tortoise stance, shield riposte, or mongoose?

[Leigo]

Going to 1hander/shield from 2hander and debating what martial stance to go with. Tortoise his ya with -20 AS but having 2 block chances on everything sounds very strong, especially with a flared/scripted/spiked shield.

Anyone have experience with all three in a shield build?

[LOL BRIELUS]

Having -20 as doesn't seem all that bad. Shoot, as a halfling I have -30 AS to a giant and don't see much of a problem

[Archigeek]

As a hurler, the other stances don't do much for me. Prior to the recent updates I always ran griffin, but that's almost pointless now with the elimination of vocal stress. Tortoise stance really shines when you combine it with the skill that let's you block for other people. That's usually the only time I run it, when I'm guarding someone else. It's very effective in that regard.

[mattipeppers]

Hey man, just saw your post. I've been back and forth quite a bit between these and thought I'd share my two cents. I switched from 2he to a blunt/shield.

I've been using the test server a lot to experiment. Ultimately, I went with riposte. Having this 3/3 along with shield bash at 5/5, I am stunning and knocking things down left and right with no roundtime incurred. Anything that falls down I immediately ambush their heads for an easy kill. Shield forward also procs every time riposte goes off. It's like having 30 additional shield ranks up anytime you are fighting. Something to consider though is that I usually don't hunt with spells, so I get hit a lot; most of the time I'm only taking 1pt damage due to redux, armor, and sigil of minor protection though. It's a pretty fun way to hunt.

[James469]

Hey man, just saw your post. I've been back and forth quite a bit between these and thought I'd share my two cents. I switched from 2he to a blunt/shield.

I've been using the test server a lot to experiment. Ultimately, I went with riposte. Having this 3/3 along with shield bash at 5/5, I am stunning and knocking things down left and right with no roundtime incurred. Anything that falls down I immediately ambush their heads for an easy kill. Shield forward also procs every time riposte goes off. It's like having 30 additional shield ranks up anytime you are fighting. Something to consider though is that I usually don't hunt with spells, so I get hit a lot; most of the time I'm only taking 1pt damage due to redux, armor, and sigil of minor protection though. It's a pretty fun way to hunt.

I'm thinking of switching from THW to OH/shield as well; any reason why I would want to go with blunt over OHE? I was going to get Kroderine Soul and wanted to increase my defense capabilities.

[mattipeppers]

Kroderine Soul is a ton of fun. I personally love it and I think that it complements shield builds really well. The Absorb Magic ability that you get with it adds a huge buff to strength bonus, stamina and health when you absorb a spell. I constantly seek out critters that cast for this reason.

I've grown very partial to war hammers, but there are pros and cons to both ohe/ohb depending on what or how you hunt. War hammers provide a nice bonus to aiming success and have a lower RT which makes multistriking a bit quicker. A lot of it comes down to what you can get your hands on and personal preference.

[James469]

At what point should I be expecting to see a big increase in defense with this build over THW? Currently only 28, and in testing it seems like I'm better off just swinging the claid a few times vs going sword and board.

[Renaden]

DS will be roughly the same as training in dodge, the benefits are through blocking with the shield, especially once you get to 40, get that extra 10% parry/block chance and set your EBP to BPE through the guild. Learn tackle, cripple right leg, tackle, attack will almost always yield a kill, can throw a feint in there too if you need it.

[James469]

DS will be roughly the same as training in dodge, the benefits are through blocking with the shield, especially once you get to 40, get that extra 10% parry/block chance and set your EBP to BPE through the guild. Learn tackle, cripple right leg, tackle, attack will almost always yield a kill, can throw a feint in there too if you need it.

Thanks, Ill play with testing and look into this deeper as the annual fixskill comes closer. The claid+berserk model seems to be working OK right now

[James469]

Was about to fixskills to polearm, but decided to look through my locker manifest one last time: came across a fish-spine sword; didn't those have some type of crit weighting to them? If so, maybe OHE would be a better bet.