vvm
18-08-2006, 22:13
Introduction
This is shields comparison for end game 75% block sorceress.
What is better - upgraded Visceratuant socketed with Um or Sanctuary rune word in Troll Nest? Or maybe Stormshield? Say, for Blizzard Sorceress. Is it the same for Meteorb?
When we look at shields, what we really need to know is how they help us to survive. To survive we need higher Vitality, Defense and Attack. Let's take one problem at a time. We all understand, that putting stat points in Strength and Dexterity takes them from Vitality. So, if we add Strength and Dexterity and compare shields by these numbers, we'll be able to compare shields in Vitality points. That's it, the more a shield needs you to spend in Strength to wear it and in Dexterity to achieve 75% block, the less your Sourceress will have in Vitality. Now, what about Defense? We can't compare Defense and Vitality directly. We have to find something common, so we could compare them. We have such common ground, which luckily allows us to compare shields not only by Vitality and Defense, but also by +Skills and resists. This common ground is stash places.
How it was calculated
Here is an important list of "prices" of one stash place in different "currencies":
Defense - 33
Life - 20
Mana - 17
Magic Find - 7%
Resists - 5% resist all
Dexterity - 2.5
Strength - 2.5
Skills - 1/3 = 0.33
By the way, from this it becomes clear, it would be rather dumb to fill stash with Dexterity and Strength charms. Your stat points will have better use if you put them in Strength and Dexterity and fill stash with small charms of Vita. Also you can see resists, skills and magic find don't look attractive in stash either. Better to get them from equipment as much as possible. Now, the example how we can compare shields using this information.
Perfect upgraded Visceratant (Heater) socketed with Um rune:
Strength: 77
Shield Block: 72
Dexterity needed for 75% block at level 80: 182
Resists: 22
Skills: 1
Defense: 277
Perfect Sanctuary rune word in perfect Troll Nest:
Strength: 106
Shield Block: 60
Dexterity Bonus: 20
Dexterity needed for 75% block at level 80: 215 - 20 = 195
Resists: 70
Skills: 0
Defense: 452
My Sorceress, which we'll take as an example here, has 95 Strength and despite Viscerataunt needs only 77 Strength, 95 Strength will be spent. For Viscerataunt - 95 Strength, for Troll Nest - 106. As I said before, I would raise Strength to 106 not by charms, I would spend additional 11 stat points. So, the Sorceress wearing Sanctuary Troll Nest, would have 11 less in Vitality (22 less Life), than Sorceress using Viscerataunt. Or to bring it to chosen "common ground" - one stash place more. If there will be no stash place for that additional small charm of Vita, she will have 22 less Life.
Dexterity needed is 182 against 195. The difference is 13 and again this is 13 less stat points in Vitality for Sanctuary. 13 Vitality is 26 Life. If now we add 22 Life lost from Strength requirements and 26 Life lost from Dexterity requirements, it will be 48 Life less for Sanctuary Troll Nest shield. That's 3 stash places to compensate completely (and add some more Life) or 2 stash places to compensate not completely. We can say, that Sanctuary is 2 or 3 stash places worse, than Viscerataunt.
The difference in resist is 70-22=48, this time Sanctuary is better. How much stash places we need to spend on Viscerataunt Sourceress to get the same resists? 48/5 = 9.6 - nine or rather ten small Shimmering charms. Viscerataunt is 10 stash places worse here.
Viscerataunt has one skill and Sanctuary - none. For Blizzard Sorceress we have to put one Cold Skiller grand charm in stash to make these Sorceresses even. That will take 3 stash places.
Defense difference is 452 - 277 = 175. Stash places needed to get the same defense with Viscerataunt is 175/33 = 5.3 - six stash places.
Now let's compare these two shields in stash places taking Viscerataunt as a base for comparison:
-3 + 10 - 3 + 6 = +10
Amazing! Sanctuary Troll Nest is 10 stash places better, than Viscerataunt Heater due to the huge resists and two times better defense. The same calculation for Meteorb sorceress: -3 + 10 - 6 + 6 = +7 - Sanctuary is still better.
