Goddamn shields...

Heros Surrender and Skull of Ruin FTW.

I used the Royal Loredan Shield until I got Heros Surrender.
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you answered your own question when you said the royal crest dropped. That's money and badges you saved by having that drop, spend the badges on another upgrade and use the opportunity costs you have now saved not having to pay for or craft titansteel wall on something else.
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Handful of notes:

1. Royal Crest of Lordaeron does NOT have more avoidance than Titansteel Shield Wall. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but that's the second time today I've seen someone say it does >.>

2. All three are relatively equal to the point that I doubt you'd notice the difference regardless. I'd suggest following Pelendralaar's advice and just saving your badges and gold.

3. Even past the Defense minimum, it's the best avoidance stat to stack until you hit the block cap (including diminishing returns, which means you need something around 110% off the top of my head).

Lore how could you spread the misinformation? Defense minimum never a cap. This is a sad day - Majiben
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Station wagons are my favorite things.

Just for the record...having a Titansteel Shield Wall crafted does not in fact guarantee that the Lordaeron shield will drop, especially if you are an exceptionally vain Blood Elf who really just wants it for the looks.
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I personally use the Discarded Panel because a) Lordaeron never dropped, b) I was saving titanium for goggles, and c) we were running heroics like MAD, so badges weren't a problem. The extra avoidance combined with the +hit (bit of threat) have stood me in very good stead, enough so that I passed a Hero's Surrender to our warrior since he needed the upgrade (I'll take the next one though ).
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I've pretty much decided to stick with the Crest (though I hate the fact it takes durability damage... stop damaging my pretty shield!), but I'm keeping my Titansteel Wall in the bank just in case my defense drops when I pick up the T7 gloves and chest. Couldn't be bothered calculating how much defense I'd lose compared to my current gear factoring in enchants and gems so I figured it'd be easier to just wait and see.

I do wish the Crest had a little glow of some form, I liked the energy going into my Wall...

Also, love the engineering goggles and 81 stamina trinkets... but once I get an equivalent helm, I'm dropping it and going JC/BS, with Mining going on an alt where JC currently is.
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The Path of Light was a simple choice when deciding which academy to join. With proper lighting you can get a good reflection from any body of water. An elf has to keep his hair in check, after all.

I'd go with Titansteel myself. I got that and the Royal Crest but dropped them both for my Wall of Terror in the end.


As for the "Defense Cap" falsehood, I prefer to say "uncrittable" because that's the point of 540 anyway. Beyond that we're talking about Defense as a good avoidance (dodge/parry/miss)/mitigation(block) stat to stack,
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