Tiamat's Rebuke or Whitstan's Guard for PVM HC (mostly) untwinked Daggerzon?

[Valeli]

I'm trying to figure out what shield to use until I can run into a storm shield. Tiamat's rebuke seems pretty nice in a lot of ways. Even the extra damage from it is nice, since I'm a fairly low base damage build. I can grab more resistances out of it too. The chance to cast hydra and stuff is useless but looks cool, and that's always a mild plus.

It's blocking is... bad... though. Especially compared to Whitstans.

To be fair, I probably don't /need/ a ton of block, because dodge/attack/evade/unkillable valk all contribute to making me very survivable as is. If it wasn't hardcore I'd definitely just go with Tiamat's rebuke. The fact that it is hard core though is giving me pause.

Any thoughts on which of these two shields to go with?
(I'm not using rhyme, since I have a few other possible ways of getting cannot be frozen at this point).
(I could probably make a sanctuary Hyperion also, with some extra effort, but think I'd rather save those runes).

[crawlingdeadman]

What build? If you're right up in the action, I'd go with Whitstan (though there are other options too). If you're fury and mostly ranged attacks, I'd not pick either. Have you not found a Moser's yet? They're pretty nice.

[Pyrotechnician]

I would probably go with the whitstan's If I had to choose between the two on a daggerzon, elemental damage can be made up with charms if need be. You're going to be right up with them almost the entire time, so who wouldn't want 75% chance to block on top of whatever d/a/e % you have. Moser's would be excellent though, blocking and res all rolled into one, all around nice.

[crawlingdeadman]

D'oh, I didnt see the "Daggerzon" thing, sorry. Ignore me!

Post the rest of your proposed gear though, I still say there's better options for a shield than the ones you've listed.

[Valeli]

The rest of my gear isn't really finalized or all that special yet. I decided I didn't want to take stuff other chars were actively using off of them, so that leaves me with fairly slim pickings for extra unfound gear. Currently I'm still just in NM too, so there's a good bit of time to find new stuff.

But anyways...

Helm: Lore in something: probably a circlet so I don't look ugly. I'll probably stick with that until/unless I get a nice drop. At the moment, actually, I'm using Tancred's helm and Amulet for the ~80% magic find on the amulet, and 10% resist all. I'll swap to lore and a more defensive amulet as soon as I feel I need the resists.

Amulet: Tancred's at the moment, as I said. I could craft up a prismatic one for more resists or do one of the fancier cubing recipe, and I have a +3 passive skills one I can either wear or just toss on for summoning valkyrie (once I get another two or three levels). I also have a +1 skills amulet that comes with +8 strength, +54 life, and some resists (mostly just to cold, unfortunately). I'm not sure if that amulet would be better than the +3 skills one... I'm a bit of a +skills whore, so I'm leaning that way, although the other rare seems pretty good. For my spot in Nightmare at least, until +2 skill amulets come along.

Ring 1: I have a spare Ravenfrost waiting for when I can equip it. Right now I'm just using a Nagelring.

Ring 2: I found a really cool rare ring in normal that has ~25+ plus resist fire/lightning/ice resist and ~10 poison resist. It's even got -2damage and -1 magic damage as a tiny extra to boot.

Body: In normal I was using Hawkmail for some easy cannot be frozen and early defense. I can use Treachery and/or Smoke soon, although I'll probably wait just a few more levels until I can toss on my Ravenfrost as well. I could make a few other mid/low armors like Lion Heart or Duress, but I think I'd prefer just running with treachery. I could grab a Duriel's Shell from somewhere in my Stash as well.

I have an appropriately socketed Archon Plate and am dreaming of making Fortitude someday, to share between my characters, but the runes continue to prove elusive to me. This is a bit off topic, and won't be immediately relevant to me unless I get lucky, but is Archon plate the highest strength armor you'd want as a generic fortitude you planned on passing around multiple characters? I think I read somewhere that it was, and I checked str reqs and it looks like the next armor piece up is a pretty big leap.

Weapon: Using a spineripper for now. Unless something better comes along, I'll probably up it eventually.

Shield: I have some low level unique I found with a decent block rate/defense for normal, and lightning resist. It was good for it's level, but has to go soon.

Waist: Sigon's Belt is still in my waist slot. I was using it with Sigon's Sabbot for various set bonuses, but I just replaced those shoes with...

Feet: A pair of Goblin toes I ran into in act one NM. Will probably keep those on unless I find Gore Riders by accident, since the 25% crushing blow is really handy on bosses (I tried putting rattle cage on my merc, but found the 40% enemy runs away mod to be too frustrating, and I don't really have the room/patience to keep multiple armor sets around just for my merc).

Hands: I have a pair of gloves with 10% IAS, 29% Lightning Resist, ~15% Fire Resist, and a few other small mods. I'll eventually try to craft up some blood gloves with +amazon skills/passive skills I suppose. Or maybe just shop some with +passive skills. The resists on these are helping me out for now, although I still need 3% IAS somewhere to get to my breakpoint.

So all in all it's not a set of gear that will do me very well in hell, although I feel fairly comfortable with Nightmare at this point.