Warframe 1999 Guide Community Picks: Top Recommendations

Ok so you finished Whispers in the Walls and Lotus Eaters, and now you're looking at Höllvania with no idea where to start. tbh the 1999 expansion throws a ridiculous amount of stuff at you all at once. New syndicate. An instant messenger dating thing. A real-time calendar with seasonal objectives. And some secret Steel Path boss that turns off your self-revives.

Even people with hundreds of hours are kinda lost at first. I know I was.

But here's the thing. The community has been at this for months now, testing everything and arguing about what actually works. So I've been digging through forum posts and build sites and Reddit threads to figure out what keeps coming up. Here's what seems to matter. Not gonna pretend this is some definitive guide or anything. Just what I've found useful and what the consensus seems to be.

So the Hex quest needs every main story quest done before you can start. I mean everything through Lotus Eaters. Vor's Prize, The Second Dream, Rising Tide for your Railjack, The War Within, Heart of Deimos for the Necramech, The New War, Whispers in the Walls, then Lotus Eaters. And yes you do actually need both a Railjack and a Necramech. Not optional.

Heart of Deimos gives you the blueprints for the Necramech but honestly the resource grind is a nightmare. Damaged necramech parts, scintillant, orokin orientation matrices. If you hate open-world mining which I absolutely do, buying a built Necramech from the Market with plat saves you like 8 to 10 hours of farming. The community is split on whether it's worth it but I've never met anyone who regretted skipping the Deimos grind. Not one person.

The quest requirements aren't even the real filter though. It's the Star Chart. You need most nodes cleared just to reach the later quests anyway. And Steel Path access needs full Star Chart completion. So if you've been ignoring those later planets you're gonna have a bad time.

Honestly the secret Steel Path boss is the hardest fight in 1999 and it's not close. Self-revives are disabled which is already brutal. Every enemy that spawns is an Eximus unit. And the tank hits hard enough to one-shot most frames that don't have layered defenses up.

I've found the community has basically converged on a setup that works. For survivability you want Arcane Nullifier plus Primed Sure Footed. The Nullifier is non-negotiable because magnetic procs disable your abilities for 3 whole seconds. PSF handles the constant mortar staggers that will otherwise knock you around like a pinball.

Vazarin focus school is what most people run. Protective Sling gives you invulnerability frames and healing for both you and your companion. Saves runs.

For armor strip the Latron Incarnon with Flensing Spike evolution strips the tank's armor in just a few shots. This makes the RPG phase a one-shot kill instead of some drawn-out nightmare. For weak point DPS you want raw damage not status procs since the vents are immune to status. Lex Prime Incarnon or Laetum both work great here.

Phase 2 cleanup is where Magistar Incarnon comes in. Heavy slam the top of the tank and it deletes those infested growths instantly. For sentinel any companion with Primed Regen and Momentous Bond works. It revives you on bleedout and Momentous Bond keeps it alive after Eximus kills. And specters. Deploy Dante and an Ancient Healer before you enter the arena. Dante gives Overguard, Ancient Healer gives 90 percent damage reduction. I'm not sure about this but I think the specter levels scale with the mission level so they actually hold up decently well.

But here's the thing most newer players completely miss. You have to hack two secret green glowing terminals before each barricade to trigger the Apex variant. Ciphers don't work on these. You have to solve the minigame manually. Arthur says a voice line when you've done it right which is how you know for sure.

Phase 1 is pretty manageable once armor is stripped. Destroy the 8 green vents, grab an RPG from a Stormfall trooper. Roll while picking it up to skip the animation. Apply Viral to the tank and fire. Then do it again for the second health bar.

Phase 2 gets messy fast. The tank summons Techrot that heal it. Mucuspires drain your abilities. And a stacking soft enrage called Cascading Fragmentation kicks in around 60 seconds. Kill the Techrot healers immediately. Stay airborne to avoid ground AOE. Slam the infested growths with your melee. Solo runs face level 225 enemies. Full squads go up to level 300. Most people I've talked to reccomend solo or duo. Fewer Eximus spawns and the tank's HP scales with squad size so 4 player runs take way longer.

