Shield Ally Questions

[Banadux]

Prompted by all the free respecs given out lately I have some questions.  I realize that the first few will vary depending on what gear you have 

How much (%) roughly do you get from the + block adornment?

How much (%) roughly do you get from the + parry adornments (each or both together)?

Does anyone have parse info on shield ally for a raid zone?  Of your total personal healing it accounted for 15% for example assuming it shows up under heals.

What sort of addition do I have to make in ACT to get parse info pertaining to this ability / buff?

[Mrtedhead]

From what I've found  Shield Ally is completely worthless for a couple of reasons.

1. X% chance to give a chance to let the tank use your avoidance after their own...Whats your avoidance bad or terrible?

2. To get this your giving up either casting speed or heal crit.  Both are essential imo.

As for being able to check this on ACT, you wont be able to.  Like wise our Stoneskin buff doesnt show up on the heal parse either.

[Istaril]

Mrtedhead - you're wrong. ACT can parse both stoneskin AND avoidance (Right click on the tank in an encounter, avoidance report). It could be calculated manually before the update that brought the avoidance report (by examining incomming hits to the tank) And Shield Ally is at least equivalent, if not much better than, heal crit *or* casting speed. I don't have a recent enough zonewide worth posting - but if we do MMIS tonight, I'll show paste it in.

[Banadux]

Also... the buff text doesn't mention it only using shield block or parry.  The text says "avoidance".  Is the text wrong or has something possibly changed?  I'd still like some info on those adornments if anyone knows roughly the increase in value.

[Istaril]

The text says avoidance, but tests (with high avoidance but no block or parry) have shown no difference to incomming swings to a test-dummy tank over a large sample size. Mind you, those tests were performed quite a while back, so it may have changed, but as the game has no way of logging a miss caused by someone else (as opposed to a block or parry), it would require another such study - and not just log perousal. As such adding 1 1% block adornment will increase shield ally's effectiveness by 0.6% straight up - (60% chance of 1% block) Adding 2 2% parry adornments will increase shield's ally's effectiveness by 2.1% straight up -  (60-(block)% chance of 4% parry) - assuming I'm correct about block being applied before parry (which seems to be the case based on my logs). That means that what would normally be a 60% chance of 11.3% block (6.78% avoid) Becomes a 60% chance of 12.3% block + 60-7.38 * 4% parry (9.48% avoid). That's an almost 40% increase in effectivness of shield ally for 3 adornments.

[Banadux]

Thanks for the reply that's the kind of information I was looking for.  It would be nice to know if it is using your total avoidance or just that subset since agi would come into play or not.  Aside from shield protection and +block / +parry adornments what else can affect block and parry?  Does +defense come into play?

[Istaril]

Protection (From your Shield and +protection % (AGI 3)) 1*Block Adornment (T6 Fabled) 2*Wrist Parry Adornment (T7 Fabled) That seems to be all we can get. +Defense adds to your avoidance, but in a similar way to your agility (increasing miss chance) +parry adds to your parry skill - which you lack, and therefore does nothing. +deflection does the same as parry. A few hours of trying Wuoshi (Dammit, no OT warder screws us up way more than it should) : YOU Block 56 times (Of 430 avoids or 824 swings)                                        (13.02%/6.08%) : YOU Parry  12 times (of 430 avoids or  824 swings)                                        (2.79%/1.46%) Damage prevented by average: 214 117 Healed Amount (total): 1 235 933 % of damage avoided OF total avoid/healed damage = 14.7% Not necessarily the best sample - as it's about 46 minutes of non-successful attempts, BUT on the other hand, the MT group never failed, so wuoshi's average damage should be ~ representative of the damage our MT was taking.

[Banadux]

I'm a bit confused.  Are you saying that the parry adornments have no effect in general or no effect on the templar, but they do have an affect on the recepient of shield ally?  Every 3 points of AGI is one point of protection is that correct?

[Gagla]

Xudanab@Vox wrote:

I'm a bit confused.  Are you saying that the parry adornments have no effect in general or no effect on the templar, but they do have an affect on the recepient of shield ally?  Every 3 points of AGI is one point of protection is that correct?

Xudanab, the 2% chance to parry adornments for wrist items will help. He means the +7 parry forearm adornment will not help a templar in any way.

In my experience using Shield Ally, My blocks/parries have been about equal to my MT's Parries.

Effectively doubling your tank's Parry% is pretty nice.

[Mabes]

I generally see zonewide shield ally is blocking between 6-9% of all incoming hits on the MT, as well as a similiar proportion of total damage being blocked.  It is definitely worth it if you are a MT templar and will do everything to maximize it (get the 3 fabled adornments, and a roundshield).

