Theorycraft : building a tank from a squish frame?

[_Anise_]

I wonder how viable it is to take a squish frame that has no built in damage reductions and make it tanky without limiting the build to much ?

Not really considering dragonkey type shield gate exploitation, more traditional tanking. I few ideas include

Arcane guardian for one. pretty easy include but probably won't do a lot on its own,

quick thinking  on a high energy / generation setup, seem like this could work?

Adaption am really unsure about this? maybe you just die before it ramps up ? maybe its good pared with quick thinking or maybe stacking armor is just better ?

Also looking into subsume for survival, maybe there is something from helminth that might make relying on mods unnecessary ?

My usual subsume is breach, I just like it , it has control and damage both which indirectly effect your survivability but wondering if stacking stats and investing into something that either restores hp or shilds maybe even one that gives armor ?

open to suggestions on subsumes or abilities that might make this work!

Thanks

ps:why ? for fun and because I can!

[quxier]

12 minutes ago, _Anise_ said:

wasn't it just a slow ?

slowness = kind of CC

13 minutes ago, _Anise_ said:

don't they still attack?

If you mean that you get HP from attacks and slowness, then yes.

5 minutes ago, LillyRaccune said:

This strategy using Rolling Guard is useful in a similar way to shield gating and you can use the time you are invulnerable to get your shields fully recharged.

Yeah, I call it "soft shield gating". Plus status cleaning.

 

[0_The_F00l]

10 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

I did play with shield gating but maybe I am expecting too much from it ? it seemed ok against 10 or so level 50 corrupted heavy gunners but when I summoned some over level 100 it just seem to fall flat.

though I added growing power that seem to fully recharge shields in 1 cast but still was temperamental and required expert timing, not really a fan of only being alive by the skin of my teeth!

Growing power doesnt affect shield regen , are you thinking of the right aura? brief respite is the one (or augur mods) that grant shields on cast.

There are two variations of shield gate ,

Shield gate from full shields: this lasts about 2 seconds

Shield gate from partial recharge: this lasts for about 0.33 seconds.

shield gating is most effective to avoid single high impact damage like bombard rocket, its not as good on something that rapid fire like a flux rifle crewman or heavy gunner.

its best utilised for getting out of a sticky situation than actually tanking.

10 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

I never actually got the sentinel version of this to work, the vampire cat version worked great for me! but I see this as more treating a symptom rather than curing the problem!

I just tried this one not too long ago, should it go...

yes, cause most enemies target the sentinel before it has a chance to revive you, i forgot to mention you should remove all damage precepts to minimize any aggro on the sentinel.

kavats atleast have the tek assault mod to give them a chance to stay alive even if near death.

10 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

I just tried this one not too long ago, should it go...

shields go down, get immune, shields full, shields go down again second immune into slow charge? what I am seeing is

shields, no shields dead unless this is happening so fast I am missing it ?

There is a cool down of 30s for guardian to re activate and there is no visual indicator so you may not have realised your shields were down for the first time.

[Soy77]

10 hours ago, LillyRaccune said:

I don't dig shield gating personally. I would stick to infusing Nova's 1 into Yareli. Right now range doesn't affect her water blades, so Narrow Minded would be my priority.

I haven't tested it tho.

 

8 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

honestly I feel like it might be one of those things you have to time perfectly ? or maybe it requires going stealth+operator and waiting for shields before going back, though this might lead to my sentinel being smushed!

 

same ! I actually said way up top that Id rather not but am kind of playing with it as a last resort

yea people are all acting like it's an ability to turn super saiyan where anyone can turn on and off at will then cheat death 100% of the time. but nobody ever say what buttons to actually press. what strings of command do i actually have to input to turn this thing on when i want it. even youtube guides that i watched only demonstrate it in a very controlled environments. 

i swear to god every time i said "shield gating is just there to prevent you from dying from one huge attack", at least one person will show up and replied with a cryptic speech that gives the impression they can control shield gating at will, that it is the 100% tried and true guaranteed foolproof method to never die in warframe ever again.

forgive me for saying that at this point i don't think controlled shield gating actually exist. only people who try to make it sound more important than it is. it's like how magicians try to convince others that they have superpowers. please feel free to correct me by sharing which button to press to activate invulnerability at will.

