Warframe 1999 Secret Boss: How to access, beat, and rewards

If Warframe 1999 is going swimmingly for you, but you want more heat added to the difficulty, you may have heard of this so-called “secret boss” going about. 

What is it? 

We can answer that for you, along with some builds to prepare and the rewards you can expect.

How to access the secret boss in Warframe 1999

To access the secret boss of Warframe 1999, you must first unlock the Steel Path version of the Victory Plaza. This is the Assassination mission in Hollvania, where you’d fight the tank boss.

While you’ll play this mission normally, there’s a hidden terminal you have to unlock for each of the “Destroy Barricade” objectives. They are within the red circle radius of the objective, so look around for them. 

Screenshot by Destructoid

These terminals look like the typical 1999 computers with some TechRot on them, but they will require an Emergency Transponder. Scaldra units frequently drop these items inside the mission area to call down paratroopers with the RPGs.

When you use a Transponder on the terminals, you’ll have to play the classic worm game on the terminal, but you can’t use a Cipher to skip it. You have to beat it. Failing it will require you to get another Transponder.

You also have to deal with enemies around you so they won’t kill you while attempting to beat the minigame.

Once you complete the terminal on both objectives before the boss, you should see these symbols under your minimap that look like the Scaldra Syndicate symbol and a diamond. The diamond has to be converted into the Scaldra symbol to denote that you have deciphered both terminals.

Arthur will tell you that you’re bold for increasing the threat level, meaning you unlocked the secret fight.

Screenshot by Destructoid

How to beat the secret boss in Warframe 1999

Before you just waltz into this mission, your typical build that you run into this fight with will probably not be enough to even scratch this thing. You’ll face a stronger version of the H-09 Efervon Tank called the H-09 Apex. It’s stronger and has a few tricks up its sleeve.

Preparing against the H-09 Apex

So, to start, you want to have a bunch of elemental resistance or immunity to Magnetic and Gas. The boss itself deals a bunch of magnetic damage while surrounding enemies lay out blankets of gas puddles that deal devastating damage. 

Use Arcane Nullifier for resistance to Magnetic and a subsumed ability like Hideous Resistance to fight against Gas. Once those are covered, you want a weapon in each slot that can either strip armor, deal AoE damage, or deal big single-target damage.

Screenshot by Destructoid

Loadout options

As mentioned earlier, you want weapons that strip armor. You can do that with high-status builds that focus solely on corrosive and heat. Ideally, you want any weapon that can deal a single element so you won’t have to worry about other status effects, making it longer to strip armor.

Using snipers, shotguns, or any single target weapons that can make do with the damage attenuation will be what you want to destroy the tank’s weak points. Ideally, you want to spec them with as much DPS as possible, with some attention to Corrosive and Magnetic as a means to deal more. 

The tank is weak to Corrosive damage, even after having its armor stripped. Do not worry about losing out on damage because of that.

You want an AoE weapon to deal with mobs of enemies and hit multiple weak spots simultaneously as the fight progresses. The Apex tank moves a lot, so hitting the vulnerable vents on it will be hard.

Warframe loadout

While Arcane Nullifier and Hideous Resistance are a must in this fight, you’ll also need really good damage reduction against the Apex tank.

Shield gating will be your best friend here, so apply all the following mods so you can prevent a quick death:

• Catalyzing Shields
• Vigilante Vigor
• Fortitude
• Fast Deflection
• Brief Respite

This will, unfortunately, not apply to frames that do not have a shield. 

Next, you can use mods that reduce damage, like Adaptation or Rolling Guard, but as long as the shield-gating is hard at work, there’s some wiggle room to cater to using abilities or getting more damage reduction. 

Ability spam won’t win you any fights here, so focus on anything defensive for this fight while your weapons do most of the damage.

What do you get for beating the boss?

It’s important to know that the only real worthwhile rewards for defeating this boss are if you beat it with the following Warframes:

• Excalibur
• Nyx
• Mag
• Volt
• Trinity
• Cyte-09

Doing so with any of solo these will give you a special Glyph of their Protoframe counterpart. If you beat this mission with anyone else, it’ll be just as if you completed this on Steel Path.

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