Shield Question

[Justinious]

85 paladin here. I don't get to play as much as I used to, but when I do, I primarily group and solo. After some time away, I am gearing back up and the new (to me) AAs from UF have made me refocus on 1hs/shield. I currently have the Shield of the Slain Unicorn, which dropped from a MM (http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/item.php?id=50909), which was a great upgrade. Since I am not tanking much when I do group, I was thinking about getting another shield (keeping the Unicorn when/if I do tank for the aggro).

The other options that I see are also from MM: for 14 brews:

Bladestopper: http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/item.php?id=50911 or
Ghoulskin Shield: http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/item.php?id=54901

I would like any input as to which of the three shields would be best for soloing.

Also, if there are other one group shields in UF I should be researching to one day replace this shield...it is an on-going process, chuckle.

Thanks in advance. Justinious (proud member of Walkers and Vazelle).

[Lisene]

The only thing I look at on a shield is AC. Those three shields are very close but forget about anything else and plan your next shield to be the best AC upgrade you can get. Your best AC aug that can fit into a secondary slot should go in it too (I'm barely back from a 5 month break so unless there's a UF aug I'm unaware of, that should be the Prismatic Gemstone from Crystallos or Bayle's quest aug from the SoD Oceangreen theme). The furious bash probably won't do much to your agro in comparison to all the spells you'd be chaining when tanking so don't kill yourself over losing it. The shield AC is hardcap AC so worth a hell of a lot more than normal armour AC. 1h and shield is for tanking or soloing stuff that can kill you, so shield AC > shield anything else.

Pickup from doing the Brell's Rest Boomerang thingy, it a MM so anyone can do em, then put the shield away when you're in "dps mode" (well.. whatever you want to call pally dps) or tanking stuff that won't kill you.

[Brohg]

[Normy]

Actually since the last revamp of return over the softcap for knights, they brought us up quite a bit closer to warriors. The end result is that shield AC is less than 3 times the value, although that was the general rule of thumb. In reality its probably closer to 2, but still over it. Less than 2.5 if my memory serves.

Last I knew, furious bash was broken. I've not seen anything saying that its been fixed, but even if it has, I wouldn't stress losing it at all. Our agro is pretty much on demand, between your crushes and stuns your bash agro is nearly useless. Go for the highest AC you can get since its the only piece you have that raises AC softcap, then worry about mod2's next. As far as soloing goes, only use the shield if you are struggling that hard to take the hits. Otherwise 2h DPS is far better.

[shiftie]

furious bash isn't broken the problem is that bash hate is capped so low that crap aggro + more crap aggro = mostly useless in the grand scheme. It def isn't anything to be worried about when choosing a shield.

there is a decent shield from arthicrex that is paladin only that has a rune click with a 1 min refresh which you should look into picking it up. (Magmatic deflector = 155 ac) Not sure how well the group shields stack up beyond that as I use raid gear and only farmed that for the clicky and graphic (which is badass)

[Torriadore]

[Dole]

[Justinious]

Thanks for all the input!

I took your advice and got the Magmatic Deflector -- thanks Aalodollin, Goldy and Shorka.

Justinious
Walkers