[Zharous]

FAQ answer: (BTW How come we don't have a FAQ other than the link to my web site of something I did almost 3 years ago?)

I. Why use Energy Shield

- Your mana pool contributes to your effective hit points. This greatly helps rich players as their life/mana charms will easily boost their mana pool far higher than they need simply for casting spells or teleporting.

- 70% - 95% of your damage is not taken away from life, instead it is removed from your quickly replenishing mana pool. As long as your mana pool is always large enough to absorb enemy damage, and you take damage slowly enough over time, this translates into a real 3X-10X on the total amount of damage you can take before dying.

- With a high energy shield level and enough life, it is possible to prevent all hit recovery stunning (which occurs when 1/12th of your life removed in one hit) This allows you to the either escape or continue firing when vita builds would simply sit there being stunned.

- With 20 actual skillpoints in telekinesis (+skill equipment does not help), you only lose 0.75 mana per every absorbed damage point.

- Max mana items are common, unlike +max health. With just a few items you can easily gain 4+ mana points for every stat point placed into energy. Items that provide +mana as well as charms also go through this multiplier.

1 vitality = 2 life = 2 damage absorbed
1 energy = 2 mana = 4.2 mana (110% max mana) = 5.6 damage absorbed (20 pts in telekinesis)
(50% = 2 sojs, 40% = Frostburn, 15% = hoto or wiz, 5% = arachnid)

- How large of a hit can you take and still divert most of that damage to your mana pool? With a 2000 mana pool, up to 16000 damage can be diverted partially to mana before your energy shield collapses (due the 0.75 telekinesis and 17% Pvp multipliers)

Disadvantages:

- Lots of extra skill points used meaning your attacks do less damage. (varies per build)

- Energy Shield is applied before resistance equipment and absorb. Huge elemental attacks will drain your mana pool far faster then anything else.

- Attacks such as poison and open wounds completely bypass energy shield and hit your health directly. And while poison can be reduced with +max resist items and poison length reduction, open wounds is completely unresistable other then by shield blocking.

- Resistance gear, Damage to mana, and absorb gear is far less effective for an energy shield sorceress then for a regular sorceress because they only affect life lost, not mana lost.

- While you are almost invulnerable if you take damage slowly, damage that is hit at a very fast rate can collapse your energy shield before your mana can recover, which usually means instant death