This build is made to maximize the crowd control and the sheer destruction power of Aegis Storm combined with Balefire Exalted Weapons.

It is not made to exploit the passive, with the keys or strip 100% armor, but it can solo any content in the game at the moment.

Strength > Range?

At 199% Strength, we obtain a juicy 49% Armor and Shield stripping on all enemies on the second ability, Pillage. Pillage scales with range, but also with duration. When pressed, the AOE will start at the abilitie's range and expand for a time that scales with duration.

Replacing [Transient Fortitude] with, for example [Augur Reach], would greatly affect Balefire's damage (more than 30% less damage. From 1990 to 1440 base damage.) and it would drag the Armor and Shield Stripping down to 36%.

Hildryn's Bale--what?

Fully charged, [Hildryn]'s Balefire Exalted weapon have a 1000 base damage (ranging from 500 to 1000, depending on the charge time). This scales purely with ability strength. With 199% we get 1990 base damage.

[Hildryn]'s Balefire, the first ability, also scales with range. The explosion radius, is 3.0m at all charge stages. With 145% range, it scales up to 4.35m, which is more than enough to One-Shot small to medium groups of enemies. With the Aerial Denial: Hildryn's Balefire build, we can achieve some disgusting amount of damage.

Airborne damage reduction? Rolling Guard?

With [Aviator] and [Aerodynamic] we are able to achieve a minimum of 64% damage reduction while in our Aegis Storm ability, Hildyn's fourth ability. The goal is to reduce incoming damage as much as we can to trigger Arcane Barrier and Arcane Aegis as often as possible.

Throughout the Arcane Rework, both received no modification regarding cooldown. This means that being Invulnerable with [Rolling Guard] is not as rewarding than most may think. You cannot be damaged therefore cannot trigger the arcane mods. This is why I did not include [Rolling Guard].

Having [Adaptation] grants us increased potential damage reduction. Some prefer to swap out [Vigor] (or [Primed Vigor], which i do not possess) for [Augur Reach]. This is not a bad idea, but i preferred the increased Effective hitpoints added for more chance to proc Arcanes and extended flight time. This swap is the main reason I did not polarize a D into the build, but a - for [Streamline] instead.

Finally, dodging in the air is as effective as on the ground, meaning that you may apply the 75% damage reduction to the already nice 64% damage reduction while airborne to cap out at 90%.

As a last Resort, I use Magus Elevate on my Operator. Please note that you may use the operator while [Hildryn] is flying and draining enemies in the air. It does not grant shields, but it can provide a quick heal back to 300 hitpoints and can wait for some more shield regen if in trouble.

Now go out there and become the Apache Attack Helicopter you always wanted to be!

Stay home!
-WeTooLow