Excavation Arbitration - The Endo Guide

Excavation is the untapped goldmine of ​Arbitrations​, capable of giving you one rotation reward
every ~4 minutes as opposed to over double that time for Interception, Defence, and Survival.
We don't talk about Deception. Needless to say this Arbitration gives you a splendid income of
Sculptures, Vitus Essence, Adaptation mods and of course, sweet endo. Because of the speed
in which rewards are given, it is the best mode for getting the illusive Seeding Step Ephemera.

The drop pool for Arbitrations was altered in update 24.4. This transformed Excavation
Arbitration into a viable endo farm.

To give you an idea of just how much Endo you

will be earning; You should reach Rotation C
around the 12 minute mark, at which point
Rotation C will continue endlessly for every two
excavators finished, offering a 55% chance at
2000 Endo. Rotation A and B have a similar %
chance at endo drops, but the amount received is
less (1300 and 1600 endo respectively.) This
means that on average, upon reaching Rotation
C, you should be earning ​2000 raw endo every
~8 minutes (two rotations). Comparable, if not
better than the previous farming meta which was
between 200-800 endo for each ~3 minute arena
run on Vodyanoi, Sedna. What really puts
Arbitrations ahead is that even if you don’t get Endo, you’re earning other valuable rewards.
Sculptures, Vitus Essence and Adaptation mods can be turned directly into plat. Orta Sculptures
will be your most common secondary drop, providing an ​additional 2700 endo​ when filled.

Unfortunately when it comes to this mission

mode, players that know what to do and ​what to
bring are few and far between. The
recommendations and advice I am about to
provide are based on my personal experience
and information gathered from other posts. I do
not claim to know everything, but as an avid
player of this mission mode, I feel like I have a
pretty good idea.
How it Works
So we've all done normal Excavation before, Arbitration's version follows the same principles.
● Each powercell is worth 20 seconds of excavation.
● Each excavation dig will give Cryotic.

However there some key changes over the norm. They are:
● After 2 completed digs, rotation A reward unlocks and the extraction point becomes
available.
● Rotation rewards are given for every 2 successful digs.
● Each excavation dig requires 180 seconds instead of 100 seconds to complete, hence
● Each excavation dig will require 8 Power Cells instead of 4.
● The maximum charge capacity of the excavator is now 180%.

Common to all Arbitrations:

● Death is permanent but you keep the rotation rewards (not drops) you've already
earned.
● There will be those little annoying ​Arbitration Drones that are themselves immune to all
Warframe abilities, and project a complete invulnerability aura on nearby enemies,
denoted by a red outline and tether back to the drone.
● Enemy units start at level 60-80, capable of destroying excavators in seconds. This
ramps up to an almost one shot of the excavator as enemy units reach level 200.

Due to the nature of the mission, defence and CC orientated frames become far more valuable
than DPS frames. Therefore bringing the right frame will pave your way to many successful
runs.
Which Frame to Bring?

The God Tier

NOVA

The First Line of Defence

(req 5 forma)
Or

(req 6 forma)

The one and only Slowva, Queen of crowd control.

Her massive 75% (74% with above build) slow debuff and 200% damage increase against
primed enemies will keep enemies locked down for easy kills.
We're running a standard max duration build with ​Adaptation and ​Molecular Fission to keep her
alive. If you don't have a maxed ​Umbral Intensify you may need to take ​Power Drift to get you to
the slow cap of 145% strength (or close enough).
Pretty straight forward gameplay here, use her Null Star at the start of the mission, providing
you with 90% damage reduction at 18 stacks, with lost stacks constantly being replenished by
Molecular Fission. Recast Molecular Prime as soon as the duration ends.

Tips and Tricks

● When travelling large distances between each dig, try not to cast Molecular Prime. It is
actually detrimental and can prevent spawning of new enemies because it can bulk sp,e
units between excavators.
● Where possible, cover two excavators with a singular Molecular Prime.
● If you are transporting between dig sites with 2 power cells over long distances, stash
your warframe where there isn’t too many enemies otherwise you may return from
operator into warframe with no Null Stars on her.
NEKROS

The Second Line of Defence

Desecrate works on ​Power Carriers​, this makes him an absolute necessity to take if you want to
do two or more extractors simultaneously.
Shadows of the Dead with their increased threat generation, will take almost all of the heat off
your team and the extractors.
Terrify can provide minimal crowd control, it's not much but it's enough to clear enemies off an
extractor.
With the above build Nekros is nigh unkillable, with a huge presence on the battlefield. There is
no greater relief when being overwhelmed on an excavator than to see those shadows spawn in
a protective ring around you.

