Shields and how to use them

[byrel]

I've seen several people (blue names) here say that shields are fairly tricky, and not good for beginners. I've been think about it and don't understand. What's the trick? Should you train shields before you start wearing it or something?

[rebthor]

You can be successful wearing a shield. The downsides of shields are that they stop you from wielding the more damaging two handed weapons and that until you've trained them to a certain level, they add a random amount of delay to your attacks. Further, for every attack that you successfully block in a turn, your chance to block another attack that turn drops significantly. As if that weren't enough, once you get into the late game (after the main game), they really do very little to reduce the amount of damage since large portions of damage are not blockable by any means.

I would get a buckler at least on any non-primary melee fighter because 5 experience levels is near trivial, even in a 3 rune game. On a melee guy, I wouldn't bother at all because of the delay and the fact that I am almost certainly going to to use a two handed weapon.

[byrel]

How about with (additive branded) demon weapons? Is that worth it, or aren't those as good as I thought?

[Blade]

Shields+demon weapons are pretty good.

Shields aren't terrible; they're just usually not as good as two-handed weapons (the increase in defense generally isn't worth the reduction to offense).

[nago]

There are several reasons why shields aren't suggested for all character. Firstly, it's important to understand how they works: differently from AC and EV, every successive attack has a bigger chance to surpass shield's defence - overall, they work greatly against single opponent, or in corridor and poorly when surrounded.
Secondly, welding a shield means to sacrifice 2 hand weapon - in most situation for a melee character is better to kill enemies faster, because their AC/EV let to suck big damage (actually the biggest defence is the ability to position well during field, but that depends on player and not on character), rather than having a third line of defence that cripple their source of damage.

Please notice that this a general true: a good double sword/demon trident/demon whip is enough even for a pure melee character to win a 3 game - so if a very good shield is found, or good 2 hand weapon can't be found, 1 hand + shield could be a better solution.
Anyway, some general clarification can be made:
- in extended, most sources of damage aren't blockable, so it's much better to use bigger weapon rather than a useless shield.
- good axe are 2 hand (battle and exec axe), while 1 hand sucks, so it's a mistake to use axe and a shield (the only exception here may be a vampiric broad axe)

Ironically, shield are always worthy for mages (a buckler greatly increase their poor/mediocre defences) and maybe for hybrid, because they may have problems to get 2 hand weapon to min delay early on, or they may use brand which damage isn't relate to weapon's base damage (distortion, pain)

[byrel]

Thanks! That clarifies a lot!

[ajon]

Suggested for a KoBe i take it?

[njvack]

A KoBe with short blades, slings, and a buckler would work pretty well. HaBe, even better.

[yogaFLAME]

I prefer to just use double swords on KoBe. This is not a joke, the -2 long blades apt is meaningless on a berserker who has infinite surplus exp.

[Psieye]

Healers get the most use out of shields - they don't need to cast nor swing a weapon so equipping a large shield at 0 skill has no downside for them.

[byrel]

Well, a -5 EV penalty... But not much of a downside.

[Psieye]

A technical correction, yes.

[daggaz]

I prefer to just use double swords on KoBe. This is not a joke, the -2 long blades apt is meaningless on a berserker who has infinite surplus exp.

Why take the -2 hit? Kobolds also do well just starting with short blades. The +3 to shortblades means it is trivial to ramp this up to 10 or 12, which is all you need for min delay for all those daggers and shortswords littering the early dungeon, often with very useful early brands like venom or draining or speed. The very fast weapon speed is more than enough to dominate most early game critters. Then cross train to longblades once branded longblades start showing up in the RNG, and as long as your shortblade skill is higher, the -2 is instead a +2, so once again you will reach min delay rather quickly. Added bonus as you can keep a dagger around for stabbing damage (another +2 skill) for brutalizing sleeping enemies.

If I find a buckler as a kobold, I put it on immediately. 7 (not 5, they are small species) is equally trivial and if you are at min delay with shortblades already, you wont really notice anyhow as you level it up.

[crate]

Just use lajatangs or maces for kobe imo. Short blades are good if you want to stab, lajatang is a doublesword but takes less skill and does more damage and has better possible brands.

Demon blades are fine also but double swords aren't very good for kobe.

--

Anyway I strongly recommend just using shields and then actually noticing if you're doing better with your shield on or off, this will help you make decisions.

[yogaFLAME]

I prefer to just use double swords on KoBe. This is not a joke, the -2 long blades apt is meaningless on a berserker who has infinite surplus exp.

Why take the -2 hit? Kobolds also do well just starting with short blades. The +3 to shortblades means it is trivial to ramp this up to 10 or 12, which is all you need for min delay for all those daggers and shortswords littering the early dungeon, often with very useful early brands like venom or draining or speed. The very fast weapon speed is more than enough to dominate most early game critters. Then cross train to longblades once branded longblades start showing up in the RNG, and as long as your shortblade skill is higher, the -2 is instead a +2, so once again you will reach min delay rather quickly. Added bonus as you can keep a dagger around for stabbing damage (another +2 skill) for brutalizing sleeping enemies.

So.. you realize you just agreed with me and thought you were disagreeing with me? I never said anything about the path that you should take to end up at a double sword. Starting in short blades is fine, it's just not where you want to end up.

lajatang is a doublesword but takes less skill and does more damage and has better possible brands.

Lajatangs are sweet but the lack of intermediate weapons leaves you pretty underpowered for a while. It can obviously be done but it can be awkward if you have bad tactics/decision making.

[Psieye]

So.. you realize you just agreed with me and thought you were disagreeing with me? I never said anything about the path that you should take to end up at a double sword.

To be fair, that was bad wording (that 'just' word) on your part that made him make that mistake.

[Galefury]

Lajatangs are sweet but the lack of intermediate weapons leaves you pretty underpowered for a while. It can obviously be done but it can be awkward if you have bad tactics/decision making.

Trog will provide for you, and I think he will usually do so fairly quickly.

[daggaz]

So.. you realize you just agreed with me and thought you were disagreeing with me? I never said anything about the path that you should take to end up at a double sword. Starting in short blades is fine, it's just not where you want to end up.

I think you are looking for an argument that isnt there. I was just offering advice to other kobold players about an alternative (and probably more optimal for many of them, especially nonberserkers) path to longblades. And you did imply a path, as you mention that the -2 is trivial on an xp loaded berserker and this is in connection with the term "just double swords", implying pretty directly that you train longswords immediately. Ironically enough, you yourself are now arguing with me while agreeing with what I just explained (and which you did not mention whatsoever in your first post): you can start in shortblades and seque over to longblades once they become available.

[dassem]

Interestingly, both of my 15-runers had shields. Not sure if that just means I suck though...
(Both were primarily mages with a hybrid nature - for a fighter with lots of HP, I'd agree that killing things faster with a 2-hander is usually the way to go.)

To me the things that make it worth going with shields are finding them at the right time (such as when you've got 'spare' XP coming) and a good resistance. Often a plain buckler, say, will be rather average; but a buckler of resistance may be a no-brainer. Similarly, a good resistance plus your appropriate elemental staff (giving another resistance) is quite a nice combo for a mage who does not want to wear heavy armor.

Other comments are that they can provide an AC boost too, which can be useful for the squishy; and that when I found a buckler (and later when I upgraded to a shield) on this last character, I pretty much trained the shields skill exclusively until I got above the penalty level.