Are Shields Relevant from a Defensive Standpoint without Devotions/Class Support?

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I’ve got a couple of questions regarding this. If you’re not playing Oathkeeper or Soldier, nor running a retaliation build:

  1. Does a shield by itself add any real noticeable survivabilty considering the lack of shield recovery and generally lowish block chance when not supported by classes/devotions?

  2. Is there really any point in even attempting to go into Shield related devotions from a survivabilty perspective when not playing any of the above mentioned classes/builds? Or is it better to just rely on other sources of defense? Most of the devotions seem out of the way for classes not looking for retaliation damage, and while block chance and damage blocked seem nice, I’m getting the impression that without a decent bit of recovery, its too much investment with too little payoff due to the node requirements.

2

Not at all.
GD is just not a shield game.

3

You can get a lot of Phys res on a shield which is very good.

4

I agree, lots of phys res or good modifiers (eg on kaliska’s shield). Devotion wise I gotta be honest that I nearly never use shieldmaiden as more offensive devo’s turned up to work better

5

Appreciate the responses. Just playing around with devotions so far, really seems like attempting to fit block chance and recovery into certain builds is definitely more trouble than it’s worth so far.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think that answers it though. Probably not going to try to focus around the shield’s defenses as much where it doesn’t fit.

6

no

“kinda”, really depends on build, ie if the overall shield path can be beneficial, main problem is there is just so many dmg types or other “offensive” paths where shield devos mess things up

Shield in GD is a stat stick for non shield builds, it’s however a decent stat stick being the singular highest source of phys res on a single item with 15% and up to like 30-35% on cherrypicked stuff.
Other builds with specific shields ofc also benefits offensively from them enough to include in such a specific build, liek blade spirit bleed shield or rune shield etc

*whether or not this will change later with upcoming mechanic changes or FoA “stuff” i can’t say, this is from a current game state perspective