chattius 2,696 Posted October 26, 2010 The first character of my wife had just technic focus, no technic lore or warding energy. She is nearly immune to weapon attacks, because of shield lore at mastery, battle stance, lowering attack value with pillars and lowering attack speed with light aura. She has taken following skills: warrior focus -9 , armour lore-1, shield lore-75, celestial focus-75, combat discipline-75, concentration-75, celestial lore-1, constitution-1, ancient magic-1 and technic focus -9 She now wants to modify energy shield: projectile reflection, magic mirror, resource The E-Shields would be just there to block or reflect spells. Their function would be the same as 'amulets of life saving' in nethack. One, perhaps two chances to escape death. Much like the extra hitpoints from a horse, but also stopping 99% of incoming spells. The character currently has just 1 point in technic focus. Would it make sense to modify both e-shields for one-time life saving effects? If it makes sense, then consequently the modifying and socketing to maximize shield usage should be adapted to this one-time life saving effect. We want as much damage as possible hitting the health and not the shield. We can heal easily as a celestial seraphim, but not recharge the shield. So no damage to shield converting would be socketed. Maximum shield energy will remain low even we socket it, combat art block would be better to be socketed. We don't have a console. What is not displayed at consoles? The remaining power of an e-shield or even that it is active? Any console player or PC-player using a low energy energy-shield ?
wolfie2kX 529 Posted October 26, 2010 Hmm.. You do need at least Revered Technology Lore or Focus to open up mods for that skill. Keep in mind there are two kinds of energy shields the Seraphim can deploy. One is the Divine Protection shield and the other, of course, is the Warding Energy buff. Shields, like hitpoints, by default only regen on their own when you're not knee deep in combat. That is not to say there's nothing that can be done to bolster Warding Energy or Divine Protection. There is, of course, Warding Energy Lore that can help pump up the volume on your shields. Secondly, there are items that you will find dropped as well as from merchants (including runemasters - don't forget they too sell jewelry) that can benefit shields. And of course, there's the Willpower attribute that pump up the shield's values. I don't have a console either - but if I recall correctly, I read somewhere that the shield status is not displayed on the console. It is displayed on the PC version of the game. You can see it displayed wrapping the health meter in light blue. Keep in mind that shields DO NOT activate themselves at full strength. They start off with a value of 0 and build themselves up to whatever the maximum happens to be at the time. If you're thinking of using shields as a last second dodge when something wicked is about to pound you into the dirt - it's probably NOT going to help. You might want to read up on Energy Shields in general here...
chattius 2,696 Author Posted October 26, 2010 The character has just the focus. The energy shields would be there to block/reflect spells. Given that my wife needed 14 month with this her first character to play it to 140, ... She doesn't have that much time to play and so the idea is to make a low energy energy-shield working: Damage mitigation, transferring most of the damage to health and not the shield, high block/reflect chances for melee, ranged and spells, .... I know it is not the standard approach in using energy shields, but spending a month to try to make it working is less time than a re-start.
rnarchlord 0 Posted October 26, 2010 I am running a dual wield seraphim (level 27) with warding energy at level 5. This keeps the regen penalty below 30%. I have bronze, silver and gold mods to decrease damage taken as I am not using shield due to DW. Adding the Warding Lore next level up to increase the shield strength. I understand you are not wanting to have a really strong shield but just strong enough to reflect damage and spells. So your choice of mods would be right for that. Adding points to RTF would increase the properties of the shield and allow for modding but not as greatly as having Warding Lore so that should be enough to accomplish your goals. Suggest that your wife's character be allowed to "rest" about 10 seconds after fights to replenish the shield as it will probably go down quickly when attacked by large/strong mobs. At level 140 her toon should have enough health combined with Divine Protection to survive after her shield goes down. Unlike the Temple Guardian whose shield can be modded to replenish in combat the seraphim has to allow her shield to replenish out of combat.
Barristan 14 Posted October 26, 2010 (edited) Heya, should be more than doable to fix that Chattius. My 200 shopper seraphim has only Focus too... ok she has WEL too.... With a little bit of tingling, she puts up 385K of shield energy... meaning that the RTL can be skipped... WEL has more to add imo. Personally, I would skip the projectile reflection. There are very few damaging projectile attacks in this game. Mostly, I go either Field Force > Field Force > Block or Field Force > Magic Mirror > Block With RpH, you don't really need resource... and you get more shield energy for not taking projectile reflec. Tho RpH for caster only works with AW IIRC. Greetz Edited October 26, 2010 by Barristan
essjayehm 58 Posted October 27, 2010 We don't have a console. What is not displayed at consoles? The remaining power of an e-shield or even that it is active?Any console player or PC-player using a low energy energy-shield ? The console shields power is never displayed on the console. For the Seraphim, if the Warding Energy buff shield goes to 0, then the buff is de-activated (the icon below the health/experience bars disappears). For Divine Protection, there is only the graphical display... easy to see it zoomed in, but difficult when zoomed out.
Barristan 14 Posted October 27, 2010 (edited) Heya, sorry Chattius, I forgot to mention some important things. Without RTL or WEL, the only wy to boost shields is Willpower. +shield energy is WEL dependant. So... I am afraid that dependancy on the shield is kinda dangerous. You mentioned a shield and blockchance. Maybe better focus on block and Mitigation, and cast DP in dire situations. With only Focus, the WE buff will be too low to withstand anything serious. DM might help some, but with 40% base absorb, the shield will still be hit for alot. How much shield energy does it have? 10-20K ? Since this toon is pre-Ice and Blood, it might have more than 200 runes in WE ? That might help. Greetz Edited October 27, 2010 by Barristan
