The Sacrifice is a Roadblock for New Warframe Players 

I never had much trouble at all with the sacrifice quest, nor was I ever confused about how the operator in focus schools worked, maybe it just miraculously clicked with me first try, I'm not sure.

Jali, in the interest of avoiding a similar issue, I'm going to give you a tidbit of advice that may contain minor spoilers: Please skip the rest of this comment to avoid spoilers. They are minor, regarding gear that will make your experience better. Like The Sacrifice, you technically can do the quest with base gear, but leveled gear makes it a lot less tedious. Before you do New War, grind out some of the vehicle stuff on Deimos, level an archgun, get a better amp, and get some decent weapons and mods for your Railjack.

As a long-time player, I would recommend Elite Sanctuary Onslaught for anyone looking to level focus schools for this stage of the game, take the highest level of focus lens you can get, ideally an Eidolon or Lua lens, and put that on a frame that can get a lot of kills with their abilities that don't require too much ability spam. My personal favorites are Saryn and Volt, but you could also use frames like ember, hydroid, and mesa. From there, you will want to have a lens of the same type on all your weapons. The best-case scenario is that they are also the highest type you have access to, but if that isn't realistic with the time you have to play, I would recommend ordering your lenses in order from highest level to lowest level as Warframe, the main weapon you are going to use to get kills, melee weapon, and then the weapon you won't be actively using. The reason we put the better lens on the melee, even if you don't ever use it in mission is because focus gain is based on XP gain, and melee weapons gain XP slightly faster than primary and secondary weapons. Weapons I would recommend for this are really any AOE or beam-chaining weapons that can kill multiple enemies fast. A lot of the Kuva and Tenet weapons are good options, but I would also recommend the Bubonico, Atmos, and Akaris Prime. As far as melee weapons go, it's the same philosophy anything that can get a lot of kills at once, like light attack spam polearms, heavy attack two-handed nikkanas, and explosion glaive builds. But that's about it. If you want recommendations for specific focus abilities, go for the passive energy regen after picking up energy orbs and Wellspring from Zenerik, which are must haves as well as Last Gasp from Unairu.

To be fair, there is very little chance you will fail in attacking Umbra both times. The first time you CAN technically fail if you die too many times but you have to die as operator 5 times in a row in order for your warframe to die once, and you can just run around the room avoiding death until those transference static charges wear off. The second time you fight him, you get reset facing him directly and you can unload a mote amp into him over and over and keep dying, but his shield never recharges so its just an attrition fight. I personally don't think they should force players to do focus school stuff or get a new amp if they don't want to, its why they dumbed down the path to getting a necramech so much its just time gated now, not hard at all. Baby mode lol. The reason for this gap btw is the sacrifice was added many years later after the second dream, so most players playing at the time had done the amp and focus tree content up to that point and not locking the sacrifice behind any MR lock like they did before means anyone can just B line to the endgame pretty quickly. People mostly think its a positive that they removed the MR locks behind quests but i disagree as it creates frustrated players who rush to the endgame.

That's... a bit odd. Leveling your amp or your operator aren't really necessary requirements. A better amp does make the fights you gotta use it in smoother, since the boss is a damage sponge if you have the crappy default mote amp, but you can still beat him with it if you're patient and make ample use of void slings to stun him and keep distance while you wear him down. The difficulty has remained the same since release, too. The people on Discord are probably exaggerating a lot on the info they're giving you. Or are misinformed themselves, which I don't blame them for. You're right in that grabbing your default mote amp from the hidden place in Cetus is necessary, though. The one change I feel DE should make is to make that little trip a [forced] final step at the end of the War Within quest, instead of just giving players an easy-to-miss inbox message about it after the quest is already finished. You're also entirely right that the lack of info about what focus lenses are and how they work is bs. It's sadly part of the big ongoing issue with having to wiki-dive for everything that we're still waiting on DE to work on (and why I don't blame anyone for being confused).

As a 8+ year old player, this is definitely needed. I never even thought about any of this because I already knew everything by the time the quest came out so many of us long time players are out of the loop with how frustrating the new player experience is.

Schools and Reputations are unexplained content in warframe. These days geting lens is easier so you can put it wherever you want.