Tips and Tricks:

● Give him a bright obnoxious energy colour so your team can quickly differentiate your
shadows from enemy units, I'm talking hot pink, etc. Avoid red as it looks the same as
the Arbitration Drones’ aura.
● Get familiar with how ​Summoning Priority works; adding Bursas, Eximus and ​Ancient
Healers​ to your ranks is a huge boost to your fighting power and survivability.
● The extractor with most of the enemies spawning, that's where you are. Nekros is the
tankiest frame, and he needs to be where those Power Carriers are.

For a more in depth look into how these mods interact with each other, feel free to read on​ ​here​.
FROST

The Third Line of Defence

As good as Gara is, she can't shield two or more extractors at once, Frost can.
The above build boasts a 28k health Snow Globe whilst giving him good defence with
Adaptation and high armour.
I don't expect most people to commit an ​Umbral Forma at this point in the game, in which case
simply drop Umbral Vitality for the regular version.
Like mentioned earlier, enemy units in Arbitrations hit HARD, and even the tankiest of Snow
Globes can crumble quickly under constant fire. But that’s why Frost is the Third Line of
Defence, whatever can slip through Nova's debuff and/or Nekros' Shadows, Frost's Shields are
there to make sure that extractor stays up.

Tips and Tricks

● Use Freeze on elite units that you’re not prepared to deal with yet.
● If enemies are about to get inside your Snow Globe, use Avalanche to freeze them in
place to give you a bit of breathing room.
● If enemies HAVE gotten inside your Globe, simply recast the Globe to eject and freeze
any enemy inside the globe (that are presumably whaling on your excavator).
● Under intense attack, chain your Snow Globe every >5 seconds or so, as each Snow
Globe has a 4 second invulnerability phase upon summoning where it absorbs incoming
damage to be added to its total health.
The Fourth Slot
There are few good picks for the final frame, more CC to combine with Nova's Slow is always
good, or more protection for excavators and players with-

GARA

Gara is a complex frame with abilities that scale off of each other, as well as requiring a "stat
stick" melee weapon and a Sentinel companion to get the most out of her.
I recommend reading​ ​this​ guide to understand all of her inner workings.
The above build is very open to tweaking, whilst duration is of high importance, strength (min
129%), range and efficiency can be tweaked to your liking.
Though I haven't tried it, I believe you could successfully replace Frost with 2x Gara, although
you would be limited to 2 excavators at a time.

Tips and Tricks

● Cast Splinter Storm on the excavator and whoever you are paired up with for that sweet
90% damage reduction
● Mass Vitrify sits nicely outside Frost's Bubble, soaking up superfluous damage and
providing an impassable wall effective against Infested.
● Make your Mass Vitrify shield taller by casting it in mid air.
NYX

My personal favourite, Nyx brings a CC that greatly compliments Nova's Slow. No enemy is
more harmless than one reeling from Chaos' stun in slow motion, before slowly turning on their
allies, again, in slow motion.
Chaos causes Eximus auras to negatively impact all surrounding units and Ancient Healers will
no longer give out their 90% damage reduction aura.
Chaos also has the unique effect of hindering units protected by Arbitration Drones, whilst not
directly affected by Chaos, protected units will still stop to attack units that ​are under Chaos'
influence.
Beware that mobs still shoot at you with Chaos. Chaos is essentially a mass Radiation proc, if
you are the closest thing to an enemy they WILL still go for you.

Tips and Tricks

● Spam that Chaos, you're rocking max efficiency you can afford it, the stun reapplies with
each cast as well as affecting new units that have come into range since the previous
cast.
● You are squishy, be liberal with your 4th. You don't have passive mitigation like the other
frames, and your armour stat is garbage unlike Frost. Play smart, keep them confused
and keep your distance. If you're facing down a mob of protected units, throw up that
Absorb until you've dealt with them.
● Use Absorb to help cover the excavator, if Frost's bubble goes down or there's enemies
inside, try and cover it with your Absorb, you can't cover it completely but coming
between the excavator and the threat will do nicely, just watch your energy.
● When grabbing elite units for yourself with Mind Control, go ahead and throw up a
marker on them for your teammates. Whilst they're friendly to you the marker will say
"Ally". When the timer runs out (and they're still alive) it will change to "Enemy",
reminding you to retake control or letting your team know they can be killed.
MAG

Whilst not the best choice, Mag can still perform well against Corpus and Grineer with her
Counter Pulse augment. Be warned that she is very squishy, and correctly casting Magnetise so
that it doesn't hinder you and your team's ability to kill enemies beyond the bubble is somewhat
of a refined art.

