Divine Shield

[Security_Blanket]

Looking at the combination of a charisma based character combined with Epic Mage Armor and Divine Shield it seems to be very overpowered. A simple 26 Sorcerer 4 Paladin/Blackguard can end up with really high saves, high DC, and high AC due to the combination of EMA and Divine Shield. With just two spells they are sitting at a comfortable 65 AC with their Dodge maxed out, this is without including all the arcane defense spells they can throw into the mix. I think Divine Shield should be nerfed to 1 AC per Divine class level. Thoughts?

[Scurvy Cur]

You probably should have dispelled him.

Real talk, though, the cap to div shield would kill off a large number of builds. It's been mathed out before. Div shield comes at an important action economy, gear, and stat cost. Where there are extreme outliers, it's not a div shield + epic mage armor combination, it's div shield + epic mage armor + something else (usually huge dex AC).

When you talk about EMA and div shield stacking you're specifically referencing two builds here, as far as I can tell: Div spellsword (hugely vulnerable to dispelling, and not really a huge problem unless dex based) or sorc/[pal;bg] (not on anyone's problem list).

Edit: The 65 AC sorc you've listed needs autostill to enable plate armor (hardly a "free" investment). The actual numbers are:

10 base
4 dex
3 studded leather (spellthief)
4 shield (gsteel small)
4 haste(dodge)
5 nat ema
5 dodge ema
5 armor ema
5 deflect ema
3 tumble (div sorc doesn't get a tumble dip)
11 dshield (capped out at 20 dodge AC)

=59

If you've got legacy greensteel or buy 1 count of auto still, you can replace the greensteel small and the spellthief armor with greensteel large and greensteel chain shirt for 2 more AC.

[Hexgoblin]

To reach that degree of AC on a div-dip mage, you're assuming Auto Still Spell 3 and Armor Skin, along with the taking of Power Attack and Divine Shield. Not to mention the usual 30 points thrown into tumble, on a class with a fairly barren skill point pool.

That's a lot of AC for sure, but it's a pretty significant investment beyond just casting two spells. 5 epic feats, counting Epic Mage Armor, and 2 pre-epic ones.

Skipping the Still Spell, you're reaching AC nowhere near that without access to legacy Greensteel pieces that were removed from the crafting matrix three years ago.

[Anomandaris]

This falls again right into the category of "I don't like that it's powerful, nerf it." Yah it's powerful so? As other people pointed out because that person literally geared their entire build around it and invested every feat etc to do so. It also has a windup time and its own limitations. And it's not even that much AC compared to other builds. There's counterplay to it, the solution isn't a nerf.

[Diegovog]

To reach that degree of AC on a div-dip mage, you're assuming Auto Still Spell 3 and Armor Skin, along with the taking of Power Attack and Divine Shield. Not to mention the usual 30 points thrown into tumble, on a class with a fairly barren skill point pool.

That's a lot of AC for sure, but it's a pretty significant investment beyond just casting two spells. 5 epic feats, counting Epic Mage Armor, and 2 pre-epic ones.

Skipping the Still Spell, you're reaching AC nowhere near that without access to legacy Greensteel pieces that were removed from the crafting matrix three years ago.

This is spot on.