earth shield and gear progression questions

hello, im new to this game, currently level 41, and i wanted to know about earth shield. so i got it to level 2 so far, at first 20% at max level seemed to be really good, but now as i checked, 8% gives me less than 1% damage reduction.. so.. should i even max it? i still have my reset in case i need to get it back to 1 and leave it at that. 

http://ro2base.com/b...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0 this is my build so far.

well, that aside, as im approaching level 50 quite rapidly, i've been wondering about what gear should i be aiming for and where/how to get it - thanks in advance.

ES isn't for you, it's for your party's tanks. They will get very high damage reduction boosts from it. No one else really gains anything from it. ES is a great skill and many sorcs max it.

Looking at your build, I can't tell if you're leaning more towards support or DPS. Healving wave usually doesn't have points in it, especially when LoR does not have many points invested. You have all the points in VS and JT, but none in Cold Bolt. What seal do you plan on using the most? Earth or Wind?

Gear progression is similar for all the classes. Goblin Leader weapon (in Road of Blessed) > RHD armor/weapon > Baphomet/PvE (N) > Baphomet/PvE (H) > CoA (N) > CoA (H) > AoD (N) > AoD (H)

You can throw crafted gear in there somewhere depending on how much money you have. You can also go for colo gear which could let you jump to near AoD levels of equipment without even doing any raids.

well, i just got the skills i thought would make leveling easiest, and when im maxed use the reset in case i need to.

as for healing wave, im not sure why i shouldnt be putting points in it? isnt it our main heal? its the heal i spam the most atleast.

as for cold bolt.. i feel like the damage of this skill is really low, so putting more points in it wont really increase my dps by much, i maxed VS and JT cause it makes bursting mobs down really easy.

as for seals i mostly use wind while leveling, and switch to earth when mobs gank me or i get too low.

http://ro2base.com/b...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0 this is the skill build i was planning to have at 50, but it seems like earth shield is too valuable so ill have to put points in it instead of memorize.

As a temporary leveling build, it makes more sense. You can put points into healing wave, but that is usually only done if you are a full support. A sorcerer's signature heal is Land of Recovery. In raids people will expect you to use this a lot more than HW because it allows you to heal almost everyone besides the tanks, which the priests will concentrate on. In an emergency, or if you need fast self healing, HW becomes very useful. Just remember that it will keep you from attacking while LoR will let you heal and attack at the same time.

Against mobs VS and JT burst is more effective than CB, but CB is the only way to trigger double damage on bosses (besides embus). In colo, using frost driver is a give away for the person you're attack to get ready to use a defensive skill. If you don't kill them with the first freeze the extra power of a level 5 CB becomes really useful. If you happen to go into a fight with Earth seal on making use of LoR to heal and attack at once, CB makes up even more of your total DPS.

You don't have put 5 points into ES, but it will make the rest of the party happy. Using the points for memorize instead is fine, it will help with clearing mobs and emergency add cleaning when in a boss fight.

you make a lot of good points, i do indeed plan on getting my cb to atleast 4 possibly 5 whenever i reset and figure out my build. the only thing im not sold on is the earth shield, i looked around at level 50 sets for different classes, that 20% seem like it is completely useless for pretty much all classes, except for the knights (not sure if thats what theyre called here, perhaps warriors?the main tank) and even then, i expect the main tank to do just fine without it, but im not sure yet.

(mostly because i think people are going to expect me to have it maxed, and kick me from groups if its level 1 XD)

either way, thank you for all the information its much appreciated

Edited by Wadafaka, 12 October 2013 - 10:44 AM.

Yeah, the tanks (Knights, Warriors, Beastmasters, Monks) benefit from ES, but don't strictly need it to survive. It can make them much harder to kill, and against some bosses it makes a big difference.

And your welcome, I hope this helps you.

Well, you can visit this side: http://www.roguard.n...base/iRO/items/ to have a look at the gear.

Generally spoken, you need 44 points in defense to get +1% damage reduction.

Take a complete Knight - Colo Set:

It's about 1.8k defense or 40% damage reduction. A maxed Earth Shield gives a 20% boost and therefore 1.8k x 0.2 = 360 defense bonus.

Therefore the Earth shield grants an additional 8% damage reduction.

Since the Knight has the highest base defense in the game (due to the shield and Heavy Armor), the rest will get a lower benefit.

A Wizard f.e. has base defense of about 600 => ~2.8% damage reduction with Earth Shield.

If you think, it's worth it, go for it.

Edited by Greven79, 30 October 2013 - 05:07 AM.

Thank you for adding solid numbers. I expected more for Knight, but 8% isn't bad. It looks like it ranges from 3% Monk to 8% Knight. Monks won't gain a lot, but having more isn't a bad thing. Knights and Warriors are very common right now which skews things in favor of earth shield. Also remember that ES indirectly boosts healing since increasing damage reduction lowers mob/boss DPS, which means it takes less time to recover HP from healing.

It's not a must have 5/5 like blessing, but it's nice to have at least one max ES sorc in a raid.

Yes, monks and beastmasters suffer a bit, as ES is applied to the base armor class (defense). Monk gear usually has 1/2 the defense in comparison to Knights or Warriors, but he negates the disadvantage with Steel Body (+200% defense). Earth Shield however uses the base defense and therefore the bonus is halved as well.