Warframe: Abilities Versus Demolysts

When I first started out this gamemode, I was wondering which of my abilities would actually affect them, without forcing the rest of the group to go through trial and error tests and failing a lot of missions. So, in an effort to create a bit of aid for those not wishing to bring all 40 or so frames into the same amount of missions just to test things out. As much as I love using the wiki for information-hunting, I found that the information regarding abilities used on Demolysts is rather inconsistent. Not by their own fault, but by the nature of how these abilities seem to work on Demolysts.

Some things to know:

• This guide will simply state whether or not an ability has any effect on a Demolyst. This is not a “what frame is best for Disruption” guide. You can judge that for yourself after you experience the gamemode.
• I do not cover any sort of weapons here, nor any synergies between weapons and frame abilities.
• I will italicize effects that I find worth noting, such as long-lasting stuns.
• I also won’t be comparing frame abilities to other frame abilities.
• Things that do not directly affect Demolysts, such as personal damage boosts or non-damaging abilities will be labeled simply as “Personal buff.”
• Augments are ignored for this list (for the time being since many do not really have any drastic effect on the ability).
• I will mention the bugs I find during the making of this guide or any glaring issues or inconsistencies between events that take place. If I mention any game-changing bugs or exploits it is not because I agree with their usage or encourage it. In the end, I do want this guide brought to the attention of DE, because they might not be aware of some of these things.

That being said, if there are any issues or questions about the information provided, feel free to leave a message. Enjoy!

For those who may not know, Demolysts are a new sort of enemy added in the new Disruption gamemode.

Demolysts spawn once a key has been placed into one of the four available conduits, and its sole goal is to destroy it. Only one spawns on the map (as far as I know) per conduit activated, and you can tell where it’s coming from by its signature beeping sound, which you can use to track its location down before it gets close to your conduit. Destroy it, and that conduit’s round is over.

These guys are a little different than the other enemies in a few regards (besides the beeping):

• They’re much tougher, you won’t be killing these guys just as easily as every other enemy. They’re still one-shottable for a while though, don’t worry.
• These are not like the amalgams you fight normally all around the map. The abilities that affect normal amalgams do not affect these guys the same way, and this guide does not go into depth about amalgams, only Demolysts. This guide doesn’t cover that. One discrepancy being that you can one shot the humanoid and moa-like amalgams with Ash’s Fatal Teleport and a Covert Lethality dagger, while you cannot do that to Demolysts.
• They emit a nullifying pulse every 1-2 seconds. This is not a nullifier bubble like we are used to the corpus having. Meaning you can get in close, but stay too close and their bubble will turn off abilities that are currently working on you, as well as any abilities you might be using or have placed on the Demolyst. Procs stay, abilities don’t.
• They prioritize the node above all else, and will not stop just because you’re in the way. I only know of a single ability that makes them stop everything they are doing without actively stunning or hurting them, and that being Gara’s Spectrorage.
• They cannot be stunned out of their final charge attack that destroys conduits. This is more of a guess on my end, as I have had no luck with weapons nor frames in this.

• Shuriken: YES It deals damage to Demolysts, but does not strip armor as they do not have any.
• Smoke Screen: NO Personal buff.
• Teleport: YES No, you cannot one shot Demolysts with Fatal Teleport. Even if you have a dagger with Covert Lethality equipped, this will not kill them. In fact, this deals no damage to them. All it does is stun the Demolyst for 1-2 seconds (tested with Fatal Teleport). You do not play any backstabbing animation.
• Blade Storm: YES You can tag Demolysts, but be quick as all the tags get removed with its pulses.

• Landslide: YES You can punch the boyos!
• Tectonics: NO Walls do not stop them, and they do not prioritize the walls. Also, the wall will get destroyed the moment it pulses its nullifier bubble.
• Petrify: NO No effect.
• Rumblers: YES Rumblers will attack the Demolysts, unless they get sidetracked. Demolysts will not attack the Rumblers. Their pulse does not destroy Rumblers.

• Sonic Boom: YES Deals damage.
• Sonar: YES Demolysts can have Sonar applied on them, however all stacks will disappear once they do their nullifying pulse.
• Silence: NO No effect.
• Sound Quake: YES Deals damage, but does not stun them.

• Elude: NO Personal buff.
• Lull: YES This does not put them to sleep, however it does stun them for a few seconds when it would normally put an enemy to sleep.
• Desolate Hands: YES Deals damage.
• Serene Storm: YES Deals damage, but the slide attack does nothing.

• Spectral Scream: YES Deals damage.
• Elemental Ward: YES Deals damage.
• Vex Armor: NO Personal buff.
• Effigy: YES Deals damage, but does not seem to stun them.

• Fireball: YES Deals damage.
• Accelerant: NO Personal buff.
• Fire Blast: YES Deals damage.
• World On Fire: YES Deals damage.

