Kelvin Gear Discussion

[Ryballs]

First one unfortunately.

[Master_Oddjob (PSN ID: ZOXXZY)]

Anyone who’s interested in Kelvin gear loadouts that give him a shield, keep an eye out - there is a chance at getting a white shield regen gear with ~400 activation cost, with 40.2 shield regen per second (no negative modifiers, no other effects). 400 shards is easily obtainable even right at the start of the match, I shouldn’t have to tell you how useful that is.

So far it’s the best shield regen gear I’ve found for what we want, only thing that would be better is Janked gear with a negative on something we don’t care about.

[lokohryu (lokohryu@gmail.com)]

Fun fact, Kleese’s energy rifts will give Kelvin shielding even with negative shield recharge. It will decay obviously without shield recharge gear but this appears to be unique to him as other Eldrid do not gain shielding this way.

[getoffmylawn3210]

I think the one thing I haven’t thought to check on with the whole +max shields thing is this:

Whether Permafrost actually is based on the hard number that they’ve told us in the passive description (60), or if that number comes about from a percentage of his max shields (which would be 20% as well). I know in the beta Permafrost only granted 55 shields, which is why I assumed it was the former as 18% is kind of a weird number to rest on, but now I also recall that at the start of the beta, Kelvin’s max shields were lower and that part of the buff he received was raising them (which in turn buffed permafrost). If that’s the case it means his max shields were 275 (20% of which is 55) which is a much nicer number I would expect them to have used.

So, I think I would have to activate a +shield max gear on Kelvin without the +20% permafrost helix bonus and see how it affects permafrost shields. If it increases then that means permafrost itself is based on a percentage after all and Gearbox was just hiding that number and giving the hard number of 60 for the ease of the player’s understanding (since they can’t normally see Kelvin’s shield max, so saying he gets 20% of his max shields would not be helpful information).

Edit:

Ok, so experiment done. I did note I was remember some numbers wrong, but here we are. All of this was checked in Story mode.

Kelvin currently gains 100 shields from Permafrost at base level. His passive description claims he only gets 80 (which is where my first mistake was), not sure what the deal with that is. His base shield max is indeed 300.

So, I activated a piece of gear that added 126 shield max, and checked again. He was getting 165 shields from Permafrost. So yes, Permafrost is actually based off a percentage of Kelvin’s max shields. Thing is those two numbers are not consistent - base level he was getting 33% of his shields back, after the gear activate he was getting 38% I don’t know what the missing element here is.

The other thing that was odd, which I had noticed before but forgotten about when I made my first post, is this: Kelvin’s natural shield decay, and the shield regen granted by the active gear, don’t work together the way I thought they did. Kelvin will regenerate shields when not under fire, but say he’s just throwing out Chomp to get the shields from Permafrost thinking it will boost him up to max shields quickly: the shields granted from Permafrost will decay at the normal rate, until it meets where Kelvin’s shields have reached from the shield regen.

Anyways, end result is that we can get some pretty nice results off of +Shield Max Gear and Chomp/Shield Snacker. If I find a piece that gives me roughly +200 I’d be quite happy - that’ll be ~350 shields per Chomp!

Would you suggest stacking shield capacity or increased health and what gear Loudoun would you recommend.

[Master_Oddjob (PSN ID: ZOXXZY)]

I am not sure if I would stack multiple shield capacity items or not, but I’m of the mindset that diversity is always good.

The way I currently see it, since Kelvin is big target and doesn’t have a secondary shield function like ISIC, Galilea, or Boldur, and passive health regeneration is difficult to make viable over shields for a character like that (unlike the non-tank Eldrid characters, who are smaller, faster targets that can slip away and heal up) - his most important ability is the permafrost shields he gets from Chomp.

So, shield capacity in my eyes is a must. Skill cooldown gear sounds good on paper but the skill we want to be using more and more (Chomp) already has such a short cooldown that no cooldown gear I’ve seen so far would affect it in any significant way, so that can probably be left out. Increased health gear, it’s not a bad thing but it seems too obvious to me. I don’t use it much anymore, I usually take the tier 1 mutation for the extra 360 and then leave the rest to Chomp gains.

