How useful are shields?

[Soirana]

Early on yes. Even wooden +3DV shield can give 9DV (3dv+6dv mac from skill). Later i also found hard to part with +12 shield and 20DV from skill.

The exceptions than i would consider twohander being superior:
1.Wyrmlance + bunch of dragons (blue dragon caves, vaults) - halberd counts as polearm.
2.Absolutely nutty weapon - Vanquisher, eterniumtwo-hander of penetration (saw two of later in my life).
3.Rune covered trident (Raven borns only). DX bonus and inner +4dv,+4pv. Basically you get good damage, bonus to speed via dex and do not sacrifice that much.
4. Trident of Red Rooster. We all know that it is for, folks.
5.Quiksilver quarterstaff for archers. +20speed is damn good.
6.staff of archmagi if (pre)crown really early. Staves get good bonusses and +9DV to start. Although if mellee char i would look for some good weapon and shield to replace.
7.Soaker as a last resort to gain paralysis resistant.
8.Halberds of defense, two handers of parrying. Never used them but i could see a point in doing so.
9. True berserking farmers with their initial scythe.
10.Monks. Monks recieve penalties for having shield although they do not for weapon. So two-hander +light armour might be superior. Although i quite often play monks being armoured like tanks.

[gut]

> Time to kill a certain evil Dwarf,

I always treat that guy like he's the Cat Lord. I like to use
the water squares in the pool room as a shield, and just kill
him with missiles (poison some). Then again, I'm a complete
chicken, ask anybody : ) If I melee him, I use webbing.

> Would an amulet of protection from undead protect me
> from the Lich's stat-drain

Wish I knew for sure, but to the best of my knowledge no.
The real problem isn't lichs... it's emperor lichs, they can summon
just about anything.

> Minotaur Maze

I say do it. You need to use proper tactics for sure, but it's
very satisfying to complete it. The Minotaur emperor is another
guy I treat like the Cat Lord.

> Are two-handers so much worse than one-handers and shield

Depends on what your PC has going for him. If you feel you
have 'enough' DV without a shield, then ditch it in favor of more
offense. The trick is knowing how much DV is enough for you,
and against which monsters. For example, if I were doing the
ToEF and had an ordinary eternium two-hander, which I LOVE,
I would use it for the following:

Dragons - They couldn't kill me even with pitiful DV.
Grues - They have such high to-hit that they will hit me regardless of
good DV (GREAT(!) DV is a different story). In fact, your damage may
be so high, sacrificing DV may actually save you corruption points
in the long run.

However, I would not use it for:

ACW - Well, maybe I would try it for a few turns : ) I would switch
though, before the ACW was at the panicing stage. I do not want
this thing to go into a blind rage on me while I'm not wearing a shield.

Elementals - They are really good at landing critical hits. Since there are
so many of them, it's too easy to not keep an eye on my HP's, so to me
it's just not worth the risk.


EDIT:

One more thing to consider is that you can get more DV at any time by
setting your tactics to a more defensive mode. An eternium two-hander
gives such a huge amount of damage, that even if your tactics are set
to coward, your still packing major power. You can keep your tactics set
to defensive for gaining marks in regular combat, and then switch for a
big fight if you want.

[gut]

Because I was curious, I ran a mini-test. I AdomBotted a human
merchant into existance, and wished him up an eternium set. It
included a spear, a tower shield, and a two-hander. I equipped
the items and switched the tactics setting to compare the
effectiveness of a spear/shield combo on berserk mode, to a
two-hander on coward mode. Here are the results:

No weapons marks in anything, and no tactics skill:
Spear/shield: 
berserk - DV10   +7, 2d8+13 = 10, 7,  29
normal - DV23   +2 2d8+8
coward - DV37 -3, 2d8+2

two-hander
berserk - DV2 +31, 6d5+26
normal - DV9 +18, 6d5+18
coward - DV16 +5, 6d5+9  =   16 +5 +39
difference -               +06 -2 +10
This one goes to the two-hander. 


With grand mastery in everything, including shields, but no tactics skill.
Spear shield
berserk - DV39 +37 2d8+29      39 +37 +45
normal - DV71 +22 2d8+20
coward - DV109 +8 2d8+11

two hander
berserk - DV10 +61, 6d5+65     
normal - DV23 +38 6d5+48
coward -DV37 +16 6d5+30       37 +16 + 60
difference -                -02 -21 +15 
This one goes to the spear/shield combo.


With grand mastery in everything, and tactics (and all other skills) at 100
Spear shield
berserk - DV56 +41 2d8+31      56 +41 +47
normal - DV85 +22 2d8+20
coward - DV139 +12 2d8+13

two hander
berserk - DV22 +68, 6d5+72     
normal - DV37 +38 6d5+48
coward -DV62 +24 6d5+37       62 +24 + 67
difference -                +06 -17 +20 
The two hander wins again.

