The Steel Path is a difficulty modifier for the Origin System hosted by Teshin, testing the Tenno's perseverance against significantly more durable enemies. It was introduced in Update 28.1 (2020-07-08).

In order to access The Steel Path, players must have completed all nodes (excluding Mutalist Alad V and Jordas Golem Assassinates on Eris, Brutus on Uranus, and Duviri) on the connected Star Chart. Players can check on what nodes they need to complete by talking to the Arbitration representative in the Arbiters of Hexis' Relay enclave.

Once the player meets these requirements, Teshin will invite the player to challenge The Steel Path; they must meet him on any Relay and ask him about "Steel Path?" to unlock the mode. From then on, The Steel Path will be permanently available even when new Star Chart nodes are added in future updates. Once players have The Steel Path unlocked, it will be displayed as a toggle on the right side of the Star Chart screen.

Incursions will only appear in the Alerts panel when the player has toggled their Star Chart mode to "Steel Path".

Each day at 00:00 UTC, 6 Steel Path Incursions Alert missions will be made available to the player on the Star Chart. A player can attempt them regardless of whether they have unlocked the node where the Incursion is located, and completing the Incursion will unlock that node. Incursions can appear on any node except Landscapes and Junctions, and they always appear globally on the same nodes for each player to aid with matchmaking. Each Incursion always awards 5 SteelEssence Steel Essence (unaffected by any boosters) and some may also have an additional Credits Credits reward.

Some mission types in Incursion have additional conditions to make them even more challenging than regular Steel Path missions:

Some evergreen offerings have weekly purchase limits: the RivenCipher Veiled Riven Cipher can only be purchased once per week, while Kuva Kuva and the Void Relic Pack have a purchase limit of 25 per week.

Only one reward is available per week and it can only be bought once that week. Every week, the 8 offerings will rotate from left to right, which takes 8 weeks for a full loop.

Note: Click here and purge the page's cache if the above weekly item is wrong. You have to do this every week when the weekly reward changes, which is every Sunday midnight UTC time or when the countdown timer above reaches zero.

The Circuit has its own set of Steel Path rewards, most notably Incarnon Genesis adapters. Two out of five adapters are selectable per week and are awarded of The Circuit's 5th and 10th award tiers, one time per week.

Hotfix 38.0.5 (2024-12-18)

Hotfix 38.0.4 (2024-12-17)

Hotfix 38.0.1 (2024-12-14)

Hotfix 37.0.4 (2024-10-10)

Update 37.0 (2024-10-02)

Update 36.1 (2024-08-21)

Update 36.0 (2024-06-18)

Hotfix 35.5.8 (2024-04-24)

Update 35.5 (2024-03-27)

General Albrecht’s Laboratories Changes & Fixes:
STEEL PATH ADDITIONS

The Steel Path: Holdfasts & Cavia Bounties
The Steel Path is now available for Holdfasts and Cavia Bounties. Accessing the Steel Path variants is possible through a selection UI when speaking to a Bounty Giver.

How to change Bounty difficulty:
When interacting with a Bounty giver, select “Bounties” and change the difficulty at the top left of your screen, below your rank and Daily Standing Cap.

With Steel Path Bounties, you’ll earn 50% more Standing from The Cavia bounties, while The Holdfasts will net you 50% more Voidplume Quills, rounded up (e.g. Tier 5 SP Bounties will reward 8 Plumes)!

As always, you’ll find many similarities between these Bounties and other Steel Path missions across the Origin System. Enemies are tougher and higher-level, you’ll earn one guaranteed Steel Essence upon Steel Path Bounty completion, and the Acolytes will “torment” you within Zariman & Albrecht’s Laboratories Steel Path Bounties.

Steel Path Incursion Expansion: Zariman And Albrecht’s Laboratories

Steel Path Incursions are a familiar feature in the Origin System, with five Star Chart nodes being chosen each day that reward an additional 5 Steel Essence each on completion. With Dante Unbound, an additional sixth Incursion will make an appearance daily.

This new addition will work the same as existing Incursions, but will only appear within the Zariman and Albrecht’s Laboratories, meaning a daily incursion will always be on one of these Tilesets. The existing five Incursions will not see any changes and will not appear on Zariman or Albrecht’s Laboratories nodes.

DUVIRI IMPROVEMENTS
TOP FIXES

Update 35.1 (2024-02-20)

Hotfix 34.0.4 (2023-10-24)

Hotfix 34.0.3 (2023-10-20)

Steel Path Endless Fissures:

We have disabled Steel Path Fissure missions for Endless mission types (Survival, Defense, Interception, Disruption, and Excavation) due to an exploit. Our goal is to identify a fix for early next week, but in the meantime we have removed those missions from the Steel Path Fissure pool to prevent unintended behavior.

