I'm a returning player, and I'm kind of stuck a bit in terms of progress. I have caught up on all quests and have a great wealth of frames and weapons, but I'm still struggling a fair bit every time I load into a steel path mission, or even really some particularly high level normal missions.
I was away for essentially the entire shield gating defensive meta and the AoE weapon meta, and while I feel my modding has caught up somewhat I'm still not sure I'm particularly good at finding or making builds. My warframes feel flimsy, almost regardless of defensive buffs, and while my Kuva Chakhurr hits hard enough to put things down, its somewhat slow and unwieldy while my more responsive weapons feel like they don't put out enough damage to get the galvanized stacks rolling.
So what I want to know from my fellow Tenno is, what do you think is required to really excel in Steel Path? Arcanes, archon shards, helminths, focus trees, weapons, incarnons, specific mods, etc. Anything you can think of that you think "I need to have this set before I toggle over to steel path"
I always check builds on overframe.gg, often with a filter for recent-ish game versions because some major features changed builds over time. If you blast through enemies easily it's easier to keep their numbers down and survive, so focus on damage first. Having the Operator with Magus Lockdown can get you out of most dangers. Crowd control can make some low survivability builds work.
I think shield gating and AoE weapons aren't as strong anymore. Some primary and secondary incarnons are really strong but it's harder against enemies you can't reliably headshot. Armor stripping is strongly recommended.
I recommend (Prime/ Kuva / Tenet versions of possible):
To add on to this, while I dont personally use that site for builds it can be a good jumping off point for showing what frames want what and then you can adjust to taste. Another very helpful operator arcane that I like having as my oh shit button is Magus Repair.