Physical Damage

I know Malinon's Shield is suppose to be a good shield, but I never really knew why. On the wiki discussion, http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Malinon%27s_Shield It acts as if -2 Physcial Damage is amazing.

I don't understand, -2 doesn't seem like a big number, it doesn't seem good? I think of that as like 2 less damage taken, but is that what happens? I guess maybe in the big picture it all adds up and saves a lot of damage, but looking at it for what it is..... :\
Thanks for your time.

its -2 damage from w/e physical damage you get, and while it may not be awsome it can help you i tight spots. aslo in comparison non of these mods are useful -5/20%= useless and all the other -2 while...s. also it can help immensly in a spike

Think of it this way... the -5/20% is like -1 damage all the time... it is FAR inferior to all -2 damage sheilds (so long as you are in a stance/under an enchantment a lot). The only thing better is the +10 armor vs x, but those are only good against one type of damage (cold, fire, slashing, etc)

And yes, you are correct... 2 less damage. It does add up a lot over time, especially since it is added AFTER the damage has already been reduced by your high armor already as a warrior or a paragon.

Plus, a lot of the reason people are talking about it like it is "godly" is because it used to be -2 damage vs all types of damage. Over a year ago, A.net changed that shield mod to only work against physical damage.

As previously mentioned, -5/20% mods suck because it's like -1/unconditional, and also if it triggers on a hit that would have only done 1 or 2points of damage then it isn't working to it's full potential. Compared to -2/stance (IAS/IMS is good) or -2/enchant (conjure perhaps?) then it's crap.

However, you're already really hard to kill with physical damage. You've got 116AL vs. physical but only 80AL vs. elemental, so buffing elemental protection is the way to go. In PvE, you have the advantage of knowing what you're going to face, and in many areas one element is predominat (fire in the fire islands, cold in the shiverpeaks, etc), so you don't even need to know when to swap to the different element shield.

If you're a Wa/Mo, you can use Blessed insignias and run a cheap enchant on yourself, like Vigorous Spirit (5E, 1/4 sec cast), which will raise your AL by 10. Couple that with with a +45H/enchant, -2/enchant shield.

However, this is often a waste of a skill slot.

A better option is to run Sentry's. My warrior is in a stance 90% of the time, so it's very rare that I lose the extra ten armor.

Or Sentinal is perhaps the best way to go if you don't mind running Str skills and using a minor rune to get your attribute to 13.

The +10 Armor vs X are the best mods to have on any sheild paired with an HP mod ( 30 is best for most, 45 while in stance very close second).

As usual, the "best" type of shield entirely depends upon what you're doing and what build you are using. And, I think it's better to match the shield with your build rather than making your build match your shield.

Your right, its not significant at all... a lot of people don't realize that mods help in very little cases, esp the inscription mods on shields since they seem to be almost completely based on "if you face xx type of dmg", which helps very little anyways and you can't possibly be prepared.

The only one mod that might actually help is - reduction mods, reduce blind or daze or cripple or bleeding....all serve a better purpose then -physical dmg,

plus nowadays warriors, dervish, and rangers generally run with elemental mods because too many people use defenses against physical, so chances are 75% of the PvP foes you face are using an elemental mod, the only people that might not use elemental mods are paragons, and im not even sure about that since i use all melee classes except for paragons.