LOKI ?
I will update this at a later time when I've had more practice on him. A max range ​Irradiating
Disarm build seems interesting against Grineer and Corpus. However he truly takes squishy to a
new meaning, I will have to see if invisibility can work as a substitute for damage mitigation.

Surely There’s More

I'm sure there are more viable frames out there that I've yet to truly appreciate. The frames I've
recommended are simply the ones that I've had the most successful runs with.
What Not To Bring

LIMBO
Alright I don't know where everyone got the idea that you NEED Limbo for excavation, but he is
garbage and I'll gladly tell you why.

1. You cannot kill enemies at range without leaving the safety of the bubble, as a result of
this you cannot deal with enemies until they are right on top of you or you've left the
bubble to go get them.
2. Arbitration Drones don't care about the rift, and guess what you can't destroy them inside
the bubble because YOU'RE in the rift. Sure you can deal with this by using your
Operator, but against level 100+ drones even with a kickass amp that will take a few
shots to take down, and god forbid a​ ​Swarm Mutalist Moa​ gave it armour.
3. Certain enemy attacks can still damage you and the excavator through the rift, I don't
know exactly which attacks these are, but it's definitely more than is listed ​here​. Enough
so that I've seen more than my fair share of extractors and players go down inside a
Cataclysm.
4. The rift mechanic prevents you from picking up Power Cells inside a Cataclysm with your
Operator.
5. To the uninitiated, rifts are confusing and can add too much into a difficult or tense
situation. A mistake for Limbo or other players can cost an excavator or even cause a
player death.
6. He's squishy and looks stupid.

INAROS
You might as well wear a badge that says "Hi, I'm terrible at the game and will be leeching
today's run".
Gear
Weapons
The biggest, baddest, high hitters you've got, preferably with a well rolled riven.
I'm a Catchmoon fan myself, it's crazy high damage and Arca Plasmor type projectile makes
taking down groups of enemies and plucking out Arbitration drones a cinch. Not to mention you
are frequently restricted to your secondary when carrying Power Cells.

Whatever your weapon make sure you look up good builds for them and ​use the right
elements for the faction you are facing. Mod for elite units, for example Radiation against the
Grineer, as the only units worth anything have​ ​Alloy Armour​.
Bear in mind if your team is running enough ​Corrosive Projections and ​Coaction Drifts to
completely strip enemy armour, that "best element" is likely to change, particularly against the
Grineer.
Refer to​ ​this​ table when deciding on damage types.
Against Corpus, also bring a fast firing weapon to bring down ​Nullifier bubbles ASAP, e.g Ignis
Wraith.

The Zenistar

Melee'ing in general is not advised here. Getting point blank with the enemy is a good way to
find yourself out of any more endo, though the immortal Nekros could probably get away with it.
Other than Gara (and Khora) who need their stat sticks, everyone else should aim to bring the
Zenistar.
The ​Zenistar is a unique melee weapon that can be earned from the 100 day login reward. What
makes this weapon so special is that the charge attack deploys a disc that leaves a large,
lingering AoE that lasts a whopping 45 seconds with an innate 50% status chance. That means
that the above build will hit 100% status chance on the disc with only two 60/60 mods, inflicting
continuous Blast knockdown procs to enemies within its range.
Use this puppy as often as you can remember to lock down excavators or choke points.
Arcanes
As you probably noticed the majority of my builds utilise 1x ​Energize and 1x ​Guardian​. With the
exception of Nekros who uses ​Pulse​.
It's ultimately personal preference, but I find the energy and survivability boost from Energize
and Guardian is a perfect balance for Arbitrations.

Magus Lockdown​ for your Operator can give you some much needed CC in a pinch.

Pax Seeker over ​Pax Charge​, especially for the Catchmoon. The extra damage helps clear out
groups of enemy units at a faster pace.

Auras
Enemy Radar is a criminally underrated Aura. Always try and have one player with Enemy
Radar, and the rest with​ ​Corrosive Projection​.
Knowing the enemy position is invaluable information for you to plan your move.
Corrosive Projection is less useful against Infested, AFAIK the only source of armour on
infested is from Swarm Mutalist Moas.

Adaptation
In my opinion, a build is not ready for Arbitrations unless it has the​ ​Adaptation​ mod.
Ironically, the only place it drops is from Arbitrations. Do yourself a favour and spend the 60 plat,
you'll be finding plenty in no time to sell and make it back.

