A Post I-20.5 Guide to Shield Defense

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
II. Powerset Explanation
III. In-Depth Powerset Analysis
IV. The 3 Archetypes with Shield
V. Attack Powersets and Their Chemistry with Shield
VI. Incarnates and Shield
VII. Building a Shield with Set IOs
a. Building on a Budget (<500mil)
b. Building for the Middle Class (500mil-3bil)
c. Building for the Rich (>3bil)
VIII. The Strategic Way to Play a Shield
IX. Closing Comments

I. Introduction

Hello all of you CoH-loving people. Who I am is not important because I'm just a student of the game. If there's one thing in the game I feel like I know VERY well, it's Shield Defense. I've played a couple toons to 50 as a Shield, one of them was my very first, and still my favorite 50. This guide will go over many of the things you need to know about Shield Defense (I may refer to it as just "Shield" or simply SD" for the rest of this guide) including what its powers do, what's skippable, how it works on the 3 different archetypes, what to build for with IOs, how you should build your incarnate powers, as well as a strategy guide on how to play a SD toon efficiently in all 3 phases, solo missions, teaming, and farming. So hold on tight because this is going to be a little bit bumpy.

II. Powerset Explanation

Shield Defense comes as a primary powerset choice for Tankers, and a secondary choice for Scrappers and Brutes. It's a defensive set that offers high positional defense, mediocre resistances, a sturdy amount of hit points, a team defense buff, a soft-crashing tier 9, and a strong aggro aura that drains your enemies' damage bonus and gives it to you. Oh yeah, and one of the best AoE attacks in the game... It's a very balanced defensive set, and is among the most popular. You are sure to see many people running around with a shield on their arm. Why do you want to be like them? Because even for only a couple hundred million, you can be sturdy enough to tank most mobs, and dish out plenty of damage with whatever powerset/archetype combination you choose. My time with shield has been fun, and I still love playing my Shield/Dark Melee tank all the time. Hopefully after reading this guide, you'll give SD a roll and see if it makes you tingle the same way it does for me.

III. In-Depth Powerset Analysis

In this section, I will go over all 9 powers in SD, including a biased point-of-view on each power as well as suggested SO slotting. Let's begin.

Deflection - Deflection is a toggle power that offers Melee defense as well as Smashing and Lethal resistance. Tankers get 15% defense and 15% Resistance, while Scrappers and Brutes get 11.3% of each. This power is obviously necessary, and skipping it would be crippling yourself. Take it, 6 slot it, preferrably with 3 defense and 3 resistance.

Battle Agility - Battle Agility is a toggle power that offers Ranged and AoE defense (to the tune of 15% for tanks and 11.3% for scrappers and brutes) as well as resistance to defense debuffs (17.3% tanks, 13.8% scrappers and brutes). This is another must-take power, as it is the core of your survival. Take it, 4 slot it with 3 defense and 1 end redux.

True Grit - True Grit is an auto power that gives you resistance to Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic damage (15% tanks, 11.3% scrappers and brutes) as well as a 10% hit point buff. There are some who would consider this power skippable. I disagree, but I see where certain builds, such as farmers, don't need those two effects, which opens it up for other power options. I, however, would suggest taking and 6 slotting it, 3 heal 3 resistance.

Active Defense - Active Defense is a click power that offers typical mez protection to most all effects, as well as resistance to defense debuffs (21.6% tanks, 17.3% scrappers and brutes). Because this power is a click power, it's very easy to double stack and thus double the defense debuff it gives you, as well as making it that much harder for enemies to mez you. This is core to your survival, so I would take it and 3 slot it with recharge.