Tables of Shields Comparison
I added other socketing choises (-15% requirements and 7% more block) and made the same calculations for all high block unique, set and rune word shields in a spreadsheet. You can download it from http://tinyurl.com/jp39r (there are two files there - in Open Office and in MS Office format).
For those, who don't want to use the spreadsheet, I'll give here the results for level 80 Blizzard Sorceress with 95 Strength. For other builds the tables change not much. The number is stash places. CoD is Chromatic of Deflecting (max 30% resist all, 20% increased blocking, maximum two sockets from Larzuk), AoD - Artisan's of Deflecting (maximum three sockets, 20% increased blocking), JoD - Jeweler's of Deflecting (maximum four sockets, 20% increased blocking).
Socketed with -15% requirements jewels or Hel runes:
Spirit Ward (Ward): 46
Moser's (Luna): 48
Gerke's (Pavise): 51
Viscerataunt (Heater): 52
Stormshield (Monarch): 54
CoD (Troll Nest): 55
CoD (Hyperion): 55
JoD (Monarch): 56
CoD (Tower Shield): 59
AoD (Troll Nest): 61
AoD (Hyperion): 61
Sigon's (Tower Shield): 62
AoD (Tower Shield): 65
It doesn't make sense to socket Viscerataunt (Defender), Moser's (Round Shield), Lidless Wall (Grim Shield) and Whitstan's (Round Shield) with -15% requirements as their strength requirements are lower than 60 already.
Socketed with Eld runes for more block:
Moser's (Luna): 48
Spirit Ward (Ward): 50
Gerke's (Pavise): 54
Viscerataunt (Heater): 54
Moser's (Round Shield): 56
CoD (Troll Nest): 56
Stormshield (Monarch): 58
Whitstan's (Round Shield): 58
CoD (Hyperion): 58
CoD (Tower Shield): 59
AoD (Troll Nest): 60
Viscerataunt (Defender): 61
Lidless Wall (Grim Shield): 61
Sigon's (Tower Shield): 63
AoD (Hyperion): 63
AoD (Tower Shield): 64
JoD (Monarch): 65
It turns out, for some shields it's better to socket with Eld, for the others - with -15% requirements. If you don't need additional resists from the shield, use these first two tables. If you need resists, here is the third table
Socketed with resists or resists from rune word:
Sanctuary (Troll Nest): 41
Moser's (Luna)+2 Resists: 42
Sanctuary (Hyperion): 44
Spirit Ward (Ward): 48
CoD (Troll Nest)+2 Resists: 51
Sanctuary (Tower Shield): 51
Viscerataunt (Heater)+Resist: 51
Moser's (Round Shield)+2 Resists: 52
CoD (Hyperion)+2 Resists: 52
Gerke's (Pavise)+Resist: 52
CoD (Tower Shield)+2 Resists: 53
JoD (Monarch)+4 Resists: 53
Whitstan's (Round Shield)+Resist: 55
Stormshield (Monarch)+Resist: 56
Viscerataunt (Defender)+Resist: 59
Rhyme (Grim Shield): 60
Sigon's (Tower Shield)+Resist: 61
Rhyme (Heater): 61
Lidless Wall (Grim Shield): 64
Spirit (Monarch): 65
Stormshield has 35% damage reduction, which needs separate analysis. The difference with the leader is 56 - 41 = 15 stash places. In other words for Sanctuary using Blizzard Sorceress, we can add 15 more small charms of Vita: 15*20 = 300 more Life. If 35% damage reduction saves you more than 300 life, Stormshield is better, than Sanctuary. 100% damage will be 300*100/35 = 857 damage. This could be not necesserily in one hit - it may be two or three hits until you get out of there or drink a potion. This is true for level 80 Sorceress, but Defense of Stormshield depends on level - it adds 3.75 Defense for every character level. When Defense will be better, the differense with Sanctuary will be less (14 stash places - at level 90, 13 - at level 95 and 12 - at level 99).
