I’ve always had the idea that I need a shield if I want to face tank. Is this a false understanding?
For example, I wanted to do a tanky ritualist, using storm totem and siphon souls to support me. The only pet would be briar for his damage boost. Valguur’s set looked perfect for the build, but when I saw it has a caster off hand, I was crestfallen.
Very much so. DW/Casters can facetank with ease. Just requires a different means of sustenance (skills with Weapon Damage/ADCTH, invuln timing, damage reduction, etc.)
great to know. what is ADCTH ? I struggle to keep up with names of things, let alone abbreviations.
Attack Damage converted to Health. Basically life steal.
Attack damage converted to health.
For example Drain Essence casters frequently would use caster offhands yet because it has large amounts of ADCTH they can generally facetank - so long as DA/health pool/resists are sufficient.
Keep in mind that a shield w/o support from shield devotions/skills isn’t really THAT big of a defensive boost. Useful sure but you’ll only block 1 in 3ish attacks and no more than 1/sec usually - unless you really go ‘all in’ on block.
generally when i see none shield builds it usually has massive dps reduction inquistor seal+aura of censure stacking, arcanist mirror and hourglass to get some brief times of invulnerability, if you have demo you can try to face tank while under blast shield, if you have ghoul and high dps you can prob face tank until that ends. Necros move that makes it so you give some dps to an enemy you use it on which helps a lot.
though shield is prob still the most consistent with soldier overguard though non shield has some ways of migrating dps.
I’m planning to do a ritualist with valguur’s set. what items for remaining slots would you recommend? For skills, should I max out both wendigo / blood pact? or other skills? I think for devotions I can figure those out.
You could go full totems with storm totem conduit and transmuter which turns it in full vitality or go for ravenous earth build with MI dagger or Pandemic.
Cool…pandemic looks interesting. what does MI stand for? I checked all mythical daggers and didn’t see one starting with I.
MI is monster infrequent,items that drops from specific bosse/location.Bonespike is great for ravenous earth builds,it dropped primarly in Mountain deeps area.Check build compendium 9 for Valguur Ritualist by Weyu.
I have a cabalist with the valguur set also
Thank you very much.
Depends on what exactly you wanna facetank. If you wanna go 80 shards deep and still facetank stuff then a shield is a must imo. But not necessarily only for what the shield itself does but for the fact that it gives you access to shield exclusive skills like Overguard and Menhir Bulwark and on-block procs such as Stone Form.
if you’re not interested in Shattered Realm then imo shield is a gimmick. You can facetank most stuff with many other well made builds. Now, however, with a twist Crate decided to add to GD balance landscape, some shield builds are actually faster than the best of dualwielding or caster max dmg glass cannons…
For example, I wanted to do a tanky ritualist, using storm totem and siphon souls to support me. The only pet would be briar…
…and you would’ve failed because you’d have wasted valuable points to have a pet on a non-pet build. Not because Valguur got an off-hand. Hope it helps. Cheers
i’d only put points into its embolding presence damage boost to help my damage and leave the first two skills at 1. i’d just keep resummoning him when he dies, he’s not intended to do any killing, just more like a battery to boost my damage. He isn’t a pet for a non-pet build in that sense.
wouldn’t you also need a shield to handle gladiator lvl 150-170 with the 6th spawn if you want to tank?
Also, this is hardcore, so any safety net like shields help. Even if I’m not tanking and just kiting, it might be the difference between life and death.
In gladiator waves the pet will keep dying,it’s useless without support from gear.
Your pet will die in like 3 seconds if you do not invest in its defenses
What do you think a shield does in Grim Dawn? (outside for Soldier based classes)
Look you asked if shield is required for facetanking. Answers were saying “no”. Still you think you need a shield. Why?
That’s an excellent question.
I had changed my mind, then _ya said I’d need a shield to go deep in the shards, and that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do in HC to get the achievement, “Immortal Shattered Vanquisher.” Not as deep as he put it, but 25th is down there. Now I’m back to feeling I’m going to need a shield.
I’m almost done beating gladiator HC with the 6th spawn, I got to lvl 150 but my blessings ran out so I bailed. next time i try it, I’ll wait until lvl 110 instead of 100 to buy them. Shards challenge is next.
Also, the answers were no I wouldn’t need a shield, but with a condition…only if I changed my playstyle to rely on other things like invulernabilities, and I’m not sure if I am clever enough to pull that off. I have mark of torment, but not sure if I’ll be able rely on that. I’d also have to change my build to have convert damage to health, but hesitate to make changes this late in the game, there’s no room for errors if I make the wrong build. i prefer to evolve the build early in the game when it’s more forgiving.
I like shields in HC even when not tanking, because if I’m kiting and make a mistake, they’ve saved me from death many times.
If this were SC, then sure, I wouldn’t bother.
When I beat this game on ultimate without picking any classes, I depended on a shield as well for everything. When I played it without using any items, I missed using shields most. Maybe i would have been able to beat loghorian on ultimate if I’d had a shield instead of ending in a stalemate.
That’s strange, my inqu/shaman did it and got the Top Score achievement with a score of 10806688. The pet stayed alive long enough to make a difference, i don’t remember how often I had to recast it, but it wasn’t so short as to not make a difference.
I didn’t keep going since I was only interested in the achievement, maybe it would become useless like you say if I had continued.
Shield is basically just “needed” when you have overguard and/or haven. Worthless otherwise. If you do not have these skills and invest into them you have like 30% chance to block 1k damage once/1second xD
I think I need to do a better job of explaining the role of shields for my current HC character who is an oppressor. I don’t use them to tank, I’m always kiting. I use them as a failsafe in case I get swarmed or I don’t avoid a boss properly.
Also this is hardcore, so dying is not an option, shields are my last defense.
I had targo, shield maiden, scarab, two topaz and the 3 jewelry augments for 25% more block each. also, with oathbreaker I had Haven skill at level 12 for more blocking. Wouldn’t that be enough to make an impact, given the role I describe above?
I think I must have confused people, because I’m asking about two things.
Theoretically about shields for face tanking should my current HC character die, I am considering one designed to face tank. And second, I am also asking questions about my current character whose shield role is much different, as I described above.
I really appreciate your insights, I’m just not doing a good job being clear about my unusual uses of things. I think the first person saw my oppressor using shields and assumed I was face tanking, when that wasn’t at all the role shields had for me.
another thought on the pet question for my vindicator, I think in theory it makes sense to think weak pet+swarms of strong enemies=pet dead in 3 seconds. But in practice, most enemies focused on me and not my pet, I killed them within seconds so they didn’t have enough time to kill it, and my word of renewal would heal him up. Also, the pet often was running around away from the enemies, under no threat at all. If it did die, I just resummoned.