Weather Noct/Noct Shield

[Lord_Zlatan]

but mobs will do more damage (?) I haven't tried T6 yet but how much (if mobs hit harder) will that strength offset the increased damage?

[Ricdeau]

but mobs will do more damage (?) I haven't tried T6 yet but how much (if mobs hit harder) will that strength offset the increased damage?

As you get more of the new gear you gain higher def and vit as well so it's best to look at things from a broader scope. So when they design the content they likely use a target for mitigation rate. If they allow you to get obscene mitigation on top of increased health, and your usual bag of tricks then it can lead to certain things becoming trivial. So when factoring losses on specific pieces you also have to factor your gains (or potential gains) in other areas as a whole. Sometimes downgrade in one area today can become an upgrade the next when paired with another new piece.

[Lord_Zlatan]

snip

yeah thats the problem... i don't know what to downgrade. Since the raw mitigation from +Def/STR and Higher VIT is unavoidable, were obviously gonna max that. The Parry is the stat that we are getting less of. They offer less parry across your selections. I was hoping to get the Noct shield and get MORE parry so that when I blocked it was strong and then the higher % chance that I would parry...

now I don't know what to do...

[Donjo]

This is so so SO wrong.
Block strength versus block rate is a matter of compromise.

Please understand that, as blocking is decided before parried, the more you block, the less use you get out of your parry. This means that tower shield actually offer more average mitigation than others ! If you actually compute the total block + parry Damage reduction for levi i100 shield versus weathered noct, you will see that the first one will provide 10.3% DR, while the second will provide 11.5% DR. The difference is as much as having 70 or 80 more parry. It is NOT negligible.

First, please provide the math you used to get these percentages and reasonable proof that it is correct. Second, it is not a bad thing to parry less. Blocking is decided before parried, sure, but that means that PLDs get two chances per attack to mitigate something for "free". That looks to me like a high block rate + a high parry = a high number of mitigated attacks. Using your Parry less doesn't make it useless. It's the "last resort" to mitigate damage.

On top of that, bulwark add a flat 60% to your block rate. Due to this, it is about twice as more potent on a weathered noct shield than on a levi shield; in the first case it will be better than rampart, while in the second it will be way closer to a foresight in potency.

Closer to foresight? Every time I hear about foresight, I hear that it reduces damage by approximately 5%. Should this be true, this statement is wildly false. On a high level buckler, Bulwark raises block rate to a happy value that is probably above 90% while providing a mitigation of ~20% per block. Almost every attack gets blocked for 15 seconds, and the total mitigation is clearly greater than 5%. Less than 20, of course, but greater than 5. A Tower Shield might directly benefit more from Buwark, but that's 15 seconds of good blocking every 180 seconds coupled with not so okay blocking the rest of the time. This is compared to okay blocking with any other shield and excellent blocking with bulwark on.

That being said, a tower shield is going to make you block less often for more DR (duh), which means your incoming damage is going to be more spiky. This is worse for your healers, who will have to heal you more at times and less at others instead of a constant amount, which is easier. It is also worse for potentially one shotting combo, like death sentence, since you don't care about overall mitigation, you just want to mitigate part of it, no matter what, to survive.

Twintania isn't the only boss or enemy that has a single powerful attack or just generally powerful attacks that you really want to mitigate. For example:

Garuda EX: Wicked Wheel, particularly the Double Wheel
Titan EX: Mountain Buster
Ifrit Ex: Incinerate(I believe I've blocked/parried this before... somehow)
Caduceus: Everything above 3 stacks.
Turn 4: Everything the 4 stack Dread throws at you.
Leviathan Extreme: Dread Tide
Twintania: Death Sentence

You want a high block rate for all of these.

My take on it is i would use more shield rate on twintania if i main tanked and was feeling a bit low on health, but would use weathered noct on everything else. This shield is bananas. I would understand someone wanting to flatten their incoming damage curve, but saying it is the best choice no matter what is flat out wrong.

According to this, it sounds like you're saying that a Tower Shield is best for use against single bosses in which there are no big, spiky attacks that can be blocked. I admittedly have no experience in the Second Coil, but judging from my evidence above you're stating that a Tower Shield is something you absolutely should not bring to Raid content. If you are not raiding, than who cares what shield you're toting along? It won't be difficult to survive either way.

