What can we learn about shields from Hildryn?

[DrakeWurrum]

So I am still missing the Chassis for my own Hildryn, but I've seen a handful of them around, and heard some interesting things about her from YouTube. I wanted to ask those who have played Hildryn a rather specific point about the effectiveness of her shields.

Do you think the shield gating is what makes her defenses work? Or is it how effectively she can regenerate her shields? I even noticed that Overshields protect her from status effect procs! Which is a bit redundant thanks to Shield Pillage, but is still very very cool.

So what I'm seeing with Hildryn, from a pure design standpoint, is that there are multiple different ideas for shields being tested on her at the same time. I also see the community is very loud about wanting shield-gating, and have been for a while.

My take is... yes, we need shield-gating. But I don't think shield-gating alone will make shields an effective form of defense, relative to armor, unless every warframe can regenerate shields during combat. And I wanted to ask those who HAVE tried Hildryn if that's their experience in trying her out. How often do your shields actually break? Does that invulnerability phase make or break your ability to stay alive? How often do you get Overshields?

I've been feeling for a while that the best way to make shields an effective/alternative form of defense relative to armor would be to increase everyone's shield pools (they seem really small on most frames, too small), put in some kind of passive shield regeneration mechanic (maybe it's when you grab energy orbs, maybe you just regenerate a small percentage even while taking damage - there's a couple ways to do it), and then have shields protect you from status effects (except magnetic, makes it useful). Shield-gating would be icing on that cake. But, I'm not a particularly smart guy, so I could be wrong about this.

[GnarlsDarkley]

6 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Do you think the shield gating is what makes her defenses work?

• You cannot permanently keep her overshields against toxin and slash procs and these will kill you instantly if hit at 50+
• The meme build currently only works because of her passive. If DE will set a cooldown to it so you cannot get invincibility every time you cannot even use the meme anymore

I haven't played her much, still leveling her tbh, but these are the "issues" I currently see

Edited March 23, 2019 by GnarlsDarkley

[Walkampf]

vor 18 Minuten schrieb DrakeWurrum:

Do you think the shield gating is what makes her defenses work?

I don't think so.

I play her quite a lot and i realy happpen to loose all my shields. I'm using Adaptation und Aviator and my shields usually hold up really well, so that shieldgating hardly ever comes into play.

By the way, i recently switched my Harrow build to rely a lot more on shields and he works basically as well as Hyldrin, since he can regenerate his shields just as easily even without shieldgating.

[DrakeWurrum]

29 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

• You cannot permanently keep her overshields against toxin and slash procs and these will kill you instantly if hit at 50+
• The meme build currently only works because of her passive. If DE will set a cooldown to it so you cannot get invincibility every time you cannot even use the meme anymore

I haven't played her much, still leveling her tbh, but these are the "issues" I currently see

I haven't been paying enough attention to the community - what meme build?

Do you think it would be OP if shields (even regular shields) prevented status procs entirely?

Edited March 23, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[DrakeWurrum]

4 minutes ago, Walkampf said:

I don't think so.

I play her quite a lot and i realy happpen to loose all my shields. I'm using Adaptation und Aviator and my shields usually hold up really well, so that shieldgating hardly ever comes into play.

By the way, i recently switched my Harrow build to rely a lot more on shields and he works basically as well as Hyldrin, since he can regenerate his shields just as easily even without shieldgating.

Hrm... I really wish Adaptation wasn't a thing. It shows all too quickly how big shields having damage resistance would be. And I wouldn't want to see shields get damage resistance, simply because I want shields to work different from armor.

Harrow is part of what started me thinking about shields this way, too, so I'm glad to see others going shield heavy on him. He has an extra advantage over Hildryn, though: he can also regenerate his own health.

Edited March 23, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[GnarlsDarkley]

11 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

what meme build?

I won't go into detail, because if this an exploit, I'll and many others are in trouble.

I'll say so much: When her shields are depleted, Hildryn becomes invulnerable for about 5 seconds (passive).

