This is an excellent post, I’ve been looking for max stat +shield regen and +shield strength gear to annoy my enemies with a constant shield on Kelvin. Might even go as far as -shield recharge delay to keep it up as often as possible.
Interestingly, Kleese’s Energy Rifts charge Kelvin’s invisible shield though without +shield regen it degenerates of course. Great way to complete Klese’s lore challenge for recharging 50,000 points of ally shield, I did it in one PvE mission with an allied Kelvin.
There’s still not all that much on Kelvin on the forums, really. I know I’d appreciate any wisdom you might have to offer on using Kelvin in various situations, dealing with different types of characters in pvp, interesting helix combos, etc. if you wanted to do something else instead.
Yeah, I keep hearing people talk about how surprised they are that Kelvin is not as Tanky/durable as they thought, so they end up using him almost like an assassin.
The actual problem is he just isn’t as straightforward as people expect. He doesn’t have a Shield as a Secondary Weapon to soak damage like Gal or Boldur–you have to abuse his unique Shield mechanics for that.
I find him tons of fun because his style is super engaging. There is a lot of decision making and a plenty to do. Very creative design by Gearbox with Kelvin.
Having a ton of fun playing Kelvin backed up with my friend playing either Miko or Alani ( yay ! ), and I was unsure what to grab as my third piece of loadout. I use atk speed and +health, both with another layer of +health after 180 sec, making my Kelvin a damn, fine, big, bullet sponge. Hell, I can even taunt in the middle of a melee and stay alive.
Anyway, thanks for those tips. I was precisely wondering how that shield was working. Thought it was somewhat similar to Boldur’s overshield or something. Will try some shield gear… Now to find an item that gives both +max shield AND +shield regen…
Nice I was just realizing all this about kelvins recently but didn’t know all the specifics. I did find out that without any +shield strength his permafrost starts at 95 and seems to add 7.5 per level. I’m also not sure what his natural regen (or degen) is but it’s pretty low as it can be overcome with a +28 shield recharge. As such, I think plasmite transducer is a good item on Kelvin.
if you get his level 5 helix for reduced damage when peremafrost is active and the +shield regen you get a damage reduction the whole time your shield is up I think.
if you get his level 5 helix for reduced damage when peremafrost is active and the +shield regen you get a damage reduction the whole time your shield is up I think.
Did some quick testing, not very reliable as I didn’t have someone on the other end of a private match and had to use bots damaging me, which is a bit hard to control.
Hit the Blue Ice upgrade and took it.
Had a Phoebe bot going against me, checked the damage on her primary attack, a single thrust took about 60 hp.
Activated a shield regen gear, let my shield regen, and again, 60 damage to my shields from a single thrust.
But the really weird thing was, I built up some permafrost shields, and let her hit me again. 60 damage to my shields.
There shouldn’t have been any variables, she never hit me with True Strike at any point, and these damage points all came within a minute of each other with the Phoebe following me around like a puppy until my shields were ready.
So my thought is this, though I will do more testing to confirm when I have someone to help me on the other end with more solid testing conditions: Blue Ice does not affect shields resulting from shield regen, and as a result, taking shield regen gear ruins the effect of the Blue Ice helix choice. I did the test for permafrost damage reduction AFTER I had already activated the shield regen gear, however, so the best way to confirm it would be to test damage reduction from Blue Ice before activating the shield regen gear, and then checking the damage again after activating it.
Hmm that would be quite weird and frankly a bit sad. Ironically I was asking about Blue Ice in another topic, or more specifically how Permafrost worked ( does its values vary to compensate for taking, say, Strong Wind ).
But now if using Shield Regen Gear could mess up Blue Ice, a whole new batch of maths should be considered : is it worth it then to have shield regen at all, when you loose something as powerful in a way as 30% damage reduction as often as every 4 sec ?
Base damage is 27 with a single round. Took Blue Ice, checked permafrost shields to see what damage reduction I got, 19 damage per round. Activated shield regen gear, back to 27 damage. Depleted the regenerating shields, gained Permafrost shields, back down to 19 damage.
So I must have been misjudging the damage I was taking in my initial test to think the regenerating shield gear had a negative effect on Blue Ice proccing, as I said it was not a very easily controlled test when I first tried it.
Oh, I did some other testing too, and I actually have to point out that Liberty_Prime is mistaken on one point:
He’s absolutely correct about the way Permafrost works when your regenerating shield works when you activate Permafrost and you aren’t at full shields - you will degenerate 100 points of shields at base level, then begin regenerating them again.
However, with testing I’ve found that the initial impression is correct: Kelvin will continually lose shields in “combat” (meaning he has recently taken damage and his shield recharge delay has reset), regardless of whether or not he has activated Permafrost. Negative shield regen has no delay, it is always in effect, while the positive shield recharge gained from gear still has the shield recharge delay before it kicks in and gives us a net positive shield recharge.
Seems like the most relevant topic for it, so I thought I’d make a post about the approaching influx of characters gaining the Wound debuff in a major update to the game.
Wound causes a character to suffer a 60% reduction of all sources of healing for the duration of the debuff. This includes normal healing, lifesteal, and even life regen. I have yet to hear anything stating it affects abilities granting shields, so Kleese and Reyna have the benefit of providing damage ablation that cannot be affected by Wound.
Similarly, our friend Kelvin has the luxury of damage ablation via shield generation. While he can be built for strong regeneration and a decent amount of lifesteal as well, those builds will be impacted by Wound debuffs, and shield focused builds will not.
Good thing I’ve had my 550 shield build saved for a while lol. I’m more anxious to see the sublimate change… was there ever anything specific said about it? I missed the stream so trying to find bits and pieces on these forums
Plasmite tranducer WAS a good item for Kelvin but they nerfed it and made it completely useless for everyone. Good job gearbox, way to make a 1800 shard paper weight.
I’m almost positive that only shield strength imparted by permafrost gets the 30% damage reduction. Basically just wait for your sheild via gear to drop half way than boost it back up with chomp.