If you want a more detailed discussion about it, there's a couple other threads that go in more detail, but overall I am very pleased with my achievement build of agi 4/4/7/8/1 and int 4/4/6/8/1.

[Enoa]

There is a nice thread about this on eq2flames.   With the new avoidance report in ACT (thank you EQAditu!!!) it makes this ability easy to track/test.  

 I've only been recently trying it out... from what i understand your general avoidance does NOT make a huge difference in how much you block.   Having a nice buckler/round shield and a couple wrist 2% parry adornments will up the percentage you block/parry. 

 Things i've noticed/ gathered from the various posts on the subject and my own personal experience...

1.  Shield Ally doesn't work well on an avoidance tank...no big surprise.

2.   The 2% wrist adornments help alot (I'm only wearing one at the moment .... last night vs. Haraghur the Deathless i actually parried 3% of the tank's incoming attacks... not sure how that worked).  Usually i can get 1.7% parry with one adornment.

3. The +7 parry adornments will NOT help.  Only the 2% Wrist adornment will.... rationale being we dont get a parry skill to +7 to.   The wrist gives every class a 2% parry ability regardless of whether that class can parry or not.  

3.  Having a nice buckler / round shield helps huge.   I noticed an increase of at least a few percentage going from the Buckler of Blight to the Bulwark of the Brave (protection 396 to 655).   There is a T6 adornment that will increase block by 1% which I will add once i've decided on the shield to keep.

4. There are two bucklers you should get if you're gonna use this ability with protection >500.   One is the Festering Flesh Buckler out of Unrest.  (can't remember the other one atm). 

 5. In absence of one of the bucklers pick up one of the 2 roundshields priests can use (Bulwark of the Brave or Disc of Protection).

6. 1-2% might not sound like a lot of extra parry/block.... but remember against some epics an extra blocked hit can be worth 1-2k or more of hp on the tank.

The shield ally should be as usefull as the stoneskin... roughly 15% attacks blocked.... but you need to put some effort into your gear to make it so.  I only have 1 parry adornment (hopefull will have 2 today) and i'm about 13% total block/parried.   The % blocked/parried will fluctuate depending on the avoidance buffs etc other classes have on the MT in the raid setup. 

 I think I'm going to keep this ability.   It's impossible to assess without ACT so i recommend using it if you're truly evaluating this ability.  I gave up my crit heals (STA) to take this line although some have given up the casting haste (INT) from what i hear.   If I was wearing the EOF legendary set i'd prolly give up the casting haste rather than crit heals but since i'm not.... 

Enoa 70 Templar (Spawns of Rage)

Balorn 70 Necro 

[Istaril]

cyric22 wrote:

3.  Having a nice buckler / round shield helps huge.   I noticed an increase of at least a few percentage going from the Buckler of Blight to the Bulwark of the Brave (protection 396 to 655).  

4. There are two bucklers you should get if you're gonna use this ability with protection >500.   One is the Festering Flesh Buckler out of Unrest.  (can't remember the other one atm). 

 5. In absence of one of the bucklers pick up one of the 2 roundshields priests can use (Bulwark of the Brave or Disc of Protection

Just to correct you - the 630+protection round shields are *far* better than the 500+ protection bucklers - it's not in the absence of a buckler, use a round shield - it's "use a round shield".

[Enoa]

Istaril wrote:

Just to correct you - the 630+protection round shields are *far* better than the 500+ protection bucklers - it's not in the absence of a buckler, use a round shield - it's "use a round shield".

Yeah that's a good point.  I don't have the flesh buckler to compare the block %'s with the round shield but you're probably right.   It's too bad the round shields, or at least the bulwark the brave, doesn't have "healer" stats on it like the buckler. 

I'll feel a bit wierd putting a fabled adornment on a treasured shield but [Removed for Content]. 

Enoa

[Krymson]

cyric22 wrote:

Istaril wrote:

Just to correct you - the 630+protection round shields are *far* better than the 500+ protection bucklers - it's not in the absence of a buckler, use a round shield - it's "use a round shield".

Yeah that's a good point.  I don't have the flesh buckler to compare the block %'s with the round shield but you're probably right.   It's too bad the round shields, or at least the bulwark the brave, doesn't have "healer" stats on it like the buckler. 

I'll feel a bit wierd putting a fabled adornment on a treasured shield but [Removed for Content]. 

Enoa

I know exactly what you mean, but after taking Shield Ally and adding the appropriate adornments I'm certainly glad I did.  I have yet to have anyone ask me why I'm lugging around a treasured shield with a fabled adornment, but I expect it to pop up each time I log in.

