The Steel Path

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 .
==Mechanics==
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.
The Steel Path only affects normal missions, Dark Sectors, Junctions, Mission Locators, and Duviri. It does not apply to Nightmare Mode, Syndicates, or Invasions. The Steel Path also adds a 6th tier Landscape Bounty. The Empyrean Star Chart is also not included.
===Incursions===
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 (unaffected by any boosters) and some may also have an additional reward.
Some mission types in Incursion have additional conditions to make them even more challenging than regular Steel Path missions:
*Spy Incursions require 2 Data Vaults (instead of normal 1 vault).
*Interception Incursions requires 2 waves (instead of normal 1 wave).
*Excavation Incursions requires 500 Cryotic (instead of 100 Cryotic).
Steel Path Incursions will refresh in:
===Rules===
*Players must re-unlock Star Chart nodes on The Steel Path starting from E Prime, Earth, as if starting the Origin System from a fresh state.
**Dakata, Kuva Fortress, the individual Jordas Golem and Mutalist Alad V Assassinate Eris nodes, and Bounties are also immediately available from the start.
***Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, and Cambion Drift gain a 6th tier Bounty, while Zariman Ten Zero and Albrecht's Laboratories gain a Steel Path variant for all available bounties.
***Completion of the Plains of Eidolon, Orb Vallis, and Cambion Drift Bounties are not required in order to mark the node as completed. Entering the Landscape with the 6th tier Bounty selected and immediately exiting to the hub town will also unlock their adjacent nodes.
**Steel Path Eidolons can only be fought at nighttime, either in the 6th tier Plains of Eidolon Bounty, or by having selected the Steel Path mode from the Navigation Screen before entering the Plains of Eidolon.
**Junctions on The Steel Path do not have any associated tasks and can be entered as soon as the adjacent node is cleared. (Unless the player has an early account and has cleared the Star Chart before junctions were implemented, in which case the player will have to go back to the normal mode junction and clear its prerequisites to challenge it in Steel Path mode.)
*All enemies have their level increased by 100, and gain an additional +150% (to a total of 250%, or 2.5x) bonus to health and shields.
**Bounties have a starting level of 100 with the aforementioned modifiers. Players must be Mastery Rank 10 to access these bounties.
**Enemies in Archwing have their level increased by 50.
***Enemies in Grineer Sealab underwater Archwing still have their levels increased by 100.
**The Eidolon Teralyst's level is increased to 110, the Eidolon Gantulyst to 120 and Eidolon Hydrolyst to 130.
**Enemies in Duviri have their level increased by 20, but with no changes to Health, Shields, or Armor. The Orowyrm boss fight gains additional mechanics.
***Enemies in The Undercroft and The Circuit use the default Steel Path modifiers.
*Team Bonus Consumables have a one-minute cooldown.
*Enemy spawn rates during Endless missions are increased as if playing in a full squad in normal mode.
*Acolytes can spawn in any non-Archwing, non-Assassination, non-Ascension, and non-Duviri Steel Path missions.
**Multiple Acolytes can spawn each mission in roughly 3-7 minute intervals depending on the kill rate of enemies, with an average of 4 1/2 minutes in Survival. This includes non-endless mission types such as Exterminate, and Landscapes regardless of whether a bounty is currently active.
***In non-endless missions, a max of 3 Acolytes will spawn.
***Due to being tied to kill rate, Acolytes can stop spawning if every enemy in a non-endless mission is killed.
***In Survival, an Acolyte can still be spawned after the player runs out of Life Support, as long as there remain enemies to be killed in order to summon the Acolyte.
***Acolytes will not spawn from kills made by Specters or On Call Crew.
**Acolytes will still spawn in submersible missions on Uranus.
==Rewards==
===Mission===
*Mission nodes and Junctions award Mastery Points that is separate from normal Star Chart missions. Like normal missions, points are only awarded once after the first completion.
**Jordas Golem and Mutalist Alad V Assassinate nodes are not required to reach maximum Mastery (27,519) from Steel Path missions.
*All missions in The Steel Path have a +100% resource drop chance increase and +100% mod drop chance increase over the same mission node in normal (non-Steel Path) mode.
**The bonuses stack with True Master's Font blessings, Resource Drop Chance Booster and Mod Drop Chance Booster, and Dark Sector bonuses.
*6 Incursion missions in the Star Chart are randomly picked as a daily Alert mission, each rewarding 5 (unaffected by any boosters) and some may also have an additional reward.
