Hildryn - Build Opinions

[Bregastor]

Hello everyone, currently I am enjoying playing Hildryin. 

I have currently a 9 Forma Build. 

Aura: Growing Power 

Exilus: Power Drift 

Mods: 

Umbra x3, Redirection, P Vigor, Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude and Blazing Pillage. 

This set me at 968 HP and 877,5 Armor. 360% Power Strength and 90% Armor strip. 

After coming back to play I started to think about dropping the Umbral Fiber, in favor of augur secret, since there are not that many occasion where enemies actually go through my shield anyway. 

That would put me at 803 HP, 300 Armor, 374 % power strength. 

Maybe slot fiber in VS infested and slot in Augur secrets when facing greener/corpus? 

Also wondering at what abilities slot in, instead of the 4 I have tried the chroma one but is really underwhelming Imo. 

Was considering Rhino, Mirage, Wisp, more towards Rhino or wisp so they can have utilities for others as well. 

[GnarlsDarkley]

Drop Armor. Hildryn is shield based and Armor isnt calculated on Shields. I'd also drop Vitality, Use Adaptation instead for survivability if you need it.

I'm not a pro Hildryn player so I don't actually know if she needs this much strength. I either played her gimmicky when she was released or CC with 280 range

[Bregastor]

I know armor does not work on shields, but since I was mostly playing an "all purpose" builds. I dropped adaptation for Blazing Pillage. 

I used to play Adaptation as well, especially before, doing high solo arbitrations infested, health was always at risk, be it by toxin dots or whatever. Even if I cleared it with pillage it still slowly chunked, so I made that choice run Umbra x3 and adaptation, especially if I wanna go in melee. 

Well, high strength allow some super high strip, without spamming too much pillages that actually animation lock you + fire damage from the augment even in steel path mob hp turn red super quickly. 

(And in lower level extermination you basically walk and loot the fragment). 

Will try to drop the Fiber and see how it goes.

What about the helmint tho? Mirage/Rhino seems pretty solid(?), idk what else could be a good fit. 

 

[(PSN)Unstar]

In my opinion, Adaptation is one of the most important mods for Hildryn.  I would trade Umbral Fiber for Adaptation.

If you're worried about Infested, remember that Hildryn's health cannot be damaged as long as she has Overshields.  However, since Hildryn's natural ability to gain Overshields relies on enemies having either shields or armor, and many Infested do not have either, this can be tricky against them.  For that reason, you might want to consider adding a Helminth ability that can add Overshields, such as Harrow's Condemned.  This will cover Hildryn's weakness without requiring you to bend over backwards to try to increase Hildryn's tiny HP pool.

If you do that, you can drop Umbral Vitality as well in favor of something that will help your build more.  I'm not sure what that would be as I don't play a Blazing Pillage build on my Hildryn, but maybe something that boosts shield regen speed, boosts efficiency, or perhaps just gives you even more strength.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

She's my third most played frame in over 4k hours and I play her almost exclusively for a good while now. Not a flex, just for reference so you know who this response comes from.

Drop Primed Vigor. Drop the Umbra mods except Umbra Intensify. Drop the entire idea to mod armor. Drop the entire idea to mod against infested - it doesn't matter on lower levels and doesn't help against getting one-shot on higher levels like on Steel Path. Just accept that infested will always be a bit more annoying to deal with as Hildryn until Pillage reduces their speed to give you shields and Toxic Ancients can't ignore shields anymore. 

Growing Power, Primed Sure Footed, Blind Rage, Adaptation, Redirection, Umbra Intensify, Stretch and Blazing Pillage are absolute staple mods for me. I think I have them on all six builds. Transient Fortitude is also very good, but can conflict with running abilities with a timer via Helminth since recasting buffs like Elemental Ward (Chroma) every 12 (?) seconds can get annoying fast or if enemies are affected shorter by abilities might be an issue.

Optional mods for the remaining slots can be anything, but I tend - depending on the build - to slot in Augur Reach, Natural Talent or an augment for what I subsumed. Sidenote: just recently I was made aware of Shock Absorbers working differently than they were described. It might be interesting on Hildryn due to shields having 50% damage reduction already. I didn't get around to really test it to form an opinion though. 

If you want to get to 100% armor strip with one Pillage cast I recommend Growing Power, Umbra Intensify, Blind Rage (R9+), Transient Fortitude plus using a Nidus specter. If you want 99% armor strip just use Blind Rage R8. Basically, in case I missed something, if the modding screen shows 280% power strength + Growing Power and Nidus link it's 99%. 100% strip if it shows 289%. That's how I remember it. For non-endurance SP stuff accepting lower armor strip (60%-70%ish on the modding screen) is totally fine and opens up slots. Enemies still melt. You spam Pillage anyways.

