Warframe: Jade Shadows Line of Sight Fix Goes Live August 12, Which Helminth Builds Break

Digital Extremes confirmed during DevShort 111, aired in late July 2026, that Jade Stars — Sirius's second Power, and above all one of the two subsumptions offered by Sirius & Orion — will receive a line-of-sight check with the Amir Shockwave update, scheduled for August 12, 2026. No numerical value is being reduced: not damage, not particle count, not range. Only the trigger condition changes.

It might sound trivial. It isn't. Since Update 43 launched on June 17, 2026, Jade Stars' distinguishing feature has been precisely that neither targeting nor the explosion radius require line of sight. It's this detail, and this detail alone, that made this Power the most abusive subsumption of the summer: drop a persistent damage zone, stay behind a wall, and the particles go clean up enemies who never even see you. The developers explicitly cited this near-AFK behavior as the reason for the fix.

What remains to be sorted out: which builds actually fall on August 12, which won't budge an inch, and what to replace the former with. As an announced trade-off, a buff to Celestial Clash could bring Sirius and Orion themselves back into contention.

Jade Stars as of August 10, 2026: the numbers and the clause that's getting cut

For 50 Energy points, Sirius summons a constellation of 7 Jade Light particles behind himself and Orion, lasting 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 seconds depending on rank. Every time you hit an enemy — with a weapon or a Power — a particle flies toward it and deals 350 / 400 / 450 / 500 Heat damage with a 100% status chance within a 4-meter radius. Particles regenerate at a rate of one every 0.2 seconds, won't travel beyond 50 meters, and recasting the Power refreshes the duration while instantly recharging the constellation.

Three lines from the patch notes explain everything else:

• The explosion radius and targeting require no line of sight — this is precisely what disappears on August 12.
• Particles launched by Orion use Sirius's modded stats. However, Archon Vitality equipped on Sirius does not add an extra Heat status instance to Orion's particles: it must be equipped on Orion for his own particles.
• No particle is triggered by a finisher kill, nor by most status damage — only a Blast status detonation triggers one.

As for triggering, the hierarchy is clear, and it's what gives the subsumption its value. An area-of-effect Power that hits multiple targets at once sends out several particles at a time, up to 7. A persistent zone — Ember's Inferno, Oberon's Hallowed Ground — sends one per damage tick and per enemy, the only limit being the recharge speed. A Power with fast ticks like Xaku's Lohk's Embrace works the same way. Weapons, on the other hand, are far stingier: a shot sends only one particle, even with multishot, punch-through, or area damage, and a melee strike sends only one as well, including heavy attacks and ground slams.

The builds that will actually suffer

The common denominator of the threatened builds is simple: they deal damage to enemies you can't see. Once the line-of-sight check is in place, the damage source will keep working, but it will no longer launch a particle.

• Saryn and her Spores. This is the example given by the developers themselves: the spread of Spores ticks damage throughout the neighboring room, and each tick fed the constellation. Three rooms away, without ever having seen the enemy, it would still die. That's over now.
• Rhino with Piercing Roar. The build popularized by creator Amolistic relied on the Roar's wave passing through walls to trigger the particles en masse. It doesn't disappear, but it loses most of its output.
• By logical extension, anything that relies on a persistent area placed blindly: Ember's Inferno cast in a closed corridor, Oberon's Renewal during defense behind an obstacle, or Wisp configurations that trap a room before you even enter it.

Conversely, the builds that remain standing are those where you're already looking at what you're killing: Xaku with The Lohk's Embrace as long as targets are in view, melee frames charging into the fray, and anything played in Interception or Defense with a clear line of sight to the objective. This is actually the point Digital Extremes reminds us of: there is no numerical nerf, so Jade Stars remains an excellent subsume for a majority of builds.

How to readapt the subsume without redoing everything

First instinct: stop modding for Range. The explosion radius is 4 meters, it always was, and line of sight won't make it bigger. What matters remains Ability Strength, to boost the 500 base damage and the status value, and Duration, which determines how often you need to recast the ability.

