Hildryn Augment to put me at ease

[chainchompguy3]

As a Warframe player, I trend toward consistency and reliability. Frames, weapons, and mods that can be relied upon.

Recently, I've come to find that Hildryn has quite a few features that align very well with my preferences.

-Being able to cast Abilities does not rely on Energy, but rather the reliably regenerative shields.

-Being able to survive damage does not rely on nullifiable Abilities, but rather the reliable** raw shield values.

-Passive provides a reliable backup plan to most situations.

So, I've forma'd her, had fun tinkering with builds, strategies, and playstyles. Thinking of building a second just to have access to more forma setups.

 

There are some unreliable aspects to Hildryn, but for the most part I have been able to remedy them:

-Hildyrn's augments [Blazing Pillage] and [Balefire Surge] provide means of restoring shields even when enemies lack sufficient shields/armor for Pillage.

-[Rolling Guard] provides the necessary Invulnerability time to regenerate some shields after a Shield-gate event. during which she is otherwise helpless.

-[Arcane Aegis] and [Arcane Barrier], while strong, can be ignored without crippling Hildryn.

-While Pillage as a whole feels a bit too Strong (When used against sufficiently Armored/Shielded enemies), It can be decently replaced with a [Balefire Surge] oriented Build.

 

 

But there is one major issue that I have not been able to get past:

**Shields are only reliable against non-toxin damage. And unfortunately, Every Faction has some degree of access to Toxin damage.

It appears that most other people are satisfied with depending on Hildryn's Overshild passive to survive Toxin damage, given the lack of other prominent complaints on this matter; But for me, this is a make-or-break issue. I cannot entrust my ability to survive damage to a mere 1/7th of my healthbar, that needs constant active replenishment.

 

Therefore, I propose a more roundabout option: another Augment, to remedy my worries.

"Fortified Shieldwall"

[i] Makes all of Hildryn's Shields count as Overshields, thereby permanently granting all of their effects:

+Balefire always ragdolls

+Haven always deals double damage

+Toxin-blocking Passive always active

-With no Normal Shields to restore, effects like Arcane Aegis, Arcane Barrier, Rebuild Shields, Protect, etc. Will not work.

+Effects that restore Overshields, like Pillage, Capacitence, Rakta Dark Dagger, etc, will still function normally.

[-] These new Overshields, while functioning as your normal max shields, will only regenerate up to a limited amount. (Effectively giving you a reduced max shields, but not a reduced max  Total shields.)

 

This is the result of much thinking and trying to balance it. I tossed around multiple ideas for alternatives. Got real close to just asking for:
"Primed Antitoxin"

But I felt that DE wouldn't want to have complete immunity to a damage type, seeing as how they recently fixed a bug that let [Antitoxin] stack with [Adaption], granting total immunity to toxin damage (You bet I used the Heck out of this bug while it lasted).

**Edit** Correction, the bug is NOT fixed, it's just canceled out by the presence of a Venomous Eximus unit, or, strangely enough, being mid-air!

 

All in all, I'm not at risk of quiting the game or anything, I've still got Old-reliable Inaros. But It'd be nice to have another frame to call a favorite.

 

So....Yeah. I'd love to enjoy Hildryn more, and something along the lines of this would massively help with that.

Thank you for listening.

[KitMeHarder]

IMO just make Haven at base useful to Hildryn herself by transferring 100% of health damage to linked enemies, and I wouldn't mind some other effect too like while active her overshield capacity is doubled. (This was a much more prominent desire when slash still bypassed shields.)

• Haven without the augment really does nothing for Hildryn outside of killing mostly worthless level enemies. I know it supports the team, but good Warframe supports support themselves as well.
• It can't be abused because Haven turns off when you have no shields.

Also DE, please change the overshield buff on the Balefire to be that is lifts or knocks down the enemy. I'm tired of sending what I want to kill into the stratosphere, and having Balefire glitch out to where it can't hit ragdolled enemies.

[taiiat]

• you don't have to have Rolling Guard, you're invulnerable during that time after all and with how Shields are thesedays, Shield Regen Mods are actually quite useful, protip.
• Primed Antitoxin is probably superfluous, since Adaptation is commonly used in the first place, and Antitoxin + Adaptation will be able to make you massively resistant or immune to Toxin Damage depending on how often you encounter it.

but, your Augment sounds balanced enough, no complaints here. has cons(plus costing a Mod Slot) to go along with the pros of always having the Overshield benefits.

