I've noticed that some shield effects "overlap" for lack of a better word, causing multiple shields to be used to resist a single attack.
Example: I've cast a shield that gives me 70% protection vs death and myth spells. Next turn I use one that gives me 70% protection vs life and death spells. The following turn I am attacked with a Myth spell, the attack triggers both my myth shields but so far as I can tell I still get only -70% protection.
What I would suggest is that each shield be triggered seperately, one per attack, starting with the best (highest protection) shield to the lowest.
Thus in the example above, only one of the shields would have been triggered, A second attack would trigger the second shield. If I had a -50% myth shield as well, that would be triggered with a third attack.
As things are now I'm finding that shields are getting triggered and used up too quickly without any benefit for the doubled up shield use. If two -70% shields were triggered then damage should be 0 (-70% plus -70% should be -140% for zero damage, or all damage blocked for that attack) but this does not appear to be the case.
Actually, quite a few people prefer the "stacking" of shields since it prevents major damage from occurring. If you don't want the shields all removed on the same hit, you need to make sure you are using the same exact shield/spell. After that, your shields will stay on for later rounds.
Stacked shields work by minimizing the damage based on the percentage but on a one at a time basis. For example if you had two different 70% death shields and you are attacked by a death move that did 100 damage. The first shield would activate and reduce the damage to 30. After that the second shield would reduce the 30 damage by 70% which would mean you still get hit by about 9 damage.
The problem I see with the above is it makes it too easy to strip shields.
Someone "stacks" an 80% and 85% shield to stop your big attack. You (or a monster) hits with a wand... poof go the shields to stop a minor attack. Then they follow up with their big attack.
From my obersvation it seems some of the bosses are "smart" enough to do this. At least in some battles that's how its gone, anytime I massed shields to stop an anticipated big attack I got frequently got hit with a small attack that stripped my shields and then the boss followed with a major attack, but now I had no shields to prevent that attack (unless I'd cast a LOT of shields which sometimes I do but you can't always do that). I've seen bosses do the same with Weakness, casting it anytime I built my pips up, its like some are programmed to do this to weaken a large attack.
Personally I'd rather have shields go down one at a time. Overall this would make shield stripping harder and make it easier to provide some protection to a major attack. You might not get that 70%-70% combo... but you'd have 70% vs the little attack and then still 70% vs the major one following. That would enhance survivability for everyone quite a bit.
From my obersvation it seems some of the bosses are "smart" enough to do this. At least in some battles that's how its gone, anytime I massed shields to stop an anticipated big attack I got frequently got hit with a small attack that stripped my shields and then the boss followed with a major attack, but now I had no shields to prevent that attack (unless I'd cast a LOT of shields which sometimes I do but you can't always do that). I've seen bosses do the same with Weakness, casting it anytime I built my pips up, its like some are programmed to do this to weaken a large attack.
Personally I'd rather have shields go down one at a time. Overall this would make shield stripping harder and make it easier to provide some protection to a major attack. You might not get that 70%-70% combo... but you'd have 70% vs the little attack and then still 70% vs the major one following. That would enhance survivability for everyone quite a bit.
Yeah i hate it when bosses just do a tiny move like their melee attack to take down your 2 or 3 built up shields, and the weakness thing is even worse. All the time I have stacked up a huge amount of pips and then... bam the enemy uses a shield, black mantle (accuracy down by 45%) or weakness. Once i even stacked up 7 pips for a second school amulet scarecrow and the boss used a shield and his buddy used weakness, so it was basically a waste of time.
That's a big point of wand attacks: to burn up things like Weakness on you and use up enemy shields to clear the way for your big attack. I love seeing my single wand attack get rid of a Weakness and a Plague as well as using up a Myth shield and a Tower shield on the monster.
As kingurz said, shields from different sources will stack. If I cast my 80% Myth Shield twice, they won't both trigger on the first incoming Myth spell. However, if I cast the spells for 70% Myth/Life shields and for 70% Myth/Death shields, then a single Myth spell will trigger both myth shields (as they are from different sources) and the incoming Myth spell will be reduced to (0.30 * 0.30) 9% of its original damage.
As Dalicon said, shields stack multiplicatively. This is the same way all buffs and penalties work.
As a Myth wizard, I see that as a big benefit of the Minotaur and Orthrus spells; they do a nominal (50 damage) attack to clear a level of shields before launching their big main attack. So they work very well against monsters that put up a Myth or Tower shield (as they'd need two of a type of shield to reduce the main attack), with the disadvantage of thus needing two of a type of Trap to boost the main attack. (And, it's not quite as good as doing a wand attack first, as any penalty like Weakness will affect the whole spell, both attacks.)
Since Shields and Buffs work the same way, would you also want spells to only be affected by a single Charm (and Trap I guess)? No more stacking Stormblade and Balanceblade and Elemental Blade and Bladestorm with Storm Trap and Hex and Feint for... um... (1.30 * 1.25 * 1.35 * 1.20 * 1.25 * 1.30 * 1.70) 727% of the original damage of your Triton spell?
