Break Blade / Onion Shield

[PiedPiper]

Onion works out to less mitigation over time via blocking, but because you block more often it also reduces parry opportunities, and you will mitigate more via parry than via blocking with the onion shield so this further reduces total mitigation over time.

[Maelwys]

IMO it really comes down to the fight mechanics of whatever encounter you're in.

Consider the Twintania fight:

What's a better situation on Death Sentences: reducing damage by 27%, 25% of the time (Allagan).... or reducing damage by 20%, 35% of the time (Onion)?

The amount of Parries will be marginally smaller with the Onion Shield, it's true.
But for every time you lose a parry (24%) you'd be getting a block (20%) and that severe spike of damage would still be mitigated, albeit by a smaller amount.

The above might not be the most "efficient" way of reducing the average damage, but it'd certainly make a healer's life easier if your HP didn't suddenly drop to "danger levels" quite as often. In that kind of fight, a healer would probably not really care whether you mitigated a Death Sentence for 20% or 27% or 24% of the damage, just that some extra mitigation kicked in and left you with enough HP to survive another autoattack after being hit by the Death Sentence.

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For hard fights where one or two spike hits of damage have the potential to kill you, I'm leaning towards the Onion Shield since it would "flatten" the curve and make the amount of damage you take (and the amount of healing you require) more predictable. It makes the Healer's job easier and the fight a little safer.

For hard fights where you're in no danger of dying to spike damage hits and just want to mitigate as much damage as possible over time (Primals?), I'm leaning a little bit more towards the Allagan Shield. Your blocks will kick in for more resistance and you'll get more use out of Parries, but your HP bar will be a bit more spikey. Healer's job is slightly harder but you'll likely take a little less damage over the course of the fight.

Combine this with the fact that the Onion Shield is the only one with a decent DPS stat on it (+11 Critical) so you should really be using it on Trash content over anything else.

TL;DR:
Onion for versus Spike Damage or when you DON'T know your healer.
Allagan/Relic for versus Damage over Time or when you DO know your healer.
Onion for DPS.

That said, I'd not complain if I saw anyone use an Onion shield or an Allagan for any encounter. They're both great options.

[TaneshimaPopura]

Current content it is Onion Shield wins almost all the time. Holy Zenith or Allagan shield is only when you wish your Bulwark to be a stronger Physical CD

[Alwryn]

snip

I like the way you think. It's the theory of relevant, or timely, mitigation. Taking Twintania into account, the hardest mechanic is DS. Why? Because DS always comes with a autoattack. If there isn't some form of mitigation on either attack, like a block, you're dead and there isn't enough gear in the game to change that. When the stars align and you're facing a DS with no CD's, no stoneskin, no virus, no eye for and eye, or no sch shield your only hope is a block or parry. With that knowledge, the onion shield is the only viable option really, it is just plain superior, that one 20% block is the difference between life and death. It's the same reason we just don't blow our cooldowns as soon as they come off timers, total mitigation is inferior to relevant mitigation.

I'd argue that onion shield is better for extremes though. Garuda has some big hits that I'd want a better chance to block. Titan's tank damage is fairly low except for MB, which you can mitigate through cooldowns, rest of the damage is unblockable. With ifrit you could not wear a sheild and not have much effect on your survivability (a joke, but so much of ifrits damage is unblockable).


I'd like to say one thing about Bulwark though, people claim it's better with Holy/Allag then onion, which I disagree with. Maybe for total mitigation, but I'm not concerned about that. Bulwark is a powerful mitigation tool yes, but its not reliable. It is possible for you to use it and not block that dreaded DS+auto. it is rare, but its possible. I personally would still say onion is better because of the increased reliability. This is all in context to turn 5 mind you.