Quote Originally Posted by Shibi View Post
I'm actually wondering if the very first SGE class quest in the Arboretum is to blame for this mentality. It's quite heavy on pushing the shield mechanic over everything else.
Because in low level content that's all you have, so as the introductory quest it makes sense to focus on the basics.

But Sage of all healers really drives home the "always be dpsing" paradigm simply through its kardia mechanic. Half an hour with Sage will teach you that you need to reduce incoming damage, not just shield it.

As for a solution to stacking shields, have them all actually stack, but with a maximum threshold above which additional shielding doesn't register. Perhaps 100% of the targets HP so the maximum you can reach is 200%.
E.g. SCH applies a critlo for about 80% HP, SGE applies a crit E.Diag for 50%, but caps out at 20% because it's reached the 100% maximum.