Whenever I play with a shield, I really cannot tell if I am really sturdier than without or not.
And that´s with about 80% shield recovery and 60% block chance.
Following detailed explanations here in the forum, I think it´s the DoTs to blame.
Whenever there´s a DoT, it so to say keeps my shield from blocking the real deal.
And when you really need to rely on your shield - namely crucible and SR - there are ALWAYS DoTs.
When I have a shield in my hand, I want to really feel the tanky difference!
If I´m right to blame it on the DoTs: Please can we exclude DoTs from being blocked by shields?
So you want shields to become portable permanent inquisitor seals? That sounds op. I think that shields are fine and it’s reasonable for them to have a downside.
that means shield players need to avoid getting many stacks of DoTs. and avoid damage pools that can add stacks of DoT to you. so, do fewer facetanking gameplay, and do smarter kiting gameplay.
i find it funny that DoT’s damage ticks can be blocked by shields but the DoTs still sticks to you.
taken: “I’m poisoned! gonna Block the poison flowing in my veins by using my shield!”
enemies: “that murderhobo is busy blocking the poisons inside 'em with the shield! let’s whack 'em while their shield is on cooldown!”
Not trying to be rude, just trying to draw an analogy here…
But that’s like saying 30% res overcaps would fix the issue.
I just wished it wouldn’t be like…
10% overcap: Useless
30% overcap: godlike
The key to any build in GD is to focus on its strong points while fixing its weaknesses.
The same applies for shields. The strongest point of the shield is being able to negate massive amounts of damage. Its weak point is its recovery time.
P.S: What you’re suggesting is actually a nerf for shields. Because if your suggestion was implemented, then the recovery stat would become incredibly worthless.
Alright. You convinced me.
Just went into crucible with the overguard mod on my targo warlord. Managed to beat it for the - yes - 1st time. Kill speed was still satisfying. … Go shields!
Based on the responses to my question about shields in the gameplay section and what people are saying in this thread, it seems like shields are powerful and overall pretty balanced within their niche, but their use case is very narrow. It’s not possible to get 100% block recovery without the soldier mastery, and the defensive value of shields without 100% block recovery is mostly negligible. That leaves the following situations for which shields are useful:
Soldiers — If you want to use the shield to actually block you need to take the soldier mastery and invest 100% in block recovery (at huge offensive cost), otherwise block is too inconsistent to matter. The regen builds Contragor mentioned also require soldier, so unless people are overlooking something or have min-maxed and theory crafted away properties that are actually valuable in practice, the defensive utility of shields is solely limited to this one class.
Retaliation Builds — They provide large flat retaliation values that strongly benefit these builds.
Builds that depend on a shield to complete a set or enable a skill — Obviously you can’t use aegis of menhir without a shield.
That leaves sword and board melee, which ought to be a fairly major archetype, seeming pretty niche. What would people recommend changing to make them better? It’s not easy to balance, since 100% block recover is so powerful. I have a few ideas: 1) a modest buff to shattering smash to narrow the gap in DPS between shields and other types of melee. 2) Move some block recovery from overguard to obelisk of menhir. This would allow oathkeepers to hit 100% recovery, with limited uptime, with the absolution relic and possible a shield with the “of barricades” suffix. Presumably soldiers that are aiming for 100% recovery are almost universally going to take obelisk anyway. 3) More build enabling offensive skill modifiers on MI shields for skills that can complement auto attacks, but don’t typically complement soldier sword and board builds (talking out of my ass here, but timered, burst damage or DoT skills that a melee build might take, like ring of steel, phantasmal blades, callidor’s with transmuter, doom bolt, grasping vines, etc.).
Finally, I’ll add that my own experience with shields is limited to using them in the campaign (I’ve never played much of crucible or shattered realm) and regretting it every time, though I’ve never gone full turtle with an overguard build.
I do not object to improving the constellation or the shield itself to improve the usefulness of the shield, but I oppose weakening the overguard. This skill exists to make Shield Soldier more defensive.
When comparing Soldier and Oathkeper as a whole, Soldier is defensive and Oathkeper is aggressive. So it’s not unfair that 100% block recovery is a privilege of Soldier.
I personally would like to have a bit more damage output. Maybe remove the damage reduction from Overguard transmuter. However don’t know if that would be to much.
I understand not wanting to nerf overguard. Here’s my logic:
-Shields should be useful on both soldiers and oathkeepers in various class combos. If you just buff shields themselves, soldier mastery combos will be stronger, but there won’t be a reason to make a sword and board melee oathkeeper except for warlord or retaliation builds.
-If you buff the oathkeeper side, either by buffing the damage you can do with shields, or by buffing their defensive properties other than block, you buff warlords too much relative to other mastery combos. If shields are good compared to other fighting styles on oathkeeper combos other than soldier, imagine how good they will be on warlords.
-So the way to go is to buff shields on oathkeepers but leave them neutral on soldiers. Moving block recovery away from overguard to obelisk accomplishes that, and perhaps the damage penalty on markovian’s defense can be lessened if people feel super tanky soldier builds are no longer worth it.
-I assume that almost everyone who goes for markovian’s defense also goes for obelisk. I could be wrong about that, and that could be a mistake and you should only take one or the other. But if that’s true, it’s not even a nerf to overguard at all, just a buff to shields for other classes, especially oathkeepers, who could then get 100% block recovery and good offense, but with less uptime than soldier shield builds.
