Warframe Plague Star 2025 guide: Best equipment, meta strategies, and tips

Warframe Plague Star is an annual event, and one of the only sources of exclusive Plague Zaw parts, two Exodia Arcanes, as well as the most efficient way to get a lot of built Forma. Originally introduced in 2017, Plague Star is now undergoing its seventh iteration in 2025. The event is only going to last two weeks, but there's no hard limits on how many Forma, Plague Zaws, or Arcanes you can buy out.

Even though Exodia Contagion and Plague Zaws are no longer the epitome of power-ceiling they once used to be, Plague Star is a particularly lucrative Warframe event, no matter if you're a newer player or veteran. The event kicked off on September 10, and will end on September 24, 11 am ET.

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Warframe Operation Plague Star bounties breakdown: Everything you need to know

You can purchase Eidolon Phylaxis blueprints from Nakak in Warframe (Image via Digital Extremes)

A handful of ease-of-use changes have streamlined the process of starting Plague Star bounties this year. The Plague Star comes in three tiers: the regular one, the Advanced variant, and a Steel Path version selectable from Bounties.

How to get Eidolon Phylaxis and Infested Catalyst in Warframe?

You need at least one crafted Eidolon Phylaxis and Infested Catalyst join the second tier (Advanced) and third tier (Steel Path variant) of the Plague Star Bounty in Warframe.

• Resusable blueprints for the Eidolon Phylaxis can be purchased from Nakak in Cetus (from Operational Supplies) and require resources from the Plains of Eidolon to craft. This requires Rank 1: Collaborator with Operational Supplies, the Plague Star Syndicate. In other words, you need to do a couple of tier-1 Plague Star bounties first if this is your first time playing the event.
• A reuseable Infested Catalyst blueprint is obtainable from Bio Lab in the Clan Dojo.
• 5x Charges of these concoctions are produced once you craft them, with one minute of craft time. One charge of each is consumed if you do a tier-2 or tier-3 Plague Star bounty.

What's the difference? Basically, you have to more Hemocytes at the end of the bounty on the Advanced version of the bounty, and enemies are higher level in general. The Steel Path version of the bounty, of course, applies the Steel Path modifiers on top.

As for rewards, the Plague Star - Steel Path version rewards way more Operation Supply points as rewards.

Long story short, if you're a beginner in Warframe, it's best to stick to the basic Plague Star bounty, since each additional tier requires a much better equipment. If you're up to the challenge, the Steel Path version provides 3,800 points at base, all the way up to 5,0000 in a single run if you do it perfectly.

As for equipment you should take into Plague Star:

• You should have at least one primary or secondary weapon with a high multishot and fire rate that is effective against Infested bosses. If you have items that are efficient in the Cambion Drift, they will also work well for that purpose. A few good weapons have been listed later in this article.
• One weapon should be dedicated towards single-target DPS for the Hemocytes, but the other one should excel at killing infested crowds quickly. Generally, if you're doing this in a squad with good equipment, this won't be a problem.
• Any Warframe can get the job done, but the meta optiosn are Volt, Nova, and any Warframe that can do area damage. These days, anything plus Thermal Sunder can get do the mobbing part.

You can start a bounty from Konzu, the usual quest-giver of Cetus. If this is your first time participating in this event, you can begin with the first tier of the Plague Star bounty, which is a less resource-intensive beginner-friendly option. Otherwise, it is better to run the second and third tiers for a higher standing yield per run.

The mission is classified into four parts:

• The first part is a simple fetch-quest for the Thrax Toxin from a cave system in the Plains of Eidolon.
• The second part is a three-minute defense of the Toxin mixer as it concocts the boil's antidote.
• The third part is simply escorting the Toxin to the Infested boil via a hijacked Drone while defending it.
• Finally, you have to eliminate a number of Infested hordes and take out a few Hemoctye minibosses depending on the tier of the bounty.

On top of the Operational Supply points, each bounty stage also rewards Relics, Endo, or some Kuva like a regular Plains bounty would. Altogether, these make Plague Star arguably the most value-per-minute event in Warframe.

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Meta guide and details for each Plague Star Bounty stag in Warframe

Obtaining the Thrax Toxin

In the majority of the Plague Star runs I have done, Thrax Toxin was located in an alcove accessible from a cave at the southeastern corner of the Plains of Eidolon (south from Hillside Ruin). This will always be in the same spot, placed in a Toxin vat on a platform, and always has an Eximus unit guarding it.

Alternately, it can also be located in a few other spots, such as north of Mount Nang (northwest corner of the map).

Wherever the location , the meta option to speedrun this phase is to use the Saviour Decoy mod. Helminth Loki's Decoy into your Warframe before you join a Plague Star 2025 bounty (or you can just use Loki). This is the plan:

• First, place a Decoy at the mouth of the cave (or a vantage point from where you can Archwing to the next objective fast).
• Then, go to the cave to the location of the Thrax Toxin. Pull the Toxin Canister out, and die on purpose to switch back with your Decoy immediately.
• You need to have ample Ability Duration, so you have enoguh time to get to the Thrax Toxin vat and grab the objective before you die and switch with your Decoy.

