The best Warframe Tellurium farm in 2023 depends on you. Specifically, it’s a game of what you do and don’t have the patience to bother doing. The same can be said about most Warframe resources, of course, but Tellurium joins materials like Oxium and Argon Crystals as a bit of a weird outlier. It was originally introduced to the game via Archwing missions — back when those were mostly used for flying around empty space. Now, you can use Archwings in Railjack or any open-world “Landscape” like Deimos. Not to mention, the jetpacks double as submarines in Grineer Sealab levels
Through it all, though, you can still see the roots of Tellurium in the blueprints that require it (e.g. new Archwings). Let’s take a look at how to farm Tellurium in Warframe in 2023 so that you can kit out those flying machines and more!
Before we get started in earnest, however, it’s important to know that Tellurium drop locations don’t appear on your Star Chart like most other resources. This is once again similar to Oxium and a handful of other crafting materials. The resource is instead tied to specific missions and types of activities, rather than particular planets or moons. We’ll include lists of these farming locations as we proceed through this guide.
Archwing Missions – Warframe Tellurium Farm 2023
As mentioned above, Tellurium began as an Archwing-oriented crafting material. It’s now used for all sorts of weapons and Warframes — like the always-very-powerful Wisp or the Krohkur sword. Though you can still find Tellurium during Archwing missions today; you just need to know where and when to look.
“When” in this case simply means “after you beat the Archwing story mission.” If you haven’t played it already, the quest unlocks extremely early in the Warframe “campaign.” Simply continue past the tutorial and through the story missions until you reach “Once Awake.” This introduces Warframe players to the Infested faction. After, you can claim “The Archwing” from your Codex to begin the mission.
Basic Archwing missions are then found on most of the standard planets and moons on your Star Chart. Specific locations include:
- Earth: Erpo – Mobile Defense
- Venus: Montes – Exterminate
- Mars: Syrtis – Exterminate
- Phobos: Kepler – Rush
- Jupiter: Galilea – Sabotage
- Saturn: Pandora – Pursuit
- Uranus: Caelus – Interception
- Neptune: Salacia – Mobile Defense
- Eris: Jordas Golem Assassination
Out of these standard locales, many players recommend Salacia on Neptune. There are a few good reasons for this.
One is that Salacia is an “indoor” Corpus location, which limits the spread of Tellurium and other resource drops throughout the area. Enemies funnel towards specific points — even more so because it’s Mobile Defense — to make scooping loot easier. This is why it’s generally preferred over an endless mission like Caelus on Uranus. That’s a Grineer mission type — meaning you spend a lot of time and effort flying through empty space and hoping to find what you need.
To put it bluntly, though, basic Archwing missions aren’t very fun in Warframe these days (if they ever were). The mode type hasn’t gotten much quality-of-life cleanup in some time. Not to mention there are simply better ways to farm Tellurium in Warframe in 2023. Speaking of which…
The Spare Parts Trick – Warframe Tellurium Farm 2023
This is arguably the best way to farm Tellurium at the moment, though your mileage may vary; such is always the case where random drop chances are concerned. You also need a 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 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. There’s a good chance you killed this creature already while hunting for Nekros blueprints. If you haven’t, or didn’t get Spare Parts, return to Magnacidium on Deimos and get grinding.
That’s not all, of course. Once you have Spare Parts, you should upgrade it. It costs a measly 620 Endo and 29,946 Credits to max out the mod. Once you do that, and after you equip the mod to a Sentinel of your choice, the companion will have a 45% chance to drop a rare item anytime it dies!
That might not seem like a reliable farming method. However, 45% is a downright enormous drop rate by Warframe standards. You might not always get what you want, but having an almost 50/50 chance is a great deal compared to all other farming methods. Not to mention that there are ways to speed up the process and increase your total number of chances.
The first of those factors is location — specifically Ariel on Uranus. Unlike Salacia, this is not a standard Archwing mission but rather a “Submersible” one on the Grineer Sealab tileset. You still use an Archwing at points — just very briefly between otherwise normal corridor shooting.
As far as Warframe is concerned, however, that’s enough to give the locale a general Tellurium drop chance. Enemies on any Submersible mission can also drop Tellurium. This means that in addition to your Sentinel with Spare Parts, there’s a chance of just grabbing the resource naturally.
But let’s focus on the Sentinel; that’s still the most reliable source. We use Ariel specifically because it’s a Capture mission. These are quick and easy to complete but have unlimited enemies that don’t escalate in level as the mission progresses. Any of which can destroy your Sentinel naturally.
