Octopath Traveler’s bespoke iteration on the wildly successful Bravely Default combat formula rewards players for planning ahead and attacking aggressively, so much so that you can make or break (pun intended) a boss fight by keeping a keen eye on weaknesses and attack initiative, even when your gear is far from ideal.
That said, a good shield never hurts to have around and it sure can make each turn of yours less stressful when you can be sure that you’ll survive your enemy’s upcoming signature spell. This list will help you find the best shield for your build, whether you’re a fleet-footed evasion tank or a burly all-defense warrior.
17 Buckler
What better place to start than with the starting shield? The Buckler is the bog-standard, the “great value” shield available to everyone everywhere, for a modest +3 boost to physical and elemental defense.
What use could a career academic, a humble store clerk, and a burlesque dancer all have for an affordable skirmishing shield? Who knows? Who cares? The Buckler will get you where you need to go, as long as where you’re going is just one of the other starting towns.
16 Sturdy Shield
With a straight +20 to physical defense and no boost to your elemental defense, the Sturdy Shield is nothing to write home about.
The price would make you believe that this is the third shield everyone should be getting, and if you’re taking too much damage from physical attackers at the beginning of the game then it’ll help in that instance. But, the Sturdy Shield first becomes available in Flamesgrace and Atlasdam, where Ophilia and Cyrus spar with plenty of elemental foes. For H’aanit’s opening chapter this shield might be useful, but it’s not worth the price anywhere else.
15 Elusive Shield
The evasion stat is either the most useful or useless metric on your character sheet depending on your play style, and that will become even more clear at the bottom of this list.
That makes the Elusive Shield an acceptable choice for those aspiring toward an evasion build, but at this point in the game, that stat probably isn’t high enough to make a huge difference in your ability to dodge anyway. While +21 and +24 P. DEF and E. DEF are great stats, is the +56 evasion enough to justify the price tag?
14 Round Shield
“How can the Round Shield be better than three others?” you might be asking yourself. It’s true that the Round Shield is entirely unspectacular (+13 P. DEF and +15 E. DEF), but it comes at an unspectacular price as well.
Yes, the Sturdy Shield has a better physical defense buff, but without any elemental damage mitigation, it’s hard to recommend. The Sturdy Shield is also more expensive, which is even more of a problem for Elusive Shield, costing at least 2,500 leaves (if you have Tressa haggle a seller). The Round Shield wins out over those options because of just how far it can take you without emptying your wallet.
13 Plate Shield
As you first enter Octopath’s mid-game, the Plate Shield is an acceptable choice but one that comes with the same drawback as the Sturdy Shield: no elemental defense.
It’s also likely that this is the first shield you’ll encounter with an evasion penalty, making dodges an even rarer occurrence in battle. A negative evasion stat isn’t always a bad thing, but since magic attacks never miss, you won’t want to combine negative evasion with no E. DEF until you’re confident that you can reflect big spells, or have a beefier unit taking aggro from your glass cannons.
12 Kite Shield
Consider this the Round Shield: The Sequel. The Kite Shield is probably the last “every-man” shield that you can comfortably throw onto each of your heroes and know that they’ll be reasonably resilient, without sacrificing other stats or breaking the bank.
A respectable +26 and +31 P.DEF/E.DEF split for an accessible 2,400 leaves before the Tressa discount. From here on, the remaining shields are either too expensive, too rare, or too specialized to be appropriate for every class.
11 Tower Shield
If you’re happy with your cleric at this point (and Octopath makes it easy to build overpowered healers only halfway through the story) and want to use defensive magic in lieu of a magic-mitigating shield, then this is the choice for you.
The Tower Shield sports +68 P.DEF, no E. DEF, and a -25 to your evasion. How is this pick more rational than the Plate Shield before it? The Plate Shield is useful at the beginning of the game’s middle acts — a time when some players might not have unlocked the Reflective or Sheltering Veil skills. By the time the Tower Shield becomes a realistic option, you’ll have an understanding of how and when to buff your heroes E. DEF, you’ll also have earned enough leaves thanks to Tressa and/or Therion that the 14,400 price tag is a non-issue.
