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Enemy Shields and Armor

📄️ Enemy Shields and Armor

An explanation as to how different type of Enemy Shields and Armor function as well as the most efficient way to deal with them.

Reaction Efficiency at Breaking Elemental Shields (Translation)​

Added: 2020-11-08 (v. 1.0)
Last tested: 2020-11-08 (v. 1.0)
Source: https://bbs.mihoyo.com/ys/article/2204156 (Dated Oct 14, 2020)
Translated by: @KluEvo, @sacstanxiang & @Azri K.

Link: Google Docs

Bobrokrot’s Shield and Armor Guide​

By: Bobrokrot#0111
Added: 2021-02-12 (v. 1.3)
Last tested: 2021-02-12 (v. 1.3)

Google Sheets

Preliminary Findings on Breaking Fatui Armor​

By: Bobrokrot#0111
Added: 2020-12-06 (v. 1.1)
Last tested: 2020-12-06 (v. 1.1)

Theory
Fatui armor breaks mostly off Elemental reactions and armor breaking effectiveness depends on strength of aura application.

Evidence

  • Fischl E vs Hydro armor: We can see Fatui armor breaking from Electro-Charged procs, not Oz attacks.
  • Lisa E hold vs Hydro shield: Lisa E hold has a strong Electro aura application. It seems that strong Electro applications triggers Electro-Charged twice for a total of 4 damage procs.
  • Beidou E vs Hydro armor: Beidou E also has strong Electro application and it procs Electro-Charged twice. Note that it takes a total of 10 Electro-Charged damage procs to take down the armor.
  • Fischl charged attack vs Hydro armor: Fischl's charged attacks have weak aura application and it took a total of 5 shots (10 Electro-Charged damage procs) to take down the armor.
  • Barbara vs Pyro armor: Barbara normal attacks have weak application and it took 4 Vaporize procs to take down the armor. Note some attacks not procing Vaporize (and thus not doing damage to the armor) due to internal aura application cooldown.
  • XQ vs Pyro armor: XQ has two weak aura applications on his E + his swords apply weak Hydro aura. In total it took 2 E swings + 2 touches with swords. I also did some testing with XQ ult but it was kinda inconsistent due to swords revolving around XQ also applying aura, need more testing.
  • Don't have footage but it is common knowledge that Kaeya's E has strong application and breaks Electro armor in 2 Es, but Kaeya's ult has weak aura applications and needs 4 Superconduct hits to break the armor.
  • Also common knowledge that Amber's charged is strong and requires 2 hits, Guoba is weak and requires 4 hits.

Significance

  • Pyro armor: The equivalent of 2 strong Hydro
  • Cryo armor: The equivalent of 2 strong Pyro
  • Hydro armor: ~10 Electro-Charged ticks
  • Electro armor: The equivalent of 2 strong Cryo

Fatui Armor and Aura Interactions​

By: Rainfury#8343
Added: 2022-03-01 (v. 2.5)
Last tested: 2022-03-01 (v. 2.5)
Discussion

Finding:
Some foreign auras can exist on certain Fatui when their armor is up. These auras can have funny interactions when trying to shieldbreak. Also doing some slightly more detailed testing with some armor.

Evidence:
YouTube video

  • Hydro on a Cryo Fatui armor.
  • Your Pyro attacks will need to go through the Hydro aura in order to damage the Cryo armor.

YouTube video

  • Proving not only river water can apply Hydro on Cryo Fatui armor.
  • Melting a Frozen Hydro Fatui armor doesn't seem to do any noticeable damage even when using 2U Pyro 1U Electro gets eaten up super quickly by the Hydro Fatui armor.
  • Pyro attacks seem to ignore the Electro aura of an Electro-Charged'd Hydro Fatui.

YouTube video

  • More testing done for the above, proving that gauges matter.
  • 1U Pyro onto 2U Hydro seem to notbe able to damage the Fatui armor at all.
  • 2U Pyro on 1U Hydro break more armor than 2U on 2U.

YouTube video

  • Trying to Electro-Charged Cryo armor.
  • Electro seem to just ignore the Hydro aura when breaking the Cryo armor.

YouTube video

  • Trying to do testing with Electro-Charged'd Electro Fatui armor (namely, Pyro onto Electro-Charged), but failed because the Hydro seem to be eaten up instantly.
  • Finding out crystalize breaks Geo Fatui armor. Also a random test to show that Geo Fatui can no doubt be Frozen when his armor is up.

YouTube video

  • More testing with Geo armor, however Geo gauges were not tested.
  • 1U, 2U, and 4U of gauge when crystallized breaks different amount of Geo Fatui's armor.

YouTube video

  • Geo gauge don't matter when using crystalize to break Geo Fatui armor?