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Mixing the Toxin

Realistically, there's nothing you can do to make this phase go faster. It's a simple defense objective that you have to hold for 3 minutes.

Since you don't need to engage the enemeis to advance this part of the Plague Star Bounty, crowd-controlling Warframes like Nova (the meta pick anyway) works wonders. Alternately, you can just use the usual defense specialists - Gara or Frost.

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Escorting the Drone

This third part of the mission is basically like any other Plains bounty stage where you have to move a hacked drone from Point A to Point B. In the case of Plague Star, this distance is quite significant (at least 700 meters, or even more depending on the location of the mixer).

This is the stage of Plague Star that you can significantly speed up with Nova. This, of course, requires the Nova player to predict the trajectory of the Drone and place the Wormholes in very precise locations to pull it off.

You could also just run Volt to give the Drone a speed buff, and possibly even a Wisp on top with her Green Mote. This is not as fast as what an expert Nova player can do, but much easier execute consistently.

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The Hemocyte Showdown at the Boil

When you are at this final stage, you have to kill off Infested swarms around the boil to advance the progress meter. Once a Hemocyte (basically a more durable Lephantis) spawns, the progress pauses until you kill it off. Like the Lephantis, it is completely immune to damage unless you hit in a specific vulnerable spot on each of its three heads.

In the Advanced and Steel Path tiers of the Plague Star bounty, a total of three Hemocytes will spawn in.

To make the encounter easier, Nova can slow down the boss significantly to make hitting the weak points much easier. Mag's Bubble can also be created to circumnavigate the weak point gimmick, but you need to cast the Bubble when targeting an open weak point. Afterwards, you will automatically damage that head of the Hemocyte as long as you shoot the bubble.

A gunblade with Shattering Impact (ideally Vastilok) can also fully armor-strip a Hemocyte. Regardless, it is weak to Heat and Slash damage afterwards, but still immune to all status effects.

Rinse and repeat till you kill all the Hemocytes to finish the Plague Star bounty. There's no delay or loot drop to consider, so you can teleport back to the Ostron exit immediately after the final Hemocyte goes down.

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Best Warframes and weapons for Operation Plague Star

Hemocytes have damage attenuation on top of their defenses in Warframe (Image via Digital Extremes)

The mission does not present much of a challegnge if you're familair with the Lephantis from the Star Chart, and there are multiple ways to make it much easier. The meta setups therefore focus more on finishing a full bounty rotation as quickly as possible.

Nova is arguably the best Warframe for this event due to two reasons:

• Wormholes and the Escape Velocity augment affect the hijacked drone, making it reach the destination much faster.
• The Molecular Prime slowdown effect also slows Hemocyte animations to a crawl. This makes it easier to shoot their weak points.

You can use almost any Warframe in this event, provided you know the tricks of the trade. Regardless, the following options are good for Plague Star:

• Trinity for keeping allies safe, although it's very easy to make yourself tanky with Arcane Bellicose in Plague Star 2025
• Wisp can boost durability of allies, the Drone, and even make the Drone faster
• Titania for grabbing the Thrax Toxin (first phase) fast, and also freely hitting Hemocytes with basically no threat while in the air
• Volt is another great general-purpose pick for this mission due to the Speed buff
• Mag can bubble the Hemocytes if targeted properly, but it takes some getting used to

The Hemoctye boss is a rehashed Lephantis in its final phase. It also has Archon-like damage attenuation mechanics that make single-shot burst DPS weapons ineffective. For this reason, you should use a weapon with a good fire rate and pellet count per shot, but which also has low damage falloff to take on that boss at range.

The most popular options to use against the Hemoctyes are:

Primaries

• Prisma Gorgon's Metamorphic Magazine augment mod can slow down the Hemocyte, which is a very good Warframe-agnostic way to make Plague Star easier
• Any Incarnon assault rifle, especially Burston Prime. However, you should build up the Incarnon charges before the final Stage kicks in.
• Boar Prime Incarnon is an easy crowd favorite among veterans, and might become the best meta option for Plague Star in 2025

Secondaries

• Ocucor for crowd-clearing during the final stage
• Lex Prime for the same reason
• Pyrana Prime is one of the most reliable picks if your secondary is your main DPS slot for Hemocytes

Melee

• The Hemocytes are also immune to all status effects. Nevertheless, you can fully armor-strip them with the Shattering Impact mod on a gunblade like the Vastilok or Sarpa.
• Alternately, if someone on your team is already using a Vastilok to armor-strip the Hemocytes, you should run Cerata to kill the trash mob. In this case, consider using Primary/Secondary Dexterity as your damage arcane on whatever you are using to do damage.

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