Greatshield Talisman | Elden Ring Wiki

What's the deal with

"This talisman was previously thought to grant a scaling level of Guard Boost, this however is not the case and was a misinterpretation of the item description."?

This is flat out wrong. Yes, this is *no longer* the case, but not due to players' misinterpretations; FromSoft patched the Greatshield Talisman so that it would no longer be possible to have 100 or near-100 guard boost with Fingerprint Stone Shield, Greatshield Talisman, and Barricade Shield.

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Imo, it should’ve reduced damage taken while blocking, at least just physical damage.

At least then I could run it more effectively on a Greatsword or colossal Greatsword.

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Is this worth equipping for people two handing a greatsword?

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Is it me or is viridian amber medallion better than this if you could only choose between 1? 20% stamina saved from blocking is only a little more than 15% extra max stamina, which can be used for everything... unless I'm missing something.

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Greatshield Talisman combined with Curved Sword Talisman makes Guard Counters actually useful.

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Good for "no skill" shields so I can use weapon arts without worrying about stamina loss of not having barricade.

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Ahh the Greatshield Talisman; designed for anything other than great shields. Truly the greatest shield talisman of times.

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Strange, I put up a post explaining exactly how this talisman works post 1.07, but the post isn't showing...

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Since 1.07, this Talisman is actually useful. It helps prevent more stamina loss on shields that have lower guard boost......so it isn't by Small/Medium/Greatshield classifications, the effectiveness of the Talisman depends on the individual shield.

*The Talisman prevents 20% Stamina Damage (it does NOT add 20% Guard Boost!!!)....so if you block a hit with a small shield, and the Stamina damage is 100 points, then the Talisman will make it 80 points........here, let me try to explain this a bit better.

-Block with small shield (crap guard boost) = 100 stamina damage....but with the Talisman you'll take 80 stamina damage
-Block SAME HIT with a medium shield = 50 stamina damage....but with the talisman you'll take 40 stamina damage

So the Talisman saved you 20 stamina with the small shield, but only saved you 10 stamina with the medium shield...even though the medium shield still blocks more stamina damage overall...

So, you EFFECTIVELY get more 'bang' from the Talisman when you use lesser guard boost shields! Using this Talisman with High Guard Boost shields like the Fingerprint shields won't save much stamina at all, in comparison.

Chrightt has a video on it 'How Guard Boost Works'.

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Similarly, this seems like a good talisman if you're set on using one of the many understatted but sexy looking medium shields.

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The person 6 comments down asserts that with a relatively lower block shield (56 boost) they saw a larger improvement (+11, a whole-ass 19.6% boost). I have no idea how they measured that but it made me wonder if this works well to make two-handed weapon-blocking more reliable, and after a little quick-and-dirty testing I can confirm that it does have a clearly visible effect on stamina loss when weapon-blocking with e.g. a Greatsword (which has 56 boost incidentally) or an Omen Cleaver (44 boost). I don't know HOW much the boost scales up as the blocking implement gets worse. I did test with a dagger and it was boosted from awful to slightly less awful, so it's not like this talisman saves weapons that are just **** at blocking, but it may bump almost-decent blockers up to being decent blockers, for people who are intrigued by the tremendous poise damage of 2H Guard Counters. I'm very tempted to run this WITH the turtle talisman (stamina regen) and the stamina max talisman, and a decent amount of Endurance, just to see how much I can push the limits of weapon blocking.

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I am not sure how accurate this is, but after the stability changes It seems they made it so its impossible to achive 100% stability.
I cant say this is exactly how it works, but it seems fairly accurate from my very limited testing.
With Brass shield at 69(nice) stability adding Greatshield talisman and Scholars shield, I was nowhere near 90% stability, looking at stamina numbers compared to buffed/buffless.
here is the theoretical math:
100 max stability - 69(nice) shield stability = 31 <- this is the diminishing value
10(talisman)+25(sholar's) x .31 = 10.85 <- the actual (theoretical) stability boost gained from buffs
69+10.85 = 79.85 < - Theoretical actual Guard boost
100 - 79.85 = 21.15 <- the remaning guard boost missing
21.15 / 31 = .65 < if turned into % is 65%, meaning they the shield boost has improved by 35% from the original value.
From my testing with two shields(not much, but hey) this seemed about correct. the other shield I used had 77 Guard boost and following same calculation It achieved 85 Guard boost after buffs, and in testing that seemed about right too.

