Update 9 to make shield-bearers a viable alternative to THF?

[cforce]

Only if you can add weapon effects to shields otherwise it is gonna be 20% chance to do something like 1d6+6+str mod damage. Pretty pitiful.

This. A 20% chance of adding ~25 damage (the equivalent of +5 damage) still leaves a S&B character too far behind a TWF character who can achieve the same AC.

It's a nice perk, sure, but the situations where people pull out a shield are going to remain exactly the same: only if you need the blocking DR on an intimitank during specific battles. And, of course, this added damage wouldn't make a difference in that situation.

[Saintsblessing]

Well, the update 9 notes are up, and a few things of note:
Mithral shields will now count as both Mithral and Silver for DR.
Shields buff intimidate, which is now more broadly useful and works by setting your hate at the highest rather than snap aggro.
Shield mastery reduces physical vulnerability while using a shield (not sure what exactly this means, is it avoidance or mitigation?)

Looking more and more like shield bearers might actually be useful in a group.

[BlackSteel]

you're overlooking the 'other' new benefit to shields. a flat % based resistance to physical damage. Scales up to 20% with tower shields.

Now 20% chance at an extra hit and 20% less incoming melee damage is pretty significant.

[Kaeldur]

Flat % DR based on shield type and enchantments on the shield, possibly boostable with shield mastery.

You nailed that one. Impressive!

[Hecore]

With the change to bashing, Talon seems moderately appealing. 2d6 Base, 19-20x3 crit, maiming. Too bad it's just a large shield and the /dr on it sucks.

[Boromirs]

yeh they somewhat missed the ball on this one. A person choosing to use a shield primarily will be focued on DEFENSE first and foremost and leave the DPS to the ...well.. DPSers. They should have made the defensive benefits more effective.

(*) Shield use now deflects fireballs, dragon's breath, magic missiles or any kind of missiles really at a certain percentage. As logic will dictate and what is actually in many D&D rules, especially AD&D for you old schoolers.

(*) Shield use will have a certain % chance to OUTRIGHT block in coming attacks. Meaning, you don't have to press the block button to get the full benefits of it. So say 20% base to "auto-block" with various factors that contribute to it.

(*) Push back, you can actually push an enemy back physically with a well timed shield bash. This would be pretty awesome but don't know how flexible DDO's physics engine is.

[Junts]

Maybe "full time" isn't the right phrase to use, but rather being primarily a shield wearing tank that provides decent damage and switching to a 2h in cases where there's no reason to have a shield.

This is already true, but the cases you mention at the end are 90% of this game.

[CaptGrim]

I see two shortcomings with Improved Shield Bash:
1. The 20% proc rate is too low. The rate shouldn't be close to the 80% granted by GTWF, but 40% is sufficient to avoid infringing on GTWF's role. A 20% rate is just... small.

I made a suggestion thread months ago, about scaling shield bash feats. But at a minimum I'd like to see:

shield prof: grants 20% off hand bash
Imp shield bash: bumps to 40% off hand bash(or at least 30%)

If I designed it I'd do:

Prof: 10%
Shield bash:30%
Imp shield bash: 40%
Grt shield bash: 50%

Shield Mastery's feat benefit has been changed to, "You are now skilled with the use of a shield, and your physical damage vulnerability is decreased by 10% when using a buckler or small shield, 15% when using a large shield, or 20% when using a tower shield."

Shield Mastery will be ok for defensive minded fighters too.

The flat % based Damage mitigation will shape up to be nice, considering that it will stack with DR and AC.

A Stalwart with great AC, will take only/mostly grazing hits from bosses or epic trash.
Those will be then reduced by the 6 DR/- and the 20% from a tower shield. (in which order they take First, % or DR, I've no clue. But it just seems like a way to mitigate the brokenness that is grazing hits. a 20 point Grazing hit could end up landing for 10 points with this feat.
Or at the least in ,DPS mode, you throw on a Tower when taking unwanted aggro and shield block further increasing your mitigation by 20%. Either way 2 good changes, perhaps not enough to bring S+B where it needs to be, but time will tell. After all update 9 seems to be DDO 2.0

2. Shields don't drop with properties that would help you damage a raid boss, such as +5 Holy Silver Heavy Shield of Righteousness.

Adamantine shields now correctly bypass adamantine damage reduction when shield bashing. Mithral shields now bypass both silver and mithral damage reduction.

With crafting you may be able to add Righteousness(for good), pure good, or maybe even holy burst, we'll have to wait and see what crafting brings to the table.