Archon Nira is one of Erra's Archons, amalgams of Sentient and Warframes. Her head is that of a serpent with the body of a 
Mag Prime, armed with the 
Verdilac. Nira is fought during The New War and was revived for Archon Hunts.
Lore[]
Nira the Snake was once a Sentient Beast, which were Sentients created by Praghasa and Hunhow to serve as the peacekeepers of Tau. After fighting and dying in the Old War, Nira and the other Beasts were revived by Erra during the New War as Archons; hybrid abominations of Sentient and Warframe.
A cunning and sadistic being, Nira is believed to be the one who keeps Erra's consciousness suppressed under the guise of Pazuul, whispering dreams of dominion and control into his ear. When Narmer starts their re-subjugation of the Origin System, it will be Nira who will be at the forefront of the slaughter.[1]
Behavior[]
- Hurls
Toxin projectiles with her whip. - Whip attacks three times, which leaves her temporarily immobile.
- Grapples up to a high vantage point, cloaking her. She follows this with several ranged attacks.
- Swings the whip in a circular motion in front of her, granting her a frontal shield while healing massively. If not interrupted by attacking from behind, she releases a forward wave that inflicts knockdown.
- In Archon Hunts, Nira gains an extremely small layer of Overguard. Depleting her protection will cancel the ability.
- Glares with its snake head, charging a petrifying gaze which freezes those facing Nira for several seconds.
- Nira becomes immune to damage, summoning Sentient reinforcements which must be killed to remove her invulnerability.
- In Archon Hunts, Nira produces a Toxin field around her dealing massive damage. She gains an extremely small layer of Overguard and depleting her protection will cancel the ability.
Strategy[]
The New War[]
Nira combines a mix of offensive attacks and a defensive shield from its whip. The main threat is Nira's petrifying gaze; look away or hide behind cover and stay moving at all times to avoid the danger.
At parts of the fight, Nira tries to grapple the Drifter, which must be escaped with a quick-time prompt (melee button, default E ).
Archon Hunt[]
Nira's fight is largely similar to her New War counterpart but has been massively upgraded: she is level 150, is immune to most Warframe abilities, now has armor which cannot be removed, takes up to a maximum of 4 Status Effects of any type, and has Damage Attenuation which resists high-damage weapons. Her health type has also been changed from Neutral to Narmer, taking increased damage from 
Slash and 
Toxin damage but resists 
Magnetic.
At half health, a cutscene has Nira try to grapple the Warframe but is pushed off. She then retreats and must be pursued. The gateway ahead is guarded by two Narmer Deacons whose veils must be seized and placed at the gateway. The Deacons can tether itself to nearby allies, rendering it invulnerable until those linked allies are killed.
As Nira's health decreases further, she will summon a series of Amalgams to shield herself, which must be killed to remove Nira's invulnerability; the Amalgam MOA is especially threatening due to its ability to heal its allies including Nira, this healing can be disabled with 
Silence. Her final resort is producing a highly damaging Toxin field around her. After depleting all her health, Nira collapses allowing the Warframe to interact with her and rip out her Archon Shard.
Bugs[]
During Phase 2 in an Archon Hunt, Nira's health may suddenly be fully depleted if she's attacked with a weapon that deals 
Radiation damage.
Trivia[]
- Numerous blood stains can be seen around Nira's mouth.
- The Lotus's dialogue about Nira being a serpent that seduced Erra is similar to the Garden of Eden Serpent in the Bible, who manipulated Eve into disobeying God and consuming the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Gallery[]
Patch History[]
Hotfix 36.0.8 (2024-07-25)
- Fixed Archons in Archon Hunts not using their proper Narmer Weaknesses/Resistances.
- As a refresher, here are the Narmer vulnerabilities/resistances:
- Vulnerable to Slash and Toxin
- Resistant to Magnetic
- The Archons in The New War Quest remain neutral since you don’t know what the “Narmer” faction is until the near end of the Quest, and therefore wouldn’t be able to plan for them given that you are locked into the Quest once started.
- As a refresher, here are the Narmer vulnerabilities/resistances:
Update 36.0 (2024-06-18)
- Fixed Archon Nira not engaging in combat and floating in the air after the end of the intro cinematic.
Update 35.0 (2023-12-13)
- Fixed certain multishot alt-fire attacks, namely from the Arum Spinosa and Quassus, dealing unintentionally high damage to Archons.
- Maximum Damage Per Instance was incorrectly using these weapons’ Primary (single instance) attack instead of its alt-fire (multi-instance) attack in the damage attenuation calculation - which resulted in higher than intended damage numbers for each instance.
Update 34.0 (2023-10-18)
- Archon Hunt Damage Attenuation Changes
Speaking of earning Archon Shards, Damage Attenuation (or “damage pillows”) may be a familiar mechanic for those who frequent Archon Hunts each week.
