What is the cap on AC for a pure DoS come U11?

[Reversion]

You also get to add your DEX Mod to AC to the shield. So 22 for the armor, and 22 for the shield. And yes, you should be able to fit all that onto a single character.

You only get to count the dex modifier once. -22 AC to what you posted.

[Warganom]

Then why the hell does Tower Shields have a max DEX?.. Ah... Well whatever... In that case, go monk -.- Why do we have shields again?

[sephiroth1084]

You also get to add your DEX Mod to AC to the shield. So 22 for the armor, and 22 for the shield.

Not how AC works.

I never said it would be a good idea to get all this ****, but the title says "What is the cap on AC for a pure DoS come U11?", not "What's the most AC you can get while still be able to hold aggro?".

I admit that I could have been more explicit, but I feel like "useful" should have been implied by the rest of my post.

[Warganom]

Yeah I changed it... They should make it so that you can count DEX Mod again if you have a shield though, that way you wouldn't have to go sheet wearing TWF monk splash to get good AC.

[negativeprogression]

Dexterity bonus is added to AC, the max dex bonus is just an indicator of how much dex bonus to ac you can get whilst wearing armour/ using a shield.

[sephiroth1084]

Then why the hell does Tower Shields have a max DEX?.. Ah... Well whatever... In that case, go monk -.- Why do we have shields again?

Uh...max Dex caps how much Dex you can apply to your AC.

If you have a +10 Dex bonus, but are wearing mithral full plate (max Dex of 3), you only get +3 AC from Dex. If you are also carrying a steel tower shield (max Dex of 2) you only get +2 AC from Dex.

If you are wearing regular full plate (MDB 1) and carrying a tower shield (MDB 2), you get only +1 AC from Dex.

[Warganom]

Yeah I got that 5 very embarrasing posts ago....

Still, why do we have shields again?.. We can't get AC with them, we can't use them for DR since if we block we don't get any aggro, unless we're a spell caster, we can't do even a fraction of the damage a TWF or a THF does with them, so why exactly do shields exist? So that casters can become DR tanks?

[RedDragonScale]

Why do we have shields again?

Because there are some feats out there that give you some cool benefits while using a shield (Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Bash) and there are some shields themselves that give you a LOT of cool benefits in addition to AC.

[grodon9999]

I never said it would be a good idea to get all this ****, but the title says "What is the cap on AC for a pure DoS come U11?", not "What's the most AC you can get while still be able to hold aggro?".

Yes, but it's kinda implied about a defender build that it needs to be able to hold aggro.

[elraido]

Yeah I got that 5 very embarrasing posts ago....

Still, why do we have shields again?.. We can't get AC with them, we can't use them for DR since if we block we don't get any aggro, unless we're a spell caster, we can't do even a fraction of the damage a TWF or a THF does with them, so why exactly do shields exist? So that casters can become DR tanks?

Shields do give you ac. Example Leviks Tower shield gives you 9 AC ontop of what you already would have. It also lets you add 4 more ontop of that if your dex score is high enough.

Shields also give you DR. If you block with Leviks, it gives you ~30DR. If you have shield mastery, you get a passive 20% damage reduction from incoming melee attacks.

Shields also can be used to attack as an off hand strike if you take shield bash.

Shields also give you a bonus to your intim score, to help hold agro.

[Warganom]

Improved Shield Bash in most cases are like having a +5 Kopesh in your offhand without twf feats, it's about that much of an DPS increase. Shield Mastery is somewhat good, but if you can't get DR or AC out of the shield it still falls short alot on the monk splash's damage mitigation. And cool benefits from shields... Superior Stability I guess is unique to shields, and the cove event shield does have some unique stuff, but other then that I don't think anything is shield only. Also, all these effects would be better on an off-hand weapon instead.

Edit: Also, 9 AC from Levik's, 10 with the AC ritual, is still only 6 more then the shield wand. So if a monk splash has more then 22, and that's not alot at all, WIS they still comes out on top. Plus that they will have alot more damage then you ever will.

You should also note that I mentioned DR, I am well aware of that... But for how long can you shield block without loosing aggro?

[sephiroth1084]

Yeah I got that 5 very embarrasing posts ago....

Still, why do we have shields again?.. We can't get AC with them, we can't use them for DR since if we block we don't get any aggro, unless we're a spell caster, we can't do even a fraction of the damage a TWF or a THF does with them, so why exactly do shields exist? So that casters can become DR tanks?

This isn't a relevancy of shields thread. Contribute or move along please.

[Warganom]

This isn't a relevancy of shields thread. Contribute or move along please.

Yeah sorry, my AC breakdown should be accurate now. Also, your AC breakdown is about as good as it gets without investing ridiculus amounts of points in DEX. Though you should know that you can't have Bracelet of Thaarak and Fabricator's Bracers at the same time... Though I guess you could just use fabricator's until they proc and then switch to bracelet of Thaarak...

Edit: To RedDragonScale: I didn't feel like posting yet another post here, so I'll just edit this one. I don't really have the energy to do such a thing, especially since it will lead nowhere. I just went into a "frenzy" when I realised just how dumb shields really are, and that they should really be fixed in some way. Sorry about all that...

Also I find it curious that the AC breakdown, which was incorrect, didn't get any negative rep, instead the post where I owned up to it got alot of negative rep. "Sorry lads, I was wrong... So sorry." Is apparantly worse then spreading faulty information.

Edit 2: Though now I realise that it wasn't that post that got neg reped, it was the one where I started derailing the topic, sorry about that...