If you can manage to regenerate all her shields in these 5 seconds, she can become invulnerable again after the next shield is down. Infinite repeat. It's quite simple to achieve if you know how. 

You still drop dead from slash and Toxin procs, but every other damage type cannot harm your health once

Edited March 23, 2019 by GnarlsDarkley

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

You still drop dead from slash and Toxin procs, but every other damage type cannot harm your health once

Agree with this guy 

The moment the slash or toxin gets bad enough to one shot Hildryn, she is essentially toast since you will never press 2 fast enough.

They stack up over time anyway since she can't regen HP.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Guest

[SneakyErvin]

18 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

I haven't been paying enough attention to the community - what meme build?

Do you think it would be OP if shields (even regular shields) prevented status procs entirely?

I havent looked into it myself but I expect it has to do with a dragon key and no shield buffing mods/pets. Since Overshields afaik arent effected by the dragon key you can still utilize her full potential in overshield state while also benefiting to maximum from her invulnerability when regular shields reach zero. And since damage cant overflow into the next stage of shields you'll always need to get hit twice by heavy hits to reach zero shields, no matter if you have 4k or 500 blue shield.

And to be safe from toxin attacks outside of your overshield a simple vitality or umbral vit will do the job.

I do however expect this type of build to be fixed, since the idea about Hildryn was always a big shield pool, not a small one.

[SneakyErvin]

10 minutes ago, Datam4ss said:

Agree with this guy 

The moment the slash or toxin gets bad enough to one shot Hildryn, she is essentially toast since you will never press 2 fast enough.

They stack up over time anyway since she can't regen HP.

This is all just BS though. She has no specific mechanic that makes her more vulnerable than any other frame when it comes to slash or toxin. Just slap on the same mods you would for other frames to survive those slash and toxin procs/attacks. Hildryn essentially handles them better than any other frame because she has both overshields that make her immune to it and an instant cast option to remove them along with baseline armor of 300. And her health sustain is the same as the majority of the roster i.e 0hp/sec, so just as with every other frame you mod a weapon or slot an arcane for it.

Stop spreading false info that makes it sound like she has some specific drawbacks to those damage types, she doesnt.

[Skaleek]

Arcane barrier x2. Rapid resilience.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Skaleek

[Benour]

Dude i did 3h arbitration survival vs infested with her and never got oneshot by toxin. Dont listen to these monkeys about toxin/slash they just repeating BS with 0 actual experience in game. ANY frame will get oneshot by that special attack at some point,its not like hildryn is super weak to that attack lol. Dont worry shes awesome, with arcanes shes 10x better not gonna lie. But so is most frames. Enjoy her gameplay and dont worry shes super solid frame. I recommend adaptation and vitality/primed vigor on her and you set to go. Also this special meme build (no shields) is just simulacrum showoff in real mission you gonna be dead af, so dont bother. Have fun! 

[SenorClipClop]

3 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

The meme build currently only works because of her passive.

That's... explicitly how they designed her. It's like Nidus being given the Undying passive, or Inaros having his Sarcophagus Resurrection Laser. Added survivability based on the fact that their survivability was being designed as a departure from the norm.

4 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

If DE will set a cooldown to it so you cannot get invincibility every time you cannot even use the meme anymore

There's already a cooldown, and it's written into her description: get full Shields again. Do it in 3 seconds and you can cycle Invincibility just like a Niuds getting 15 Mutation stacks super quick (or just having them already). If I didn't know any better, I'd guess you were resentful of how well Hildy is doing as a tank and expect DE to straight-up nerf her for... reasons?

That, and calling an explicit mechanic a meme just makes me think you don't know what a meme is.

[GnarlsDarkley]

8 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

I'd guess you were resentful of how well Hildy is doing as a tank and expect DE to straight-up nerf her for... reasons?

Whatever drugs you were using, either stop doing them or at least provide them to all of us.

I never said she is bad, did I? She can't use QT, so a strong Slash or Toxin proc is all she needs to die quickly. There are more than enough videos about this. I'm confident you can find them yourself. 

