Which Sheild Enchant?

[unohu]

Ahoy, ive been contemplating what sheild enchant i should put on my sheild, its a resplendent guardian (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=Resplendent+Guardian). I have a main so money SHOULDNT be a problem. Im not sure whether i should have mithril or thorium sheild spikes or 2% block, spirit or stamina...at the moment i got a +5 stamina from a friend for free but im not sure if id be better off with something else. The sheild i have has an item level of 31 so i dont know if i can equip thorium spike

[Krald]

I'd just stick with what you have.. I never bothered to enchant a shield pre-60.

Well.. i barely used one before I got the scarlet one.

[swaldman]

Ahoy, ive been contemplating what sheild enchant i should put on my sheild, its a resplendent guardian (http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=Resplendent+Guardian). I have a main so money SHOULDNT be a problem. Im not sure whether i should have mithril or thorium sheild spikes or 2% block, spirit or stamina...at the moment i got a +5 stamina from a friend for free but im not sure if id be better off with something else. The sheild i have has an item level of 31 so i dont know if i can equip thorium spike

My Scarlet shield had +5 spirit, because I got it from a friend. It's quite a good idea, IMHO, because most of the time when I'm using a shield it's because I'm in healbot mode. If you're more frequently tanking, then I guess a spike might be a better option?

[Judgeworm]

Isn't there a +7 Stamina enchant available for shields as well?

2% Block is a really nice enchant if you've invested some points in protection talents, so is a top of the line shield spike.

Good luck!

---JW

[demonrage]

IMO spirit is wasted for a paladin in healbot mode, as you will basically be nonstop casting and have little-no downtime for the spirit to take effect. For a paladin, I would go Stam all the way, especially when lvling.

-Demonrage

[swaldman]

IMO spirit is wasted for a paladin in healbot mode, as you will basically be nonstop casting and have little-no downtime for the spirit to take effect. For a paladin, I would go Stam all the way, especially when lvling.

-Demonrage

I went with a high-spirit build main healing all the way through Uldaman and ZF... I simply made sure that I healed as much as I could in one burst, and then stopped until somebody's health meant that I had to start again. Usually got some useful regen in.

This didn't work in Maraudon, though, because of all the cleansing.
Since then I've turned more to +int and +heal.

[unohu]

hey just curious but how much are mithril spikes? ive seen them around but i thought they were easily made and very cheap but a friend of mine told me theyre uber expensive(80g+)

[Krald]

I went with a high-spirit build main healing all the way through Uldaman and ZF... I simply made sure that I healed as much as I could in one burst, and then stopped until somebody's health meant that I had to start again. Usually got some useful regen in.

This didn't work in Maraudon, though, because of all the cleansing.
Since then I've turned more to +int and +heal.

If you wanna heal like that and healing is all you do, my advice is to reroll either priest or druid. They have large burst healing with HoTs and such (especially druid) so they can afford to let the tanks hp dip while regenerating and then heal up. Also their mana efficiency is higher on their big slow heals, while paladins is higher on their small fast heals.

So overall, paladins healing is far more geared towards spamming flash of light and keeping the tanks hp full and occasionly holy light if you need more HPS. So this means lots of +int, +heal, and mana per 5 sec. Paladins simply can't do "burst" healing nearly as well, so they need to keep everyone topped up incase of burst damage.

hey just curious but how much are mithril spikes? ive seen them around but i thought they were easily made and very cheap but a friend of mine told me theyre uber expensive(80g+)

I used to sell mithril spikes for around 5 gold each, and thorium spikes for 25g.

[swaldman]

If you wanna heal like that and healing is all you do, my advice is to reroll either priest or druid.

Quite apart from the 12 days or so /played that that would involve throwing away, healing certainly isn't all that I do. I like my pally :-)

I do have a seperate set of armour for when I'm in pure healbot mode, and that is what used to have lots of +spi and now has lots of +int and +heal (and some spi still). A fair bit of that set is cloth, leather & mail. My normal armour (solo/occasional-tank/run-around-looking-busy-in-groups-with-no-particular-role) is more... well, let's say "warrior armour" with a couple of bits of Lightforge thrown in :-)

[Krald]

Well, if you're sticking to pally healing, I do recommend mana per 5 sec :p and embrace the flash heal spam!.

[Yabuki]

personaly i would most definetly go with the +2% block!

if you can find a shield that already has a +2% block, even better, especialy if your protection spec.

damage blocked is damage not healed, so you last longer and waste less mana recharging yourself.

thats how i always look at it.

[Grendo]

If youre casual, and 60, id recommend a shield spike. Theyre great for aoe killing, as a lot of your time may be spent farming gold etc for your epic mount.

If youre heavy protection and like to tank, 2% block is definently nice.

If youre raiding heavily with a shield, you may consider sta for a boost. You wont be tanking so the other two become wasted.

[Phaexos]

Right.

Well, it really all depends on what you'd rather be doing than carrying a shield around. If you, like me, feel a fair bit of disappointment that using shields limits you to 1H weapons, which rarely pack much of a punch, the shield spike is a nice way to make you feel better about hiding behind something rather than swinging that high damage, ass kicking 2H hammer in somebody's face.

If you are happy with the amount of melee damage you're dealing out (and, to be quite honest, a mithril spike only deals 16-20 damage every time it blocks and I don't know what range a thorium spike deals...but I WOULD NOT WASTE MONEY on putting a thorium spike on a Respendent Guardian...), then added mana would probably be the best option. 2% more blocking is, really, not that grand (For every 100 hits an enemy throws at you, you'll block a whopping two more? Lame, in my opinion.) and let's be FAIR, people. To tanks, specifically Warriors and most definitely Pallies...a stamina increase is simply the dumbest boost to have except for intelligence.

Would you rather spend five minutes, swinging and dodging, getting a nice slash across the mug most of the time, on taking down one enemy that's only two levels higher than you? Or would you like to show your true melee bronze and say, "I don't care if the other guy hits me because as long as he doesn't crit me in a couple strikes, he's saying 'Hello graveyard.'"

My advice: Ditch the Respendent Guardian. Invest in a good 2H weapon.

[swaldman]

I had an in-game conversation about this with an experienced tank recently.

His comment was "never use a shield spike". The reasoning is that if dps is the main concern, you'll be using a 2-hander. If you are wearing a shield as a warrior it is to make you harder to kill. Therefore +% to block or +stamina is far more useful. For a paladin or shaman, +spirit might be a good option as well.

The reasoning makes sense. Personally, I have a shield spike, but the reason for this is that I'm a blacksmith, it cost me very little, and enchants are expensive!