Why do pauldrons suck so much?
Unless you’re maining a channeling build for which you stick with Mantle 100% of the time, there’s absolutely no useful shoulders whatsoever.
- Your items become indestructible? Oh honey, you got enough gold to repair an entire galaxy of items.
- Gain a 2-3 second burst of speed every time you break a breakable object? Good luck finding something to break when you’re rushing through a grift.
- Gain a ~60% damage reduction when TP’ing? Yeah that’ll be mighty useful, said noone ever.
- How about a slim chance you’ll be given 25% life upon death instead of dying? Wow!!!
- Hey how about +25% damage and +25% damage reduction when chan…oh wait, you aren’t using any channeled skills, nvm.
I can go on like this all day but I’m fairly sure I’ve run out of crappy shoulders to bag on.
10 Likes
Also: “Must roll with resist all”
2 Likes
Not all classes have entirely useless shoulder items: Barbarian, Monk, and Necromancer have useful options. But generally yes, shoulder options should be expanded a bit.
3 Likes
That’s only 3 out of 7.
You will like D4 then, shoulders has been scrapped 
6 Likes
Shoulders, Pants and Chest Armor suck for almost all classes (except for Cindercoat and Aquilla and a few class specific armors).
But I doubt that they will make new ones at this point in time.
I personally think that Shoulders, Pants and Bracers would have been a good place to make rare items useful, like that there is a crafting recipe or a consumable that adds 1 random affix to it, and you can do this consumable or cube recipe up to 3 times.
Could have crated some nice rare items in these slots.
1 Like
https://eu.diablo3.com/en/item/fury-of-the-ancients-P67_Unique_Shoulder_102 for IK/HOTA says hi.
1 Like
IDK, it’s kinda nice not to have town portal interrupted while doing speed runs. Homing Pads, and Death Watch Mantle have there uses for sure.
But yeah pretty lack luster slot overall.
1 Like
I think those are bracers.
5 Likes
Essentially because that slot was reserved for a set piece. The few sets that didn’t utilize shoulders got a good item power for that slot. Save Tal-Rasha for some odd reason.
1 Like
Agreed on shoulders. Good for throwing AD, CDR, AR on…and sometimes a skill damage boost. They could be a bit more useful…but what do I know.
Aside from this, I think it would be cool to have a gem that does Aquilas Cuirass does, just like there is a gem that does what LoN does. More gems that have those types of legendary powers might offer some build options.
Esoteric Alteration is pretty close; it’s better for elemental damage reduction but doesn’t provide physical damage reduction.
2 Likes
I find that very useful when I do bounties. When I am finished, I TP to town or my next bounty and don’t have to worry mobs attacking me. It may seem like a small issue, but it can get annoying, especially when you are close to the end of the TP cast and get attacked by a mob that walked over to you from across the screen. Better yet, you will not get interrupted by range mobs. Those mobs always seem to lead to other mobs and more mobs. I don’t use them all the time, but when that happens, then I go to the cube and select the Homing Pads.
Maybe we could focus on making Death Watch Mantle, Spaulders of Zakara and Pauldrons of the Skeleton King better.
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Pauldrons of the Skeleton king are fairly easy; a cheat death on a 2-3 minute cooldown, guaranteed?
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Death Watch Mantle screams Thorns to me, personally.
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Spaulders of Zakara, favor text mentions how the Crusade would triumph in the hands of men. Since bonus damage to “evil” mobs is already done, how about resisting damage from undead, RGs, Demons…? Fits nicely with the theme of the item.
That said, I wish I could think of a damage bonus to put on Shoulders that would rival a class set, Pauldrons of the Skeleton King, or one of the class/build specific shoulders.
Maybe Spaulders of Zakara could have increased critical hit chance/damage on Shoulders. That was never done!
1 Like
I think they have shoulders purely for the aesthetic beauty they bring to the game. The bigger and brighter the better.
After they will add all the sets, they should rework shoulders, pants and 2-h weapons. Any sollution for 2h weapon? maybe 2 sockets?
I always thought that one of the shoulders should have block chance, and maybe even a block based legendary power, kind of like JL. To me it just fits the theme.
3 Likes
That’s a good idea, too. I never really put the fact Wizards do not have a class legendary pair of shoulders together either, although it seems most other classes seem to.
It’s not as simple as that, for the simple reason that Crusaders can wield a two-hander in one hand which would give them 260% CHD (two weapon emeralds) and 10% CHC (shield).
2 Likes
