I was pretty confident a dwarf should use heavy armor and shield, at least with blunt, but I've seen several videos on youtube where they don't wear one.
What is better fior a dwarf, shield or not, and if you don't use one you have to use light armor instead of heavy?
My dwarfs use Polearm. Even when I'm not doing AoE, the crit rate is much higher than a Blunt. I don't know about DPS because I don't own a A grade blunt, but MS /Focus might be pretty good.
If you have a spare hand, wear a shield, if not then you don't. It's not a real big deal until you get to upper levels when conserving your HP becomes an issue.
I've recently got into a sort of 2-Handed sword fad. At least for C grade, the Berzerker /Focus is pretty awesome. My 3rd Dwarf just hit lvl 40 and once I pass my CCQ I'm gonna see how it stacks up compared to a polearm.
Maybe Im just one of the wierd ones. I prefer my Dual SLS to other weapons. I just like the way I kill with them. On the fashion note, they are one of the few weapons that 'look' like the were actually made for dwarves and don't make me look like I've swiped some humans left overs. *glares* DO NOT EVEN SAY IT!!!
the only reason to wear a shield is due to bonus from shield itself
that being said dwarf dex is so crappy that our evasion sucks
(as a caveat i did to lvl 30 in light armor, then they nerfed evasion)
for DG, brig shield gives hp bonus, as does full plate, bg it gets more interesting
overall shield lowers evasion but increases pdef with shield block so its basically better pdef once in a while or mob misses once in a while
notably alot of ag armor's lack shields entirely and thus only those who keep a shield to use...
the most uses you have of your shield is in PvP against say archers and daggers who have high crit rates. you have ALOT higher chance to shield block a critical hit but even normal attacks from archers is a high blockrate on but PvE and PvP.
otherwise for PvE id say its more of a fasion then not really. as for what weapon to use, that depends abit on your buffs but lets say you only have basic PP buffs then a Blunt is your best weapon actually because of the extra patk from your masteries unless you can get like a focus sword of equal "grade" for example both are ToP B weapons or low A. if you get more buffs like sws or bd the sword will become your better choise.
Hello Moneta. I'm a bit of a different dwarf, I love the looks and feel of my 2 hand blunts. They are relatively new to game though, so early on we used either 1h blunt + shield or polarm (or neither). For all my C and B grade I used alot of different high dps weaps like duals/fists/etc. In A grade I used only a polearm. Now in S I have both pole and 2hand blunt, don't even own a shield. Honestly, the last shield I owned was a Brig shield sometime around C1. :p
Since the question is why use blunts but no shield, here's my take on it. With a 2 handed blunt I can kill mobs with less hits. Less hits means less damage I take from the mob, which completly negates the usefulness of a shield to me to begin with. Why possibly block 2-3 hits, when you can just kill it before it has a chance to attempt those hits in the first place? And my cute dorfy looks awesome swinging a giant hammer. ;)
The best advice me or anyone else will give you is this though: Use the shadow coupons you obtained from your class change, or just buy shadow weapons from the npc weapons dealer if your out of coupons. Try out all the weapons you can and see which one you like best. Maybe you prefer 1h + shield, maybe it's 2h blunt, maybe it's even a dual fist weapon...but at least you can compare and decide for yourself before you invest alot of money into a real weapon you may not like.
Thank you Josie. I have a Pole Axe and a War Axe actually, soon upgrading one of them to TOP C but I don't know which yet. I was asking for 1H blunt but for 2H blunt that makes sense of course.
I was wondering if with the proper tatoos and light armor it would make sense to not use a shield.
I was wondering if with the proper tatoos and light armor it would make sense to not use a shield.
yes it would... if dwarves dex wasn't so low
but even with +5 dex your dwarf doesn't break the major point of 40 dex. Below that point its useless to even consider light armor...
as it stands i don't use a shield atm due to flavour reasons... well, and my mage is using the one i have...
I suppose it matters what your playing situation is.
Most of my dwarf time is solo. Since I can't evade worth a darn and I don't like duals for non-mastery classes, and since as a dwarf you can get the snot knocked out of you trying to pole solo--I use the blunt w/shield.
I can see the argument for duals (though I disagree strongly).
I can see the argument for polearms.
I can see the argument for 2-handed blunts.
But your point is you've seen dwarves with 1-handed blunts and no shields--that would be because they are stupid. There is no reason to do that.
shields don't do all that much. but if you are using a one-handed weopon. get a shield if you can offord it. its not like weight is going to be an issue.
Actualy shield help quite alot vs archers. Don't get me wrong: you probably wont kill an archer but you will be able to stay alive for some time spaming pots...
In PVE shield is pointless; go with 2h weapon (pole, duals, 2h sword, 2h blunt)
I always use a shield on my dwarfs exept if im using a 2 hand weapon ( pole/ bow for the most part ).
The reason is simple you always have a chance to decrease damage you will get from the mob or just nullify it.
Also some set items offer extra bonuses with shields.
Brig gives very few hp but for mithril its gives more hp.
In c grade the comp shield will give u Mdef while full plate gives u a better shield block rate. I dont think someone will bother with chain that also gives hp with shield.
In b grade i think the doom set gives also extra shield def but i think every dwarf rather uses blue wolf then. Avadon also gives better shield defence rate.
For A grade DC gives more shield block rate while the Nightmare set adds 5% reflect damage.
So most of the time its worth using a shield even with a dwarf.
As for blunts there are some with focus ( 1 and 2 handed ) most of em are new weapons.