TL;DR : Shield Boost seems to have some form of Diminishing effect based on shields Guard boost.

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I tested this talisman with Golden Beast Crest Shield.

It works, it works well, and it is definitely in my defensive talisman rotation for dealing with enemies that can break shields easily.

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My question is does this boost guard if used with weapons guard or it's work with shields only ?

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Whenever I equipped this I saw no increase at all in the guard boost in the equip menu. Barricade shield cast on a +16 brass shield was able to block all the attacks from the troll outside Godrick's boss area including the stamp and sword slam AND I took a significantly smaller hit to my stamina than I did when I tried the fingerprint shield on the same troll and the same attacks. This is worthless, waste of a talisman slot.

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this things weird, use viridian amber for something more consistent

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I have tested it after recent patch on three shield: Jellyfish Shield +9 (56 guard boost), Golden Greatshield +24 (77 guard boost) and Fingerprint Stone Shield +25 (86 guard boost) against omens in sewer under Leyndell.

I will go straight to conclusion: For Jellyfish Shield +9, it raise the guard boost from 56 to 67 (+11)

For Golden Greatshield +24, it rise from 77 to 86 (+9)

For Fingerprint Stone Shield +25, it rise from 86 to 90 (+4)

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Basically a requirement for shield builds as of 1.07... erdtree great shield was somewhat ok for blocking in 1.06 but now I simply can’t risk blocking at all without full 40 stamina even against small weapons. Guess I had the shield for fashion anyways :/ no way I’m sacrificing yet another ring slot on top of great jar talisman just for a shield that was always a liability to begin with. The irony is that shield poking is still broken, since it’s free damage so long as they manage stamina... and it takes a massive stamina pool to run fingerprint anyways. Attacking while guarding is the real problem and it’s very simple to fix that. If it were up to me, short spear would be the only weapon that could shield poke.

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Tested with Lordsworn's Shield Lv1 (+60 GB) vs arrows shot from the large golem outside of Castle Morne. Had to use a tape measure since I couldn't find current stamina values anywhere. My maximum stamina is 106.

- Without the talisman equipped, one of the arrows took me down to about 32.54% of my stamina bar (~34.5/106 stamina remaining).
- With the talisman equipped, one of the arrows took me down to about 24.60% of my stamina bar (~26.1/106 stamina remaining).

Overall, it looks like this talisman reduced my stamina damage by about 8.

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Tested with the Visage Shield and the Scholar's Shield spell - doesn't work at all. Still got chip damage to stamina with guard boost 80 and 81. Only after max upgrade and reaching 82 base guard boost I stopped taking stamina damage, but even then I could just take the talisman off and only cast the spell. So the talisman either doesn't work at all with this shield, or it doesn't stack with the Scholar's Shield spell.

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So basically nobody knows what this actually does anymore, or if it even does anything for shields above a certain Guard Boost amount.

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Does this work on lazuli glintstone sword?

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The talisman just isn't worth it until it is balanced. Guess ill use the ash of war alternative...

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does this work with weapon guard as well?

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Это только для пвп , в пве игре разницы вы не заметите , а в пвп это очень значительно

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I am not sure if it does anything at all. I tested heater shield against Godrick soldier(spear) charged attack.
Results were as follows
1) Without shield grease and without greatshield talisman it reduced 80% stamina
2) With shield grease it reduced 70% stamina
3) with greatshield talisman it reduced 80% stamina
4) With shield grease and greatshield talisman it reduced 70% stamina

Tested it again with scholar's shield and same results basically having or not having this talisman made no difference in guard boost. Retested with wooden greatshield and similar results, no effect on guard boost.

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I've never been sure if this is worth giving a talisman slot, I use a brass shield +15 with the barricade shield AoW. In the equipment menu the brass shield shows guard boost at 63 and if I quip this talisman the guard boost is still 63.