This was a hot topic, especially near the end of 2022. Since then, we’ve taken our time to assess player feedback and devise a plan to address it -- and we’re finally at a place where we can execute it.
Damage Attenuation is one tool of many to increase enemy difficulty by limiting how much damage they take from player weapons, etc. Our current form of Damage Attenuation has resulted in many weapons feeling lackluster due to the high attenuation values, and damage output was reduced significantly to balance out the post-attenuation modifiers -- meaning that Archon fights felt like a slog if players did not use a limited set of optimal builds.
This is not a favorable outcome, so we have made the following changes:
1 - Maximum Damage Caps have increased
- Maximum Damage per Damage Instance has been increased
- Maximum Damage Per Second has been increased
Our goal is to make big hits still feel like big hits, especially for low-rate-of-fire weapons. We’re able to reduce the damage cap significantly because of the next change:
2 - Modifiers now apply before Damage Attenuation
Critical Multipliers (and other modifiers) applying post-damage-cap allowed for many of the One Shot builds to function, and for full transparency, we want to prevent One Shot Archon builds as much as possible. By changing where these modifiers apply, we can increase the Damage Caps to a much less punishing level for players.
Our goals with these changes are to:
- Increase player damage output, thereby reducing the overall time to kill for Archons
- Make “big hits” feel impactful by no longer throttling them to such an extreme degree
- Encourage overall build diversity for Archon Hunts
- Reduce the ability to use one-shot builds
We’re excited to see what Archon Hunts look like for players with these changes in the live build! Now that these changes have been released, we'll be keeping a close eye on player feedback and the resulting time-to-kill for Archons to see if further iteration is needed.
- Top Fixes:
- Fixed Archon Nira getting downed and stuck in walls during her grapple ability. A small invulnerability phase has been added when she performs this ability to prevent this issue from occurring.
Update 32.2 (2022-11-30)
- Fixed cases of Archon Nira being able to instantly kill you with her choking mist attack during the second phase of her assassination mission in Archon Hunts.
- Fixed issue of Nira’s Screech VFX/SFX staying on the screen for Client if they are downed and revived during this attack in the Archon Hunt.
Update 32.0 (2022-09-07)
- NEW WEEKLY MISSION: ARCHON HUNTS (AVAILABLE NOW)
Upon completion of the Veilbreaker Quest, you will unlock Archon Hunts. Archon Hunts are a new class of weekly Mission that are available each week. Now, you can tackle these Narmer experiments with a full squad at your side!
Archon Hunts can be started from the tracking console in Kahl’s Garrison (releasing next week), or through navigation. Equip your Arsenal for a true test of your formidable power as Old foes re-join the fray.
Archon Changes
The final mission of the ARCHON HUNT will always be an Assasination - or ‘Archon Hunt’ mission - Tenno must take up arms against an Archon to complete the Hunt and earn themselves a great reward. Each weekly rotation of an Archon Hunt will feature a new Archon to defeat - Boreal, Amar, or Nira.
The Archons are not how you remember them, Tenno. Since your time fighting them solo in The New War, they have grown stronger. Each of the three Archons have received a rework to increase their difficulty level.
Their greater resistance to damage, harder-hitting attacks, and new methods of trickery make them a formidable foe - a well-equipped loadout and/or a resourceful squad are necessities to defeating these reworked Archons.
Update 31.0 (2021-12-15)
- Introduced.
See Also[]
- Verdilac, Nira's weapon
- Nira's Mod Set:
 Narmer
| ||
|---|---|---|
| Grineer | Light | Narmer Flameblade • Narmer Powerfist • Narmer Shield Lancer |
| Medium | Narmer Ballista • Narmer Hellion • Narmer Lancer • Narmer Scorpion • Narmer Scorch • Narmer Trooper | |
| Heavy | Narmer Bombard • Narmer Commander • Narmer Heavy Gunner • Narmer Napalm | |
| Vehicles | Narmer Firbolg • Narmer Bolkor • Narmer Thumper Doma | |
| Corpus | Crewmen | Narmer Crewman • Narmer Detron Crewman • Narmer Jailer • Narmer Nullifier Crewman • Narmer Prod Crewman • Narmer Sniper Crewman • Narmer Corpus Tech |
| Walkers | Narmer Dera MOA • Narmer Disc MOA • Narmer Geminex MOA • Narmer Glaxion MOA • Narmer Raknoid | |
| Ospreys | Narmer Leech Osprey • Narmer Mine Osprey • Narmer Sapping Osprey • Narmer Shield Osprey | |
| Ships | Narmer Dropship | |
| Other | Narmer Deacon | |
| Archons (Bosses) | Archon Amar • Archon Boreal • Archon Nira | |
- ↑ Dialogue spoken by the Lotus during Archon Hunts