If you want the best Warframe Argon Crystal farm in 2023, you’re going to have to work for it. Specifically, you need to hunt both enemies and containers. You can say the same thing about most Warframe resources, of course, but the always-frustrating Argon Crystal joins materials like Oxium and Archwing-oriented Tellurium as… Well, let’s call it a bit of a weird one. The crafting material has unique restrictions that make it disappear over time if you don’t use it quickly enough (i.e. if you don’t find things to craft that require an Argon Crystal or two).
So, let’s take a look at how to farm Argon Crystals in Warframe in 2023! We’ll also include some specific tips on how this fickle crystal evaporates in your inventory and some ways to use it up.
A couple final notes before we really begin: It’s worth pointing out that no Argon Crystal locations can deply an Extractor from your Star Chart. This is one reason it’s similar to Oxium and Tellurium. Although Argon does appear on the Star Chart, it’s mostly exclusive to the Void locale, which is an Extractor free zone. We’ll include a list of all farming locations in that region as we proceed through this guide.
Argon also has a unique property that causes it to “decay” over time. This very roughly translates into losing about half of your Argon Crystals every 24 hours or so in-game. Make sure to use your Argon before that point! Otherwise, any that you farm will simply disappear into thin air, and you’ll need to start all over again.
You can find any blueprints you have that require this resource by simply typing “argon” into your Foundry search bar. The search function pulls up results based on both the blueprints themselves and the required materials. This makes it a useful tip for finding any resource requirements in your list of Foundry orders. Anyway, on to the guide!
Void Missions – Warframe Argon Farm 2023
As mentioned above, Argon is only found in Warframe (at least as a standard drop) in Void missions. This just means the section of your Star Chart marked as “The Void,” which is functionally pretty much the same as any planet or moon. You can also get there pretty early on in the game. The Void is accessible from Europa, Neptune, Phobos, and/or Sedna. It’s lowest-level missions range from Level 10-15, as well, so it’s safe for players at just about any stage of the game.
Argon can drop from enemies, containers, lockers, large resource clusters, or “Corrupted Vor.” That last one is a rare mini-boss, like the Stalker, who can randomly “invade” Void missions. He’s not too tough, but he does have a 50% chance of dropping an Argon Crystal (otherwise he drops an Orokin Cell). Once again, he’s a random occurrence, so just hope you get lucky while finishing missions in The Void.
Those Argon Crystal locations include:
- Hepit – Capture
- Taranis – Defense
- Teshub – Exterminate
- Ani – Survival
- Stribog – Sabotage
- Tiwaz – Mobile Defense
- Oxomoco – Exterminate
- Ukko – Capture
- Belenus – Defense
- Mot – Survival
- Mithra – Interception
- Aten – Mobile Defense
- Marduk – Sabotage
Every one of these locales has benefits and drawbacks when it comes to Argon farming. Capture missions — like Hepit — are extremely quick and easy to complete. This allows you to finish the objective (capturing your target) before exploring the entire map to check and smash every container you find. After which you can simply leave and try again if you get nothing.
Hepit also has the advantage of being accessible to a large number of players, since it’s very low-level. This increases your odds of finding full squads of players also farming Argon. More players killing more enemies and opening more caches means you can cover ground faster.
To help with this, use mods like Thief’s Wit, Loot Detector, Animal Instinct, or Primed Animal Instinct. This will make the resource caches appear as white boxes on your map whenever you get close. These will also help you find dedicated caches of Argon on missions, which come in the form of huge purple gemstones marked as “Argon Pegmatite.” Destroying one of these will guarantee you at least one Argon Crystal every time. Though finding them is rare.
Of course, there’s very little reason not to simply explore the map while completing an “endless” mission, which will include more enemies. Each of which has a chance to drop an Argon Crystal upon death. Combine this with something like Nekros, Hydroid (and his Pilfering Swarm augment), or Atlas (and his Ore Gaze mod), or a Smeeta Kavat (with Charm equipped). These mods, companions, and Warframes all have ways of boosting loot drops.
You can also use Xaku and their ability “The Vast Untime.” If you have a good way to restore energy very quickly. This causes a radial explosion that destroys storage containers even through walls.
Ani and Mot are great locations for this, since there are more containers throughout the level than on smaller Defense or Interception maps. You’re also free to explore without defending specific points of interest during these Survival missions.
Sabotage missions, like Stribog and Marduk, also have small chances of dropping Argon Crystals from their specially marked caches. These actually exist in all Sabotage missions throughout the game. Though we don’t necessarily recommend them specifically to farm Argon Crystals. Hunting the humming, white Sabotage Caches is, to put it mildly, a massive pain.
Not to mention there are simply better ways to boost your Argon farm in Warframe in 2023. Speaking of which…
The Spare Parts Trick – Warframe Argon Farm 202
Much like Tellurium, this is one of the best ways to farm Argon Crystals at the moment. Though your mileage will always vary. The “Spare Parts Trick” is just as random as anything else. It just puts the odds a bit more in your favor. You do need a slightly specific setup: a Sentinel and the uncommon mod “Spare Parts.” In contrast, other farming methods in this guide can be done with almost zero preamble.
Still, Spare Parts isn’t tough to get. It has a minuscule drop chance from certain Corrupted enemies fought in the Void (which is where you’ll be Argon Crystal farming anyway) or on Relic missions. You have much better odds (more than a 22% drop chance) fighting Lephantis, an assassination target on Deimos in the Magnacidium node. In other words, they’re a boss. There’s also a good chance you’ve already killed this creature while hunting for Nekros blueprints.