And where do I beg for nerfs? If she will maintain her passive and everything else, I gladly take it. It will be more fun than a 2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1 Nidus or a 1-1-1-1-1-1-4-1-1 Inaros.

Don't interpret things where there are none.

I was simply responding to the statement I was quoting. And it is fact she drops dead from a 100 Ancient toxic.

8 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

That, and calling an explicit mechanic a meme just makes me think you don't know what a meme is.

Again. I am just quoting. I was watching Brozimes Hildryn review (I didn't even had a single run done up to this point, so no parts towards bilding her. And he isn't the only one.

 

Don't come to the forums and go offensive against other users who have a different or maybe more objective PoV than you

Edited March 23, 2019 by GnarlsDarkley

[SenorClipClop]

16 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

a strong Slash or Toxin proc is all she needs to die quickly

She's immune if she has Overshields. She can shed Status Effects with the press of a button. And if somehow neither of these prevent you from getting downed super-fast, you're playing at a level where that problem is an issue for the majority of frames.

16 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

where do I beg for nerfs?

Nowhere. But you said above you wanted to remain hush-hush about an explicit mechanic for fear of it being nerfed. I guessed you were expecting a nerf. Maybe you have a different interpretation of the word "expect"? To me "expect" doesn't mean you want the thing you expect, but that you feel its occurence is probable. Should I have said "suspect"?

16 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

I am just quoting. I was watching Brozimes Hildryn review (I didn't even had a single run done up to this point

So you're saying that you're expressing negative feedback on a Warframe you've never played, and are just spreading hearsay of someone else's opinion? And it's Brozime's opinion no less? Please tell me this at least ain't true.

Edited March 23, 2019 by SenorClipClop

[GnarlsDarkley]

31 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

But you said above you wanted to remain hush-hush about an explicit mechanic for fear of it being nerfed

No. I was being discreet in case DE decides to go against exploit (and we don't know if DE will consider this an exploit in the future) users like they did last year when N00bl showed the Khora exploit and how to use it. I just don't want to lose my account.

31 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

She's immune if she has Overshields.

I know that. But for how long can she maintain the overshield? And please spare me an answer where other players take part in. That's like crying for a nerf for Trinity because she still can whipe whole maps with Castanas in a very specific setup.

31 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

To me "expect" doesn't mean you want the thing you expect, but that you feel its occurence is probable.

Did any of these people expect a ban until 2035? Or a ban worth a month for every forma they used? I don't think so. And DE can do whatever they please...I still remember the Telos Boltace/Tonkor/Simulor nerf. Some people "lost" 12 Forma to weapons which now where unusable to their eyes (they played them for a reason). I didn't in case you want to hop on to the blame train again.

31 minutes ago, SenorClipClop said:

So you're saying that you're expressing negative feedback on a Warframe you've never played, and are just spreading hearsay of someone else's opinion?

Where do I express negative feedback? I said Hildryn is invincible until she gets killed (oneshot) either by a slash or toxin proc. Nothing more, nothing less....which is a hard fact. You can ofc use as much Health mods as you please, but the point will come eventually...and it's sooner than other frames because of QT and Hildryn has no energy to buffer. Which is another fact.

She can cleanse herself, I know, but oneshot is oneshot.

 

I even said that I haven't played her much. You can check my profile...my Hildryn is still Rank25 without Forma. The build works and I didn't deny that. But I cannot imagine that DE will keep it because it is way too powerful, imo. You only need 5 things and you are literally unkillable before Sorties (dunno later, since I can't enter with her and won't level her before I get another Affinity Login Reward Booster). I was even going to the toilet in a Round 7 SO run because nothing on this map had either toxin or slash.

Edited March 23, 2019 by GnarlsDarkley

[Guest]

9 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

This is all just BS though. She has no specific mechanic that makes her more vulnerable than any other frame when it comes to slash or toxin. Just slap on the same mods you would for other frames to survive those slash and toxin procs/attacks. Hildryn essentially handles them better than any other frame because she has both overshields that make her immune to it and an instant cast option to remove them along with baseline armor of 300. And her health sustain is the same as the majority of the roster i.e 0hp/sec, so just as with every other frame you mod a weapon or slot an arcane for it.