• Metamorphosis: NO Personal buff.
• (Night) Rest: NO Demolysts don’t fall asleep.
• (Night) Pacify: NO Personal buff.
• (Night) Mend: NO Personal buff.
• (Day) Rage: YES (?) Unsure about this one, but it seems like they do take more damage while it is active.
• (Day) Provoke: NO Personal buff.
• (Day) Maim: YES The initial cast procs slash on Demolysts, leaving them stunned for a few seconds while also dealing damage.

• Slash Dash: YES Deals damage.
• Radial Blind: YES Stuns for a few moments until the nullifying bubble pulses, but seems to only work the first time. Umbra’s Radial Howl has no extra effect since these enemies do not gain resistances like their other Sentient brethren.
• Radial Javelin: YES Deals damage, but does not pin or stun.
• Exalted Blade: YES Deals damage. Quite a bit of it too, unsurprisingly.

• Freeze: YESDeals damage.
• Ice Wave: YES Deals damage.
• Snow Globe: YES Slows them down the moment they enter it, but once their nullifying bubble pulses the Snow Globe is gone. Constant spamming of a Snow Globe can keep them in a permanent slowed state, as long as you have the energy to keep it up. Repeat casts do not fling Demolysts away from the center.
• Avalanche: YES Deals damage, but does not stun.

• Shattered Lash: YES Deals damage.
• Splinter Storm: YES Deals damage.
• Spectrorage: YES Demolysts stop everything they are doing. With max range, their bubble is too small to take down the mirrors, and they can potentially be stunned until the timer on the ability runs out. Recasting gives varying results depending on how far the AI will decide to walk.
• Mass Vitrify: YES Stops them until their nullifying bubble breaks the walls. Recasting doesn’t affect them.

• Dread Mirror: NO Deals no damage, although it activates Garuda’s shield and forces her to jump to the Demolyst. The charge attack also deals no damage.
• Blood Altar: NO Has no effect.
• Bloodletting: NO Has no effect.
• Seeking Talons: YES A weird one. The first cast will stun the Demolyst, but deal no damage. Consecutive strikes will proc slash, but will not stun.

• Condemn: YES Stops them in place like any enemy, although you have until their nullifying pulse hits it to get rid of it.
• Penance: NO Personal buff.
• Thurible: NO Personal buff.
• Covenant: NO Personal buff.

• Balefire: YES Deals damage.
• Pillage: YES Drains shields.
• Haven: YES Drains shields.
• Aegis Storm: YES Deals damage, but does not stun.

• Tempest Barrage: YES Deals damage.
• Tidal Surge: YES Deals damage.
• Undertow: NO Has no effect.
• Tentacle Swarm: YES Deals damage, but does not pick them up.

• Desiccation: YES Demolysts are slowed and walk away from your sand until their nullifying bubble puts them back on track.
• Devour: NO No effect.
• Sandstorm: YES Deals damage.
• Scarab Swarm: YES Deals damage.

• Quiver: I looked specifically into the Noise and Sleep arrows, since the others fit into my “personal buff” category. Noise had no effect on them. Sleep arrows stun Demolysts until their nullifying bubble frees them.
• Navigator: NO Doesn’t change the weapon, you can still hit the Demolysts just fine with or without it.
• Prowl: NO Cannot be pickpocketed.
• Artemis Bow: YES Deals damage.

• Whipclaw: YES Deals damage.
• Ensnare: YES Successfuly ensnares the Demolyst until their nullifying bubble frees them.
• Venari: Ignoring her Heal and Protect modes, I focused on the Attack mode.
• Strangledome: NO Has no effect and does not draw their attention.

• Banish: YES Demolysts can be banished and damaged by the cast, but their nullifying bubble removes the banish.
• Stasis: NO Doesn’t stop them.
• Rift Surge: NO Has no effect and also cannot spread to Demolysts from other enemies.
• Cataclysm: YES Entering the cataclysm hurts Demolysts, but does not stop them and Stasis doesn’t stop them either. Like any nullifier however, they remove the Cataclysm quickly.

• Decoy: YES(?) Decoy looks to be attacking the Demolyst, but I cannot 100% confirm this. Looks like that’s the case.
• Invisibility: NO Personal buff.
• Switch Teleport: YES You can safely Switch Teleport Demolysts just like normal enemies. More info at the end.
• Radial Disarm: YES Deals damage. There are a few Demolysts that have weapons, but I haven’t had any luck with their spawns when I was testing out Loki so I’m not sure if they get disarmed or not, but that doesn’t make any difference considering they don’t use them.

