health vs shields?

[BillyWraithCyrus]

hi! I'm a newbie, I've been playing for a few days and need a lil help with something

so, which is more important: shield or health?
I'm playing as an excalibur! I was going to fuse my vitality mod up to +120% health, but I don't know if I should fuse my shield mod instead? I currently have 2 capacity points left to use, should I just upgrade both one time instead of one twice?
I know shields regen. in other games I generally see this as being "better" because I can just run around trying not to get hit until my shield regens so I generally favor shield, but I'm not so sure with this game.
which would you recommend I upgrade? or should I try to keep both about the same?
OR should I go with the 3rd option which is, wait and see if I get a higher +% vitality mod that still uses 2 capacity as a base (I don't know how high that goes, I currently have a +30% and a +40% that both use 2 capacity)

also, bonus question: are there mods that regen health as well? if so, where can I find one/farm for one?

[No_Quarter]

in most cases it's health.
shields have hp 1:1 while health has damage reduction caused by armor

[AnaLoGMunKy]

I always stack health in most situations. There are very few situations where stacking shields is preferable and usually is only restricted to certain warframes like Harrow and Mag.

[Sceles]

It's either health or 50/50, depending entirely on the frame. If a frame has more hp or high armor then you build hp and if it has more shields than hp or low armor then you build hp and shields.You need to have at least some increase in health to counter toxin damage and slash procs which go through shields so shields only is always a no-go while hp only can work on some frames.

[BillyWraithCyrus]

Originally posted by JK21Games:

For advanced players, typically health is favored because it benefits from armor that reduces damage, thus making it stronger per point than shields. Shields also have the disadvantage that they can be disabled/disrupted by certain sources which contibutes some measure of unreliability to them. If you get overshields this is less of an issue, but for standard shields, it can be an issue at times.

What makes this a bit more complicated for a newer player is that you probably don't have any way of easily regenerating your health. As such, once your health is reduced, it probably is reduced for a while since health orbs don't tend to drop super reliably. Shields by contrast always regen after a short time, so they are pretty reliable overall if you can get out of combat long enough for them to regenerate. I might favor shields at the start because of this. While Excalibur has ok armor, he also isn't really tanky persay (he's sort of a Glass Cannon really since he has limited defensive options), so without health regen abilities, shields might be a nice idea.

Just know that eventually you will get into a situation where you have melee weapons/frames/health packs that will allow you to regen your health when you want without health Orb rng. At that point for most frames, including Excalibur, health becomes superior to shields. There is an exception for frames that can generate overshields, but that's a seperate issue that you don't need to worry about for right now.

ty! okay, so, honestly I'm planning on sticking w excal, mostly because I don't want to level another frame. (might change in the future though)
I also don't want fused mods to end up going to waste later on so I don't want to favor one and then have to switch later on. based on that, would it be best to just try to keep shield and health stats about the same? or, if later game, health becomes a priority, should I just prioritize that now? (even though the drop rate of health orbs seems to be pretty annoying...)

[No_Quarter]

later on you will get better options to level up your stuff so it will not be as slow, mostly because of low level stuff at start.

it is on you what you want to prioritize, both mods Vitality and Redirection are mods you will need sooner or later so investing in them both is not a bad call.
Play around with it, see what suits your gameplay

[Makoto Naegi]

If you want to keep things really simple for now, just remember these three names:

Valkyr
Nidus
Inaros

If you use one of these Warframes at some point, give them only health, no shields. Any other frame you want 50/50 until you start getting the feel for how your frame plays and what would be a better setup. And personally, I leveled Vitality and Redirection equally for a good while and it worked out fine.

And to add to what JK21Games said, you might also want to keep your eyes open for an alert to show up with a "Rejuvenation" mod. It's an aura with a consant health regen that can be pretty helpful at low levels.

[Raza]

Originally posted by sensiblesoap:

hi! I'm a newbie, I've been playing for a few days and need a lil help with something

so, which is more important: shield or health?
I'm playing as an excalibur! I was going to fuse my vitality mod up to +120% health, but I don't know if I should fuse my shield mod instead? I currently have 2 capacity points left to use, should I just upgrade both one time instead of one twice?
I know shields regen. in other games I generally see this as being "better" because I can just run around trying not to get hit until my shield regens so I generally favor shield, but I'm not so sure with this game.
which would you recommend I upgrade? or should I try to keep both about the same?
OR should I go with the 3rd option which is, wait and see if I get a higher +% vitality mod that still uses 2 capacity as a base (I don't know how high that goes, I currently have a +30% and a +40% that both use 2 capacity)

also, bonus question: are there mods that regen health as well? if so, where can I find one/farm for one?

from what you're saying one of the mods u have is a damaged mod
don't I REPEAT DON'T USE/UPGRADE THESE the normal versions are prety easy to find,are always better and u can't use both at the same time so they realy don't have a place in the game(it's a somewhat forgoten mechanic where they drop only from the tutorial misions,they can't be traded either)
the 40% one sounds like the normal vitality so u can upgrade that one,but early on shields works for almost anything so i think go for that for now if u have a non damaged one
as a side note from my testing and experience playing the game any frame with over 150-200 armor can be safely used with hp and armor mods to make a melee oriented fighter who can take a hit to the face a few times(THIS IS WITH MAX RANK MODS so it's more advice for later) (few exeptions include gara,equinox as they have pasive or other abilities that give them easy acces to damage reduction)
also note this is for geting visible results out of armor and health mods i'm not saying u can't play with armor mods on a trinity(15 base armor) i'm saying anything past level 20 will still need same nr of shots to kill u.
lastly as for shields this is just me but if i play a frame with a good amount of shields and not armor or hp i take extra care to not get hit with a toxin and/or slash proc as they bypass shields

[Nemund]

A point people have missed with shields, they may have a 1:1 ratio for damage, but Sentinels get a mod which gives a full shield replenish on a regular basis if they are reduced to 0, which makes your shield 'healing' a lot faster than health. Which can make shields attractive if you are playing a hit & run build and aren't playing on lvl 100 missions where 1 hit insti kills anyway.

