Shield Oath makes Sheltron useless.

[Furious]

Now that I've had the opportunity to do Susano-o, I do believe that the Shield Oath gauge has been poorly implemented, with the caveat that I haven't gotten to do max level trials yet.

However, on Susano-o, you are basically better off tanking him in Sword Oath because of the poor design of the Shield Oath gauge. By going Sword Oath, you can generate enough gauge to mitigate every one of his tank busters reliably. If you are in Shield Oath, it's hit or miss. If you run the risk of taking greater damage from the tank buster in Shield Oath on top of doing less damage, it's not logical to use your tank stance.

I suspect that the team simply though "Shield Oath should generate gauge when you use your shield!", but really it should be predictable how fast you generate gauge unless it's intended for us to tank bosses in Sword Oath and Shield Oath is only for dungeons now. While getting gauge from Holy Spirit will help, there shouldn't be a RNG element to if you get your cooldown that can only be used effectively if you can predictably time its use because it only mitigates one hit.

Susano is level 63. You get holy spirit at level 64. You get requeiscat at level 68.

Holy spirit gives you TWENTY SHIELD GAUGE PER CAST and does 450 potency per cast, before requiescat buffs that damage by 20% for 12 seconds every minute. Every minute in a single target fight, you gain 100 shield gauge, or 2 full sheltrons, without considering any gauge that you get from blocking.

You get two garunteed sheltron casts per minute from holy spirit alone, and shield oath blocks nearly as much damage from _everything_ as blocking does, while stacking with block.

Shelltron is ABSURDLY strong at tanking timed blows. It will be up 2.5-3 times per minute, stacks with every other mitigation type except bulwark, can be banked for later use, and can absorb damage from nearly anything in the game.

If you are in Shield Oath, it's hit or miss. If you run the risk of taking greater damage from the tank buster in Shield Oath on top of doing less damage, it's not logical to use your tank stance.

Shield oath reduces all damage you take by approximately the same value as a block does, and stacks with block. If your aim is to take less damage, don't move from shield oath.

Let's repeat that, because apparently people miss it: shield oath reduces ALL DAMAGE you take by 20%, which is only marginally less than a block does at ~22%. Changing out of shield oath to block more often via sheltron is a ludicrous false economy.


We really need to stop the hyperbole around sheltron. It's extremely strong for what it does, and it is available more often in stormblood than it was in heavensward, even in shield oath.