SabreWalrus

The "secret" 60 Eyes boss is spawned on the new Assassination node on Deimos - Effervo. The mission only requires you to gather 30 Eyes, however if you continue collecting up to 60 Eyes, you will spawn the super boss rather than its regular variant. It's very tanky with pretty devastating special attacks that keep you on your toes as it is imperative that you avoid them - they cannot be face-tanked.

I find this an immensely fun boss fight, to the degree that I don't want to give too much unsolicited advice because I think it's great if people experience it and figure it out for themselves. However if anyone would like some general pointers to help them prepare before tackling it, I have some below:

The first most threatening part of the fight is catching Magnetic procs - This mostly occurs when the boss performs a frontal melee slam with a wide area of effect, but the snake Murmur ads are a frequent source as well. If you go into the fight assuming that you will not dodge perfectly and it is inevitable that some these attacks will catch you, you can prepare and build around preventing/recovering from it - Arcane Nullifier will prevent Magnetic procs and preserve your energy, and Rolling Guard is a quick status cleanse plus 3 seconds of invulnerability to reposition and recover. The Wyrm companion also has its Negate precept to prevent status effects

The second most threatening part of the fight is having your abilities dispelled and being unable to cast for a few seconds - This occurs when the boss's spinning laser attack hits you. Typically the first laser will hit you with the nullifier effect, then the second will swing around and one-shot your vulnerable health while you are unable to cast. Rolling Guard is a very effective panic/invulnerability button to protect yourself and recover from a laser hit. If you assume that getting hit at some point is inevitable, then you can prepare for frequent and inevitable re-casts of your defensive and offensive abilities and allow for a good energy economy

The first phase of the fight has very few ads - just a random Eximus every now and then - This means the first phase is where you are most likely to run out of energy and/or ammo. Incarnon weapons with their free ammo from their Incarnon forms, or battery weapons that cannot run out of ammo, can prevent this being a problem. Energy can be managed by not catching constant Magnetic procs and not building deeply into negative efficiency

The second phase of the fight has far more ads - This is good, because if you have effective area clearing you are provided with far more energy orbs, ammo, and Arcane/Galvanized stacks. However, this is also bad, because it can make the fight very chaotic and distract you from watching the boss and dodging its special attacks

There are no self revives, like in Archon hunts - Prioritise reviving your teammates. If you go down yourself, you can go into Last Gasp to prolong your bleedout timer even if you don't think you have a chance at pulling off a self-revive, but make sure to put a waypoint on your downed Warframe to help your teammates find it in the clusterfuck chaos

Stay mobile and stay focused - Once you have a feel for the fight and the boss's attacks, the biggest deciding factor is your own consistency in not getting caught out and not going down. Move lots, dodge everything you can, and try not to tunnel vision on ads and take your eyes off the boss for too long. Remember that the boss is always the main focus and the ads are just a distraction

IN ACTION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a85BcHCOtiY

Smite Mag is like Energy Vampire Trinity with extra steps. The biggest upside is that Mag's kit brings more to the table with crowd control and armour strip. The biggest downside is that the Smite & Magnetize combo needs the player to be Host, as the jank is just too high when Client to the point of not working at all

Counter Pulse and Arcane Aegis are flex slots

With a cast-heavy setup energy can quickly become an issue

The way it works is that Smite generates a bunch of orbs that do damage equal to 35% of the target's health. Magnetize traps those orbs, applies a damage multiplier, and forces them to all return and damage the isolated target as they can't escape the bubble. It needs armour strip as the orbs are not true damage. Viral will buff the orb damage

A level 9999 Thrax Centurion has approximately 9.5 million health, and approximately 15 million Overguard. Due to the damage buff of Viral not applying to Overguard, a certain amount of overkill is required to make sure the damage you're generating from the health will get through the Overguard - this is where the damage multiplier of Magnetize and Vigorous Swap helps. The jank always persists - sometimes Smite orbs will keep orbiting inside Magnetize and not return to the target, and in live gameplay you're always at risk of another unit being sucked into the bubble and taking some of the orbs. You want to know that each orb is doing as much damage as possible when it makes contact

