Are shields ever useful? (read inside)

So I really wanted to use shields for a long time now, and finally I went with totem build, but two maces give me twice the damage with Ancestral Warchief, and shields give me maybe 200-300 of armor and 50 or so energy shield... With a witch, same deal - a lot more damage, same thing with duelist, a lot more damage with dual swords or two handed sword. I know that pure strength shields can give a lot of armor, but you sacrifice so much damage for it... So I mean, are shields ever useful? And if they are, when? Because I just haven't found a situation for it yet, and I played a lot of different characters. Even when I'm not using weapons and just spell damage, shields seem worthless because of the huge sacrifice on damage.

EDIT: So far it seems that they are useful for either very end-game (and have to be very high-level items with very high stats) or only if it is a special unique shield or if the character is (which also means some special uniques). I was mainly wondering for more normal use scenarios, not something that requires some super high level or super special uniques, so please comment on that and this edited part if you can as well. :)
Last edited by FrozenOne on Apr 24, 2018, 1:22:54 PM
Last bumped on Apr 26, 2018, 7:14:39 AM
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FrozenOne wrote:
So I really wanted to use shields for a long time now, and finally I went with totem build, but two maces give me twice the damage with Ancestral Warchief, and shields give me maybe 200-300 of armor and 50 or so energy shield... With a witch, same deal - a lot more damage, same thing with duelist, a lot more damage with dual swords or two handed sword. I know that pure strength shields can give a lot of armor, but you sacrifice so much damage for it... So I mean, are shields ever useful? And if they are, when? Because I just haven't found a situation for it yet, and I played a lot of different characters. Even when I'm not using weapons and just spell damage, shields seem worthless because of the huge sacrifice on damage.


Facebreaker builds-> don't sacrifice any damage
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FrozenOne wrote:
So I mean, are shields ever useful? And if they are, when? Because I just haven't found a situation for it yet, and I played a lot of different characters.


Play more. xD

And check prizes in AH (Lycosidae, Tukohama's Fortress, etc... if they are not cheap... someone has to use them)
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alex12709 wrote:
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FrozenOne wrote:
So I really wanted to use shields for a long time now, and finally I went with totem build, but two maces give me twice the damage with Ancestral Warchief, and shields give me maybe 200-300 of armor and 50 or so energy shield... With a witch, same deal - a lot more damage, same thing with duelist, a lot more damage with dual swords or two handed sword. I know that pure strength shields can give a lot of armor, but you sacrifice so much damage for it... So I mean, are shields ever useful? And if they are, when? Because I just haven't found a situation for it yet, and I played a lot of different characters. Even when I'm not using weapons and just spell damage, shields seem worthless because of the huge sacrifice on damage.


Facebreaker builds-> don't sacrifice any damage


Ah, you mean if you have no weapon? But is that the only use case scenario?

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alex12709 wrote:
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FrozenOne wrote:
So I mean, are shields ever useful? And if they are, when? Because I just haven't found a situation for it yet, and I played a lot of different characters.


Play more. xD

And check prizes in AH (Lycosidae, Tukohama's Fortress, etc... if they are not cheap... someone has to use them)


I have already played plenty, but I'm not involved in the community. :P What is AH?

Damn, Tukohama's Fortress is amazing, would love to have a piece, haha. Besides that though, if we're talking more... Normal and findable shields, are they useful? :P
Well Shield Charge is the most used movement skill, so I guess that means people are using shields.

There comes a time where more damage is not needed but the defenses from the shield will help. If your build is unique heavy, a shield with 100 life and 100 resists certainly helps gearing.
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Namcap wrote:
Well Shield Charge is the most used movement skill, so I guess that means people are using shields.

There comes a time where more damage is not needed but the defenses from the shield will help. If your build is unique heavy, a shield with 100 life and 100 resists certainly helps gearing.


So they would be useful only in the very end-game (also means very high-level items with very high stats only), OR if they are unique special shields, OR if you are building an unarmed character (also heavy in uniques)?
Super helpful for ES builds bc shields can give you a massive boost to your health pool. Plus spell damage, etc.
We're all in this leaky boat together, people.
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demon9675 wrote:
Super helpful for ES builds bc shields can give you a massive boost to your health pool. Plus spell damage, etc.


My Templar is ES/Armor, and my Scion is ES/HP, and in my current levels, I have always thrown away any shields I've found because they just don't compare even closely to the much higher damage of a second wand or a scepter and the little improvement in ES/HP/whatever. So you have to be noob-friendly here, and give me some more details. But please keep in my my message above this. I'll see if I can edit the original post to add more details.
Pretty simple problem atm they are very useful, but the opportunity cost of using one is very high compared to straight dual wield or fake dual wield, its like 30-40% for dual wield and like 100% for fake its just too high.

Hopefully they will address that kinda stuff soon
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Draegnarrr wrote:
Pretty simple problem atm they are very useful, but the opportunity cost of using one is very high compared to straight dual wield or fake dual wield, its like 30-40% for dual wield and like 100% for fake its just too high.

Hopefully they will address that kinda stuff soon


Thing is, besides just wondering for curiosity and wish to understand it, I have plenty of shields in my storage, and they all just seem so useless... So many evasion too, but I just can't help but wonder if I'll ever use them in any build.

Actually, same thing with axes, as I find swords to be a lot more useful somehow. I don't know why exactly though.

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