YouTube video (clip by makeway4pK#3901)

  • Geo gauge without poise doesn't deal damage to Geo armor.

YouTube video

  • Pillar pulse and gorou charged attacks don't do damage to the armor.
  • Crystalize damages the armor even if the attack is poiseless.
  • The gauge of the Element on the enemy decays overtime, and after waiting for a while, the aura decays and becomes weaker, which affects the amount of damage the shield takes as well.

Significance:
Better understanding of Fatui armor. Most of the findings are about Fatui armor being harder to break in certain situations, that certain situations don't affect shieldbreaking, while one just shows how weak and puny the Geo armor actually is when faced with ROCK.

Geo Armor Breaking Efficiency’s Relation to "Stagger Strength" of the Attack​

By: Bobrokrot#0111
Added: 2020-12-19 (v. 1.1)
Last tested: 2020-12-19 (v. 1.1)

Evidence:
Aside from Geo damage, there is also a number of attacks that break Geo Armor. As far as I can tell, all of these attacks have one thing in common — they push or stagger the enemy.

Here are some clips Jean breaking Geo Armor of Geo Fatui with charged attacks and her E, and also a clip of her breaking a crystal with her E (her E and charged attacks also one-shot white iron ores). The last clip features Amber E almost one-shotting the crystal and Anemo MC last tick of E dealing significant damage to the crystal.

It is common knowledge that Overload reaction breaks Geo Armor — it can be explained by the fact that Overload explosion pushes enemies.

Claymores are well known to be effective at breaking Geo Armor. Although Jean's E pushes further away than claymore attacks, they are more effective at breaking Geo Armor. My theory is that the stagger effect also breaks Geo Armor. Claymores stagger enemies and they do so more effectively than other weapons' basic attacks.

Sword basic attacks in particular are able to break Geo Armor, although ineffective. Also note that some attacks deal more damage to armor than others, in general, final attack in normal attacks string deals the most damage.

Klee's basic attacks are effective at breaking Geo Armor and they indeed do stagger. Other catalyst users do not stagger enemies and indeed Lisa deals 0 damage to Geo Armor: YouTube

Significance:
May significantly alter our Abyss clearing strategy. Geo and claymores are still best at breaking Geo Armor but Amber in particular with some Electro for Overload can be effective at dealing with Geo Fatui since her Bunny deals massive damage to the armor (almost halves Geo Fatui armor).

Standardized Measuring Tool for Stagger Values​

By: Bobrokrot#0111

Theory: INTRODUCING KAEYA'S N1 (KN1) AS A MEASURING TOOL FOR STAGGER VALUES

Evidence:
Here is a clip of Kaeya hitting Geo slime's armor 140 times: YouTube

From here we can calculate Razor's N1 capability to break Geo armor. I'll call it stagger value from now on since evidence tells as that they are correlated. Razor's N1 ranges from 27.8 to 28.0 KN1 (plus-minus the last Kaeya's N1).

Chongyun's N1 ranges from 25.6 to 25.8 KN1 YouTube

Beidou's N1 ranges from 21.0 to 21.167 KN1 YouTube

Note that Beidou's N1 and Razor's N1 stagger values correlate to my findings on their Shatter values vs Cryo Abyss mage shield. I have lvl1 Razor so the result of ~0.66-0.67U of his N1 should be accurate (since the damage to shield is neglectable). Using average stagger values we can calculate Beidou's N1 Shatter value = 21.1/27.9*0.66 = ~0.499 which correlates for my previous result of 0.5U. Also note that this is not the case for Chongyun. At first I assumed Chong's N1 to be 0.65U. Calculating it from stagger values it should be around 0.61U. 18 N1s is 10.98U which suggests that Chong should've had one more attack before breaking 12U shield which was not the case.

Did lvl 20 Chong deal too much damage or there is something else I did not consider?

Significance:
We now might be able to measure stagger values precisely. Please contact me if you want to cooperate and make a database for all attacks in the game.

Swirl and Crystallize on the Shield of a Cryo Abyss Mage Floating Over Water​

By: Bobrokrot#0111

Evidence:
(all of tests below were conducted with lvl1 weapons and only an upgraded flower among artifacts)

Note 1: Geo also Shatter Cryo Abyss mage shield thus Geo is able to break the shield above water.

Note 2: on Swirl on Crystallize reaction you can clearly see Hydro symbol appearing above mage. Also note that Crystallize reaction creates Hydro crystals instead of Cryo.

