Warframe – Ultimate Plague Star Guide

Plague Star Guide 2026

Operation: Plague Star is an Infested event occurring in the Plains of Eidolon. A properly managed run should finish in under 6 minutes.

Players must complete a sequence of Bounties before facing the final Infested encounter. These Bounties reward Standing for the temporary Operational Supply Syndicate, represented by Nakak for the duration of the event.

Standing can be exchanged for various Offerings, including:

• Forma
• Omni Forma and Umbral Forma, which have limited purchase quantities
• Zaw Arcanes and Plague Components
• Plague Akwin
• Plague Bokwin
• Plague Kripath
• Plague Keewar
• Exodia Contagion
• Exodia Epidemic
• Exclusive mods or blueprints, including Fulmination, Sacrifice, and Snipetron
• Cosmetics such as Floofs, Sigils, and Glyphs

Forma costs 3,200 Standing, making repeated Advanced or Steel Path Bounties ideal for farming it.

Bounty Tiers and Requirements

Plague Star Bounties have three difficulty tiers. Higher difficulty Bounties reward more Standing. Successfully keeping the Drone above 80% health during its Escort stage rewards additional Standing.

Difficulty	Standing
Basic	1,025–1,050
Advanced	3,200–3,275
Steel Path	3,800–3,900

Advanced and Steel Path Bounties require both Eidolon Phylaxis and Infested Catalyst to start.

Eidolon Phylaxis

• Eidolon Phylaxis Blueprints can be acquired from the Rank 1 Offerings of the Operational Supply.
• You must complete at least 1 Basic Bounty to raise your rank from Neutral to Collaborator.
• Crafting yields 5 charges.

Infested Catalyst

• Infested Catalyst Blueprints can be acquired from the Bio Lab in a Clan Dojo.
• Crafting yields 5 charges.

Bounty Layout

Collecting Thrax Toxin

Players must locate and raid the Grineer’s Toxin storage, which is found inside one of the various caves across the Plains of Eidolon.

After collecting the Thrax Toxin, players must exit the cave to begin the Defense Stage. The location of the Defense Stage is determined by the player’s location when exiting the cave, while the Drone Escort Stage is determined by the location of the Defense Stage.

Specific Drone spawns are significantly faster for speedrunning, making player positioning after exiting the cave an important part of optimizing the run.

The fastest method for controlling the Defense Stage location is Savior Decoy, Loki’s Subsume and Augment:

1. Place Loki’s Clone at the entrance of Cetus.
2. Collect the Toxin.
3. Die to immediately respawn at the Clone.
4. This places you at the desired location for the Defense Stage.

A Decaying Key shortens the gate timer, allowing you to die quicker.

After collecting the Toxin, press ESC to open the menu. This starts the Nightwave dialogue, cancels the Bounty dialogue, and immediately starts the next mission.

The Nightwave skip only works for the Host.

Defending the Toxin Mixture

If positioned properly, the Defense Stage will spawn at one of the two desired locations. This stage provides a brief lull to prepare for the final confrontation while the Toxin Mixture is defended.

Useful preparations include:

• Nova Portal placement to instantly complete the Drone Escort Stage
• Necramech placement as a door stopper for quicker leaving after mission completion
• Clearing nearby Grineer Outposts to prevent the Infested horde from becoming distracted and slowing the Hemocyte charge rate
• Wisp Mote placement

When soloing, the Defense Objective will begin to decay and lose health if there are no nearby players. This is not an issue for squads or duos. Solo players can handle it with Ancient Specters and On-Call Crew Members.

Drone Escort

If the Defense Stage was located at either of the two desired locations, the Drone will always spawn at the corresponding location.

The Drone travels toward the Hive Boil while players defend it. Successfully completing the Escort Stage with the Drone above 80% health provides Bonus Standing.

An allied Nova may have already prepared Wormholes, causing the stage to immediately finish. Otherwise:

• Volt can cast Speed on the Drone.
• Wisp can use Haste Motes.
• Nova can use her Portals.

Final Confrontation

After the Drone reaches the Boil, players face hordes of Infested. Advanced and Steel Path Bounties culminate in battles against Hemocytes, a reskin of Lephantis, while Basic Bounties only feature regular Infested.

The Infested Boil periodically spawns Pods that produce additional Infested. Do not immediately destroy these Pods, as doing so can leave players waiting for more Infested to spawn and ultimately slow down the mission.

Kills progress the meter until each 25% interval. Overkilling in single bursts can bypass thresholds, allowing the next Hemocyte to spawn instantly after the previous one is killed.

Grouping enemies with Decoy, Specters, or other abilities can help accomplish this.

