Damage Shields Explained
Hello everyone, and welcome to this article where we'll be discussing damage shields in-depth. I've noticed that many players use them incorrectly because the game doesn't provide enough information on how they work. In fact, I also made the same mistakes for a long time. So, I'm here to help you understand how to use them properly.
When not to use Damage Shields
Let's start with the basics. Damage shields provide a temporary buffer to your health pool, absorbing incoming damage before it affects your actual health. However, damage shields do not have block mitigation, which means that when you're blocking while having a damage shield, the block mitigation will not start applying until your damage shield is depleted.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Let's say you have 50% block mitigation, 10k damage shield, and you're blocking a hit that deals 20k damage. The damage shield will absorb 10k of the damage, and the remaining 10k will hit your actual health. Now that your damage shield is depleted, the block mitigation will start applying, and the remaining 10k damage will be reduced to 5k.
If you had no damage shield at all, the 20k damage hit would instantly hit your health and get mitigated by your block down to 10k. In this scenario, you take 10k damage, whereas in the first scenario, you take only 5k damage. This means that the 10k damage shield only reduced the damage you took by 5k.
To give you a more extreme scenario, let's take a look at the Archdruid Devyric fight. The most dangerous part of that fight is the Electric Breath, a powerful cone attack that deals massive blockable damage that cannot be dodge rolled. To survive this attack, you'll want to use the Immovable skill, which should put your block mitigation at 90%.
Now, you might be wondering if damage shields can help you survive this attack. Let's assume that one tick of Electric Breath deals 50k damage before block mitigation. If you take a hit without a damage shield, you'll take 50k damage mitigated by 90%, which will become 5k.
If you were to cast a 10k damage shield, here's how the damage calculation would go:
- First, the original unmitigated 50k damage gets reduced by the 10k damage shield down to 40k.
- Then, the remaining 40k hit gets reduced by your 90% block mitigation down to 4k.
- Finally, you take 4k damage.
In this scenario, casting a 10k damage shield only reduced the damage you took by 1k, from 5k down to 4k. As you can see, damage shields are not very effective at mitigating blockable damage, and healing will outclass damage shields in these scenarios, especially when your block mitigation is very high.
The only reason to use damage shields while taking lots of blockable damage is if you're a Dragonknight and you're trying to regain stamina by spamming Igneous Shield in order to proc the Helping Hands passive. In all other cases, healing will be more effective at keeping you alive.
When to use Damage Shields
So, we've talked about when not to spam damage shields. Now, let's discuss when to use them. It's actually quite simple. Damage shields tend to have much higher values than healing abilities, making them a better option for mitigating damage that cannot be blocked, such as Damage over Time (DoT) effects.
For example, if you're facing mostly non-blockable damage, casting a skill like Hardened Armor, which provides around 15k damage shield, would be much more valuable than casting Coagulating Blood, which only heals for approximately 10k.
When not to Block
So, we've talked about when to use and when not to use damage shields, but now let's focus on when not to block. Let me explain.
If you have a 10k damage shield and you block an 8k damage hit, your block did nothing but waste your stamina. Your damage shield will take 8k damage no matter if you block or not, so blocking in that scenario is completely pointless.
One fight where I find that really useful is Z’Maja in Cloudrest. As a Dragonknight, I find myself barely blocking anything, as it would make no difference with DK's strong damage shields, like Igneous Shield and Hardened Armor.
But, there's an exception to this rule. When using the Ward Master champion point, your block becomes worth using when under the effect of a damage shield. Ward Master reduces all damage you take while blocking under the effect of a damage shield by 10%. So, if you're using this slottable, you have to flip your mentality and continue blocking as normal, even when you're under the effect of damage shields.
Summary
So, to sum it up, it's important to know when to block and when not to block. By understanding when your damage shield is enough to protect you, you can save a lot of stamina. Damage shields are less effective against blockable damage and more effective against non-blockable damage, such as DoTs.
And that's it. If you want to find more tanking content check out my YouTube channel - Hyperioxes