Why dont you wear a shield!?Follow

I am a 34 Defiler and have grouped with many a tank that does not wear a shield. In saying tank, I mean zerkers, guardians, sk's, and pally's. Depending on the con of the mob, I understand that lower con'd mobs will hit less, but when the con of the mob to the tank is red, and they dont use a shield, that really irks me! I have asked these tanks to please equip their shield and either I get no reply or they say it will affect their dps. I could freaking care less about the amount of dps you are doing, as long as I dont run out of mana, with the threat of a wipe, on every pull just because you dont want to use a shield to affect your dps. Please someone help me out here, am I wrong in saying that a shield is the best option here? The way I see it is, they will take less damage, causing me to have more mana at the end, and the near death to the group at the end of the fight is no longer an issue.

USE A SHIELD DEMMIT!

/rant off

Why wear a sheild? if ur doing more dmg with a 2hander why lower that for more defence. the way i look at it is the same way i did in EQ1. Sheild = more ac. 2handed = more dps.

Sheild- makes fights last longer cause u produce less DPS over a 2handed so u can just as easily take the same amount of dmg.

2handed - shortens the fight significantly due to more DPS meaning ud take about the same DPS over time as u would with a sheild. just fights are faster.

this was how i looked at it in EQ1. people would tell me to Equip a sheild cause it gives me more ac. id say "What the hell for? I kill them faster with a 2hander and take less ripostes. Why get more ac if im gonna take even more dmg?" and usaly the cleric or shaman or druid would leave cause they hated being Wrong. However i no this is a different game, but if someone asked me to switch to a sheild over a perfered preference of 2hs i would not. as for u running out of mana, stick 2 1-2 jobs. Not often will someone be warding, slowing , cripling oponents stats, buffing , and healing. if u are stick to the most important 2.

yep i agree tank should always use shield, which is why when i am asked to tank i try to politly decline, or i might agree to backup tank, but wont use shield as backup tank since normally only need to hold hate for a short amount of time, and i will spend any/all power only wardin myself an using life tap moves till tank is rdy to pull hate back from me

Damage output of the MT is not enough no matter what to warrant a loss of 250-500 AC. If you are in a full group nobody cares if you want to have high DPS, that is NOT your job. Your job, as MT, is to hold aggro and stay alive. If the priests can't do their job because you are dead before they can heal you, you are not doing your job.

I have been in several groups where I was invited to join and the MT was 2 or 3 levels higher than mebut using a 2hs and getting hammered. I sent a tell to the healer and mage telling them I am taking over as MT they both said they didnt care so I went for it. I barely lost half HP each fight where the 3 level higher paladin was constantly at 10% hp or lower.

alright, how bout in not a full group.

Me = Berzerker

Friend01 = Swash Buckler

Friend0A = Templar

should i be using a 2hs, Dual Wield or a shield?

In any situation where I am a tank, I ALWAYS use a shield. Staying alive is where it's at. Yes killing faster is a plus, however, using a 2h weapon over a shiled and 1h weapon is not going to give you enough DPS to overcome the amount of damage you take by not using a shield.

I am a paladin and I will go so far as to say why in the hell do you ever use a two-hander. I lose 400ac when I unequip mine and my one hander and two hander have the same damage and delay.

Well I thought this must be wrong there must be an incentive to use a two hander. I tried green double arrow up mobs and my damage output was exactly the same. I had to heal myself so much more often with the two-handed weapon that the fight took longer.

Granted sword of thunder is my one hander but it has exactly the same damage and delay as my two hander.

I also have a starfall and that has a better ratio minus the proc. and is like using a 2 hander with a shield.

I am a 29 pally and I give my two hander a shot once in a while in group but without parsing I don't see a noticable difference just a feel for how fast exactly the same type and level of mobs drop.

I asked a 50 paladin if he gets some kind of damage bonus or anything later and he said some arts are only 2-handed weapon usable and they are huge.