If you haven’t, or didn’t get Spare Parts, return to Magnacidium on Deimos and get grinding. Nekros is worth having anyway, since his “Desecrate” skill sucks extra loot out of enemy corpses each time you use it.
That’s not all, of course. Once you have Spare Parts, you want to upgrade it. The mod costs a very reasonable 620 Endo and 29,946 Credits to reach its maximum rank. Once you do that, and after you equip the mod to a Sentinel of your choice, the companion has a “permanent” 45% chance to drop one rare item anytime it dies!
That might not sound that reliable for farming. However, 45% is a downright enormous drop rate by Warframe standards. The only issue is that you might not get an Argon Crystal — even if you get a “rare” item. Spare Parts pulls from the local loot pool, so you might get something less useful, like another mod you already own.
However, this almost 50/50 chance of getting a rare item is much greater than the average drop chance when slicing open enemies or crates (both of which you’re going to be doing anyway, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone). It’s a great deal compared to most other farming methods. Not to mention it’s reusable and free (beyond the small initial Endo and Credits cost) unlike Resource Boosters.
The problem is that, even if you do get a resource, there’s a chance it won’t be an Argon Crystal. Unlike when using Spare Parts on Uranus to farm Tellurium, Argon Crystals share a “rare” drop chance with Control Modules. Despite the fact that Control Modules are far, far more common than Argon. That means you’re splitting the resource chance even further with another item type. Still, it’s essentially a free bonus when farming, so you might as well take it.
Now let’s focus on that Sentinel itself. Once again, you can bring it to any mission you like, but Ani and Mot are great options. Mot in particular has tougher enemies that will kill your companion more quickly. That’s a good thing.
Next, if you’ve played The War Within story quest, you can also enter Void Mode as your Operator by crouching. This makes your Warframe (and you) temporarily invincible and invisible. However, your Sentinel stays put. Nearby enemies will focus their fire solely on the drone. This way you won’t die while your Sentinel dies faster, allowing you to pick up its Spare Parts loot.
Otherwise, you can simply let it be destroyed normally. Stripping off most mods except Spare Parts (and Animal Instinct if you go that route) will let it die pretty quickly. The specific cause of death isn’t super important so long as you can get the Sentinel to die consistently.
Then you start the whole process over again. In this case, that means allowing yourself to die (after you pick up the Spare Parts loot, of course). You can “fully” die up to three times in Warframe by default without failing the mission. Do so and then revive yourself manually. This will respawn your Sentinel at the same time.
Another option is to add the “Repair Dispensary” mod while playing Protea (or any Warframe that has subsumed her Dispensary ability through Helminth). This is quite a slog to get on your own, unfortunately. You need to reach Rank 5 with either The Perrin Sequence or Arbiters of Hexis Syndicates to even earn the right to buy it.
The augment then costs 25,000 Standing points with either Syndicate to purchase. That’s a lot of work! Though you can also buy the mod from other players, typically in exchange for Platinum. Just check the public Trading chat channel.
Repair Dispensary allows you to revive your Sentinel once every 60 seconds. This lets you farm your own Sentinel with Spare Parts ad infinitum.
This method doesn’t just help out your Argon farming, either! You can do it with just about any rare resource in Warframe. Though it gets very tedious and is probably less efficient when looking for more basic drops.
The reason for this is that while farming off your Sentinel, you’re not usually getting much else done. Affinity, Focus, Credits, Endo, et cetera — playing a simple Survival mission will award you all these things while you farm for other things. The Spare Parts method is simply useful when you really need a lot of one hard-to-get resource. Argon is extremely limited in terms of where and when it can drop, so it’s a prime candidate. Especially since you often only need one or two crystals to craft whatever you need.
Conclave Challenges – Warframe Argon Farm 2023
One very simple (but time-dependent) method of collecting Argon Crystals in Warframe. You can complete every weekly challenge in the Warframe PVP mode: the Conclave. This isn’t a great method since the drop rate for Argon is still pretty low for the time investment.
Not to mention Warframe PVP isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not exceptionally popular or fast. Nor is it arguably even much fun… The few players who do engage with it tend to already be very good at it, too. However, it is an option.
The upside to this is that Argon Crystals come in packages of 10 via the Conclave. That means that if you do get lucky just once, you’ve acquired enough Argon to cover several blueprints all in one gulp. Other methods typically provide just one or two (depending on things like Resource Boosters).
If you’re already into Conclave, though, there you go! That’s all there is to it.
Isolation Vault Bounties – Warframe Argon Farm 2023
Last but not least is a fairly straightforward option: Isolation Vault Bounties. These are a special type of bounty given out by Mother (the local mission giver) where you battle Infested and Necramechs.
Every Isolation Vault ends with a small, optional escort mission — during which you protect Loid and Otak as they unlock a vault door. To open a door, one player needs to complete a “memory puzzle,” where you shoot locks (using your Operator form) in the order shown by glowing glyphs. It’s a lot simpler than it sounds and most players pick up on it quickly when farming Necramech weapon parts for themselves.
Past that final door, however, are a load of storage containers. Each of which has a solid chance of dropping Argon Crystals and other goodies when you smash them.
This can be a good way to passively farm Argon while racking up Entrati Standing (which can be used on a variety of other rewards) and blasting Necramechs.
And that’s it for our 2023 Argon farm guide to Warframe! Best of luck getting that sweet red stuff for your next ‘frame, weapon, or cosmetic. Just try not to get too impatient.