[Sithis]

I've read one of your responses and got the impression there's one thing you don't know (yet). In case you didn't know, mods that you fuse and install on warframes/weapons are not consumed. You can easily take them out of a weapon/warrframe and put them on a different one, or even have the same one mod installed on multiple Warframes or weapons at the same time. That means, the only thing you're "missing" if you're building and levelling a new warframe are those levels you have on the first one.

As for Health/Sheilds, I'd actually suggest a slightly different approach.

It's true that, statistically, Health is superior to Shields because Armor stat significantly reduces the amount of damage you take to Health, while Shields remain unaffected by it; however, unlike shields, health cannot regen itself over time, meaning that, unless you use a warframe that can restore its health naturally through abilities (Excal can't), use Health Regen aura mod on your warframe (doubt you have that yet), or use a weapon that (inherently or with a mod) can restore your health (you probably don't yet have access to these), your more superior health+shields pool would last you about as long as you don't take much damage at all; health orbs only restore a small bit (25HP) and drop rather rarely.

Shields, on the other hand, regenerate on their own fairly quickly, so while they give you just a bit of protection, they give it to you over and over again. Yes, even 1000 shields isn't a massive amount, but with earlier enemies (up to maybe level 25), they don't deal enough damage to quickly burn through that amount of shielding instantly, so you're better off covering yourself with more shields, or 50/50. After these levels, yeah, Health would be a better option.

My suggestion is, if you don't want to waste too much Mod slots on your frame, use either Vigor if you have it (gives both health and shield boosts), or Redirection to boost shields. Use Vitality only on frames that have at least some 75 armor or more, and preferrably stick Steel Fiber (armor mod) into that warframe (best used on things like Rhino, Oberon and so on).

[GunsForBucks]

Equalibrium was a mod I got early on that helped out with my first builds.

It gives health for energy orbs and energy for health orbs.. since you get a lot more energy orbs dropping <normally>, it will help return some health.

I can't fit it in a build anymore since I have other mods now I prefer to use but if you have nothing better to use give it a try.

[Grey Star, The Rival Defender]

Another thing is that Toxin damage bypasses shields completely on Warframes, so damage from Noxes, Ghouls, Toxic Ancients, and gas clouds from Mutalist MOAs all target yiur health directly. In addition slash proccs (bleeding) bypasses shields AND armor. So you may be running a low heslth Valkyr for whatever reason but have a massive amount of armor and be able to tank toxin damage, but a slash procc will destroy you.

[VolOpt]

I would say early on, shieds will be your go-to.

For two reasons, they are a pretty OK buffer and unlike health they regenerate. Two of my staple mods from when I started where Redirection and Fast Deflection. When you get a Sentinel you are definitely going to want to stick Guardian on it which will just give you 90% of your shields back when your shields hit zero.

That said you are going to gravitate away from them because there will come a point where enemies will be burning throuhg them so fast that they just really don't matter anymore. I don't have either Redirection or Fast Deflection on any of my builds anymore even tho they where very useful to me early on. I do sill use Guardian tho.

I don't think I've ever really bothered with any straight healh mods for any frame that wasn't Inaros or Nidus since they are pure health/Armor frames without any Shields what so ever. As for Armor there are precious few frames with enough of a base Armor rating to really make it worthwhile.

Generally if I do end up working a survivability mod into my build it's Primed Vigor which gives a bit of a kick to both health and shields. But most of the time my builds don't even have room for that and most of the time they're fine.

Edit:
The only mod that I know of that outright regenerates health is Medi-Ray. Which is a Sentinel Mod that can be farmed from the Index. It isn't super great like 10% of your max health over 4 seconds or somewhere there abouts. Occasionally it is nice and I do use it in all of my Sentinel builds more becasue I like my Sentinels to be swiss army knives than really relying on it to keep me alive.

I think there is also a companion mod that heals you for a portion of the damage they do but it's name escapes me at the moment and it isn't going to "regen" health unless your companion is actively damaging something. Plus the companion system is kind of a mess and pretty darn expensive when you are just starting out the game.

Hunter Recovery, is the companion mod.

[uɐɐılʎʇs]

Originally posted by Makoto Naegi:

If you want to keep things really simple for now, just remember these three names:

Valkyr
Nidus
Inaros

You forgot Oberon :-p
Low shields, high HP, Hunter Adrenalin, Phoenix Renewal.
Free energy and free death every 90 seconds.

[Walrus-Sama]

Health, always.

[Hoop]

It depends one what character you are using and your build.

Most of the time you will want to stack health but sometimes you will stack armor above all else, or power strength if you have abilities that increase your armor/durability.