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. :)
How you deal with accuracy? Because I have chance to hit maybe 80% and that's way too low on critic build.
Its actually worth maybe 10-15c on standard Id say, and it would sell at that price as a physical attack ring that has t1 life, t1 flat phys, dex and resist, its a 4 stat attack ring with the important two t1s.
Well, increased Cast Speed makes it equally useful for life-based spell caster builds such as mine.As I said, looking on trade I cannot find an essence-crafted Opal Ring with cast speed, T1 life, the dex or the resistance I need or open suffix to craft it. My second ring is very similar...
.. and there's no denying, I'd love me some GG Opal Rings and would buy them in a heartbeat, regardless the costs (remember, this is the "f*cking lettuce dor 300c" economy and in STD we're all filthy rich ;) but until such rings appear my rings are perfectly fine for me. Again, it's not a matter of affordability but availability... all the Exalteds in the world cannot buy what doesn't exist, right? ;)
What is the downside of blocking deadly strikes ? People go full damage doesn't mean you have to. A build is a combination of every aspects of your character, for example defence or movement speed or debuff abilities....., not dps only. If you care about you dps that much then just ignore shield
