FARMING GUIDE: CRYOTIC
Usually found in extreme sub-zero environments, Cryotic instantly freezes anything it contacts.
Cryotic is used for all kinds of things, including warframe components, archwing components, weapons, and even Pyrotic Alloy (PoE/Cetus-related secondary resource). Cryotic also holds a special place as one of the primary rewards of the ‘Excavation’ mission type. While you can expect to earn what feels like a decent amount of Cryotic through normal gameplay, you’ll find that some items will have nearly 10k Cryotic (and more!) requirements for crafting, especially for multiple Dojo research projects. To help yourself, and your dojo, farming Cryotic efficiently is the purpose of this guide.
Yes, although you’ll need to wait until the Excavation mission’s end to see the actual bonus. Does not seem to affect Sabotage cache rewards.
No. Cryotic is not a ‘drop’ as per se, just a reward from ‘Excavation’ missions, and as a rare reward inside some Orokin and Earth Sabotage Resource Caches.
Your best bet for farming Cryotic is almost always going to be repeatedly running Excavation missions, even though you will see Excavation Alerts, Void Fissure missions, and even Sorties. Generally speaking, Excavation missions can move extremely fast, even with a barely-coordinated team. Excavators need to run for 100seconds (with power), and since multiple can eventually be running at the same time, you can see quick gains. However, after every 400 cryotic excavated, the difficulty increases (for endless missions), but if you/your team can handle it, you can not only get Cryotic relatively quickly, but earn ‘Rotation Rewards’ much faster than other commonly farmed mission types like Defenses.
There are 5 standard Excavation missions: Everest-Earth, Kiliken-Venus, Augustus-Mars, Valefor-Europa, Despina-Neptune. There are 3 Dark Sector Excavation missions: Tikal-Earth, Cholistan-Europa, Hieracon-Pluto. For ease, pick the standard mission of your general level/starchart. Choose Dark Sectors for better affinity/credit rewards. As usual, player skill and gearing is important, so YMMV.
Unsure of your build or skill? Want an easy-peasy, chicken-squeezy way to farm Cryotic while watching Netflix? Want to socialize on voice-chat while running a barely-challenging mission? Brand new player with low experience or gear? Want to practice solo? Everest is the location for you. Expect to fight Grineer en masse, but they will be low enough level for almost any player to be able to farm Cryotic early and quickly.
Earth also features Neurodes in seeming abundance, but also has Ferrite, Rubedo, and Detonite Ampules as possible resource drops. If you farm here, you’ll likely farm for quite some time (1000+ cryotic), which means you can double-dip and farm Neurodes and Cryotic at the same time.
Pros:
Really easy. Great for testing out new warframes/weapons when time or xp isn’t a factor.
Cons:
Extremely low level. Grineer can be annoying for some warframes/gearing. XP/Credit gains seem almost insignificant. Can easily be replaced by TIKAL-EARTH for much better returns, despite having to fight Infested instead. Tier 1 Excavation reward rotation seems to have a lot of garbage and a few Lith relics mixed in.
Valefor is usually skipped by most people for Cryotic farming, but it is also the only excavation with a Tier 2 reward table. If you’re willing to deal with Corpus Nullifier bubbles, and desperately want a change, and haven’t unlocked later missions (especially Pluto), Valefor is an adequate choice. You may still have better Cryotic returns/fun/etc on Everest, or at least Tikal, but this is at least a ‘new thing to do’, which sometimes is all you need to make the farm not seem like a job.
Europa resource drops are Morphics, Rubedo, Fieldron Samples and Control Modules. Some people enjoy fighting Corpus more than Grineer/Infested.
Some warframes/weapons have hard times against Nullifier bubbles. Tends to be relatively unpopulated/barren. Tikal/Everest can often seem a better time investment if only worried about Cryotic. Quickly outclassed by Hieracon, Pluto (once unlocked). Rota rewards for Tier 2 are ‘not all that special’.
Hieracon is definitely doable with ‘less than optimal’ builds, but you may find you need to add more defensive mods (vitality, steel fiber, etc), have a decently strong weapon, or stay extremely close to your teammates (and bring Team Energy restores!)
On the other hand, reward rotation B has some really useful mods and Neo relics, and rotation C has a decent chance of Axi Relic rewards.
Of extremely important note: Hieracon has a large ‘mission credit bonus’, and can be completed extremely quickly (~5min). This means if you need credits quickly, you can always start the mission, defend the excavators until the extract message appears, and bounce out to earn +20k credits for relatively no hard work.
Dark sector, so large credit/affinity gains are possible in a short timeframe. Provides Neo (rotation B) and Axi (rotation C) relics. Provides Plastids (YAY!, always in short supply…) as a resource drop, along with Rubedo, Morphics, and Alloy Plate. You can even get Fieldron Samples as drops as well! Widely considered one of the ‘top tier farms’, so is heavily populated.
You can get swarmed by infested and downed before you realize what’s happening if you aren’t geared right. Random teaming can either stick you with people that want to farm for 1500+ cryotic, or even leave after scoring 100. Ancient Healers (and disruptors, and basically every ancient) can be really tough for certain frames/weapons/loadouts to deal with. Can be almost impossible to defend excavators in later ’rounds’ due to their minimal health, and how quickly enemies can scale up in damage.
Keep an eye out for these, and think about teaming up or similar. Being able to farm cryotic, get better rewards, get void shards, AND unlock relics is a great and efficient use of your time. Just try to coordinate with your team to not excavate too quickly, or sometimes teammates will not get 10 reactant shards before the ’round’ is up (every 200 Cryo). Great stuff, but not always available to farm when you are.
Hieracon, Pluto
Hieracon can be extremely quick, extremely lucrative, and of course, lots of fun. Cryotic can pour in before you know it, and you can also farm credits/affinity/plastids during the same run. All-around, Hieracon is a top-tier farming planet for multiple reasons, even if you need to run most of the starchart before you can even see Pluto.
As usual, the above are merely suggestions, and your fun/enjoyment will always trump anyone else’s recommendations. Please comment below if you have your own farming strategy to share, or if you have any comments, questions, or complaints. Finally, this was done on mobile, so please let me know if you see any typos, errors, or poor formatting.
Happy farming, Tenno!
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