!!!also something you guys forgot to point out with a sheild you have a chance to block attacks there again with the added ac you are taking less hits which means less dmg an mean less healing!!!

i play a shadowknight an always use my sheild an 1h back around lets see from lvl 9 to 14 i used a 2h but once i really started to get in higher end groups i found its really hard to keep aggro an not take a lot of dmg with a 2h i also play a healer an find it much easier to keep a tank with a sheild alive then a tank with a 2h really the only reason i carry a 2h is because when im in a bind i equip it to use my 2h abilitys because some of them do do lots of dmg

if you actually know what your talking about instead of just thinking hmm it seems like tanks should always use shields so i say they HAVE TO!!!!!!!

youd know that it hardly even effects you

i see no difference in how hard they hit me when i use a shield or not

Well, I play a Gaurdian and a Cleric. I play both equally well. But, I don't use a shield on my Gaurdian any more, even though I can get an extra hit in with Bash and chance for stun/spell intrupt. But, I like using my DW weapons. So Usaully I will off take the mobs. When and If I find a weapon that is better then my DW's combined then I will use it. Till then I am going to keep the DW's.

But, on the cleric side I would rather see a Fighter class tank with a shield.

This is how I handle tanking as a 28 ShadowKnight.

In groups or solo, I prefer my (outdated) Waterlogged Kite Shield, and Starfall (one handed mace).

Before combat I max out my concentration on myself with the following:

1. Grim Harbenger (Weapon Proc buff)
2. Zarn's Aura (Class Trait Choice, Replaces Knight's Stance)
3. Vigor of Trust (STR, STA buff)

This combination seems to work best for me, it gives me my weapon proc, extra defense, then the VoT buffs up my str and sta a little more.

Immediately before combat I activate Unholy Order, which buffs the groups Offense, and Reists.

I then pull, once pulled I initiate a group taunt as soon as majority of mobs are in range, cast Infernal Pact (damage ward + lifetap proc).

After that it is a matter of having your group set to do HOs propperly. Best HO so far, in my opinion, is having a Scout start, then fighter taunt, priest hammer, mage fireball.

One other point on this subject as I went and put all my theories to test.

The difference in very little ac is the difference in a mob never hitting me at all and a mob just knocking the living **** out of me.

I changed to a ring that was orange and lost 3 measly *** ac and the mobs were hitting me like I took off my breastplate.

There is some scientific formula for ac and damage that I almost have a handle on.

Level, level of mob, your ac, a couple other factors. There is a magic ac number that if you can get to or above by even 1 ac green double arrow up mobs simply cannot hit me. Fall below it and I get beat like a retarded stepchild.

This has held true for every level since I figured it out, generally if you get the best gear you can ac wise other stats seem to go with it. There is a point, which is hard to go above with level to gear ac restrictions, that mobs can't touch me.

And no I never saw conan with a shield, but I am neither a barbarian or a destroyer I am a dwarf who for some reason unbeknownst to me cannot use an axe.

Look around at the 50 gaurdians and paladins and I have yet to see one running around without a shield.

Its a game though do what you want. I don't collect many shards so I will continue doing what I do. Pontifacting about how you should enjoy your game or how it should be played I will leave to wiser dwarves.

Edited, Mon Feb 14 17:42:30 2005 by grumpass

Hello,

I usually dont post much here but as a 34 guardian i had to jump in this one. TANKS SHOULD USE SHEILDS!
I have a parser, so i have tested this, i have a 1 hand and sheild setup (pristine forged feysteel longsword and shiny metallic sheild), and a set of dual weilders (pristine forged feyiron short sword and falchion), most of my time is either spent in a full grp, where of course i am MT, or duoing with my best friends 34 assasin.
I ihave parsed my 1 hand setup and my dual weild setup, and guess what, dps is the same! Any dps that a guardian may put out comes from our skills and ho's, not the weapon we are swinging. A tanks job is to take damage and hold aggro, dps means nothing to a tank, so why would i lose the 400+ AC my sheild gives me? And let me tell you when your in your 30's you will FEEL that 400 AC loss.
So please all you tanks out there, listen to the cleric, put on a one hander and buy a sheild, the most important bar in a fight is your healers power bar, if its going down fatser then the mob is, well you know what happens...;