Shielded Respawn

1. What it is

Shielded Respawn is a boss-flavored affix that gates incoming damage on a ring of anchor enemies, and additionally re-hatches dead anchor slots on a fixed cadence. While at least one anchor is alive the host takes zero damage; once every anchor is dead the shield drops, but the next respawn tick rebuilds the missing anchors at their original ring positions. The player must either outpace the respawn timer or burst the host inside the shield-down window.

2. Identity

Field	Value
Affix ID	shielded_respawn
Category	boss-flavored
Priority	100
Hooks	onSpawn, onUpdate, filterIncomingDamage
Roll pool	none (never appears on world-roaming elites)
Halo palette entry	none

The affix sits at the top of the damage-filter chain (priority 100), tying with plain shielded. A zero return from the filter short-circuits every lower-priority filter on the host.

3. Mechanics

3.1 Anchor placement (initial spawn)

On host spawn the affix asks the active boss arena for N evenly-spaced points on a ring, then spawns one anchor of the configured type at each point. Placement is purely arena-relative; the host’s own position does not influence anchor placement.

Param	Default	Source key
Anchor count	4	anchorCount
Anchor enemy type	caiman	anchorTypeId
Ring radius fraction	0.42 of arena radius	(constant)

3.2 Anchor identity

Spawned anchors carry these flags:

Flag	Value
_isBossAnchor	true
sharesHealthWithBoss	false
isBoss	false
affixes	empty array

Anchors do not share HP with the host, never carry affixes of their own, and emit a boss_anchor_destroyed signal instead of enemy_kill when killed.

3.3 Respawn cadence

A respawn timer is seeded at the configured interval and decrements every frame.

Param	Default	Source key
Respawn interval	12 s	respawnInterval

Timer state	Action
Timer > 0	Decrement; no respawn this frame
Timer reaches 0	Walk all anchor slots; for each slot whose anchor is dead, frozen-for-lag, dying, or has HP at or below zero, respawn a replacement at the original ring position; reset the timer to the configured interval

The walk re-uses the same arena ring points that placed the originals, so respawned anchors land at the same coordinates each tick. Anchors that are still alive at the tick are left alone (slot is skipped).

3.4 Damage filter

Each incoming hit against the host runs the same check as the plain shielded affix:

Anchor state	Return
At least one anchor alive	0 (incoming damage zeroed)
All anchors dead	dmg (unchanged, passes to next filter)

A zero return short-circuits the damage-filter chain at every lower priority on the host. The respawn cadence is independent of damage events — it ticks on the world clock, not on hits.

3.5 Configuration overrides

A boss roster entry can override defaults through its affixState.shielded_respawn block:

State key	Type	Default
anchorCount	number	4
anchorTypeId	string	caiman
respawnInterval	number (s)	12

Mistyped values (number expected, string given) throw at first hook invocation. The respawn timer is initialized to the interval on first read, so the first respawn opportunity arrives one full interval after host spawn.

3.6 Operational rules

• Anchors are placed by the arena’s ring helper, so placement honors arena shape.
• Anchors are spawned through the shared enemy spawner; if the spawn returns null (pool cap), the anchor slot remains empty and is retried on the next respawn tick.
• Affix instance state seeds anchors, anchorCount, anchorTypeId, respawnInterval, respawnTimer on first read; subsequent reads only refresh the count/type/interval slots, not the anchor array or running timer.
• Respawn never adds anchors beyond the configured count — it only refills empty slots up to anchorCount.

4. Which bosses use it

Boss	Anchor type	Anchor count	Respawn interval	Notes
Hive Queen	junkrats_stinger	4	12 s	7000 HP host; anchors respawn telegraphed before each rebuild tick

The plain shielded variant is used by Killer Croc with non-respawning swamp anchors; see the shielded page for the no-respawn comparison.

5. Comparison to shielded

Aspect	shielded	shielded_respawn
Affix ID	shielded	shielded_respawn
Priority	100	100
Hooks	onSpawn, filterIncomingDamage	onSpawn, onUpdate, filterIncomingDamage
Initial anchor spawn	yes	yes
Respawn dead anchors	never	every respawnInterval seconds
Default anchor type	caiman	caiman
Default anchor count	4	4
Extra state key	—	respawnInterval (default 12 s), respawnTimer
Boss user	Killer Croc	Hive Queen
Player win condition	Clear every anchor once	Clear every anchor and burst host before the next respawn tick

The two variants share the same damage-gate logic, the same anchor identity flags, and the same arena placement constants. The only mechanical delta is the onUpdate hook and the respawnInterval / respawnTimer state pair, which together drive the periodic anchor rebuild.

6. EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags

• Anchor identity flags (_isBossAnchor, sharesHealthWithBoss, isBoss, cleared affixes) are shared with the plain shielded affix and any future anchor-spawning affix; candidate for a common “anchor enemy” concept page referenced from both variant pages.
• The 0.42 ring fraction is a shared boss-arena placement constant; candidate for the bosses or arena concept page rather than repetition on each variant page.
• The damage-filter short-circuit rule (priority-ordered, zero short-circuits) is a global affix-system rule; canonical home is the affixes overview page.
• The “spawn null → slot dropped silently” rule applies to both shielded variants and any future anchor-spawning affix; candidate for the anchor-enemy concept page.

7. Summary

Shielded Respawn is the persistent-shield variant of shielded. It plants a ring of anchor enemies on host spawn, gates the host’s incoming damage to zero while any anchor is alive, and rebuilds dead anchor slots on a 12-second cadence by default. The player has to clear every anchor and damage the host inside the shield-down window before the next respawn tick rebuilds the ring. Only Hive Queen uses this variant in v1, with 4 junkrats_stinger anchors on a 12-second cycle.