You may notice, that it's much more difficult to get perfect Sanctuary in perfect Troll Nest, than say perfect Moser's. Sanctuary has two variing factors - Defense and Resists. To get both perfect will be not easy, considering the fact perfect Troll Nests don't lie around every corner either. In real world then, Sanctuary in Troll Nest and upgraded Moser's Blessed Circle will be nearly the same.
For the new season or for someone just starting and not having high runes to upgrade or make a rune word like KO-KO-MAL, the first decent shield you find most probably will be Whitstan's (Nightmare Mephisto will repeatedly tell you that "you are late" - all Whitstan's are gone, but if you will be insistent, eventually he'll give up and give it to you). Socket it with perfect Diamond and use it until you get something better. It may happen you'll get Viscerataunt or Moser's early - the probability is not that much worse. Until then everyone can make Rhyme or Ancient's Pledge (This site by mistake lists for Ancient Pledge 50% Damage Reduction. What was my disapointment, when I made it for the first time! :). The best place to shop for Chromatic Shield of Deflecting would be Drognan in Lut Golein with a city gate right beside him. To get such Bone Shield will take few hours.
A few words about other shields.
For nonblock builds Lidless Wall and Spirit rune word in Monarch are good. You can also use them on your high block Sorceress for specific purpose, namely for MF Bosses and Superuniques runs. Their Fast Cast Rate will allow to reach 63% or 105% breakpoint, that's 9 or 8 frames per second. My Sorceress has 64% FCR and never died running Nightmare Meph or Baal, though I must admit I always get adrenaline rush. FCR saves you from being hit when teleporting, but one mistake - be it running out of mana or being stuck somewhere in the corner - and oops! Both shields add a lot of mana, that helps teleporting.
For magic find on switch some use Head Hunter's Glory with three ISTs for 75% MF or monarch socketed with four ISTs for 100% MF. I was never that rich. I use Rhyme, get 25% MF instead and save ISTs for something else.
Conclusion
It is impossible to describe here all the variants, all the possibilities. Take the spreadsheat, experiment with Strength of your Sorceress, look at numbers and make your own conclusions. Good luck in getting the best shield for your Sorceress!
If you find any mistakes or omissions, I'll be glad to correct them.
This is shields comparison for end game 75% block sorceress.
What is better - upgraded Visceratuant socketed with Um or Sanctuary rune word in Troll Nest? Or maybe Stormshield? Say, for Blizzard Sorceress. Is it the same for Meteorb?
When we look at shields, what we really need to know is how they help us to survive. To survive we need higher Vitality, Defense and Attack. Let's take one problem at a time. We all understand, that putting stat points in Strength and Dexterity takes them from Vitality. So, if we add Strength and Dexterity and compare shields by these numbers, we'll be able to compare shields in Vitality points. That's it, the more a shield needs you to spend in Strength to wear it and in Dexterity to achieve 75% block, the less your Sourceress will have in Vitality. Now, what about Defense? We can't compare Defense and Vitality directly. We have to find something common, so we could compare them. We have such common ground, which luckily allows us to compare shields not only by Vitality and Defense, but also by +Skills and resists. This common ground is stash places.
How it was calculated
Here is an important list of "prices" of one stash place in different "currencies":
Defense - 33
Life - 20
Mana - 17
Magic Find - 7%
Resists - 5% resist all
Dexterity - 2.5
Strength - 2.5
Skills - 1/3 = 0.33
By the way, from this it becomes clear, it would be rather dumb to fill stash with Dexterity and Strength charms. Your stat points will have better use if you put them in Strength and Dexterity and fill stash with small charms of Vita. Also you can see resists, skills and magic find don't look attractive in stash either. Better to get them from equipment as much as possible. Now, the example how we can compare shields using this information.