[dragontamer619]

I do not want to seem like I am necro'ing an old thread.  It is better to reply to one than to start a new one which would talk about the same stuff.

I finally saved enough plat to buy the adornments needed to improve the Shield Ally AP. (/woot)  I know that Shield Ally is a moot point with avoidance tanks.  Our raid tank is a Berserker who has the STA line and one of their abilities grants them an 8% chance to parry incoming attacks and riposte frontal attacks. 

My question is would these 2 abilities stack and increase their chances to avoid more attacks? 

[Enoa]

They most certainly would stack.... I believe how it works is the MT gets a chance to parry... if he fails then you get a chance (60%) to parry for him using your parry ability through the wrist adorments.   If the MT has another avoidance buff on him it may be rolled before the templar's Shield ally (not 100% sure about this but I seem to parry much much less in the prescence of a brawler avoidance buff).   Same thing for blocking.   The avoidance report feature of ACT has made looking at the impact of these abilities very easy. 

However, Fear is being released next week with a new priest roundshield on the loot table.... i'm waiting to get that badboy to put my next shield block adornment.  Since it's only a week away, if you're chronically OOP (out of plat) like me you may want to consider waiting to get this drop for the shield adorn.   

Enoa - 70 Templar

Balorn - 70 Necro

Oloheo - 52 Troubadour

[Niun01]

Yup, I can't wait to get my hands on that. Its a shame it looks nothing like a round shield.  It has the exact same graphics as the shield of the magi, that lil glowin thing that attaches to your forearm.

[Banadux]

Fear is a new instance or raid zone?  Could you link me to info on it?  I think I missed a memo.  Also I'd like to pre-order that shield.

[Enoa]

It is an instance being opened with the next LU... next week (? Oct 16).    Portal will the area in Feerott just past Temple of Cazic Thule.   Don't konw much more about it.  

I've edited my previous post to delete the shield pic... not sure if it violates any forum rules since it hasn't been released yet and i'm too lazy to go check.  I'll post it up again once Fear has been opened.   

Enoa - Kithicor - Templar

[Kendricke]

Well, picked up the Shield of Rainbow Hues last night.  Drops from Fearmonger in Shard of Fear.  (Also managed to get the server discovery on Punish Corruption Master last week (Clefts of Rujark on a Secondary character), so it's been a good October so far.)

I'll give it a good parse run later this week with full adornments.

[Banadux]

FYI it drops on more than just that one named.  We got two in the same run last night.  I really don't remember which two dropped it though.  At least one of the times it dropped was a named the other may have been a trash drop I really don't remember.

[Ufali]

A few have picked it up off trash mobs.

[inhumanus1986]

As an Inquisitor that primarily groups, the Shield Ally spec is now uber with an ok shield having nice resists.  Its base value gives over 9% uncontested block with the shield of rainbow hues.  Fully adorned and having the BP of hate push the value to 17%!!.  Thats no blessings or grp buffs or anything that may effect the proc.  I have never wanted to betray, but if you are a MT healer on raids, you may really want to consider the Ally spec.  With stoneskin, that a potential of over 30% of damage avoided/absorbed by just you!!  Just doing the numbers if I were tank and had a tamp and a dirge, i could get over 70% uncontested avoidance/stoneskin combined.Good Lord!Inhumanus Nex

[Paddyo]

For clarification, are we saying the only real checks are block and parry....i.e. avoidance overall, and boosting agility, doesn't improve it?  Or am I misunderstanding?

[Hopefulne]

Shield of Rainbow Hues is actually a zone wide ornate drop. (trash included - got mine from one the caller mobs before frightflyers) no adornments/BP and with the +32% effectiveness it gave me a flat 15.2% block.

[Enoa]

Paddyo wrote:

For clarification, are we saying the only real checks are block and parry....i.e. avoidance overall, and boosting agility, doesn't improve it?  Or am I misunderstanding?

Correct..... despite the description on the spell, avoidance has nothing to do with it.     Don't waste the plat on the AGI adorns but get a good roundshield (and adorn with 1% block) and the 2 wrist parry adorns (2% each). 

Enoa - templar

Balorn - necromancer

spawns of rage/ kithicor

[Niun01]

Yup, with the new shield im up to 16.2% block and 4% parry.. its a huge difference from a buckler.

[Enoa]

Got my shield finally after 4 runs... dropped off trash for me.  Love it so far

 Enoa - Templar

Balorn  - Necro

 Spawns of Rage/ Kithicor