[RedDragonScale]

Improved Shield Bash in most cases are like having a +5 Kopesh in your offhand without twf feats, it's about that much of an DPS increase. Shield Mastery is somewhat good, but if you can't get DR or AC out of the shield it still falls short alot on the monk splash's damage mitigation. And cool benefits from shields... Superior Stability I guess is unique to shields, and the cove event shield does have some unique stuff, but other then that I don't think anything is shield only. Also, all these effects would be better on an off-hand weapon instead.

Edit: Also, 9 AC from Levik's, 10 with the AC ritual, is still only 6 more then the shield wand. So if a monk splash has more then 22, and that's not alot at all, WIS they still comes out on top. Plus that they will have alot more damage then you ever will.

You should also note that I mentioned DR, I am well aware of that... But for how long can you shield block without loosing aggro?

Please review the title of this thread. Notice it says "pure DoS." Nothing is mentioned about monk splashing in the OP.

Therefore, this thread is NOT about the merits of a pure DoS pally AC vs. DoS Pally with a monk splash AC.

Perhaps you should start your own thread?

EDIT: Sephiroth beat me to it.

[elraido]

One thing to look into are the Abishai cookies. They give a +2 natural armor bonus that stacks.


I will say this, since the one poster has no idea how ac even works, then do not make statements about what he should do, why he shouldn't even bother to use shields, or what he should do on the build. An AC tank will hold agro over most other builds, unless they are full ****** dps builds with the most epic of gear. Not only that, but if you built right, the DPS on them isn't as bad as you think they are. I have a feeling my main will out dps most of your toons any day of the week....while not getting hit.....and mitigating damage over the fight. Can your melee stand in front of around 5 epic vehlah infernos and survive? Can your melee solo VoD? This is a thread about getting his ac up as high as he can....it isn't about what you view as viable....and lets face it, by thinking you get 22 more ac from your dex mod with a shield, you have no idea what you are talking about

[Warganom]

I resent the statement about me not knowing how AC even works, it's not that I don't know how AC works, it's that I don't know how shields works. AC is simple, if you're AC is higher then the enemy's to-hit+1d20 then he misses you.

And I know about everything you said, and you are correct about everything about it, but that's just you verbally assaulting me. I owned up to it, and I learned something, now lets drop it shall we?.. It's embarrasing enough as it is.

Edit: Though I guess I never really said I was wrong, it must have sliped through the cracks of madness that roamed through my mind.

I am sorry, what I said about shield's max DEX was incorrect. Sorry about derailing your thread as well, it was not in any way my intention.

[PestWulf]

If you put the race to dwarf you can get +10 from Dex with the three dwarven race enhances.

The limiting factor appears to be the shield, with Cavalry plate and the two Dex releases from the Defender line and three releases from the Fighter and Dwarf enhancements each, you could have up to 11 Dex off the plate.

Unfortunately, with a normal mithral shield I can only get 10 from the tower shield. If there is a shield with one more dex allowed on it, then you could achieve a total of 11 from Dex max I believe, just don't know what shield that would be and still be a tower.

EDIT: Ah, you're talking Syberis not Stalwart, so pally. Sorry, not helpful I reckon. Although if you did go Dwarf, you could still raise your dex from 7 to 10 allowed on the armor.

[vyvy3369]

Okay, I should have specified armored and shielded AC.

I assume further that you mean heavy armor (edit: well, medium or heavy I guess, since it's Mithral). If that's not the case, even ignoring monk splash you could still potentially gain more from robes over heavy armor, depending on gear, etc. The epic heavy shields don't have max dex, so the limiting factor in that case is the armor. 16 armor + 7 dex from the heavy armor for 23. 12 from IR and armor bracers / whatever means you just need to make up 4 more from a higher dex, and a 32+ dex isn't that unreasonable. Back when Henry was a Fighter, I was pretty easily getting 10-11 dex out of heavy armor as a Dwarf, and that was before a few of the buffs that we have available now.

Not really sure where'd you fit in the armor bonus though...probably wrists and fit in +2 Dodge from like an epic Cloak of Night (and just know not to use it when tanking certain bosses...although I also seem to recall that a bunch of bosses were gaining TS in U11 anyways).

Edit: also, assuming you have it, Red Dragonplate and Cavalry Plate end up working out to the same AC by virtue of the extra max dex in heavy armor vs. medium.

[sephiroth1084]

If you put the race to dwarf you can get +10 from Dex with the three dwarven race enhances.

The limiting factor appears to be the shield, with Cavalry plate and the two Dex releases from the Defender line and three releases from the Fighter and Dwarf enhancements each, you could have up to 11 Dex off the plate.

Unfortunately, with a normal mithral shield I can only get 10 from the tower shield. If there is a shield with one more dex allowed on it, then you could achieve a total of 11 from Dex max I believe, just don't know what shield that would be and still be a tower.

EDIT: Ah, you're talking Syberis not Stalwart, so pally. Sorry, not helpful I reckon. Although if you did go Dwarf, you could still raise your dex from 7 to 10 allowed on the armor.

Yeah, dwarf could gain another 3, but I think that's getting too build specific. Maybe not.

[Warganom]

Not really sure where'd you fit in the armor bonus though...probably wrists and fit in +2 Dodge from like an epic Cloak of Night (and just know not to use it when tanking certain bosses...although I also seem to recall that a bunch of bosses were gaining TS in U11 anyways).

You could always use Epic Dualist Leathers which has 8 armor bonus and +4 Dodge. It's abit to easy to hit it's max DEX though, 12, so Icy Raiment and Armor bracers might still be better.