Shield Questions

[swayzo]

Ok if someone can answer it would be appreciated.

Why Does my shield have very low defense like 9% max protection and 12/14/12 choice mats Quality 40?

Not even as good as my light armor but a very high action penalty +50? More then 2 pieces of heavy armor.

P.S. Forgot to ask how do they work do they just act as another piece of armor. Do they take the dmg first then is it pushed on to your other armor etc?

[josephm]

I'm using an Axe and shield. Although I'm wearing Storebought heavy armor (excluding my helmet that I made) I notice that I dodge a LOT! I still wear light boots and sleeves, though that is about to change when I get home. I never connected the big hits to mobs hitting those particular areas on me. Pretty darn neat I'd say. To bad we can't do decaps or get decapitated!

I've heard that shields give a 10% bonus to overall defense, but I think this is a crock. Why would shields have stats then? Maybe 10% of shield stats are applied to all other armor areas. If I could wear a high level shield to notice the difference it'd definately by something to measure out. Alas I'm only level 50 Melee. Who knows, I'll try it anyways when I get home and get back to you on this.

[lamain]

Perhaps I can help out a bit:

As a shield crafter (currently max ql 80) I noticed not much difference concerning the "overall protection": If I take "basic" or "fine" mob-loot, I get a number between approximately 8 and 10%. If I take "choice" or "excellent" harvested mats, this number goes up to 10.x%. So I guess, this "overall protection" is somewhat limited.

The essencial difference between basic mob-loot and excellent choice mats are the three protections against the differnt kinds of damage. Those go up to over 20 with good mats.

Now, a shield should be used to "parry". Ridiculously none of the armour shells a harvester can find, provides a parry modifier better than average. But there are some woods and saps, which boost "dodge" extremely. Those might be good in a dodge-optimized armour but not in a shield, IMHO. Some of the mob-loots have parry modifiers better than average; so a good shield might be a composition of harvested and looted items.

If your shield was crafted with "dodge boosters", then you have the reason for your good dodging but OTOH evidence of a poorly implemented defense-"skill". Normally dodge should not be possible with a high penalty.

Over all, I think, shields are far from being implemented correctly. I'm not even sure, if the damage protections do anything. Perhaps there is someone out there patient enough to run tests over tests with shield equipped and not equipped; as we know the devs and their way to give us reliable informations, this seems to be the only way to find out, what a shield REALLY does atm.http://ryzom.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif

[ludig5]

As far as I can see, the whole point of carrying a shield is for the "Shielding" skill in the melee tree. The size of the shield determines the amount of damage it will soak while the skill is active.

The mat quality is intruiging ... but I am really not too worried about the shield protection quality. I wear one for the damage soak of shielding.

[korin77]

That would be really dumb if that is the whole purpose of the shield. Shield are normally used in real life to block and absorb attacks. It would make alot of sense if it enhanced the parry skill. They are also really good at blocking projectile weapons.

[babaloui]

Shield crafter here as well. I have run a few tests and while the shield skill is in effect on something the damage taken is (on most but not all shots) signifigantly reduced. This goes up with shield skill and type of shield. Other than that its a trade off. You kill mobs slower due to the 1h weapon and you end up taking more damage (kinda defeats the point of a shield) because you can kill something with a 2h weapon in half the time and the shield really doesnt do anything signifigant for damage absorption unless Shielding is applied to yourself. It will aid another player a good deal and it recycles quickly. It does add to your basic stats and is another hard point for stat enhancement (+ hp, stam, etc). Currently I would say its not very useful solo but does have some useful group applications. I just started testing though. I would think there are some very imaginitive uses if you could scrap 2 or 3 shield warriors together.

[Fred1l1]

Well in beta i used a 1h mace and shield exculsivly and i parried quite often with them...also i noticed my damage taken was lowered when i did get hit

[mikwana]

I would think there are some very imaginitive uses if you could scrap 2 or 3 shield warriors together.

This is the point, get two or three warriors with shields to shield the main tank not using a shield but using a big nasty weapon, and they take no damage. Most usefull of course when either fighting REALLY nasty mobs that you should be fighting anyway (or for defending against said mobs in a Raid, when you don't have an option not to fight them since you are defending your City), or when there is a lack of a healer around.

[lamain]

I agree with the fact, that a shield enhances the influences of the "shielding"-skill.


Anything else about a shield's benefits is nothing but rumour atm and Nevrax keeps ignoring the problem and the questions about it.