WARNING - SPOILER ALERT!
This article contains spoilers - if you have not yet completed THE SECOND DREAM and THE WAR WITHIN quests do NOT continue reading
Hunting the bosses on Plains of Eidolon is both fun and rewarding - but also challenging at first. The bosses drops Arcanes, that will add extra power to your warframes, Sentient Cores that can be traded for rank with The Quills in Cetus and Eidolon Shards that can be converted to large amount of Focus.
Notice that the bosses on Plains of Eidolon have a shield that can not be damaged by your usual weapons; you must finish the quests The Second Dream and The War Within to gain access to your operator abilities. You should also do the quest Saya's Vigil as this will introduce you to The Quills, where you can buy blueprints for Amps and Arcanes, which make the fights much faster and easier.
Warframes
Until you learn the fight I recommend you bring Rhino (Prime) as his Iron Skin will help you survive some of the damage and his Roar ability gives a DPS buf to nearby allies. Mod for strength and range.
Volt is very good at dealing damage to the Eidolon bosses as his Electric Shield will give you a damage boost and a very large critical damage boost. Notice: Both the Amp and regular weapons get a damage buff by shooting through Volts shields - allies should also use the shields to boost damage! Mod for duration and efficiency.
Chroma is the best damage dealer and can basicly one-shot the limbs of the Teralyst; this however require that you first do selv damage with e.g. a Cerata or any other weapon that ignores shield to get a nice DPS boost from your Vex Armor ability.. Mod for strength and duration.
Trinity is great at keeping the Eidolon Lures alive during the fight using the Bless ability. Mod for 150% strength, then focus on duration and efficiency; Range is not important.
Oberon can use his Renewal ability to keep the Lures alive and use Hallowed Ground to make allies immune to status effects. The Phoenix Renewal and Smite Infusion augment mods are recommended.
Harrow use his Covenant ability to protect allies from the AoE damage after the boss looses a limb. Mod for 95-100% Duration, then focus on Strenght + Efficiency.
Weapons and Gear
You should equip a powerful sniper rifle e.g. Lanka or Rubico Prime. Remember to zoom as this will increase your damage. Vectis Prime and Vulkar Wraith are also good options.
You should mod for Radiation damage and Critical Damage/Critical Chance.
DO NOT waste mods for Status chance as Status damage do not harm the Eidolon bosses.
In case you get killed during the fight you should equip a powerful secondary so you can still contribute; the Euphona Prime is a very good secondary for this. Mod for Crit damage and Crit chance.
Notice: In public groups with low DPS you may run out of ammo during the fight - equip Squad Ammo Restore on your gear wheel just in case...
I also recommend you bring some Squad Energy Restore as the magnetic damage from the bosses can quickly drain your energy if you are not careful. You can buy a blueprint for a medium restore at your clan Dojo's Energy Lab or buy a blueprint for a large restore from the syndicates Arbiters of Hexis or The Perrin Sequence.
Focus
After you have completed The Second Dream you will gain access to the Focus schools. Notice that you can only have one Focus school set to active at any given time - focus points spend on other Focus schools will not benefit your operator. However, each Focus school have two special talents that are "Way-bound" which means they start out as being bound to the Focus school, but by maxing them out you can unlock them and use them in other focus schools as well.
Notice: Only spend Focus points in your active Focus school + in Way-bound talents you wish to unbind in other schools.
I highly recommend that you select the MADURAI focus school for Eidolon hunts and prioritize maxing out the Void Strike as this will increase your DPS each time you leave Void Mode. And you do want to use Void Mode often as this protects you from the AoD damage from the Eidolon bosses!
Next priority is to max out and unlock the Way-bound Void Siphon and Void Flow talents in ZENURIK, as this will give you more energy for your amp and operator.
To keep your operator alive longer during the Eidolon boss fights you should max out and unlock the Enduring Tides and Rejuvenating Tides way-bound talents in VAZARIN for more health and health regeneration as well as the Basilisk Scales way-bound talent in UNAIRU for increased operator armor.
Finally, max out and unlock the other way-bound talents.
Maxing out and unlocking the way-bound talents require huge amoungs of focus - the unlocking alone will cost you 1.000.000 focus points!
Hint: If you run Eidolon hunts with a group of friends, three team mates should pick MADURAI with Void Strike maxed as their active spec and one should pick UNAIRU with Unairu Wisp maxed. The Void Strike DPS buf stacks with the Wisp buf.
Amps
Amps are grouped into Tiers; the first four tiers can be bought from The Quills in Cetus, the other can be bought from Little Duck in Fortuna:
These Amps are recommended for the Eidolon Hunts:
- 223 = Shwaak Prism + Shraksun Scaffold + Lohrin Brace : This is great if you have all the proper focus talents.