Steel Path Fissures will still be available in the Star Chart, just for non-Endless missions only.

Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)

Hotfix 33.6.9 (2023-09-12)

Hotfix 33.5.6 (2023-07-07)

Hotfix 33.5.5 (2023-07-06)

Update 33.5 (2023-06-21)

DUVIRI STEEL PATH TROPHIES & EMOTE

Complete the following conditions to earn an inbox message from Teshin with 25 Steel Essence, the Steel Path Duviri Emote, and the Steel Path Duviri Trophy.

Zariman Steel Path Trophy Fix
The introduction of Duviri Steel Path Trophies also fixes the issue of players not earning Zariman Steel Path trophies after completing all nodes (as they were not registering as complete), because Duviri was being counted as part of the Zariman region upon launch. Players who have completed the Zariman nodes prior to this update will now also receive their Steel Path rewards upon login.

Additions:
Fixes:

Update 33.0 (2023-04-26)

DUVIRI ON THE STEEL PATH

Experience Duviri on an entirely new level with The Steel Path! For those unfamiliar with this path, it is a difficulty modifier for existing nodes in the Star Chart to test your strength against significantly more difficult enemies.

How to Unlock for Duviri:
If you do not already have The Steel Path available to you, players must complete all of the nodes in the Origin System’s Star Chart and then speak to Teshin in the Relays. Upon doing this, and completing the Duviri Paradox Quest, the Steel Path toggle will appear for the Duviri Region to enable/disable these mission variants.

Note: Duviri missions are not required to unlock the Steel Path, unlike the Empyrean Star Chart.

Duviri Steel Path Modifiers:
Difficulty scaling for Duviri is different from what you may be used to in the regular Star Chart, as it is quite unlike the rest of Warframe.

In the Duviri landscape, enemy level is increased by +20 but with no additional modifiers to Health, Shield, or Armor. The Orowyrm fight at the end of Spiral also has additional stages and mechanics for those who want to engage in a more challenging fight -- with extra rewards for your effort. Traveling Duviri on the Steel Path earns you additional Intrinsics upon defeating the Orowyrm (22 instead of the usual 15), as well as extra Pathos Clamps (15 instead of 10).

In the Undercroft, enemies have the default Steel Path modifiers of +100 enemy level, 250% Health, Shield and Armor.

These enemy modifiers are indicated upon hovering over the Steel Path toggle in the Duviri Navigation screen.

Seeing as Duviri exists beyond the confines of the Origin System, Acolytes do not spawn here. However, Steel Essence is still rewarded for each mode:

Note: The Steel Path Trophy and Emote for the Duviri Region will be coming in a later update. Thank you for your patience!

Update 32.3 (2023-02-15)

Hotfix 32.2.4 (2022-12-07)

Update 32.2 (2022-11-30)

Update 32.1 (2022-11-02)

Update 32.0 (2022-09-07)

New Steel Path Missions: Void Fissures

While evaluating AoE, we found another angle of consideration: mission design. Specifically Fissure missions where AoE lethality is common and problematic. For each new Prime Access, we ask players to revisit these lower level missions to open Relics - in Lith missions it can be difficult to even earn Reactant if you kill too quickly! Which leads us to the following addition of Steel Path Void Fissure Missions.

If you are an experienced Warframe player, you are extremely familiar with the Void Fissure mission flow: Select Relic and blitz through enemies to crack it. It is obvious that where Void Fissure missions are, they are far too easy and can be completed with little to no friction (looking at you Lith). Ultimately, this makes the Prime content not as engaging as it could be, while also leaving new players behind in the dust as the experienced rip through enemies before they can get to them.

The solution: Steel Path Void Fissure missions.

When enabling Steel Path in Navigation, Void Fissure missions in the World State Window will now have the usual Steel Path flare apply (Acolytes, difficulty modifiers, etc.). To make it worth your while, 1 x Steel Essence is also awarded for every Relic you crack.

FIXES:

Hotfix 31.5.8 (2022-05-11)

Hotfix 31.5.5 (2022-05-03)

Hotfix 31.5.4 (2022-05-02)

Hotfix 31.1.3 (2022-02-15)

Update 31.0 (2021-12-15)

Update 30.9 (2021-11-11)

Hotfix 30.7.6 (2021-09-23)

Hotfix 30.5.5 (2021-07-29)

Steel Path Change + Exploit Fixes:

For non-endless missions, most notably Sabotage, a max of 3 Acolytes will spawn and their levels will incrementally increase with every new Acolyte spawn.

