A Little To-Do List before visiting the Plains of Eidolon

“I’m very excited now. The anticipation. Ooh. I always learn so much… from a live dissection.” – Tyl Regor

The smooth-voiced Grineer scientist’s thoughts have been echoing around the Warframe community ever since the Plains of Eidolon was announced. And yes, there will probably be a lot of dissecting (well, vivisecting, to use the proper term) going on as everyone uncovers secrets and stuff. Now, with a deadline so close, everyone’s so excited and that excitement is hard to contain. Of course, there’s going to be tons of players, old and new, all rushing around Earth, but not all of us are going to be prepared.

So here’s a little to-do list of things that are worth doing before you jump right in. I’ll be splitting this between newbies and slightly more experienced players.

For New Players

Look for Vitality, Serration, Hornet Strike and Pressure Point and level them up with endo*. These mods are the most basic mods that you’ll need and you’ll be using them throughout your time in Warframe. You don’t need to completely level up these mods (and most likely won’t be able to) but they are the most important ones. Other mods worth leveling up are Flow, Intensify, Streamline, Redirection, Steel Fiber, Reach and Fury. Do not bother with broken mods.

Learn a bit about mobility. Bullet jumping in particular (crouch or slide then jump) is incredibly useful for traveling long distances, but things like wall jumps and rolling will help as well. There’s a tutorial available which allows you to practice movement on a short course, accessible via the Codex, the terminal opposite the marketplace in your ship.

Get yourself an Archwing. The Plains of Eidolon are going to be quite big. And even if you pick Volt as your starter character (which isn’t the wisest choice but he’s definitely not a bad pick), you don’t want to be running everywhere. The Archwing quest is available via the Mars junction and is a short quest in which you obtain the first Archwing, the Odonata. Keep in mind that an Archwing requires 12 hours per part to build and 1 day to completely assemble.

Build a Taxon. The Taxon is a floating robot companion who freezes enemies for you. Taxon also comes with the Vacuum mod, enabling you to suck up loot. This will save you running around like a ninny AND it will help slow down enemies who might sneak up on you. Don’t get a Kubrow. They’re just not as useful to a newbie.

Get your favourite items to level 30. Kinda obvious, but this means you can put more mods in your weapons and Warframes. Getting items to level 30 also helps increase your mastery rank. Once you get to Mastery Rank 2, you can trade with other players.

For More Experienced Players

Get yourself an Amesha or Itzal. These Archwings are the Trinity and Loki of the Archwing world. Iztal allows super fast teleporting all over the place, while Amesha essentially gives you immortality at the push of a button, as well as energy regen, healing, status proc resistance and all that nice stuff.

Get more Focus. Despite the fact that the Focus system is changing, it’s still worth doing a few Eximus Stronghold sorties a few times to get more focus. Any focus and lenses you have are going to be completely refunded, so that Unairu lens you stuck on your favourite weapon because you didn’t know any better hasn’t gone completely to waste.

Complete the Second Dream and the War Within. The big scary monsters come out at night, and it’s been hinted that we definitely will need the so-called spoilers to deal with them. So if you want to go Eidolon hunting, you’ve got things to do.

For Everyone

Stock up on polymer bundles. Polymer bundles are what you use to make Energy Pads. With the changes to the focus system and no one knowing just how regularly enemies will drop loot, it’s good to always have some energy pads on hand. Even the small energy pads, which release 25 energy per burst, can be helpful for that quick escape.

Find weapons you like and use them. Most people I think will be on the plains for quite a while, and I have no idea what’s involved when it comes to changing your load out. Most likely, you’ll have to return to Cetus to do so. So make sure you’re happy with the weapon, rather than constantly changing your loadout. Plus, most of the enemies are going to be Grineer, so you’ll mostly be looking at Corrosive damage anyway.

Take a Warframe that you like. Same as above. And honestly, taking someone for mobility might not be that amazing. Valkyr with her riplines will probably be a lot of fun. Volt’s speed boost will be handy. But since everyone’s going to have Archwing available to them, then you will be better off playing who you’re comfortable with.

Have fun! This one’s obvious. Just remember that nothing this big has ever released smoothly. So stay calm, take your time and enjoy yourself.

One last thing.

If any readers here are looking into getting into Warframe, then I’ll happily supply you with the basic mods Vitality, Serration, Hornet Strike, Pressure Point and one other mod when you get to Mastery Rank 2, the level required to trade. If you are interested, leave a comment on this article or message me in-game when I’m online (IGN: Retvik), and I’ll whisk you away to a trading post. And if you don’t have enough credits, then we can do a few runs of Romula, Seimeni, Cobra or some other similar mission to get some credits.

See you in Cetus, Tenno!