Shield šŸ›”ļø skills, how it's going?

General
1

Guyā€™s, I simply love shield :shield: skills. But unfortunately in last epoch shield throwing, have a little bit DPS and Iā€™m always prefer going to hammer :hammer: throw.
Now with the update, someone has tried? Or will try?

2

Thereā€™s an issue with projectiles apparently that hasnā€™t been addressed since beta to my knowledge. They hit invisible walls which makes the skills meh, especially shield throw. I wouldnā€™t be touching shield builds for now.
I might go tanky swarmblade next.

3

Going to build a hybrid latter with Shield Bash Forge Guard using Sigeon shield.

In order for Shield Throw to do damage you need to take the new Thornmail node, Sigeon Shield and the new unique axe that is a shield The Monument of protection. You also need max block and a lot of block effectiveness for Shield throw to pump.

So itā€™s not great early on.

As of now Iā€™m lvling as Forge Guard Hammer throw and spamming Shield Bash so the rework is great so far. Shield Bash is great to level with. Iā€™m level 33 moving along.

4

Yeah, to max shield throw you have to max the block and donā€™t use it.
I donā€™t like the idea, simply donā€™t enjoy. You have to be a captain America who donā€™t block.

Spamming :shield: bash itā€™s a really really good skill.

5

You can still use it. You have to take the node the removes the CD so when you cast Shield Throw itā€™s not released. That way you can still block.

6

Not sure I agree thatā€™s the only or even necessarily the optimal way to do it.

The dual shield, it gives 10% block chance and probably (end game) 1000-1500 block effectiveness. Assuming you had 40% block chance before (conservatively) and 2500 block effectiveness before (same), thatā€™s 60% more damage going to 75% more damage (25% increase), and a crit multiplier increase of 20-30%, likely taking you from like 300% (minimum) to 330%, or 10% more damage.

Thatā€™s great. Itā€™s a good option. And itā€™s thematic as all get-up. As others have mentioned you can also preserve your block while itā€™s in flight (and should if this is your primary attack regardless so you can spam better). But as an example of an alternative, you could even just use a firestarterā€™s torch for up to 42% more fire damage to spreading flames inflicted opponents and convert it to fire. And 1.75x3.3x(NormalDamage) = 5.7xNormalDamage while 1.6x3.1.42x(NormalDamage) = 6.816xNormalDamage, or about 20% more damage.

All Iā€™m saying is dual wielding shields and maxing block percentage and effectiveness isnā€™t the only way to do it.

7

End game with that item you should have 10k+ Block effectiveness which is +500 flat damage to Shield bash.

As for Shield throw 10k Block eff is 200 crit multi now with the reworked skill. Then at 100% block itā€™s massive damage and offers new scaling with reworked thornmail.

You definitely will be Armor capped, Block capped and Block eff capped. However you are definitely stacking Block and Block Eff for damage.

8

Right but he was talking shield throw, not shield bash. And regarding shield throw, the reason I gave low numbers is because the higher the existing multipliers, the worse it is to continue to increase them rather than getting a new multiplicative modifier. So despite the crit multiplier scaling really well with the increased block effectiveness I expect it to continue to do more damage even at higher values.

Letā€™s say youā€™re at 10k block effectiveness without the shield, 15k with, and has 100 crit multiplier from other sources. So heā€™s going from 300% to 400% crit multi, added to the 200 base and weā€™re at crits doing 600% normal damage instead of 500%. And letā€™s say you have 90% without the shield, 100% with. So you go from having 135% more damage to 150%.

With the shield, assuming crits: (Normal Damage) x 6 x 2.5 = 15x Normal Damage
With Firestarter, assuming crits: (Normal Damage) x 5 x 2.35 x 1.42 = 16.6x Normal Damage

9

Just beat Lagon with Shield Bash, Forge Guard hype.

10

Level 79 now on the Forge Guard Shield Basher just got to empowered feels good still. Lot to improve on in gear to really do some mega damage but the build is smooth and fun. Really got a D2 uber smiter feel.

Time for a quick nap then back at it.

1 Like
11

Just beat empowered Lagon was super easy. I donā€™t have good gear yet and feel great I picked this as my league starter. I already with buffs going have Shield Bash at 150k

Ring of shields provides a lot of protection while having multiple buffs you can keep up giving me 10k Block Eff easy. As Forge Guard might be able to hit 20k BE?

Anyone have ideas on +skills items for Ring of shields?

Also an interesting interaction is the Grim constitution shield I was using for awhile. If you arenā€™t attacking and Ring of shields protects you. You start regenerating Ward again as you technically arenā€™t in combat. It actually might be a very good shield to use to pop out of combat for a few seconds and generate a few 1,000 Ward then head back in.