Against All Odds - Against All Odds is a toggle power that functions as a taunt aura, that also debuffs the damage of enemies (7% tanks, 7.5% scrappers and brutes), as well as a constant damage buff to yourself (10% tanks and brutes, 12.5% scrappers). Oh, and it also has a stacking damage bonus to yourself for every enemy in range, up to 10 (5% tanks and brutes, 6.88% scrappers). AAO, as it will be referred to in the rest of the article (and believe me, I WILL talk about it a lot), is one of the best powers in the game, in my honest opinion. It's a self mini-fulcrum shift on every mob, so that while you are sturdily tanking something, you are STILL dealing damage. For scrappers, you can easily put yourself up to 65% damage bonus every mob, which does a lot when you already have really high base damage. This is one of the powers that made shield such a powerful farmer for a while, simply because it offered you the ability to increase your own damage by toggling on a power, without needed inspirations or outside buffs. Take it, 1 slot it with end redux. It does it's magic without enhancements.

Phalanx Fighting - Phalanx Fighting is an auto power that offers a flat amount of defense all the time (5% tanks, 3.75% scrappers and brutes), as well as a defense buff for every ally within an 8ft. radius that stacks up to 3 times (3% tanks, 2.25% scrappers and brutes). In theory, this power is skippable. It's not a huge amount of defense (though at its worst, it's still more than maneuvers or a Glad Armor +3) and requires allies to be at its best, which doesn't bode well for soloers. However, with inherent fitness, it's become easier to squeeze it in builds. I would take it and 1 slot it for defense.

Grant Cover - Grant Cover is a toggle power that gives defense to all allies within a 15ft. radius around you (11.3% tanks, 8.44% scrappers and brutes), and also provides you with resistance to defense debuffs and slows (17.3% tanks, 13.8% scrappers and brutes). Alright, this is easily the worst power in shield, and I still take it on every toon. Why? Well, all teams appreciate defense, and having more resistance to defense debuffs is a good thing. The slow resistance is meh just simply because you don't get anymore of it, unless you slot a Winter's Gift, so it's negligible. If you truly have room for it, I'd take it and 1 slot it with an end redux. Skip it if you would like, though.

Shield Charge - Shield Charge is a click power that destroys mobs. Alright, Shield Charge is an targeted AoE attack where you select an area and teleport there, dealing smashing damage in a 20ft. radius and knocking some enemies down. Now, its damage tapers off in 3 levels, so the farther away the enemies are, the less damage they will take. However, anything that is within the first 10ft. is going to have a very bad day. Its base damage is hard to determine because of the different levels as that will decide how much damage you're actually doing. However, the base is generally around 100-150 smashing damage to the enemies within the closer range to you. It's also a pseudo-pet, so it's affected by the 300% damage bonus cap (essentially making it better on scrappers and tanks than on brutes by far), and is also currently bugged (as of 6/6/11) with Interface where it only has a chance to proc on one enemy. I could go on and on about this attack, but I'll stick with saying... TAKE IT! It's an outstanding AoE power, and combined with AAO, it defines shield. Take it, 6 slot it with 1 Accuracy, 3 Damage, and 2 Recharge.

One With The Shield - One With The Shield is a typical Tier 9 click power. It gives a resistance bonus (30% Smash/Lethal, 15% Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic tanks, 22.5% Smash/Lethal, 11.3% Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative/Toxic scrappers and brutes), a 20% hit point bonus across the board, a 30% recovery bonus across the board, and more mez protection than you'll ever need (unless you're fighting Ghost Widow). Its crash is only a 60% endurance drain, so it doesn't automatically mean your toggles are going to drop and you're going to die, so as long as you manage your endurance correctly. It's not the best tier 9, but it's also not the worst. It's the power I skip most often as I rarely need it, but it's definitely a good power to have, especially if you're a tanker and plan on standing on some of the tougher AVs out there. If you do take it, I'd recommend only a single resistance SO, but you could do up to 3 slots and stick 2 resistance and 1 heal in there.

IV. The 3 Archetypes With Shield

In this section, I will describe Shield's strengths and weaknesses in the 3 Archetypes that it's available to.

Tankers - Tankers get the best of Shield most of the time. They get a powerful taunt aura to help hold aggro, they get higher base defense and resistances, making them quite sturdy out of the box, and requiring less money later. They are also already capped at 300% damage bonus, so they won't ever feel like they're missing out on Shield Charge and its pseudo-pet caps. I've also seen good tank builds where they can keep about 90% defense debuff resistance (will be called DDR from now on) permanently, meaning that cascading failure would be quite difficult on them. However, Shield's biggest strength is the fact that it makes everything you do hurt worse for the enemies. It's good on a tank, because it can make you feel less useless damage-wise, but you're missing the best part of shield - the feeling of destroying everything before your teammates have a chance to help.

