Melee: Unique Shield Guide

Unique Shield: Melee Guide

Whats this about?
Guide to help you decide which unique shield u should get. This is intended for "endgame", aka maps.
The guide's focus is to mitigate most dangerous damage for melee: ranged.
I discuss the shields for my very specific situation, but maybe the thought-process is useful for other people. I wont mention aegis aurora - everybody knows how and why it's OP. It also sucks for my particular build (thank god).

I created a unique shield cheat sheet on google docs:

or as picture:


The Preconditions:
As FB and BoR restrict the gear i'm able to wear, i decided to evaluate unique shields!
I'm melee splash IB with BoR. This means, i dont really care about melee attacks: i move fast, they hit slow, i maxed block, and i do blind, and have good evasion. I'm lvl 83, und died about 3 times since lvl 60. The reasons where: Alt-tab, reflect, bunch of ranged mobs (i think with spell projectiles). The latter made me think about the unique shields.
Some stats: 3,5k hp, 1000 armour, 3000 evasion, 7 endurance charges, capped resists, 71% block, 24% spell block.

The Problem:
Ranged damage is the biggest danger for melee, because:
- Mobs may not be blinded
- Burst damage, for example when entering a room
- often no or little life leech, when running to ranged
FB do not allow for leap slam, so i dont have a good gap closer. Often, i'm sitting duck.

Some Theory:
There exist two damage sources in this game: Attacks and spells.

Attacks can be melee, but may also be projectiles. These are attack projectiles. All attacks, and their projectiles, can be evaded and blocked. They are mostly physical, but may have a big portion of elemental damage (for example, mobs with "added cold damage". See kripperian vid's for more infos). Attack projectiles can be very dangerous. As they have a big amount of physical damage and can be blocked, it is possible to reduce some of their damage with armour.

Spells are usually (always?) ranged. Spells can generate projectiles, who still count as spells. Spells cannot be evaded, and only blocked with "spell block" (this includes projectiles). Spells are usually full elemental damage (?). As resistances are capped, the only way to mitigate spell damage usually is spell block.

The Discussion:

I discuss my favourite unique shields, based on the settings described above.


Daress's Courage:

+ 32% Block
+ Allres
+ Block recovery
+ additional physical damage
+ spell block on low life
+ ok armour and evasion
- no additional spell block >35% hp
- no health

The best allrounder shield. Good vs attacks AND spell damage. Saved my ass a zillion times. It also gives me damage, and block recovery is very, very useful. It also has allres, but no health.


Rathpid globe:

+ 30% block
+ 260 energy shield
+ much spell block (can be capped)
+ hp
- no armour

This is awesome shield vs spell caster. It helps little vs attack projectiles, except for the 10% hp (for me around 200hp) and some ES (so, good vs burst damage).


Titucus:

+ some armour and hp
+ armour vs projectiles
+ block vs projectiles
- 24% block chance

This is a complicated shield, but the bottom line is: it is not really good.
The armour vs projectiles help against attack projectiles, but not vs spell projectiles (as they are elemental damage). The block vs projectiles is not useful vs attack projectiles if you have capped block (75), and only a little bit useful vs spell projectiles (does increase spell block a little). Bottom line: Good for leveling if you didnt cap block chance.


Lioneye's Remorse:

+ 33% block
+ 1700 armour
+ 100 hp
+ -25 physical ranged

This shield is very good against attack projectiles. It is not so good vs spell's, except for the health part.


Saffell's Frame:

+ allres
+ spell block en masse
+ 5% increased allres (nearly doubles EHP with 81% default res)
- can't block attacks

The best shield vs spell caster! Can have full spell block, and also has additional resistances. But it comes at a price - normal attacks cannot be blocked anymore (this includes attack projectiles). This leaves you very vulnerable against attack projectiles - the increased maxres will mitigate some additional elemental damage, but i dont know how good it is.


Prism Guardian:

Good for non-prozentual auras (grace and some damage auras).


Rise of the Phoenix:

Ok shield. Very good shield for elemental reflect!


Crest of Perandus

+ hp
+ 3% Life Leech
+ 40% block chance

The 40% block chance may allow you to save points in passive skill tree. LL helps for physical damage builds. other than that, not much different than rares.


Summary
Of the shields discussed, there is no clear winner - all have pros and cons. That sucks - but it is also very damn awesome! I dont like BiS (best in slot) items, and i think GGG should go back to the old way of balancing uniques with pro's and con's, and not the new way of introducing OP items with no drawbacks. Anyway, here the summary:

Vs Attack mobs:
Lioneye's Remorse, no doubt. Much HP, Block, Armour, and more.

