BTS is a great piercing shield even if you ARENT a "swordie".

Just don't waste your time with Aegis. It sucks.

Volcanic Plate Shield is normal defense only. Doesn't it break much faster than specialized shields, when receiving special damage (piercing, elemental, or shadow)? My understanding is that people like VPS for FSC because Vanaduke, slag guards, and trojans all deal a lot of normal damage. In the rest of the Clockworks, where there is a lot of special damage, it shouldn't really be very good...right?

I heard Ancient Plate shield has more shield bumping force than VPlate shield.

Aegis is better than the Snarbolax shield when comparing defense, but offers no offense advantage. Aegis is also cheaper to get the recipes for, seeing as you literally get them for free from going through the missions while the Snarbolax shield is a boss token item. Not that Aegis is particularly useful or amazing, but if you only care about defense it has that small advantage.

Owlite, Skelly, and Jelly shields have more specialized than normal defense and two status resistances each (Jelly has sleep resistance but that status is not is not applicable to us right now). Plate shields have enormous normal defense. Omega is worth mentioning for its high health, but it still only has normal defense. Crest has good normal and specialized (shadow) defense, with both fire and shock resistance. Dragon has high pierce and element defenses (no normal) and both poison and fire resistances.

Projectiles deal heavy specialized damage. Close range attacks deal specialized and some normal. Do you find yourself shielding more against projectiles or close range attacks?

You know, once a Howlitzer head starts flying after you, if you shoot and hit it the head will explode. Try not to do it when the head is near your team or yourself.

More problems with things that deal shadow damage? Get a shadow defense shield; though comparing the two Crest tends to be better most of the time.

What if you are not using or plan to use a sword? Does a sword bonus help if you are not using a sword?

"Not a Swordy (so no snarby shield) but is a gunner"

"Divine shield"

You know where that goes and you have something to use as a reference.

Now hold my hand on the way over there. We can take the shortcut through the fields of flowers and dancing gorillas. You might get lost in the nonsense.

Bombs + guns is perfectly fine. There is nothing outlandish about a player who never uses a sword to hit a monster. It's not common, but it's not absurd.

Really though, pure [whatever] is also just fine. Pure sword is common, obviously, as is pure gunner; pure bomber is also workable, albeit frustrating unless you bring a sword or gun just for breaking blocks and gems. (You don't need any bonus for that, though, so still no reason to get BTS.)

Whoops, didn't read the part where you said you didn't like swords. Just ignore the part about the twisted targe XD

You don't really need any pure "normal" defense shields except maybe against vanaduke. In tier 3 hardly anything does normal.

EDIT: what he^ said

But which shield is better in taking piercing hits, Ironmight or Aegis? And I will not take BTS for an answer as I have a pure bomber alt so I could use the information.

I quite doubt the added Aegis protection amounts to even one more hit from a T3 polyp. I'd still take Ironmight in case of stun. Sure, you don't get hit by stun attacks often, but at least there's a noticeable difference when you do, compared to the added Aegis pierce def which is never noticeable.

Royal Jelly lacks a fair bit of normal damage, but it's piercing defense is up there. Never really thought about using it since the normal defense is lacking. But it's great for anything with pure piercing.

I do agree re: Aegis vs other piercing shields. Aesthetics aside, I'd always suggest Ironmight or Royal Jelly over Aegis.

@Fehzor: I'm surprised to hear this from you. There can be a very dramatic difference between shields depending on the level. Take an Omega Shell to C42 and see!

I have a Grey Owlite Shield/Crest of Almire/Ironmight Plate Shield and a Barbarous Thorn Shield I don't really use. The Ironmight can actually take a lot of damage, it was the shield that took me through the Firestorm Citadel before I got the Crest. More than simply Piercing and Stun resistance it has high Health, and it can take quite a few hits from other damage types and status effects too.

If by "very dramatic" you mean literally 2-3 hits, then yes, there is a very dramatic difference between most of them. They pretty much all are able to tank a hit or two, and that's all you really need for all of the "normal". The difference in performance that you get from making 4 different shields versus 1 shield does not pay out equally to the amount you're paying. If you really want to, make a full set of 4 for each damage type- but don't bother making more than that (unless it is swiftstrike.) The difference between barbarous thorn shield and royal jelly shield is virtually non-existent.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you won't be able to predict what kind of damage you'll be taking 100% of the time. There are always random lumbers in LoA waiting to deal elemental damage. Another boon for pure normal shields.

Sorta, because they resist the accompanying normal damage with the elemental attack better than shadow/normal shields do.

I have the Blackened Crest and the Ancient Plate Shield (no UVs). My Blackened Crest breaks on 1st Trojan smash. My APS can take a head-on Trojan rush and the accompanying smash (or like 5 smashes from the same Trojan accounting for shield regen)

I know I don't have a 5* Crest, but clearly there is a major difference in the amount of damage APS can tank. APS is probably the best equipment you get from doing vana (I still like my FoV).

I really think that people only need 3 shields max. APS, some other 5* shield, maybe swiftstrike. Getting more would be a negligible benefit for the amount of ce spent. (Basically just craft a 5* shield) There are only so many shields you can wear at once. It would be much better spent to invest in another weapon.