However, if you’ve played “The War Within” story quest, you can also enter Void Mode as your Operator by crouching. This allows enemies to focus solely on your Sentinel. The upshot is that you don’t die while your Sentinel does, allowing you to pick up its loot. Otherwise, you can simply let it be destroyed by electrical traps. The specific matter isn’t super important so long as you can get it to happen consistently.
Then, it’s time to try again. In this case, “try again” means you should allow yourself to die (after you pick up the Spare Parts loot, of course). You can die up to three times in Warframe by default without failing the mission. Do so and then revive yourself. This will respawn your Sentinel at the same time.
For this reason, it’s best to farm for Tellurium this way solo (i.e. without random players who might try to revive you or extract from the mission prematurely). You should only extract after “sacrificing” your Sentinel three times, then rinse and repeat until you have all the Tellurium you need.
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, for you need to reach Rank 5 with either The Perrin Sequence or Arbiters of Hexis Syndicates.
It 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.
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 doesn’t just work as a Tellurium farm, either! You can do it with just about any rare resource in Warframe. Though it gets incredibly tedious and is probably less efficient when looking for more basic drops.
The reason for this is that while farming your Sentinel, you’re not getting anything else. Affinity, Focus, Credits, Endo, et cetera — playing a simple Survival mission will award you all these things while you farm for Orokin Cells and the like. The Spare Parts method is simply useful when you really need a lot of one hard-to-get resource. Tellurium is extremely limited in terms of where and when it can drop, so it’s a prime candidate.
Railjack & Kuva Fortress Missions – Warframe Tellurium Farm 2023
Similar to Submersible missions, Railjack activities can drop Tellurium despite not necessarily involving the Archwing. The Archwing is always an option, though, so it still counts. You can do things like board enemy ships and bases to kill infantry — all of which may drop Tellurium on death.
Your opportunities to kill enemies on Railjack missions might be more limited and/or more trouble than they’re worth compared to the other methods in this guide. However, Railjack missions can net you various other rewards while you hunt for the rare resource. In that sense, it’s a fairly “efficient” method of play so long as you’re okay with just passively accruing a bit of Tellurium here and there.
Also, while it might just be a coincidence, it certainly seems like Railjack missions drop a lot of Tellurium in 2023. You can even double this method up with the Spare Parts trick by entering Railjack Survival missions — which involve a tiny bit of space combat but culminate in a “normal” Survival objective. Even without the trick, I’d still call Railjack missions in general the overall best farming method.
A lot of these same points apply to Kuva Fortress missions. At least theoretically. The problem is that there’s no real benefit to Kuva Fortress missions over any of the methods listed above and below (including Railjack content).
Kuva Fortress nodes are typically tougher than Submersible missions on Uranus and don’t provide as many rewards as Railjack. Unless you’re farming for something specific, such as the titular Kuva resource on a node like Taveuni, there are simply better ways to get this specific resource.
Daily Login & Weekly Challenges – Warframe Tellurium Farm 2023
These are two very simple (but time-dependent) methods of collecting Tellurium in Warframe. The first is to simply… log in. Any Warframe player will know by now that you get one free gift every 24 hours upon login. Sometimes, that’s a coupon for cheap Platinum on the game’s website; at other times, it’s a rare weapon blueprint. Every so often, however, you can get Tellurium. All you need to do is log into the game and accept it!
The other option is to complete every weekly challenge in the Warframe PVP mode: the Conclave. This isn’t a great method since the drop rate for Tellurium is pretty low and PVP isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. However, it is an option.
The upside to this is that Tellurium comes in packages of 10. That means that if you do get lucky just once, you’ve acquired enough Tellurium 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.
Fortuna Bounties – Warframe Tellurium Farm 2023
Last but not least is a fairly obvious method: Fortuna Bounties. There’s not much else to say about this farm tactic. Several Fortuna bounties simply have a chance to award the stuff after a successful mission.
This can be a good way to passively farm Tellurium while racking up Fortuna Standing (which is necessary for a variety of other rewards). Just don’t rely on it as your primary strategy. Once again: the Spare Parts trick is probably your best bet, while generally blasting Grineer out of Submersible missions on Uranus is a good backup. Ophelia, for instance, is a Survival mission that you can run infinitely.
And that’s it for our 2023 Tellurium 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.
