Atm I use crest of almire during heart of ice but I do notice sometimes my shield does break if I tank a few too many hits or if I get frozen.
I was thinking about replacing it with a dread skelly shield.
Anyone have experience with both shields and whether it would be worth replacing the crest for dread skelly?
Alternatively do you think it's a waste of money?
Well, if you have nothing else to craft then go ahead.
Whats your loadout? You could imrpove your weapons to kill before they kill you, better armor, UVs, trinkets, etc.
As I see it, replacing CoA isnt a priority, specially if it's just for a single mission you play every 5 days.
Dread is obviously better than CoA for HoI, but it's all a matter of preference whether you want to replace your shield or not just for one mission. It is quite handy outside of the mission versus general enemies, though.
just for one mission
It's also better for SGWW, should you choose to use a defensive shield there. However, CoA is also useful in FSC whereas Dreads' use in FSC is very limited.
I don't have CoA so couldn't say from that, but from an on-paper perspective (and that I use Skelly) that Skelly would probably better.
As a negative, it has slightly less normal defence, although Trojan slams are easier to dodge than devil furniture and you won't see any other pure normal damage there; the lower def shouldn't matter much for regular attacks' normal ratio
However, it also has more shadow defence (which is the primary damage you're likely to be taking) and a relevant "freeze" resistance which should help tanking much more against icy howlitzers, overtimers and freeze greavers.