Arbitrations are a special Alert variant hosted by the Arbiters of Hexis, featuring "elite" versions of endless missions with additional modifiers for greater difficulty. They were introduced in Update 23.10 (2018-10-12).

Mechanics[]

In order to access Arbitrations, players must have completed all nodes (excluding Mutalist Alad V and Jordas Golem Assassinates on Eris, and Duviri) on the connected Star Chart, including Dark Sectors, Lua, the Kuva Fortress, the Zariman Ten Zero, and Albrecht's Laboratories. Players can check on what nodes they need to complete by talking to the Arbitration representative in the Arbiters of Hexis' Relay enclave.

Note that this also entails completing the Ropalolyst node, which requires players to have completed the Chimera Prologue and all the story quests leading up to it. Completing the nodes on the Zariman Ten Zero and Albrecht's Laboratories will require the player to complete the Angels of the Zariman and Whispers in the Walls respectively, which requires completion of The New War, meaning players must have acquired both a Railjack and a Necramech.

Once players have Arbitrations unlocked, it will be displayed on the Operation window. From then on, Arbitrations will stay permanently unlocked even when new Star Chart nodes are added in future updates. There is only one Arbitration alert up at any given point on the Star Chart, changing nodes on an hourly basis. Arbitrations will only select nodes with endless missions (Defection, Defense, Disruption, Excavation, Infested Salvage, Interception, Mirror Defense, or Survival) and the enemy level range will start at 60-80.

Rules[]

• A Rank 30 Warframe or a Mastery Rank 30 player whose Warframe has been polarized once is required to play Arbitrations, similar to Sortie Missions.
• Once a player loses all their Health, they do not enter the Bleedout phase; they die instantly. Furthermore, they are not allowed to revive themselves.
  •  Sacrifice,  Inaros' Undying Passive,  Sevagoth's Tombstone Passive, and  Unairu's  Last Gasp do not function in Arbitrations.
  • Companion's incapacitation and self-revive will function normally in Arbitrations.
  • When a player dies, a Revive Tower will appear at their place of death with a waypoint, and Arbitration Shield Drones (see below) will begin to drop Resurgence Tokens on death.
    • Resurgence Tokens function identically to Index Points: Picking them up will give the stacking Resurgence Burden debuff, which lowers Warframe maximum health and shields and constantly drains energy.
    • 5 Resurgence Tokens are needed to revive a dead player, but they do not need to be carried by the same Warframe. Warframes carrying a cumulative total of 5 points must bring them to the Revive Tower at the same time.
    • If a Warframe carrying Resurgence Tokens dies, all the tokens they are carrying will be lost.
    • Resurgence Tokens are unaffected by  Vacuum and  Fetch.
    • Once all players are revived or the dead players leave the mission, excess Resurgence Tokens will disappear, removing the debuff.
• The missions sport modifiers unique to each:
  • Excavation: Excavation time is increased from 100 seconds to 180 seconds, and takes two excavations to count for one round of rewards.
  • Survival: Life Support Capsules are worth 75% of usual.
  • Interception: Enemy towers fill twice as fast.
  • Defense: The defense objective is a Hexis Operative NPC armed with  Telos Akbolto. Unlike Sortie Defense, the Operative follows a chosen player instead of roaming by themselves, and can't be given a weapon by a Tenno. Downtime between waves is reduced to 2 seconds. Like players, the Operative will not enter bleedout, and their death will be an instant mission failure.
    • There is an exception for Excavation Site defense type in Grineer Sealab tileset, the Operative will be grounded within the area around one of the four cryopods, switching to another in each wave, and will only follow a chosen Tenno within that area.
  • Defection: Rescue targets cannot be revived.
  • Infested Salvage: Consoles have 15 times their normal health, but can not regenerate it by being exposed to a Vaporizer Bubble.
  • Disruption: Demolyst and Demolisher beeping range is halved and are marked when within 15 meters of a Tenno (from 30 meters).
• While quitting the mission will not yield any rewards, failing the mission keeps any rewards earned at the end of a rotation, but not any resources or credits enemies may drop.

Arbitration Shield Drones[]

Arbitration Shield Drones will spawn among the enemy ranks. They function similarly to Shield Ospreys, but with multiple differences.

• Their tether provides complete immunity to Warframe abilities to nearby enemies. The drones themselves are also immune.
  • The ability immunity extends to  Limbo's Rift Plane, in that they are unable to enter it and therefore cannot be killed by someone inside the Rift even while inside a  Cataclysm. Players outside of the rift plane or Operators still can. Enemies protected by the drones will not damage players inside the rift. Players can still fight with their Operator, as it cannot enter the rift.
  • This immunity extends to Exalted Weapons.
• They completely lack any weakspots, thus their shield gating cannot be bypassed and therefore cannot be killed in a single hit.
• Upon death, the drones explode, dealing 3,000  Blast damage to all enemy units in a radial effect, including other Arbitration Drones.
• Up to a maximum of 5 Arbitration Shield Drones can appear in the field at any given time.
• Arbitration Shield Drones do not receive Overguard from Ancient Healers.

