How do two shields get taken up with one spell? Does it annoy you when you shield up and someone knocks off two shields with a minor strike? It bugs me! And I died recently from this very thing so I'm writing to let you know what the deal is while it's fresh in my mind.
There are two ways in which shields can be knocked off with one spell.
1) If they are put on in the same pass. (ex: you put a shield on and a friend puts another one on you in the same round)
2) The shields are different. See the two spells below. They both have a storm shield in their configuration but they are from different schools. (BUMMER).
The upside of using shields of two different schools is that if you do get hit by a huge spell it will take almost all of the punishment.
So when trying to double shield be picky about which shield you put on. You're better off using one of the same type.
Tower Shields
Tower shields are awesome as they block part of any kind of spell. They work against balance and death as well as all other types of hits.
The same "different shield type" concept holds true for tower shields. Ice's learned tower shield is -50%, the one you get from the library is -55% and another one you can get in the bazaar is -60%. If you were to put all 3 on you'd find they will get knocked off in the same pass also.
That multi-layer damage absorb can help if you are versing a balance wiz when they have full blades, a feint or hex and are ready to nuke you. You can double up with different level towers (one under the feint and one over it) and absorb a huge portion of the hit.
Life Absorbs
Life absorbs work against all schools EXCEPT death. (Sierra Starsong correctly points out that death-tough spells such as skeletal pirate are blocked by absorb, but death steal spells such as vampire, wraith and scarecrow are not blocked by Absorbs) So you may want to save your pips for a heal or try to find an actual death shield or tower shield rather than an absorb in the event of versing death.
Life absorbs help take the blow of a Judgement which can be very helpful.
Ice Armor
Ice armor works against all schools EXCEPT death. Ice Armor is an excellent defense against balance. But if you use an ice armor you want to be careful as another ice wiz or someone armed with a steal may be able to take your shield and make you waste the pips you saved up for it.
As another astute reader pointed out Life Absorbs and Ice Armor can stack HOWEVER, if your ice armor is weakened significantly (say 900 of 1000 is used up) the next hit will go through EVEN if you have another 1000 tough ice armor on under it!!! So at those moments you are vunlerable to big hits! Your former ice armor has to be fully used up before the next one will take effect the turn following. I typically throw on a shield in the turn immediately after ice armor to keep it from being stolen. You may want to consider that as well.
Steal Shield
Ice's steal shield spell, when it works, will take the other guys shield. This is helpful sometimes but you will get the shield that was put on last. If someone uses a double or tripple shield combo it will steal the shield that is represented on the right most side of the card. If the shield they put on is an Ice/Fire, the steal will always take the fire and leave the ice shield still in place.
It's adviseable to keep steals for single shields unless you are certain which shield is right-most shield on the card they used.
Converts
When you shield against storm and a storm wizard puts a convert on you... what do you do?
A convert will cause your storm shield to not block the hit. Your storm shield will sit there happily and you will get nuked with a myth blast. So how do you stop it? You can't put a myth shield on at that point because their hit starts as storm so it gets past the myth shield, then gets converted to myth just in time to bypass your storm shield... so that doesn't work. The trick is to shield one more time against storm. Their spell will hit as storm, take up the shield, then take up the convert and will hit you for a smaller amount. Afterward you will still have your original storm shield on.
So when you are in PVP with a heavy hitter it's adviseable to have 2 shields handy just in case they put a convert on you.
The safest way to protect yourself (and this is necessary primarily only with storm)is to immediately shield myth and storm asap. I know few warlord storm that don't pull a convert out during a duel. So watch out.
Enjoy PVP!
Vale
p.s. be sure to read about the GGG!Great Gobbler pet Giveaway.
9 comments:
I was always wondering how that worked thanks :)
Straight-damage Death spells like Dark Sprite, Poison and Skeletal Pirate do get blocked by the Absorbs, it's only the health-stealing attacks (Ghoul, Vampire, Wraith & Scarecrow) that bypass them.
Hey Valerian,
I'm not sure if I am reading the first condition correctly about how two shields get used up, but it reads in the way that says "if your friend puts the same type of shield on you in the same turn..." Only the second condition (shields are different) is true. Plus, it sounds like a contradiction given the last sentence of condition #2.
On another note, I think this (solemnly known) tip should be a disclaimer added, regarding Absorb-type wards: Order of placement, relative to traps and shields, matter. Life Armor and Ice Armor are additive sequentially, whereas traps and shields are geometric; in other words, where you multiply/divide and add/subtract matters in terms of how much damage you actually take!
Another thing on Absorbs: If you are going first, feel free to use it as much as you want against Ice-types! All you need to do is stack on dual wards (cards that give two shields) that do not counter your class, and he/she will have to remove both wards BEFORE your armor is exposed for a steal!
Also, with Steal Ward, if players don't remember what the card image looks like, the shield to the LEFT (when on the player) is the first one to be stolen. Though, if the enemy is a heavy shielder, time to whip out the Wiki and use your tip, Valerian ;)
Great article! It's rare to see a post dedicated to pure PVP, at least for me :) Keep it up!
hey it's me jacob goldgrove i just found out my password and now i'm back on one of my brothers deleted my character and now i'm back to lvl 1 ice wizard and my subscribsion is gone so use menu chat and meet me in the commons ok?
Your friend,
Jacob GoldGrove
hey on your next post can you list the some codes for stuff like the summer dragon i really need one and i forget the code so cya l8ter till next time :).
Your friend,
Jacob GoldGrove
Glad you're back Jacob! Hope you can find your original password at some point.
I'd love to give the codes for summer dragon but all codes that I know of have been disabled.
I'm giving out codes for small items in some of my posts but they only work for the first person that redeems it.
And just to let you know I probably won't be finding my old password anytime soon
When was this website last updated? its cool though XD :D
hi, thanks a=lo XD
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