[LillyRaccune]

1 hour ago, Soy77 said:

 but nobody ever say what buttons to actually press.

Okay, I think I know what you're asking for. "Shield gating" is the name of a mechanic put in place to help prevent us from getting 1-shot by enemies. I'm not an expert, so my numbers may be incorrect. Refer to https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Shield#Shield_Gating for the full math.

When your shields are full and you lose them, you get 1.3 seconds of invincible (grey health bar). If your shields are not fully recharged from your last shield gate, you get 0.3 seconds of invincible.

How to control it:

The Augur Mod set bonus, aura mod Brief Respite, and Rakta Dark Dagger all have a way to instantaneously grant you shields. "That's useless, it won't fill the shields fully," one may claim. However if you equip the Decaying Dragon Key, you have 1/10th (citation needed) of your normal shields. This means that you can more easily meet the conditions of "full shields" and you can effectively exploit it and enjoy nearly unlimited on-demand invincibility throughout your endurance mission of insta-deth level enemies.

What it looks like:

You running around killing stuff, trying not to get shot at. You get staggered for a moment, everyone shoots at you, your shields are down, but you are invulnerable one whole second. Otherwise you know you are about to die. You use a fast cast ability to trigger Augur/Brief Respite, you get all your shields back.

If you DIDN'T get your shields back, but you did escape, you keep running around trying not to get shot at. But it is hard to regen all your shields to max without getting shot in the middle. Perhaps you DO get shot and lose your shields mid-recharge, now you only have a fraction of a second before you are dead.

Hope that helps.

[Butterfly85]

I've never really relied on sheild gating. If my sheilds go, I jump into kiddo mode and throw out a few void dashes and stun everything with magus lockdown. By the time enemies recover they're either dead or my sheilds are back up.

If health is running low, kiddo, void mode and magus repair fully heals in a couple of seconds. It's on demand too so no Grace rng, which opens an arcane for something else.

Rolling Guard has made it onto a few frames though.

[Soy77]

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

Okay, I think I know what you're asking for. "Shield gating" is the name of a mechanic put in place to help prevent us from getting 1-shot by enemies. I'm not an expert, so my numbers may be incorrect. Refer to https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Shield#Shield_Gating for the full math.

When your shields are full and you lose them, you get 1.3 seconds of invincible (grey health bar). If your shields are not fully recharged from your last shield gate, you get 0.3 seconds of invincible.

How to control it:

The Augur Mod set bonus, aura mod Brief Respite, and Rakta Dark Dagger all have a way to instantaneously grant you shields. "That's useless, it won't fill the shields fully," one may claim. However if you equip the Decaying Dragon Key, you have 1/10th (citation needed) of your normal shields. This means that you can more easily meet the conditions of "full shields" and you can effectively exploit it and enjoy nearly unlimited on-demand invincibility throughout your endurance mission of insta-deth level enemies.

What it looks like:

You running around killing stuff, trying not to get shot at. You get staggered for a moment, everyone shoots at you, your shields are down, but you are invulnerable one whole second. Otherwise you know you are about to die. You use a fast cast ability to trigger Augur/Brief Respite, you get all your shields back.

If you DIDN'T get your shields back, but you did escape, you keep running around trying not to get shot at. But it is hard to regen all your shields to max without getting shot in the middle. Perhaps you DO get shot and lose your shields mid-recharge, now you only have a fraction of a second before you are dead.

Hope that helps.

You kidding me, it helps a lot. 

So basically if i have augur set bonus, then just keep spamming abilities, given i have lower my max shields low enough with dragon key, to max shield again on every ability cast... It'll keep me invulnerable all the time?

Or with rakta, it means all i need is high enough status chance to proc rad with any hit, and high enough damage + low enough max shield = to always restore all shield with one hit... All i need would be keep slashing away to be immortal?

How about cooldowns? Anything i should know?