Bonuses[]

• To encourage gameplay diversity, players are given a +300% Ability Strength bonus, +500 Health bonus, and a +300% Damage bonus to a random Warframe and three Weapons for each alert. The affected Warframe and weapon change from one player to another: for example, one player could be given bonuses for playing with  Excalibur and/or a  Skana while another player can be given bonuses for playing with  Mag and/or a  Braton.
  • The bonus can also be applied for Warframes and Weapons the player does not own.
  • Bonuses will also apply to any variants the Warframe or weapon may have (Prime, Syndicate, etc.).

Rewards[]

Mission[]

Arbitration Alerts reward one unit of  Vitus Essence for every rotation completed. Players can use their collected Vitus Essence to purchase unique items and mods from the Arbitration representative in the Relays' Hexis Enclave. Players will also get a 50,000 Credits Credit Reward on mission completion.

Arbitration Drones also have a 6% chance to drop Vitus Essence. Dropped essence will despawn after 5 minutes.

Rewards are on an AABBCCCC... rotation, as opposed to the AABC rotation used in normal missions. After the first four rotations (AABB), the Arbitration will continue on the C rotation endlessly.

For Excavation missions, rewards are given out every two completed digs instead of every one dig.

For Disruption missions, rewards tier is determined by the standard Disruption reward system with no alterations, dependent upon round and conduits defended.

Arbitration Honors[]

• Vitus Essence is used to buy items from the Arbitrations Vendor NPC in the Arbiters of Hexis room of any relay. Availability of wares are not affected by the player's reputation with the syndicate.

• Vitus Essence is also used to craft Ephemeras of the Body and Step series.

  

Notes[]

• Once the mission is entered and the first rotation is reached, the mission will be counted as completed and will not be available anymore upon returning to the Orbiter, regardless of failing, aborting, or leaving on rotation.

Tips[]

• The most common way to suddenly die is by an enemy grenade. They make a beeping noise and are shown by a red marker. Be wary of them, as they can blast through even the tankiest Warframes.
• At the beginning of the mission, ask how many waves your squad wants to finish. The last thing you want is to press your luck when most of your squad has left.
• During Defense missions, it is recommended to have at least one healer ( Trinity,  Oberon,  Wisp,  Khora or one player using  Protective Sling) to keep the target's health up. As the NPC will follow players, they can be better protected by huddling up in a narrow dead-end room/corridor, preferably with a single entrance.
•  Adaptation,  Quick Thinking, and  Rolling Guard are useful non-Warframe-specific mods for improving the chance of survival.
• Despite the presence of Warframe-specific bonuses, they will rarely make for more viable choices than survivability-focused Warframes. Survival is key to success, so it is helpful to use a Warframe with high survivability capabilities such as  Rhino,  Nezha,  Inaros,  Chroma or  Revenant.
  • The bonus can open up alternative builds however, as it will provide high Ability Strength that would otherwise require several mod slots, capacity, and penalties from Corrupted mods.
    • A Trinity for instance can focus entirely on Duration, Range, and her own survivability, while the bonus caps out her  Blessing's scaling.
• Arbitration Drones should ideally be taken out as quickly as possible. Weapons with punch through, large projectile hitboxes such as  Arca Plasmor or Catchmoon, area of effect weapons and explosive Glaives, or high damage single-target weapons like sniper rifles are all effective at this task.
  • Glaives modded with  Volatile Quick Return can hit twice with the initial hit and detonation, bypassing the Arbitration Drone's shield gate.
• Support Specters are highly useful for keeping the party and defense targets alive.
  • Trinity and Wisp Warframe specters can provide rapid healing. The former also offers great energy regeneration.
  • Ancient Healer specters and Shield Osprey specters provide damage reduction and shield regeneration respectively.
  • It isn't advised to use specters that do not prioritize following the player (Ancient Healer specter, Charger specter, etc.) in endless missions where mobility is key (Survival, Defection and Excavation).
  • Other specters that have no special abilities or traits, such as the Charger or Roller specter are not recommended as their durability is very low and they tend to not follow the player. However they can serve as a distraction, drawing aggro away from Tenno.
• Vulpaphylas are indispensable in Arbitrations should they have  Martyr Symbiosis and their respective Devolution precepts equipped as they can save their masters from certain death several times, provided they are not killed while the Vulpaphyla is reviving itself.
• A  Wisp with a Glaive can be useful as the team's designated reviver for fallen allies, as she can safely kill enemies with her Glaive while remaining invisible either through her Passive or  Wil-O-Wisp, collecting the tokens necessary to do so.
  •  Octavia can fulfil the same role with the Nocturne buff from  Metronome, though it is vulnerable to being dispelled and Octavia will have to regularly refresh the buff while tracking down tokens.

Bugs[]

• The randomly selected Ability Strength and Weapon Damage bonuses may not consistently apply to all Prime Warframes and Prime Weapons.
• Resurgence tokens collected by players who did not revive the downed player will not always disappear.
  • For example, P1 dies, P2 collects 2 tokens, P3 collects none, P4 collects 5 and revives P1.
  • After P1 is revived, P2 will still have 2 tokens .

Trivia[]

• Arbitrations were originally known as "Elite Alerts" when they were pitched by the Development Team.

Patch History[]