Scrappers - I find Scrappers to be the ones that get the best out of Shield. The whole point of playing a Scrapper is to deal damage, and lots of it. So what better way to do that than to have a self 65% damage bonus and a very high damage AoE attack out of the box? They also can tank mobs on their own, being able to hold aggro as well as a tank and having strong defenses and resistances to just stand there while you destroy things. They do have a 400% damage cap, so you will feel sad when everytime you hit Shield Charge after a good fulcrum shift or two and wish that pseudo-pets weren't damage capped. However, it doesn't matter, because you're do so much damage otherwise that you'll get over it. I would highly suggest making a Shield Scrapper if you haven't before, as they are just insanely fun to play, whether it's solo or on teams.

Brutes - Oh boy, Brutes can abuse Shield so much. AAO makes Brutes happy on so many levels. A fully saturated AAO and 90% fury can make a brute stand at 245% damage bonus just for being there. That means a full fulcrum shift from your lovely kinetics teammate, and you're looking at 445% damage bonus, which means your primary will hit very very hard. Unfortunately, Shield Charge will still only use that first 300%, and because a Scrapper at 300% damage is more powerful than a brute at 300% damage bonus, the scrappers win while just simply looking at shield in a vaccuum. However, when it comes to soloing, the less inspirations you have to eat, the better. Brutes feel that the best because they can sit there and destroy things while just standing in the middle of a mob. That's why Brutes are generally best for soloing and farming out of this group. On a team, though, a Scrapper will probably be slightly more useful.

V. Attack Powersets and Their Chemistry with Shield

Shield is great, but it also helps to have a good attack set to compliment it. Generally, anything that has a damage bonus power that doesn't work like Build Up is good. Why? Well, because the longer you can keep your bonus damage stacked, the more that multiplier works for making your attacks hurt.

Super Strength, if you go the tank or brute route, is generally one of the best combos with Shield. Double-stacked rage is 160% damage bonus. So take that brute we had earlier that was at 245%. Well, he can now put himself at 405% damage bonus without a single outside buff. That means a foot stomp slotted with 99% damage will hit for an astounding 357 damage, and is on such a short timer that it can be spammed. Not to mention that Shield Charge will easily be hitting for 500+ damage in its inner level, so between the two attacks, a Brute could easily do 900+ damage in a matter of two attacks... IN AOE! Oh yeah, and then he can turn around and do a 900 damage Knockout Blow... However, Smashing Damage is becoming more and more resisted in the late game (Lord Recluse, Marauder, The Honoree) and thus these numbers get turned down A LOT once enemy resistances are factored in.

Dark Melee is one of the more popular powersets with shield, as it works so well in different aspects. Soul Drain can become almost perma, and that's a nice 80% damage bonus for a long period of time. Dark does a lot of single-target damage, it does -tohit which works well with shield, and it has an endurance sap for those time when all those shield toggles bog your endurance down, or you need to quickly recover from a OwtS crash. It's a very well-rounded set and works well with Shield.

Kinetic Melee is a more recent powerset that is very underused and extremely underrated. KM is best on scrappers, because critting a Concentrated Strike recharges Power Siphon immediately, giving you more uptime on your damage bonus. It's easy for a KM/Shield Scrapper to put himself at 150%ish damage bonus which can make Burst and Shield Charge hit pretty gosh darned hard. It can also make Concentrated Strike hit extremely hard, to help with those annoying bosses. It also comes with some Energy damage in with its Smashing, so you're getting SOME exotic damage.

Broad Sword is another popular Scrapper choice for many reasons. It does insane amounts of single-target damage, it looks cool, and Parry works well with Shield while you're levelling up. It's not the best choice, but it looks cool and you can do a lot of damage to bosses, which your team will appreciate.

