Hildryn comes to Warframe next week

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Warframe developer Digital Extremes has wrapped up its latest developer stream, and this one brings a soft release date for the next frame. Hildryn is coming very soon – next week, in fact – and she’ll be accompanied by the first step of the melee rework. It should be noted that those melee changes are about a month behind their original “next week” plan, but the developers framed that release in much more uncertain terms than this one.

In addition to Hildryn and the melee changes, next week’s update will also include a new two-handed melee weapon called the Tatsu. It’s a major update all around, but it come without at least one long-awaited addition – the Gas City rework is closing in, but it’s still a bit further off than these more immediate additions.

If you missed Hildryn’s proper unveiling, she’s got a special gimmick in that her shield pool doubles as her energy pool, so you’ll need to pay cautious attention to your resources here. You’ll still be able to grab energy pick-ups, but they won’t just increase the pool – they’ll also remove the shield recharge delay.

Her passive puts shield gating on both base shields and overshields, and her dash will even summon additional shields for you as you dodge attacks. Yes, it’s a lot of shields. You can see a demonstration of her kit in the last devstream, at about 26:30.

Hildryn’s first ability is Balefire, which summons an energy launcher that charges up for an impressive blast. Then there’s Shield Pillage, which sends out a pulls that steals enemy shields and armour and gives them to you – both you and your allies are cleared of status effects besides.

Then her third ability, Haven, drains shields from enemies while dealing damage to them. At the same time, it recharges allied shields and gives bonus shields while they’re in range.

Finally, Aegis Storm turns Hildryn into an attack helicopter. Literally, she sprouts helicopter blades and can fly around. Enemies below get struck by a pillar of energy – it does more damage when you’re high in the air, but the area of effect is wider when you’re close to the ground.