[2020] Hildryn TTL: An Arcane Study

Hello fellow Tenno,

[TL;DR - Double Barrier is the way to go, so far. One Arcane Aegis may actually be worse than not including it at all.]

Before I go forward, it should be said that the above claim pertains only to the circumstances as described within the study and according to the data collected thereby. I will leave it up to the community (and further study) to either discard these conclusions or apply them to wider situations.

I have been smitten with our gal Hildryn since she arrived. However, I wanted to know for sure which combination of Aegis and Barrier works best with her. Google found a few answers, but highly variable and entirely anecdotal. So I ran the numbers.

You can see the results here.

From the beginning I felt that the decision was between double Barrier, or one Barrier and one Aegis. The Barrier, I believed, was just too vital to pushing that shield up to full to reset Gate. However, I was sure I'd see pretty even performance between the two options.

Methodology:

The method for testing is quite simple: take damage and log the interval of time from first instance of damage to death.

Three sets of data were collected: unmodded, modded for max shield capacity, and modded for max shield recharge. Within these sets, three series' were run for each combination of Aegis and Barrier.

Because Vigor, required for max capacity, has some health on it a level 2 Vitality was used on the recharge build to accound for that as both add 120%.

Adaptation was included in all modded tests. This was based on two assumptions:

1. The effect of Adaptation is so great that it is an auto-include for any build focusing on survivability; and
2. anyone to whom this information pertains (ie. players with access to the studied arcanes and are at the point where min/max factors into their gameplay) is going to have access to the mod.

The first assumption does call for further study, but is not within the scope of this test.

While the method is inherently simple, the execution was complicated. The desire was to get as many different varieties of damage sources involved. Not so much in type (slash, toxin, etc), but more in frequency and magnitude. Fast, sustain bursts of small chunks of damage are easy for the tested setups to account for and can actually increase survivability by triggering Shield Gate more reliably. Conversely, large but slow sources of damage are problematic for these mechanics. An even mix was desired.

Ideally, combining factions and unit types would have been the way to go. However, since the AI is required for these tests and the enemies are not very fond of each other, it had to be limited to one. In this case, the Grineer.

The AI continued to be problematic in each test. Melee units, in particular, were highly erratic. They would spend entire runs on the other side of the map, taking cover, or running away. This was less of an issue for ranged units, as they can still apply damage from most places. Even then, much of the noise in the data can be attributed to the unpredictable nature of the enemies chosen to be the damage sources, despite them displaying the most consistent tendencies.

The enemies used, then, were:

2 x Ballista

2 x Heavy Gunner

2 x Lancer

2 x Trooper

Napalms and Bombards would have been included, but their AI scripts appeared too erratic.

You can see a run here if you are so inclined. The first two runs were just to get the enemies in a fairly stable pattern around the area in front of the spawn platform.

Because of the variability witnessed, the TTL at each enemy level was tested 14 times. The top two and bottom two results were discarded and the remaining 10 averaged.

Findings:

As stated above, double Arcane Barrier was the consistently top performing configuration. This setup works best with a build for maximum capacity. Since recharge rate does not affect the performance of Barrier, for purely survival purposes it can be discounted.

The key mechanic here is the cycling of Shield Gate. Hildryn simply does not die if Barrier procs during the invulnerability period, since it is an automatic reset. Doubling the chance of this effectively doubles her chance at surviving.

Arcane Aegis does not facilitate this mechanic. Unless it procs while the shields are already at a fairly high level, it will not reset Shield Gate. This is why all cases of testing Double Aegis produced the most consistent, and worst, results. This includes the max recharge tests. Aegis had the best chance of success here, since the recharge had a better chance of replenishing the smaller shield capacity to full.

So what about one of each? In every test, this setup lands at about the middle road. There are two possible scenarios:

1. Aegis is not significantly affecting TTL and should ideally be replaced with something that will affect gameplay more. This could be a status resistance, or something offensive. Or;
2. Aegis is actively and negatively affecting TTL and should not be included at all. Ever.

Whoah. What?

I will first state that the following is conjecture based on what I observed during the testing. A follow-up study should be conducted to confirm this, namely testing for just a single Barrier only and seeing how it compares with Aegis + Barrier.

We've already noted that Aegis does not generally help with resetting Shield Gate. But that aspect is only one half of the scenario. Shield Gate does not kick in until the shields have been fully depleted. Aegis can, at times, stop this from happeneing.

While watching the runs for this study, it was noted that Aegis was occasionally keeping the shields between full and empty. This is a worst-case scenario for Shield Gate. Slash procs were seen to cause death because the shields were kept at a low level when they would otherwise have been gone resulting in 3 seconds of invulnerability instead. Simply put, when considering whether an Aegis proc or Shield Gate would be more beneficial, Shield Gate is almost always the answer. Aegis can effectively cause Shield Gate to trigger less often.

In the end, this study is both limited and flawed. The data is noisy and the parameters may be too situational to apply to broad gameplay. However, a pattern still seems to emerge.

I welcome criticism and suggestions. Independent verification would be awesome!

Thanks for reading.

EDIT - Moved the TL;DR to the top.

EDIT - Added YouTube link and moved my disclaimer a little higher.

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