This topic is about spirit shields, their viability and changes to them. I may also give some feedback on other shields if it's relevant.
I'm pretty sure everyone regards spirit shields as the "end game" shields. Given their relatively high requirements and the way they're obtained, that's what I think they should be as well. I do not want them to go back to being hundreds of mils and ultra rare, that's stupid. I do want them to be viable. Two out of four weren't exactly viable before this update, and the most recent change has put another nail in their coffin. I'm going to go over each spirit shield and talk about the state they're in at the moment.
- Spectral spirit shield
Still the best defensive shield in the game. It will be very good at keeping you alive due to it's hp boost. Lowering it's stats may not affect you much but will get people to consider going for something to boost their damage instead. It wasn't hurt very much by the last two stat nerfs, but it can't really take another. - Arcane spirit shield
Has been in a bad state for quite a long time. Before the initial decrease in defense bonus it was debatable whether it was better than ddef or not. After the nerf to def bonus and the buff to defenders it became flat out inferior. Regardless, people were still stupid enough to use it for some reason. The nerf to it's offensive bonuses should make it a lot more noticable that it's garbage. - Divine spirit shield
Will always be viable because it's the only real shield for ranged. That being said every nerf to it affects the viability of 1-handed ranged weapons. It's not necessarily in a bad state, but if we were to get an actual shield for ranged it could end up being in one. - Elysian spirit shield
Before ice shield it was the best shield for magic. On ice shield's release ice shield was roughly equal but ice shield ended up being better in certain situations. After the def bonus nerf to spirit shields ice shield became flat out superior. The recent nerf to offensive bonuses makes it even worse. It's in the same bad state as arcane.
The changes relevant to this topic:19/01/2017 (Lost -23 to neutral, -38 to strong and -17 to weak)
Spirit shields have slightly been nerfed. I reduced their defensive bonuses.
27/10/2017 (Lost -5 attack and -3 str)
Spirit shields: They are just way too strong. I've reduced their offensive bonuses from 15 to 10 and strength bonuses from 10 to 7. In my opinion a shield with defensive bonuses and a useful operate option shouldn't straight up outclass defenders.
The operateAll spirit shields can be operated in order to gain immunity to damage for a brief amount of time. This operate is why spirit shields were nerfed this update, at least that's what Thomy said. Yes, this operate can have a huge value in certain situations. However, in most PvM situations it's not going to be very significant. It's by no means reliable in PvP, but can also have a decent value. I don't think it's what the shield's stats should be balanced around, it would need to be a whole lot more reliable for that.
The old recoil operate had a timer, this one doesn't. While the new operate is a lot stronger, it's also more inconvenient to use. It might help spirit shields a lot of there were a timer.
If you must, remove the operate completely so spirit shields can at the very least have good stats. I would rather have spirit shields be universally good than rely on the operate. The only place where it's really good is Nex, that's one place, a set of shields that we introduced a boss for is only really good in one place. That shouldn't be the way to go.
The difference in offensive stats between arcane and ddef is 0.2 dps. The effect can be activated every 60 seconds. Let's say you're fighting in melee and it's a ddef vs arcane fight. In order to outperform ddef you would need to block at least 13 damage every 60 seconds. This makes the effectiveness of the operate very RNG reliant, which is bad.
The rune kiteshield memeThis has been used as an example to illustrate how bad the stats of a spirit shield actually are. It's a good fucking example. Arcane has +3 melee, +5 ranged and +2 mage def over rune kiteshield. The defensive stats are mediocre at best. Corrupt dragon sq shield has +16 melee, +12 ranged and +4 magic bonus over arcane, it requires 5 less defense levels to wear. Corrupt dragon equipment is a subject for another topic, but should a spirit shield have less defense bonus than a shield that is essentially a tier below them?
DefendersDragon defender has always been equal to or better than arcane. Something you kill glorified hill giants for to acquire shouldn't really be taking the lunch of a shield you have to kill an actual boss for. The initial buff to it was unnecessary. An upgraded version (like a barrows or chaotic defender) might be nice. Ranged and magic versions would be nice as well.
Making spirit shields more defensive isn't necessarily a bad decision. Spectral will eat the lunch of all other shields if that's the way you wanna go however. Making them a decent balance between offense and defense isn't necessarily a bad idea. Ranged needs another shield if you want to do that though.