Fire Melee is one of the biggest superstar pairs with Shield. Fire Sword Circle does a LOT of damage, Greater Fire Sword does a LOT of damage, and fire as a whole is a quick, lesser resisted set and you will notice plenty of numbers going up over your enemies. It works well on all 3 archetypes, and a brute that hits Shield Charge then Fire Sword Circle with fury and AAO going will be very happy with the results.

And of course, I couldn't talk about Shield pairs without leaving Electric for last. The first time someone realized what happens when you do Shield Charge and Lightning Rod to the same mob must've had the biggest grin ever on their face. Electric/Shield Scrappers and Brutes are some of the best mob-destroying toons out there. They are masters of AoE, and can decimate things without even trying. They're resiliant, they can destroy mobs, they are fun to play, and were also one of the top Flavor of the Month toons for a long time.

VI. Incarnates with Shield

As most of you probably know, the new Incarnate system makes you powerful. So what happens if you're powerful before Set IOs? Well, between setting out your toon and putting 5 slots of Incarnates in your toon, a Shield can dominate the game with ease. So what Incarnates work best with Shield?

Alpha - This one is pretty easy. Spiritual if you can afford to fix your endurance issues other ways (it's easy on tanks), otherwise, you're stuck with Cardiac because your endurance bar is going to be struggling.

Interface - Reactive. Even after the new fix, reactive is still the best. More damage, -res, it's awesome.

Destiny - I personally would go Rebirth, simply because you already have defense and resistance, so why not add some regeneration in to make yourself that much sturdier?

Judgement - This one is really up to personal preference. I find Pyronic to be my favorite because it's a short cast time and does more damage than the other Judgements, but if you're farming, Ion is essential.

Lore - Pick your favorite. No really. Especially with I-20.5 giving you so many options, there's too many to really pick the "right" one.

All in all, Incarnates are pretty easy to figure out, and any one of them will generally make you better. They are all great, I just feel like this particular route would make you the sturdiest, most damaging, fastest Shield toon you can be.

VII. Building a Shield with Set IOs

Ah, the part I've been waiting for. Because there are going to be people with all sorts of different budgets reading this, I'm going to break it up into 3 sections, one for each of the money classes in the game. However, the general theme is the same. Soft-cap, fix endurance, then throw recharge at it until you're done.

a. Building on a Budget (<500mil)

Alright, so you don't really have billions of inf to throw around, but you still want your newly level 50 Shield guy to be even more awesome. But you look at other people set bonus lists and other builds and they're all insanely expensive! Well, fear not. You, too, can have a sturdy Shield build without the high pricetag! First off, Luck of the Gambler 7.5% Recharge procs are nice, but they're not requirements. On a budget, you HAVE to sacrifice recharge in order to get the survivability you need. You want to see soft-capped defenses (if you don't know what it is, please search elsewhere as I won't go into it here) most importantly. But how do you soft-cap cheaply? Well, it's easier on Tanks, of course, and Maneuvers can go a long way to helping you squeeze out a few extra percent of defense. Look at all of the yellow recipes and check out their set bonuses. Many of them offer small amounts of defense, and it can actually become easy to soft-cap without hurting the wallet.

Here's a sample build of a Shield/Fire Tanker:

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defense
40% Global Recharge
37% Global Accuracy
Most expensive IO is the Numina proc, and that's not even a necessity. It can be had for 80mil off of the market. After that, the next most expensive item is going to be the Steadfast +3Def, which runs about 30-40mil. If you take that out, you need to do some adjusting, but it can still work. This build would run you a couple hundred mil, but nothing that'll totally break the bank.

Here's the same combo as a scrapper. Notice how much more effort it takes to hit that soft-cap and how much less recharge there is:

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defense
16.25% Global Recharge
16% Global Accuracy
There are multiple expensive IOs in this build. I think you could still have this all for under 500mil, but it's still going to hurt the wallet a little. Scrappers and Brutes are much more expensive than tanks. However, with the more money, they perform significantly better in most aspects.