Anyway you've been the greatest help I've ever got regarding shield gating. Everything looks so clear now, I can't believe nobody explained it this simple before.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

14 hours ago, Soy77 said:

would love to see someone answer this.

i treat shield gating as something that might probably save me when i screw up, that's it. which makes me the worst warframe player in the sad history of bad warframe players, i know.
asked about it a couple of times, but all i ever got was long diplomatic speeches about how i should git gud. this is actually the first time i see someone break down the play by play and what button to actually press when shield-gating.

looking forward for more.

What he's missing is the decaying dragon key and possible faster shield recharge via mods. So shield gating invulnerability kicks in AFTER the shields have fully recharged, therefore you want your shield's maximum strength to be as low as possible and your shield recharge time to be as fast as possible. Watch this example, this is the MR 30 test where there's Steel Path enemies of around lvl 150 or more, with a Loki not using abilities and the only mods I'm using are Rolling Guard, the shield recharge speed mod, Adaptation and then for Arcanes, I have Arcane Barrier and Arcane Resistance to help with the toxin procs. 
 

 

[quxier]

On 2021-07-09 at 9:40 PM, _Anise_ said:

quick thinking  on a high energy / generation setup, seem like this could work?

As fair I remember(!) it's not so good for continuous fire. Enemies will kill you, you revive without shield gating and they will melt your hp again... and again.

 

I've found Adaptation + Rolling guard + some Vitality (2 Umbra for high HP & Strength) to be ok. Without additional HP, the Adaptation is little weak.

When you have some sort of disarming or CC feature (e.g. Xaku GoL or Xata's whisper OR) then you reduce damage (disarmed enemies don't do much damage) and the rest damage is dealt by the Adaptation & Rolling guard (some shield gating). Arcane... that knockdown enemies on energy pickup is nice help.

And of course some sort of healing is nice. I have pizzas & wall-jumping-heal companion mod.

ps. I don't spam shield gating - no dragon key or something.

 

17 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Gloom (sevagoth subsume) gives CC and health leech , if you have an ability that keeps doing persistant damage you will usually be at full health at all times. And all enemies around you being slowed is a bonus damage avoidance.

This is such nice ability. I haven't run any hp/shield/rolling-guard/adaptation mods but I could survive a lot.

[_Anise_]

3 hours ago, quxier said:

As fair I remember(!) it's not so good for continuous fire

was my conclusion too, it was helping some but soon as I tried against a LOT of enemies without a continuous supply of energy it wasn't working well

 

3 hours ago, quxier said:

Gloom (sevagoth subsume) gives CC and health leech

wasn't it just a slow ? don't they still attack? I maybe try this one next though right now am playing around with nullstar+adaption it does deplete fast and can't cast it if its hovering on 1 stack T_T but it seems ok so far

[LillyRaccune]

5 hours ago, Soy77 said:

How about cooldowns? Anything i should know?

Cooldowns? Not to my knowledge. Just full shields. Other things? Lavos and Hildryn can't activate the Augur/Brief Respite effect, also Inaros and Nidus can't benefit from anything shield related.

Because shield gating has so much potential, lots of players like to inject Hilryn's Shield Pilaf Pillage to the warframe salad.

2 hours ago, quxier said:

I've found Adaptation + Rolling guard + some Vitality (2 Umbra for high HP & Strength) to be ok. Without additional HP, the Adaptation is little weak.

This strategy using Rolling Guard is useful in a similar way to shield gating and you can use the time you are invulnerable to get your shields fully recharged.

5 hours ago, Soy77 said:

Anyway you've been the greatest help I've ever got regarding shield gating. Everything looks so clear now, I can't believe nobody explained it this simple before.

You're very welcome! I know I had a lot of trouble with these concepts.

5 hours ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

with a Loki not using abilities and the only mods I'm using are Rolling Guard,

Was that you I saw jump a motorcycle over ten monster trucks, through a ring of fire, while performing a Tail Spinja?

I can't imagine using non-invisible Loki normally. He's so squishy. I turn invisible with Loki and I still feel like a stray bullet could kill me!

BTW The TennoCon reward is Loki Prime (among other things)

[_Anise_]

1 hour ago, Soy77 said:

would love to see someone answer this.

honestly I feel like it might be one of those things you have to time perfectly ? or maybe it requires going stealth+operator and waiting for shields before going back, though this might lead to my sentinel being smushed!

