If you’re taking part in the Plague Star event in Warframe, you may have come across a Hemocyte. These tall creatures can give you a lot of trouble if you don’t know how to fight them. Here’s a guide on how to kill them.
What is a Hemocyte in Warframe?
A Hemocyte is a tall, three-headed monster that appears at the end of the toxin bounty mission on the Plains of Eidolon during the Plague Star limited event. They only appear at the very end of the mission and only on Advanced or Steel Path difficulty. Many mobs also accompany them, which only adds to the encounter’s difficulty.
Fortunately, just like all monsters, they do have weaknesses—three of them, actually.
Before you can fight and spawn these creatures, you will need some preparation.
How to spawn Hemocytes in Warframe
In the past, Hemocytes would spawn according to the number of Infested Catalysts that players used during the mixing stage of the Plague Star Bounty mission. Up to four Hemocytes were able to spawn if four Infected Catalysts were used.
After the Nov. 7 update, this is no longer the case. Now, Hemocytes only spawn on advanced or Steel Path difficulty. However, to even start these missions, you still need Infected Catalysts and Eidolon Phylaxis.
Once you have both items (they no longer need to be equipped in your inventory wheel), start an advanced toxin mission from Konzu on Cetus. I highly recommend you do the mission with other players. Unless you have a warframe with crowd-control abilities, you should definitely bring a few friends along.
How to Kill the Hemocyte in Warframe
After you start the toxin mission on advanced (or steel path) difficulty, do the mission as you normally would. Get the toxin, put it in the armored vault, let it cook for three minutes while defending it, escort the droid, and get ready for the final phase.
If you are doing the mission with three other players (like you should), four Hemocytes will spawn during the last phase—fortunately, only one at a time. When the toxin level reaches 25, 50, 75, and 99 percent, a Hemocyte will spawn.
But how do you actually kill this monster? They seem to be immune to all damage.
What should you do? Shoot the heads. But the Hemocyte has three heads and, more importantly, each head seems to be immune to damage as well. So what do you do?
Shoot the head while it’s attacking. You see, the Hemocyte is only vulnerable when it attacks. Since the creature attacks using its heads, the heads need to open to launch an attack, and that’s when you strike.
But this also means the most effective way to fight the creature is to shoot one of its heads until it closes and then circle until you find a different head that’s attacking. Each head also has its own health bar, and when it reaches zero, the head will disappear.
While circling around and shooting heads, don’t neglect to kill the smaller enemies that constantly spawn. These can quickly overwhelm you, but you shouldn’t waste too much time on them. Ideally, you should equip a warframe that has area-of-effect attacks or crowd-controlling abilities so you can quickly clear them while you focus on the Hemocyte.
The best advice I can give you is to always do these missions with other players. Since this is a limited event, you should be able to find other players to do the bounty with you. Not only will they provide additional firepower, but they can also revive you if things go wrong (and they often will). Fighting Hemocytes isn’t too difficult with a group of players, even inexperienced ones.
And that’s all there is to it. Honestly, after a few attempts, fighting Hemocytes will become second nature to you. More importantly, you’ll be swimming in Standing and should be well on your way to getting those sweet weapon blueprints and forma. Happy farming.
