Large Shields, PoTD and Offense Attacks

[Torm51]

I love the look of Tower Shields but I find that PotD makes them kind of crap, so what’s the answer? I feel that any fighter multi with disc barrage and high PER can make them work and you will still be able to hit things.  Any suggestions?  I know it’s kind of the point of a large shield you get a huge increase in defense for less offense, but I wanted to see if we could retain the large shield and have respectable offense.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Torm51

[Boeroer]

It's only 8 accuracy. That's manageable with some levels. I mean Blunderbuss wielders suffer -10 ACC and I don't consider them to be poor offensive characters.

On the other hand you get more deflection, more reflex and an awesome modal (in my opinion). With a large shield modal activated you can get bombarded with AoE spells and only get damaged slightly.

One weapon that is very good in combination with large shields is Scordeo's Egde because Adaptive counters the ACC loss easily and also Blade Cascade can remove the disadvantage of not having dual wielding speed. 

What also works well is fists. Especially Forbidden Fist and most of the Monk's wound-fueled attacks (which are primary). 

And actually if you use a large shield (and raise your defenses high - you get more deflection AND Reflex after all) you don't need that much of AR which means less armor penalty which means faster attacks. 

I'm currently using Aloth as my only tank (as a single class wizard) with Cadhu Scalth and only padded armor and he's still hitting stuff while being sturdy. Also if he nukes himself in order to damage the enemies around him his large shield modal helps a lot.

 

 

[Torm51]

Ya true, I guess it just hurts a lot early.  All good ideas, some levels and smart counters like that definitely make it manageable.

[Boeroer]

True, during early game a large shield really hurts. Using Rapier, Spear, Dagger and other stuff with +5 ACC does help a bit.

[Ophiuchus]

An Unbroken/Trickster with a Large Shield, Llengrath's, and Adept Evasion is virtually impervious to AoE attacks: especially great if you have a damage-oriented caster in your team.

[Boeroer]

Unbroken suffers a Reflex malus though.

[Ophiuchus]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Unbroken suffers a Reflex malus though.

I never noticed it with Llengrath's, the Large Shield modal, and other tanky effects.

[Boeroer]

It's pretty substantial though (-15). 

[Ophiuchus]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It's pretty substantial though (-15). 

Oof. Yeah. Real life has been riddled with anxiety the last few weeks so me brain be mush. The penalty is something to consider, yes, but with a full party using CC, afflictions, inspirations, off-tanking, etc., I rarely notice the malus.

[Wotcha]

In the absence of the Unbroken malus, tanks with Weapon and Shield Style tend to have sky-high Reflex because of the huge bonus from the shield. All the Unbroken penalty does is bring Reflex down to basically where it would be without the shield, which is still going to be tank-level defense due to all the other stuff a defensively-built character is going to have going on.