The Best Shielding Power For Allies

circleofpsi · February 2015

Whats the best Shield power, that gives the highest amount of projection?

Protection Field?
Inertial Dampening Field?
Mindful Reinforcement?

aiqa · February 2015

IDF is completely different from the other two, so much that you can't really compare them.
Between PF and MR, PF is a little stronger, lasts about twice as long, and costs a little less energy, but MR has a heal mechanic (the value of which is debatable).

ps. If you just press "P" in game and go to all powers, and deselect the option to only show available powers, you could have easily seen this for yourself.

pantagruel01 · February 2015

MR also takes 0.67s instead of 0.83s, though this is rarely relevant, and has an energy return advantage which can be quite relevant if you're in a situation where spamming bubbles is needed.

On the other hand, they stack so you can just take both.

raighn · February 2015

For ally shielding powers you have 5 options really. Each one with it's own pro's and cons. There really isn't a single "best" option out of them either.

Protection Field
Pros - Strongest shield you can place on an ally. Returns Energy when hit.
Cons - Energy return is unpredictable as it occurs each time the shield is damaged, making it entirely possible for the shield to only return energy one time.

Mindful Reinforcement
Pros - Almost as strong as PF, Heals allies for 2x remaining shield when the shield expires. Advantage returns a significant amount of energy when the shield is destroyed.
Cons - Short duration and high energy cost. Advantage for energy is 2pt making you have to choose between energy return or R3.

Inertial Dampening Field
Pros - Flat damage reduction makes most mobs nearly harmless.
Cons - IDF is a Form and provides no energy return component unlike other forms.
Other - IDF must be ranked up, use your judgement as to if this is a Pro or a Con.

Aura of Radiant Protection
Pros - Slotted Passive aura, provides %resistance to allies reducing the effectiveness of large attacks from bosses.
Cons - AoRP provides a %resistance not a %reduction. 50% resistance is not a 50% reduction in damage, it is closer to a 5 or 10% reduction. Smaller attacks will be mostly unaffected.

Redirected Force
Pros - unlimited maintain, provides a % reduction to allies within range. This IS a reduction, not a resistance.
Cons - High energy cost, cannot proc overdrive since it does not have a maximum duration.

morigosa · February 2015

I, personally, am very much a fan of combining AoRP with IDF and Sentinel Aura. Outside of rampages, that alone should keep your team alive; inside of rampages, you're going to want a healing power.

Shields (PF or MR) are kinda neat, but unfortunately go outside damage reduction from defense (but oddly not outside damage reduction from blocking), which makes them worth much less than they ought to be, especially when applied to tanky characters.

flowcyto · February 2015

morigosa wrote: »

I, personally, am very much a fan of combining AoRP with IDF and Sentinel Aura. Outside of rampages, that alone should keep your team alive; inside of rampages, you're going to want a healing power.

Shields (PF or MR) are kinda neat, but unfortunately go outside damage reduction from defense (but oddly not outside damage reduction from blocking), which makes them worth much less than they ought to be, especially when applied to tanky characters.

In my experience, AoRP doesn't work as well w/ PF/MF, since the dmgRes form the aura somewhat clashes w/ how the shields work, and ur already mitigating allies enough to make one of the main draws of shielding (preemptive mitigation) less of an issue.

PF/MF are more important for builds using other passives (like AoPM or Seraphim), though.

For high-end content, I'd always take Compassion + Pres_Rec over IDF. The latter becomes a drop in the bucket when dealing w/ attacks that have a base dmg of 10k+, while stronger passive healing auras can help cover the sort of minor dmg that IDF would help nullify.

circleofpsi · February 2015

raighn wrote: »

For ally shielding powers you have 5 options really. Each one with it's own pro's and cons. There really isn't a single "best" option out of them either.

Protection Field
Pros - Strongest shield you can place on an ally. Returns Energy when hit.
Cons - Energy return is unpredictable as it occurs each time the shield is damaged, making it entirely possible for the shield to only return energy one time.

Mindful Reinforcement
Pros - Almost as strong as PF, Heals allies for 2x remaining shield when the shield expires. Advantage returns a significant amount of energy when the shield is destroyed.
Cons - Short duration and high energy cost. Advantage for energy is 2pt making you have to choose between energy return or R3.

Inertial Dampening Field
Pros - Flat damage reduction makes most mobs nearly harmless.
Cons - IDF is a Form and provides no energy return component unlike other forms.
Other - IDF must be ranked up, use your judgement as to if this is a Pro or a Con.

Aura of Radiant Protection
Pros - Slotted Passive aura, provides %resistance to allies reducing the effectiveness of large attacks from bosses.
Cons - AoRP provides a %resistance not a %reduction. 50% resistance is not a 50% reduction in damage, it is closer to a 5 or 10% reduction. Smaller attacks will be mostly unaffected.

Redirected Force
Pros - unlimited maintain, provides a % reduction to allies within range. This IS a reduction, not a resistance.
Cons - High energy cost, cannot proc overdrive since it does not have a maximum duration.

Here we go, thanks for this OP, this is what I was looking for, sounds like an fight between MR and PF, yet MR is sounding a little better.

aiqa · February 2015

flowcyto wrote: »

In my experience, AoRP doesn't work as well w/ PF/MF, since the dmgRes form the aura somewhat clashes w/ how the shields work, and ur already mitigating allies enough to make one of the main draws of shielding (preemptive mitigation) less of an issue.

