How To Farm Atramentum in Warframe

Warframe Atramentum Farming - I've been grinding the Follie's Hunt for almost 7-8 hours now and I want to talk about Atramentum specifically because most guides barely explain how to maximize how much you get per run. The difference between a good run and a bad run is a lot.

Also, for those who don't know when this update dropped this resource was no squad wide, making it a pain to farm. You have to complete the objective and then you have to also collect this resource.

For those who don't know, Atramentum is the new currency from Update 42: The Shadowgrapher. You need it to buy Follie's blueprints from Aspirant Zorba at any relay. You need 2,400 total to buy the full Follie blueprint set. That is a lot. You need to farm it efficiently or you're going to be grinding for way longer than necessary.

The Only Place To Get It

Follie's Hunt. That's it. That's the only source.​

Go to Venus, select Vesper Relay, enter the inky portal and you're in the mode. Every completed run gives you Atramentum as a mission reward. But the mission reward is only PART of what you can get each run.

Let me explain the part most people miss.

Atramentum Balloons (The Real Farm)

Inside the Follie's Hunt mission tileset there are purple balloon scattered across the map. They look like purple glowing orbs or balloons hovering near walls and in corners. You destroy them and they drop extra Atramentum on the ground.

These are not highlighted by default. They just sit there and a ton of players run past them every single run without collecting them.

Hunting down every single balloon in a run noticeably increases your Atramentum total per mission. I was getting maybe 40-50 Atramentum per run just from mission completion rewards. Once I started actively hunting every balloon I found, that number jumped closer to 70-80 per run. That's a 40-60% improvement just from popping balloons.​

Recommended Tip: Equip a Loot Radar mod before running Follie's Hunt. Loot Radar makes items show on your minimap, including Atramentum Balloons. You can see where every balloon is on the map and collect them without accidentally running past any. Thief's Wit is the basic version, Animal Instinct is the companion version that works passively.​

Resource Boosters Work On Balloons

This is huge and I had to double check it before writing this. Resource Boosters affect Atramentum from balloons.​ Resource booster has been such a time saver for me across my Warframe journey, if you play the game a lot, you should always have this on.

If you have an active Resource Booster the balloons drop double Atramentum. The mission completion reward may or may not be affected (community is still figuring this out) but the balloon drops confirmed get doubled.​

If you have a Resource Booster sitting unused in your inventory, this is a good time to activate it.​

Solo vs Squad For Atramentum

Squad is better but only if people communicate.

The reason is straightforward. You need to fill three canvases. If you split into two groups of two each taking different canvas locations you're filling canvases simultaneously instead of sequentially. That cuts your run time significantly.​

Also more players in the map means more chances to collect balloons from different areas. One person collecting balloons on the lower floor while another fills the atrium canvas covers more ground per run.​

Solo is totally fine if you know the layout well. You can still hunt every balloon and hit every canvas, it just takes more time per run. I do solo runs when I want to play at my own pace and squad runs when I want raw efficiency.​

Random public matchmaking is a hit and miss. Half the time you get people who don't know the canvas locations and you end up waiting on them. If you have even one friend to run with that's better than public most of the time.​

Steel Path Gives More

Follie's Hunt has a Steel Path version. The Atramentum drops are higher on Steel Path than normal mode.​

The tradeoff is that Follie herself is more aggressive in Steel Path and the enemies hit harder. You can't kill Follie either way, she just chases you, but on Steel Path getting caught in her aura kills you faster.​ I was running around invisible with my fully kitted Octavia, and still had a hard time surviving Steel Path.

If you're comfortable with the layout and have a decent frame, Steel Path is worth it purely for the Atramentum rate increase. If you're still learning the map and keep dying, normal mode is fine until you know the routes.

How Long Is The Grind

Let me be honest. It's long.​

You need 2,400 Atramentum for crafting the full Follie set. With decent balloon collection and a 4-5 minute run time, you're looking at 60-80 Atramentum per run at most. That means roughly 30-40 runs to get the full 2,400.

There's already a Facebook post going around calling it "the worst game mode in Warframe" and saying "this thicc chick better be worth it". I get the frustration. The grind is real.​

But 30-40 runs at 4-5 minutes each is actually around 3 hours of farming. By Warframe standards that's not terrible for a new Warframe. Nidus took me longer. So did Khora.​

Do comment below with how much Atramentum you're getting per run and whether you're doing Steel Path or normal. I want to know if 70-80 per run is typical or if I'm getting lucky with balloon spawns.