Hemocyte Mechanics

Hemocytes:

• Are immune to Status effects
• Have high base Armor
• Possess Damage Attenuation

Use Armor stripping, such as Gunblades with Shattering Impact or Unairu.

Between each Hemocyte encounter, players must clear hordes of Infested to progress the Boil’s meter. Consistent crowd clearing is therefore important. Useful options include Aegrit, Akarius Prime, and Mirage’s Prism.

Critical Chance is particularly valuable because Hemocyte damage is first doubled before being multiplied by the weapon’s Critical Damage.

GunCO mods, or guns that rely on them, should not be used.

Hemocytes are only vulnerable while attacking, when they expose their faces and create an opening to deal damage. The vulnerability window varies with their animation speed, so slowing or speeding them up can shorten the encounter.

Useful abilities include Rest & Rage and Molecular Prime. However, manipulating their speed can also hamper runs if done improperly.

Hemocyte faces do not count as true weakpoints. Acuity, Deadhead, and Incarnon charging do not apply.

Loadout

Hemocyte Weapons

The old meta options are:

• Boar Incarnon
• Strun Incarnon
• Pyrana Prime

Boar and Strun only use their Incarnon stat boosters.

Alternative options include:

• Kuva Hek
• Kuva Kohm
• Cedo Prime
• Kuva Sobek
• Prisma Gorgon Incarnon
• Dual Toxocyst Incarnon
• Trumna Prime
• Latron Incarnon
• Laetum Incarnon
• Sicarus Incarnon

Sobek is an alternative trash-clearing option with Acid Shells, but is mostly intended for Clip Delegation.

The new meta options are:

• Burston Incarnon
• Acceltra Prime

Damage Attenuation changes since last year pushed Rifles ahead of Shotguns, while Shotgun time-to-kill values were mostly unaffected.

Shotgun Modding

All Shotguns generally follow the same template, with variations depending on what is available.

Slotting both Primed Element mods for raw Magnetic damage currently outperforms raw Heat, even accounting for the Infested weakness to Heat.

If you do not have any Primed Element mods, raw Heat performs better. However, even one Primed Element mod will outperform two Heat mods when paired with Primed Cleanse.

Flex slots include:

• Primed Ammo Stock
• Atomic Fallout
• Primed Bane Infested
• Magnetic Strafe
• Riven
• Incendiary Coat + Blaze
• Primed Tactical Pump
• Chilling Reload

Primed Ammo Stock and Atomic Fallout allow you to fire for longer without reloading. Primed Tactical Pump and Chilling Reload allow you to reload faster.

If running Violet Shards for +Primary Electricity Damage, you can drop one Primed Element mod.

Shotguns and Rifles with enough Disposition can roll for a Heat Riven.

Exilus options:

• Twitch
• Soft Hands
• Lock and Load

Vigilante Supplies should instead be used on a Sentinel companion.

Arcane options include:

• Primary Merciless
• Shotgun Vendetta
• Primary Frostbite
• Primary Overcharge
• Fractalized Reset

Vendetta is usually the best option for Multishot and reload speed, but can be annoying to stack. Overcharge is a newer option that only requires good energy management.

Merciless and Fractalized Reset both help with reload speed.

Frostbite requires consistent Cold procs, which is easy to achieve with Cedo.

Pyrana Prime

Primary DPS weapons are often preferred to keep the secondary slot open for trash clearing with Aegrit. If trash clearing is already covered, you can use whichever secondary you prefer.

Flex slots include:

• Primed Target Cracker
• Primed Expel Infested
• Riven

With Critical Damage from Outburst and/or Tenacious Bond, Primed Target Cracker can be swapped for Primed Expel Infested.

Exilus options:

• Steady Hands
• Reflex Draw

Crowd Clearing

Useful crowd-clearing options include:

• Aegrit
• Akarius Prime
• Any Influence Melee

Aegrit can be pre-placed in advance to immediately fill the meter.

Akarius and Influence Melee weapons take more time, with other Warframe abilities being their main competition.

Armor Stripping

Armor stripping options include:

• Vastilok
• Sarpa
• Stropha

Shattering Impact only cares about a weapon having Impact damage. Neither Status Weighting nor Status Chance affects its performance.

Vastilok has the highest Multishot among all Gunblades with Impact damage, making it the fastest weapon for stripping Armor.

Arcane and Exilus choices are unimportant for this purpose.

Modding for Plague Star

Soloing the event has become more viable following several changes, but repeatedly running it solo can very easily lead to burnout. Having a squad divide responsibilities can also make the event more enjoyable.

The recommended Frames are simply the most useful for completing the event faster.

Preparation helps with energy economy during the initial stages. It is also useful for Primary Overcharge in Archwings and alleviates the use of Energy Pads, Energize, or Equilibrium.

Amber Shards can be used instead.

