Why Scorpion Shield?

[TrashBasher]

I see a lot of builds use this power, but am unsure why.  Since it is a typed defense and not positional, you have to slot for typed defense which is much harder to do.

 

Now, having said that, perhaps I am missing a key factor in Defense.  Is the reason because if you are hit with a "smashing/energy" attack, your Smashing Defense will be applied to both halves of the power and most attacks have a S/L component so essentially S/L defense covers most damage?

 

Thanks!

[TNT]

You answered your own question.  

 

S/L defense helps with attacks that inflict multiple damage types, if it has an smashing or lethal component. The shield also covers energy damage to a lesser extent. 

 

[TrashBasher]

Thanks, it makes sense now.  Strange that I have never seen that stated before.  I guess I missed that ...many many times 🙂

[drbuzzard]

Also Scorpion shield is available without prerequisites, so you can dip into that pool just for the single power instead of having a gateway power you might not even want from the EPPs (there's an ice armor which is roughly comparable for some ATs).

[Black Zot]

Smashing, Lethal, and Energy are the three most common damage types, and the vast majority of incoming attacks tag at least one of the three.  Scorpion Shield offers only slightly lower defense against S/L than its elemental counterparts and in exchange gives you a chunk of energy defense, making it objectively the strongest defense toggle available to non-armored classes.

 

Also, if you care about your character's appearance, Scorpion Shield is one of the least obtrusive armor toggles.

 

Vectored defense sounds easier to slot for in theory, but more sets offer bigger typed defense bonuses, and it's far easier to get a typed-defense baseline from powers.

[Carnifax]

49 minutes ago, TrashBasher said:

Since it is a typed defense and not positional, you have to slot for typed defense which is much harder to do.

There are no Epic positional shields. So capping is easier if you go Typed. Plus it also comes with Energy Def and endgame has lots of NRG. I'll often try and cap S/L and Ranged (and with Scorp Shield you'll probably end up with Energy softcapped too). You're well covered on a squishy then.

 

I'll take the "hit" of needing a prerequisite and pick Ice sometimes as my epic shield, because Ice can accept Resist sets, including the uniques. So a LOTG, LOTG Def, Def IO, Steadfast unique, Gladiators Unique and one other unique of your choice is nice frankenslotting in Ice. Handy if I really don't want Fighting on a char. 

[Lazarillo]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

(there's an ice armor which is roughly comparable for some ATs).

...but Ice doesn't require you to sell your morality for power.

And yes, I'm totally judging you for doing that, all you "heroes" with Scorpion Shield.

[Rathulfr]

5 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

...but Ice doesn't require you to sell your morality for power.

And yes, I'm totally judging you for doing that, all you "heroes" with Scorpion Shield.

 

I didn't sell my morality at all.  I went undercover to infiltrate Arachnos and liberated the technology of Scorpion Shield to apply to good purposes, instead of leaving it only for evil purposes. 😉

 

[Rejolt]

I think some Epic versions of Ice Armor allow for slotting resistance sets so there's +6 def to all for 2 slots. Not all versions of Ice Armor give this though.

 

But the only ice epic I like is dominators for the 2 rain aoes.

 

Scorpion Shield is usually the bonus for power boost or some other Black Scorpion pool power.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Rejolt

[Saikochoro]

Scorpion shield gives a huge start on typed defense for s/l/e, which covers the mass majority of attacks in the game. Getting the set bonuses to finish softcapping those types becomes pretty easy once you pick up scorpion shield.

[Sir Myshkin]

15 hours ago, TrashBasher said:

 

I see a lot of builds use this power, but am unsure why.  Since it is a typed defense and not positional, you have to slot for typed defense which is much harder to do.

 

Something that’s not being mentioned: set bonuses that would award S/L also tie to Melee, which ever one is the primary given bonus you receive half that value for the alt option. This works for all the Positional versus Typed (Melee:S/L, Ranged:E/N, AoE:F/C). Because of this there’s really no difference in the effort involved, and since Scorpion Shield is focused on classes that don’t have inherent armors they’re usually adding things like Weave or Maneuvers which are +Def (All) in what they grant, so it doesn’t matter.

 

Another unmentioned noted about Energy (the third component to Scorpion Shield) is that a surprising number of Mez attacks in the game have an Energy damage component, and nearly all Mez attacks (majority) are Ranged positional, so these tend to tie together well.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Sir Myshkin
Thought breaking typo

[Crysis]

18 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

...but Ice doesn't require you to sell your morality for power.