Note 3: Ningguang basic attacks consume 0.5U with Crystallize. 12 attacks against 12U shield is equal to 1U per attack, so we expect Shatter of Ningguang basic attacks to have a total value of 0.5U (on Shatter values I'll expand in a separate submission). With 0.5U per attack from Shatters we would expect 24 Ningguang basic attacks to break the sheld on water instead of 23. The reason for this difference is that, first, Ningguang basic attacks actually Shatter 2 times per attack (you can see the animation for each if you attack with Ning up close; also see Shatter submission) and that a total of 46 Shatter of lvl 20 character deal a total of 5474 damage. For a lvl 81 Hydro Abyss mage my estimation for 0.4U of shield is around 5-6k (see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/167gv0GWLu5HFLGCXZW3mBY0S2nimPv3dm5mGsxSiJME/edit#gid=0)

Significance:
Don't use Geo or Anemo to break Cryo Abyss mage shields on water.

Shield Gauge Consumption and Electrocharged​

By: Bobrokrot#0111
Added: 2021-02-04 (v. 1.3)
Last tested: 2021-02-04 (v. 1.3)

Theory:
Each Electro-Charged tick consumes 0.4U. Abyss mage shields have 12GU HP (regardless of the reactions), Fatui armor has 4U HP.

Evidence:
The detailed explanation with calculations can be found here: Google Docs

Breaking Childe's Shield with Stagger​

By: Iron IV#3832 and sexyeboy69#3215
Added: 2021-04-05 (v. 1.4)
Last tested: 2021-04-05 (v. 1.4)

Theory: Childe's shield is broken through poise damage rather than raw damage.

Evidence: Childe has a separate poise value when shielded and unshielded. The hit that breaks his shield has no hitlag. The number of hits it takes to break his shield is unaffected by damage.

Significance: Prioritize stagger over damage when hitting Childe's shield.

Abyss Lector Shield Gauges​

By: Yukarix#6534, Ayzel#7399, Bobrokrot#0111, srl#2712
Added: 2021-06-05 (v. 1.5)
Last tested: 2021-06-05 (v. 1.5)
Discussion

Finding:
Pyro and Cryo appear to be equally effective in terms of efficiency at depleting the shield of an Abyss Lector. This finding does not account for whether there are more Pyro or Cryo units that have the ability to apply their respective elements at a fast rate. It only accounts for the fact that 1GU of Cryo deals the same damage to the Abyss Lector as 1GU of Pyro.

Damage dealt (artifact/weapon quality) does not seem to matter with an exception of Ganyu. For Ganyu, it seems like with no artifacts & level 1 weapon, she takes the same amount of hits as Bennett, but starts to take less hits with a leveled weapon and artifacts. Units used to test Pyro were Bennett & Xiangling. Units used to test Cryo were Kaeya & Ganyu & Rosaria.

Significance:
If you have Pyro or Cryo units that have fast Elemental application, using one over another will not matter. Both should produce the same results given the same speed of Elemental application.

Evidence:

An Extensive Look into Shield Damage​

By: vibe checker#5502
Added: 2021-06-05 (v. 1.5)
Last tested: 2021-06-05 (v. 1.5)
Discussion

Finding:
Damage to enemy shields is affected by three main formulas, which are summed for final damage: Reaction Cost, Damage Cost and Poise Damage Cost. All info was accumulated from the wiki and individual testing

Evidence:
There are pages on the wiki that already detail this information, however I created a google document which aims to compile it all into one source which is easy to digest. All references are included in the document.

Critical-Hit Triggered Abilities Interactions With Shields​

By: Silvershine2#5439
Added: 2021-06-14 (v. 1.6)
Last tested: 2021-06-14 (v. 1.6)
Discussion

Finding:
Attacks blocked by enemy shields are still counted at scoring a Critical hit and therefore activate abilities with a CRIT hit as condition

Evidence:

Xinayn C1 Attack Speed increase

Klee A4 team Energy Recharge by Raf#7220 (110% CRIT Rate Klee)

Rosaria C1 Attack speed and normal attack DMG increase

Yanfei A4 damage instance proc

Favonius Sword

Significance:
Despite all of the tested talents/abilities/passives stating a CRIT Hit as the condition for activation, it still worked even if the attack was blocked entirely or even immunized. However this does only apply to character abilities. The Favonius sword did not activate on scoring Critical hits vs shields

Yanfei: Getting A4 procs is highly useful especially vs Elemental shields to apply more U Pyro, which makes quicker work of these shields. Abyss Lectors are the most important, but also double Pyro application and the charged attack being heavy can become useful for dealing with stone shields and proccing Overload more often

Xinyan: Can maybe make a difference in destroying stone shields a little bit faster, but this is imo not a significant find

Klee: Free Energy even if enemies block ore negate damage is always a good thing

Tartaglia: Applying riptide through shields is highly usefull. Aids in destroying Elemental shields faster and applying Electro-Charged AoE with riptide helps with poise damaging multiple shield enemies at once

Rosaria: Not very significant imo , similar to Xinyan

Favonius Weapons: Its a shame because not getting the fav proc due to getting blocked can mess up rotations and players utilizing fav weapons should be aware of this issue

Transformative Reaction Damage on Shields​

By: vibe checker#5502
Added: 2021-06-24 (v. 1.6)
Last tested: 2021-06-24 (v. 1.6)
Discussion

Finding:
Transformative damage is also applied in the damage cost of shield damage, and is affected by Elemental mastery.

