Arbitration Shield Drones are enemies exclusive to the Arbitrations deployed by Arbiters of Hexis to further challenge the Tenno undertaking the trial.
Behavior[]
- These drones are immune to all Warframe abilities and, similar to Shield Ospreys, can share this trait with enemies around them on top of full damage immunity, with a distinct magenta aura.
- Enemies enveloped by the arbitration shield will not enter
Limbo's rift even if they enter Cataclysm. - Frost's Snow Globe and Gara's Mass Vitrify may still block bullets shot by enemies affected by the drone.
- Strangely, Arbitration Drones and enemies shielded by it have an inconsistent interaction when physically blocked by Mass Vitrify. When an enemy tries to damage the player, the glass wall will consistently block their pathing. However, when an enemy has a secondary objective (such as capturing interception points), they can phase through.
- Enemies enveloped by the arbitration shield will not enter
- Unlike other shielded enemies, Arbitration Drones possess superior Shield Gating that makes killing them in one hit impossible, as no damage gets carried over from shields to health and they have no weakspots to bypass Shield Gating.
- Destroying the drones will trigger a powerful explosion that deals 3,000 Blast damage to enemies in the area of the explosion.
- The explosion damage seems to scale with enemy level and can easily deal more than 30,000 Blast damage per target at lvl 70 and above.
- The explosion damage seems to scale with enemy level and can easily deal more than 30,000
- As of Hotfix 23.10.7 (2018-10-24), the Drones are exempt from the Ancient Healer's damage reduction aura.
- Regardless of this, Swarm Mutalist MOA will still be able to buff the Armor of Arbitration Shield Drones. Since this buff scales with level, it can get very difficult in infested missions as soon as those Swarm Mutalist Moa start spawning.
- They are immune to Status Effects.
Strategy[]
- Projectile launchers or weapons with large projectile hitboxes such as Arca Plasmor are ideal for this task, as the drones are fairly small and move around quickly.
- The death explosion of Arbitration Shield Drones can damage nearby Arbitration Drones. Use this to your advantage.
Ability Interaction[]
- Buzlok
- Beacon: The Alt-Fire Beacon will hover in the air after hitting a drone instead of getting attached to it.
- Frost
- Freeze: Frozen enemies won't be freed from the effect by approaching drones.
- Chilling Globe Augment: Frozen enemies won't be freed from the effect by approaching drones.
- Avalanche: Frozen enemies won't be freed from the effect by approaching drones.
- Limbo
- Banish: Enemies inside the rift plane can't be reached by the drones.
- Cataclysm: Enemies inside the rift plane can't be reached by the drones. Also, any enemy that enters Cataclysm range while under the effect of an Arbitration Drone will not enter the Rift Plane. Players in the Cataclysm cannot attack the drones in the Cataclysm while players outside of the rift plane or Operators still can.
- Nidus
- Parasitic Link: Enemies under the effect of Parasitic Link will be freed from the effect by approaching drones.
- Nova
- Molecular Prime: Enemies under the slow/speed effect of Molecular Prime will get the effect dispelled while under the effect of an Arbitration Drone. If the enemy loses the Drone buff, the slow/speed will continue to effect said enemy. Enemies hit by Molecular Prime while they were already shielded by Arbitration Drones won't be affected if they lose the invulnerability buff.
- Vauban
- Bastille: Enemies under the effect of the drone are immune to the Bastille. When the drone comes close enough to an enemy hung up, they are released. Arbitration drones are however unable to free enemies from a Vortex if they were affected by it before being protected by the drone.
- Exalted Weapons ( Titania's Dex Pixia and Divata, Excalibur's Exalted Blade, Baruuk's Desert Wind, Valkyr Talons, etc...) do no damage to the drones or shielded enemies, as they are created by abilities.
Notes[]
- Their Shields can not be bypassed by Toxin or Shield bypassing True damage, such as from Basmu's healing pulse. The latter deals no damage at all to the shields.
- Arbitration Drones don't only share their immunity to prevent new debuffs to apply but also dispel most debuffs like Molecular Prime's slow.
- While they dispel most ability debuffs they can't reach enemies that are already inside the Rift Plane of Limbo's Cataclysm.[citation needed]
- Enemies frozen by Frost (also by the Chilling Globe Augment) won't be affected by Arbitration Drones if they got frozen before a drone was in range. After the freeze duration ends they are again able to get the damage and ability immunity.[citation needed]
- It appears that the immunity doesn't take debuffs completely away. For example, if an enemy got hit by Molecular Prime, he will lose the debuff while under the effect of an Arbitration Shield Drone, but will regain the debuff upon leaving the immunity.
- Weapons with Punch Through can still damage Arbitration Drones even if you shoot an enemy that is shielded by it.
- Curiously, the drones spawn from Infested Spawn Pods spawning out of a killed Boiler, so it may be a good idea to spare the pods and await new drones, particularly when trying to farm Vitus Essences.
Trivia[]
- The Arbitration Shield Drone's model is essentially a Fighter Escort drone wearing the Arbiters' characteristic headdress.
- The Arbitration Shield Drone's drop table and base stats are identical to the Shield Osprey's.
Patch History[]
Hotfix 31.6.4 (2022-07-14)
- More fixes towards cases where an Arbitration Drone's aura might persist even after it was destroyed.
Hotfix 31.6.2 (2022-06-15)
- Fixed Arbitration Drones at times not dropping their invincibility, which would prevent the mission from being completed.
Update 30.5 (2021-07-06)
- Doubled the Vitus Essence drop rate from Arbitration Drones to 6% from 3%!
- Vitus Essence will now remain on the ground for 5 minutes before disappearing. If the UI marker is blinking, be sure to get it before it’s gone!
Hotfix 28.2.1 (2020-08-01)
- Fixed Arbitration Drones spawning in the Granum Void.
Hotfix 25.7.6 (2019-09-18)
- Arbiter Drones will now have a small chance to drop Vitus Essence on kill.
- Vitus Essence dropped by destroyed Arbitration drones will have the special pickup notification.
Update 25.7 (2019-08-29)
- Fixes towards the Arbitration Shield Drone sometimes spawning in unvisited rooms, making it feel as if the Drone doesn’t spawn at all.
Hotfix 24.8.3 (2019-05-10)
- Adjusted the Arbitration Shield Drone hitbox to encapsulate the whole visible body.
Hotfix 24.8.1 (2019-04-26)
- In an effort to increase visibility, both the Arbitration Shield Drone beam and Resurgence Burden colors have been changed to a more orange hue! We’ve also cranked up the contrast and added a more recognizable pulsing FX.
Update 23.10 (2018-10-12)
- Introduced.
Last updated: Hotfix 25.7.6 (2019-09-18)
