My Shields: A Tribute, Part Two

Today I'll conclude my tribute to those shields that have protected me through the dangers of Azeroth and Outland.

Illidari Runeshield - Lots of paladins wanted the Bulwark of Azzinoth, but not me. Back in the old days, our threat was all about spell power, of all things, and this shield was probably the best spell damage shield in the game. The Antonidas shield had a little more armor and spell power, but substantially less stamina with some wasted points on crit. This shield looked like it was custom made for us protection paladins. Plus, it looked great. The night I got it, I spent a few hours soloing the quest for the Green Trophy Tabard of the Illidari, so that I could match. The look lasted for the rest of TBC for me, and made me look truly unique, setting me apart from the other paladins and tanks. It was also nice, since it gave me the opportunity to see the generosity of a guildmate. The Runeshield was a trash drop in Black Temple, and we were using a /roll system from the trash in Mount Hyjal for the sake of speed. Another paladin, one of our casual raiders, won the roll but passed it to me. I was really grateful, and I've always been impressed with his generosity.

Barricade of Eternity - While I did get a Titansteel Shield Wall in Wrath of the Lich King, I had it for about three minutes before I picked up my favourite looking shield of the expansion so far, the Barricade of Eternity. Some of the other officers and I went in to fiddle around with 10-man Malygos so that we could get ready for the larger 25-man version with the guild. After a couple hours of figuring it, we finally got the blue dragon down and this awesome shield dropped. Its stats are, well, terrible. Expertise is awful for us and parry is our worst avoidance stat. However, this shield looks just incredible and it was rare to boot. While Naxx was getting pugged by half the server, virtually no one was running 10-man Malygos and so I've only ever seen maybe five of these. When I got an upgrade in Naxx, I stopped using this shield, of course, but I still love the look and we were companions for a couple months.

Hero's Surrender - Once this shield dropped, the Barricade of Eternity found its way into the bank. This shield is still the best avoidance shield available, and thanks to a gearing error on Blizzard's part, was easily the best tanking shield in the game before 3.1. It has the perfect combination of stats for avoidance, dodge, defense and parry, and it drops off of the only boss that actually hits a darn in Naxxramas, Patchwerk (though I got mine off of Gluth). The only problem is that it is hideous. After using the massive Barricade of Eternity for months, dropping down to this little thing felt like I wasn't even using a shield. Plus, they got its shape kind of wrong. It's round, to the point where it looks almost like a bucket. It reminds me of one of those skull candy baskets that kids carry around on Hallowe'en. When I found out the stats on Wall of Terror were changing, I couldn't wait to get this thing off of my arm.

Wall of Terror - This is still my shield, and will be my shield for all of Ulduar most likely. It's kind of a mix of Barricade of Eternity and Hero's Surrender. It has the size and shape of the former and the skull of Hero's Surrender. At the end of the day, it has a nice, creepy look perfectly suited to Naxxramas. It looks like a shield of dark bone with a ghostly face looking through. It's also huge, which is appropriate for a shield, though it required me to get a haircut because of clipping issues. Somehow, when Wrath came out, they messed up the statistics. Instead of 94 stamina, like it was supposed to have, it had 63. They fixed it on test, but despite this shield being ilevel 226, the ilevel 213 Hero's Surrender was a better item. Finally, in 3.1, this shield got its appropriate amount of stamina and Wall of Terror became my full-time shield, with the exception of a couple of full avoidance fights. For paladins, having a couple dodge+block rating items is great for keeping at the block cap without sacrificing too many stats, and I'll be using this shield for a long time.

In the end, that I will be using the Wall of Terror so long is the point of this little editorial section. While, strictly speaking, the Boreal Guard from hard mode ten-made Hodir is the best in slot shield for us right now, given that I basically never run ten-mans, let alone hard modes means that I will never have one. Plus, it's a side-grade at best and it is actually slightly underbudgeted even counting the sockets. For 25-man raiding, on the other hand, they haven't put in a shield upgrade anywhere in Ulduar, even in the hard modes! The best 25-man raiding shield still drops from Kel'Thuzad and even if one day we kill Algalon, it will be with the Wall of Terror on my arm. This is really unfortunate, because the titan-themed graphics on Ulduar gear that I really like don't really match the horror-them of Naxxramas. It looks like Wall of Terror and I will be friends for a year or more. Guess it's time to give it a name!