Viral helps damage against the Thrax's health, but most importantly it helps against the Spectral form. You will see in the footage, that an orange crit headshot with Raplak, buffed by 10 Viral stacks, is enough to oneshot a level 9999 Spectral form while using Vazarin (the one focus school that has no way to buff its own damage). Level cap Spectral forms have approximately 3.5 million health

You can use a budget Smite combo with any frame with a Void bubble proc, but it doesn't work anywhere near as well

Mag's entire kit is extremely good for Cascade - using Smite is a fun interaction but it's not required. Pull is excellent for pulling enemies into Exolizer circles. Magnetize is CC and a damage buff - it will benefit any single target Thrax killing weapons as well as dealing with crowds of trash easily (Nullifiers aside). Polarize is a natural shield gating ability, made better by using the Counter Pulse augment to add some CC and breathing room. Crush pretty much always wants its augment, but is an excellent low strength armour strip, CC, and shield gating ability

LINK TO GUIDE (Google Doc): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HiI9m0snsYnymzDFdwssv2Ov8wiT5MDyvkzuSP8d-as/edit?usp=sharing

The guide contains a lot of information, but it keeps wordcount to a minimum and I've done my best to present it in an easily digestible way.

The aim of the guide is to describe the strategies and tactics that work best, and why they work best, rather than just saying to equip X, Y, and Z mods. It's mostly aimed at inexperienced to intermediate players of the game mode, but there might be things in it that even experienced players weren't aware of. Likewise if you read this guide and think of something I've missed or something I've got wrong, please let me know. I aim to always keep it up to date.

Why play Void Cascade?

Have you reached a point where you're geared to the teeth, and you don't feel like enemies or missions provide much challenge? Are you yearning for some difficulty? End game?

Void Cascade is one of the fastest scaling missions in the game, so you can test yourself against very high level enemies without having to spend half the day sitting at your computer/console. An organised team can reach level 1000 in ~30 mins, and level 9999 in ~1hr. A solo player can reach level 1000 in ~1hr, and level 9999 in ~1hr 30 mins.

The mission is very fast paced. It's not just about killing enemies - objective management is extremely important, which means moving around and never camping in a corner.

It demands a lot of the player - fully geared weapons, Warframe, and Operator/Drifter. You get to stress test a full loadout.

Thrax drop Zariman Arcanes, which are a staple in many modern builds and help to broaden options beyond expensive Eidolon Arcanes. Steel Path doubles the drop chance, and a Mod Drop Chance Booster will double it again.

It's one of the few missions in the game that directly benefits from organised teamwork - it's a great mission to play with friends, and to form new friendships in.

You do not have to play until level cap - enemy levels hit 1000 at 65 Exolizers, which is where you enter the territory of health/armour and damage reduction builds hitting the mathematical wall of impossibility (even 1% of the damage enemies deal is enough to kill you). For maximum loadout variety, there's nothing wrong with aiming for 64 Exolizers (four C rotations) and extracting to reset.

Differences between Void Cascade and Disruption

Void Cascade and Disruption are similar in that you have mission objective points on the map (Exolizers/Conduits), and tough boss units to kill (Thrax/Demolishers). Otherwise the missions can be very different.

The easiest way to explain it is that Disruption is a mission that you make happen - you choose when to put in Conduit keys, and you control the pace. Void Cascade is a mission that happens to you, and it's up to you to react to the situation and manage the objective. A minimum level of speed is expected from the player in Cascade.

Both missions benefit from players splitting up to progress the mission objective more quickly and effectively. Void Cascade on average scales twice as fast as Disruption (~1hr vs ~2hrs to level cap in a team, ~1.5hrs vs ~3hrs solo)

Disruption gear-checks you in your ability to kill Demolishers. They can be Crowd Controlled with Cold procs, Magus Lockdown, and Warframe abilities between nullifier pulses. They have innate damage reduction. Some are immune to Viral and some aren't. You can use Faction mods for the Demolishers' factions.

Void Cascade also gear-checks you in your ability to kill Thrax - not only their Physical form but also their Spectral form. Their physical form has Overguard, so they cannot be Crowd Controlled until it's broken, and your damage will not benefit from Viral until it's broken. There are currently no Faction mods for them. Only Operator/Drifter Amp damage will kill their Spectral form.

Disruption teaches you methods of killing single target boss units effectively, and the majority of Demolisher-killing builds will transfer to Thrax with varied success. However, the bread and butter staples of Disruption - Epitaph and Vazarin - are detrimental to your ability to kill Thrax in Void Cascade. The playstyles of the two game modes are transferable in some ways, and not in others.

