Archon Shards: unlock, farm and socket them

You can swap mods at any time, but Archon Shards are bonuses built permanently into a single Warframe. Each shard gives more ability strength, armor or health, for example, without taking a mod slot. That makes good Warframes even better and covers their weaknesses.

The key terms in short:

Archon

Powerful Sentient bosses. You hunt them once a week in the Archon Hunt, and they drop the shards.

Segment

A part for your Orbiter that unlocks a new feature. You build it in the Foundry and then install it.

Helminth

The Infested creature on your Orbiter. You socket shards into your Warframes there.

Secretions

The Helminth’s currency. You need them to remove a shard again.

Tauforged

The rare, stronger version of a shard. Its bonus is 1.5 times as high.

Standing

Reputation with a faction, earned through missions and spent at its vendors.

1. 01

   Finish “The New War”

   The quest is the prerequisite for “Veilbreaker”.

2. 02

   Play “Veilbreaker”

   It opens the weekly Archon Hunt and rewards the Helminth Archon Shard Segment blueprint. You cannot buy it anywhere, it only comes from the quest.

3. 03

   Build it in the Foundry

   It costs 50,000 credits, 2× Entrati Lanthorn, 10× Devolved Namalon, 5× Sporulate Sac and 50× Thrax Plasm, and takes 24 hours.

4. 04

   Install it

   Install the finished segment on your Orbiter. You can now socket shards at the Helminth.

Every shard has a color with five possible bonuses. When you socket it, you pick one. The same bonus can appear several times if you socket several shards of that color. The values in the table are the same ones the builder calculates with.

Crimson

Normal / Tauforged

• Melee: Critical Damage+25% / +37.5%
• Primary: Status Chance+25% / +37.5%
• Secondary: Critical Chance+25% / +37.5%
• Ability Strength+10% / +15%
• Ability Duration+10% / +15%

Azure

Normal / Tauforged

• Health+150 / +225
• Shield Capacity+150 / +225
• Max Energy+50 / +75
• Armor+150 / +225
• Health regeneration+5/s / +7.5/s

Amber

Normal / Tauforged

• Starting energy+30% / +45%
• Health orb effectiveness+100% / +150%
• Energy orb effectiveness+50% / +75%
• Casting Speed+25% / +37.5%
• Parkour Velocity+15% / +22.5%

Topaz

Normal / Tauforged

• Health per Blast kill (max 300)+1 / +2
• Shield regen on Blast status+5 / +7.5
• Secondary: crit chance per Heat kill (max 50 %)+1% / +1.5%
• Ability damage vs. Radiation+10% / +15%

Violet

Normal / Tauforged

• Ability damage vs. Electricity+10% / +15%
• Primary: Electricity damage (+10 % per shard)+30% / +45%
• Melee: Critical Damage (x2 above 500 Energy)+25% / +37.5%
• Health/Energy conversion+20% / +30%

Emerald

Normal / Tauforged

• Toxin status damage+30% / +45%
• Health per Toxin proc+2 / +3
• Ability damage vs. Corrosive+10% / +15%
• Corrosive stack limit+2 / +3

The Archon Hunt is a weekly three-stage mission, similar to Sorties. It resets every Monday at 00:00 UTC, and the Archon rotates in a fixed cycle.

• Enemies are level 130 to 150, and only rank 30 Warframes are allowed.
• There is no self-revive. Whoever dies is out and can lose the reward.
• A random Warframe and three random weapons get a big bonus for the week. Try them, even if you do not own them.
• The final stage always drops a shard: 20% chance of Tauforged. Each normal shard raises that chance by another 20% for next time.

• Bird 3 (Cavia): From Cavia rank 5 you can buy one normal shard a week for 30,000 standing. The color rotates weekly. The Cavia live in Albrecht’s Laboratories on Deimos.
• Netracells and Deep Archimedea: base colors are common loot, Tauforged shards are rare.
• Temporal Archimedea: can give every color, including Tauforged.
• The 1999 Calendar and Steel Path “The Descendia”: occasional shard rewards.

Fusing needs a second segment, the Helminth Coalescent Segment. Bird 3 of the Cavia sells its blueprint for 30,000 standing from rank 2. Building it costs 50,000 credits, 50× Stela, 5× Echo Voca, 5× Entrati Lanthorn and 25× Necracoil, and takes 24 hours.

• Every Warframe has five slots for shards.
• You can remove a shard for secretions: 15% for a normal one, 30% for a Tauforged one. The shard itself is kept.
• After the first socket, the shards are also reachable from that Warframe’s Arsenal.

Proven picks: Crimson for ability strength on damage Warframes, Azure for armor and health on tanks, Amber for casting speed on abilities with long animations.