Seems like if you want to use a shield as a warder and not blademaster… you have to go retaliation … which i tried and do not really enjoy.
Talking about for competitively fast farming/clearing… i know you can do it and take forever to kill stuff… which i do not like.
There are plenty of Sword+Board builds out there that don’t rely on retaliation. Just sounds like your build needs to be tweaked.
havent tried yet… i used to play only DW Blademaster but if i do on more build like that im going to explode … im burnt out by 10x on that buiild.
I have played other classe sbut none past normal except DW Blademaster ( most not even past act 2)
I just created a new character and got to level 11… so before i spend my points and make thsi characters choice permanent… I wanted some feedback.
What Sword + board (warder) builds are there that dont rely on retaliation and are competitive at endgame clearing? I dont want to play like a turtle ( i doint mind killing slightly slower than the mainstream builds so long as the efficiency itself is still competitive.
Sorry, I don’t do melee builds. They bore me to death and I have more fun with AoE caster builds. My current Witch Hunter has killed several bosses in Elite and Ultimate before they even finished their opening speeches. I know a DW Witch Hunter poison build is extremely OP and even more powerful than my poison caster, but again, melee bores me.
Take a look around the build compendiums. There are plenty of builds to choose from, but personally, I’ll pick a build that sounds fun and make it work somehow. Even if I have to revamp most of my skills just to get something that works, that’s what I’ll do.
Also, I really don’t understand why people only play through normal then stop. It seems to me you should know well before the end of normal if your character is boring or not and if you took the time to push that character all the way into the start of Elite, you should just keep going.
I only have 2 end game chars since I’m really fussy and if any chars lack in some way I delete them but my 2 chars are both shield users, have both never died and can clear almost everything at a good pace. One is a commando and the other is a witchblade.
I just got a lightning elementalist to 85 in HC with sword/shield, not half bad. Worth nothing the shield just doesn’t exactly do much lol, just provides resists mostly and a bit of dmg blocked. Despite being decked out in some pretty awful gear and having dps be pretty low my not Sharzul kill speeds were decent, Log kill time was respectable imo. My devotions were pretty offensive, but my gear was purely resist whoring from random yellow/green/blue with the exception of stormheart. You have access to a ton of resist reduction so I imagine if you decked it out in a bunch of ulzuins shit and threw in one of the two lightning shields you could actually have some pretty nice kill speeds. Also playing a class with wendigo totem, blastshield, and flashbang well you really have up to die 
I suggest you try out something other than a warder then. Warders have a lightning and a physical 2h build, plus a reflect 1h+s.
That said you can probably have a warder build that can do ultimate on 1h+s, but being a competitive/fast clear toon also? It seems you are asking too much for no apparent reason.
Is there some particular reason it has to be a warder 1h+s?
I actually have a lightning s and b warder that is really fun to play. Not crazy competitive with clear times but price going off everywhere and decent single target dps with savagery makes the build pretty powerful and very functional.
I would have thought the amount of sword and board builds would be a bit more diversified in this game. Then again, a Warder is pretty limited to lightning or pure physical. If lightning isn’t your forte, then you could try a different path for poison, fire, or try making your own build - perfect that build then post it here for other people to try.