Debunking EoC: Special Defend shields

Special Defend Shields

We've had special attack weapons for years. But in terms of "special" shields we've only seen the Dragonfire Shield and spirit shields.

This is a great chance to add a whole new depth to RS2's combat system that tackles many problems, such as:

• Many concerns with players in PvP having too high DPS,

• Overpowered Special Attacks in PvP.

• Lack of skill in combat, too much focus on interface switching.

• Lack of being able to add tanking based boss complexity in boss design.

• Unbalanced stat players were dominating people with balanced stats + defense.

• High level PvP hitting two many zeroes.

• High level PvP having matches that were too fast / near instant deaths.

Just imagine it. The first shield that would be converted to a Special Defend shield is the Dragonfire shield, which already had the option to spew dragonfire with its stored dragonfire charges.

Special Defend would be a light blue bar that appears under the special attack bar and works in the same way.

The Dragonfire Shield would probably be one of the few offensive Special Defend shields, just like Excalibur is one of the only defense based weapons, aside from Vesta's Spear.

Actually, Special Defend shields would give us Pre-EoC lovers a much more friendly way of introducing the EoC's defense abilities.

We don't like abilities, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't invite the addition of new combat paradigms entirely.

There would of course have to be as many Special Defend shields as there are Special Attack weapons, or more. Don't just release 1-3 Special Defend shields that are all level 80+ shields. We need 30+ of them of various levels through 50-90+, just like how Special Attack weapons are.

Some examples of "Special Defends" would be,

Next 5 hits are god mode against "little hits" (less than 200 dmg)

One hit of godmode.
Staff of Light effect for 15s

Next hit is Vengeance!
Next hit converts damage to heals (you still take damage, and get healed afterwards)
15s 60% dmg reduction
15s 40% dmg reduction
+50% defense levels for 15s
6 seconds of 50% dmg reduction (Just like Provoke)

War cry - all nearby enemies are "provoked" to attack you. Effect stops if you unequip the shield.
A shield that activates on Auto-Retaliate the next time you get hit, not just when you activate the effect.

- You could probably can take other stuff from the defense abilities in EoC, I would've much rathered that some of that was implemented as a set of new shields.

I would wager that this is a better system for boss design because it's much more varied. Cool, EoC bosses require the usage of the same single ability to grab their aggro or tank their instant kill attack.

Well with Special Defend, you could choose between different shields that can all tank that instant kill in some way, maybe some being better or worse than others.

We could release more unique shields. In RS2 we had the spirit shields and "chaotic shields" and god books. Those were okay, but imagine a quest for a legendary shield, like how there was a quest for Korasis or Storm of Armadyl. Aegis shield anyone?

Players have too high DPS in PvP? I'll go on and say that Special Defend does not perfectly fix this situation. Stat adjustments, the way accuracy works, max hits, etc, would need to be modified to help out people who don't use Special Defend shields. Well. Maybe it would be okay. It all depends on the implementation. But on one hand, it would help out a lot.

OP Special Attacks? Counter them with a Special Defend! Add a little more skill and anticipation of the opponent by making people have to account for Special Defends. Try to find ways to trick people into proccing their Special Defend at the wrong time, then spec them out later.

Pures are unbalanced? Special Defend shields also give the Lv56 with 60/60/60 atk/str/def a much greater chance against the  Lv54 with 60/99/1 atk/str/def, which works towards Jagex's goal of making "balanced stat" players less overwhelmingly weak against "pure stat" players.

At the same time, players who argue that people with a level 99 stat should still be stronger, well - those players would likely still have the overall advantage given the stats posted above. While the Special Defend user can block out a damage burst, they may not be as effective at stopping the pure's overall DPS. Depending on what shields are available at that level.

High level PvP hitting two many zeroes? Special Defend shields are one thing that could pave a roadway towards stat adjustments that allow for more accuracy and lower max hits.

High level PvP being ended too fast, burst damage? Burst Damage meet Burst Defense and countering.

Of course, we can't just stop at Special Defend shields. More things like the Spirit Shields and Chaotic Shields from dunge would be useful at a variety of lower levels.

Releasing a new item that's intended to chance combat balance doesn't work when it only becomes available to the highest level and most wealthy players.

Also, don't just make this a set of melee shields. There should be shields for all 3 points of the combat triangle.

The EoC didn't need to happen. This could have been applied to RS2.