Shields are usless?

Tempest Shield isn't a skill you build around. It's a supplementary skill that helps with builds that have high block rates.

Shields are not useless. ES shields give the user a very healthy amount of ES. Armour shields usually have a ton of upsides, including good block rates, health, and a very healthy dose of Armour.

Other shields give + Damage and stuff like that.

Block Builds are a thing here in POE. They can make the character relatively tanky.

Like some others have shown, shields like the Surrender, Aegis Aurora, and the Rise of the Phoenix are great build enablers.

Hell. With the Surrender, I constantly have 400-600 mobs attacking me at once (and critting very constantly) and I wont die.

shields can be very useful :-)

Trying to investigate how you came to this conclusion...
You could play a shieldcharge build. You need to equip a shield to use shield charge. But it doesn't really matter which shield you're using. Damage still depends on your weapon. So, your shield doesn't contribute to the damage you're dealing... but that doesn't make your shield "useless".

Shields are stat sticks. You get life, ES, resists, block chance and other cool stuff.
That's definetly not "useless". Far from it, shields are great.

Gee I don't know why they won't mark down the price of Tukohama's Fortress. Shields are useless, haven't they heard? Why does that useless thing cost 7.5ex?

I find it impossible that somebody with an account as old as OP's does not understand how useful shields are....

I can almost think he is talking about how it makes more sense to use a stat stick off hand instead of a shield unless you are going full block. You get some block w/ dual and some of the stat stick combos are just insane, I don't think they should work but rather shields that have some of those functions instead.

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edgewood wrote:

I can almost think he is talking about how it makes more sense to use a stat stick off hand instead of a shield unless you are going full block. You get some block w/ dual and some of the stat stick combos are just insane, I don't think they should work but rather shields that have some of those functions instead.

Yup, dual wield is pretty sweet offensively.

As Snorkle_uk points out, though, when you grab a Loath Bane or Carrion Bite or whatever mirrored weapon level damage and can one shot Shaper you can afford to drop some damage for defense instead, which boosts your clear speed more because less kiting, and as we all know clear speed is the only thing forumers care about.

ya, stat stick offhand dual wield, to me thats "I have a 1-5 chaos unique 220-240 pdps weapon and I want faceroll deeps in softcore". If you picture "I just spent 60+ exalts making a gg character" then I feel like 9/10 times you have a shield, you dont have a stat stick, you dont wear abyssus, youre not using a carcass jack.

Theres exceptions, theres people in my guild who will spend 100ex on a character and they still go dual wield. But these people want the sort of damage that will melt a guardian in seconds, and they have over /deaths 200, die almost every day they play. Theres always gonna be that guy out there somewhere with a loath bane, a deaths hand, a headhunter and an abyssus on running around with a 140% life tree playing 1 shot or be 1 shot trying to see if he can get a HH screenshot of 2 million dps with 4 dps flasks and vaal haste up. But that guys not a serious individual and I think he knows it, hes having his fun so fair play to him.

gg builds that die once every 3 months usually use shields.

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Ognik wrote:

This one for energy shield and spell dmg not, but all other shields look so crapy, i even try to find build for tempest shield on http://www.timtips.com/buildbrowser/#/list this skill gem is not on the list :D
One good build for using shield with i know is shield charge with face breakers, meaby someone know other playable builds?
This can be good point for changes after 3.0.0 patch

they will probably be more useful when one handers get buffed. right now shields aren't too popular just like you say. but it might change. they'd likely have to do something about stat sticks too to see some effect but who knows.