When you need to block a spiky attack: Not Tower
When you're taking a lot of attacks in a short timeframe: Not Tower
Engaging a lot of enemies: Not Tower
Taking consistent damage from a single enemy: Tower

The fact of the matter is that a Tower Shield is the "best choice" in far fewer situations than any other shield type. Therefore, it is the least valuable shield type to have.

[Rbstr]

As far as total mitigation is concerned: If your per-block mitigation is greater or equal to your per-parry mitigation adding more block rate will never lower total mitigation. This appears to be at a block strength of a bit less than 150? After you block for that much it's preferable to block rather than parry no matter what.

If you block for less per-block than you parry for there's some tipping point in block rate/amount you don't want which you could figure in a speadsheet.
This is based on the data I've seen which shows Block and parry as sequential events (check for block, if not block check for parry. Rather than check for both with block overriding parry). That is, parry rate seems roughly constant when controlled for blocks (IE, the chance for a parry per unblocked attack is the same no matter the block rate).

Of course you may not actually care about total mitigation just that mitigation happens at all. Then you want block rate above all else.

Frankly, worrying about it too much just isn't worth it. Secondaries aren't the end of the world unless you don't have enough acc or mana to get through an encounter.
Weathered Noct gives you a way to get i110 in a way others don't. High allagan appears to be a final-boss drop at i115.

[Blazer]

There are a ton of studies and numbers you can dig up on this. But just in a very very simplistic way we'll discuss the Twin fight since it keeps being brought up.

D.S is coming up you blew your sent, ramp, and have no time to get off that stoneskin... bam bulwark. Bulwark becomes almost a 15 second (physical mitigation) sentinel while wearing this shield.

The weathered noct shield blocks 38% of damage (only 370 str). This is around 21% of the time (you can look up the numbers I'm not doing the work for you). When upgraded it's been shown to block 40% + (dependent on str) with also an increased rate of blocking.

I used to main an onion shield, and blocking 20% of damage was nice, but only on certain fights and certain instances was it actually noticed (speed running it's pretty useful). I have 612 parry, so I parry fairly often and the fact that my parries mitigated more damage than my shield was disconcerting.

A second and smaller point I'll dip into this argument are the secondary stats. The noct shield is parry/acc... not much more to say.

It blocks 10% more damage than any other shield (kite) at around 10% less often than the highest rate shield (buckler). But gets the most out of your parry, and actually makes bulwark incredible. All this while providing the best secondary stats of any choice.

(this is assuming high allagan isn't a choice... and it's turn 8 for that)

[Kimura410]

Been using this shield on t6 and t7 the past few days. I recommend it highly. Overall, I get a few % more parry a fight, and 2% less blocks than when I used the onion shield. Seems like they equal out, but they don't, because the noct shield is 38% mitigation, and will be more when upgraded. The shield opens up room to allow more parrying, and when it blocks, it blocks big. Definitely the best shield aside from high allagan. Levi shield is probably second best to the noct. Not to mention, using bulwark with the onion shield is kinda lame. Using bulwark with the noct, its like having a second sentinel cool down now. Absolutely worth the 390, especially since you can upgrade it, and would be the best possible accessory upgrade.

[Lord_Zlatan]

thanks for all the information provided here.

I have made the decision to go with the Noct Shield. I will be purchasing today ^^

[Synestr]

Good info for sure.

I went through stages of shield upgrade.

Three weeks ago I finally got the Allagan Round shield. Looked cool and it seemed dmg intake was rather consistent. I got my weathered noct soon as I had the tomes for it. It was a worthwhile investment. The statement about bulwark with it is absolutely spot on. Here and there I see some spike dmg, but noting heals can't handle.

I recommend this shield for sure!

Syn

[Jitenshazuki]

While it's evident that only a hit that has bypassed shield can be parried is there any evidence that parry chance is calculated only for hits that bypass block?

Imagine that you have two sets with the same parry but one set lacks shield.

First you estimate you parry chance for a set without a shield and get some probability P1.

Then you equip your set with a shield (same parry rating) and estimate the probability of hits that has bypassed the shield to be parried.

The question is: will it be close to P1? In other words, in case of shield is P(parried) = P1 or is it rather P(parried|^blocked) = P1?