The focus lens requirement is the first I'm hearing of this. I'm pretty sure you just need the Mote Amp to begin it. I never had to grind any focus for the Sacrifice. Then again I did the Sacrifice a long time ago, so it might of changed.

(Spilers for the sacrifice) I actually *kinda* didnt have this issue, I did already slap my zenurik lens on my broken war immediately when I got my lens so I had a lot of focus to work with, but I kinda just free balled the sacrifice quest. I had no issue for much of the quest except the (spoilers!) excal umbra fight, which I solved by spamming zenurik 1 and 2 and void slinging when my mote amp was recharging, so I wouldn't exactly say the whole "go build an amp with Onkko is Required, but it for sure makes the whole quest a lot easier

Clearly a skill issue, a few years ago I completed the Sacrifice with an ungilded mote amp and no focus abilities except for zenurik wellspring, god that was pain. In all seriousness, my old clan leader didn't even know of the sacrifice because he didn't do Chains of Harrow because he thought it was just a get Warframe quest like Sands of Inaros. This game NEEDS to explain more shit.

[THE SECOND DREAM, AND AHEAD SPOILERS UP TO SACRIFICE]] - You need 0 Operator Progression to complete the sacrifice quest. The only Skill check that exists and includes the Operator is in the final showdown with Umbra. Operator Upgrades will ONLY make this a bit easier.

Put lenses on the things you main/use consistently! (oooo differing neutral opinions oooo scary x3) ALSO, I want to mention how important Unairu Focus tree is and saves your life. I WISH the second dream explained which school actually does what and so you could logically choose what is practically good than what sounds cool, not that all the tress are useless but all have different uses and you can change lenses or use on different weapons and warframes to level all of the trees up. It just happens so that Unairu is just More generally useful overall and has knockdown immunity, Armor stripping and removing shields from enemies.

I believe with my operator I got it setup where when it comes to having to use its amp most things die in 1-2 hits which is related to one of the schools that greatly increases your damage. Of course, I always say choose whatever you feel you want and enjoy the way you play, but if you need that extra boost unlock it when you can and progress with it. It will make you go a long way in having a good time.

I did the sacrifice and chains of harrow without an Amp. Imagine my pain.

I don't think of it as a roadblock. It's more of a gear check IMO. Like it's a stage where the game says "Ok kiddo, you really need to hop off the mote amp" Keeps players from being complacent with their gear and builds

I don't remember this quest lol, I'm addicted to buying grolls

Sacrifice isnt much of a roadblock compared to the mutated bird boss fight. Nothing tells you that you can jump on its back and force into generator.

Yeah... Sacrifice is possible with base kiddo but it's really not easy - was even worse before operator got shields.

I did these quests a couple months ago iirc, and at the time I had the default amp and didn’t level quill at all. At this moment I’ve only upgraded my amp with the Sirocco you get for free after New War, and I still haven’t done quill. I’ll get around to it eventually, but I reckon I’ll be farming Lua for the cores instead of Plains. besides slots, the biggest gripe I have for the game is that it’s a wiki game, aka it explains nothing so you have to use a wiki/yt to find out stuff.

I already played this quest but I don't know Excalibur umbra came with an extra slot :)

Its not so bad with the mote amp, but having a low focus spread does make it more tedious by far

The sacrifice is true Art is what it is. A gut wrenching, tragic story, beautifully told, and another massive plot twist. I agree though, just like most things in WF , almost entirely unexplained without manual research.

Here's how to lvl your operator and what to do. Go to Duveri, and play that like it's an MMO for 3 months. Don't forget to put your focus lenses on your operator weapon and operator armor these get swapped the least so use the best lens you can get on them, or you will have to break the installed lens to upgrade it to a better lens later. You might hate it at first, but it will grow on you. There was a time where Duveri was available as a different starting zone option. Players who started that way had a very powerful operator and no progress with actual warframes. I don't know of any other game that's just like "hey stop playing our game and go play this other game instead" But innovation has its risks. (don't forget to lookup how to speedrun a komi puzzle).

I'm a new player. And I had no problem

I diddnt have any issues, im not really sure what exactly is hard to grasp. Also, google is free.

Nothing is explained surely that's easy enough to understand.

You don't need a new amp. You don't need focus schools. The Sacrifice is just a git gud with Operator movement quest.