Recent Shield Changes?

Danamyr

Fledgling Freddie
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I've been playing my solo Paladin a little over since the patch but have been finding typical 1v1s a lot more difficult and I don't know why.

He is a RR5L2 Briton, specced 50 Shield, 46 Chants & 39 Slash. Current RAs are MoP III, MoB III, Aug Str II & IP II.

I am now being beaten by assassins I'd have easily beaten pre-patch.

I understand Malice has been nerfed and that seems to have a tremendous effect on my (limited) ability to deal damage, but my survivability seems to have taken a real hit as well.

I used to block quite a lot (50+15 Shield & MoB 3) but since the patch I am finding my Shield is being penetrated far more often - is there any reason for that?

I am not sure what else I can do, I'm re-templating ATM to fit in WH, and will probably end up using LGWs (Spirit & Cold) to try and exploit resists but I seem to be a little buggered really.

Any constructive advise as to how I can improve survivability and damage that doesn't include /delete and re-roll to Arms/Merc? :m00:
 

aika

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the cap is now 70% for blocking (or 75%), basically you shouldn't expect do beat a moderate-high RR assasin at rr5 tbh. Only the viper will chew through quite fast, not counting the number of evade chains you are giving to them due to pala's low WS.

I wouldn't bother with WH, instead try to cap as much resists as possible, 101 str is a must, 360+ hits, 90+ con, and if possible +11 parry. Dont think WH will help you much, try fitting the labby shield with absorb debuff proc, it rocks. Also I'd suggest using champ weapon due to the slash debuff proc.
 

preacherboy

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I've been playing my solo Paladin a little over since the patch but have been finding typical 1v1s a lot more difficult and I don't know why.

He is a RR5L2 Briton, specced 50 Shield, 46 Chants & 39 Slash. Current RAs are MoP III, MoB III, Aug Str II & IP II.

I am now being beaten by assassins I'd have easily beaten pre-patch.

I understand Malice has been nerfed and that seems to have a tremendous effect on my (limited) ability to deal damage, but my survivability seems to have taken a real hit as well.

I used to block quite a lot (50+15 Shield & MoB 3) but since the patch I am finding my Shield is being penetrated far more often - is there any reason for that?

I am not sure what else I can do, I'm re-templating ATM to fit in WH, and will probably end up using LGWs (Spirit & Cold) to try and exploit resists but I seem to be a little buggered really.

Any constructive advise as to how I can improve survivability and damage that doesn't include /delete and re-roll to Arms/Merc? :m00:
If your template=resists are ok + cap in hp are ok think your ras need looking at;)
 

Gear

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Every assassin worth his rps will be able to bypass shield without problems. There's no way that a pala will be able to stand up to constant tics of viper3 and reapplication of debuffs/disease, not even Theodon can.
 

>.< Pooned

Fledgling Freddie
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the cap is now 70% for blocking (or 75%), basically you shouldn't expect do beat a moderate-high RR assasin at rr5 tbh. Only the viper will chew through quite fast, not counting the number of evade chains you are giving to them due to pala's low WS.

I wouldn't bother with WH, instead try to cap as much resists as possible, 101 str is a must, 360+ hits, 90+ con, and if possible +11 parry. Dont think WH will help you much, try fitting the labby shield with absorb debuff proc, it rocks. Also I'd suggest using champ weapon due to the slash debuff proc.

to aika i have to say that WH is quite a must... worse opponent for me while playing blademaster was farek on his rr11 paladin and always with the use of winged helmet :<
now for the starter of this thread assasin poisons can be very effective against u but there is 1 ml in warlord path line that can help u deal with em are u battlemaster or smthing? if yes then time to respec if u looking for solo fights...
 

Tuthmes

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Every assassin worth his rps will be able to bypass shield without problems. There's no way that a pala will be able to stand up to constant tics of viper3 and reapplication of debuffs/disease, not even Theodon can.

What he said.
 

aika

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to aika i have to say that WH is quite a must... worse opponent for me while playing blademaster was farek on his rr11 paladin and always with the use of winged helmet :<
now for the starter of this thread assasin poisons can be very effective against u but there is 1 ml in warlord path line that can help u deal with em are u battlemaster or smthing? if yes then time to respec if u looking for solo fights...

yes its true against other melee classes , against assasin WH wont do much :)
I never used this poison reduce ml, but you should respec to warlord really as well.
 

>.< Pooned

Fledgling Freddie
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yes its true against other melee classes , against assasin WH wont do much :)
I never used this poison reduce ml, but you should respec to warlord really as well.

ye warlord isnt only warguard hehe very nice utility :)
 

Gear

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^ lol

I can't think of any other styles WH would be more effective against then CS :p

What he means is that assassins can get their dps from other sources than just styling (poisons, ps)
 

Danamyr

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My resists are all capped at 26 except one. There's little wrong with my RAs, but if block is now capped at 70% perhaps I can get away with less MoB.

The chance to block, if I understand it correctly, is base 25% + 0.5% per level of Shield + MoB = 25+32.5+10 = 67.5% chance to block. I believe this may be further modified by Dex but not sure how.

My template has 101 Str and 101 Dex BTW. I have looked at the CL Wep, but the melee resists do not stack with the CL melee resists shout.

Would it be worth dropping Shield from 50 to 42? if I do that I can raise Slash from 39 to 44 and then have enough points left for 19 Parry, ATM I have 0 Parry.

The only other real way I can think of to increase DPS is buying Anger of the Gods RA which is 10, 20 or 30 DPS dmg add. Is that worth it considering it's on a timer?

