Let's Talk About Shields

[Kacho_Nacho]

Hi everyone! Dydyna here.

I'm a growing tank, a gladiator on her way to becoming a paladin. An issue has come up for which I need advice. It's about shields.

I have been using a high quality Iron Hoplon. Block strength 21, block rate 72.
Yesterday, a quest rewarded me an Iron Scutum. Block strength 71, block rate 19.

Now, I am looking at this and for the life of me I can't decide whether I should be using it instead of the Iron Hoplon. While the block strength is significantly better, it blocks less often.

So, I'd like to hear what the more experienced players know about shields and how to determine if a particular shield is an upgrade. Thank you in advance!

[Kaisinel]

When leveling honestly I would just go with the higher base stat shield, blocking is nice and all but it shouldn't be a huge issue during grind dungeons. When it comes to endgame there are 3 types of shields:

You buckler - low strength / high block rate

Kite shield - equal strength and block

Tower shield - high strength / low block

My own personal preference is the kite shield for its block rate. With heavy hits and raids I'd rather have more opportunities for mitigation that having less damage less often.

Hope that kind of helped somewhat.

[Sapphidia]

Shields are generally fairly balanced based on ilevel, in -most- cases you want to go for the highest ilevel shield available as this will give you more secondary stats and provide overall more mitigation.

That said, there are 3 types of shield in the game -

Buckler (high rate, low strength)
Kite Shield (equal strength and rate)
Tower Shield (High Strength, low rate)

If given the choice between 3 identical item level shields, so the secondary stats on them are the same, it actually depends on what you're doing as to which one is better.

Tower Shields will generally be better against bosses that have big predictable physical hits - later on (52 I think) you get the skill "Sheltron", which gives you 100% block chance on the next single attack on a 30 second cooldown. With a Tower shield you can use Sheltron to guarantee you block a big physical hit, so you get that huge Block Strength on important hits when it matters, though the actual mitigation it provides will be spikier and less reliable outside of this moment. Before level 52 tower shields are one of the weaker choices.

Kite Shields are nicely balanced and good for everything, especially tanking packs of enemies. In general, if you dont factor in the use of Sheltron and Bulwark, a Kite Shield with equal balanced Strength/Rate will mitigate slightly more damage passively than the other two shield types. You can't really go wrong with a Kite Shield.

Bucklers are weird - they give very consistant and reliable mitigation but very low amounts. Bucklers are the "DPS" shield, because the higher chance to block means you'll have much more frequent procs of Shield Swipe (your reactive "hit them back hard after you block" skill). However, they'll mitigate less than the other two types. I don't believe there are any bucklers for paladins after level 50 though - most of your choices after this point are between Tower and Kite shields, where the choice is usually Kite shield for general use and optimal DPS (more frequent shield swipes), and Tower Shields are better for specific bosses with big physical hits you can predict (eg, Thordan Extreme).

When levelling, I'd recommend just using whichever shield has the highest item level regardless of type, and if you have a choice, Kite Shields with equally balanced rate/strength will be the most reliable all round option.

In most cases though, you wont ever really notice a shield upgrade unless it's a BIG item level boost (there's basically no difference in practise at your level between the Iron Hoplon and Iron Scutum, just use whichever you like the look of most!), so just following the "use the highest item level one" is a good guide.

[Brannigan]

While leveling I'd actually go with bucklers (after 30) since you have no way to trigger blocks and thus no way to make shield swipe happen outside of waiting for a random one. Once you hit 52 and get Sheltron, go for towers. The higher block power is more satisfying and better for tank busters and cleaves. Generally, small item level differences on shields will make minimal change in stat gain anyway, so you can go with lower item level if it's a better type. For example, going from Hive (190) to Gordian (210) only gets you 5 strength and 6 vit and 5/3 parry/speed. So if you have a buckler that you want to use but it's a couple item levels lower than your kite or whatever, don't sweat it.

[mosaicex]

Just go for the one with highest item level and/or better stats. No need to fret yourself over pointless stuffs like this.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Thank you all for the feedback! It makes things much clearer.