plate shield is a very good starter shield and can be bought cheaply on the auction house and contributes to you're assent to tier 2!
getting to tier2? good 2 star shield on auction house! plate shield.
Wed, 01/18/2012 - 11:45
Wed, 01/18/2012 - 14:27
#2
Volcanic Plate Shield in (in
Volcanic Plate Shield in (in my opinion) the best all round shield. offering no weakness to anything and a huge resistance to fire. the end game goal of Spiral Knights is pretty much FSC for which the Volcanic Plate Shield is extremly good for. as well as that, it offers huge normal (the most common type of damage through out the clockworks) defence. an all round great shield until you get the crowns at tier 3 to start thinking about another one.
on a side note its huge and looks badass.
Plate shield is somewhat average. It specializes in massive amounts of normal defense, so building one up to Volcanic (5*) might be a good first choice if you are a very defensive player and on a tight budget. Spiral Knights rewards good offensive playing though, so most people go with Barbarous Thorn Shield.
If you do buy a craftable 2* shield (no UVs) off the auction house, you should pay no more than 2000cr- in some cases you will be able to get them for as low as 1000cr. A list of good shield lines in no particular order (this is what you see end-game players running around with; you can also reference the wiki):
Owlite- defends against elemental; also decent health
Plate- high normal defense; an all rounder with two 5* upgrade choices (most choose Volcanic)
Swiftstrike- 3* with no upgrade or precursor, but the High ASI boost to ALL weapons is very useful. A favorite of gunners
Barbarous Thorn Shield- 2* precursor is a Snarby reward; defends piercing adequately and 5* has Medium DMG boost to swords
Crest of Almire- perfectly designed for fiends (shadow, shock AND fire), but is not easy to acquire (4* precursor is an Almirian Seal reward)
Other shields worth mentioning ("serious" players regard these as usable but usually second-rate to the above shields, although some of them are rather cool looking and only marginally worse in function):
Tortoise/Omega- high health; might be a comparable all-rounder but lacks status defenses
Skelly- The only other shadow shield; easier to obtain, but the statuses it defends are not as good as Crest
Heater- Precursors are easy to get, and defends against freeze in addition to elemental. However, freeze is generally considered lower priority than shock/fire.
Ancient Plate- While possibly a good shield, it is a 5* Almirian Seal reward and thus impractical to obtain first. Similar stats to Volcanic Plate Shield, possibly even stronger normal defense in a tradeoff for no fire resist.
The other three shields that go up to 5* are either impractical or outclassed by some property of the above shields (all of these look awesome though):
Aegis (Defender)- Starts at 2*; lacks any special bonus or status resist. The only saving grace is the ease of obtaining recipes.
Jelly- Starts at 2* though a 3* may be acquired with Jelly Gems. Aegis (Defender) is easier to obtain recipes for, and Ironmight Plate Shield offers better pierce defense while Barbarous Thorn Shield has better bonuses while having only slightly weaker defensive power.
Dragon- Starts at 3* (Drake Scale Shield) and can split into Tortoise/Omega. Dragon Scale line lacks normal defense which is a component of almost all monster attacks, and is thus extremely weak.