Shield's Armour.

Okay, if i equip a +16 armour shield with a req of, say 8 tactics, but i have 0 tactics (say if i equiped the shield on a monk) How much armour will i actually get?

I recall a similar thread about this but I tried a search and couldnt find it.

Anyway I think you get the armour level of a begining shield which is 3.

If your question relates to a warrior secondary or whatever,using 0 tactics and 0 strength the best armour sheilds you can get are the peppermint and Gingerbread shields cos they have no req
You might look a bit silly though it works.

I thought all items (weapons and off-hands) will be set to the same stats as starter ones (those you start with when you first play GW) if you don't meet the requirements. So the shield in question will give +2 or +3 AL.

Starter Shield numbers is 3AL I do beleive.

Okay then, in terms of damage absorbtion for a monk, would you say a shield with -2 (enchanted) would be more effective, or a plain candy cain shield?

If you cant comply to the requirements on the shield you dont get the defense on it. But you do get the extra mods on it free of charge.

When you don't meet the requirement on anything, its stats default to starter stats. There's no incremental increase; missing the requirement by 1 point is the same as having nothing in the attribute at all. As has been stated, for shields the starter value is 3 AL. However, this only applies for white, blue, and green items. For purple and gold items, there is a second, slightly-higher base value. With shields, that second base value is 5 AL (tested m'self).

So in summary:
White, blue, green shields -> 3 AL
Purple, gold shields -> 5 AL

As a note, I am quite annoyed at people making up answers without checking their answers themselves. Opinions are not facts, and we're not going to have any made-up answers on this forum.

Candy cane shield would be better with 0 attribute in general. That is because 2 damage is less tha the damage added from not having the AL difference of 7 or 5.

A better thing to do is scrap the notion of getting a shield and get a focus with +5 armor or defensive staff head with +5 armor since they will have fast cast/recharge mods (and you won't lose 10-12 energy).

I do agree with Savio that people shouldn't state opinions since this is a fact based question and not a "what is the best profession" kind of question.

did i miss something?

Also i want to use a shield because i dont want the energy, so an offhand like that is out of the question

I am assuming its for focus swap in which case you would prolly just want a -2 +45 shield. the -2 about evens out the AL and the 45 health is nice.

Yea, thats what i was thinking. just checking if a gingerbread is better overall