Archon Hunts are currently the highest-level endgame raid activity in Warframe. Added with the Veilbreaker update (32.0), this is a weekly series of three missions that take elements from Sorties and the retired Trial mode. Like the latter, the trifecta of missions that form the Archon Hunt grants no respawn barring revivals by squadmates.
On top of this one-life mechanic, the enemies in all the missions are granted additional defenses based on the number of players in the squad. While not as difficult as Steel Path, the enemies in this mode hit quite hard, have a higher spawn rate, and are supplemented by Health-sponge bosses.
These harsh conditions mean certain Warframes that either excel at being durable or provide enough damage to mitigate the enemy threat have a much higher success rate. Following are five of these that arguably have the easiest time in this mode.
5 best Warframes to use on Archon Hunt
5) Wisp
Like in all other fronts of the game, Wisp is a one-in-all formula for success in Archon Hunts. She provides squad-wide buffs in spades, effectively granting both pillars of a successful Archon Hunt party: durability and damage.
Both of these come from her defensive Reservoirs. The Vitality mote grants a base health boost and ample regeneration to enable almost any Warframe to be more aggressive from the added durability. The Haste mote, other than greater mobility, also adds fire rate, an indirect damage output buff.
Admittedly, Wisp’s damage buff is not the best against Archons due to how damage attenuation functions. Other frames like Nekros may provide additional possibilities, such as extra loot for farming Riven Slivers. However, she is a decent choice in any public squad, where access to team buffs is not guaranteed.
4) Volt
In an organized squad that knows how to tap into Volt’s utility, Volt is easily the best damage-boosting frame in any raid scenario. Archon Hunts are no exception to this rule. Speed fastens the entirety of the mission for a lower overall run time. Electric Shield grants both damage bonus and critical damage bonus for projectiles that pass through it.
If you set up your weapons with standalone fire element, Shock Trooper is a strong +Radiation damage buff with high power strength. This also plays well with a Helminth-extracted buff like Roar placed on the fourth ability slot. Set up in this way, all four of Volt’s abilities grant damage buffs to the entire squad, easily outclassing community favorites like Rhino.
3) Octavia
Ironically, the Warframe, with theoretically the highest scaling across all domains of the game, does not see much use for the highest-level endgame event. Octavia Prime is a squad-wide solution for a number of curveballs the extra modifiers in Archon Hunt throws at you.
The biggest boon of having an Octavia in the squad is a hybrid form of crowd control that allows other players to focus on dealing damage with relative impunity. Durability issues? Invisibility is Invincibility. Narmer mobs interrupting your gameplay in the Archon confrontation? Mallet can easily control them ad infinitum while gradually zapping their health.
Octavia also brings the damage-buffing element to the table. The fourth ability, Amp, gives you a good amount of multishot with near-constant uptime, thanks to the overall chaotic nature of the Archon arena. Stacking multiplicatively with other sources of damage buff, extra multishot usually ends up being overall greater damage output.
2) Ivara
Ivara is the meta Warframe for playing the third stage of the Archon hunt solo. The biggest downside to this is how vigilant and efficient you need to be to successfully execute the playstyle. She can get one-shot easily once the shield breaks, and in Archon Hunt, this means game over.
In return, Ivara is the only one to grant you one-shot potential on the Archons themselves. This strategy relies on the extra headshot multiplier granted by shots out of Prowl. Modded correctly, a weapon like the Kuva Hek can bypass damage attenuation altogether.
Technically, this is not a one-shot, instead advancing the archon fight to the next stage. However, it allows you to outright skip having to engage with any of the Archon ability and i-frame shenanigans.
1) Revenant
Revenant far outclasses all other frames in easily being the best in slot tank for the Archon Hunt missions. You can breeze through all three missions on this frame without ever worrying about the lack of respawns, thanks to Mesmer Skin.
The Veilbreaker update changed Mesmer Skin to grant one second of invisibility once a stack depletes. Firstly, this ensures that your Mesmer skin stacks cannot dissipate rapidly from lingering damage sources. Secondly, this makes the permanent upkeep of Mesmer Skin much easier, especially with buffer mods like Rolling Guard.
On top of being durable himself, Revenant can now grant his teammates a fraction of this durability. The Mesmer Shield augment bolsters the amount of Mesmer Skin stacks you gain and grants five stacks to each ally standing within affinity range. In a coordinated squad, this makes many frames more viable for Archon Hunt.
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