New shield stuff?

[EDubbs]

Any rogues making use of the shield stuff?

I've been playing around with the idea of adding a shield to my UAC rogue, but it seems like it would be pretty worthless.
I can drop CM from 1.8x to 1.5x, and PF from 1.5x back to 1x, and play with a few more things to fully 1x shield, but the hit to MM would be too great, and it doesn't seem like it'd be worth it unless I could go full 2x shield. What's next? 1x dodge and then 2x shield? That seems counter productive. Or, I could give up picking, but that makes me sad.

Any thoughts? Anyone have any fun with the new shield stuff?


Whirling dervish looks really cool. Makes me want to go back to TWC.

[Suppressed Poet]

Seems to me UAC and shields don't mix. I wouldn't want a defence bonus that takes away from my offensive power. Maybe just go shield plus ohe or ohb? Both are old tired builds, but are pretty effective.

[Archigeek]

There's a shield skill that negates the shield penalty for brawling. Not sure if you rogues get it or not.

[EDubbs]

Yeah, rogues get that skill, but it only takes away 2 per rank, which doesn't completely negate the penalty. I think I read somewhere that shield focus helps negate the penalty also, which means the entire penalty could be negated as long as you were 2x trained, and used a small/medium shield.

The Captain America build sounds really cool. It just doesn't seem like it would work out at all.

[Riltus]

Yeah, rogues get that skill, but it only takes away 2 per rank, which doesn't completely negate the penalty. I think I read somewhere that shield focus helps negate the penalty also, which means the entire penalty could be negated as long as you were 2x trained, and used a small/medium shield.

The Captain America build sounds really cool. It just doesn't seem like it would work out at all.

SHIELD FOCUS does not reduce the MM UCS shield penalty. However, 3 ranks in SHIELD FOCUS is a prerequisite for SHIELDED BRAWLER, the specialization that reduces the shield MM penalty (available to warriors rogues and paladins).

A 2x trained small shield user has an MM shield penalty of 15. Training the maximum 5 ranks in SHIELDED BRAWLER will reduce the penalty by 10. Therefore, a small shield user with both 2x shield use skill and 5 ranks in SHIELDED BRAWLER will have a total MM penalty of 5.

This penalty can be further mitigated for specific USC attacks by training in the masteries. With 3 ranks in PUNCH mastery (+15 MM bonus), 3 ranks SFOCUS and 5 ranks SHIELDED BRAWLER, a rogue, holding a small shield will actually have an MM bonus of +10 with Punch attacks. This isn't cheap and because there is also a 'level per point spent' tie-in, the earliest a character can train SHIELDED BRAWLER is level 18 and the maximum reduction isn't attainable until level 50.

Mark