Using sheild is the sign of a poorly built CW - a glass cannon that dies way too easily. You can actually do MORE DPS by being LESS glass because you don't have to dodge as much and don't spend much time on the floor.
That said, MANY CWs use shield (on tab) at garakas or sometimes in ELOL. Sometimes, those people fall into the 20k HP with low defense category and are just plain bad. However, ELOL and ESOT hit hard enough that it's not a bad choice there.
Elsewhere, yeah, it means your gear is wrong. You shouldn't need shield anywhere except mod 4 content. (obviously if you are undergeared and are trying to make AD, that's a different situation. It's CHOOSING to be made of glass that is the mistake).
I agree with all your points. Using shield in some cases such as Garakas does make a lot of sense for every CW, but the good CWs do not need to use the shield as a crutch most of the time
I could give you my numbers from my own experiment but it would be easier to say that they got bigger when I had a Vorpal enchantment slotted.
I won't say they are absolute proof to the fact that it is working but I will say that slotting Vorpal somehow increased the critical damage given from my abilities.
I'm not a serious tester in anyway so maybe I didn't account for something, but like I said, I watched my buff bar and made sure it did not change when testing. I also made sure that the only thing inherent to my character (gear/enchants/ect.) that was changed was the fact of the Vorpal being slotted or not.
I like constructive people like you.
The adequate testing would exclude the use of the dolls in Dread Ring and PvP Domination area. The dolls are not the good place to start such testing.
The start of adequate testing would mean to take a person who has the same exact build like you with the exception of the Perfect Vorpal enchantment slotted and to find out just what a difference is between your damage while Eye of the Storm is on, and the damage of the person's Eye of the Storm sequence.
I actually had people accusing me of cheating because they've had P.Vorpal and I didn't, and yet I've made far more damage than they've had for the sole reason of using Watermelon Sorbet and Corellon's blood pots.
Now, I've sold my Vorpal enchantment so I can't do more tests adequately and MOD5 is coming up which might bring on some additional fixing of the enchant, but thus far I've concluded that investing in Vorpal enchantment, in a general sense for a SS CW, doesn't pay off during the MOD4.
Also, the damage-increase shouldn't be confused with the debuff/buff of a High Vizier set (Head, Gloves, Armor and Feet) and you'd probably want them excluded from any testing (other boons/buffs and similar excluded). The factors which made this an impossibility before recent time was the lack of a very expensive enchantment and the actual denial that Eye of the Storm with Vorpal enchantment doesn't work, but after a series of the above-mentioned test it ended up showing the damage differentiation between 5.000-50.000 damage which can be accommodated to the factor "random", and especially in dungeons like Castle Neverwinter where this number exceeded 20.000.000 damage per SS CW in party.
I hope to hear more from you, thanks.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Comments
I agree with all your points. Using shield in some cases such as Garakas does make a lot of sense for every CW, but the good CWs do not need to use the shield as a crutch most of the time
I like constructive people like you.
The adequate testing would exclude the use of the dolls in Dread Ring and PvP Domination area. The dolls are not the good place to start such testing.
The start of adequate testing would mean to take a person who has the same exact build like you with the exception of the Perfect Vorpal enchantment slotted and to find out just what a difference is between your damage while Eye of the Storm is on, and the damage of the person's Eye of the Storm sequence.
I actually had people accusing me of cheating because they've had P.Vorpal and I didn't, and yet I've made far more damage than they've had for the sole reason of using Watermelon Sorbet and Corellon's blood pots.
Now, I've sold my Vorpal enchantment so I can't do more tests adequately and MOD5 is coming up which might bring on some additional fixing of the enchant, but thus far I've concluded that investing in Vorpal enchantment, in a general sense for a SS CW, doesn't pay off during the MOD4.
Also, the damage-increase shouldn't be confused with the debuff/buff of a High Vizier set (Head, Gloves, Armor and Feet) and you'd probably want them excluded from any testing (other boons/buffs and similar excluded). The factors which made this an impossibility before recent time was the lack of a very expensive enchantment and the actual denial that Eye of the Storm with Vorpal enchantment doesn't work, but after a series of the above-mentioned test it ended up showing the damage differentiation between 5.000-50.000 damage which can be accommodated to the factor "random", and especially in dungeons like Castle Neverwinter where this number exceeded 20.000.000 damage per SS CW in party.
I hope to hear more from you, thanks.