Warframe’s rich mechanical meta gives an abundance of ways to build your Frame, but as you progress through content, survivability becomes more and more of a pressing issue. Whether it’s high-level Elite Sanctuary Onslaught, Steel Path or Sorties, understanding how to use shield gating can give your Warframe survivability for any situation.
Shield gating is a technique in Warframe that relies on the brief period of invulnerability that every Warframe gets when their shields break. When a Warframe’s shield hits 0, any damage they took over the shield is nullified rather than spilling onto their health bar, and they become very briefly invulnerable. This prevents players from losing their entire shield and health pool to a single hit, and means that less resilient Frames can’t be taken out by one very hefty attack (except in the case of damage that bypasses shields, like toxin).
Until relatively recently, shield gating relied on having low shields that dropped to 0 and recharged rapidly. Players used an item called a Decaying Dragon Key to essentially make Warframes invulnerable with the right build. In October 2023, changes to the shield system rendered a lot of shield gating builds and advice less useful. The invulnerability period is now calculated based on the amount of shields that the Warframe has when their shields break. If a Warframe has 1150 shields (not including overshields), they get 2.5 seconds of invulnerability, and it scales down from there based on the amount of shields the Warframe had at the time the shields broke. This encourages players to balance high maximum shields and rapid shield recharge to get the best use out of a shield defensive build.
Shield gating requires careful timing: a common build is to use a mod called Brief Respite or a set of mods called the Augur set, which convert a percentage of the energy a Warframe spends to shields. You keep your energy efficiency low, while still ensuring you have the energy you need to repeatedly cast an ability, and every time your shields hit 0 (indicated by a blue flash across your Warframe), you use an ability, which pours the energy you’ve expended back into your shields and recharges them instantly, ready to take the next hit while you sit pretty, invulnerable for up to 2.5 seconds.
The old version of shield gating is still in the game to some extent: the corrupted mod Catalyzing Shields reduces your maximum shield capacity while also increasing the base invulnerability duration to 1.33, meaning builds that took advantage of the old meta can still use a lot of their existing gear.
If you are quick on the dodge button, you can use the mod Rolling Guard to get an extra invulnerability period when you dodge, or you can focus on one of the Warframes that restore shields with their abilities. For instance, Mag is a strong shield gate Warframe with her third ability, Polarize, which depletes enemy shields and restores shields to her allies. Hildryn already has a superior version of shield gating built in, as her passive ability gives her 3.5 seconds of invulnerability, and her Pillage second ability restores her shields. Harrow first ability, Condemn, restores his shields very quickly and can shield gate effectively as a result. Pillage and Condemn can be subsumed into the Helminth, which makes them staple abilities for late game and solo content.
However you choose to shield gate, it’s a fun and active way of increasing survivability for endgame content.
