How to Determine if a Shield is Actually a Shield

[Solist]

Depending on class, AC is so huge you would be able to tell in 5 mins of parsing. Enchanter especially.

[Caball]

Originally Posted by Solist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Depending on class, AC is so huge you would be able to tell in 5 mins of parsing. Enchanter especially.

I think that’ll be your best bet to be 100% sure if it’s a shield on those items that are caster only. I’ve been curious about this question for awhile as well, and all I’ve come up with is the same solutions as you. The type 8 items seem to be unreliable, you can use the shield bash method on anything a war/knight can equip and try bash for those items, and the others yea gotta parse them out imo. Good luck if you find any other info please update, glad others are curious as well.

[Cardnyl]

Originally Posted by Caball [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think that’ll be your best bet to be 100% sure if it’s a shield on those items that are caster only. I’ve been curious about this question for awhile as well, and all I’ve come up with is the same solutions as you. The type 8 items seem to be unreliable, you can use the shield bash method on anything a war/knight can equip and try bash for those items, and the others yea gotta parse them out imo. Good luck if you find any other info please update, glad others are curious as well.

I think your right but I think there's a problem with the "parse it out" method in that its only really accessible to the 1%.

The shields I'm primarily concerned with are enchanter or mage usable. The ones that are cross-class compatible with knights/warriors are NToV items putting them out of reach for some.

For the ones that aren't (e.g. tradeable secondary items for cloth casters), if I were to acquire and parse with them I would need to be very close to or at the worn AC cap described here otherwise adding the shield isn't going to show anything particularly useful on the parse (there will be a reduction due to getting closer to the AC cap but it won't prove whether an item is a shield or not since we are trying to parse breaking the cap). Again - the only cloth casters that are going to be close to the worn cap are going to be long-time raiders with lots of NToV pieces.

[pogs4ever]

you can bash with the OOiV,

doesnt help you out; but you can do it.

[Cardnyl]

Originally Posted by pogs4ever [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you can bash with the OOiV,

doesnt help you out; but you can do it.

There's a pretty strong consensus that orbs do not count as shields for the purposes of going beyond the AC softcap. That said I don't have the same level of confidence to be able to say that the ability to bash or not would reveal an item to truly be a shield or not.

You seem very confident that it is possible. I'm curious if you tested this using either a knight or a non-large race warrior that gets racial bash.

[pogs4ever]

Dark elf shadow knight, bashed many gobbos

[Twochain]

Originally Posted by Cardnyl [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There's a pretty strong consensus that orbs do not count as shields for the purposes of going beyond the AC softcap. That said I don't have the same level of confidence to be able to say that the ability to bash or not would reveal an item to truly be a shield or not.

You seem very confident that it is possible. I'm curious if you tested this using either a knight or a non-large race warrior that gets racial bash.

By who though? I’ve heard the same thing a thousand times and I’ve never seen any proof.

[Arvan]

people believe all sorts of false things about this game

[Ennewi]

Better sources needed, esp ones in era, but...

https://web.archive.org/web/20130129...asc&highlight=

Guide - AC, Avoidance and Defensive Skills explained
Postby Vizier » Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:31 am

https://web.archive.org/web/20080509.../guide_ac.html

The truth about Shields

If you have a shield in your secondary slot, ALL of the AC on that shield counts as "under the cap AC". That means if you have a shield with 100AC you get ALL 100 AC from it, regardless of what class you are, or what return over the cap your class gets!!!

Weapons with AC on them in the secondary slot dont count, neither do orbs, lanterns, totems etc. It must be an actual shield to get the raw AC bonus.

Take me for example, im a cloth wearer with an AC softcap of 75 BUT I use a shield+aug that gives me 110ac. That means I get more AC from my shield alone than all of my other gear combined!!!

Even if you dont understand any of that it simplifies down to this: If you use a shield, ignore every stat on that shield except AC. A shield with 100ac and no HPs is far better than a shield with 500hps and no AC, yes its that dramatic.


Here is some raw parsed data that illustrates the effectiveness of shield AC.

2504ac no shield
308.6 dps
average hit 618.1

2513ac 100ac shield
287.9 dps
average hit 567.90

2512ac 175ac shield
270.5 dps
average hit 537.4

3659ac 175ac shield
262.8 dps
average hit 519.9

The test subject was an INT caster, tank returns on AC are much better of course. Still that parse clearly shows just how effective a shield can be.

[Jimjam]

I’m not convinced post cap ac for shields was classic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any source indicating this. IIRC post cap shield AC was first referenced with the SoL / PoP AC revamp.