10 Gargantuan Shield
As the big sibling of the Tower Shield, the Gargantuan Shield does everything that its sibling does but to a greater extreme: almost double the P.DEF (+121), almost double the price (24,000), and quadruple the evasion penalty (-101) with no E. DEF.
Found in late-game areas, the Gargantuan Shield is a decent option but its competitors are so good that it can’t be ranked any higher, and even some of the exceptional mid-game picks are still more desirable.
9 Spiked Shield
The Spiked Shield and its sibling shield are great mid-game picks that can carry you comfortably into the late game. With +44 P. DEF, +53 E. DEF, and -20 evasion, this a nicely balanced option.
Remember, high evasion can replace high P.DEF, but not E. DEF, since magic never misses. The lower-ranked negative evasion shields are bad because they make it difficult to dodge physical attacks, and magic attacks hit without any mitigation, but the Spike Shield doesn’t suffer from that issue.
8 Elemental Shield
The Elemental Shield is very similar to the Spike Shield, but has a higher stat total with +34 P. DEF, +74 E. DEF, and -20 evasion as well. The difference between these two is minor, so whichever one you can grab first is what you should use, but the slight price edge on the Elemental Shield places it higher in the ranking.
7 Adamantine Shield
The Adamantine Shield is essentially the Elemental Shield for the beginning of the late-game, found in a number of your heroes’ Chapter 4 cities.
With a +76 P.DEF, +131 E.DEF, and -81 evasion spread, at this point, your defenses will be so high that having 0 evasion on a character wouldn’t even hurt. It’s not like your evasion can ever be low enough that you’ll get hit twice by one attack, so making evasion a dump-stat in favor of high defense is acceptable, perhaps even advisable.
6 Leviathan Shield
The biggest problem with shields in Octopath is that very few have special abilities that allow for more variable play styles. In fact, you could say less than a few shields have abilities because only a couple do… it’s two. Two shields have special abilities.
The Leviathan Shield has +110 P. DEF, no E. DEF, and -79 evasion, but it also ignores a significant fraction of ice damage, meaning magic is less of a threat to it than other zero-E. DEF shields.
5 Gustav’s Shield
From this point on all of the remaining shields are firmly in the end-game category and undoubtedly the cream of the crop. With +52 P. DEF, +58 E. DEF, and +64 evasion, Gustav’s Shield has no downside. What’s more, this shield is a guaranteed drop from Olberic’s Chapter 3 boss — you’ll earn this one just for playing the game.
4 Mikk & Makk Shield
Now take Gustav’s Shield, already one of the best in the game, and make it better. The M&M Shield boasts +80 P. DEF, +80 E. DEF, and +178 evasion. It’s the crux of every evasion-tank team composition and is probably always use by any player who has earned it.
The only downside is that it’s unlocked after completing Tressa’s and Therion’s stories, so, much of the game will have passed by the time you have it. Still, it’s an essential item for the secret final boss.
3 Battle-tested Shield
The other shield with a special ability, the Battle-tested Shield has +132 P. DEF, no E. DEF, and -88 evasion. It also restores 200HP and 8 SP every turn, so it mitigates damage in its own unique way.
2 Force Shield
The last two shields are straightforward. In the case of the Force Shield, you’ll get +102 P. DEF, +102 E. DEF, and -69 evasion.
Available for a modest 28,800 leaves (it’s not hard to make 500,000 just from looting bosses, with no additional grinding, by the fourth chapters) from the Duskbarrow general store, this is an easy pick to recommend.
1 Forbidden Shield
Like all of the forbidden weapons, the Forbidden Shield offers unrivaled defense at the cost of destroying another (hopefully irrelevant to your ideal build) stat. With +116 P. DEF and +133 E. DEF and -171 evasion, you can’t possibly find a better defense booster than this.
