Most important quality in a shield

[Thearl]

Just like guns, everything is situational.

Here's my outlook on all things defensive:

Dodge/roll is your friend. Know when to roll away and know when to jump in the water and swim behind a boat/pylon.

Perks need to match your shield.
If you're using a 10% recharger, then take advantage of the perks that take affect when your shield is charging.
If you're using a 9.6 second delay, then take advatage of the perks that work when your shield is down and keep blur/decoy as your power. Throw in a detachment and if your shield is orange, you should be able to stack to 6 ro 7 ablative plates for half of your shield's down time.

Ablative plates.
Plates only matter up to TL9. Once that threat level gets to 10, I don't care how many plates you have or what your shield capacity is, you will be in danger of the ol' volge one shot.

Capacity.
Like plates, mostly matters up to TL 9, then all bets are off. Up to TL9, it's situational.
For Volge, I like a respark. When it gets hairy, a dive out of LOS and then my shield's back.
For everything else, I like an Ironclad. Whith the right perk load out, I'll walk through San quenton, no dodging, and just lay waste to everything (TL6 if I'm alone) and never drop below 30% shield.

Bottom line - think about what you're doing and who you're fighting.
Using a cluster shot? Equip a blastproof
Trying to get your vehicle kills in pvp? equip a blockade
got a neat charge blade? Equip a berserker.

ect....

[Darien]

Most informed players, including myself, prefer the Respark for most PvE content.

This is because you are not actually able to kill anything. How is that Hekaton working for you?

As someone who quadruples Deunan's score in Co-Ops, I prefer the highest possible capacity along with the Execution perk. I can stay in the fray until the end, replenishing my shield by actually killing something.

Armor Plates are a close second. No other shield stat matters.

[Darien]

Ablative plates.
Plates only matter up to TL9. Once that threat level gets to 10, I don't care how many plates you have or what your shield capacity is, you will be in danger of the ol' volge one shot.

Capacity.
Like plates, mostly matters up to TL 9, then all bets are off. Up to TL9, it's situational.
For Volge, I like a respark. When it gets hairy, a dive out of LOS and then my shield's back.
For everything else, I like an Ironclad. Whith the right perk load out, I'll walk through San quenton, no dodging, and just lay waste to everything (TL6 if I'm alone) and never drop below 30% shield.

No Volge can one shot you, Warmaster included, if you have an orange shield with over 20,000 capacity.

The build that I use for everything except WM includes Overcharge and the four highest dps perks that are not completely situational, then five defensive perks.

Overcharge, Radiation Burns, Gamma Rays, Pumped Up, Killing Machine are my dps perks.
Execution, Cellular Armor, Regeneration, Detachment, and Fortitude for defense.

I use a Needler (Radiation, Cannoneer), Quickshot Blaster (Radiation, Cannoneer), and Chimera's Claw (21117 Capacity, 3 Armor, 10% Recharge, 6 delay, +10% hp).

Your gear should match your perks, regardless of what you choose to go with. Also, it is rarely a good idea to build all the way in one direction, whether it be Glass Cannon (You die), or Super Tank (The talents do not stack, and you cannot kill anything).

[Wander]

Why anyone would use anything but a repsark regen is beyond me.

I have an ironclad bullseye ark, a rebel fortifier ark, and a few other ARK sheilds...

I still use my 75% hp repsark regen, and will only replace it with a respark regen ARK

[cyguy]

It tends to differ when in pve or pvp. In pve I usually rely on a respark regen mostly due to its rapid recharge. In pvp, I go for capacity and armor plates. Since when it comes down to it, you have to outlast your bunny hopping opponent most the time, and I've rarely seen people using bio in pvp.

All in all it really comes down to what set up you have, if it's pvp or pve, and so on. Everyone has their own preference, whatever works for them.

[Deunan]

This is because you are not actually able to kill anything. How is that Hekaton working for you?

You and Atra have an extremely high kill rate when I'm in co-ops with you but I still get some kills so I don't know why you would make such overblown statement. The Hekaton is pretty worthless now that they nerfed shields and shield regeneration at TL 10. The only time it's really noticeable is against the Viscera at TL 10.

As someone who quadruples Deunan's score in Co-Ops, I prefer the highest possible capacity along with the Execution perk. I can stay in the fray until the end, replenishing my shield by actually killing something.

You have never scored 4 times my score. Bear in mind that there was a scoring display bug for co-ops and it may still be occurring but unlike you and Atra I'm not a good shooter so you both are always going to score higher than me regardless of the loadout I use. On my display board you both have a clear and large lead over my score but the last two that I can recall you both scored in the 80-90k+ and I scored in the 40-50k+ and the fourth player scored lower so unless my card was bugged for your score and you scored 160-200k+ it never happened. Score is always relative to who is in the group and how well they are doing. My score has a wide variance because of this from 40k to 90k+ depending on who is in the group.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to engage in absurd hyperbole as it only undermines your credibility in an otherwise interesting post about using Execution with a slower regenerating shield and a higher capacity. Notwithstanding that, the Respark is a popular choice for PvE and it's not because players "aren't killing anything."

[Alastar]

Chimera claw Nuff said. Walk in claw on saws loaded and let er rip. While people are dodging for recharge I'm laying down bullets and when they're back in the fight everything's already dead (Note: slight exaggeration, still high cap stay in the fight and kill everything that moves so I don't have to worry about recharging lol)

[Kortacos]

Well for me the most important stats on a shield are Recharge delay time and Recharge % per second. It doesn't matter how many plates i have they always get empty as soon as i get shot and if you don't have plates your shiled capacity won't help at all.

[SirServed]

If you rate all shields on a 6 point system with 3 being good and 1 being poor, they're all more or less equal.

Respark - Capacity: 1, Recharge Delay: 3, Recharge Rate: 2

Hurricane - Capacity: 1, Recharge Delay: 2, Recharge Rate: 3

Tachyon - Capacity: 2, Recharge Delay: 1, Recharge Rate: 3

Rebel - Capacity: 2, Recharge Delay: 3, Recharge Rate: 1

Ironclad - Capacity: 3, Recharge Delay: 2, Recharge Rate: 1

Rhino: Capacity 3, Recharge Delay: 1, Recharge Rate: 2

I have the same Tank loadout Darien mentioned earlier. I only use it at TL10 when he's not around. Execution really allows high capacity shields to stand out during TL10 content. If you assumed a value of 20,000 for a capacity 3 shield, every critical kill will yield a 3k heal to your shield, this perk has no cooldown. Not to mention Detachment or an Ablative Armor Stim which really boosts your effective health. I believe part of the reason Experts don't go so well is that no one is willing to get in there and get some. When everyone is running around with a Respark, you're playing Hide-and-Seek with the mobs.

At least one person in an Expert should be running Tank to push the line.

[xM4ZZYx]

i personally find that resparks serve very well in PVE. i personally generally tend to lean more towards shields with no resistance for the extra stats. i personally have a respark booster V ARK with a 2.25 recharge. and due to the hp boost and very quick recharge i find that in most cases if i combine it with fortitude for yet even more hp the use of escape artist to allow me to back off rapidly the second my shield drops...i barely ever get downed. very good useful shields if utilized properly.

but in warmasters i still favoir an either ironclad or rhino beserkers both for the increased capacity to take more hammer but also increased dps after shield breaks and the longer recharge comes in extremely handy when using kill or be killed.