Recieved this last night on our 4th Vael kill. Still can't believe it. As a resto shaman (by choice) this is about the most amazing shield I have seen. I fell in love with it for the looks and stayed for the stats.

Edited, Nov 7th 2006 at 1:27pm PST by Brazbit

Coming up on 1 year of BWL, most of that time on farm and it hasn't dropped once for my guild. Our paladins have given up on this.

But hey, almost every one of them has their retnoob helm from him!

in the two first kill of Vael in my guild, Virtus on Khaz Modan,that doesn't exist anymore :'(, I wasn't there, but had priority for this shield :-/ nothing drops
The third kill, I was there, first one shot, first down for me (and last), the shield drops !!! OMFG xD

I'm soooo happy, pretty shield ever =)

If you compare the stats between Malister's Defender and the Red Dragonscale Protector it comes down to this basically...

Red Dragonscale Protector:
+5 int
+6 spirit
+37 healing


Malister's Defender:
+35 armor
+1 block
+3 sta
+9 mana regen

In terms of mana regen the MD owns the RDP hands down. Even if the RDP had 9 spirit it would still not be as good as the 9 mana regen on MD. 1 spirit does not equal 1 mana/health regen. It's something more like 2 or 3 spirit = 1 mana/hp regen. Basically the RDP has 2 or 3 mana regen. Furthermore items with mana regen are always in effect where as spirit does not start regenerating hp and mana till you have not attacked or cast a spell for 5 seconds. Someone mentioned Blessing of Kings for paladins would make the spirit better than the 9 mana regen, but that isn't true. In fact the 10% spirit boost from BoK would only increase the spirit by 0.6, which is about an extra +0.25 mana/hp per tick. That is hardly noticeable. Pair the MD with an Auastone Hammer and you have quite the little combo for endurance boss battles (14 mana per 5 seconds).

This of course, is not taking into account any of the other stats. RDP does have the nice +37 healing (wish it was healing AND damage.. but all well), and the 5 more int. While 3 sta and the tiny more armor/block on the Malister's is nice, it's really not as important to shamans or paladins as the int and healing are. The RDP also looks 10 times better then MD, so it has that going for it too.

In the end it depends what you are looking for. Do you want a shield that is a little more defense oriented with the sta, armor and block, as well as has the mana regen? Or do you want a shield that helps boots your mana pool with the +int and +healing? Personally I am not sure. I would probably take the Red Dragonscale Protector over the Malister's Defender because I am big on looks, but the stats are really hard to compare. Seeing as we are on a fairly new server and have had Vael on farm status awhile now I will probably take whichever drops first...

What enchant would be the best for this shield?

This is and will always be the best paladin shield in game until the tier 3 dungeon opens.
enchant it whit +9 spirit and you have your mana regen.

as to the shamans the Malistars is best since they dont have mana regens like the buff paladins have.

Edited, Thu May 18 09:42:24 2006