So generally, find defensive set bonuses and build with them. Get your 45% Melee, Ranged, AoE defense, and then get recharge. It can be done within a budget, for sure.

b. Building for the Middle Class (500mil-3bil)

Alright, so you've got some cash to spend. Maybe you farm a little, play the market a little, or you got a couple lucky drops and want to throw some of it into your Shield toon. Well, now you have options. For one, this opens it up so you can start throwing LotGs at your build, as well as Obliterations. This is my budget and generally, I can make a good Shield toon for around 2-2.5bil. Like this one:

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defenses
162.5% Global Recharge (With Perma-hasten)
63% Global Accuracy
Now we're talking! Because of the way it's built, and with the ability to get the two endurance-fixing procs (Numina's and Miracle), you can then go Spiritual for Alpha, making the perma-hasten dream a reality. This toon can tank beautifully, and put out some decent enough damage. Yes, there's a purple set, but the Gravitational Anchor set can generally be had in this budget.

So, if a tank is that awesome with money, surely a scrapper is awesome with money, right? Yes. Very much so...

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defenses
145% Global Recharge (With Perma-Hasten)
34% Global Accuracy
Oh yeah, now we're talking. Again, just being able to spend money allows us to go Pyre Mastery over Body Mastery, opening up more attack power, as well as opening up Spiritual, giving us perma-hasten. This build will shred things, and still isn't overly expensive.

So as it is in this price range, start with a base of 5 LotGs, a Numina and a Miracle Proc, and generally 2-3 sets of Obliteration, and then build from there.

c. Building for the Rich (>3bil)

Alright, so you've got money. Lots of it. As in, you could walk up to the market and buy a set of purples right now and not be crying about the hole in your wallet. No-budget builds on Shield is where you truly get to see them shine. You can throw so much inf at it, and see the return right there. Now you can throw purples and PvP IOs at your build. This is starting to look shiny...

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defenses
185% Global Recharge (With Perma-Hasten)
83% Global Accuracy
Holy Purple Sets Batman! Yes, a melee toon with 5 Purple sets. Also, notice the Membranes in Active Defense. This actually adds defense debuff reduction to your build, and can make it that much harder for your defense to ever drop below soft cap. This build costs BILLIONS of influence, but the production of it is undeniable. It's sturdy, it's quick, and you'll get what you pay for.

So surely this is where the scrapper finally breaks its shell and dominates. I think the build speaks for itself...

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Highlights:
Soft-Capped Defenses
177.5% Global Recharge
83% Global Accuracy
I figured this is the right bombshell to end on. If you have the dough for it, it's pretty hard to beat a Shield toon with 5 purple sets and is still soft-capped. It's pricey, but oh so worth it in the end.

So yeah, it's pretty simple. Start with 5 LotGs, 5 Purple Sets, Numina and Miracle, a Glad Armor +3 and a Shield Wall +3, and two Membranes, and run with it. I wish I had the patience to make this kind of money, because I know what it's capable of.

*NOTE: I used Fire Melee as the sample build because it is simple and powerful. It is by no means the best or worst and is not my favorite, I just used it as a placeholder. This guide is about Shield, not Fire.

VIII. The Strategic Way to Play a Shield

So... You just purpled out your Shield/Fire Tank and you have your Tier 4 Incarnates, but you still feel like other Shield toons run circles around you, so you came back to this guide for strategy. Well, lucky for you, I've been playing my Shield tank since Shield first came out, and I've done research, testing, and modifying until I figured out the best strategy. I have a step-by-step process for learning how to play a Shield "The Right Way™"

1. You want many enemies around you. Now, who in their right mind would WANT lots of enemies around them? Well, obviously a Shield player. Why? Well, because AAO is awesome and you want it saturated all the time. I don't care which archetype you're playing, the best debuff in the game is death. More damage bonus = faster HP debuff. If you have to pull another mob, whether it be with taunting or by running close to them to get their aggro, do it. If you're not at aggro cap, get there. You're resilient, trust me. You're a shield. Get enemies to attack you, and then pay them the favor back ten-fold. If you're on speed TFs, find enemies, stand in them, draw them to objectives, and kill everything. It works very efficiently this way.