Helminth abilities I like running are electric Elemental Ward (Chroma, plus the augment for groups) for more relaxed play across all kinds of missions and Gloom (Sevagoth) for content like solo SP endurance. I always replace Aegis Storm because outside of Grendel missions it's just a terrible, terrrrrible ability due to its many restrictions. Gloom (Sevagoth) is pretty much the far superior version of Aegis Storm. It's Aegis Storm you can cast Pillage in (a hugeeeeee deal), use your weapons in (awesome) and move better in (also great) in exchange for not generating energy orbs (but giving lifesteal instead, it's similarily okay) - slowing enemies by 95% (Gloom) or suspending them in the air (Aegis Storm) effectively makes no difference. Breach Surge is okay too.

Arcanes: Aegis and Nullifier. Despite popular belief Barrier is bad on Hildryn and/or a meme in an Aegis Storm build with Aviator and Aerodynamic. Damage arcanes are unneeded since you reduce enemy defenses.

Focus: Vazarin as "Rolling Guard without cooldown" to be able to recover from full shield loss since you can't cast Pillage (or anything) without shields. Rolling Guard doesn't hold long enough to regain shields naturally for a Pillage cast. 

You can do whatever you want of course.

Cheers, I hope there's something helpful.

[Wyrmius_Prime]

3x umbral mods is a huge waste of space on Hildryn.

[Bregastor]

@(PSN)Unstar

I think an helminth ability focused on over shield would be a bit overkill. 

Blazing Pillage actually allow you to gain shield from infested and the shield restored is affected by Ability Strength 

Actually running chroma ward electricity atm. 

@(PSN)Deeceem

Thanks for the informations will try and mess up with my builds and try to play with your suggestions as well.

I do agree that transient fortitude while a good boost to Strength is also a bit of a problem, especially cause warframe does not really excel at cooldowm tracking. 

On WoW with the ability to customize interface, 12 second buff are way easier to keep up. 

Here, it's a total different thing. 

I always replace aegist storm as well, maybe Sevagoth against infested (?) and Breaching Surge against other factions idk, I need to get myself and try the feeling myself. 

I pretty much stay with Vazarin as well at all times except for relaxed content when I go madurai. 

 

[(PSN)Deeceem]

@Bregastor Just to be clear since I might have made Transient Fortitude look bad: it's really good. It makes Pillage auto-return faster too,  which is a good thing. Just in the case of subsuming abilities with a timer based duration it might be iffy and excluded. It's a preference thing in that specific case.

Gloom helps against infested, but the drain can become problematic since you also have Haven running to at least get shields from Blazing Pillage. Maybe that's something that can be finetuned by playing around with strength (Blazing Pillage shield gain) and ability costs (shield drain values). I simply didn't do it yet since Gloom is rather new. Also note that I still play with unpatched Gloom on console. It should be better/less draining on PC by now if I'm not mistaken. My opinion/experience is based on the probably worse version of Gloom (and it's still awesome!).

[(PSN)Unstar]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

Despite popular belief Barrier is bad on Hildryn

Can you explain why that is?  At face value shields seem good, but if they're not I'd love to understand why.

[Bregastor]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

@Bregastor Just to be clear since I might have made Transient Fortitude look bad

Nono i am still using it, i removed P Vigor and slotted in Adaptation, U Fiber in Favor of Stretch, U Vitality in favor of Augur Secrets. It will take a bit to see myself that low on HP  but i will make it work. Jumped into some infested steelpath and the Blazing Pillage is really enough to sustain overshield on large packs. Especially since you dont really take infested head on with Hildryn anyway.

I am not that sold into the Chroma ability tho, i find it really annoying  to keep up. Will prolly farm another Wisp and 2 Sevagoth (since i have not farmed the first one yet) to try how those fit into my playstyle.

I am really curious about the Barrier as well. It's because Barrier overwrite Aegis? Atm i am using Aegis/Barrier combo.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

@(PSN)Unstar@Bregastor Sure thing! I actually thought about editing this in my initial post because thinking about it I realized I didn't touch on it. Mind you this is based on an offensive and active playstyle that can get things done and uses Pillage a lot. Barrier works okay with the mentioned "sit inefficiently in Aegis Storm with a weak Balefire Charger look how tanky I am" build. I just think this way to play Hildryn is unfun and more importantly (since fun is subjective) weak. Nothing wrong if that works for someone. I think it's sitting around pretty uselessly.

So, first off we'd have to agree that as Hildryn you want to have, ideally, overshields permanently. One of the more important reasons is that damage that goes directly to the hp, if overshields are active, goes into the overshields first instead of the health. Another one is that being at overshields means you reached full regular shields and have her 3 second shield gating passive active. You also have excess damage ignored to leak into your regular shields if your overshields get shot down. Kinda like a second shield gate. Anyways, point is you try to sit on overshields all the time. If your shields turn blue, something didn't go as planned. I recommend reading up on Hildryn's passive and shield gating in general (on the Wiki) should you not be familiar with it.

