Guardians and Shields, a possible definitive answer

[Uumuuanu]

<DIV>Ok, so after doing a bunch of testing for the guardian buffs on mitigation and avoidance, I decided to check out some other things. </DIV> <DIV>(<A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=8940&page=2" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=8940&page=2</A> see this thread for buff testing)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I found one that might be a definitive answer for those wondering about going duel wield or two handed vs carrying a shield.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Currently I have the Guardian of Grumm shield (+11int, +13wis, 32 health, 40 power, shield factor 656 at lvl 40 (currently 623).  Its labeled as Fabled so it might not be easy to get your hands on, however thats not important.  In testing I decided to take off my shield to see what it did to my mitigation.  Well in fact it did NOTHING.  My mitigation remained the same unbuffed 1814 as in the testing which seemed odd to me.  However I noticed that my avoidance dropped from an unbuffed 61.1% to a sad 53.5%  or 7.6% pts.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I decided to check if it was the shield factor that made the difference.  So I un-equiped my very common Lardnelg's Blackened Breastplate (+5 agi, +7str, 24 health, 21 power, +210vsDisease, +150vsMagic) which is clearly labeled with a mitigation factor of 389. It dropped my Mitigation by the 389 and my avoidance by .6% (probably the agility).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So,  I would say that clearly shows that guardians ARE meant to have a shield as even with our self buffs up, we can change our avoidance only a few percentage points but by taking off a shield, we drop it substantially. It would be interesting to hear some other testing with this with different shields and shield types, but I would guess that without a shield, all guardians are going to see a huge drop in avoidance.</DIV>

[Rodney]

<P>This has been known for a long time now, the devs have said for a long time that shields are avoidence only and do nothing for mitigation.</P> <P>For exp grouping defence buffing will do FAR more for you then any shield in the game.</P> <P> </P>

[Tobann]

So I guess the label on shields should be changed from giving its AC rating to giving an avoidance rating. THis would then make more sence and let us see how much the shields are actually helping. Tobann <div></div>

[Kryog]

<P>If you put your cursor over your avoidance percentage, it will outline for you how it is broken down.   For example, at 60% lets say 31% is parry, 21% is deflection, and 8% is riposte.  You equip a shield and it jumps to 67%.   You inspect the numbers, now its 31% parry, 28% deflection, and 8% riposte.  They've gone to very detailed lengths to spoon feed the whining masses information that really shouldn't be shown.  Occasionally I'd like to see us learn something on our own.   Nevertheless, they did note that Guardians were just as avoidant as Monks, which is a huge problem.   So some good came out of it.</P> <P> </P>