 

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

I don't dig shield gating personall

same ! I actually said way up top that Id rather not but am kind of playing with it as a last resort

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

I would stick to infusing Nova's 1 into Yareli

not sure how you guessed it ! but that is one of the frames I wanted to try but not the only one! I did feed a nova into helminth (I think) but I never used the stars! (trying now) though as suggested above I did try chains but its a pain to keep up, also never had a spare shieldmom to feed to give pillage a shot

 

edit:I did get that dagger but never got around to trying it!

[LillyRaccune]

22 minutes ago, quxier said:

Yeah, I call it "soft shield gating". Plus status cleaning.

I forgot about the status cleaning. And in the higher level content, status effects are more of a threat. Thanks for the reminder!

[-CdG-Zilchy]

51 minutes ago, LillyRaccune said:

Was that you I saw jump a motorcycle over ten monster trucks, through a ring of fire, while performing a Tail Spinja?

I can't imagine using non-invisible Loki normally. He's so squishy. I turn invisible with Loki and I still feel like a stray bullet could kill me!

BTW The TennoCon reward is Loki Prime (among other things)

Hey you know me, I aim to please m'lady 😏 
I mean honestly it just shows how TRULY BROKEN Rolling Guard is that you can basically ignore damage from enemies that should be capable of swatting you like a fly. Back in the past when Loki was brought to Survival endless groups or Defense for Radial disarming, the big fear was AoE dmg from the damn Bombard rockets, that could splat you easily. Shield gating has made it much more relaxing to play squishy frames than it used to be.

[Soy77]

7 hours ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

What he's missing is the decaying dragon key and possible faster shield recharge via mods. So shield gating invulnerability kicks in AFTER the shields have fully recharged, therefore you want your shield's maximum strength to be as low as possible and your shield recharge time to be as fast as possible. Watch this example, this is the MR 30 test where there's Steel Path enemies of around lvl 150 or more, with a Loki not using abilities and the only mods I'm using are Rolling Guard, the shield recharge speed mod, Adaptation and then for Arcanes, I have Arcane Barrier and Arcane Resistance to help with the toxin procs. 
 

 

Now that i understand the concept, this video makes a lot of sense.

I mean the techniques. Not the reason why would anyone use non ability loki on mr30 test you crazy bastard. 

 

Pretty sick, mate.

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

Cooldowns? Not to my knowledge. Just full shields. Other things? Lavos and Hildryn can't activate the Augur/Brief Respite effect, also Inaros and Nidus can't benefit from anything shield related.

Because shield gating has so much potential, lots of players like to inject Hilryn's Shield Pilaf Pillage to the warframe salad.

This strategy using Rolling Guard is useful in a similar way to shield gating and you can use the time you are invulnerable to get your shields fully recharged.

You're very welcome! I know I had a lot of trouble with these concepts.

Was that you I saw jump a motorcycle over ten monster trucks, through a ring of fire, while performing a Tail Spinja?

I can't imagine using non-invisible Loki normally. He's so squishy. I turn invisible with Loki and I still feel like a stray bullet could kill me!

BTW The TennoCon reward is Loki Prime (among other things)

Got it.

MCU loki on final episode, tennocon reward is loki prime... Coincidence? I think not!

[-CdG-Zilchy]

4 minutes ago, Soy77 said:

Now that i understand the concept, this video makes a lot of sense.

I mean the techniques. Not the reason why would anyone use non ability loki on mr30 test you crazy bastard. 

If I recall correctly I was challenged to do it on these forums lol. I like doing stupid stuff that makes the game challenging for a change. Was kinda fun to be honest. 😋

[EiraRozen]

4 hours ago, Soy77 said:

Now that i understand the concept, this video makes a lot of sense.

I mean the techniques. Not the reason why would anyone use non ability loki on mr30 test you crazy bastard. 

 

Pretty sick, mate.

Got it.

MCU loki on final episode, tennocon reward is loki prime... Coincidence? I think not!

How do you get it?

