Warframe: How to get Archon Shards, and are they worth it?

Archon Shards are a new way to refine and maximize your build potential. It is a complicated system at first, but easy to understand once you acquire your first few. In any case, here is what you need to know on how to get Archon Shards in Warframe and if they are worth it.

How to get Archon Shards in Warframe

First, you must complete the necessary questline until Veilbreaker. Upon completing the Veilbreaker quest, you’ll receive the Helminth Archon Shard Segment. This is a new ship upgrade component that is to be installed with your Helminth, meaning you must also have that segment installed.

Upon installing this onto your ship, you then have three sources of obtaining this resource. Here they are below:

Archon Hunts – These weekly missions, formatted like Sorties, are high-level mission sequences that reward you with one of three types of Archon Shards.

Chipper from Kahl’s Garrison – Upon rescuing Chipper in a Veilbreaker mission, he becomes a vendor in the Drifter’s Camp. He sells one of three standard Archon Shards a week for 90 Stock. You’ll have to be Rank 5 Home to buy them.

Complete Netracell missions – Upon completing the Whispers in the Walls quest, you can take on another set of high-level missions that you can complete five times. Each completion of these Netracell missions has a chance of rewarding you with an Archon Shard.

You can guarantee to earn two Archon Shards per week with the chance of getting an extra five via Netracells.

Are Archon Shards worth it?

Archon Shards are definitely worth it. They can act as an extra mod into your build or create some fun (and broken) synergies for your Warframes. However, they will require a lot of resources to apply and remove them. Still, they are an investment that should not be overlooked. 

With the recent addition of Coalescent Fusion, you can mix your Amber, Crimson, and Azure Shards. The new Shards you earn from this mechanic are even more specific and synergize extremely well with elemental combinations. Though it has only been out for a little over a month, there were already nerfs regarding the Topaz Shard. 

The beauty of this system is that there’s a lot of mixing and matching between standard mod builds, Helminth subsuming, and now Archon Shard application. It’s not just about min-maxing anymore, it’s about having powerful synergies that expand the way you play Warframe.