
- Update 40 (Oct 2025): Nokko warframe, a new Deepmines tileset in Fortuna, and a full Oberon rework
- Update 41: The Old Peace (Dec 10, 2025): Uriel warframe, The Old Peace quest, the Descendia/Perita Rebellion mode, cosmetic Honoria titles, and a Focus expansion adding Tektolyst Artifacts (a new moddable slot with Antique Mods) plus 5 new Focus nodes per school
- Update 42: The Shadowgrapher (March 25, 2026): Follie warframe, a new mode set in the destroyed Vesper Relay, an Awakening quest remaster, new Adversary weapons, Requiem Eterna relics, and more Riven Sliver purchase options
- Update 43: Jade Shadows: Constellations (June 17, 2026): a sequel quest to Jade Shadows, two new Protoframes (Ryoku and Vena), a new Railjack Proxima location, and a Nidus ability retouch
- Narin, the second cold-element frame after Frost, is releasing September 23, 2026, right around when you're getting back in
- The Focus tree has moved since you left; you likely have unclaimed nodes and the new Tektolyst Artifact slot to fill
Your first moves back:
- Log in and clear any expiring login rewards or Nightwave standing first
- Skim patch notes from Update 40 onward, especially if you main Oberon or Nidus, both got reworked
- Open the Focus screen and claim the new Update 41 nodes plus Tektolyst Artifacts
- Check the Railjack star map for the new Proxima node added in Update 43
- Play The Old Peace and Jade Shadows: Constellations quests (the original Jade Shadows quest is a prerequisite)
- Grab this week's Circuit Incarnon Genesis rotation, there are 5 new adapters since Update 43
- Clear a frame slot and save up credits/plat ahead of Narin's September 23 launch
Away 2 to 3 years
What changed while you were gone:
- The Duviri Paradox (April 2023): a full open-world roguelite hub, the Drifter, the Incarnon Genesis system, and the Circuit game mode
- Whispers in the Walls (December 2023): the Cavia syndicate and Sanctum Anatomica on Deimos, plus the Netracells mission type
- Jade Shadows (June 2024, Update 36): new frame Jade, a Stalker-centric quest, and the Ascension mission type
- Warframe 1999 (December 2024, Update 38): the Hex faction and its quest chain, plus several new mission types
- Techrot Encore (March 2025): Temple warframe, four new Protoframes, and the Technocyte Coda infested boss
- Isleweaver (May 2025, Update 39): a new Duviri-landscape game mode
- Sisters of Parvos-era additions: primary and secondary weapon Arcanes, obtainable from Acolytes
- Everything in the 1-year bracket above (Updates 40 through 43, three more new frames, Focus/Railjack expansions)
Your first moves back:
- Run the quest catch-up chain in release order: Duviri Paradox, Whispers in the Walls, the Hex/1999 chain, Jade Shadows, the Old Peace, Jade Shadows: Constellations
- Unlock the Cavia syndicate right after Whispers and run a few Netracells as a gear check
- Try the Duviri Circuit for free Incarnon Genesis adapters, cheap and one of the best power spikes you're missing
- Rebuild your Focus tree, multiple nodes and a new artifact slot have been added since 2023
- Check current relic vaulting and trade prices before spending plat, a lot of Primes have rotated
- Learn Galvanized mods and weapon Arcanes if you don't have them, both are new-to-you power layers
- Skim the current Steel Path reward list and Arbitration vendor stock, it's changed since 2023-2024
Away 4+ years
What changed while you were gone:
- The New War (December 2021): the mandatory story quest that reframes the Operator/Drifter and unlocks nearly everything after it
- Angels of the Zariman (April 2022): a new open area, Void Angels, and Zariman/Holdfasts standing
- The Duviri Paradox (April 2023): an entirely new open-world hub, the Incarnon system, and the Circuit
- Whispers in the Walls (December 2023): Cavia syndicate, Netracells, and Deep Archimedea's precursor content
- Jade Shadows (2024) and Warframe 1999 (2024): two new content eras and factions, including the Hex
- Techrot Encore and Isleweaver (2025), plus Updates 40 through 43 in 2025-2026 with several more new frames
- The Helminth system, if you left before August 2020 you won't have it yet; it's now central to build-making
- Focus has been reworked multiple times since the original version, current schools and rewards look nothing like what you left
Your first moves back:
- Treat this as relearning the game past The Second Dream: work the quest gauntlet in release order, New War, Zariman, Duviri, Whispers, the Hex/1999 chain, Jade Shadows, Techrot Encore, the Old Peace, Jade Shadows: Constellations
- Expect your old gear to be power-crept; check a current tier list before investing forma or plat into old favorites
- Unlock Helminth if you don't have it (Heart of Deimos quest plus Entrati standing)
- Aim toward Steel Path, it's now the real endgame difficulty and most guides assume you're working toward it
- Rebuild Focus from scratch mentally, don't assume your old school choice or point totals still apply
- Cetus and Fortuna standing you already have probably caps out; Deimos, Zariman, and Hex standing are entirely new to you
- Use Baro Ki'Teer and Nightwave over the next few weeks to catch up on Arcanes and mods you missed while away
Related
- Progression map: what unlocks what
- Weekly checklist
- Best frames for Steel Path
- Helminth guide
- Archon Shards guide
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