Shield-focused builds

After looking through the passive skill tree, I was bummed to see that there weren't very interesting or exciting choices for building my Marauder around the use of a shield. I am only level 25 and also have only found one active skill, shield charge, that focuses on using a shield. It seems that this currently is not expected to be included as a viable build, but I would like to see that change.

I have always liked building characters around using shields but other games have never let such a build have any depth. I don't know if I'm mostly alone in this sentiment or not, but adding fun passive and active skills focusing on shields would be a great addition to the game in my eyes. Possibly include passives that increase damage when using a shield-based skill, add more active shield skills, add gear modifiers to increase damage with shields, and maybe give shields damage and attack speed properties like weapons.

This game is not made like WoW where a pure tank is needed, so a shield-based character should have some offensive capabilities to make it able to still kill relatively quickly but with some solid survivability as well. I would enjoy seeing both a pure physical, strength build for this and also a Templar build using magic to enhance the use of shields for both defense and offense.

Just my thoughts and desires on top of everything that is already looking to be an excellent game.

A lot of my builds have used shields, actually. Blocking is a very powerful mechanic for avoiding melee and ranged damage, and with the recent inclusion of Tempest Shield and Molten Shell, there is also potential for doing damage using shield blocking. Unfortunately, the skill gems for Tempest Shield and Molten Shell haven't been added to the quest rewards very thoroughly yet.

I know for certain that you can get them as the quest rewards for Brutus in normal on the Templar character. The only other place you can get them currently are drops, I think. If you ask in chat, someone may have one they don't want.

Next to Shield Charge there are two more skillgems, that work well with shields:

(1) Tempest Shield
(requires a shield, synergizes well with block-chance)


(2) Molten Shell
(does not require a shield, but benefits from block-chance and potentially does a lot of damage - have a look at Lo4f's thread)


(3) Also this unique amulet offers some high-block-chance synergy:

(4) The skilltree's templar-area provides shield users with some of the more 'exiting' block-related passives:
overhere


Edit: Well.. took me too long to get all the links, Urist was faster :)

Thanks for the replies. I'm very impressed with the maturity and helpfulness of the people on this forum. So many others are overrun with elitists.

However, thanks for the info. Three active skills are definitely better than one, and I would love to see more! As for the Templars passive tree, I need to take a look around that. I had taken what I thought was a thorough look through the skill tree and didn't notice anything too special other than increased block chance and defense, but I will have to look again to see what I missed.

A big part of what I would like to see is damage values and possibly attack speed values on shields. It would make using a sword and board similar to dual wielding, looking for high damage values on both the weapon and the shield. I feel like damage values on a shield really makes a shield build more fun and interesting, this way there is another fun way to increase damage with shield skills other than just leveling the gem... making it just like finding a new weapon with more damage to help increase damage too. Without this, a shield is more of a stat stick and any level shield will do the same damage, which makes the item hunt less exciting in regards to shields.

"

Loridane wrote:

I will have to look again to see what I missed.

dspair's unofficial online skilltree offers a handy search function. Just type 'shield' or 'block' in the box on the left hand side and it'll highlight all the respective nodes.

http://poezone.ru/skilltree/