2. Wait to Shield Charge until AFTER you're in the mob. This is the biggest mistake any Shield player makes, until they realize it. They think a TP attack is best used by teleporting INTO the mob. Ok, if you're electric melee and you DON'T have Shield, I can understand. But you're a Shield. You want death. To see death, you must let AAO multiply your damage. So please, for your sanity, your team's sanity, and most importantly, my sanity... Jump into the mob before you hit shield charge! This will make it do more damage to your enemies.

3. Don't be afraid of One with the Shield. OwtS is an awesome power. It does many things for you, the least of which is making you harder to kill. Go ahead, use it every time it's up. It won't kill you, if you're smart. Learn to look at your buff bar. If you see it blinking, pop some blue inspirations if you have to, or stop attacking for a moment. Just manage your crash. Smart Shield players don't let their toggles drop.

4. Don't make a set IO build that isn't soft-capped. I've seen this before and I never understand. It's easy and cheap to soft-cap any Shield toon. Go ahead, go look at my builds. Yeah, there's no reason not to. The whole point of a Shield is to toggle up and go bash things. It's not about popping inspirations because you can't stay alive. A well-built Shield will not faceplant very often. Don't be that guy.

5. Set Active Defense to auto-fire. Yes. Everyone wants Hasten to auto-fire. Well sorry, the last thing you want is your mez protection to drop. Just about every mob does some form of mez or knockback, and if you get mezzed, your toggles will drop and you will wonder why you forgot to hit Active Defense. It's a lot easier to let Active Defense do its thing and click hasten than vice-versa.

If I think of anymore, or if anyone has any suggestions for this area, go ahead and leave a post here or send me a PM and I'll add it in.

IX. Closing Comments

What else can I say? Shield is an amazing powerset (in my opinion, second only to Cold Domination as the most powerful, well-rounded powerset in the game) and plays very well on the 3 ATs it's available on. It's sturdy, it makes you hurt enemies worse, it makes you feel very powerful, and it's got a high ceiling as far as what it's capable of if you have a lot of money. I hope you enjoyed reading this guide (if you stuck it out all the way to the end) and if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, drop me a PM and I'll take a look.

-runt9

NOTE: Please don't post this guide elsewhere or use any part of it for your own guide without my permission. Thanks.

Reserved for comment about how great this guide is.

And it is!!! Very nice job!

Very good guide. Would you mind posting the "very exspensive" build long form for those of us without mids? And is it end sustainable?

I see your Super build has no Membranes or Enzymes.
Perhaps you don't know that slotting Membranes into Active Defense Enhances DDR
or that Enzymes offer 33% def AND end reduction.

I would use those in any high end shield build.

Membranes is how tanks get to 95% DDR

Daaaaah! How did I forget my Membranes! As I was making the middle-class build, I was telling myself "don't forget the Membranes in Active Defense". Thank you for reminding me. I'll go fix that right now.

You're both right. The only reason to go spiritual is if you don't have more than 175% recharge (in my books, that's about the threshold when you stop noticing real recharge buffs) then spiritual will have more effect than musculature on your build. Since it's difficult for most melee toons to hit that, I just didn't mention it. However, if you have more than 175% recharge, you're better off with musculature.

Great guide to Shield Defense. Perhaps a short section on Energy Melee?

Also if you run across sample builds for the other attack types you could link to them as examples.

I have a SD/Erg tank, FA/SD scrapper and an Elec/Shield brute all at level 50 and can attest to the strength of all of them. My fire scrapper has solo'ed many AVs and is probably a middle class build.

Great great guide. Thanks for making it.

Thank you so much for this. I have several shield characters and some of these suggestions are going to help a lot, especially for my level 40 fire/shield scrapper.

This is a nice guide for one of the best (arguably the best) armor set. So far, I have a Broadsword/Shield and an Elec/Shield scrappers fully softcapped. I'm working on my Shield/Superstrength Tank. One small suggestion: Posting the builds rather than only the data chunks would make it easier to read for folks who don't have Mids available -- some people like to paruse the forums on a computer where they cannot download Mids. Also, Mids does not work on Macs.

