Shield Skills

[spriggan85]

Are shield skills any good, I was cosidering doing an Arna build with maces/axes and shield.
skills in shields, a 1h weapon, warfare and maybe armored combat. Any ideas if this will be a fun experience

[Owlie]

Shield skill are insanely great. You should invest 50/50 between your weapon skills and shields.
15 Vit is recommended for any Medium Shields and 25 Vit is REQUIRED for Tier 4-5 heavy shield. Try getting those early if you want to be able to crush your opponent with your sheer defensive might.
I suggest using medium or light armor if youre going heavy. But going with heavy armor if you're going with light shield is acceptable too. Just keep it balanced.

Mace is preferable over Axe because it have move/control abilities that already synergize well with the shield's own ability tree.

Remember to pay attention to Block Power Recovery. It is important in making your shield more viable in combat. Ideally, start each engagement with Raise Shield (This will increase your max block power), then follow it with Breakthrough (The damage scale with max block power so it's buffed up by having your shield raised)

Then the FUN stuff begin with Elusiveness. At 20+ vitality, it gives 50% damage reduction or more at the 5 stacks it starts with (62.5% at 25 vit). It will lose out when you dodge, but since you're doing shield, you will not be dodging anything anytime soon. You would be invulnerable for the 8 turn that skill lasted. You can use it when you're near to dying which when added with Arna's special and shield's stance, you'll get to the maximum 75% damage reduction which mean you only take 1/4th of any damage that goes through your block and armor.

[Mimung]

only thing i will add is dont expect too much from raise shield in the earlygame,
id opt for the right side of shields first and weapon skills

[spriggan85]

Originally posted by Owlie:

Shield skill are insanely great. You should invest 50/50 between your weapon skills and shields.
15 Vit is recommended for any Medium Shields and 25 Vit is REQUIRED for Tier 4-5 heavy shield. Try getting those early if you want to be able to crush your opponent with your sheer defensive might.
I suggest using medium or light armor if youre going heavy. But going with heavy armor if you're going with light shield is acceptable too. Just keep it balanced.

Mace is preferable over Axe because it have move/control abilities that already synergize well with the shield's own ability tree.

Remember to pay attention to Block Power Recovery. It is important in making your shield more viable in combat. Ideally, start each engagement with Raise Shield (This will increase your max block power), then follow it with Breakthrough (The damage scale with max block power so it's buffed up by having your shield raised)

Then the FUN stuff begin with Elusiveness. At 20+ vitality, it gives 50% damage reduction or more at the 5 stacks it starts with (62.5% at 25 vit). It will lose out when you dodge, but since you're doing shield, you will not be dodging anything anytime soon. You would be invulnerable for the 8 turn that skill lasted. You can use it when you're near to dying which when added with Arna's special and shield's stance, you'll get to the maximum 75% damage reduction which mean you only take 1/4th of any damage that goes through your block and armor.

If I need to go 20+ in vit then I will do little to no dmg, I need some in STR and maybe PER and AGI to hit my targets

[Gundalf]

Just be carefull with Raise Shield + Disengage from the Athletics tree. As the perk is currently bugged and turns negative dodge into negative magic resistance, so the -200% dodge chance from raise shields gives you -40% magic and nature resistance.

[RAZER]

20 vit and str 20

and block power need sword + heavey shield

and your dmg like crazy

no need skill for weapon

full skill shield , armor combat for Unyielding Defense and Custom Adjustments , and Magic Mastery for Seal of Reflection

if u have 99 block power, dmg Shield Bash is 55 and dmg for Breakthrough is 48

[EthanH33]

always stayed away from shields as a lot of the tool tips say light or heavy and don't ever mention medium so Im guessing they will be redone at some point??? or medium just get ignored no buffs witch would be a mistake.

[spriggan85]

Originally posted by EthanH33:

always stayed away from shields as a lot of the tool tips say light or heavy and don't ever mention medium so Im guessing they will be redone at some point??? or medium just get ignored no buffs witch would be a mistake.

That's true, medium would be perfect, well balanced

[jotwebe]

For medium shields the skills work as described, then they have info on how they work differently for light and heavy shields.

[Detective Costeau]

Originally posted by jotwebe:

For medium shields the skills work as described, then they have info on how they work differently for light and heavy shields.

This is true, but how they work differently is that light and heavy shields get bonuses to them, while medium shields don't.
Breakthrough, Shield Bash, Raise Shield, and Hold the Line all get bonuses for light and heavy, but not medium shields.
I don't really see anything about medium shields that makes them so much better than the other options that they need to have worse skills to compensate, but maybe I'm missing something.

[lotsoffire]

Never done a shield build, but these comments have tempted me. Does Tactical Advantage, in the Warfare tree, work well with shields? -20% cost and cooldown to all maneuvers (all shield abilities are maneuvers) seems like it would work well.

[money3030]

Originally posted by lotsoffire:

Never done a shield build, but these comments have tempted me. Does Tactical Advantage, in the Warfare tree, work well with shields? -20% cost and cooldown to all maneuvers (all shield abilities are maneuvers) seems like it would work well.

it should if it doesn't then it's bugged.

[jotwebe]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

This is true, but how they work differently is that light and heavy shields get bonuses to them, while medium shields don't.
Breakthrough, Shield Bash, Raise Shield, and Hold the Line all get bonuses for light and heavy, but not medium shields.
I don't really see anything about medium shields that makes them so much better than the other options that they need to have worse skills to compensate, but maybe I'm missing something.

That makes them the superior choice if you don't want to invest heavily into the Shield tree but still use one? Haven't played one in RtR, but heavy shields also brutalize you energy iirc, so you'll have to build accordingly. Light shields on the other hand don't provide all that reliable a protection, so they're more something to generate lots of counterstrikes on a build that has other defenses.

[Vendetta]

Tank builds are just fun, but cost u alot in repairs

[Rabid]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Originally posted by jotwebe:

For medium shields the skills work as described, then they have info on how they work differently for light and heavy shields.

This is true, but how they work differently is that light and heavy shields get bonuses to them, while medium shields don't.
Breakthrough, Shield Bash, Raise Shield, and Hold the Line all get bonuses for light and heavy, but not medium shields.
I don't really see anything about medium shields that makes them so much better than the other options that they need to have worse skills to compensate, but maybe I'm missing something.

In R2R medium shields are simply an offhand to use without any supporting skills for a major boost to block chance with fairly minor penalties.

Originally posted by Mimung:

only thing i will add is dont expect too much from raise shield in the earlygame,
id opt for the right side of shields first and weapon skills

Raise shield is OK if you get setup and the far right shield passive to support it, I'm doing a semi-gimmicky zero strength full vitality build and it's working surprisingly well considering how delayed it makes your skill access

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by Vendetta:

Tank builds are just fun, but cost u alot in repairs

Not really. Just using scraps and repairing sets,my reepairc osts go exclusively for sword and shield and are abrely 15% of expenses. (and I get so much fragments I cna repair armros for sell... jsut buying extra sets there and there, it is really minimal)