Balor Fomorian

"Bek! Meet Balor! Your fate! MY FUTURE!"

- Councilor Vay Hek, taunting Frohd Bek in The Archwing The Balor Fomorian is arguably the strongest class of thirteen Grineer Fomorian types, considered the most powerful vessels in the Origin System. Bristling with immense firepower and formidable armor, they are capable of destroying a capital ship in a matter of seconds. Their power has made them the repeated targets of the Tenno, to prevent Grineer influence from spreading.

Operation Sling Stone
Fomorian-class ships were first revealed in an intercepted transmission by Alad V to the Corpus Board of Directors, reporting of Grineer threats against the Corpus by deploying a new class of "supership" against them (one of which being Balor Fomorian itself) much to Alad V's disbelief. The Lotus however is more wary of the threat, confirming the existence of the Fomorian threat and their imminent invasion of Corpus space unless they can be stopped.

To this end, the Lotus sends the Tenno to destroy the Fomorian ships by using special Corruptor substances gathered from fallen Infested injected into the ship's reactor core, which will destabilize the cores and ultimately lead to the Fomorian's demise. The Tenno succeed in destroying all existing Fomorian ships, ending the immediate threat against the Corpus.

Operation Tethra's Doom
Several months after the last of the Fomorians were supposedly stopped, intelligence gathered by the Lotus reveal that Councillor Vay Hek is rebuilding the Fomorian fleet under Project Tethra, which aims to produce thousands of Fomorian-class ships to dominate the Origin System.

In order to hinder the progress of Project Tethra, the Tenno are sent to find the factories where the Fomorian Power Cores are being created. The locations are kept a closely guarded secret by the Grineer however, which leads the Tenno on Interception missions on Earth to tap into Grineer transmissions and determine the source of the Power Cores. Once the factories have been located on the shipyards of Ceres, the Tenno are to hijack the cores and then send them via Liset out into deep space, where they can be destroyed in safety.

While initially successful at destroying large numbers of cores, a gloating Vay Hek reveals that the Tenno have only been dispatching auxiliary cores instead of primary cores as believed. The Tenno intensify their efforts in response, identifying the locations of more important Shield Cores and destroying them en masse. The damage dealt by the Tenno hinder Project Tethra greatly, but fail to completely stop the production of the Fomorians.

The Archwing
With the precious time given by Tenno operations against the Fomorians (alluded in Operation Sling Stone and Operation Tethra's Doom), the Lotus eventually seeks new countermeasures to defeat the Fomorian threat. The Tenno, in their search to find information on Vay Hek's new Balor-class Fomorians, are caught in a battle between the Corpus Ship they're on and a newly deployed Balor Fomorian. Events come to a head, and with the arrival of his new ships, Councillor Vay Hek declares war on the Corpus and Frohd Bek, signaling the start of heightened conflict between the two sides as the Fomorian destroys the entire Corpus ship within a matter of seconds. Caught in the crossfire, the Tenno escape from the scene using their experimental weapon against the Balor Fomorians: the Archwing.

Operation Eyes of Blight
With the introduction of Relays into the solar system, Vay Hek has unleashed his Balor Formorians in an attempt to obliterate the Tenno hubs. It is up to the Tenno using their Archwings to destroy the Fomorian ships before they come too close to the Relays. This can only be done by destroying the Fomorian ship's Cores from within. However, with the improved defensive systems around the Balor Fomorian's power core, the Tenno have to rely on special Fomorian Disruptor technology to counteract said defenses, allowing them to destroy the Cores.

Arsenal
The Balor class Fomorian is essentially a more massive version of regular Fomorians, bristling with impenetrable armor and immense siege firepower, capable of destroying capital ships within seconds. Despite this, the Balor Fomorian lacks a reliable defense against the Tenno themselves, only having the same, inaccurate siege laser cannon which must be charged every shot. To this end, the Fomorian fields a substantial complement of spaceborne troops in the form of the Dargyn, Dreg, Ogma and a support unit exclusive to the Balor Fomorian: the Zeplen, which traps Tenno within an energy net, preventing the Tenno from escaping the Fomorian's deadly laser. Destroying the Zeplen is the only way to escape the net and continue the approach to the Fomorian.

General
The mission starts with the Tenno deploying head-on to Fomorian in a distance, and they must approach the Balor Fomorian and eventually sabotage its core. The very first thing players should keep in mind when approaching the Fomorian is to always take cover from its laser cannon's field of view, be it behind debris, along a ravaged ship, or near asteroids; there will be an additional warning sign written on the player's HUD indicating the laser cannon is charged; failing to take cover before it fires will cause potentially fatal damage to the player.

Along the way, players will be assaulted by fleets of Dargyn, Dreg and Ogma. While it is not required to defeat them, they can form rather large groups that are capable of destroying any isolated Tenno within seconds and can be a problem when entrapped in a Zeplen's energy net. Keep in mind that Zeplens are destroyable even when not in its range.

The Fomorian's entrances are protected with an invulnerable energy shield, preventing players from entering, and thus they must destroy the two of its Shield Generators which are located at both the left and the right fuselage of the ship to allow entry. Upon entering, they will find the Fomorian Core, protected by yet another invulnerable energy shield. Players must utilize their Fomorian Disruptor as an EMP blast to deactivate the energy cover, allowing a time span of thirty seconds to directly damage the core. The damage determined is heavily based on the destruction of the structure, with each node destroyed adding a 0.25x multiplier to the base damage, which caps out at 5.0x. Upon the end of the thirty second span, they will have to escape the Balor Fomorian and keep a distance of at least 1,400 meters (350m in HUD) away within thirty seconds. Failing to escape will mean death for them. However, if at least one of the Tenno in the squad managed to escape the critical distance, the mission is considered complete.

Utilizing Archwing Abilities
Elytron's Thumper can be cast and be stacked multiple times against the core to substantially increase the damage output. Modding it with Power Range and Power Strength mods will achieve better results.

Trivia

 * In the epilogue of the Operation Eyes of Blight, it is claimed that the Balor Fomorian was composed of significant amounts of Oxium.