One thing I have to say for Broadsword/Shield. Not only is it thematically great, but since Perry adds Melee defense, you don't have to worry about building for Melee Defense. This makes a Broadsword/Shield Scrapper very, very easy to softcap since you only need to focus on Ranged and AoE. A single Perry will put my Melee defense well past the softcap.

Furthermore, the Melee defense sets tend to be far more expensive than Ranged and AoE defense, so if you want a softcapped scrapper that does great damage on a budget, Broadsword/Shield is a great option. Shield Charge-Whirling Sword-Slice is pretty good AoE damage, with Headsplitter also being a narrow cone.

Hey,

Interesting-looking guide. I have a L39ish MA/SD Scrapper that I simply loathe, but I'm certainly ready to concede the possibility that's my fault. I'm hoping he can be salvaged into something useful without needing a ton of cash dropped on him. I'll check out the builds tonight (I'm one of Local Man's examples, looking at this on my phone ).

Later on,
Gate

This is an excellent guide to SD, I have a high end (money wise) DM/SD scrapper and a mid range build on a SD/SS tank.

Im going to post both builds and would like some constructive feedback if possible.

(Sorry it's going to be in mids format.)

DM/SD

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Well it seems I don't have my tanker build on this machine, I will post that tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for the feedback.

Alrighty, well lemme go ahead and address everything.

Oh. My. Word.

Thankyou!

I've just started up a War Mace / Shield Defense Brute, and was trollin' the forums looking for a guide on Shield Defense and I found this!

It's very informative and gave me quite alot of insight into the different abilities and the advanced strategy section is helpful to.

I was sad to see that War Mace's wasn't included in your guide, but like you said in the comments, to add them all would be far beyond what's expected of you.

I will almost certainly be coming back to refer to this guide in the future. (:

Inspired by this guide, I got an Electric/Shield scrapper from level 22 up to level 45 over double XP weekend. Totally sweet! I especially like the way that most of the Shield powers really don't need much slotting. It meant I could six-slot just about everything I took from my primary, and still have some slots left over to toss around into things like True Grit that can provide a little additional benefit.

One thing that's worth mentioning, and that you might want to update the guide to cover, is that in I21 Super Jump is getting a tier-5 power that's yet another short-distance teleport damage splash attack. So a Shields/Electric super-jumper might be able to put together a triple whammy mob-murdering attack chain.

Fabulous guide, thanks so much! You did a great job of explaining the different powers, and what you want, and what you can, achieve with each one. That's pretty difficult to do, and you succeeded admirably.

I noticed your suggestions for Incarnates. Do you have any preferences for ancillary power pools, or they pretty much the same?

Would also like to second (third?) a request for non-mids builds for anyone posting them - this makes it easier to compare the different builds, and gets the creative juices flowing.

Thanks again for the great guide!

I do want to thank everyone who read through this guide and enjoyed it and/or found something useful in it. It's amazing how some stuff may be common knowledge to you and your friends, but so many people could benefit from the information. That's why I made this guide.

As far as Ancillary/Epic Pools go... I like Fire/Pyre/Burn Things Down. Why? Well because Ring of Fire can sometimes be used as a mule for Enfeebled Operation/Gravitational Anchor/Entropic Chaos/Decimation for more Defense or Recharge. Fire Blast is a GREAT ST attack that I normally work into most attack chains, and Fire Ball is the best AoE power you can get from the Epic/Ancillary pools. However, Soul Mastery (for Tanks and Brutes) is outstanding because Gloom is almost broken-good, and Darkest Night can REALLY help you out if you're still running on SO's and need a little help for your survivability.

I would like to go back and put in all attack sets, but I doubt I'll have the time or patience for it. I will also edit one of the posts and briefly mention Spring Attack as a possible other AoE attack.

Also, I will try to go back and edit with full builds later, or just post them all in a new post, when I have the time to do so.