For me it’s the other way around. On my current run I earned 7 heirlooms, and only 1 of them was a shield.
I got an ethereal staff a while ago that was likewise trash. Shields and staves seem roughly half and half, though. 
I’ll admit that player efficiency sucks, but what’s wrong with crit chance, crit damage and trimp health? The other options for a shield are Void Map, Trimp Attack, Trainer Eff., Storage, Breed Speed, and Trimp Block. How are people ranking these? Maybe:
- Void Map
- Trimp Block
- Trainer
- Crit Chance
- Crit Damage
- Trimp Health
- Trimp Attack
- everything else?
I would put attack above both crits, since 80% damage bonus on every strike is always good and only uses one slot (I already have 50% crit chance and +400% crit damage from Relentlessness, which makes that less of a boost since those are additive and would simply mean eight times damage bonus on 18/30 attacks instead of four times damage bonus on 15/30 attacks.). Other than that it looks about right, void map and block can’t be boosted through perks and both get quite important in the late game, so I’d have preferred at least one of those. Oh well, I’ll probably see another ethereal in another six months or so.
To put some concrete numbers on that, assume your damage before shield bonuses is 100. Crits are +400%, so 500 damage, and with a 50% crit rate average damage is 300.
Maximum crit damage for an ethereal shield is +400%, making crits 900 damage, and average 500.
Maximum attack for ethereals is 200%, making base damage 300, crits 1500, and average 900.
I would rank shield modifiers, from best to worst, something like
[ol]
[li]Attack[/li][li]Trainer efficency[/li][li]Block[/li][li]Void maps[/li][li]Crit damage[/li][li]Health[/li][li]Crit chance[/li][li]Breeding speed[/li][li]Storage size[/li][li]Player efficiency[/li][/ol]
Not sure about the positioning of void maps vs block boosters, and I could put health above crit damage. One thing worth noting is that trainer efficiency is strictly better than block: since it functions as a multiplicative boost to trainers, it amounts to a straight block multiplier, and it has higher values than straight block.
The ideal would be multiple shields for different occasions. Void map drop chance is useless in maps, and block really shines when running void maps, but health is often better outside of maps. But in a more plausible scenario where I don’t have multiple nice shields, that’s what my composite valuation looks like.
I always buy 89 Huts, 87 Houses, 94 Mansions, 89 Hotels, and 88 Resorts. The reason for the last three is that that’s the point at which they because less efficient gem-wise than the first Collector. While I could go back and buy them after I start getting collector as they regain their relative efficiency as I buy Collectors, once I’ve got one Collector the rest are effectively unimportant. Houses and Huts stop when they become less efficient food-wise than Mansions.
In other news, I found my first dark essence. I had hoped for an achievement for it, but instead I basically wasted a half hour grinding level 181 trying to get one.
Going to start doing NOM runs. But the helium bonus is awarded after completing zone 145, and the next heirloom breakpoint is zone 146. Do I try to maximize my helium, or maximize my chances at an ethereal?
As I did a whole set of 181+ runs for challenge2, I ended up with a lot of drops; as it worked out, I got a decent amount of magnificents and a single etherial (a staff; three poor stats and metal drop)
I do have shields to swap between (also a low-level staff for farmers). To echo some of those above, of the damage stats, attack >> crit damage >> crit chance. Also, I value trimp health more than many of the above.
I think my ideal general purpose shield would be void maps, attack, trainers, block in that order. Early on a void maps, attack, crit damage, crit chance shield would be useful. An attack, trainers, block, health would be good too for maps.
On the Nom and doing void maps during challenges question…
First off, most days I would expect dailies would be better than Nom; I never did any normal Nom and just dailed until ready for Tox. Tox is better than the vast majority of dailies while your max level is about at that range.
I don’t know if there’s a ‘right’ answer, but for me I would usually sacrifice the helium to get better odds at heirlooms… except if I was planning that this would be my very best run for the purpose of using bones to buy portals… and thus remultiply the helium. I did one tox run with all the void maps in run for this purpose, for example.
Today’s daily challenge is pretty sweet.
Incidentally, the daily change at midnight in my time zone. I live in London. Does it change at midnight in all time zones, or is it fixed to London time?
I hope I can make it in time. I’m running the Mapology challenge, and it’s a massive grind.
Yeah, Mapology was the worst of the standard scoring 11 challenge2s, I stopped it 10 levels earlier than all the other similarly scored ones.
Dailies change at midnight GMT no matter where you are.
Pretend the 11 in the post above is a twelve. Someday I’ll learn to count.
It changes at 5 PM here on the west coast, so I’m guessing the rollover is pegged to GMT.
Thanks, guys.
To be fair, I was also trying to crank out the Shaggy achievement. I managed to get it, but I probably should have just waited until I get Overkill.
I hated that achievement so much. I had my equipment levels around 130 and the last few zones still took ages. Good thing I won’t have to do that again. Next up: Grindless. I think I can make it work with the right masteries, but we’ll see.
I’m holding out for Power II before I go for Shaggy, myself. I don’t see how Overkill would help, though?
For Grindless, the big problem seems to be the lack of Nurseries. You must have a lot more spare health than I do if you can swing it.
Yeah. I think I can get Toughness II to level 300 if I respec, hopefully that will be enough to power through with Health formation. Going to take a while, though.
Here’s the 2017-03-25 Daily challenge:
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Gain a stack after killing an enemy, increasing all non Helium loot by 0.75%. Stacks cap at 450, and reset after clearing a zone.
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Enemies stack a debuff with each attack, reducing Trimp attack by 10% per stack. Stacks cap at 9 and reset on Trimp death.
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Enemies stack a debuff with each attack, damaging Trimps for 3% of total health per turn per stack, resets on Trimp death.
Pretty easy so far. I’m looking forward to +338% loot overnight if I leave it on an easy map. Might be easier than a regular run.