Hotfix 30.5.3 (2021-07-09)

Update 30.5 (2021-07-06)

NEW STEEL PATH HONORS

Teshin has expanded his Steel Path Honors!

STEEL PATH & LOOT CHANGES

In the Deimos Arcana update, we made several changes to the Steel Path and the acquisition of Steel Essence. Our stated goals were to move away from long endurance missions as the most efficient way to collect Steel Essence, while also reducing randomness. After observing player trends, a loot strategy involving both of these elements has come up once again, making regular unoptimized Steel Path play feel less worthwhile.

With the number of new Steel Path rewards being introduced in this update, we wanted to address those strategies, while also bringing up the lower average. We hope these changes reinforce one of this update’s main themes - you should be able to play the game however you want, without feeling forced into prevalent strategies.

Acolytes will now drop 1 of 6 New Arcanes on death!

PRIMARY MERCILESS
On Kill:
+30% Damage for 4s. Stacks up to 12x.
+30% Reload Speed
+100% Ammo Max

PRIMARY DEADHEAD
On Headshot Kill:
120% Damage for 24s. Stacks up to 3x.
+30% to Headshot Multiplier.
-50% Weapon Recoil

PRIMARY DEXTERITY
On Melee Kill:
+60% Damage for 20s. Stacks up to 6x.
+60% Holster Speed.
+7.5s Combo Duration.

SECONDARY MERCILESS
On Kill:
+30% Damage for 4s. Stacks up to 12x.
+30% Reload Speed
+100% Ammo Max

SECONDARY DEADHEAD
On Headshot Kill:
120% Damage for 24s. Stacks up to 3x.
+30% to Headshot Multiplier.
-50% Weapon Recoil

SECONDARY DEXTERITY
On Melee Kill:
+60% Damage for 20s. Stacks up to 6x.
+60% Holster Speed.
+7.5s Combo Duration.

Update 30.3 (2021-05-25)

Hotfix 30.1.1 (2021-05-05)

Update 30.0 (2021-04-13)

Hotfix 29.10.5 (2021-03-24)

Hotfix 29.5.5 (2020-11-27)

Hotfix 29.5.2 (2020-11-20)

Missed 29.5.0 Note + Script

Update 29.5 (2020-11-19)

THE STEEL PATH: ACOLYTES JOIN THE BATTLE & MORE!

The Steel Path provides Tenno with two things: a more difficult journey on the Star Chart, and a new economy with Steel Essence to get some gear.

We have decided to revisit the Steel Essence acquisition because at present time, people feel forced to play extremely long macro-based runs to optimize their runs. We would rather try something else.

Introducing: Acolyte Minibosses & Steel Path Incursions (Daily Alerts)!

STEEL PATH FEEDBACK THREAD: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1236094-deimos-arcana-steel-path-changes-megathread/

Update 29.0 (2020-08-25)

Update 28.3 (2020-08-12)

The Steel Path Changes

Resource Drop Chance Boosters now apply to Steel Essence and Riven Sliver drops within Steel Path missions.

To confirm player theories and clarify, previous to this Hotfix Resource Drop Chance Boosters did not affect Steel Essence or Riven Sliver drops in The Steel Path. It was not our intention to hide or subvert that information in game, and we should have clarified more quickly that this was the case.

Saying this doesn’t change what appears to be the broader issue, which is concerns with Steel Essence drop rates. We are still gathering data on acquisition rates - but ultimately we are all hands on deck working to make Heart of Deimos the best it can be for August 25th. As of this Hotfix, any Tenno who have already walked The Steel Path will receive a Resource Drop Chance Booster.

This Hotfix ensures that Resource Drop Chance Boosters work within The Steel Path for Riven Slivers and Steel Essence. They were initially turned off to ensure the inherent Steel Path Resource Drop Chance Booster worked as intended. Like the initial Arcane Marketplace in Scarlet Spear, we wanted to ensure the automatic ‘100% Steel Path Resource Drop Chance Booster’ didn’t unintentionally scale for Resources specific to the Steel Path (Riven Slivers and Steel Essence). This unfortunately also affected player obtained reward Resource Drop Chance Boosters.

Thank you all for the feedback so far on The Steel Path, it helps to shape our knowledge and decisions moving forward.

Fixes

Update 28.2 (2020-07-14)

Hotfix 28.1.1 (2020-07-09)

Update 28.1 (2020-07-08)