2 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Haven without the augment really does nothing for Hildryn outside of killing mostly worthless level enemies. I know it supports the team, but good Warframe supports support themselves as well.

don't the benefits of Haven affect Hildryn, too? or am i nuts?
if it does benefit Hildryn too, it's quite useful even without anybody around.

Haven is also cheaper CC than Aegis Storm, and doesn't restrict your movement either.

[KitMeHarder]

53 minutes ago, taiiat said:

don't the benefits of Haven affect Hildryn, too? or am i nuts?
if it does benefit Hildryn too, it's quite useful even without anybody around.

Haven is also cheaper CC than Aegis Storm, and doesn't restrict your movement either.

• She already has her enhanced shield gating.
• She doesn't get the shield recharge rate. I thought if there was no drain from having an enemy, ally, or companion linked, and I wasn't in Aegis Storm that it might, but not even then.
• And she doesn't get the increased shield capacity. That part slipped my mind when I wrote that, so forget the double overshield cap. Just have this part affect her, in addition to the damage transfer.

I don't really care about a stagger on light units with a frame like Hildryn. If anything, it just prevents my arcanes from proccing. 

[taiiat]

3 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

• She already has her enhanced shield gating.
• She doesn't get the shield recharge rate. I thought if there was no drain from having an enemy, ally, or companion linked, and I wasn't in Aegis Storm that it might, but not even then.
• And she doesn't get the increased shield capacity. That part slipped my mind when I wrote that, so forget the double overshield cap. Just have this part affect her, in addition to the damage transfer.

lame-o, and means i am nuts, okay.
you'd be paying a cost for it anyways if it did affect yourself, so it just... should. i'd even go so far as to say all of the Ally buffs, meaning yes double stacking the Shield Gate bonus - but just the Shield Recharge and Shield Capacity would be quite good.

this is the premise that say, Elemental Ward operates on anyways - Allies get it but Chroma does too, so..........

[chainchompguy3]

I appreciate the input.

 

14 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

Haven without the augment really does nothing for Hildryn outside of killing mostly worthless level enemies. I know it supports the team, but good Warframe supports support themselves as well.

I mostly agree. I treat Haven as something similar to Inaros's Sarcophagus passive: something that adds flavor and personality to a frame, even while not being all that terribly useful. It paints her as a frame that sacrifices herself for the good of those around her, and applies constant pressure to those who oppose her.

So even though the sacrifice (constant shield degeneration) heavily outweighs the good (mild buff to allies, mild damage to enemies), I still like it, and didn't want to dedicate my suggestion to changing it.

I would also be a little displeased if her ability to resist, say, environmental toxin procs, relied upon enemies being present. But those situations are few enough that I wouldn't be actively hating it, just mildly disappointed.

 

11 hours ago, taiiat said:

you don't have to have Rolling Guard, you're invulnerable during that time after all and with how Shields are thesedays, Shield Regen Mods are actually quite useful, protip.

Mostly true.

If I just wanted to regen my shields, I could use the 3 seconds of shield-gate invulnerability to get to safety, and regen quite quickly with shield regen mods.

And I do have a build config built around this concept. It's neat.

 

But if I wanted to regenerate shields while under fire, then it's a bit different.

Shield-gate invulnerability only affects Health. If you force your shields to begin regenerating (Such as by picking up an energy orb) while still invulnerable from shield gate, you'll see that enemies can still damage and stop the regeneration of your shields. The only sort-of exception to this is [Arcane Aegis], which effectively changes your post-damage-shield-recharge-delay to 0 seconds while it's buff is active. But I don't care for relying on a 3% chance.

To get around this, you need to protect your shields from damage, and Then start to regen your shields. For this, I've found [Rolling Guard] to be most reliable.

Really choppy video recording of this in action vvvv

 

[taiiat]

5 minutes ago, chainchompguy3 said:

Shield-gate invulnerability only affects Health.

hmm, i guess i hadn't done a side by side comparison, and hadn't noticed.