Currently there's a good balance among all the high leveled shields. Dfs has good defence bonus and highest str bonus (and fire defence, obviously). Elysian, divine and both have extra high defence bonuses and cks has a high defence bonus for a cheaper price. Then there's the rune defender that has it's little strength bonus and high attack bonus. There's no obvious universal choice right now because they all have their ups and downs.

 

Won't the Dragon Defender disrupt this balance? Especially if it has an increased attack bonus over rune defender which is very likely? Won't the dragon defenders cause the demand (and thus the price) for the other shields to go down drastically?

 

My hope is that the dragon defender only gives a defence bonus but I doubt it'll be that way.

 

Edit: As some of you have mentioned, it will most likely also cause an imbalance between one-handed swords and two handed - the one handed swords having the upper hand (no pun intended).

 

Edit: Okay, well it turns out they're barely any better... so yea. I guess this topic can be forgotten :P. Dragonfire Shields are going back up in price, too.

Did you even read about the rest of the updates? Jagex plans on making and/or updating armor to soak hits over 200, to counter the imbalance between hits and defense.

 

/thread

^that made me lol gj reading his post

 

and yes. yes it will.

:P

Rune defenders have already been used widely at almost everything except some GWD, Corp, DKs, etc...the difference added by dragon defender isn't enough to touch ely/divine.

 

I do expect DFS to go down a bit, but because of panic selling and people thinking along these lines, not because of actual usage variation. Defenders and shields have well-established boundaries, and the DFS will always have a niche for players unable to throw out GE+15m for Elysian or over 1b for Divine.

 

Below the DFS, I don't really think anything should be affected...the dragon defender should have requirements too, no? Either way, I'm glad they made it untradable and I'm even more glad I waited to get 99 Slayer.

They're going to have to release something better eventually, why not now?

 

I'm looking foward to it :)

Ely has been overpriced for a long time and now it is even moreso. I should say overrated in addition to overpriced.

It is comparable to a CKS against ranged in pvp. I have yet to do the calculations, but it is probably worse than spectral against magic. It is perhaps best at melee defense.

 

Divine is good.

 

Dragon defender will at most be a ~5% increase in DPS. This is not as significant compared to the ~8-10% damage reduction we can expect from the defense boost. Source: http://forum.tip.it/topic/281700-preliminary-analysis-of-damage-soak-and-ddefender-safe-pvp/

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

This is pretty false... it's useful for bandos, arma, dks. in pvp DFS > defender for meleers and is the fourth best shield behind Div>CKS>Ely for rangers.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

This is pretty false... it's useful for bandos, arma, dks. in pvp DFS > defender for meleers and is the fourth best shield behind Div>CKS>Ely for rangers.

Lol no.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

This is pretty false... it's useful for bandos, arma, dks. in pvp DFS > defender for meleers and is the fourth best shield behind Div>CKS>Ely for rangers.

Lol no.

 

Prove it :grin:

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

false. DFS has better defense then a rune defender.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

This is pretty false... it's useful for bandos, arma, dks. in pvp DFS > defender for meleers and is the fourth best shield behind Div>CKS>Ely for rangers.

Lol no.

 

Prove it :grin:

 

Can't prove it with stats, but from what I've seen a lot of the players on this board think defender + rapier is the best for everything save solo'ing a couple bosses.

 

Currently there's a good balance among all the high leveled shields. Dfs has good defence bonus and highest str bonus (and fire defence, obviously). Elysian, divine and both have extra high defence bonuses and cks has a high defence bonus for a cheaper price. Then there's the rune defender that has it's little strength bonus and high attack bonus. There's no obvious universal choice right now because they all have their ups and downs.

 

Won't the Dragon Defender disrupt this balance? Especially if it has an increased attack bonus over rune defender which is very likely? Won't the dragon defenders cause the demand (and thus the price) for the other shields to go down drastically?

 

My hope is that the dragon defender only gives a defence bonus but I doubt it'll be that way.

 

You make it sound like it's NOT guaranteed to be a better version of the rune defender. If it only had defense bonuses, it'd be the dragon kiteshield instead. And dragon items always have better stats then their rune equivalent.

You make it sound like it's NOT guaranteed to be a better version of the rune defender. If it only had defense bonuses, it'd be the dragon kiteshield instead. And dragon items always have better stats then their rune equivalent.

 

Rune knives/darts and dragon darts are pretty comparable

 

Anyway, defender+rapier loses to dfs+rapier in pvp... this is supported by both tons of personal experience AND a lot of actual research

defender is pretty bad for supreme and obviously useless for arma, arguable for bandos but i personally prefer dfs

You make it sound like it's NOT guaranteed to be a better version of the rune defender. If it only had defense bonuses, it'd be the dragon kiteshield instead. And dragon items always have better stats then their rune equivalent.