Stop spreading false info that makes it sound like she has some specific drawbacks to those damage types, she doesnt.

Actually, I am not comparing her to all frames. Hildryn's overall role is to soak up damage and help her team out, like Inaros, Oberon, Trinity, Rhino, Nezha etc. It's not actual hard tanking, just redirection of enemy attention while making the enemy's life hard, or that of her team easier. She definitely doesn't fall into the same category as those like Nova or Banshee.

Her thick shield reflects this role.

Rhino can completely redirect the damage to iron skin. The others listed all have a form of self restoration, DRs. This already makes them more resistant to slash or toxin compared to Hildryn, be it from stacking procs or just one big one,

I am not saying Hildryn shouldn't be vulnerable to slash and toxin - it does make her less tanky than an actual thicc warframe which forces you to be careful, but she is uniquely more vulnerable to slash and toxin than the average frame in her role given her raw HP value and lack of DR.

5 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

I even said that I haven't played her much. You can check my profile...my Hildryn is still Rank25 without Forma. The build works and I didn't deny that. But I cannot imagine that DE will keep it because it is way too powerful, imo. You only need 5 things and you are literally unkillable before Sorties (dunno later, since I can't enter with her and won't level her before I get another Affinity Login Reward Booster). I was even going to the toilet in a Round 7 SO run because nothing on this map had either toxin or slash.

She still holds up even when using a normal build since she is unlikely to have catastrophic shield failure immediately even on Sortie (heck even with 300 shields on a paper frame they don't lose their entire shield).

Most likely the meme build will work out in some way or another.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Guest

[Mu_Gera]

The only good parts are the gating and overshield protecting health, otherwise shields are still inferior to health and armor at base.

Hildryn still can't use shield pillage during aegis storm btw.

[SneakyErvin]

11 hours ago, Datam4ss said:

Actually, I am not comparing her to all frames. Hildryn's overall role is to soak up damage and help her team out, like Inaros, Oberon, Trinity, Rhino, Nezha etc. It's not actual hard tanking, just redirection of enemy attention while making the enemy's life hard, or that of her team easier. She definitely doesn't fall into the same category as those like Nova or Banshee.

Her thick shield reflects this role.

Rhino can completely redirect the damage to iron skin. The others listed all have a form of self restoration, DRs. This already makes them more resistant to slash or toxin compared to Hildryn, be it from stacking procs or just one big one,

It doesnt really matter. She is still not specifically weak to toxin or slash, which is what people make it sound like when they bring it up. If we start comparing individual weaknesses between "tanks" we'll get to the point in the end where Hildryn far surpasses the likes of Inaros, Rhino and Nezha, because she can never get one shot or even two shot for that matter. And with all the types of sustain in the game, having it innate on the frame isnt really an important matter, espcially not when you rely on shields which you can already restore.

[(PSN)what5k]

On 2019-03-23 at 2:11 PM, SenorClipClop said:

That's... explicitly how they designed her. It's like Nidus being given the Undying passive, or Inaros having his Sarcophagus Resurrection Laser. Added survivability based on the fact that their survivability was being designed as a departure from the norm.

There's already a cooldown, and it's written into her description: get full Shields again. Do it in 3 seconds and you can cycle Invincibility just like a Niuds getting 15 Mutation stacks super quick (or just having them already). If I didn't know any better, I'd guess you were resentful of how well Hildy is doing as a tank and expect DE to straight-up nerf her for... reasons?

That, and calling an explicit mechanic a meme just makes me think you don't know what a meme is.

I mean it's a thing that exists but it really makes her useless as anything else but a prettier looking wukong since all of her other abilities cast off shields. I don't see the point in nerfing it really. 

[(PSN)psycofang]

On 2019-03-23 at 9:56 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

Do you think the shield gating is what makes her defenses work? Or is it how effectively she can regenerate her shields? 