[EiraRozen]

6 hours ago, LillyRaccune said:

Cooldowns? Not to my knowledge. Just full shields. Other things? Lavos and Hildryn can't activate the Augur/Brief Respite effect, also Inaros and Nidus can't benefit from anything shield related.

Because shield gating has so much potential, lots of players like to inject Hilryn's Shield Pilaf Pillage to the warframe salad.

This strategy using Rolling Guard is useful in a similar way to shield gating and you can use the time you are invulnerable to get your shields fully recharged.

You're very welcome! I know I had a lot of trouble with these concepts.

Was that you I saw jump a motorcycle over ten monster trucks, through a ring of fire, while performing a Tail Spinja?

I can't imagine using non-invisible Loki normally. He's so squishy. I turn invisible with Loki and I still feel like a stray bullet could kill me!

BTW The TennoCon reward is Loki Prime (among other things)

I have the same issue with Octavia. She is great at not taking damage, but a stray AoE (especually a toxin cloud) will kill her.

[_Anise_]

43 minutes ago, EiraRozen said:

a toxin cloud) will kill

Arcane resistance!

[Soy77]

6 hours ago, EiraRozen said:

I have the same issue with Octavia. She is great at not taking damage, but a stray AoE (especually a toxin cloud) will kill her.

Lmao stray toxin cloud. I can totally relate to that.

I beg your pardon, "how do i get what" btw?

5 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

Arcane resistance!

This, or find safer camping spots while you stay invisible. Elevated platforms, or ones that doesn't require you to check your six.

[_Anise_]

17 hours ago, EiraRozen said:

How do you get it?

I 'think' you link your warframe to twitch account and watch the official /warframe steam on the 17th

[_Anise_]

 

On 2021-07-06 at 4:02 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Consider the case of:
4x 25% Damage Resistance Mods:

WAS: (25% + 25% + 25% + 25%) = 100% Damage Reduction

NEW: Take 25% Less Damage = Only take 75% Damage

0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 = 31.5% damage taken AKA 68.5% damage reduction

not entirely sure how the math works but does this make adaption worse if you couple it with any other kind of damage reduction ?

also they hard capped DR at 90% isn't it just completely pointless to stack any other kind of dr with adaption now ?

makes me thinking this kills traditional kind of tank and I might as well switch to abusing shield gates to make a squish frame tanky?

[Soy77]

4 hours ago, EiraRozen said:

Yeah, I used to call her Tiny Tank Titania (TTT for short), but the changes to damage resistance nerfed that. Now she's not so tanky. Also, the 12% reduction on her is basically a wasted mod slot.

Well since op doesn't mention what he'll use it for, i thought I'll just pitch the idea anyway since it happen to fit op's description really, really well.

[EiraRozen]

I have a face-tank build for Equinox. I've used it to solo SP Mot. It is what it says on the tin: a face tank build. Activate her 3 and 4, and lay on the hurt with a strong melee weapon... which is to say this build probably doesn't work anymore thanks to the melee nerf.

 

edit: As for how to make the build work, you max out efficiency and strength and reduce range.

[Zi-Sui]

Good topic!

I made a traditional tank out of Banshee, and I can "tank" SP acolytes and Cambion Drift stuff with it.

The build for it, well it's an umbral build with umbral forma or two first of all. There's also Adaptation mod. No Quick Thinking, but like most of my other builds, it does have Primed Sure Footed to counter staggers and knockdowns and such.

Arcane Guardian is what I use, also Arcane Grace, both max rank. Also from operator arcanes, Magus Repair and Magus Lockdown, former for healing, latter for crowd control to give me a breather when I need the time to heal and to cc a dangerous enemy like the Malice acolyte.

I also use melee more when I want to tank, because holding melee allows you to block attacks coming from the front side, which is extremely useful when tanking.

Valkyr's Warcry as a subsumed helminth ability is good for tanking, as it gives more armor in addition to the melee attack speed bonus. It's good for builds that have duration and strength.

Tank well,

Zi

[(XBOX)Big Roy 324]

I also use grace and guardian a lot.

Rolling guard seems to be decent and if you are using adaptation you can stack it with shock absorbers which is a 20% damage reduction giving a little buffer to the ramp up of adapting.