Do /Shield brutes take "One With the Shield?"

Are you taking "One With the Shield" on your /shield brute? There are only two guides written since I13 on /shield, and those are both by the same person, so there's surprisingly little data here on the boards. He doesn't like the power, but I don't know.

If you have a reasonable global recharge (say, more than 25%, which I do) and Hasten then this might be an excellent damage mitigation power if you are fighting +1 or higher bosses that can be up most of the time. I'm torn between OwtS and taking Fireball.

I had it in a previous version of my ss/sd, but I don't have it any more. I don't find it to be terribly useful once you get fully IOd. The additional damage res is nice, but it is nothing a handful of oranges won't fix. I might grab it when i19 hits, but I can think of several other powers I would rather have at the moment in place of this one.

Oh, and I believe this power is completely unaffected by recharge enhancements, direct or global. It is the same way with Willpower's Strength of Will. It's the price you pay for a t9 that doesn't have too much of a crash.

I also avoid it. Once you're soft-capped there's no reason to have it. I happen to hate the powers that don't take recharge, as well. IMO it's just an annoying way to balance the power. Not ineffective, not OP or UP, just annoying and contrived.

Rant aside, from a gameplay perspective I agree with the poster above me. There's very little value and almost always a better choice than OWtS.

If there was a +Regen component to any part of /Shield I'd have taken it. The only reason I took it on my Tanker was... well, it looked cool, had a nice amount of damage resistance, and only needed 4 slots to be effective. The shining part of OwtS is it's +Max HP function. Great if you've been hit with Adrenalin Boost/Painbringer or if you need to soak more incoming damage due to defense debuffs.

On a Brute? I'd take Fireball, personally.

I took one with the shield on my brute. Mostly to enhance his durability. I certainly don't rely on it.

I took Strength of Will on my WP.

I rarely use it. However I would not respec out of it because I CAN use it when I want to. and, when I want to, I need it. It's nice to be able to go to crank it to 11 every now and then.

Perhaps 1w/shld could serve a similar role if you wanted it to. This thread sure makes it sound like an optional power.

I skipped it previously due to lack of sufficient power choices, but with i19 granting inherent fitness I will be taking it.


Why?:

• Good with just one slot.
• Can mule a Glad Unique or Steadfast 3% Unique to free up a slot elsewhere.
• Provides +HP boost (which can be fairly massive with actual slotting) and +Resistance, things that will help when you are facing enemies with a greater than normal To Hit - or enemies that hit extremely hard and will hit you (like AVs).
• Relatively mild crash.
• Even unslotted for +Heal, +End Mod or +Resistance, you have the option getting those benefits anyway depending on your alpha slot - Spiritual Core for example will add to the +HP bonus of this power, even if you haven't slotted for +HP at all.
  

I take it and use it. But I also take and use Power Surge on my ELA, which is another skill that a great many forum posters ignore.

OWtS grants massive +HP, solid resistance, and bonus recovery. Taking it really depends on your play style, however. The skill can be superfluous if you don't put your Brute into situations where moments of peak performance are required. I take it because there are few characters in this game that are tougher than a soft capped Shield Defense Brute with 95% DDR, 3000 HP, 70% Sm/L with 35% Fire/Cold/Ene/Neg resistance. However, this character happens to play in a VG that runs everything at +4/8 with just 4 total team members.

Despite all of that, the most powerful aspect of Shield (and SR) is the ability to achieve 95% DDR. This value pretty much shatters the challenge of this game. I would recommend sacrificing OWtS if it allows you to tweak your build for 95% DDR.

I took OwtS also. It really helps on a non-softcapped brute like mine. It's useful in RSF. One time, Liberty wasn't shot with the rifle yet and she attacked me. Thankfully, I had clicked OwtS before, so when I took the hit, I survived with a few pixels of HP left. I also use it against Statesman when he goes unstoppable and in ITF during the cysts and PC.

Im looking at taking it on my Tank after i19.
I recently did a Statesman and was the one to hold Recluse's agro while the rest of the team took out the Towers (or whatever they are called).

With 72% Def to all 3 positions (+22ish% from team buffs) and just over 3000HP with 1 hit he would take me down to 500HP with all 4 towers and under half when the Red tower was down. He missed more often than not but was still 2-shoting me.
The +Res/+HP from OWtS for 2 mins woudl be a big help with this. And on a 3 min timer that means only for 1 min I do not have this extra layer of protection. Yes there is a -60% END crash but a blue and im good as all im doing is running around with my def toggles Taunting him so he doesnt attack the others.

I have no idea (yet) how id slot this. Leave it as is and put a Health IO? Put in 2 slots for 2x Health IO's. 2 Slots with 1 Health + 1 Res IO? Actually put some Sets in?

I need to play around with my build for i19.


Another option if you feel you dont need it when fully IO'd is to take this as a leveling power and respec out when you get your IO's.

I tried it and didn't like it on my ss/shield brute. The added survivability didn't seem sufficient for the times I needed added survivability.

360 seconds = 3 mins = BRAINFAIL!!!!!



Hangs head in shame.

Mids doesn't have the option to double-stack Active Defense, but you can do so in-game for twice the DDR.

I thought brute and scrapper /shield can only get ~90% DDR now that the portion from Grant Cover isn't enhanceable, though?
Battle Agility: 22%
Grant Cover: 14% (unenhanceable)
Active Defense w/3 Membranes: 27%, double stacked: 54%
22 + 14 + 54 = 90%

Thanks for the clarification...
That means my brute aready runs at 90%, even without taking into account, that after the I19 respec he will also have Hasten (which I could not take due to a thight build)

Have fun!
Schlu.

I must say that Issue 19 has made me reconsider things like this. OwtS has the big advantage of not requiring many slots to be useful. I will probably take it as one of my three freebie powers when I respec this week.

It also has a +end component which can be useful from time to time. I'm kind of tempted on my SS/SD Brute, because the multiple crashes (hasten, rage, active defense) can some times added up.