Incentivize Shields

[CaptainSpacePony]

It is commonly known that AC is not especially important in DDO. Likewise, high level characters with shields are often regarded skeptically. Nearly all high level melee characters put both their hands on weapons. While shields are a big part of PnP, fantasy stereotypes, and historical accounts, they are mostly vendor trash in DDO. As I was caught in a stupid bidding war over a +5 mithral tower, (it was stupid for 2 reasons--I know better but insist on making an AC tank, and the other bidder was probably too ignorant to realize it was foolish to waste plat on AC) it occurred to me that even without a major AC/AB overhaul, a few things could be done to make shields at least SEEM better.

1. Make unique shields better. This is the easiest way to address this issue.
2. Devotion/potency etc appear on shields, but not as well or as strong as on weapons. It would be easy to balance the random property tables between shields and other weapons in regards to these traits.
3. Improve the shield random property tables. Even give a "shield bonus" to ML for some traits. A +5 Greater FR Tower, ML 10-12 would be sought after. Better yet, how about some exceptional resists on shields, or even combinations of resists like improved "Thermal" (fire and cold) resistance?
4. Add some defensive properties to the shields that are not found elsewhere like light or divine resistance.

In summary, shields suck. That sucks. Please fix. See above for suggestions on lessening shield suck-a-tood.

Thank you.

[NeutronStar]

OMG...the correct verb form of "incentive"

+1!!!!

[Hutoth]

I've been thinking for a while that the best way to fix shields to make them competitive with TWF and THF would be to have them scale with your level or BAB.

E.g. Shield AC gets additional AC bonus = BAB/2 (rounding down), i.e. 5 for wiz20, 10 for ftr20.
Alternatively, there's http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=289824
Or others.

I think basically something to scale the effectiveness of shields the way their opposite (BAB) scales... Afterall, offhand attack bonus grows as your BAB goes up, why not the equivalent for shields?

[CaptainSpacePony]

Hutoth,

I think your deflection idea has A LOT of merit, but it would be a "significant change" from D&D core rules. (Not that DDO is especially true to them). On the other hand, DR was a "significant change" when it came to be and it's here to stay.

[Urvine]

I want two weapon fighting with weapon and shield. It angers me that they would have improved shield bash but no justification for shield bashing. PnP is one of the best games for offensive shield fighting. I don't know why so many game developers get the impression that a shield is strictly a defensive item.

[Entelech]

/signed

Also, I'd like to see a crafting option for shields.

(1) There's a big roleplaying thing with the graphical skin on a shield. If you're (role)playing a divine class, having the appropriate design on your shield a a big deal. You should have some reskinning options.

(2) There are some specific builds that use shields that would like to customize the properties. You don't see properties like Twilight on random shields.

Or, for that matter, why no Greensteel Shields? I doubt the handwraps excuse is applicable.

[Therrias]

I want two weapon fighting with weapon and shield. It angers me that they would have improved shield bash but no justification for shield bashing. PnP is one of the best games for offensive shield fighting. I don't know why so many game developers get the impression that a shield is strictly a defensive item.

I was sorely dissapointed with DDO when I found out you could not TWF with a shield. It is a very effective strategy in P&P.

I was also dissapointed with the absence of polearms. Especially since that makes the only option for THF with simple weapons a quarterstaff.

The developers seem to have an aversion to modal equipment. There would have to be a toggle to switch between TWF and one handed with shield. It would be nice to be able to switch between using a bastard sword as a 1H exotic and a 2H martial or to be able to TWF with a quarterstaff, or any other double weapon.

Anyway; yes, shields should be better.

[Maldavenous]

1. Add Off Hand Effects to Shields: Stunning, Seeker, Vertigo, etc.

2. Add Guards to Shields: Elemental could be common and things like Air Guard could be rarer.

3. Add Feats for Sword and Board: Give an avenue to increase DPS at least some while wielding a shield so it's not so completely inferior.

4. Give Shields Base DR: Give players a base amount of DR just for wielding a shield without blocking. It could be 1/4 of the shield's blocking DR. This DR should be stacking with other non-shield DRs.

5. Update/Create Good Named Shields: Right now even the best epic shields are next to useless. The existing epic shields should be upgraded and new shields added to the game should be more effective.

6. Balance Shield Types: Shields like bucklers are even less useful than other shields. They have limited DR and AC bonuses and do nothing better than their heavier partners. Shields of different size ratings should all be effective in some way.

7. Create Shield Templates: Active Defensive Shields (great for blocking), Passive Defensive Shields (base AC and maneuverability), Reflective Shields (guards and damage reflection), Casting Shields (potency, divinity, etc.), Offensive Shields (balanced to deal offensive damage at an acceptable level), Absorbing Shields (passive damage prevention like firestorm greaves). Having a variety of shield templates with shields that fall into them and loot that focuses on them would give players a variety of reasons to use a shield.

[chodelord]

simple fix for shields

1. give shields the same properties as weapons
2. shields add their properties to your main hand when you attack
3. have shield offensive properties "fire" when you block a hit

for example if you have a +3 flaming burst shield of pure good

every attack with your main had you would add +3 hit and damage, 1d6 flaming, 1d10 fire x crit multiplier-1 on a crit, and 1d6 good damage

every time you block it would do an attack role but would always hit, then an opponent would take 1d6 flaming 1d6 good, and on a crit 1d10 fire

it wouldn't catch shields up to other weapon types but it would close the gap a bit and it would be a hell of a lot of fun

[donfilibuster]

While shields are a big part of PnP, fantasy stereotypes, and historical accounts, they are mostly vendor trash in DDO.

Almost, but not quite entirely unlike that.
In a high magic setting armor, shield and common weapons are not as important as in your typical campaign.
It will be like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Historically swords and armor were made to be used against each other.
But on d&d what you need is a big axe to hack big monsters and unless it stops a dragon's breath a shield isn't as useful.

