Some thoughts on Aegis Aurora

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Shields are in an awful situation, having a rare shield outside of ES shield (and maybe EV shields in evasion builds) is a joke.

What if someone wants a high life shield that provides 80+ res?.. Many builds already use enough uniques that they can't give up a res slot. I've used many shield builds but almost none used a unique shield.

Also pretty much every spellcaster is going to go for a rare shield for the spell crit/dmg(and life or ES).

Aegis Aurora makes any other shield for a dedicated max blocker useless,unless he is pure evasion+acrobatics.There is not a better shield than that.It is pretty much the same way that spectral throw low life,
and even wanders),make bow users completely useless as well,and it is just sad.

The also sad part is,that knowing GGG abit,daggers in general are going to get the nerf hammer,while they are pretty balanced if they are used as MELEE,and definetely much much inferior to claws if you do not have atziri's acuity(there is not even a comparison there).Same thing with block, i beleive when it will be adressed,all block will get the hammer instead of adjustments to make blocking more fair compaired to other shields.

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0versky wrote:

@Tinko:

Well shield also gives stats, and not always for max block. For non-block essential char but use 1h weapon anyway. For example, ele ST, I think Aegis doesnt provide much for them, and a EV life shield would be better.

Basically, Aegis is not that good for char that dont expected to get hit a lot, but still want a shield.
Conversely, Aegis > everything if one expected to get hit frequently ( unless someone wants to go EV/Acro melee ). So to be more precise, the existance of rare str/armor shield is an embarrassment. Not sure how would they fix it though, since imo it's more about armor shield is very weak ( dont get me start on ar/ev hybrid ), and less about Aegis OP.

Why wouldn't Aegis provide much for ele ST? If it's an armour based ele ST build, then it's the best shield.
If you've said ele EV ST build, then yes, Aegis is worse.

And every single EV build is a complete shit compared to Aegis build, in terms of survivability, I have to keep saying this to avoid the DPS/clear speed stuff.

Aegis is OP simply because that mod is percent based, and even with 2% one can replenish 1k ES on block quite easily. Which is a goddamn joke.

And yes, armour rare shields are always outperformed by unique shields. And if we're going into the build strength (not preference), then evasion shields are too.

Only spellcaster builds that use ES shields can't be outperformed in their gameplay by Aegis.


How would we fix armour shields?
Perhaps divide the amount of base block chance depending on shield's size? Tower shields provide the most block chance, bucklers the least, kite shields are in the middle?
The amount of blocked damage depends on the shields armour? The higher the armour, the more damage it absorbs on block?
Evasion shields couldn't work like that though.
ES shields shouldn't be able to block attacks at all, just look at them.

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kasub wrote:

What if someone wants a high life shield that provides 80+ res?.. Many builds already use enough uniques that they can't give up a res slot. I've used many shield builds but almost none used a unique shield.

Also pretty much every spellcaster is going to go for a rare shield for the spell crit/dmg(and life or ES).

Those resists can be gathered elsewhere, even if it means putting few passive nodes in the tree.
You haven't used unique shields, check my last post.

And that exactly what I've said: "having a rare shield outside of ES shield".

Shitty es on AA? You probably need some chest like this


And for the armor replenish

Aegis Aurora is basically Arctic Armour on crack (funny how both have the initials AA...). It gives immortality against small hits, where 'small' for Aegis can reach into the thousands of post-mitigation damage per hit. The only things left that can kill you are a one-shot mega hit and damage over time.

An Aegis build depends on a good (spell-)block chance, a decent ES buffer and high armour. That sounds quite specialised, until you remember 'max block/spellblock + super resists + mega armour' is how practically everyone makes a tank build these days, so it just makes a tank build even tankier. As for the ES buffer, most life builds would love to wear some random hybrid ES gear if they had a way of easily recharging ES in combat, which is exactly what Aegis gives you, so the only kind of build it rules out is one that needs Eldritch Battery. (I suppose that at least makes it hard to stack Aegis with Arctic Armour, not that you'd need to!)

I don't think Aegis is a bad item for the game in the abstract, as it does open up some fun possibilities. But it is kind of bad when you consider that it panders to the kind of build people would make even without an Aegis. It's a bit like how (legacy) Kaom's Heart was bad for the game when everyone was playing 'path of life nodes' and most people didn't use that many sockets (before the days of trigger gems). Also like Kaom's, GGG realised that the original signature mod was overpowered and halved it, but even the nerfed version is super-strong.

The one semi-positive thing about Aegis is it encourages a form of life/ES brawler, which is otherwise difficult to manage. But at the same time, I don't think the possibility of making a hybrid life/ES build capable of regenerating properly in combat should be gated behind high-end uniques like Aegis or Shavronne's Revelation.

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But at the same time, I don't think the possibility of making a hybrid life/ES build capable of regenerating properly in combat should be gated behind high-end uniques like Aegis or Shavronne's Revelation.

Seconded. It pains me to see how those builds became irrelevant,nonviable over time and the introduction of new content.