So the 1999 weapons are kind of a mixed bag. Some are genuinely strong. Others are just mastery fodder.

Reconifex is Quincy's LMG and honestly it's the standout. 200 round magazine with a perfect reload mechanic. Time the reload right and every shot in the next magazine deals guaranteed Heat damage. Build for Viral plus Heat with Critical Delay and Galvanized Chamber and Rifle Elementalist. The guaranteed Heat proc triggers Galvanized Aptitude damage scaling on every bullet. Pairs beautifully with Gauss or Wisp for fire rate though the reload window gets tight under speed buffs. But the DPS payoff is kind of ridiculous. Active reload is the entire weapon though. If you can't nail the timing consistently just skip this one, the base performance without it is mediocre.

AX-52 is Arthur's rifle. Hip fire gives plus 60 percent ammo efficiency and aimed headshots get plus 400 percent additive crit chance. Two main build paths. Cold stacking with Primed Cryo Rounds and Rime Rounds. Or the Primary Acuity headshot build that hits absurd weak point numbers but sacrifises multishot. Primary Deadhead is basically required either way. Vauban's Vortex and Harrow's Condemn make lining up headshots trivial.

Vesper 77 is fine I guess. Solid secondary but honestly outclassed by Laetum and Lex Incarnon for most content. Build it if you like how it looks, skip it if you're optimizing.

Cyte-09 is the new Warframe and his Exalted sniper rifle scales well into Steel Path. His invisibility plus weak point detection ability has actually changed how some squads approach the Apex Tank fight. Worth farming even if you only ever use him for the solo glyph challenge.

The KIM system is the relationship thing. Kinemantik Instant Messenger. You chat with six Hex members every day and send gifts and run bounties to build Chemistry. Here's what the game doesn't explain.

Chemistry from bounties is fixed at 20 per member per day. No RNG and no way to speed it up. Gifts give between 1 and 20 Chemistry depending on whether the member likes what you gave them. Arthur loves kitchen appliances especially the KineKitchen Toaster at plus 20. Eleanor wants the Hanging Planter. Lettie takes the Coffee Machine. Amir likes Wireless Headphones. Wasting a gift on the wrong item loses you both Chemistry and Höllars.

Golden dialogue options in KIM chats give bonus Chemistry. There are community made dialogue guides on the wiki now but tbh the first playthrough is more fun if you go in blind. Not knowing what the right answer is makes it feel more like an actual conversation instead of a checklist.

Chemistry requirements vary. Arthur and Lettie and Eleanor need Close rank which is 360 Chemistry plus Syndicate Rank 5 before you can reach Loved status. Aoi and Amir and Quincy only need Trusted which is 160 Chemistry. You can only date one member at a time. The New Year's Eve scene at the end of a calendar cycle is the payoff people are chasing.

The Hex Finale true ending needs max Chemistry with all six members. So don't skip anyone's daily chat and bounty. Even the ones you're not romancing. Learned that the hard way.

The Höllvania calendar runs on a 4 real week cycle with each week corresponding to one season. Weekly objectives like kill X enemies with abilities or defeat Y Scaldra units advance the calendar and grant Hex Overrides. These are permanent buffs for Höllvania missions that stack throughout the year.

Spring and Summer seasons usually have easier objectives. Autumn and Winter get more grindy so frontload your objective clears early in the cycle. Hex Overrides come in two types. Boosts are stackable passives like melee attack speed. Factors are active effects like electricity on bullet jump which don't stack. Most people prioritize melee speed and ability strength Boosts since they make the daily bounty grind noticeably faster.

At the end of each 4 week year you pick Remember or Forget. Remember keeps all Chemistry. Forget resets relationships to zero but keeps your Syndicate standing. Completionists need at least one Forget cycle to trigger specific dialogue branches on a second playthrough.

And this is something the community is still arguing about actually. Whether the intended experience is one full year with a single romance or multiple cycles to see all six New Year's Eve scenes. The wiki walkthroughs cover everything now but most veterans I've talked to say do the first cycle completely blind then use guides for later ones to clean up what you missed. I'm not sure which approach is better honestly. Doing it blind the first time felt right for me but I get why some people want to optimize from the start...