Evidence:
A borderline Geo slime shield destruction was observed on a 0 EM 70/70 fischl's overloads onto a large Geo slime's shield, with the shield almost being destroyed after 6 overloads. Increasing fischl's EM to 688 resulted in the shield not only breaking after 6 overloads, but almost breaking after 5. Relevant calculations and related videos show that these numbers make sense.

Fischl with 0EM, 1378 overloads, leaving the shield at minimal health after 6 hits: Video Download
Fischl with 688 EM, 7019 overloads, leaving the shield at minimal health after 5 hits: Video Download

Large Slimes have 4x cicin HP and 8GU Geo force shields.
12466 (cicin at level 91) * 4 = 49864 (slime HP)
Large Geo Slimes have 10% RES across the board excluding their Element (immune), meaning a 0.9x damage multiplier to Overload.

For 0EM:
[(0.2 * (1378 * 0.9) * 8) / 49864] + 1.26 = damage per shot against Geo slime = 1.2998 GU per shot
1.2998 * 6 = 7.799 GU total damage

For 688EM:
[(0.2 * (7019 * 0.9) * 8) / 49864] + 1.26 = damage per shot against Geo slime = 1.4627 GU per shot
1.4627 * 5 = 7.3135 GU total damage

Note: Character damage was not a factor in the shield breaking as the overloads were procced from burning grass. There may have been fluctuations based on weird mechanics with character or grass being the Overload's trigger, but destruction of the Geo shield at 6 and 7 shots respectively was always consistent.

Significance:
It ensures that for shields where damage cost is a factor, we can assume that transformative reaction damages are also a factor, and interact in the way that one would expect from intuition (increasing damage with increasing EM).

Skirmisher Shields Affect Unrelated Reaction Coefficients​

By: f̸̒͂ỏ̶̂o̵͌̚s̶͊̏h̷̤̀ḯ̴̊#9920, daibangden#8410
Added: 2023-03-20 (v. 3.5)
Last tested: 2023-03-20 (v. 3.5)
Discussion

Finding:
Against shielded Cryo/Electro/Hydro Skirmishers, the reaction coefficients of reactions unrelated to the shield's Element are fixed at 1.

Evidence:
Imgur

Cryogunner:

  • Applying 1.6U Hydro then 1U of Pyro/Anemo/Geo/Dendro results in the Hydro aura lasting for 4.5 seconds, meaning the reaction coeffs of Pyro Vape, Hydro Swirl, hydro Crystallize, Dendro Bloom are all 1, as opposed to the usual 0.5/0.5/0.5/2
  • Applying 0.8U Dendro then 1U of Hydro completely wipes the Dendro aura; using Nahida E then applying 1U Hydro 3 times with Barbara produces 3 Blooms with no leftover Dendro. so the reaction coeff of Hydro Bloom is also 1 instead of 0.5

Electrohammer:

  • Applying 1U Quicken then 1U of Hydro completely wipes the Quicken aura; using Nahida E then applying 1U Hydro 3 times with Barbara produces 3 Blooms with no leftover Quicken. so the reaction coeff of Hydro Bloom is 1 instead of 0.5
  • Applying 1.6U Hydro then 1U Dendro results in the Hydro aura lasting 4.5 seconds, so the reaction coeff of Dendro Bloom is 1 instead of 2

Hydrogunner:

  • Applying 2U Freeze then 1U of Pyro doesnt clear the Freeze aura, instead it lasts a total of ~1.75s, so the reaction coeff of Pyro Melt is 1
  • Applying 1.6U Electro then 1U of Anemo/Geo results in the Electro aura lasting for 4.5 seconds, meaning the reacion coeffs of Electro Swirl and Electro Crystallize are 1 instead of 0.5

Significance:
Expands knowledge on EGT mechanics, potentially useful to know for simultaneous reactions against Cryogunners.

Crystallize Breaks Geo Shields Faster​

By: @staryy_
Added: 2024-12-28 (v. 5.1)
Last tested: 2024-10-18 (v. 5.0)
Discussion

Finding:
Triggering geo crystallize on a geo attack will break more of a geo shield than without crystallize

Evidence:
YouTube

Significance:
Method to break geo shields faster