Overall, Void Cascade is a less forgiving mission that asks more of the player in order to succeed - hence the guide. In my subjective opinion, it's also way more fun.

Glaives are frisbees cosplaying as melee weapons. You hold your melee button to throw it, and press your heavy attack button to manually detonate an explosion while it's midair. The manual detonations pack a punch, and different glaives have different forced effects on the manual detonations, from forced status procs to disarming enemies.

Once manually detonating, the glaive will instantly return to you. To chain throws (and make use of the mod Power Throw), you hold down your throw button again as the glaive returns to you. Your Warframe will catch it and instantly throw it out again. You'll know the chain is successful because the throwing animation changes. You can see a video of chained throws in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjmrwYkhqo

Glaive Prime is notorious for being a strong Steel Path weapon. It's usually pretty expensive platinum wise, and is highly recommended and sought after. But it's not the only glaive in the game, and it's not the best choice for every situation.

I've put together some situational build variety below, and spent time in the Simulacrum to lay out the numbers for comparison:

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I want an all-round build that will deal with all factions on basic Steel Path:

Glaive Prime 2 Forma required

You can expect basic Corpus units, most Infested, and weaker armoured Grineer to die from the initial damage of the manual detonation. The forced Bleed DoTs will clean up tougher units.

Forced Bleed DoT Damage:

• Yellow crit: 17k
• Orange crit: 32k

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Kuva Heavy Gunner)

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I want to specialise against Grineer:

Glaive Prime 2 Forma required

You don't like to, or aren't expecting to chain throws. You're expecting the Bleed DoTs to do heavy lifting.

Forced Bleed DoT Damage:

• Yellow crit: 41k
• Orange crit: 76k

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Kuva Heavy Gunner)

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I'm doing endurance. I want the highest possible damage I can get against Grineer:

Glaive Prime 2 Forma required

Enemies can take multiple hits, Bleed DoTs might take a few ticks, and you're happy chaining throws to make use of Power Throw to boost your damage.

Forced Bleed DoT Damage:

0 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 32k
• Orange crit: 56k

1 Power Throw Stack

• Yellow crit: 63k
• Orange crit: 112k

2 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 95k
• Orange crit: 168k

3 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 126k
• Orange crit: 224k

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Kuva Heavy Gunner)

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I want to specialise against Corpus, but I don't have a Faction mod:

Cerata 3 Forma required

You're going all in on Toxin damage to bypass Corpus shields. You want high upfront damage, where the Toxin DoTs will clean up tougher units.

Forced Toxin DoT Damage:

• Yellow crit: 40k
• Orange crit: 72k

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Juno Tech Eximus)

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I want to specialise against Corpus, and I have a Faction mod:

Cerata 3 Forma required

You're going all in on Toxin damage to bypass Corpus shields. You want the highest upfront damage as you can get, where you're expecting the Toxin DoTs to do heavy lifting.

Forced Toxin DoT Damage:

• Yellow crit: 190k
• Orange crit: 336k

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Juno Tech Eximus)

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I'm doing endurance. I want the highest possible damage I can get against Corpus:

Cerata 3 Forma required

Enemies can take multiple hits, Toxin DoTs might take a few ticks, and you're happy chaining throws to make use of Power Throw to boost your damage.

Forced Toxin DoT Damage:

0 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 72k
• Orange crit: 127k

1 Power Throw Stack

• Yellow crit: 144k
• Orange crit: 254k

2 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 216k
• Orange crit: 381k

3 Power Throw Stacks

• Yellow crit: 288k
• Orange crit: 508k*

(Numbers are against the health of a lvl 185 SP Juno Tech Eximus)

*The SP Juno Tech Eximus instantly dies from the detonation damage before I can see the DoT. However, the previous numbers show that each Power Throw stack increases the DoT on orange crits by 127k

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I'm doing long Steel Path fissures where the majority of enemies will be Corrupted:

Do you have armour strip?

