What exactly about the shield mechanic makes it unviable for late endgame content? The damage block being too low to matter? Too many mobs hitting you so that block won’t matter w/o 90%+ shield recovery? Not dual wielding or going 2H sacrificing too much offense for too little defense? All of it?
I’ve been following this thread and playing a S/B Targo Warlord in HC doing SR 65+ with heavy focus on Blade Arc using all the MIs (shield, amulet, medal, and ring). Primary sustain is via LpS and minor life leech while using Tree, LoE, with maul, bull, and scales.
The main issue is and will always be dmg. I purposefully did not use maiden and obe to see how things were. I also used a different set up with no LoE and was using sands which was far worse survival wise.
In the end, regardless of argument, it’s just easier to blow your target up faster then it can hurt you while avoiding cc and having enough sustain.
I see the shield/lps set up as being a good counter to fumble pools (while relying on IT dmg) but that’s it…it is slow and some what safe though won’t be as safe as full blown shield.
What’s kind of good about this set up is the shield has a built in shield recovery at 0.65 if I am not mistaken. I think I got almost 60% block with around 2.8k dmg blocked with nearly 50% recovery. It’s not very good if you napkin math with the assumption that you have a lot of dots and other things smacking you.
I’ve also noticed with this set up that 12/12 ascension is far better than a high up time of 7/12 overguard (with transmuter).
TL:DR, too much investment to make shield viable as a solid defense mechanic…much easier to forgo shield and blow stuff up faster.
Also I feel that boar and anvil Devo’s have odd proc rates even with 100% recovery on the shield. I don’t know if this has changed or anything but that’s how it seemed in the past.
Edit: forgot something. Now that I chimed in here, the other thing that we all notice is how it’s hard to build shield for blocking on non shield classes…which brings me to a suggestion (if the game or engine can do it).
Suggestion: on Inquisitor, the transmuter for WoR, word of arms is it? Add shield support there with the shield use requirement. It won’t affect the 2h side of the transmuter. Add stats similar to the occulant shield that adds to PB or the chaos BA helm that adds to possession shield support. Say something like 5% to block and 10% to recovery and block dmg.
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Shields are definitely viable for endgame. You can do all content with it and you can feel tanky on some builds. Its just that you sacrifice more damage for it on a regular S&B build than on other builds that can survive just fine while doing considerably more damage (DW, casters, 2handers, retal). If the other builds couldn’t survive deep shards or if shield builds could compete with their speed, then shield builds would be more popular.
The damage blocked is fine I think. Investing in block recovery is annoying though and you pretty much need to be a soldier class to get the most out of block. What class are you playing? Soldier is the best defensive class for shields and oathkeeper is the best offensive class for shields, making Warlord the most obvious choice (at least for physical S&B).
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