Shield Bash (Classic)

Overview

Shield Bash breaks any spell the target is currently casting and locks out any spell from that school of magic. It naturally requires having a shield equipped. For spell interruption while wielding two-handed weapons or dual wielding, see [Pummel]. Pummel and Shield bash are on the same cooldown timer, so although you can use Pummel with any weapon and shield combination in your hands, Shield Bash gives 6 seconds of spell squelching, compared to Pummel's 4 seconds.

Functionality

Shield bash costs 10 Rage, and has a cooldown of 12 seconds. This generally means that you can lock a caster out of certain schools of magic for all but 6 seconds. There is a Talent availible that can give you either a 50% or 100% chance of completely silencing the target for 3 seconds. Combined with [Charge] or [Intercept], not much should be able to stop you from silencing a caster. Shield bash used to be a 10 second cooldown skill like [Pummel]. But that is too powerful when comblined with Talent so they change it.

	Damage	Lockout Duration	Level	Cost	Bonus Threat
Rank 1	6 Damage	6 seconds	12	8
Rank 2	18 Damage	6 seconds	32	Template:Gs
Rank 3	45 Damage	6 seconds	52	Template:Gs	180
Rank 4	63 Damage	6 seconds	64	Template:Gs	230

Tips and Tactics

This can be pretty useful while tanking. Interrupting a spellcasting mob usually results in them switching to melee attacks, which are generally not so painful (especially with a warrior's high armor) and also allows you to pull them back, out of sight of wandering mobs.

Shield Bash also has the advantage that it generates a lot of threat, almost as much as [Sunder Armor] does. (Edit: Does the extra threat generated by a shield bash occur every time it's used, or only if its use explicitly interrupts the target during spellcasting?)

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Shield bash is the second spell-interrupt warriors have ( [Pummel] being the other one). Its use is therefore limited to spellcasters and shield-users. That said it is highly useful for casting mobs and should be used each time the mob is channeling a spell. With this skill you should be able to defeat a casting mob 1 on 1 and retain over 75% of your health. The damage done by shield damage is very low. Therefore increasing the rank of this skill is not important.

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