Warframe: A Complete Guide To Arbitrations (2024)

Warframe's myriad of game types and progression systems can be confusing if you're new. Getting a complete build together can take ages, let alone getting your hands on good mods. That's where Arbitrations come in.

Related: Warframe: A Complete Beginner's Guide

Arbitrations act as a mid-game activity designed to gear players for Steel Path. If you can handle Sortie-level enemies for extended periods, you'll be rewarded with some of Warframe's strongest mods, Arcanes, and a ton of Endo. This guide will cover what Arbitrations are, how to unlock them, and we'll cover how this game variant differs from your traditional endless mission. We'll also cover every reward tied to this activity.

What Are Arbitrations?

Warframe's Arbitration game type is a variant of endurance missions that feature scaling rewards and rotating modifiers. This activity serves as a middle ground between the end of the Star Chart and the start of Steel Path, effectively acting as Warframe's "mid-game" activity. Farming this activity will grant access to powerful Galvanized Mods, bundles of Kuva for rolling Riven Mods, and access to the Grendel Warframe.

Players can access the current Arbitration from the "Alerts" tab of the Star Chart. Each Arbitration will be an endurance mission, including:

• Excavation
• Defection
• Disruption
• Survival
• Defense
• Excavation

As with most endless missions, matchmaking for them is limited when you get past the first reward interval, so consider getting a team together before attempting one. Upon completing an Arbitration, you must wait until the end of the hour to attempt another one.

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Unlocking Arbitrations

Similar to the Steel Path, you must complete every node on the Star Chart to access Arbitrations. This includes Dark Sectors, Archwing missions, and open worlds. Once you unlock Arbitrations, the game will remember you cleared the Star Chart and will keep the game type unlocked permanently, even if future updates add additional nodes.

The following nodes are not required to unlock Arbitrations:

• All Railjack nodes
• Mutalist Alad V Assassinate, Eris
• Jordas Golem, Eris
• Exequias, Deimos

Hourly Rotation

Arbitrations rotate on an hourly basis. At the start of the hour, the current Arbitration will rotate to a random tileset, changing the mission type, enemy faction, and your modifiers (explained in the next section). If you find the current Arbitration to be grueling or not interesting, check back in an hour to see what's available. Only one Arbitration is available at any given moment.

If you're in the middle of playing an Arbitration when an hour passes, nothing will change. You'll just have access to the new Arbitration mission when you extract.

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Related: Warframe: A Complete Guide To The Helminth System

Playing An Arbitration

Before you boot up an Arbitration, take note of its modifiers. All Arbitrations buff a Warframe and three weapons, all of which are chosen at random. The game can pick any Warframe or weapon; it's not limited to what you currently own. Warframes gain +300% Ability Strength and +500 Health, unaffected by mods. Weapons gain a 300% multiplicative damage bonus. Variants of Warframes and weapons also gain this bonus.

With your loadout set, boot up the mission. You'll notice that a new enemy type, the Arbitration ShieldDrone, is present. These drones create immunity tethers between nearby foes, making them immune to weapons and Warframe abilities. Damage, crowd control, and other effects won't do anything to a tethered target. You must damage the Arbitration ShieldDrone with your weapons to break it. Doing so will damage all nearby enemies and knock them toward the ground.

Reviving Allies

During an Arbitration, if someone goes down, they are taken out of the fight entirely. You must destroy Arbitration Shield Drones to obtain revive tokens. Your team must collect a total of five tokens and bring them to the dead player's corpse to revive them. Companions cannot be revived unless you use certain mods (explained in the tips section).

Defeating Arbitration Shield Drones has a small chance of dropping Vitus Essence, this activity's unique currency. You may exchange Vitus Essence for Galvanized Mods, cosmetic goods, and useful resources (explained later).

Arbitration Reward Scaling

Arbitration is the only game type in Warframe with scaling rewards. In all other endurance missions, rewards are given out in a static order of pool A, A, B, C, then it resets. Arbitrations scale until you only get nothing but loot pool C rewards, leading to more valuable drops the longer you play.

If you're unfamiliar with Warframe drop tables, the gist is pool C drops the best loot. Arbitrations give access to pool C rewards from the fifth reward interval onward—for example, on minute 25+ in Survival missions. The exact reward rotation can be seen below:

It's also worth noting that Arbitrations do not include the reward scaling seen in Relic Fissure missions. You don't gain more resource drops or Affinity for lengthy runs; only loot pool drops are affected.

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Related: Warframe: How To Farm Aya Fast

Arbitration Rewards

Once you get some Vitus Essence, head to the Arbiters of Hexis at any Relay to claim your rewards. The vendor in front of the Syndicate room will exchange Vitus Essence for rare materials, mods, and cosmetics. There's no limit to how many mods or resources you may purchase, although cosmetics may only be purchased once.

Besides the vendor, Arbitrations features its own drop table, separate from all Star Chart nodes. This exact drop pool may be viewed below or on the Warframe PC Drop Tables website.

Vitus Essence Offerings

Arbitration Drop Tables

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Arbitration Tips

• Bring An AoE Weapon: Explosive weapons make short work of Arbitration Shield Drones. The Kuva Bramma, Zarr, and Tenet Envoy are a few good options.
• Match The Modifiers: Warframes get a massive Ability Strength buff. Use any Warframes you own that match the buff, provided they get any use out of extra Strength.
• Use Hard Reset: Hard Reset is a Parazon Mod that allows you to revive your companion after three Parazon finishers. Companions can't normally be revived in this mode, so Hard Reset gives you a way of doing so.

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Next: Warframe: A Complete Guide To The Steel Path