Perfect upgraded Visceratant (Heater) socketed with Um rune:
Strength: 77
Shield Block: 72
Dexterity needed for 75% block at level 80: 182
Resists: 22
Skills: 1
Defense: 277
Perfect Sanctuary rune word in perfect Troll Nest:
Strength: 106
Shield Block: 60
Dexterity Bonus: 20
Dexterity needed for 75% block at level 80: 215 - 20 = 195
Resists: 70
Skills: 0
Defense: 452
My Sorceress, which we'll take as an example here, has 95 Strength and despite Viscerataunt needs only 77 Strength, 95 Strength will be spent. For Viscerataunt - 95 Strength, for Troll Nest - 106. As I said before, I would raise Strength to 106 not by charms, I would spend additional 11 stat points. So, the Sorceress wearing Sanctuary Troll Nest, would have 11 less in Vitality (22 less Life), than Sorceress using Viscerataunt. Or to bring it to chosen "common ground" - one stash place more. If there will be no stash place for that additional small charm of Vita, she will have 22 less Life.
Dexterity needed is 182 against 195. The difference is 13 and again this is 13 less stat points in Vitality for Sanctuary. 13 Vitality is 26 Life. If now we add 22 Life lost from Strength requirements and 26 Life lost from Dexterity requirements, it will be 48 Life less for Sanctuary Troll Nest shield. That's 3 stash places to compensate completely (and add some more Life) or 2 stash places to compensate not completely. We can say, that Sanctuary is 2 or 3 stash places worse, than Viscerataunt.
The difference in resist is 70-22=48, this time Sanctuary is better. How much stash places we need to spend on Viscerataunt Sourceress to get the same resists? 48/5 = 9.6 - nine or rather ten small Shimmering charms. Viscerataunt is 10 stash places worse here.
Viscerataunt has one skill and Sanctuary - none. For Blizzard Sorceress we have to put one Cold Skiller grand charm in stash to make these Sorceresses even. That will take 3 stash places.
Defense difference is 452 - 277 = 175. Stash places needed to get the same defense with Viscerataunt is 175/33 = 5.3 - six stash places.
Now let's compare these two shields in stash places taking Viscerataunt as a base for comparison:
-3 + 10 - 3 + 6 = +10
Amazing! Sanctuary Troll Nest is 10 stash places better, than Viscerataunt Heater due to the huge resists and two times better defense. The same calculation for Meteorb sorceress: -3 + 10 - 6 + 6 = +7 - Sanctuary is still better.
Tables of Shields Comparison
I added other socketing choises (-15% requirements and 7% more block) and made the same calculations for all high block unique, set and rune word shields in a spreadsheet. You can download it from http://tinyurl.com/jp39r (there are two files there - in Open Office and in MS Office format).
For those, who don't want to use the spreadsheet, I'll give here the results for level 80 Blizzard Sorceress with 95 Strength. For other builds the tables change not much. The number is stash places. CoD is Chromatic of Deflecting (max 30% resist all, 20% increased blocking, maximum two sockets from Larzuk), AoD - Artisan's of Deflecting (maximum three sockets, 20% increased blocking), JoD - Jeweler's of Deflecting (maximum four sockets, 20% increased blocking).
Socketed with -15% requirements jewels or Hel runes:
Spirit Ward (Ward): 46
Moser's (Luna): 48
Gerke's (Pavise): 51
Viscerataunt (Heater): 52
Stormshield (Monarch): 54
CoD (Troll Nest): 55
CoD (Hyperion): 55
JoD (Monarch): 56
CoD (Tower Shield): 59
AoD (Troll Nest): 61
AoD (Hyperion): 61
Sigon's (Tower Shield): 62
AoD (Tower Shield): 65
It doesn't make sense to socket Viscerataunt (Defender), Moser's (Round Shield), Lidless Wall (Grim Shield) and Whitstan's (Round Shield) with -15% requirements as their strength requirements are lower than 60 already.