Vs Spell caster:
Rathpith's globe. Spell block, HP, ES... cool.
IF you DONT have any additional spell block on gear (stone of lazhwar, rainbowstrides, ...), and capped resists and lvl 20 purity, and lotsa armour, it may be possible to use saffell's frame. Maybe someone is using this shield in high level maps and can comment?

Vs Mixed:
Daresso's Courage.

Vs Reflect:
Rise of the phoenix (for me as infernal blow, which does fire damage).

For more auras:
Prism guardian.


Concluding Comments
I hope this is useful for some other people as it was for me!

I started out with daresso's courage, which work pretty good in most situations.
Currently, i use lioneyes remorse. Mostly because i found it, and it looks so damn manly!
I'll evaluate rathpith globe at some later time.
I'll probably wont test saffell's frame - just because i spend some currency on my rainbowstrides.


Additional information, from GGG comments:

Titucus:
It adds additional block chance against projectiles, not additional spell block chance. It is added to your block chance when calculating block from a projectile. Then if that projectile is a spell projectile, half of your regular block chance (which against projectiles includes the additional 25%) is used as spell block chance.

Example of Projectile Attacks and Projectile Spells:

Monster Projectile Attacks:
- Snake Spit
- Rocks from scavengers
- Fire projectiles from scavengers
- Sandspitter projectiles

Monster Projectile Spells:
- Elemental skeleton projectiles
- Vaal Constructs chaos projectiles

IB Explosion:
The explosion is not attack damage and has no accuracy to determine a chance to hit with. It cannot be evaded.

nice guide, BUT:

i am Level 66 duelist and i still use Crest of Perandus

+ 40% chance to block (!!!)
+ some liferegen
+ 3% lifeleech
+ 60-80 life
+ 30% light-resist
- no other resists
- almost no armour/evasion

the skill points i save by not spending them on blocknodes (which are at least 4-6 points) can easily go into armour-nodes, which add up to a bonus, that negates this malus of the shield. to me this shield is the best.

You're forgetting 3 interesting shields

For low life

For the 40% block (and life)

For the obvious bonus (and elemental res) : Aegis Aurora (I can't direct link this one as it is kinda expensive and rare, also WTB).

True, i didnt look at crest of perandus, as i think it is just a rare shield with bad stats, except LL and high block :-). But thanks for adding it to the thread! The high block chance can really save you a lot of passive skill points.

Springleaf is a too niche shield imho.

Aegis Aurora is often BiS, but needs a lot of ES and armour. And everybody and their grandma has or wants one.

Hilariously.. Crest Of Perandus is the best shield in the game for melee unless u are ES then i would argue aegis aurora cus ES regen on block is hax.....You just cannot beat 40%block 3%leech and 80life

"

siliconlife wrote:

True, i didnt look at crest of perandus, as i think it is just a rare shield with bad stats, except LL and high block :-). But thanks for adding it to the thread! The high block chance can really save you a lot of passive skill points.

Springleaf is a too niche shield imho.

Aegis Aurora is often BiS, but needs a lot of ES and armour. And everybody and their grandma has or wants one.

Are you kidding me?
Springleaf is what carries badly geared low-life builds. Without it, they would never be able to sustain RF.

Crest of Perendus would be an absolute beast of an endgame shield if it had even 500 more evasion. And you can use it from level 8. Ridiculous.

"

ShaeG wrote:

Hilariously.. Crest Of Perandus is the best shield in the game for melee unless u are ES then i would argue aegis aurora cus ES regen on block is hax.....You just cannot beat 40%block 3%leech and 80life

I tried my build without LL gem, but with 11% physical LL (bloodrage, passive skillpoint, perandus). I was not able to cap my max life regen with my physical DPS.

Anyway, rare shields can also go up to 38% block. I'm looking at a shield with 36% block and 95 max hp (Dragon Sanctuary Battle Buckler), and 4 other stats.

So imho, if you do mostly physical damage, perandus can be very good. But you can also have physical LL on rings, amulets, and with uniques on gloves and boots, and probably some other slots.

"

Acrosis wrote:

Are you kidding me?
Springleaf is what carries badly geared low-life builds. Without it, they would never be able to sustain RF.

I didnt know that :-).
But for me, low-life build itself are niche. And if you do low-life, it is pretty straight forward which gear u get (those with "on low life" in it's description? ;-) )

"

ShaeG wrote:

Hilariously.. Crest Of Perandus is the best shield in the game for melee unless u are ES then i would argue aegis aurora cus ES regen on block is hax.....You just cannot beat 40%block 3%leech and 80life

This. My shadow is still using it and I don't really plan on ever switching. Daressos is interesting though if I end up really needing resists badly.

It takes a really good shield before I take off Crest of Perandus. I only take it off when in late game I need the high defense from a rare shield (800+ arm/eva). The rest of the stats have to be top notch too.