That is why I like bionic shielding best for an active protection power on my healer.

insaneyack · February 2015

aiqa wrote: »

That is why I like bionic shielding best for an active protection power on my healer.

I don't really care for bionic shielding for my healer. I would rather throw on a shield, or cast conviction.

pantagruel01 · February 2015

Yeah, I'm not at all fond of bionic shielding; I wish it were back to a cooldown power instead of being "this power doesn't work because your target has a debuff on him, which you can't see because he's got twenty effects piled up in his status bar".

theravenforce · February 2015

pantagruel01 wrote: »

Yeah, I'm not at all fond of bionic shielding; I wish it were back to a cooldown power instead of being "this power doesn't work because your target has a debuff on him, which you can't see because he's got twenty effects piled up in his status bar".

lol.

I switched out Bionic Shielding for Psionic Healing on one of my characters, I've found it to be much nicer.

Having said that...I suppose you could combine Celestial Cleansing or PF's Expel Impurity to get rid of the Bionic Tampering debuff....not sure if Bionic Tampering actually counts as a debuff for those effects to work or if it just locks the power out for a time.

raighn · February 2015

theravenforce wrote: »

lol.

I switched out Bionic Shielding for Psionic Healing on one of my characters, I've found it to be much nicer.

Having said that...I suppose you could combine Celestial Cleansing or PF's Expel Impurity to get rid of the Bionic Tampering debuff....not sure if Bionic Tampering actually counts as a debuff for those effects to work or if it just locks the power out for a time.

If either of those works to remove Bionic Tampering, it would only be Celestial Cleansing. PF's Expel Impurities targets specific debuffs.

Unknown · February 2015

This content has been removed.

spinnytop · February 2015

raighn wrote: »

TL;DR] You thought I'd give you a brief summary you could read in 5 seconds here didn't you? Nope. Just read the post.

I read it in four.

Anyways, the answer is Protection Field. The best shielding power is Protection Field. MR has a short duration, and the heal is irrelevant in any situation where you actually need good shielding. Similar costs and shielding amounts means that PF wins.

williamkony · February 2015

spinnytop wrote: »

I read it in four.

Anyways, the answer is Protection Field. The best shielding power is Protection Field. MR has a short duration, and the heal is irrelevant in any situation where you actually need good shielding. Similar costs and shielding amounts means that PF wins.

I would generally agree. The one consistent situation that I've found in which Mindful Reinforcement comes out on top is with a stealth-based PvP character, using Teleport or Ninja Vanish. You can toss on Mindful Reinforcement in-between Travel Power uses very quickly for a substantial heal without being vulnerable for very long.

Otherwise, though, Protection Field does indeed see more use. If you're throwing shields on a target in a situation where the shield will run out and they'll benefit from Mindful Reinforcement's heal, they aren't taking that damage to be healed in the first place.

hasukurobi · March 2015

spinnytop wrote: »

Anyways, the answer is Protection Field. The best shielding power is Protection Field. MR has a short duration, and the heal is irrelevant in any situation where you actually need good shielding. Similar costs and shielding amounts means that PF wins.

That is often true but I have found that MR can be pretty good for a few circumstances. Stealth was mentioned and that is true. It can be pretty solid for a Personal Force Field user to keep your shield up for a time while you block or go about collecting boosts or the like. The reason here being that you do not need it to last long and if it is your only heal then it is nice to have SOMETHING to fix up that green bar if it gets beat down.

It can also be useful for heavy dodge characters who may not really be easy to damage to begin with. With these you may need a short term shield with a heal attached to use between Bountiful Chi Resurgence.

In all other cases though PF or a Combination is really more your go to IF you or your target are being hit. Though most shields will not last long under a heavy pounding. It is pretty epic if you can manage to stack the Blocking Power sheathes, Bubbles, and Dodges together with some nice Damage Reduction skills. It is honestly easy to be an unkillable beast in this game.

theravenforce · March 2015

gradii wrote: »

Psionic healing has a stupidly long charge time, I'd use it if that was dealt with.

You can personally deal with the charge time by using Night Warrior.

Or having enough defense to make it useful. (Then again you don't even need that)

Bionic Shielding, whilst it can be useful and in some cases really is quite alright, I found Psionic Healing much better than Bionic Shielding for my personal build, its not useful for everyone.

The range on Psionic is great, it makes good use of the charge bar so you can gauge how much healing you need to do to a target, so it doesn't really require a full charge.

--

But generally Protection Field is better. MR has its uses but since dodge and avoidance seem to be at odds with shields outside of PFF...I'd go with Protection Field. It has higher numbers.

theravenforce · March 2015

raighn wrote: »

If either of those works to remove Bionic Tampering, it would only be Celestial Cleansing. PF's Expel Impurities targets specific debuffs.

Yeah. Celestial Cleansing removes...a number of different effects...

This shouldn't be the case anymore...but...PF, last year removed more than one effect on me. I think it was...poison and bleed. I haven't tested it since so hopefully that isn't the case anymore.

The Best Shielding Power For Allies

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