Socketed with Eld runes for more block:
Moser's (Luna): 48
Spirit Ward (Ward): 50
Gerke's (Pavise): 54
Viscerataunt (Heater): 54
Moser's (Round Shield): 56
CoD (Troll Nest): 56
Stormshield (Monarch): 58
Whitstan's (Round Shield): 58
CoD (Hyperion): 58
CoD (Tower Shield): 59
AoD (Troll Nest): 60
Viscerataunt (Defender): 61
Lidless Wall (Grim Shield): 61
Sigon's (Tower Shield): 63
AoD (Hyperion): 63
AoD (Tower Shield): 64
JoD (Monarch): 65
It turns out, for some shields it's better to socket with Eld, for the others - with -15% requirements. If you don't need additional resists from the shield, use these first two tables. If you need resists, here is the third table
Socketed with resists or resists from rune word:
Sanctuary (Troll Nest): 41
Moser's (Luna)+2 Resists: 42
Sanctuary (Hyperion): 44
Spirit Ward (Ward): 48
CoD (Troll Nest)+2 Resists: 51
Sanctuary (Tower Shield): 51
Viscerataunt (Heater)+Resist: 51
Moser's (Round Shield)+2 Resists: 52
CoD (Hyperion)+2 Resists: 52
Gerke's (Pavise)+Resist: 52
CoD (Tower Shield)+2 Resists: 53
JoD (Monarch)+4 Resists: 53
Whitstan's (Round Shield)+Resist: 55
Stormshield (Monarch)+Resist: 56
Viscerataunt (Defender)+Resist: 59
Rhyme (Grim Shield): 60
Sigon's (Tower Shield)+Resist: 61
Rhyme (Heater): 61
Lidless Wall (Grim Shield): 64
Spirit (Monarch): 65
Stormshield has 35% damage reduction, which needs separate analysis. The difference with the leader is 56 - 41 = 15 stash places. In other words for Sanctuary using Blizzard Sorceress, we can add 15 more small charms of Vita: 15*20 = 300 more Life. If 35% damage reduction saves you more than 300 life, Stormshield is better, than Sanctuary. 100% damage will be 300*100/35 = 857 damage. This could be not necesserily in one hit - it may be two or three hits until you get out of there or drink a potion. This is true for level 80 Sorceress, but Defense of Stormshield depends on level - it adds 3.75 Defense for every character level. When Defense will be better, the differense with Sanctuary will be less (14 stash places - at level 90, 13 - at level 95 and 12 - at level 99).
You may notice, that it's much more difficult to get perfect Sanctuary in perfect Troll Nest, than say perfect Moser's. Sanctuary has two variing factors - Defense and Resists. To get both perfect will be not easy, considering the fact perfect Troll Nests don't lie around every corner either. In real world then, Sanctuary in Troll Nest and upgraded Moser's Blessed Circle will be nearly the same.
For the new season or for someone just starting and not having high runes to upgrade or make a rune word like KO-KO-MAL, the first decent shield you find most probably will be Whitstan's (Nightmare Mephisto will repeatedly tell you that "you are late" - all Whitstan's are gone, but if you will be insistent, eventually he'll give up and give it to you). Socket it with perfect Diamond and use it until you get something better. It may happen you'll get Viscerataunt or Moser's early - the probability is not that much worse. Until then everyone can make Rhyme or Ancient's Pledge (This site by mistake lists for Ancient Pledge 50% Damage Reduction. What was my disapointment, when I made it for the first time! :). The best place to shop for Chromatic Shield of Deflecting would be Drognan in Lut Golein with a city gate right beside him. To get such Bone Shield will take few hours.
A few words about other shields.
For nonblock builds Lidless Wall and Spirit rune word in Monarch are good. You can also use them on your high block Sorceress for specific purpose, namely for MF Bosses and Superuniques runs. Their Fast Cast Rate will allow to reach 63% or 105% breakpoint, that's 9 or 8 frames per second. My Sorceress has 64% FCR and never died running Nightmare Meph or Baal, though I must admit I always get adrenaline rush. FCR saves you from being hit when teleporting, but one mistake - be it running out of mana or being stuck somewhere in the corner - and oops! Both shields add a lot of mana, that helps teleporting.
For magic find on switch some use Head Hunter's Glory with three ISTs for 75% MF or monarch socketed with four ISTs for 100% MF. I was never that rich. I use Rhyme, get 25% MF instead and save ISTs for something else.
Conclusion
It is impossible to describe here all the variants, all the possibilities. Take the spreadsheat, experiment with Strength of your Sorceress, look at numbers and make your own conclusions. Good luck in getting the best shield for your Sorceress!
If you find any mistakes or omissions, I'll be glad to correct them.