Sprint Boost is a common Aura mod because it also applies to Drones and Archwings. The Aura slot is flexible for Growing Power or Power Donation.

Subsumes

Options include:

• Rest & Rage
• Decoy
• Energized Munitions
• Roar
• Nourish
• Bright Bonnet

Decoy is needed to perform the skip for Stage 1, together with the Savior Decoy augment.

Rest & Rage speeds up Hemocytes as they walk out of the Boil and applies Damage Vulnerability. It is similar to Molecular Prime, and the effects can stack together.

Energized Munitions helps with gun spamming. Due to the Hemocyte damage cap, this can be more useful than trying to squeeze out more damage.

It is useful on Frames that are not running high Ability Strength, such as Nova, Mag, and Loki.

Arcanes

Weapon options include:

• Arcane Tempo
• Arcane Acceleration
• Arcane Velocity
• Arcane Rise

The choice depends on which weapon is being used as the Hemocyte weapon.

Arcane Rise is useful when taking quality-of-life Arcane options such as Fractalized Reset or when simply trying to squeeze in more damage.

Casting options include:

• Molt Vigor
• Arcane Bellicose
• Molt Efficiency

Molt Augmented is unreliable to stack.

Economy options include:

• Arcane Sculptor
• Arcane Steadfast
• Arcane Energize

Arcane Sculptor works with Nova’s Wormhole, Volt’s Electric Shield, and Mirage’s Prism.

Frames for Plague Star

Nova

Nova is the fastest option for Drone manipulation with Wormhole and for speeding Hemocytes out of the Boil with Molecular Prime.

She is also the fastest soloist.

Precision Intensify leaves Nova needing 20% Ability Strength to reach her slow/speed cap. Shards, Growing Power, Madurai Focus, mods, and other sources can provide this.

Nova often runs Decoy or Energized Munitions because she runs minimal Ability Strength.

Nova runs high Ability Range, with a minimum of 190, to perform her Wormhole placements.

Wisp

Wisp provides weapon buffs through Haste Motes while also being able to teleport with Will-O-Wisp and instantly begin the Escort Stage.

She often runs Rest & Rage because she runs high Ability Strength.

Rest & Rage does not stack with other casts, so it best fits the Frame with the highest Ability Strength.

Mirage

Mirage is a strong team buffer with Total Eclipse and can clear Infested hordes without damaging the Infested Pods using Prism.

She often runs Energized Munitions to balance her weapon damage with quality of life.

She can also run Nourish to help her team, although she is slower than Nova or Volt at performing the Decoy skip.

Prism can quickly drain energy if not managed properly, so additional energy economy can be used to compensate.

Secondary Warframe Options

Nidus

Nidus can link to Wisp for stronger Motes and Rest & Rage.

Mag

Casting Magnetize on Hemocytes causes bullets to swirl around their heads, immediately dealing damage when they try to attack.

Volt

Volt is a decent team buffer with Speed and Shock Trooper. He can fill the role of either Decoy or Rest & Rage if needed. He is a good soloist, but is second to Nova. He is weaker in squads because of the ally cap on his Speed.

Mesa

Mesa’s Regulators target Infested without harming the Pods.

Titania

Titania’s Pixias can handle Hemocytes.

Loki

Loki is not recommended compared with the other listed Frame options.

General Tips

Focus Schools

• Unairu’s Caustic Strike can replace the need for armor stripping from Shattering Impact.
• Zenurik’s Wellspring can help with energy economy and Strength snapshots.
• Madurai can provide additional weapon damage with free ammo efficiency and help with snapshots.

Companion Restrictions for the Decoy Skip

The player running the Decoy skip should not have a companion capable of interfering with enemies in any way.

Avoid:

• Free-roaming companions
• Sentinels with Assault Mode
• Offensive Precepts

It is also common to have no companion equipped when performing the skip.

The Host should perform the Nightwave skip as much as possible.

Open the menu whenever anyone talks.

Sentinel companions can further support primary weapons by stacking Vigilante mods.

Utility and Survival

Utility weapons include:

• Afentis
• Praedos
• Ceramic Dagger
• Furax
• Grimoire
• Velox

Players can fight Hemocytes within their Archwings to avoid dying to the Infested horde and to better position themselves for aiming at their heads.

Picking up a Damage Blessing before starting helps with the overall run by providing +30% Roar.

For Frames moving close to the Boil, their Operator can use Magus Elevate to keep them healthy. The listed Frames are Nova, Wisp, and Volt.

Companions

Wyrm

Wyrm has enough stats for Reinforced Bond, with numerous weapon options for both Tenacious Bond and the Vigilante set.

Adarza Kavat

Cat’s Eye helps weapons reach their next Critical tier.