Switch Teleport. Oh boy. This one can potentially break the Demolyst AI if you’re not careful. As long as you’re on even ground and an area you can safely walk on, feel free to abuse the heck out of this. However, if you do choose to abuse it and teleport the Demolyst into an area inaccessible by normal means or try to despawn it by sending it off the map, one of a few things will happen that I have observed:

1. The Demolyst will get stuck in the terrain, allowing you an easy kill on it, or simply allow the timer to run out for an easy node completion.
2. The Demolyst will clip into the environment and start walking in a straight line toward either the objective or the nearest walkable surface for it, I can’t tell. You will not be able to kill it in this time unless you have an ability that can target it through the floor. It usually pops out near the objective.
3. The Demolyst will do the same as above, but once it comes out it will completely lose track of its objective and run around aimlessly, but will still not attack you.

An example of when a Demolyst started walking through the terrain.

An example of it getting stuck. It remained there the whole time and could never find a way out.

• Pull: YES Deals damage, but does not pull Demolysts toward you.
• Magnetize: YES You can Magnetize Demolysts and shoot them for the extra damage, but the bubble gets removed once they do the nullifying pulse.
• Polarize: YES Deals damage.
• Crush: YES Deals damage, and stuns them for a second or so afterwards.

• Ballistic Battery: YES They take the extra damage.
• Shooting Gallery: NO Personal buff.
• Shatter Shield: NO Personal buf, but with enough range it appears as though they get hurt by rickochet.
• Peacemaker: YES Deals damage, and a lot of it too.

• Hall of Mirrors: NO Personal buff.
• Sleight of Hand: YES The first cast seems to affect them, and they head toward the jewel. Any casts following that seem to have no effect. This does stun Demolysts, but only on the first use.
• Eclipse: NO Personal buff.
• Prism: YES Deals damage.

• Soul Punch: YES Deals damage.
• Terrify: NO No effect whatsoever.
• Desecrate: NO Demolysts can’t be Desecrated.
• Shadows of the Dead: NO Nekros’s Shadows don’t seem to care. While they aren’t affected by the Demolyst nullifying bubble, they can do next to nothing besides get toppled over.

• Fire Walker: YES Deals damage.
• Blazing Chakram: YES Deals damage.
• Warding Halo: YES Deals damage.
• Divine Spears: YES Deals damage, but does not impale.

• Virulence: YES Deals damage and stacks.
• Larva: NO No effect.
• Parasitic Link: NO They can be linked to you, but only until the bubble appears. Also, linking does not stop them.
• Ravenous: NO Maggots do not attach themselves to the Demolyst, although they do chase after it.

• Null Star: YES Deals damage.
• Antimatter Drop: YES That’s a lot of damage!
• Wormhole: NO Personal buff.
• Molecular Prime: YES Slows Demolysts down (or speeds them up if you really hate your team). Their bubble does nothing to the expanding Molecular Prime, and once they enter the area of effect they will constantly get slowed until the duration of its expansion runs out.

• Mind Control: NO No effect, although other Mind Control targets do seem to attack Demolysts.
• Psychic Bolts: YES Deals damage, but they have no armor to strip.
• Chaos: NO No effect, but others who under the effects seem to attack Demolysts.
• Absorb: YES The explosion deals damage. Don’t get cheeky either, this doesn’t protect from Demolyst explosions!

• Smite: YES Deals damage.
• Hallowed Ground: YES Deals damage, but gets removed once the nullifying bubble pops up.
• Renewal: NO Personal buff.
• Reckoning: YES Deals damage, but does not stun.

• Mallet: YES As long as there are other enemies around to damage the Mallet, it will hurt Demolysts that run through its area of effect. Demolysts will not damage the Mallet.
• Resonator: YES Deals damage to Demolysts that pass through its area of effect. Demolysts will not damage nor pay any attention to it.
• Metronome: NO Personal buff.
• Amp: NO Personal buff.

• Enthrall: YES/NO See notes below.
• Mesmer Skin: YES/NO See notes below.
• Reave: YES Deals damage.
• Danse Macabre: YES Deals damage.

Revenant seems to be bugged, in that one of his abilities has effects on a few types of Demolysts and no effects on others. Normally, Enthrall and Mesmer skin have no direct or indirect effects on Demolysts, as they cannot be Enthralled, will not attack Enthralled enemies, and will not attack you.
BUT- when you Enthrall an enemy within a certain range of the Demolyst and in its line of sight, there is a chance it will abandon everything it was doing and either attack the Enthralled enemy or bug out and stand in place.
Once they react to Enthralled enemies, no matter if they die or the timer runs out, the Demolyst will now no longer pursue its original objective of destroying a conduit and will attack you and your allies. At this point, Mesmer Skin becomes useful against them, as they do get stunned when they attack you. The stun lasts until their nullifying bubble frees them of the status, and they will continue to attack you like any other enemy and they do not seem to despawn.
I cannot confirm nor deny if this works on all Demolysts, but I have been able to successfully replicate this bug of the Demolyst Heqets, MOAs, and Machinists. I had no luck with Satyrs due to their speed and difficulty timing enemy Enthralls to get a result.

