Arcane Barrier vs Arcane Aegis (both rank 5)

[Chonk]

I'll only put shield arcane on warframes that depends on shield/ shield gating to survive. Assume shield regen is low(squishy frames that cant regen shield with ability), which arcane should i get?

[Mike Litoris]

The rarity of the arcane should help you to decide which one is the best.
I always put legendary before rare mod if i can.

[twitch.tv/GFYE]

Aegis can refresh a shield fully if the value is low enough multiple times across the 12 duration with a lower activation rate. Barrier is just a instant refill but has a cooldown where it cant activate. There are only 3 or so frames that benefit from this "primarily Hildy, others less important if you are going to do it at all."

Both of these are fairly low priority compared to other comforts such as energize or a weapon scaling proc. Aegis with dragon on certain frames means you have functional invincibility during its activation period since you cant be one shotted through shield gating. Again, very few frames actually benefit hugely from this.... It's something to think about.

[Fraggoth]

Originally posted by twitch.tv/GFYE:

Aegis can refresh a shield fully if the value is low enough multiple times across the 12 duration with a lower activation rate. Barrier is just a instant refill but has a cooldown where it cant activate. There are only 3 or so frames that benefit from this "primarily Hildy, others less important if you are going to do it at all."

Both of these are fairly low priority compared to other comforts such as energize or a weapon scaling proc. Aegis with dragon on certain frames means you have functional invincibility during its activation period since you cant be one shotted through shield gating. Again, very few frames actually benefit hugely from this.... It's something to think about.

As this guy indicates, Arcane Aegis generally has a broader use-case functionality than Arcane Barrier. Both are kinda niche, and on paper Barrier LOOKS better, but Arcane Aegis is "sleeper" powerful, in the sense that you look at the description and think "wow, those look like kinda mediocre numbers and activation chance, I think I'll pass" while in-practice it's really pretty impressive.

Sure, it (and Arcane Barrier for that matter) do exactly nothing for the few 'Frames with no shields whatsoever (namely Inaros and Nidus), but for any 'Frame with some shields you can derive some benefit since Shields are always the first "health" type to receive damage (unless you're Rhino, Revenant, or the Amesha Archwing with their respective abilities) so it's pretty immediately relevant and rarely as "down to the wire" like Arcane Grace can be - none of the health/shield restoring Warframe Arcanes are particularly good for super-high-damage one-shot-kill prevention, but ever since the changes to Shield Gating, Arcane Aegis and Arcane Barrier come closest.

And that is where the difference in use-case functionality between Aegis and Barrier kick in. Both Arcanes shine brightest on high-shield 'Frames, but Aegis is still relevant and useful on just about any 'Frame with shields, whereas Barrier is really only worth looking at for 'Frames with exceptionally high shields; namely Hildryn, with Mag, Harrow, Protea, and now Caliban as less extreme cases. As the individual quoted above stated, Arcane Barrier has a cooldown - 6 (six) seconds at Rank 5 - so while you do have a higher % chance of activation you can only start rolling the dice again after that period. It does refill all your shields, but it's only once in that 6 seconds.

Arcane Aegis, however, once active keeps working until its 12 seconds are up (I'm not certain that it can be refreshed while active - most Arcanes that can be refreshed while their buff is active are pretty clearly marked as such; Arcane Aegis is not), giving you 30% of your max shields every second for those 12 seconds. Constantly. It cannot be interrupted. Indeed, the only way you can take any health damage at all while it's active is from an active Toxin status proc. This is PRETTY strong.

If you are in a situation where you are taking constant damage, the potential amount of damage "mitigated" by Arcane Aegis' constantly regenerating shields is much, much higher than Arcane Barrier can do - even on high-shield frames like Hildryn, who, with a high-to-maxed shield build has upwards of 6000 shields, is regenerating around 2000 shields PER SECOND for 12 seconds, for a potential total of, like, 24,000 damage regenerated (though you might be hard-pressed to find yourself in a situation where none of those 12 seconds have you at max shields). Compared to Arcane Barrier which, on the same 'Frame, would only do at best 5999 shields (6000 if it can still activate during the invulnerability granted when her Shields go down) - and if it activates after, say, taking just 100 damage, sorry, that's it, you only got that 100 damage regen'd for the next 6 seconds.

Better still for Arcane Aegis is that it "stacks" with damage-reduction abilities and the Adaptation mod (in the sense that with smaller instances of damage received you have a higher chance of it activating before your health starts taking damage) - so Nezha, Baruuk, and Mesa can benefit quite a lot indeed.

All of this is to say that while Arcane Barrier is indeed rarer and has a higher activation chance, the potential value and usability of Arcane Aegis is superior, hands-down.