The value of Divine Shield/Might?

[miesny_jez]

Hi, just a question about these two (see subject) whats Your experience about them and how do You value them on a typical Melee build?

I am curious about this cause the staple of going with Paly/BG is to usually to take those. Well obviously its for a good reason to.

Though from my experience when I had a DD/Pally it was usually more annoying as the moment my char has finished casting those the remaining party members have already slain 50% of the enemies. Leading my char to effectively use it on one or two enemies at most.

How do You deal with this?

[Peppermint]

These abilities are for bosses and extended fights, not trash mobs.

[Cybernet21]

As it was said they are better used on boss fights and extended fights,but as well as when you are surrounded (alone leveling)by a lot of enemies that when do hit,hit hard so better safe than sorry (the last one is more Divine Shield than Might) On my personal experience though,and i dont know the best times for it on PvP since i never experinced true PvP yet.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Both blackguards and paladins already benefit from charisma to saving throws. Divine Might and Divine Shield allow you to triple the effectiveness of a single stat, and charisma is the only stat in the game you can stack this way.

Arelith's gift system also makes it not grossly crippling to leverage your Charisma in such a way; it's not outside the realm of possibility to start with an 18 in both stats.

There's always RP, but if your question is mechanical in nature and you aren't planning to take advantage of the charisma-based abilities of the class, I would question why you aren't taking fighter or divine champion levels instead.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

+10 damage/AC for a minute, cannot be understated. (assuming +10, which I'm sure is around the average.)

I can't really think of a better temporary combat buff in the game, besides a Cleric's Divine Power or a True Strike wand?

It's best viewed as something you use to get a little "extra", rather than a constant.

[High Primate]

Take them.

[Kreindis]

Mechanically, use them before a fight begins. It's meta as hell ,but knowing or having someone that already knows the lay out of the dungeon helps with this so you can pre-emptively cast it before the fight actually starts. Otherwise who cares, just cast it in combat.

Divine Might's damage pierces through all forms of damage mitigation. For instance, there are certain enemies that have extremely high mitigation to pretty much everything. That doesn't matter against Divine Might.

Divine Shield is extremely good and makes the caster a fairly good duelist just by itself.

Now, my favorite part of DS/DM is actually the fact that it is a cast. When I played a Paladin, I used to love emoting things along the lines of how my character radiated with holy energy or as an enemy fell to the ground, there was no blood but instead its wounds glew brightly from consecrated strikes.

It could just be me, but the RP potential of DS/DM is one of my favorite parts of it.

Edit: I should also mention that Haste + DS/DM gets it up pretty much immediately.