shielding issues

[bigballerpaul]

im really torn on which shield to use. ive always made sorcs with no dex invested. of course they had tons of life, but they always seemed to die quite a bit. so now im at it again with another meteorb sorc. her decided gear will be tal's full set and whatever rings i can get ahold of. so basically its just the shield that i am concerned with. i see alot of sorcs using stormshields, but the dex and str investment just seems like your left with little vit. but does the defense and 35%dr make up for that? i always liked using lidless walls just for the +1 and fcr, but the blocking is so low. so i also am considering a visceratuant. what to do! id appreciate any opinions on these shields, or other options i might have missed.

thanks

[mathil]

options: viscerant (or upgraded viscerant), sigons shield, stormshield, whistans guard.

stormshield with the 35% dr is worth it. it will save you a lot of physical dmg and has good res. i don't like it because i don't think sorcs should get hit, but if you do get hit, it helps a lot (physical dmg only; it has res, but you shoud have max res regardless).

sigons shield is an underrated item that isn't great, but it has +1 skills and a good chance to block. viscerants is better though. upgraded viscerants has a little more chance to block and thus is better than that.

whistans guard has the highest block in the game. it saves you points in str and dex because it requires little of both. it lacks the skill or the mods from the SS, but if you are really looking to save stat points, this a good shield.

[bigballerpaul]

thanks for the info. anyone know what the str req on an upgraded visceratuant is?

[urban savage]

i'm a big fan of whitstans because i use it on nearly all my chars but if you need 1 item to make up for resists and blocking a 2 p diamond mosers is the way to go, it get's around 63res all and has pretty good blocking.

[chitsu]

what about a santuary'd tower shield? the fhr + resists + dex boosts are nice. if you're ladder, that is.

[melianor]

thanks for the info. anyone know what the str req on an upgraded visceratuant is?
str req like any basic Heater Shield: 77 str

[Ulric]

If you're using the full Tal Set, you probably don't need Moser for resist. Personally, I would go with Hel'ed Stormshield or Rhyme shield. I personally don't believe in getting hit and I hate to put points into Dex and Str. I also love cannot be frozen part of Rhyme. Also, you have to figure out what you want to do with your Sorc.. Will she be doing Meph runs.. Pindle.. PVP.. Baal..
Pick a shield accordingly

[melianor]

If you're using the full Tal Set, you probably don't need Moser for resist. Personally, I would go with Hel'ed Stormshield or Rhyme shield. I personally don't believe in getting hit and I hate to put points into Dex and Str. I also love cannot be frozen part of Rhyme. Also, you have to figure out what you want to do with your Sorc.. Will she be doing Meph runs.. Pindle.. PVP.. Baal..
Pick a shield accordingly
What do you mean by ".... don't believe in getting hit ...."?

[kuza]

I went max block for the first time with my new meteorb, best thing I've ever done.

I use Eld+Pdiamon mosers for Wiz switch teleporting, and Occy+rhyme heater for fighting. Max block on both with like 200 and some odd dex invested. Tals belt gives a good 20 dex right there.

[mathil]

What do you mean by ".... don't believe in getting hit ...."?
i interpret this to mean that sorcs shouldn't get hit. we have teleport and a merc. use them to avoid getting hit altogether. if that is right, then i agree. when my sorcs get hit, they get dead fast.

[Ulric]

The most important shield for a Sorc is her Meat shield. Her Meat shield should protect her from most attacks and if it doesn't no other shield will do the job. One or two monster will rarely if ever kill a Sorc. Only things Sorcs worry about are those devastating lightning monsters. Those lightning monsters cannot be stopped by any shield.
Only place where Stormshield with max block might be useful is in PVP.

BTW.. I can no longer string along a coherent line of thought

anyway.. just don't get hit and there is no problem.

[Tanatus]

Well if you dont getting hit then you dont need vitality right? ...

[Nathanjk]

or resists....

However those of us who actually play the game know otherwise. Sure if you only play in big games or do certain runs you wont get hit. However for those of us who like to do solo baal runs you WILL get hit and hit often. Souls do some physical damage along with thier lightning damage I believe. Some of those guys are superfast and even with a good merc they get to you. Ranged can also kill you in a heartbeat if you dont know what your doing. Of course if you dont care about dying 1 in at least every 5 runs or never solo then by all means use a lidless. However when you lvl 89 and up dying kills way too much exp.

[Superhal]

2 philosophies:

1. sorcs should be high offense, but weak physically. on their own, they will die, and die repeatedly unless they are protected by others or tp quickly. however, they can kill just about anything.

2. sorcs should be high defense, but weak offensively. on their own, they will not die, but will not kill quickly. however, they can seldom kill anything outside of thier main offensive tree without help.

It appears me that people who believe #1 refuse to believe #2. my advice is to try #2. then, when you have the eq (skills gc's, full tals set, etc.) you can mix and match the eq until you can do both.

[Nathanjk]

Well my phylosphy is number 3
Maximize your killing power but stay alive at all costs. This is different from number 2 because you really dont have to sacrifice that much to have great staying alive power. How much does it really hurt your killing power by using a storm shield. Maras, Vipermagi, CoH, Occy they are all examples of items that are great both offensively and defensively. I think many of the high offense people dont realize how little they have to give up in order to stay alive alot more.

[Superhal]

well, we'll see. i'm trying a build with roughly 45 points devoted to defense (20 tk, 20 es, 1 shiver armor, +4 pre-reqs.)

the main thing i'm trying to do is see if es/tk can defend against conviction bosses, the only problem i'm having with my regular non-es build.

so far, it's looking like FO really sucks. i put 20 fo, 10 ice bolt, 10 CM so far, and it's not killing well in p8 nightmare. i won't get it fully synergized until the late 90's.

[Ulric]

I have to say, I am afraid of those lightning bugs and I rarely do Baal Runs. Personally, I can do 5 Meph runs without risking death VS maybe one Baal run in same amount of time. It does get boring after a while.. then I do a Baal run just to test my skills (usually right after leveling). Anyway.. i think the biggest threat to Sorcs are range weapons and spells. Against spells, I think resist is more important than blocking %.
All I know is I have 75% on all resist in hell and I don't get killed doing Meph runs. But then again.. my MF is only around 400. Long live freedom of choice.

[Nathanjk]

Well I only do baal runs because I think they are the most fun. In that case I need to have good defensive equip. I NEVER die in 1 play games and rarely die in 5 and up player games when I solo baal. I found that you need to have good res blocking and DR otherwise you die too much and lose too much exp.


BTW my fastest time for a baal run including buying pots from the second i entered the game was just under 3 and a half minutes and that included killing baal.

[Ulric]

Are you saying that you can block the lightning attacks? Trouble I have is with the gloams and their lightning attacks.
I've yet had problems with physical attacks. I've been able to either kill them or run away from them. On the other hand, lightning attacks go through my meat shield and do significant damage.
While 3.5 mins for Baal run is very nice, its usually possible to do Meph Runs in under a min.
I think I will use some of the stat points I have saved and start doing more Baal runs. What is the point of the game if you don't challenge yourself.

Ulric

[Nathanjk]

I cant block the lightning attacks but they include a physical portion to their damage im fairly sure. Because of this DR from the storm shield really helps. Yea you can do meph runs alot quicker but in my opinion it gets old after a while. Baal runs can get old as well but are still more fun.