Newbie Shieldset Question

OK: I just don't understand how the armour-rating on caster shieldsets work, so please bear with me.


My monk has no warrior / paragon skills.

How do I calculate what armour benefit I get from a shield?

eg. Armour +16 @ 9 strength... what armour do I get with no strength?


If I have completely misunderstood shieldsets, (which is quite likely), what should I be looking for in a caster shield? ... And why?



Thanks.

i think you get 8 armour if you dont meet the req and the shield is max AR, but i could be wrong

That is almost always true, yes.

The last sentence is the only exception; one example of such a case is a non-max shield obtained from a trophy collector.

I believe strength shields are bugged to give 9 armor but in most cases it's half of the total.

there are no casters specific Shields.
Casters where designed to use focus for offhand when using one hand items.
Typicality when using items that we don't meet the requirements, we only get a minimum amount of benefit, in this case 8 armor for any type of shields.

For mods we still get all the benefits (mods aren't affected by the item requirements) , thats why lots of casters use lots of shields whit different mods in PvP to protect themselves, and in some farming builds where 8 armor+ inscription mod are more valuable than a bit of extra energy.

Remember that you can get full benefit from the shield by changing your secondary class to war/para and setting some attribute points to the desired attribute (excerpt for strength) but that might hurt your overall build

Both are not entirely correct.

Only the PvP Strength Shield gives 9 armor if the requirement is not met.

The "half of total" is a wide-spread myth that is incorrect. Like October Jade quoted from the wiki, it is 8 in most cases, and lower in only some cases.

See the table at the bottom of the note section on the wiki page on shields for a complete breakdown.