I forgot to mention, I am Warlord spec and have been for ages, the poison reduce shout is definately very nice :)

Thinking about it more, the changes to both Battler & Malice have hit me hard. I forgot Battler got a nerf as well. When an assassin would PA me, I'd wait until it wore off, then /face and start melee while dropping Battler, War Guard, CL melee resists & Poison reduce shout, then IP if required. That was enough to get a win 1v1 pre-nerf but now the Battler & Malice effects are too weak and the balance has tipped the other way. Is there any combination of Slash weapons I can use to redress this?
 

Gear

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According to charplan, with just 50 on shield and 101 dex (fully buffed as well ofc) you got 71.85% chances to Parry/block/evade (no points have been put on parry, no starting stats either so just assume you had no dex at startup)

Droping shield to 42 and getting mob2 puts the number to 71.4%, putting 19 points into parry and the figure rises to 75.38%

Hope that helped, the program is called charplan if you want to check it out.
 

Danamyr

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According to charplan, with just 50 on shield and 101 dex (fully buffed as well ofc) you got 71.85% chances to Parry/block/evade (no points have been put on parry, no starting stats either so just assume you had no dex at startup)

Droping shield to 42 and getting mob2 puts the number to 71.4%, putting 19 points into parry and the figure rises to 75.38%

Hope that helped, the program is called charplan if you want to check it out.

So that would cap Block chances as well as provide additional defence with Parry?

I have it and checked it out last night, it seems to be the way forward - very grateful for the advise though, thank you.
 

Vodkafairy

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What he means is that assassins can get their dps from other sources than just styling (poisons, ps)

yeah I got that much, but I don't see it being a justification to get 1+ gr styled on. instead I'd take it as a fucking good reason to avoid as much styledmg as possible, since you can only ever stop the dots twice (warlord + purge)
 

Danamyr

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According to charplan, with just 50 on shield and 101 dex (fully buffed as well ofc) you got 71.85% chances to Parry/block/evade (no points have been put on parry, no starting stats either so just assume you had no dex at startup)

Droping shield to 42 and getting mob2 puts the number to 71.4%, putting 19 points into parry and the figure rises to 75.38%

Hope that helped, the program is called charplan if you want to check it out.

Gear, I just looked at it again.

A Briton with 10 Str, Con & Dex on creation with 42 Shield and 19 Parry and 0 MoB has a 75.88% chance to block/parry/evade.

Can you please check these figures for me?

That would seem you can cap Block % on a Briton Paladin with 101 Dex in template and no MoB whatsoever - am I understand that correctly?
 

aika

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yeah I got that much, but I don't see it being a justification to get 1+ gr styled on. instead I'd take it as a fucking good reason to avoid as much styledmg as possible, since you can only ever stop the dots twice (warlord + purge)


Well ofc it reduces overall dmg and generally helps, though it has much bigger impact on visual melee classes, f.e when I play my mercenary and face an opponent with WH on my dmg output suffers greatly, while as stealther you can still cycle lifebane and get decent DPS. Ofc get WH if you can, its just not worth gimping a template with it.
 

Gear

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Gear, I just looked at it again.

A Briton with 10 Str, Con & Dex on creation with 42 Shield and 19 Parry and 0 MoB has a 75.88% chance to block/parry/evade.

Can you please check these figures for me?

That would seem you can cap Block % on a Briton Paladin with 101 Dex in template and no MoB whatsoever - am I understand that correctly?

I got a 73.86% chance to block/parry/evade. However dont' forget that this is a cumulative figure and by no means implies that you have maximised blocking chances. The way I see it, with just 42 shield and the stats you mentioned, you get a 69.75% chance to block. I'd try to take that to the hard cap (75%) which you can do with mob2 (74.12%, mob3 takes you way too high).

On top of that, you can build up your parry defence. If i remember right, the way the game checks defences is 1st blocking, 2nd parrying, 3rd evade. So maximise your blocking rate first, then go for the parrying.

Then again, I'm not 100% sure that those figures I'm getting are right since I never had to use em on my toons to do a thorough check so don't take everything for granted.
 

aika

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parry cap is 50% btw and its achievable quite easily with +11 parry and highish dex
 

Xrystofer

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evade 17.1%
parry 59.6%
block 70.6%


total chance to block/parry/evade 90.15% .... ;p

thats my chances on reaver :p
 

Phalanx

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It has always seamt to me that base chance to block and effective chance against an enemy are not the same.

You could probably get up to say 90% blocking chance, and the effective chance to block when fighting another player would then be reduced by things like his dexterity, the difference between yours and his weapon skill, attack speed perhaps, and that effective block rate is what would be capped at 75%.
 

Ckiller

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I got a 73.86% chance to block/parry/evade. However dont' forget that this is a cumulative figure and by no means implies that you have maximised blocking chances. The way I see it, with just 42 shield and the stats you mentioned, you get a 69.75% chance to block. I'd try to take that to the hard cap (75%) which you can do with mob2 (74.12%, mob3 takes you way too high).

On top of that, you can build up your parry defence. If i remember right, the way the game checks defences is 1st blocking, 2nd parrying, 3rd evade. So maximise your blocking rate first, then go for the parrying.

Then again, I'm not 100% sure that those figures I'm getting are right since I never had to use em on my toons to do a thorough check so don't take everything for granted.

Parry is first afaik
 

Nuxtobatns

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Charplan gives 0.05% per point of Dex... u think its correct ?
Last formula i remember was closer to 0.02% ... but maybe my memory fails me.
 

Ljuvasara

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Dex doesnt seem to have that great an impact on blocking, better to make sure that con/resists/hps+toys are in there before going out of your way to max dex. I used to swear by having at the very least mob3 and 80dex, but changed that after trying a few friendly duels against other warriors when i noticed that i blocked very well with just 42+18shield and 60ish dex. Although i strongly suspect that against high ws/high rr visibles having some overcapped block/parry will give you a few more seconds.
 

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