More Adventures with Phovos the Excalibur
It’s that time of year again. Actually, it’s not. Normally, in March, Phovos the Excalibur would come back to life. The baby Warframe account would do the anniversary missions, claim its free slots then leave. But lately I realized that I was missing a bunch of Warframe achievements. And the only way to get them? I had to hop on my ancient account and play there.
I’m not going to lie, it’s… a struggle.
I take so much for granted.
Mostly modding and Endo. I have so little of it! No matter how much I obtain, I am very quickly spending it on leveling up the basic mods. The 2000 endo from level 2 of Nightwave was insanely handy in helping me rank up a Serration… which I had to obtain first.
Another thing I miss is readily available energy. Once you have your Operator, even the middle point of Zenurik is a HUGE helping hand. Before that, most new players have basically no energy regeneration. I’ve been using a damaged Equilibrium for now, but it’s not enough. Most missions I do are without energy for the most part.
I have some good gear, but it doesn’t always cut it.
Luckily, Phovos the Excalibur is actually quite well equipped. He has a Vectis, the Dex Dakra and a Galatine to help guide the way. The Dex weapons in particular are excellent. Sure, their damage output isn’t amazing, but they have one upside compared to normal weapons. Thy come with Catalysts pre-installed, meaning I get double mod capacity.
And at MR4, that means a huge amount. Starting with 8 capacity in a weapon over 8 means I can at least fit in a mid-ranked Hornet Strike or Serration. At MR5, I’ll be able to fit Pressure Point into these weapons. But currently I can’t fit anything of use into new gear, which makes it very hard to, well, do many things. While one can normally get away with using unranked gear after MR9-10, below that, it’s vital to carry something leveled up so I can actually do damage.
Everything hurts.
With no energy and no way of really healing, everything really hits much harder. For example, I finished the Vox Solaris quest to unlock the last node on Venus. But despite the enemies in that mission being between 7-10, they hit like trucks. AND they’re hard to kill. While shield-gating kept me alive enough to finish the quest, that same shield-gating meant that the Corpus took double the time to kill compared to normal enemies.
That being said, Orb Vallis enemies are all-round tougher than most.
All in the name of achievements.
And I’ve got a lot to do. I need to do 10 Nightmare missions, I have to kill Tyl Regor and Kela De Thayme. And I even need to make my way to Eris to do 5 Hive missions. Tyl Regor doesn’t seem that bad. After all, I just reached Jupiter and could be going a lot faster if I’d tried. But Sedna requires me to do pretty much all of the star chart and most quests. And then farming in the arena mode to get points to even fight her once. I am SO glad that I don’t need the achievements for killing Ambulas, Mutalist Alad V or the Jordas Golem.
That being said, I have made some progress. I finished the Void Fissure and Invasion achievements I needed, and I have filled out two planets to get Nightmare missions on them.
Still, it’s a slow process. And it’s been a huge reminder of just how… awkward the early game is. I’d genuinely forgotten a lot of these struggles, so it’s been a bit of an eye-opener for me.
Still though, it makes returning to my MR30 account so much sweeter.