Specters
Though not mandatory, specters are cool, bring them. Ancient Healers in particular.
Companions
Regardless of how tanky you build your companion, you can't cure it of incompetent AI.
Sometimes your Kavat will last as long as you do, sometimes it'll die in the first few digs
because it wanted to stand in front of that Eximus.
However keeping your companion alive for as long as possible is vital for providing you with
important buffs such as the enemy detection from ​Primed Animal Instinct (stacks with the
detection range from Enemy Radar) and drawing in health and energy drops with ​Vacuum /
Fetch​. The latter is particularly important for Nekros who depends on those drops to keep
himself buffed.

Whilst Kavats offer better buffs and are far tankier, you might find yourself frustrated with their
suicidal behaviour, in which case you might prefer a Sentinel that loyally follows you around.
Djinn in particular is worth mentioning thanks to its unique ​Reawaken mod, allowing it to revive
itself after 90 seconds if destroyed. Just don’t give it a weapon, we don’t want them drawing any
attention to themselves.

(Linked stats are based off Frost)

Tips and Tricks
Pair Up
Quite often both excavators will be very close to each other, and pairing up won't be relevant.
However in cases of the 1km span from one excavator to the other, it's good to know who
should stay to finish off the current excavator/s, and who should push on to start the next.
Generally you always want Frost to trigger the excavators so he can bubble them immediately,
who goes with him is generally up to the group composition and enemy spawns. If you have two
CC frames ie Nova and Nyx, it's a good idea to split them up so you've got CC in both areas.
Otherwise, based on the layout of the map, if you know the next excavator/s will be in a
centralised area and will therefore be attacked more, then it's a good idea for Nekros to go, as
every extra Power Cell squeezed out is time saved.

Take Two for the Road

Where possible always take two Power Cells at a time. You do this by picking up one with your
Warframe, then the other with your Operator, travel the distance with your Operator (made
easier with ​Naramon Mind Step and Mind Sprint, and ​Zenurik Void Flow and Void Syphon
waybounds), deposit your Operator's Power Cell, then pop back into your Warframe who will still
be holding that first Power Cell. Please note that the operator will drop the Power cell they’re
holding, when you transfer back into your warframe, however the warframe doesn’t when you
transfer into the operator.

Finish What You Start

Prevent excavators from receiving any damage and don’t leave them on their own. As tempting
as it is to go off and start running Power Cells, try to always have one person defending that
excavator.

Get Those Diggers Going

Excavation dig sites appear to spawn about 1 every minute, allowing for multiple excavators to
be running simultaneously. Use this to your advantage. It is possible to perform 3 digs
simultaneously, however we've found the healthy rate is 2 excavators up at a time.

Be Aggressive
This mode is not just defense, it is offense driven too. You will need to kill to force Power Cells
to drop. Killing also forces more Power Carriers to spawn. With weak offense, you'd run into
having down time where your excavators aren't progressing because they’ve run out of power.
That said, if a Nekros is with you, try not to push past the range their desecrate is covering, you
need those double Power Cell drops.
Priorities
Defense
● Only start excavators if they can be defended.
● Keep yourself alive. Better to let an excavator get destroyed than getting yourself killed.
One death, and that's it for you.
Offensive
● Look for Arbitration Drones > Nullifiers > Energy Leeches > Everything/Power Carriers! It
is more important to clear the areas near the dig sites than transporting Power Cells
whilst under attack.

Don't Get Complacent

On smooth runs you can forget that these mobs can still potentially one shot you if you're not
careful, especially after you've hit that hour mark. Always keep your guard up, and don't slack
off with the CC.

You Died
You didn't follow the above tip and got yourself killed, it happens to the best of us. But what
does this mean for our loot? This applies to all Arbitrations, if you die and then leave squad, you
keep all ​rotation based rewards earned prior to your death, even if they don't display in the
mission report after, ​you still got them. However if your party is nice, and they all extract within
a few minutes of you dying, you will still receive all loot found during the mission as well. There
are some instances where if you die immediately before the party receives their rotation reward,
you will still get the reward too.
What does this mean? Don't be afraid to keep going, unless you are really invested in that
Cryotic and the junk you looted, you have nothing to lose by continuing on. You ​cannot lose the
rotation rewards you've already earned.

To Wrap Things Up
Excavation Arbitrations are, in my opinion, one of the funnest, most challenging and rewarding
content currently in the game. I'd love to see more people out there doing these missions!
Feel free to add me ingame, IGN: Doooolan (Oceanic), for some glorious Endo farming.
Credit to AznWarMonger for helping me with this guide.

See you out there Tenno.