The Hemocyte is a gigantic Infested creature that can be encountered during Operation: Plague Star. It is summoned using an Infested Catalyst during the toxin mixing phase and drops the Hunter Set Mods.
Tactics[]
- When an Infested Catalyst is used on the Thrax Toxin during the toxin mixing phase, the final stage of the Plague Star Bounty will spawn a Hemocyte from the Infested boil. While the Hemocyte is alive, the Infested kill progress bar for that stage will be frozen regardless of how many Infested are killed, preventing players from accomplishing the objective.
- Much like the visually similar Lephantis, the Hemocyte has three different heads, each of which will have different attacks they can use against players.
- The Corpus head is a square head with green lighting, which will launch a wide barrage of infested spores that release clouds of toxic gas on impact.
- The Grineer head has a long, triangular jaw with blue lighting, wielding a massive scythe that it uses to slash at enemies in close range.
- The Ancient head has a long snout with orange lighting, and fires a swarm of homing projectiles that deal damage on impact and can knock players off their Archwings.
- The only common attack available to the Hemocyte is an area-of-effect radial slam that can knock down players on the ground, visible as a yellow shockwave emanating from it.
- The Hemocyte's outer skin is invulnerable to all weapons. However, each head will open up to reveal a weakspot whenever they launch an attack, with said weakspots being vulnerable to weapons fire and immune to all status effects. This includes immunity to armor-reducing status effects from Corrosive or Heat damage types, however the armor can still be reduced with armor-reducing mods. Like Lephantis, there is damage cap mechanic for every shot, meaning that shots that deal damage above a certain threshold will be significantly reduced by a percentage amount, and therefore high-damage slow-fire rate weapons (such as sniper or charge rifles) are less effective than fast-fire rate weapons (such as automatic assault rifles). Each head has its own health, and when killed the destroyed head is removed, along with any attacks it had. The Hemocyte is defeated when all 3 heads have been destroyed.
- Frequently more than one head at a time will open to launch an attack. When this happens, wider AoE weapons have been seen hitting the weakpoints of multiple heads even when shot into the normally-invincible main body.
- If multiple Infested Catalysts are mixed into the toxin mixing phase, multiple Hemocytes will also appear during the final stage, with the number of Hemocytes appearing depending on how many Catalysts are mixed in, e.g. if two Catalysts are mixed in, two Hemocytes will spawn in the final stage. As up to four Infested Catalysts can be mixed per toxin, up to four Hemocytes can appear in the final stage.
- Only one Hemocyte at a time will appear in succession, and are timed to appear at different progress markers on the Infested Kill progress bar.
- If only one Catalyst is used, the Hemocyte will appear at 99% progress.
- If two Catalysts are used, the Hemocytes will appear at 50% and 99% progress.
- If three Catalysts are used, the Hemocytes will appear at 30%, 60%, and 99% progress.
- With four Catalysts, the Hemocytes will appear at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 99% progress.
- Some toxin clouds spawned can deal around 150 damage per tick and spawn under the player.
- Each successive Hemocyte appearance will be 10 levels higher than the last making it tougher and deadlier. For each combination of the number of Phylaxes and Catalysts mixed in, the following table shows bounty bonuses, levels of regular and Hemocyte (boss) Infested enemies during the final stage of the bounty mission:
| Phylaxes |
Catalysts |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Bonus: Regular level: Hemocyte levels: |
 0 16 None |
250 16 25 |
500 16 25, 35 |
750 16 25, 35, 45 |
1,000 16 25, 35, 45, 55 |
| 1 | Bonus: Regular level: Hemocyte levels: |
250 20 None |
500 20 28 |
750 20 28, 38 |
1,000 20 28, 38, 48 |
1,250 20 28, 38, 48, 58 |
| 2 | Bonus: Regular level: Hemocyte levels: |
500 24 None |
750 24 32 |
1,000 24 32, 42 |
1,250 24 32, 42, 52 |
1,500 24 32, 42, 52, 62 |
| 3 | Bonus: Regular level: Hemocyte levels: |
750 29 None |
1,000 29 37 |
1,250 29 37, 47 |
1,500 29 37, 47, 57 |
1,750 29 37, 47, 57, 67 |
| 4 | Bonus: Regular level: Hemocyte levels: |
1,000 32 None |
1,250 32 45 |
1,500 32 45, 55 |
1,750 32 45, 55, 65 |
2,000 32 45, 55, 65, 75 |
Tips[]
- Stay off the boil. It does significant 100% Shield-penetrating Toxin Damage quickly killing over time making it difficult to revive players who go into bleedout state while on the boil. A reliable method to rescue another player is going Void Mode while in Operator form.
- The radius from the boil extends past the dome several meters so a player may also die standing next to the boil.
- Archwings can be used to gain a height advantage over the Hemocyte, allowing players to avoid the majority of its attacks as well as prevent being swarmed by the Infested accompanying it. Players should be wary of the Hemocyte Ancient head's attacks however, as they are capable of tracking airborne targets and knocking players off their Archwings.
- Warframe abilities with slowdown effect, such as
Rhino's Rhino Stomp, Nova's Molecular Prime, Frost's Snow Globe, Operator's Temporal Blast or Amesha's Warding Grace can make attacking Hemocyte's weak points easier. By using the ability when the weak points are exposed, Hemocyte's movement will be greatly slowed down thus giving extended time for players to attack the weak points.
- Warframe abilities that add distinct extra hits to your attacks instead of just a strength multiplier, like Xaku's Xata's Whisper or Saryn's Toxic Lash, are quite effective at helping get around the damage cap per hit.
- Garuda's Seeking Talons can help maintain Slash procs on the Hemocyte heads.
- Using any melee weapon that's capable of dealing Impact damage with Shattering Impact can completely strip the Hemocyte's armor, even when it's on the invulnerable phase.
- An Oberon with 169% Strength and Growing Power can strip 100% of the armor by using Hallowed Ground and Reckoning.
- A Trinity with 223% Strength can temporarily reduce 100% of the armor while connected using Link with the Abating Link Augment.
- Also, Mag's Polarize can be used to strip Hemocyte's armor, which is a viable tactic since using this power reduces the invulnerability time / period.
- An Ash with 143% Strength can temporarily reduce 100% of armor using Shuriken with the Seeking Shuriken Augment
Trivia[]
- The Hemocyte is essentially a recolored Stage 2 Lephantis, with different lighting colors and slightly modified attacks. It is otherwise identical to the Lephantis in terms of tactics and weaknesses.
- In Biology, Hemocytes are cells that form part of the immune system of invertebrates. They are part of the phagocyte group, responsible for consuming invading hostile cells or consuming and removing old or dead cells.
Patch History[]
Hotfix 30.7.4 (2021-09-14)
- A side-out pickup UI notification will now appear when picking up a Relic dropped from the Hemocyte (similar to the Agon pickup UI notification).
Update 30.7 (2021-09-08)
- Hemocyte is now immune to looting abilities that often didn’t fully work due to how quickly the body despawns (Hydroid's Tentacle Swarm with Pilfering Swarm, Nekros' Desecrate etc).
- With the re-run of Plague Star, we are adding Nidus Prime’s Relics as in-world drops from the Hemocyte. This change was brought forth with this in mind, and the acquisition rate of this new Prime that could be influenced with loot abilities which is not a precedent we wish to set. With up to 4 Hemocytes that can spawn in the final stage it felt especially important to make this change.