And yes, I'm totally judging you for doing that, all you "heroes" with Scorpion Shield.

Hey there, I went dark side ONLY to fool Scorpie into thinking I was there to help him recover his armor, and once I liberated it, flew straight back here to share it with the good guys of Paragon City.  No sense letting this kind of power be used solely by the bad guys, and Scorpion is now FURIOUS at me.

 

Now all those Mace attacks.....yeah, busted. 

[Shred Monkey]

19 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

...but Ice doesn't require you to sell your morality for power.

And yes, I'm totally judging you for doing that, all you "heroes" with Scorpion Shield.

Disclaimer: No good guys were hurt in the completion of this mission arc.  (not that it would have stopped me)

 

Seriously, though, I've always thought that good guys should be fighting in Rogue Isles and Bad guys should be fighting in Paragon City.  I mean, when CoV came out, I was surprised they set it this way.  I thought we already lived in a city totally overrun with bad guys. 

 

Gold Side, on the other hand, was done right (and brilliantly so, imho.)

 

[SuperPlyx]

Curious , why is it the Cold shield can accept resist sets/IOs but the Scorpion shield can not ? 

According to Mid's the Scorpion shield does Toxic resistance just as the Cold shield has cold/fire resistance

[Rejolt]

If you can slot for the Toxic Resistance you get the ability to slot resist sets. Some powers that grant Toxic resist on the side (Scorpion Shield, some +def/shield buffs) give the bonus but don't let you slot for it (the trade off being it's already a high number).

 

This means no resist sets or resist IOs can go into some armors/def that give toxic resistance.

 

EDIT: Yes the above is silly considering slotted for cold/fire resistance isn't worth the effort besides a place for uniques. We can ask Powerhouse if that's broken to let Scorpion shield get Moar def (they'd probably lower the toxic resist to compensate)

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Rejolt

[Hyperstrike]

On 12/7/2020 at 7:58 AM, TrashBasher said:

I see a lot of builds use this power, but am unsure why.  Since it is a typed defense and not positional, you have to slot for typed defense which is much harder to do.

 

Now, having said that, perhaps I am missing a key factor in Defense.  Is the reason because if you are hit with a "smashing/energy" attack, your Smashing Defense will be applied to both halves of the power and most attacks have a S/L component so essentially S/L defense covers most damage?

 

Thanks!

Not everything is positional.
Obtaining FC and SL Defense is relatively easy.  EN tends to be a bit tougher.
So Scorpion Shield is a nice option for spackling over a EN deficiency.
It's also a less obvious armor than Frozen Armor.
As to why the Resist isn't enhance-able, because it's delivering more Defense while sacrificing broader Resistance.
 

[Haijinx]

It looks good.

 

Its defense based, which is crucial for the non Status protected types. 

 

It is a toggle that gives S/L/E as mentioned, getting softcapped S/L alone moves you up from the squishy category to something less than squishy.   

 

It doesn't require multiple power picks to get.  

 

 

[Mezmera]

On a squishy character you can get tons of defense and defense bonuses from so many different things.  It's much harder to get your resistances high.  I'd rather not rely on the possibility of scorpion shield giving some lucky defense based on the factor it defends against S/L.  If I went scorpion its for the easy gambler mules and the bane mace. 

 

I do my best to avoid having to look to the epics for any defenses mainly because there's no focus on positional defenses which I can cap without the epic shields.  A broad resistance based shield from the epic pools is much more attractive to me and the soul shield offers so much coverage that I can't otherwise obtain.  

 

I get it with scorpion though, it's easy if not efficient.  

[Onlyasandwich]

Going typed defense and scorpion gives you more  slotting flexibility in the rest of your build. You will either find it necessary baseline to achieve softcap, or be able to take advantage of the ability to slot more offensive ios, whether that means stacking recharge with purple sets, or heavily investing in procs.

 

[kiramon]

1 power

[JnEricsonx]

On 12/7/2020 at 11:28 AM, Lazarillo said:

...but Ice doesn't require you to sell your morality for power.

And yes, I'm totally judging you for doing that, all you "heroes" with Scorpion Shield.

Hey, my original Grav/Psi dom, Inquisitor Keldorn was a anti-hero who while believed law and order was absolute no matter what, went against his order by daring to investigate things to be 100% sure, because as Judge Dredd said, "Can't execute a perp on 99%"     Now that I could remake him Hero-side, he took Ice Mastery to toss out Sleet and Freezing Rain with all his normal toys.

[Fingernailgun]

Also it's the only epic defense power for corruptors and defenders.