 

Rune knives/darts and dragon darts are pretty comparable

 

Anyway, defender+rapier loses to dfs+rapier in pvp... this is supported by both tons of personal experience AND a lot of actual research

defender is pretty bad for supreme and obviously useless for arma, arguable for bandos but i personally prefer dfs

dfs? what do u mean by that??

besides, I dunno how you can justify DFS etc as "reasonable price" for anyone under 110 combat who arent filthy rich but have high defence. (like myself a few years ago) The damn thing isn't worth 28m as far as im concerned.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

DFS is +3 str vs 18-20 accuracy is it not?

so assuming your strength bonus and accuracy bonus are comparable

there is about 6x more accuracy bonus than DFS. (this assumption skews the end result in favor of strength, as attack bonuses suffer diminishing returns beyond 50% accuracy)

 

1-sqrt(0.25/6) = 0.796

 

meaning you only need 79.6% accuracy to justify using a DFS over a rune defender. Possibly even more as my calculation skews in favor of strength.

 

I won't explain why this formula works for the moment.

I'm sure you all trust my knowledge on DPS by this point :P

Cut the crap, market takes it all.

 

The mid level spirit shields actually rise in price for some reason. High end spirit shields doesnt affected.

Last time when rumors of d defenders arrived, it doesnt seem to be affected either.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/results.ws?query=spirit+shield&price=all&members=

 

Dragonfire shields crashes each time when news of dragon defenders come out.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/Dragonfire_shield/viewitem.ws?obj=11284

DFS have it own demand as not everyone have enough money for 85 herblore but their money pile does have 8 digits.

However most people who use it are not dragon slayers.

 

Dragon claws dropped by 0.7%.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/Dragon_claws/viewitem.ws?obj=14484

Btw, dragon claws is going to be the best spec for pvp after pvp soaking is out.

Since the system only works on damage more than 200 and the reduction is base on percentage, double hitter specials shrines out.

 

Godswords also have some impact. BGS dropped by 0.85%, AGS dropped by 0.42%.

In fact, sgs doesnt even move a bit.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/results.ws?query=godsword&price=all&members=

 

Saradomin sword dropped by 0.68%

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/Saradomin_sword/viewitem.ws?obj=11730

 

Zamorak spear dropped by 0.8%.

http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/Zamorakian_spear/viewitem.ws?obj=11716

However, ZS and SS never recover in price since dragon defender is mentioned by some jmods. Their actual drop rate is around 8-9%.

 

besides, I dunno how you can justify DFS etc as "reasonable price" for anyone under 110 combat who arent filthy rich but have high defence. (like myself a few years ago) The damn thing isn't worth 28m as far as im concerned.

30mil is "filthy rich"? Thats merely investing for 4 months of manage thy kingdom with only 10min playing time per week working on it.

And besides, the only dragon slaying alternative is either the crappy anti-dragon shield or 85 herblore which can easily cost more than 100mil.

If you are just looking for a shield, you got dragon square and a blessed spirit shield for those who do quests. Truely "filthy rich" people dont even care about those craps.

I've always been a fan of defenders. Personally I'd rather have +19 attack and +5 strength bonus (rune defender) than +7 strength, +0 attack and a big defence bonus (DFS).

 

Familiars/food is what I use for healing, so I don't see a need for any extra defence for myself personally. Attack and strength bonus is where it's at for me :D I'm sure the dragon defender won't mess things up much, if at all. Sure the dragon defender may have a slightly higher attack + strength + defence bonus than the rune defender, but I certainly can't imagine it being overpowering to the point where it ruins the top-notch shields. Plus the DFS will always be used for its high defence, and I can't see it dropping drastically from it.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

 

DFS>Rune defender: MHing, Dragon hunting, tanking, Safe pvp.

Rune defender>DFS: Slayer, 1v1 pvp, pking.

 

So thats 4 out of 3 in favor of DFS. I would say that Rune defender is a good candidate for replacing DFS in many circumstances.

However, I don't think dragon will make any phenomenal difference since it's crappy defenses can only go so far.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

This is pretty false... it's useful for bandos, arma, dks. in pvp DFS > defender for meleers and is the fourth best shield behind Div>CKS>Ely for rangers.

Lol no.

 

Prove it :grin:

+2 Str is like 50 lp extra, if that.

To be honest, even rune defender is far superior to DFS even at bandos. Hell, it's even better than CKS or maybe Elysian. Speeds up the kills a lot and bandos kc takes 3 mins if you overload/turm it so I get more kills per hour with a defender than with a shield.

i guarantee DFS is much better at DKs than rune defender is, lol.

What balance? DFS is already worse than the rune defender for everything.

 

 

DFS>Rune defender: MHing, Dragon hunting, tanking, Safe pvp.

Rune defender>DFS: Slayer, 1v1 pvp, pking.

 

So thats 4 out of 3 in favor of DFS. I would say that Rune defender is a good candidate for replacing DFS in many circumstances.

However, I don't think dragon will make any phenomenal difference since it's crappy defenses can only go so far.

Nice one...

 

I have to agree, though, that defender is much more useful then DFS(not considering the pricing etc). Firstly, it's +2 str(not 3, as grimy said) and minus 20 stab, which is a huge difference. For pvm, dfs is only better when you really, really need the defense. For solo bandos, they are more or less equal(as you are protecting melee anyway), for solo DK's, dfs is somewhat better assuming you can't use soul split enough. If you can soul split both supreme and rex, defender is better. For all slayer, defender is much better, only exception being wyverns because you can't really use it there. For pvp, you'd be stupid to just have one of these, so it's hard to debate this- dfs while tanking- defender while dishing(damage).

Dragon defender probably won't be TOO overpowered, unless they add a special or something (deflect damage?).