A Demolyst Machinist now doing absolutely nothing in a hallway after attacking my darling Enthralled MOA. 🙁

• Rhino Charge: Deals damage.
• Iron Skin: NO Personal buff.
• Roar: NO Perosnal buff.
• Rhino Stomp: YES Deals damage and stuns until their nullifying pulse happens.

• Spores: YES Can be attached and spread from other enemies, but are removed by its nullifying pulse.
• Molt: NO No effect.
• Toxic Lash: NO Personal buff.
• Miasma: YES Deals damage and (possibly) stuns them on first use, but this has only happened to me a few times. Most likely a bug.

• Spellbind: NO Can be cast on them, but seems to have no effect.
• Tribute: NO While it can be cast on the Demolyst and leave an offering, picking up this offering gives no buff whatsoever. I have not been able to find an enemy that gives Thorns in the gamemode to test that out.
• Lantern: NO They ignore floating enemies.
• Razorwing: YES Razorflies deal no damage, but do not get destroyed by the Demolyst nullifying bubble. Dex Pixia and Dewata deal damage, although it is not recommended to use the Dewata vs an enemy with a nullifying pulse…

• Well of Life: NO No effect.
• Energy Vampire: NO No effect.
• Link: YES Link transfers damage to Demolysts, but their nullifying pulse removes the Link from them.
• Blessing: NO Personal buff.

• Rip Line: YES Deals damage, but does not pull them toward you.
• Warcry: NO No effect.
• Paralysis: NO No effect.
• Hysteria: YES Deals damage, but you get kicked out of Hysteria when the Demolyst’s nullifying pulse… pulses.

• Tesla: YES Deals damage.
• Minelayer: YES Shred deals damage, Concuss has no effect, Bounce has no effect, Trip Laser has no effect.
• Bastille: YES The first throw slows down Demolysts ever so slightly, and continues doing so unless their bubble catches the Bastille ball, turning the ability off. Only the first Bastille it goes through will slow it down, consecutive throws have no effect.
• Vortex: YES Deals damage and slightly slows them down on the first case, but consecutive casts have no effect. Same as Bastille, but with a little damage thrown in.

• Shock: YES Deals damage.
• Speed: NO Personal buff.
• Electric Shield: NO No effect.
• Discharge: YES Deals damage and stuns the Demolyst until its nullifying pulse saves it.

• Reservoirs: YES Haste and Vitality Reservoirs are personal buffs, but the Shock Reservoir deals damage to the Demolysts.
• Wil-O-Wisp: NO No effect.
• Breach Surge: YES First cast will stun Demolysts, but consecutive casts will only apply the damage multiplier until their nullifying pulse removes it.
• Sol Gate: YES Deals damage.

• Iron Jab: YES Deals damage.
• Defy: NO Personal buff.
• Cloud Walker: NO No effect.
• Primal Fury: YES Deals damage.

• Tail Wind: YES Deals damage.
• Airburst: YES Deals damage.
• Turbulence: NO Personal buff.
• Tornado: YES Demolysts that enter the range of the Tornadoes will not be picked up, but tehy will be slowed down and take damage from the ability. Demolyst nullifying pulse removes Tornadoes around them, so it is short-lived.

This section is for things I noticed across the board with more than one frame or type of ability. And overall any bugs I might find along the way.

• Certain abilities that proc some sort of effect on the Demolyst, such as sleep or stun, do not work the same way across the board. As examples, Inaros’s Desiccation versus Excalibur’s Radial Blind. Both leave a sort of stunning effect on the Demolyst, and both are removed by the Demolyst’s natural nullifying bubble. However, Desiccation can be used multiple times for the same results, while Radial blind can only stun them on the first hit. I’m not entirely sure why this is or if this is even a bug, but feels really inconsistent to the point that I felt it was necessary to even make this guide in the first place. As far as status-proccing abilities go, the status remains through the nullifying bubble pulse. An example of that being Equinox’s Day form’s Maim.
• Some abilities that may be similar in nature might have completely different results. Two abilities that work to either incapacitate or stun enemies might work completely differently on Demolysts. One might just slow down, while the other doesn’t work at all, or only works the first time? Like… What? Why? Why do some abilities like Vauban’s Bastille and Vortex end up slowing the enemy… But only on the first use? Zephyr and Hydroid, who both have very similar 4th abilities, have completely different results when using them.
• Unrelated- You can clip through the grates in the floor on this tileset:
  
• Also completely unrelated, and not sure if this counts as a spoiler but better safe than sorry. If you don’t know what an Operator is, this isn’t something you’ll care to read about: 
  
• Conduit failsafes spawn inside Cephalon Fragments:
  

Written by Briggs