[DoK] Did I pick the wrong class?

[Shieldslam]

Spoiler:

Great summary, thanks! I'm curious what the advantage is of going shield over DW though? I get that you get the extra layer of passive defense from block, but to be honest, it's not the melees that are killing me. It's all the damn casters. I don't see that a shield would help much against them.

Shield is an actual healer with some damage output, dualwield is effectively a pure dps. In a group, SnB takes a healers spot, DW takes a DPS spot and requires an actual healer to work properly.

You're gonna have to help me out here. How does swapping a sword for a shield make you heal any better? Maybe I'm not high enough level and there's some abilities I'm not aware of, but it seems to me that you'd actually heal for less with your abilities that add a percentage of your damage if you are wielding a shield.

On the survivability front, I still don't see how it's that helpful when from what I can see, most of the incoming damage is from ranged attackers. I'm open minded here, but I need more explanation on the mechanics of it all.

What you're missing, or not aware of, is the fact that you can obviously only block with a shield and a block can negate ALL damage no matter the type or distance. Let's say you're swapping to a shield and specc heavily into block, as an example after all calculations (strike-through from the enemy as well as your stats, etc.) you end up at 50% block, that means 50% of all hits you recieve no matter wether that's a melee or ranged one will be entirely negated. Without a shield (dual wield) you need to specc into both parry (for melees) as well as dodge (for ranged) as well as disrupt (for magical) which is basically not possible while still maintaining acceptable dps. However on a shield you can essentially more or less just ignore those stats and only care about block which is all those negations combined into one. This works on any class which can use a shield so it's not just tied to DoK, block is by far the best defensive stat you can have.

[Sinisterror]

Spoiler:

Shield is an actual healer with some damage output, dualwield is effectively a pure dps. In a group, SnB takes a healers spot, DW takes a DPS spot and requires an actual healer to work properly.

You're gonna have to help me out here. How does swapping a sword for a shield make you heal any better? Maybe I'm not high enough level and there's some abilities I'm not aware of, but it seems to me that you'd actually heal for less with your abilities that add a percentage of your damage if you are wielding a shield.

On the survivability front, I still don't see how it's that helpful when from what I can see, most of the incoming damage is from ranged attackers. I'm open minded here, but I need more explanation on the mechanics of it all.

What you're missing, or not aware of, is the fact that you can obviously only block with a shield and a block can negate ALL damage no matter the type or distance. Let's say you're swapping to a shield and specc heavily into block, as an example after all calculations (strike-through from the enemy as well as your stats, etc.) you end up at 50% block, that means 50% of all hits you recieve no matter wether that's a melee or ranged one will be entirely negated. Without a shield (dual wield) you need to specc into both parry (for melees) as well as dodge (for ranged) as well as disrupt (for magical) which is basically not possible while still maintaining acceptable dps. However on a shield you can essentially more or less just ignore those stats and only care about block which is all those negations combined into one. This works on any class which can use a shield so it's not just tied to DoK, block is by far the best defensive stat you can have.

Yes block (shield) is easily most powerful defensive stat and should exist only for tanks. This shield wp/dok is the biggest offense considering it broke 15 yrs of very legendary spec which is the dps wp/dok and also gave BLOCK to them! Double offensive. One another example is Wh/We getting Charge better than other Melee dps Charge because it ignores GCD and is 2s insta stealth as well. Remove the speed buff on Wh/We and make it a core skill as lvl 40, 4s gcd ignoring insta Stealth is still very very good.

opens up Space for Elixir Of Blades etc

[Osprey39]

Empowered transfer tactic and Transfer Essence skill are the two reasons. Without shield you can't use the skill, and the tactic is way worse. DW runs out of essence and stops healing, and all the little healing DW did before running out of essence was single target.

Edit: The tactic you get from Path of Sacrifice mastery tree, and the skill you unlock at lvl 30.

That makes sense now. I am only level 16 so I don't have either of those abilities. Thanks for the explanation

[Voldt]

The thing people don't get about Shield DoK (and I mained one to 82) is that all the defensive stats are meaningless if you can't do damage, since your healing is connected to strength. What use is it for you to survive if you have to sacrifice your healing capabilities and your group mates die as a consequence? I tried multiple ways to make the Shield DoK less squishy, but the only way to pump decent healing is to focus heavily on strength.

Sure, one could argue that you "just" need guard then. But unless you have a tank that can guard swap like a god, you will most likely die anyway.

At this stage, the only reason to play Shield DoK is to play it exclusively in scenarios or PvE (in which it shines). In RvR, it's useless. This is the reason I froze mine for the time being. There is a near to zero reason to play a spec that doesn't work in the game mode that is played 99% of the time by the majority of the server (RvR).

[ImagineNation]

i hear the new shield build for zealots is hella fun

might i suggest a dps zealot over a dok?

[Osprey39]

i hear the new shield build for zealots is hella fun

might i suggest a dps zealot over a dok?

Zealots can do damage? I always thought they were pretty much pure healers.

[ImagineNation]

i think they used to be but they always started lvl 1 with single target nuke and single target heal.

now there is dps/shield specs i hear are uber dps ;p

[Oldpine]

I think you're not using the skill that regens resource for 3 seconds juts by pushing the button? I forget what its called, but you stand there with arms out and turn ap into resource.