Weather Noct/Noct Shield

[Lord_Zlatan]

Is this shield worth looking into for a PLD?

I do not have the Onion or Allagan shield, just the Holy Shield Zenith. I am aware that the High Allagan shield is BiS (?) but thats a bit out of reach for me at the moment.

Should I go spend the tomes on the Weathered Noct shield and eventually upgrade it, or should I look into other options.

Thanks for your input.

[Blazer]

Weathered and upgraded Noct Shield are the best for paladin until High Allagan.

[Donjo]

The Weathered Noct Shield is a Tower Shield, meaning that it has a high block strength and a low block rate. For this reason, and mostly because of the abysmal block rate, it is generally considered to be explicitly inferior to any other option out there. This is in comparison to a Kite Shield(balanced block strength and rate) and a Buckler(low block strength and high block rate). Of the new shields available to you in 2.2, here's where they fall:

Tower: Noct Hoplon(100-110)
Kite: Holy Shield Animus(100), High Allagan Kite Shield(115)
Buckler: Wave Shield(95), Tidal Wave Shield(100)

I'd recommend that you first try your hand at getting a Wave Shield from Leviathan. Farming for a mirror to get to Tidal Wave is your choice, but the Holy Shield Animus is the best 100 you can get right now statwise... if you can stomach the grind. Granted, you can upgrade the Shield to Animus with a mere two books. Keep the Holy Shield Animus until the Allagan Shield is within reach. The Noct Hoplon should probably be avoided entirely.

[Lord_Zlatan]

Thanks for the info. Im at work right now and can't check but does the un-weathered Noct Hoplon get better block rate than the weathered version?

[Casper]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Lord_Zlatan]

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.

saying what is the best choice, block rate shields?

[Casper]

saying what is the best choice, block rate shields?

Yes. This was the answer given at first, no ? always pick the highest rate shield because tower shields have abyssmal block rate and are too unreliable.

[Lord_Zlatan]

Yes. This was the answer given at first, no ? always pick the highest rate shield because tower shields have abyssmal block rate and are too unreliable.

yeah, i was just making sure i understood your post 100%.

The reason I am bringing this up is because with the lower rate on the Noct Shield (which I want for vanity but don't want to waste tomes on so I was hoping it would be useful), I was hoping I could get stronger blocks and then maximize parry (after all block checks first, then parry, then no mitigation) to fill in the gaps.

However, the problem I am having is 2 fold...

The parry thread (after reading it several times) has me confused as to how much parry actually benefits me, especially since the acc cap set (that I checked on XIV DB) has us net losing parry (by about 20 i think). So in the end I am thinking that the noct shield won't really be that much of an upgrade since I am losing block rate and parry at the same time considering a lot of the gear loses parry.

Maybe my interpretation of it is all wrong. But I don't think that the Noct shield will be a good stopgap (without altering the way I play out in fights) until the High Allagan shield.

[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.

[Casper]

Just want to point out also that the "abyssmal" block rate of the weathered noct is 21%, compared to 28 or 29% for holy shields versions. Sure, there is a difference, but abyssmal is a tad much.