Spiked Armor vs Obsidian Shield vs Immovable

tjvannevel_ESO · June 2014

As a Dragon Knight which do you think is better?

Spiked Armor (morphed to either Volatile Armor or Razor Armor)
or
Obsidian Shield (morphed to either Igneous Shield or Fragmented Shield)?
or
Immovable (morphed to either Immovable Brute or Unstoppable)

I am a 39 Dragon Knight Orc using Razor Armor but I have begun to question the usefulness of a skill that only furthers my over-charge of armor. I am at 1325 regular - 2208 for 3.5 seconds and 1821 for 16.5 seconds.

Shielding allies sounds beneficial and trading overcharged armor for regular spell resistance is enticing.

Stratti · June 2014

We are in the difficult position of us not having full data on damage reduction.

I ran a test that showed by using razor armor while already well into the soft cap mitigated an additional 10% on a standard mob. This is very significant particular for hard hitting bosses.

I haven't grabbed immovable but more out of laziness to be honest

I find the shield igneous to be awesome particularly in dungeouns at opportune times . Or even before a nasty mechanic to lower the degree of difficulty escaping.

I would consider keeping razor particularly in vet content where ur getting smashed

Obscure · June 2014

It all comes down to build spec. Long duration skills help for managing low magicka reserves. But, in a nut shell, the armor boosts will mitigate damage over a longer timeline than the one-and-done damage spounge shield. That being the case there are some advantages to using the Obsidian Shield over using the armor boost of Spike Armor or the Spell Resist and Armor boosting of Immovable. One being Stamina sustain, another being ultimate generation, and another being burst damage. Stamina sustain coming from the passive Helping Hands will restore 5% of Stamina when using Obsidian Shield, which is great for feeding your block to mitigate damage. It will also generate 2 ultimate with each cast from the Mountain's Blessing passive which is 1% of Standard or Magma Armor per cast. It will also exceed your maximum health which will keep you alive from massive hits that the extra armor could never have reduced enough to keep you alive through. I.E. Armor is better against Damage over Time (DPS), but Damage Shields are better against burst damage.

Really up to you, but for each I'd suggest using the morphs Razor Armor, Fragmented Shield, and Unstoppable.

Minsc · June 2014

Not a DK myself, but from the people who we run together for pvp raids they consider Unstoppable as mandatory for all classes as it apparently helps vs Negate Magic and other CC especially when we enter a keep after the inner wall is down

tjvannevel_ESO · June 2014

I rerolled to Igneous Shield and have been loving it!.... Then the most recent update made it obsolete to me. Okay, no biggie I can go back to my old style of play, except I was refunded no skill points to a skill that was fundamentally changed.

Give me back my skillpoints please.

monkeymystic · June 2014

unstoppable is best out of those 3

demonlkojipub19_ESO · June 2014

Indigenous is for healers now

, Spiked armor doesn't do spell resist but it costs magicka and returns physical damage taken, immovable costs a lot of stamina but increases both spell resist and armor and makes you immune to CC except roots and snares but only lasts 8 seconds...

I think immovable will and should remain better so as long as its usable by everyone, and I also use immovable.

tjvannevel_ESO · August 2014

I wanted to give this a bump since so many changes have occurred with these skills. I have come back after a 2 month hiatus and noticed my armor is no longer constantly overcharged without the use of skills the way it was before.

I am/was using Igneous Shield, but since they nerfed it (in-so-much as I am not a healer) I'm considering going back to Razor Armor or Unstoppable.

any and all suggestions are welcome - I'm an Orc Dragonight *tank* using Heavy Armor and Sword and Shield. Built STRAIGHT defense as much as possible.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO · August 2014

Minsc wrote: »

Not a DK myself, but from the people who we run together for pvp raids they consider Unstoppable as mandatory for all classes as it apparently helps vs Negate Magic and other CC especially when we enter a keep after the inner wall is down

not unstoppable, immovable. At least I think so, when I looked at the morphs for immovable they only worked with heavy armor, and no one important wears that.

Maverick827 · August 2014

Is this PvP or PvE?

Shields are pretty bad either way. Barrier (PvP ultimate) is really the only good one.

Lancillotto · August 2014

tjvannevel_ESO wrote: »

As a Dragon Knight which do you think is better?

Spiked Armor (morphed to either Volatile Armor or Razor Armor)
or
Obsidian Shield (morphed to either Igneous Shield or Fragmented Shield)?
or
Immovable (morphed to either Immovable Brute or Unstoppable)

I am a 39 Dragon Knight Orc using Razor Armor but I have begun to question the usefulness of a skill that only furthers my over-charge of armor. I am at 1325 regular - 2208 for 3.5 seconds and 1821 for 16.5 seconds.

Shielding allies sounds beneficial and trading overcharged armor for regular spell resistance is enticing.

On my DK I started with Razor armor, simply because it's easy to get, but after some leveling up, I now use almost exclusively Unstoppable. The reasons are very simple:

1) Spiked armor only increases your armor while unstoppable, even if it doesn't last as long, increases spell resistance as well (no point in having a lot of armor if spell damage goes right through it).

2) Unstoppable doesn't drain my magicka (of which I don't have much being a stamina-based build). This way I can save my magicka for green dragon blood, which is super-handy to heal yourself in tough situations, and increases your stamina regeneration as well.

Since Obsidian shield consumes magicka, I never gave it a try for the reason above.

Wifeaggro13 · August 2014

Stratti wrote: »

We are in the difficult position of us not having full data on damage reduction.

I ran a test that showed by using razor armor while already well into the soft cap mitigated an additional 10% on a standard mob. This is very significant particular for hard hitting bosses.

I haven't grabbed immovable but more out of laziness to be honest

I find the shield igneous to be awesome particularly in dungeouns at opportune times . Or even before a nasty mechanic to lower the degree of difficulty escaping.

I would consider keeping razor particularly in vet content where ur getting smashed

Well , it does not work quite like that. when mitigating boss shots your actually blocking. that is were your primary mitigation is coming from. from soft cap to hard cap i think there is about a full 15 percent difference . hard cap is 3100 armor . but form naked to soft cap lol well there is very little difference.

Armor and mitigation in this game is pretty bad. i would say using spiked armor would be the best in all honesty. its cheap and stays up for 15 second and does some passive damage. In all truthfulness i feel like the math equations for damage mitigation and melee DPS are friggin alpha quality.