What do I conclude from this mess? That one shouldn't perform tests
while drowsy : ) Seriously, there were many things that were a bit
unrealistic (like having no skill with an eternium weapon or shield), but
it was just for a general idea of the comparison. I would say that a
two-hander combined with coward mode, is somewhat inferior to a well
trained spear/shield combo, but only before you get the tactics skill from
Bart, then the two-hander is better.

[Silfir]

What makes a huge difference is attack speed and movement speed. If both are higher than the opponent's, you can give ground in battle, which keeps you from getting hit without any kind of DV check. Of course it requires it you to have cleared out the terrain beforehand, but with the elemental temples that's actually pretty easy to do. Considering that, I'd say that someone who knows what he's doing can get a lot more out of the two-hander than he has to invest.

Fighting in Coward mode with a two-hander feels pretty counter-intuitive to me - I say if I use a two-hander for damage, I should try and get as much damage out of it as possible. If my DV is already low, it won't get much lower with Berserk mode anyway, but Coward will take away a lot of potential damage.

Two-handed swords of parrying or halberds of defense are fine weapons if you don't have anything better, which can be said of any weapon. Personally, I think you should decide on one or the other. Either you wear a weapon for offense - then the damage of these weapons is usually not high enough - or you dedicate your weaponry to defense - in that case, you would be nuts to go without a shield. Not saying that it couldn't work if you tried for both, though, just that I don't feel it's optimal.

[Soirana]

yeah, worst part halberds of defense can't have ego modifiers.
Reason i never liked them is that they are always made from iron. So one fireball trap and you loose 16DV? Not my style.

gut: I do recall doing some testing about tactics. This was somehow reliated to either rase/class or stats (I never managed to figure it out). In general Troll barb is not getting same adjustments while jumping from coward to berserk as hurthling farmer. My memories are very dim but if i dig test results on my old hard disk (i doubt it, but will try) I will post them.

[gut]

Indeed, cowardly using a two-hander seems wierd, but it can work.
Sometimes I will automatically use a tactic similar to hack-n-back
if I have high speed or a well trained weapon. Maybe call it the
free-hit method.

I switch tactics to coward, and hit a monster (grue maybe) a couple
of times. The grue will try to hit back, but will have a hard time hitting
me because of high DV. Then, when I know I will get in a hit, with no
chance of being counter-attacked, I'll switch to berserk. Sometimes
you can even one-shot the suckers that way.

[Evil Knievel]

Thanks for the information. That's bad news from all of you I think. So almost the whole nice set of two-hander weapons disqualifies somehow. The same as with dual wielding. That's the curse of unbalance.

[Silfir]

I wouldn't go that far. Two-handers can be very effective, but their use needs to be justified with really kickass damage. Artifact two-handers can fit the bill often, and eternium two-handed swords are always a viable option. For a melee-centered char, two-handers can very well be the more sensible choice if you consider all factors. It also depends on which weapons are available.

Also, don't forget that if you have space and speed, it's possible to avoid being hit at all as long as you can give ground and calculate speed, movement cost and attack cost perfectly. Also, Backstabbing. Being able to hit really hard in a single strike has its uses...

[Ars]

2-handers are good. When you can kill things without them hitting back (either really powerful blows or a bit of dancing), the poor defense is not a big problem. Though when you get surrounded, in the earth temple for example, you can't do that and you need defense. Thats why training shields is recommended for most characters. Having no shield is more unforgiving. Though I haven't ever seriously fought with a 2-hander on coward, that's always been just the running mode for me.

And dual-wielding does not differ that much from 2-handers I think, it's just a bit worse; the enemy's PV gets in between both hits, and it costs more energy points, making hit-n-run require more running. But if you get the right items dual-wielding can work great too - something of penetration is recommended. Oh and you get weapon marks faster, for the little that matters.

[Covenant]

Also, don't forget that if you have space and speed, it's possible to avoid being hit at all as long as you can give ground and calculate speed, movement cost and attack cost perfectly. Also, Backstabbing. Being able to hit really hard in a single strike has its uses...

The only negative with this kind of precision (as opposed to in Roguelikes with a simpler speed system) is keeping up the willpower to focus on it all through the game.

In a related note, I lost the game I was describing in this thread on D47. My Monk went from 260~ hp to around -17 HP after a Titan got a critical hit then a normal hit in within the same round (presumably the critical took me to 1hp, then the normal one killed me). Considering I was much faster than him, I could have done the 'dancing' technique, but I just wasn't expecting to take that kind of damage.

I hate critical hits.