Think conan the barbarian here, should have as much chance vs. a dragon than any knight of tales.
Of course with great power comes great buffs, and this is more what we need in ddo right now.
There's plenty of AC spells and options in PnP already, like the greater armor spell.
But instead we got to play ddo like a mmo and this forces the party to have one tank and be the only one to afford high AC.
In d&d all classes have an array of abilities and defenses so the party shouldn't be made up like a mmo.
(e.g. tank, nuker, dps, healer. vs. fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric)

Not to say there can't be any improvement to shields, just saying the devs need to add more AC options than just tweak armor and shields.

it occurred to me that even without a major AC/AB overhaul, a few things could be done to make shields at least SEEM better.

For the listed ideas:

1. Yeah, more named shields that are actually usable.

2. But note devotion on shields comes at an earlier minimum level than weapons.

3. Still gotta follow turbine's choice of item rules (min level, prefix/suffix and total modifier).
What i'd like to see is to make the pointless combinations drop less and the useful combinations drop often.
But game wise, it is natural to find crappy items, since their original owners got killed from using that junk.

4. Something useful will be nice yeah, altough light or divine resistance might be overpowered.
Most of the basic shield abilities are there, the tricky ones like animated and arrow deflection are missing.

As I was caught in a stupid bidding war over a +5 mithral tower, (it was stupid for 2 reasons--I know better but insist on making an AC tank, and the other bidder was probably too ignorant to realize it was foolish to waste plat on AC)

Or, the bidder has an actual plan. You see, shields are not just for AC, shield blocking is currently the main and biggest use.
The valuable one is the mithral heavy shield, which is heavily sought after by casters that can use shield block for passive damage or lifesaver.
Anyone can do shield block and solo raids but casters need it be mithril so it has only 5% failure.

A mithral tower however, has not much advantage over an adamantine tower, so in this case yeah, it was stupid.
The only reason to have a mithril tower is for extra hardness, and affordable since adamantine ones are scarce if not costly, for this hardness reason.

I was sorely dissapointed with DDO when I found out you could not TWF with a shield. It is a very effective strategy in P&P.

I was also dissapointed with the absence of polearms. Especially since that makes the only option for THF with simple weapons a quarterstaff.

The developers seem to have an aversion to modal equipment. There would have to be a toggle to switch between TWF and one handed with shield. It would be nice to be able to switch between using a bastard sword as a 1H exotic and a 2H martial or to be able to TWF with a quarterstaff, or any other double weapon.

There's a bunch of things that can be improved regarding twf and are precisely the ones you mention: to make bastard sword and dwarven axe into true 2h martial, the other is to twf with a quarterstaff and double weapons.

Polearms, double weapons, whips, flails, spears, dual shields, all those suffer from needing new animations.
The devs simplified the game to the 1h and 2h to only have the basic weapons that work about the same.
They didn't even got the exotic weapons right, specially the one-and-a-half weapons.
Game wise, however, these weapons will fall into the 'not made for dungeons' just like armor and shields.
Polearms are mostly soldier's weapons, you can't even kill a dragon properly with one, it's not like shafting a boar.

As for toggling, we have that already, using weapon sets isn't too slow and the quick draw feat is supposed to work wit it.

[CaptainSpacePony]

2. But note devotion on shields comes at an earlier minimum level than weapons.

3. Still gotta follow turbine's choice of item rules (min level, prefix/suffix and total modifier).
What i'd like to see is to make the pointless combinations drop less and the useful combinations drop often.
But game wise, it is natural to find crappy items, since their original owners got killed from using that junk.

2. Shields ARE pretty good at low level. As is AC. I don't think much work needs to be done there.

3. No you don't. I didn't mean to hide it in the title, but I think changing (reducing) the ML for some shield properties could incentivize their use.

Of course, in my initial post, I only threw out a few suggestions. They were not meant to make an exhaustive list. I am exceptionally pleased by the community response so far. While each individual suggestion has room to be picked at, they are all reasonable and any or all of them could be implemented to address this issue.

Hopefully this thread won't disappear as it ages, although I expect a lot of players will dismiss it out of turn because it's about shields... which suck... so why read?

[kernal42]

Absolutely. You can change it in one of three ways:

1) Revamp AC; then the AC bonus of shields may be useful.
- Seems unlikely

2) Add legitimate defensive capabilities to shields.
- Static, non-blocking DR
- Named shields with elemental absorbtion
- Healing Amp
- Other hard-to-slot, important defensive abilities

3) Add legitimate offensive capabilities to shields.
- Significant guards
- Significant threat amp
- Seeker/Stunning/etc
- High Main-hand doublestrike chance

Cheers,
Kernal

[Alektronic]

I've been thinking for a while that the best way to fix shields to make them competitive with TWF and THF would be to have them scale with your level or BAB.

E.g. Shield AC gets additional AC bonus = BAB/2 (rounding down), i.e. 5 for wiz20, 10 for ftr20.
Alternatively, there's http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=289824
Or others.

I think basically something to scale the effectiveness of shields the way their opposite (BAB) scales... Afterall, offhand attack bonus grows as your BAB goes up, why not the equivalent for shields?

Well, AC debate aside, active shield blocking does give stacking DR benefits that grows as BAB bonus goes up (http://ddowiki.com/page/Active_blocking). Just thought I'd throw that out there. I like shields. It's just shield are for... defensive purposes... so I only use them when trying to mitigate (physical) damage... Strange, how that works.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Shields ARE for defensive purposes, but I find those purposes so overshadowed by offensive purposes that I think shields are mostly a joke in this game.

[Seamonkeysix]

Leonidas disagrees that the shield is only for defensive purposes.