No - Glaive Prime 2 Forma required

Yes - Cerata 3 Forma required

Yes - Xoris (or Falcor) 4 Forma required

Xoris and Falcor have forced Electric DoTs on their heavy attacks, which work just as well against armour stripped units as Toxin does. So for variety, feel free to use Xoris or Falcor. You can also slot Primed Fever Strike instead of Shocking Touch/Power Throw for Corrosive damage on the manual explosion, though your DoTs will be smaller.

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Other glaives to try:

Xoris, with a 12x combo build - Utilising Volatile Rebound, the aim of a build like this is to throw the Xoris, and let it bounce between enemies while never manually detonating it. The damage comes from the initial thrown hit, and the automatic explosion from Volatile Rebound. This builds up combo, which Xoris maintains indefinitely, and lets it benefit from Blood Rush and Weeping Wounds. There is some preference whether you want to lean into making this build a status spreader and primer, or a main damage dealer.

Falcor - this glaive is similar to Xoris in that it has a forced Electric proc on manual detonation. It has lower crit chance but higher status chance than Xoris, and higher Electricity damage on the manual detonation, which leads to a bigger forced Electric DoT. It has a smaller detonation radius, but faster flight speed and automatic homing - so long as you throw it in the general direction of an enemy, it will hit it (this is either a good or a bad thing depending on how much you want to manually aim for heavy attack detonations). The automatic homing and higher on-hit thrown damage can also make it a good pick for a bouncing 12x build, but it won't enjoy the endless combo that Xoris does.

Pathocyst - this Infested glaive has a forced Viral proc on manual detonation, and innate Viral damage on thrown hits with good status chance. Can be used as a Viral primer.

Halikar - both this and its Wraith variant can disarm on manual detonation. It offers utility and a soft form of crowd control.

Kestrel - it knocks over and ragdolls enemies on manual detonation. Again, utility and crowd control.

Orvius - it does forced Cold procs on its manual detonation. With a "light" throw (hold down the throw button for less time than a "full" throw) it will pick up an enemy and make them hover for a short while. Some utility and crowd control, but not terribly useful.

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FAQ:

Why Sacrificial Pressure instead of Primed Pressure Point? Increasing Sacrificial Steel's critical chance increases the chance of orange crits. Orange crits are a bigger damage buff than the extra base damage of PPP.

Why is Corrupt Charge only rank 2? At rank 2, you have enough initial combo for 2x combo multiplier. That 1 point of capacity can be the difference between an extra forma or not. Ranking it up to 3 is personal preference.

What is "Basic Steel Path"? Steel Path up to the first C rotation, i.e. no longer than 20 minutes in a Survival.

What defines "Endurance"? Any longer run in an endless mission, typically up to level cap. Slower scaling in missions like Survival mean you may be a few hours in and still a long way off level cap, so you can't always measure it by time spent. I'd start strongly suggesting Faction mods by enemy levels 1000+

I don't like chaining throws, do I have to use Power Throw? Nope. Viral priming with Gladiator Might will do you fine with Glaive Prime, and Power Throw has to work harder to beat Primed Fever Strike on Cerata. However back-to-back throws with Power Throw lets you get away with less Viral priming.

Are Faction mods worth it? For endurance, yes. Look at the number differences.

What should I look for in a Glaive Prime Riven? Initial Combo is the most desirable stat, as if it's high enough to replace Corrupt Charge then any other stats such as Damage, Critical Chance, or Critical Damage on the Riven are an outright bonus. If you run with Gladiator Might, then Critical Damage with other beneficial stats can replace Gladiator Might instead. Glaive Prime's Riven disposition is low enough that you need to make sure the Riven's stats are high enough to be worth replacing anything else on the build.

What should I look for in a Cerata Riven? Initial Combo, as with Glaive Prime above. Or decently high Toxin Damage, so you can replace Primed Fever Strike and have bonus stats like Critical Chance, Critical Damage, or Initial Combo. Or a high enough roll vs Corpus, so you can replace the Faction mod and have bonus stats - Cerata has a high enough disposition to about match Primed Smite Corpus, roll variety depending.

Do I need a Riven for Glaive Prime/Cerata? No. They're perfectly strong without.

What about Infested? Make another config and slot in their Faction mods if you have them and want to use them. Generally Infested are pretty squishy and damage output is not your concern going up against them - things like Disruptor energy drain and Toxin damage are your main concerns. However, in endurance runs, Faction mods will help a lot against Overguard.

