This guide will show you the easiest way to defeat the Zealoid Prelate in Steel Path Exequias. This boss is quite a challenge if you are unprepared, but this guide will make the fight quick and easy.
TL:DR
- Octavia’s Metronome (#3) for stealth, other stealth frames would work too
- Combo scaling Gas melee weapon
- Kill adds while moving to boss to keep combo and light up
Boss Mechanics
The Steel Path Zealoid Prelate fight doesn’t add any new mechanics to the normalZealoid Prelate fight.
Zealoid Prelate has two phases. The first phase of the fight is a very simple introduction to the boss. It will just use its basic attack, which can be avoided by staying behind it. Unlike in phase 2, the boss is vulnerable at all times. This is a great time to check the effectiveness of your weapon. If you don’t get through this section of the fight relatively quickly, you’ll want to rethink your weapon. This phase ends when the boss reaches half health.
The second phase heals the boss back to full health and introduces an invulnerability shield. This shield can be seen as a red aura around the boss and the infested adds. This shield is only removed using Arlo’s Light, obtainable by defeating Zealoid Bastions in the side rooms. Killing one of these mini bosses will allow you to pick up the light. Holding it will create an area around you that will remove the invulnerability from the boss and other enemies.
The lamp has a timer and will eventually break, needing to be obtained again from the mini bosses. This timer can be reset by killing normal infested enemies. There is no visible timer for the light. The amount of time remaining is indicated by the radius of the light. When it is at its smallest, it will also blink, indicating that it will soon break.
Zealoid Prelate will teleport around the room every once in a while. Every 1/5th of life, Zealoid Prelate will break the lamp and start draining every infested enemy in the area. Killing the enemies will stop it from healing back some of its life. The Tenno will need to get a new lamp, even if they had been keeping the timer high.
The Build
Warframe
Zealoid Prelate does not have any way to remove stealth. It will attack in the direction it thinks the stealthed Tenno is, but this can be easily avoided by just staying behind it. Therefore, a stealth frame is the perfect choice for this mission. The best stealth frame is Octavia using her Metronome (#3). Loki cannot refresh stealth while stealthed, making his visible for a short time. Ivara cannot bullet jump while stealthed, making it hard to catch back up with the boss when he teleports.
This build focuses on Ability Duration to keep stealth up as long as possible. Mallet (#1) and Resonator (#2) can be helpful, but because enemies are invulnerable unless they are inside the light, they won’t do much. This build also goes for the Gladiator set bonus, to increase the damage of your melee weapon as the combo counter gets higher.
For Arcanes, most of your damage will be coming from your melee weapon, so Arcane Fury and Arcane Strike will give significant damage buffs.
Weapon
The large health pool and increased defenses will make this boss quite tanky. Luckily, stealth will make building you melee combo counter pretty safe and easy. Zealoid Prelate, the mini bosses, and many infested are very weak to Gas, so be sure to mod for Gas (+90% Heat & Toxin).
Like all combo based melee builds, pick one that has high critical chance and a high critical multiplier to maximize the benefit of Blood Rush. I used a Nikana Prime, but any melee weapon that scales well with the combo counter would work. I would suggest a relatively fast weapon to help get your combo counter up quickly.
Steel Path Zealoid Prelate Strategy
Start the mission by going into stealth, and stay in stealth for the duration of the fight. With the build suggested, you shouldn’t have energy issues as long as you are killing infested enemies. Phase 1 should be very simple and quick. Just stay in stealth and avoid its attacks by staying behind it. Build up your melee combo counter until the boss goes into phase 2.
Follow the boss into the main room. From there, wait for a Zealoid Bastion to spawn in one of the side rooms. These will die much quicker than the boss to sustained melee. On your way back with the light, kill all infested enemies you see to keep your combo counter and light duration high. Once back in the boss room, melee the boss like you did in phase 1. When it teleports away, kill infested again while making your way to its new location. This should keep the light alive until you force the boss to use its next drain.
When you see the dialogue for a drain, drop the light and get out of its circle to avoid being stunned. The boss will drain every infested add in the room (including those on the second floor). Kill as many as possible, but don’t be concerned if a few survive. The boss will heal a bit, but nothing too substantial. Once the next Bastion spawns, repeat the process. Focus on keeping up stealth, your combo counter, and the light and the boss will fall.
Steel Path Builds
If you want to efficiently, effectively, quickly, and comfortably dominate the Steel Path Star Map, be sure to check out ourbuild guidespecifically for this new challenge. Also check out our mission specific builds for those bosses that require a little something extra:
- Generic Steel Path build
- Pluto: Hades – Ambulas
- Sedna: Merrow – Kela De Thaym
- Deimos: Magnacidium – Lephantis