Its both without 1 either would be pretty mediocre. 

Her passive is what makes those shields have such high value in the first place. 

In fact the shield gating would be fine for other frames by simply stopping procs from getting to their hp until the shields are gone, let the raw damage of an attack like a gas cloud still deal damage to the shield to break it.

6 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

She is still not specifically weak to toxin or slash, 

Not toxin procs no but an ancient breath will murder her like itll kill most sans the other 3 tank frames. 

On 2019-03-23 at 9:56 AM, DrakeWurrum said:

How often do your shields actually break? Does that invulnerability phase make or break your ability to stay alive? How often do you get Overshields?

I almost constantly have over shields except in an infested mission. 

Those over shields + her passive is what stops literally anything from killing her. 

It also helps that her 2 will still put her back at 5k shields during the event when a mob pops the shield instantly youll go invulnerable and also gain 5k shields. 

In the corpus survival arbitration earlier today certain mobs could bust my shield pretty easily once the hit level 160+ so the way you timed her 2 changed a tad. 

It also become readily apparent her 3 and 4 needs help big time when mobs get that high. 

Edited March 24, 2019 by (PS4)psycofang

[DrBorris]

I'm still on the side of Shield Hardening, it is a more elegant solution that has less arbitrary numbers slapped on and is much less susceptible for exploitation.

Shield Hardening:

• Basic Premise: The more shields you currently have, the more damage reduction your shields have.
• How: Apply the Armor DR formula to shields where the amount of shields it he “armor” value. Reducing the ‘potency’ of the calculation a bit would make sense though, swapping the 300 in the base Armor DR equation for 500.

Keep in mind that I mean for it to only count the shields you have, so if you take damage decreasing your shield amount, you will take more damage to shields from subsequent hits. This reinforces Shield's niche as blocking bursts of damage whereas health is better suited against sustained damage.

 

Armor Damage Reduction Formula = ( Armor ) / ( Armor + 300 )

Proposed Shield DR Formula = ( Shield ) / ( Shield + 500 )

• 100 Shield = 16%
• 300 Shield = 37.5%
• 500 Shield = 50%
• 1000 Shield = 66%
• 2000 Shield = 80%
• 4200 Shield = 89.3% (Max overshield with Harrow)
• 5355 Shield = 91.4% (Max base Shield with Hildryn)
• 6555 Shield = 92.9% (Max overshield with Hildryn)

Now that Hildryn exists this concept gets kinda crazy because she has such high Shields, so that base of 500 may need further increasing.

Edited March 24, 2019 by DrBorris

[GnarlsDarkley]

34 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Armor Damage Reduction Formula = ( Armor ) / ( Armor + 300 )

Proposed Shield DR Formula = ( Shield ) / ( Shield + 500 )

• 100 Shield = 16%
• 300 Shield = 37.5%
• 500 Shield = 50%
• 1000 Shield = 66%
• 2000 Shield = 80%
• 4200 Shield = 89.3% (Max overshield with Harrow)
• 5355 Shield = 91.4% (Max base Shield with Hildryn)
• 6555 Shield = 92.9% (Max overshield with Hildryn)

DE already tried these kinda things...and it worked out for Corpus the same way. The became unkillable. 

Don't answer with "then give Corpus different types of shields". That was suggested more times than I want to count them.

edit: a Lv50 Crewman has 2,8k shields. At Lv100 it's already 11,1k (which is 95% DR?)

Edited March 24, 2019 by GnarlsDarkley

[DrBorris]

4 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

DE already tried these kinda things...and it worked out for Corpus the same way. The became unkillable. 

Don't answer with "then give Corpus different types of shields". That was suggested more times than I want to count them.

edit: a Lv50 Crewman has 2,8k shields. At Lv100 it's already 11,1k (which is 95% DR?)

I mean, but like, don't give the mechanic to Corpus? Why shouldn't I answer with the basic common-sense response? Where is it in the rule book that every mechanic Warframes have enemies must also have?

Any "shield gate" mechanic would be stupid to fight against, I'm not sure why this is even something you would bring up because of course this will only apply to Warframes.