Second instinct: favor abilities that bring enemies back into your field of view. A grouping effect—black hole, magnetization, pull—will now be worth far more than a blindly placed area, since it puts the whole pack in line of sight and sends up to 7 particles flying at once.

Third point, often misunderstood: the particles don't follow the usual damage bonus rules. They ignore base damage bonuses and Eclipse-type multipliers. However, they do benefit from certain elemental bonuses, including Grendel's Nourish and the Valence Formation mod. Their base critical chance is 0% and only rises with flat bonuses like Arcane Avenger, while their base critical multiplier of 1.0x is corrected with Arcane Crepuscular or Tenacious Bond.

Finally, a reminder for those still hesitant to sacrifice a pair of Kavat threads to the Helminth: subsuming Sirius & Orion unlocks two abilities, Jade Stars and Astral Autopsy, along with their Augment Mods. The official English patch notes actually use both labels—wait, that's not applicable here since the source used two French labels; the equivalent point is: it's indeed the same ability. Once infused, they don't allow you to switch to the other brother.

The trade-off: Celestial Twin Stars switches to Heat and Slash

Digital Extremes is pairing the patch with a buff to Celestial Twin, the ultimate shared by the two brothers, which has been considered too weak since June. According to Overframe's DevShort recap, hits landed by Sirius will deal Heat damage with guaranteed status, and those from Orion will deal Slash damage with guaranteed status.

The change is anything but cosmetic. Celestial Twin currently deals Blast damage: 7,000 to 10,000 depending on rank, within a radius of 20 to 26 meters, for 100 Energy and at least one Constellation Star. The color mechanic already heavily rewards precision — each hit matched to the right color adds +50% critical chance and a cumulative +1.5x multiplier, taking damage from 2.5x on the first hit to 11.5x on the seventh and final one.

Switching these hits to guaranteed Heat and Slash changes what the ability actually targets. Slash status deals damage over time that ignores armor: against Steel Path Grineer, an Orion that guarantees Slash on every collision becomes far more appealing than 10,000 points of Blast damage absorbed by armor. On Sirius's side, Heat status strips armor and panics targets, which affects squad survival as much as damage output. That said, take note: these details come from a DevShort summary, not from patch notes. The exact values will only be confirmed on August 12.

What won't happen on August 12: the DA/TA overhaul

The same DevShort detailed a series of changes for Deep Archimedea and Temporal Archimedea (the French client's labels are not publicly documented, so we're keeping the English terms). They aren't shipping with Amir's Shockwave, but are expected either as a standalone patch toward the end of August, or with the Iceblade of Narin update this fall.

• Selecting a Warframe in the equipment restriction panel will award 3 Research points.
• The overall calculation will be reworked so that players can skip either two mandated weapons or two Personal Modifiers, while still keeping full Research.
• Modifiers will be grouped into categories, with only one modifier drawn per category — only one Energy-related modifier at a time, for example.
• Six or seven new modifiers will join the pool, including one that caps maximum Shields around 500.
• Mandated Warframes and weapons will grant a stat bonus in return, on the same principle as Arbitrations.

Hildryn, whose usage rate had sparked this whole discussion, receives no direct changes. It's the mode that's shifting around her, not the Warframe.

What's left to do before August 12

Two tasks, and they cost nothing. The first: if your Helminth build relies on a damage source that hits through walls, test it right now by forcing yourself to keep targets in line of sight. A single mission is enough to know whether the performance holds up, and you'll avoid discovering the problem in the middle of an Archimedea run. The second: don't spend Forma on a "drop it blind" area-denial setup until you've read the August 12 patch notes.

Aside from that, the takeaway is fairly reassuring. A line-of-sight fix with no numerical nerf, paired with a genuine buff to the ultimate, looks less like a punitive correction than a recentering: Jade Stars remains one of the best subsumptions in the game, provided you play it while keeping an eye on your enemies. And if the shift of Celestial Twin Stars to Guaranteed Slash is confirmed, Sirius and Orion might finally stop being more interesting in another Warframe's Helminth slot than in their own.