**The missions are not picked in random order but are randomized each day so the same mission can be selected several times before all other missions have been selected.
*Bounty variants of the Zariman Ten Zero award 50% more Voidplumes, while variants of Albrecht's Laboratories and Höllvania Central Mall award 50% more . They also award 1 Steel Essence.
*Eidolon Teralyst, Eidolon Gantulyst, and Eidolon Hydrolyst are guaranteed to drop 1 Steel Essence.
*Acolytes are guaranteed to drop 2 Steel Essence (affected by Resource Boosters and Beast Companion's /), as well as one random Steel Path Arcane (, , , , , or ).
*All Eximus enemies have an increased chance to drop Riven Slivers.
*Fully clearing a planet's mission nodes awards a respective Decoration and Emote, as well as 25 Steel Essences.
**Deimos additionally rewards a decoration and emote for the retired Orokin Derelict.
***Players who have already completed the Orokin Derelict before its removal on will receive a second statue.
**The Index is not required for Neptune completion.
**Jordas Golem and Mutalist Alad V Assassinate nodes are not required for Eris completion.
*Opening a Void Relic in Steel Path Void Fissures awards 1 Steel Essence.
*The Orowyrm in Duviri drops 5 Steel Essence, 15 (up from 10), and 22 Drifter Intrinsics (up from 15).
*Mirror Defense Tyana Pass, Mars awards 7 and (up from 5) per 50 Citrine's Remnants, and 15 Crystal Fragments (up from 10) per rotation.
*Conjunction Survival Yuvarium, Lua awards 5 (up from 3) per rotation, while Circulus, Lua awards 6 Lua Thrax Plasm (up from 5) per rotation.
*Kullervo Boss in Duviri drops 6-8 (up from 4-6).
*Abyssal Zone, Ceres awards 8, 11, or 12 (up from 6-8).
*Demolisher Voidrigs and Demolisher Bonewidows in Disruption Armatus, Deimos drops 5-7 (up from 2-4).
*Ascension Brutus, Uranus awards 16-18 (up from 11-13). The summoned Sisters of Parvos drops 8-10 Vestigial Motes (up from 5-7), 2 Steel Essence, and a 100% Arcane drop chance (up from 33%).
*Shrine Defense awards 20-24 (up from 14-18).
**Additionally, access to the Steel Path is required to purchase and from Koumei's Shrine.
===Steel Essence===
 is used to buy items in The Steel Path Honors shop from Teshin in any Relay.
Some evergreen offerings have weekly purchase limits: the can only be purchased once per week, while and the Void Relic Pack have a purchase limit of 25 per week.
==== Teshin's Steel Path Honors shop - Evergreen Items ====
==== Teshin's Steel Path Honors shop - Weekly Rotating Offer ====
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===
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.
==Tips==
*Due to drastically increased enemy armor and shields, it is advisable to bring abilities that can remove enemy defenses such as 's , 's , 's , 's (Helminth subsumable), Hildryn's Pillage (Helminth subsumable), or 's and . Alternatively, bring weapons or abilities which can bypass enemy defenses.
*Khora's Ensnare ability can completely immobilize acolytes, trivializing the fight against them. This ability is subsumable.
*Archon shards can alleviate the weaknesses of warframes that would be otherwise too fragile to take on Steel Path.
*Most enemies in Steel Path are still powerless against stealth abilities. Though, collateral damages from enemies can still endanger an invisible warframe.
*Weapons that can frequently apply impact procs will allow you to execute mercy kills quicker on heavy targets.
*It is highly recommended to focus on primary objectives first and save as many downed allies as possible before an acolyte arrives. This enables an easier extraction, if one is inadequately geared to take on acolytes.
==Trivia==
*The Steel Path was originally known as "Hard Mode" when first pitched by the Development Team.
*Originally, two different tiers of hard mode were planned: one was meant to be a +60 enemy level Star Chart, and the other, called "Ultra Hard Mode", a +100 level. The first tier was removed in order to not dilute the matchmaking.
*Circulus, Lua's level 180-200 is the highest starting level of enemies in the Steel Path.
*Missions can still sometimes change objectives mid-mission, such as Capture changing to Exterminate (after capturing the target), but Teshin has no voice lines to reflect this, so he will simply repeat his original voice line.
==Media==
Warframe The Steel Path - Available Now on PC
==Patch History==
es:El camino de acero
Category:Update 28
Category:Missions
fr:La Route de l'Acier