 

Also, please reference where DE tried this, because I have been playing this game for over 5 years now and to my knowledge DE has never touched shields until Hildryn. The only time DE referenced changing Shields was a Devstream awhile back when they said "we tested shield gating internally and it did not do anything impactful."

[DrakeWurrum]

2 hours ago, DrBorris said:

I'm still on the side of Shield Hardening, it is a more elegant solution that has less arbitrary numbers slapped on and is much less susceptible for exploitation.

Shield Hardening:

• Basic Premise: The more shields you currently have, the more damage reduction your shields have.
• How: Apply the Armor DR formula to shields where the amount of shields it he “armor” value. Reducing the ‘potency’ of the calculation a bit would make sense though, swapping the 300 in the base Armor DR equation for 500.

Keep in mind that I mean for it to only count the shields you have, so if you take damage decreasing your shield amount, you will take more damage to shields from subsequent hits. This reinforces Shield's niche as blocking bursts of damage whereas health is better suited against sustained damage.

 

Armor Damage Reduction Formula = ( Armor ) / ( Armor + 300 )

Proposed Shield DR Formula = ( Shield ) / ( Shield + 500 )

• 100 Shield = 16%
• 300 Shield = 37.5%
• 500 Shield = 50%
• 1000 Shield = 66%
• 2000 Shield = 80%
• 4200 Shield = 89.3% (Max overshield with Harrow)
• 5355 Shield = 91.4% (Max base Shield with Hildryn)
• 6555 Shield = 92.9% (Max overshield with Hildryn)

Now that Hildryn exists this concept gets kinda crazy because she has such high Shields, so that base of 500 may need further increasing.

I don't want to see shields just given damage reduction. That's a very boring solution because then they're no different from armor.

From a design perspective, we're supposed to look at shields NOT as a second bar of health, but as an alternative form of damage reduction to armor.

Whereas armor is partial damage reduction with absolutely no limit, shields are 100% damage reduction with a limit on how much total damage it can prevent, with the ability to recharge that limit.

The reason shields right now just royally suck next to armor is that the amount of damage we get dealt by enemies of a high enough level completely decimates shields to be completely useless. Which is what's led me to think that all frames need MORE shields, plus some way to regenerate shields besides just avoiding damage (like a passive regeneration, or picking up energy orbs). This is why Guardian is such a popular Sentinel precept. If shields are large enough and regenerate quickly enough, they could be a viable alternative to armor in that it's preventing you from taking HP damage.

Shield-gating is proving to be essential, as well, in making shields effective, and status effects going through shields is clearly also a problem (I'm thinking now that shields should prevent status effects, except for magnetic, which would dramatically change how we handle corpus enemies).

Edited March 24, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[SneakyErvin]

3 hours ago, (PS4)psycofang said:

Not toxin procs no but an ancient breath will murder her like itll kill most sans the other 3 tank frames. 

Yes, if you are extremely poor at playing Hildryn. 

We are talking infested here. You need to do some very piss poor job with the frame if you ever lose your overshields. So the risk of getting struck by that 1HK ancient move is close to non-exsistant. Infested being the faction you can pretty much run a 1h+ arbitration against with Rev and never really lose any Mesmer charges. So the same applies for Hildryn, who will sit in overshield state 24/7 with just the help from a Taxon. It is just that if you decide to bring her to infested fights (which she isnt even designed for) you just dont use her skills, you simply rely on Taxon to keep the shields up. Because infested are such a melee focused faction, Taxon's job will also be extremely easy because there will be plenty of mobs to hit within 10m.

There is a far higher chance the other frames will get eaten by nullifiers than Hildryn getting cought in a combination versus an ancient where she has no overshields and somehow decides to be so static that the ancinent lives long enough to get close and also get the breath attack off to kill her.

Versus every other factions she pretty much blows every other tank out of the water due to her constant CC on weak mobs, near infinite shields/"mana", constant debuffing of armor and shields along with never being able to get 1 or 2 shot.