Armor or health

[Perry53]

I want to install some Azure Archon Shards in my warframe, should I choose Armor or health?

[NinjaZeku]

47 minutes ago, Perry53 said:

I want to install some Azure Archon Shards in my warframe, should I choose Armor or health?

There is no general answer to this.

What do you have plenty of already? Shards are a good option to help remedy any deficits.

Also, the Frame itself matters. Like, putting Health on Rhino or Revenant wouldn't be a smart move
and Wisp would also likely benefit more from some +Armor than from yet more Health.

On the other hand, you could forego Health Mods entirely with multiple +Health Shards
and then let e.g. Arcane Guardian / Health Conversion cover flat +Armor, if needed.

[Tiltskillet]

One very general rule is if your health is 300 more than your armor, adding armor or health shards are equally efficient for raw ehp.  So if health is 301+ more than armor, add an armor shard.  Otherwise add health.  Again though, that's just a very general rule that only applies to raw ehp.  It doesn't account for buffs you may get frequently but not 100% of the time, or for bleeds bypassing armor, or for healing, or for some mechanics that leverage armor as a stat, etc.

Also some people may tell you the answer to health or armor shards is "neither" if you can slot enough energy shards to get by without Flow.   Or yellow/red shards that make other aspects of the frame more efficient.  Thats getting into much more complicated questions though.

[Famecans]

Both.

Normally this is an expensive and inefficient build way because the goal to survive with health  is maximize them with external health through mods like [Quick Thinking], so the answer is "both mods" and also "put armor, health, energy, conversion mods of largest numbers as there is a slot limit"

(just ignore my previous recommendation if your gameplay does not exceed 10 minutes of mission)

Edited November 22, 2023 by Famecans

[FrostSpectre]

In my experience: it depends on your warframe in use.

If the frame is good at tanking and already has high armor, then maybe, because armor points have diminishing returns, usually you'd add more armor if you can reach the thresholds, such as 300, 900 or 1200.

300=-50%, 600=-67%, 900=-75%, 1200=-80% and 2700=-90% damage reduction...

More health is good all the time, allowing you to survive stuff that might get through after your shields break (if your preferred warframe even has shields) and against insidious Toxin damage.

[BiancaRoughfin]

3 hours ago, Perry53 said:

I want to install some Azure Archon Shards in my warframe, should I choose Armor or health?

Armor would be better, in some missions you can have as much health you want but you will still down in very few shots. With higher Armor you can mitigate damage better and have more odds of surviving.

[Hexerin]

This is an impossible question to answer, because you've provided zero context about what you're considering the archon shards to be applied to.

• What frame?
• What's your build?
• What content are you going to be primarily using it for?
• Are you running normal star chart or Steel Path?
  • If Steel Path, are you going to pursue Endurance?
• Etc, etc.

[VibingCat]

Calculate your total effective health points ignoring shields: EHP=modded health*[(modded armour+300)/300], make a comparison and see which option has the higher value.

[BroDutt]

For General use, add Armor up to 300-ish. Except WF that benefit from it like Rhino, then you can add more.

Umbra vitality mostly enough for health. You can add more normal forma for the other slot to match the capacity, unless you had 1 extra umbra forma slot (commonly I use it for Umbra Intensify). Arcane Blessing can bump your health up to 2.000 ish.

I prefer to add health regeneration from Archon shard for WF that didn't had the capability to heal or auto regenerate (eg.Inaros/Nidus)

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by BroDutt

[RLanzinger]

To @Perry53,

To sum up (a bit) what most already said, you've got 2 options depending on HOW and WHAT you play :

• For low to medium level difficulty go for Health, there is more diversity and Synergy. you can gain Armor with Health Conversion (-81% damage).
  • Health have a lot of synergy with old mode like rage, Combat discipline.
  • It can also spare you the need to use any Health mods for more possibilities like augments etc...
  • The few only exception where it IS USELESS are Garuda or very low level of health like Nova (use Arcane Blessing is way better in mid level).

 

• For higher level difficulty go for Armor, the higher the better is; As @BiancaRoughfin, simply and clearly said.
  • Thanks to operator (focus / unairu) getting back shield and health is pretty much easy without need for any mods/arcane.