- 227 = Shwaak Prism + Shraksun Scaffold + Certus Brace : Better crit chance than 223 but require you also grind rep in Fortuna for the Certus Brace.
With the Shraksun Scaffold use secondary fire (middle mouse button) to take down shield of Eidolon bosses, this require you are close to the boss - if you are farther away you may use the primary fire instead as the Shwaak Prism have longer range.
The Lohrin Brace and Certus Brace both offer more Crit chance. Critical Damage and Critical Chance are very important for quickly taking down the Eidolon bosses - Status effects do not affect them.
Arcanes
On your Warframe: Equip a rank 2 Arcane Nullifier + a rank 1 Arcane Nullifier for a 96% reduction of magnetic damage. These drops from the Eidolon bosses and can be upgraded as you collect more of the same type.
On your operator: Magus Vigor (extra health) + Magus Husk (extra armor). Blueprints are sold by The Quills in Cetus (requires you have a rank of Observer or higher).
On your Amp: Equip Virtous Fury. This arcane has a chance of increased damage after a status effect; it synergies well with the Shraksun Scaffold and Shwaak Prism (22x Amps) as these has a guaranteed Impact proc for each hit. Blueprint is sold by The Quills in Cetus (requires you have a rank of Adherent or higher).
Eidolon Lures
Before starting the fight you should pick up some Eidolon Lures and charge it by either:
- shoot a Vomvalyst so it looses its shield, the lure will then absorb the energy
- kill a Vomvalyst and loot the energy orb they drop, then pass it to the lure
A lure requires 3 Vomvalysts to be charged. For the Teralyst boss you need at least 2 charged Eidolon Lures to capture the boss - the larger bosses require 3 charged lures. However, bring some extra lures in case some get destroyed during the fight!
Teralyst
The first boss is called Teralyst. The boss has several special abilities including firing missiles and making a shockwave that will knock you back, but all his abilities are signaled before and can easily be avoided by a well timed jump or by entering Void mode.
- Enter Void mode to avoid missiles and spikes (press Ctrl while in operator).
- If your operator is killed by AoE damage, quickly roll to reduce damage and reenter operator.
- Jump over shockwave to avoid knockback or use Void Dash to quickly get back.
- When he looses a limp, he will bleed -don't stand in his blood!
Gauntalyst
The Gauntalyst is summoned by inserting the Brilliant Eidolon Shard you looted from the Teralyst into the altar on the large stone in the middle of the large lake near the entrance to Cetus. He will then spawn from the lake nearby. Notice he has to extra limbs at his shoulders so six limbs in total must be shot of before you can kill him.
- He has the same abilities as the Teralyst but will also make some orbs that do AoE damage - avoid by moving or enter Void mode.
- When he makes a large sphere, make sure you are inside the sphere
- His knock-back will come in several waves, jump to avoid
- His worst ability is some large pillars of light; these can not be avoided by entering Void mode, so move to avoid being hit! If you are pulled from operator, quickly roll with your warframe to reduce damage and then enter operator again.
Hydrolyst
The final boss - Hydrolyst - is summoned by inserting the Radiant Eidolon Shard you looted from the Gauntalyst into the altar on the large stone in the lake. He has the same abilities as the other two but add a few more that you need to look out for:
- Ground Stomp not only generate a knockback wave, but also create several geysers with acid water - shot at the green energy bobbles with your Amp to avoid acid rain.
- Ground Smash also results in green bubles, that slowly grow in size and eventually detonate with a massive AoE - shot with your Amp.
- Summoning Scream links nearby Vomvalysts and turn them into a red glowing variant that deal a lot of damage; these should be killed as soon as you see them.
- Regenerating Scream also links nearby Vomvalysts this time resulting in a major overshield on the Vomvalysts and turn them into a blue glowing variant. The Vomvalysts then begin to regenerate the Hydrolysts shield and make it invulnerable until all the linked Vomvalysts are killed!
- Vomvalyst Bloom Summon will randomly spawn buffed Vomvalysts from purple portals and may also link to nearby Vomvalysts making them invulnerable until the portal is destroyed with either your Amp or gunfire.
- Acid Rain - move away from the green ground to avoid its DoT.
Thanks for all the good and much needed advice. About choosing an amp Arcane that triggers on status proc, to go with an amp that includes Shraksun and Shwaak: will they bypass Eidolon immunity to status effects or are you using the Vomvalysts to activate the effect? Or is it for some other reason. Thanks.
While Eidolon are immune to damage from most status effects they can still be affected by a Void damage status proc from your Amp, Void Dash or Void Strike. Also the Shraksun Scaffold and Shwaak Prism have a guaranteed Impact proc with each shot so it is very easy to proc the Virtous Fury. 😉