The shield regen stuff, I wouldn’t mind seeing how other people do without it. I like it because I hate having to take the pressure off to go and teleport back to base, having that shield ready to go after a moment or too lets me run back in to cause more chaos when I think it’s still necessary. I definitely like it a lot more now that I have a much cheaper gear to enable it.

I think health regen gear is a waste. I think Kelvin’s survivabiltiy revolves around permafrost from Chomp more than it does from stacking a bunch of HP regen. Maybe if I saw stats on how much health I regenerate in the average match I would change my mind. Maybe if I found a piece with really good health regenerate instead of this 6-7 hps I’d be interested.

As with any melee character, attack speed is always nice to have. If you feel like you have a good balance on your other two items, I’d look for something like this. I happen to have an excellent one that seems custom made for Kelvin.

For those that are curious, my current loadout:

Destroyer’s Internal Capacitor (915 shards): +139 Maximum Shield Strength, +97 Maximum Shield Strength for 10 seconds after killing a minion or minor enemy (This is probably my least favorite piece, I am convinced I can find a better shield capacity item. That said the minion kill buff is well suited to Kelvin, I can smash one minion and chomp another for the maximum benefit)

HoldFast Recharger (401 shards): +40.20 Shield Recharge per Second (What a find this was, I don’t think I’ll drop this at any point unless I am convinced otherwise about the whole health regen thing)

Aristocrat’s Ostentatious Saber (832 shards): +8.82% Attack Speed, +5.04 Attack Speed for 5 seconds after taking shield damage (Also a really nice find, seems custom made for Kelvin as it effectively means he gets +13.86% attack speed after every Chomp)

[lokohryu (lokohryu@gmail.com)]

Interesting gear, I could never work with those costs personally outside of maybe incursion and story mode. As for health regen, I personally look at it as an extension of damage reduction since damage reduction itself seems difficult to stack. Max health will let you survive a battle longer than regen but only if you are at that full health for every engagement, regen has the benefit of being a constant source of damage regeneration albeit at a fairly small amount considering some battleborn’s damage output. The fact that it can get you back to full health after a fight is just a bonus in my eyes.

Not really anything specific to Kelvin, just my own thoughts for using health regen gear.

[Master_Oddjob (PSN ID: ZOXXZY)]

Yea I am still looking for more cost efficient stuff. Most matches I never get around to activating the attack speed gear unless we are already crushing.

[Luke_KB]

Wow. The knowledge that Kelvin can actually get some recharger permanent shield is invaluable. My only concern is whether or not this is intended. I believe Eldred characters were never intended to have a permanent shield which makes me wonder whether or not this is simply a bug, or if it was intended.
If it is a bug we will likely see it patched in the futurend. I’m hoping that some moderator will be able to clear this up for us.

Anyway, my load out for Kelvin actually works on health regen.(funny seeing how you hate it) xD
Anyway given Eldrid’s have their unique passive health regen, I thought this wold be a fun stat to incorporate.
I’m away from my xbox so I can’t give exact numbers but I’ll get something close enough.
First is a flawed item so I can activate it at the start of the match. It’s grants 12(ish) shield penetration but In-turn I am more negatively affected by CC (forget the percent)
Next is my health regen. 7 per second. And 6.5 per second when shield is depleted (most of the time with kelvin)
And a cool down reduction to use sublimate a bit more (thinking I’m going to replace this one)
Anyway, the health regen combined with his helix health regen is pretty impressive to be honest.

[snowyowl7v]

Wondering do you feel his legendary is worth to take as a gear choice?

[Master_Oddjob (PSN ID: ZOXXZY)]

I was fortunate enough to not unlock mine until after the hotfix, so mine has no negative shield regen like I’ve seen on some versions. But…

I don’t really miss Chomp all that much. I may not always hit what I’m aiming at if I’m dealing with a crowd, but I usually hit something so the unique effect doesn’t hold a lot of weight for me.

Which means in the end, it’s an 1800 shard health bonus gear, which I don’t use that much these days and there are even cheaper health bonus gear that do around the same, or more health.

