Most common damage type in PvE

What is the most common damage type in PvE? I am debating between vs Cold Damage and Vs Slashing Damage for my shield. I am a warrior.

Do you know you can change wep sets? so if u face a group of fire eles or group with large amount of any physical dd like axe warrs etc. u can change your shield to have +10 vs that damage.

Also, i think it's not so important in PvE to have shield vs each damage type, so u can use +5 20% vs physical and +10 vs fire and cold.

-2/stanced is a better choice than -5/20%, since a warrior should be in a stance close to continuously.

If you want to be pro, get a shield with +30 Health (or +45 if you use stances in most of your builds, and you should :P ) and then one of each of the following:

- Received physical damage -2 (either "Chance: 20%" or "while in Stance") for general use
- Armor +10 (vs. Cold damage) against Water Elementalists, some Necromancers, and Wind Dervishes
- Armor +10 (vs. Earth damage) against Earth Elementalist and Earth Dervishes
- Armor +10 (vs. Fire damage) against Fire Elementalist and some Rangers
- Armor +10 (vs. Lightning damage) against Air Elementalist and some Ritualists
- Armor +10 (vs. Demons) if you're in the Domain of Anguish, Tomb of the Primeval Kings or The Deep frequently
- Armor +10 (vs. Plants) if you're in Urgoz's Warren frequently
- Armor +10 (vs. Charr) if you fight Charr a lot
- Armor +10 (vs. Dwarves) if you fight the Stone Summit Dwarves a lot
- Armor +10 (vs. Undead) if you do Fissure of Woe or Underworld a lot
- Armor +10 (vs. Blunt damage) against Hammer Warriors and minions from Necromancers
- Armor +10 (vs. Piercing damage) against Rangers, Paragons, and some Assassins
- Armor +10 (vs. Slashing damage) against Sword Warriors, Axe Warriors, Dervishes and some Assassins

Piercing, Slashing, and Fire are the most common (Fire is the most deadly) PvE damage types from my experience. I would invest in a fire shield, and if you have gold lying around, perhaps the Slashing / Piercing Shields.

I do not recommend +45 Health while stanced, if the stance drops while your health is critical, you lose the HP (and will probably die). The gain of 15 HP is nothing spectacular either to make this option the "obvious" choice, as +30 (hell +25-29 works as well) will always be with you.

+10 vs type is better than both unless you have an imbagon. +5 armor gives you more than -5 in HM even if you have 116 armor.

Most common type of damage depends on zone. The most useful shields would be fire, piercing. Blunt, Slashing can be kited. Cold damage tends to be spammy (Water trident) or one off, like Deep Freeze/Ice Spikes. Lightning damage usually spikes hard such that armor doesn't help enough (seen my fair share of -234 lightning orbs and -300 spirit rifts). Earth damage has its share of damage (Churning earth, sandstorm, Stoning, Ebon Hawk) but it's not seen as widely as fire magic.

Since we're talking PvE, how about using Sneak Attack with a scythe for almost permanent blindness, using mods/armor vs. elemental dmg, that way you're protected against both.

A Warrior is pretty tough, so it's a small concern. My advice is to take a Blind reduction inscription. You can carry several shields and swap if you really want, but then you might as well just take a shield for each element.

If you insist on a single +AR inscription, take the Fire one.

For PvE, if you have a build and heroes that aren't totally awful, the only shield you need is just a bog-standard +30 health, -5/20%.
As I said in some other thread, if you need to switch shields in PvE, there's something wrong with your build/heroes/team.

If you run -5/20 in PvE, there's something wrong with your math..
It's +1 damage reduction vs physical damage.

+10 armor vs a specific damage type can reduce more than 40 dmg, especially against elemental damage.

My experience is that +10 vs Piercing damage is the best and most universal mod for PvE.

I think weapon switching in PvE is a little overrated and personally I wouldn't bother. The only times I usually do is if I am going into a particular area that is PREDOMINANTLY going to be a particular type of damage in which cause I equip the appropriate shield and just leave it.

In my experience, the kind of stuff that usually kills me is screwing up and getting caught in a nasty spike of Firestorms or a single Meteor Shower; so I tend to just run with a +10 Fire and not much else.

This. I'm just not content with leaving my survival in the hands of my team. I feel that if I'm the leader, I should be on point and do my best to be the most useful member of my team, instead of relying on my team's synergy to make ME useful. There are exceptions, of course, such as running a caster role so I'd need a physical to take the brunt of the aggro. Then again, I'm still usually on point leading with ebon assassin to trigger the enemy's big spells and keep the spike off of my group.

It doesn't take much effort to swap out shields, and even -2/stance does more than -5/20. -2 every hit vs -5 every 5 hits...that's double the damage reduction. And +10AL is even more. Shame on anyone who's lazy enough as a warrior to just go with a generic -5/20. Then again, I love selling the ones I get at a price much higher than it should be.


Know your enemy. Take a +10/fire, +10/earth (lots of earth out there, actually), and -2/stance and you'll be just fine. Lightning has armor penetration so that added 10 is almost useless. Cold is definitely not as prevalent unless you're just in cold areas. If you plan on vanquishing far shiverpeaks areas....then yeah, I'd take a +10/cold if I can find it. Slashing is dumb...unless you're up against dervishes, you're not going to reduce much. Auto attacks, maybe...but attack skill damage boosts are armor-ignoring. Block stances if you go tactics (or mental block if you run sentinel's like you should) with a +10/element shield for the primary element you're facing gives you maximum defense for your area. I'd even skip the +30hp on the weapon and run a +7al warding mod.

Off Topic:
Oh please, please do not open that can of worms, I'll leave it at that.

On Topic:

Personally weapon switching is highly overrated as the marginal gain from purchasing a shield for each or several elements is very small compared to having a hero slap PS / hero casting shelter on you/ your team and calling it a day (since monsters don't target switch unless you break their aggro).

-20 to blind is decent, preventing the blind from landing/ removing it is a better use of resources ( <insert a myriad of condition removals that exist in the game and are worth slotting into your team build>). If Blind or other conditions are a problem, odds are they are being spammed, and -20 is by no means going to stop the spam storm. Disruption and Cleaning will.

When it comes right down to it, you wear the shield for mitigation. In PvE there is very little gain from this mitigation that a prot / heal cannot fix. I only recommend Fire, because out of all the elements, that has the most "WTFBBQ U DEAD BRO" capacity to spike (kill quickly) you or your team.

Odds are you will hardly notice the other damage sources or the -2 stance/enchant or -5/20, sure it may add up (as will bringing a shield set for each element / harmful condition) but it will be hardly noticed in a confrontation where monsters are dealing upwards of 20-40 damage to you (more so with skills, but that I feel only further supports my point).

I guess when it comes right down to it, any mod works, true there are some that may be the obvious choice in certain areas/builds, but odds are good that switching to that shield type will not impact it to a large extent compared to just upping your game (skill + build + team use).

I've completed the combat parts for my GWAMM without ever touching a shield set on my Elementalist. It might help, but it's certainly not needed. Choosing your fellow players or heroes wisely for the task at hand is much more important.

The time it takes you to worry about what kind of shield to switch to, you could just step out of the way... (let the flame fest commence....)

It's this way of thinking that I just can't stand. When you can easily have that full-time non-removable damage mitigation, why not use it and save your heroes/hench which are notorious for burning through their skills and energy needlessly a skill or two which might help prevent a death? The more damage you can prevent on yourself being on point, the easier it is for the heroes to do their jobs. it's sufficient to go through with subpar equipment, but what's wrong with actively trying to be better?