Now keeping that premise in mind and assuming we fight enemies that have the damage to seriously harm us: every Barrier proc while you have overshields is always wasted. No regular shields to be restored. That leaves Barrier procs while you are at not full regular shields. This happens rarely on high levels. Your regular shields get one or two shot by Bombards etc. that's when you lose overshields and regular shields and it happens in seconds within few instances of taking damage. The window and opportunity for Barrier to actually proc and do something is incredibly small. Either because you're at overshields, you're not at overshields but have already reacted with a Pillage that'll get you back to overshields anyways returning you to the first situation or you're at 0 shields where Barrier can't proc even if you'd survive direct hp damage since it only can proc when taking shield damage. If you need instant shield restore on demand with 100% proc chance you have Pillage or you can run pets that restore shields guaranteed and when your shields actually need it.

Now, why is Aegis better? Because it gives you shield restoration over time (12 seconds). Even if it procs while you have overshields that's 12 seconds you could even lose all your shields in a single hit and still have shields to cast Pillage for overshields again and let's not forget the constant shield regen of Aegis giving you (0.3, or is it 1 second on Hildryn(?), seconds of basic unreseted) shield gating back constantly from getting downed to 0 shields. The last point is why Aegis is great in general, not only on Hildryn. Aegis is a 12 second safeguard or another temporary layer of defense if you will.

Nullifier because aside from toxin -damage- that you can't counter with arcanes magnetic -status- is also horrible to be affected by as Hildryn imo.

It's maybe a bit harsh to call Barrier bad, but against enemies that can wreck you it barely does anything and against goons that your shields can just tank it doesn't matter and you already have Aegis (and ages of time to cast Pillage) to tank all the low damage forever. Barrier asks of you to tank damage for a longer period of time respectively a lot of different hits in a short timeframe with your blue shields to be useful.

I hope it's not too convoluted.

[Butterfly85]

I've tried a few builds with her, as she's my main. I've actually dropped umbral mods in the end.

I run Steel Charge as the Aura, Primed Sure Footed in exilus (because f#*!) Hookshot.

Redirection, Primed Vigor and Adaptation. Gives me 390 health and 4.5k sheilds. 

Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude and Intensify for 284% power strength. 

Stretch for a bit of range and Blazing Pillage to half what little armour anything has left.

Arcane Aegis and Barrier.

I actually dont use her vs Infested any more, toxic ancients ruin her day and her 2 is useless against most of them.

[Bregastor]

 

14 minutes ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

hope it's not too convoluted.

It's not convulted at all.

Actually sometime i do admit that i do like the "look at how tanky i am" crap, same with Inaros like big HP number for no apparent reason.  it's a common mistakes to overstack defensives in every videogame even in WoW, a lot of fellow tank players made the mistake of overstacking defensive that turned pretty much useless. And since i don't usually go super hardcore in Warframe endurances i pretty much rarely face enemies that are a super big threat, i did some 3 Hrs Arbi but that was it. So it was not really something when you reach the point of saying "Screw that they oneshot me anyway" and just stack only survivability tha actually make sense and go full offensive after that.

So i will drop it,  why Nullifier tho? Avoid being locked out of abilites?

[(PSN)Deeceem]

@Bregastor I edited Nullifier in while you responded. Everything about magnetic status is annoying. More shield damage is taken (it's basically viral against shields) and natural shield regen is stopped for six seconds, I believe. That leaves you almost completely optionless if you sit there with 0 shields and six seconds of 0 shield gain. Could you get away without using it and not die because of Vazarin? I guess. I played Mot SP just quite a bit and, I think it's the corrupted ancients, killed me or forced me to reset shield and everything quite a few times by proccing magnetic. And the difference once I put it in was very noticeable. Granted, in theory you can cleanse magnetic with Pillage, but you can't do that if the damage that procced it took you to 0 shields and you havn't a Pillage out in that moment. It can be really annoying.

It's a flexible arcane slot though. I used to run Avenger and Aegis before that. I just don't need the additional damage and prefer entirely negating a status effect that can potentially screw me over and kill me or "worse" forces me more often to go through the entire Vazarin, wait, Pilla- damn I got hit to 0 shields again, Vazarin, wait, Pillage, get overshields back, activate Gloom/Elemental Ward, Pillage, activate Haven, (Pillage), (activate Balefire Charger), now I'm set to play again process.

[Bregastor]

Will give it a try then, thanks!

[(PSN)Unstar]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

Now keeping that premise in mind and assuming we fight enemies that have the damage to seriously harm us: every Barrier proc while you have overshields is always wasted. No regular shields to be restored. That leaves Barrier procs while you are at not full regular shields. This happens rarely on high levels. Your regular shields get one or two shot by Bombards etc. that's when you lose overshields and regular shields and it happens in seconds within few instances of taking damage. The window and opportunity for Barrier to actually proc and do something is incredibly small.

You sold me, that's very convincing.  I have some less-skilled friends who will still benefit from Barrier because they aren't always on-top of casting abilities, but for someone of my skill level it does sound like Nullifier provides more value.