[snowyowl7v]

also can now narrow it down between his and and 38.31 for the lower limit
going through my shield regen stuff between his and mine to try to find that lower limit
36.22 works
I dont currently have anything between 34 and 36.22 so yeah but the 36.22 is a gray so basically starting the game with shields up lol

[manguyO]

One thing I wanted to say is it is smart to remember that kelvin is based on survivability but he’s not necessarily a tank. people that play him as much as say, master oddjob here know that, but just reminding those who are looking here to get a better understanding of how to play Kelvin. He plays a lot like Shayne and aurox in terms of cthings like chasing and damage and, well, survivability.

That said, I play capture, so for that, I use three white items. shield regen, skill damage, and I want skill cooldown reduction but I haven’t gotten a no negative white one of those. I’m sure it’s obvious why you’d use shield regen, its stated lots of times. More absorbtion and it comes back faster than health regen.

However, the things I want to go into are the other two. Skill damage is great because one of the best ways to play kelvin is to base it off your chomp. With the second mutation, you can add 3% of your current health as damage. which is sweet. Additionally, chomp gives kelvin more maximum health for each kill. In story missions this means you’ll probably end the mission with over 8000 to 10000 health. In capture, it’s more like 2800. I’m sure in meltdown he’s a lot better since you can one hit chomp a lot of minions for some extra health.

With this health, as stated, it can increase your damage. Now I am not sure if chomp’s damage maxes at 500, or just the % of enemy maximum health does, but either way, it increase your damage on a lot of enemies, which make your health go up more if you chomp for the kill which increased the damage… you get the point.

Basically, skill damage and cooldown reduction are great ways to help abuse this aspect of kelvin. Well, not abuse, but just use that effect very well.

I agree though that health/ shield increases are good as well, it all depends on what you prefer for your build.

[Phadin]

I don’t know about 8000, but I’ve finished story missions like Algorithm over 5k and Archive over 4k.

[manguyO]

I finished saboteur with over 8000 and heliophage with something between 10000 and 11000. Make sure you chomp as many minions as you can. In story I run a blue cooldown reduction item so it makes it easier. I also use the green mutation for the first level that increases my health by like 300 or something.

[jdt179]

I just acquired a grey shield booster with I believe 34.33 recharge (I’m at work so I can’t check exact but I know it was 34.something). This does indeed charge Kelvins shield as I ran a pve map to test it. After this I tried a meltdown map with shield regen, max shields, and health regen and I noticed and nice boost in sustain. I will say though, even with this gear you still have to be playing, as another thread points out, a scary movie monster. Sneak up, strike and disrupt, and disappear. If I have a healer in the group I replace health regen with movement speed. Engaging and disengaging smartly are huge for Kelvin.

[Masterblizak]

Are you talking Solo or group? I get about 6500 on average in group play.

[Masterblizak]

I think they are talking solo.

[Luke_KB]

Just tried this new Kelvin build guys. It’s awesome, give it a go.

Tried a new Kelvin loadout/build, and... WOW

So I think the majority of us Kelvin players focus on his survivability: Increasing max health, health regeneration, and/or overshield. That being said I decided to try something out and focus on his “brawler” class. I thought “the game gives many obvious indicators of him being an ice character, but the way most of us play him, he seems more like a big biting rock monster with his only ice quality being an occasional stun”. So here’s what I did: I focused on his damage output and unique slow-…

[jdt179]

Attack speed really does make a big difference with Kelvin, more than I gave it credit for when I first started with him. I’ve also noticed that run speed can be excellent to help with the critical engage and disengage that defines Kelvin. I really like how you made chomp so devastating. If you think about it, making chomp more likely to kill actually helps increase Kelvins survivability by allowing him to gather more HP. His 10th lvl helix option allows your wall to slow enemies as well…not so useful given how far it is but hey…more damage! Going to give this build a whirl in both PVE and PVP tonight. Thanks!

[Luke_KB]

No problem. Tell me what you think.
Kelvin is such an underplayed character and I feel like his true potential hasnt really been discovered given his advanced difficulty and his weird kit.