I still see lots of general misinformation around the speed of scaling in various missions, so this is purely for info/reference.

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SP Void Cascade

When: 107 Exolizers

How long?

Approximately 1 hour in a team

Approximately 1.5 hours solo

The level scaling is determined by the number of Exolizers completed, not time spent in the mission, which means player performance affects the speed. Competent attacking to purge each Exolizer as it spawns, paired with competent defending to make sure no purged Exolizers are re-possessed, means a faster scaling mission.

Why: Thrax spawn more frequently beyond 16 Exolizers, which encourages longer runs for Arcane farming. Also for build stress tests, and fun.

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SP Circuit

When: Round 18

How long?

Approximately 1.5 hours in a team - depends on player's loadouts

Approximately 2 hours solo - depends a lot on loadout

The level scaling is determined by the rounds completed, which means the quicker players get through the rounds, the quicker it scales. Clearing Void Flood, Exterminate, and Defense quickly, and successfully defending Excavators, makes a faster run.

Why: There are bonus points awarded at Round 4, and at Round 5 and beyond the points per round increase. This encourages longer runs. With more decrees collected making players much stronger there's also the chance that rounds go by much more quickly once you're further in. Also, for fun.

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SP Disruption

When: Round 45

How long?

Approximately 2 hours in a team

Approximately 3 hours solo

The level scaling is determined by the rounds completed, which means player performance affects the speed. The faster players kill enemies, acquire conduit keys, put in said keys, and find and kill the Demolishers, the quicker the rounds go and the quicker it scales.

Why: Disruption can appear as a fissure, with scaling buffs to resources per relic opened (such as Steel Essence and tileset materials). This encourages longer runs. Also for build stress tests, and fun.

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SP Survival

When: Approximately 8 hours

Survival, unlike the others listed above, does rely on time spent in the mission, as every 5 minutes counts as a "round" and this cannot be sped up.

Why: Like Disruption, Survival can appear as a fissure, with scaling buffs to resources per relic opened, which encourages longer runs. Also for build stress tests, and fun.

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Level cap = level 9999 enemies

As a general rule, health/armour and damage reduction tanking falls off at around level 1000 enemies, as they start dealing too much damage for you to reliably tank through. You can generally expect to encounter level 1000 in half the time/rounds it takes to reach level cap in your chosen mission. There are some specialised damage reduction builds that can go further, and may hit different walls at 3000, 6000, or 9000.

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How frequently are people reaching level cap?

You are generally unlikely to find players willing to commit the 8 hours it takes to reach level cap in a Survival. However, there will be many players willing to commit the 1-2 hours it takes to reach level cap in Void Cascade, Circuit, and Disruption.

Aznvasions recently released a video covering a shadow buff to Ash's Bladestorm - the tl;dr is that it now acts as a proper pseudo-exalted, where lots of melee mods affect it. While there has been a Savage Silence Bladestorm build knocking around for a good while, this is an overall buff where you can access higher damage with less effort: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRSejZ0zniQ

I of course wanted to test this on Zariman Thrax since I'm stocked up on Mod Boosters and love trying new things. The result was simply slapping the Thrax with a wet noodle, as recorded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5z2pnWUZFM

You can see how the Grineer are easily one-shot when Silence isn't active, but it has no noticeable effect on the Thrax and takes forever to chew through their Overguard. Once Silence is active, it does some damage, but not a lot. If it's so slow at base SP levels, it will only get worse at higher levels as their Overguard increases. Therefore, not really a viable option

Even though there are no Banes for Thrax, and Overguard isn't affected by Viral's damage boost, the damage disparity was wild enough that I went into the Simulacrum to try and see what's up. The result is that Thrax seem to have an innate resistance to finishers/finisher damage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RheS5nPKg4s

You can see that without Silence active, Bladestorm performs its animation fine on the Grineer Eximus and takes a chunk out of their Overguard. Meanwhile the on-hit clone damage does absolutely no noticeable damage to the Thrax's Overguard. Once Silence is active, Bladestorm one-shots the Grineer Eximus, and it does some damage to the Thrax's Overguard, but still not a lot

This remains true even when the Thrax's Overguard is gone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsbFGBlafvg

No damage without Silence, pitiful damage with Silence

tl;dr: Bladestorm is a fantastic trash killer, but still not effective against Thrax or Demolishers