The notes and tips for this talisman says it multiplies guard boost by 1.1 reducing the hit stamina takes from blocking attacks, but if I equip it shouldn't it show an increase in the brass shield's guard boost? or is that not how it works?

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How well would this work with the Giant-Crusher?

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I really wish it added a flat number instead of a percentage so it would be better for small & medium shields that actually need better stability. Especially now that it’s nerfed for greatshields with really high guard boost, a flat number would have solved that and we wouldn’t be left wondering how much it really strengthens it.

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It seemed to me that this Talisman gave the barricade effect like the turtle shield as well. I noticed that the Black Knife Gargoyle couldn't break my guard after applying this talisman, where he could before. May not be as bad as it seems then.

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I really wish it added a flat number instead of a percentage so it would be better for small & medium shields that actually need better stability. Especially now that it’s nerfed for greatshields with really high guard boost, a flat number would have solved that and we wouldn’t be left wondering how much it really strengthens it.

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Bring it back to its former glory and simply nerf the higher end Great Shields instead. This was easily a 7/10 game, but the more you play it, the worst it gets.

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While this Talisman is useless now, I still find Barricade Shield to be pretty good (even after it's 1.03 nerf).


Sure, it only lasts 6 seconds (shield up), but it only takes a fraction of a second to activate......and if you have a shield that has ~70 Boost, you can achieve the 100% stamina block vs even the mightiest hits!

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"This means you cannot reach 100 Guard Boost using the Talisman alone." - and how to reach 100%?

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I just tried blocking the attacks from one of the horned goats in Stormhill with a Coil Shield +0 (29 Guard Boost) with and without the talisman, and the reduction in stamina cost was so minuscule it might as well not exist.

This talisman is basically useless right now. If you want the old +10% it used to have then use Shield Grease, if you want something better than that then use the Scholar's Shield Sorcery for +20%.

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Anyone got the numbers of this thing past 1.04? It's strange that a "10% increase" which seems intended for shields with already high guard boost now has a penalty for being already at high guard boost, but it doesn't specify where it stops being worth it. Say I wanted to use Visage Greatshield, does 82 Guard Boost get put to 90, or is it penalized? What about Golden Greatshield with 77 Guard Boost, does it go to ~84 or get penalized? How low does guard boost have to be before seeing 'full effect'?

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Does this work while blocking with weapons?

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From a PVE perspective, zero stamina loss on blocking was something From has never given without FP consumption. If you guys thought they were going to let stand a simple shield and talisman combo to allow 100% guard boost then you're off your rocker. I'm surprised it made it into the game at all.

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I just did some casual testing and found that for the purpose of blocking with a great shield there are several better talisman choices now. The Green turtle talisman will make a much bigger difference in keeping your stamina topped off than this. After that, Erdtree's favor will give you more stamina, health and equip load. If you aren't using either of those, but want to use this, equip those instead.

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This can be balanced 'differently'

So. A massive payload is mailed to your 30 lbs of Stone.

That Stone does not 'tank' it, it transfers through

I say keep all gaurd boost. Nerf damage negation to fixed ≈91. Stamina lest only be used by Spears.

Same with the other 20+ lb shields. Those maybe ≈93 cause their skill.

Barricade Ash buffed not back to 16 secs, but 9

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Does this do anything

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Did nothing to reduce stamina loss against literal godrick soldiers.
Just a waste of a talisman slot.

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does this apply to weapons guard boost or just shields?

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They can nerf all they want, I will *still* turtle. The more enemies that have Nameless King combos, the more I will want a giant slab of metal or stone between me and them.

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In a world, where Royal Knights Resolve and Vulgar Militia Shotel exist (or even Determination + Shotel at the start of the game, lmao), FromSoft made the decision to nerf the talisman instead of letting the community figure out the dozens of proper counters they designed for shvt like this. Classic, FROM. Just classic.

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People have been saying that it's been nerfed to the ground, the wiki says it's smaller for greatshields with high GB.

Here's my theory

There is a cap after a certain amount of GB where the effect is weaken, im thinking it's constantly active, it's calculating the total GB you have on that sheild, not the base GB of that shield.

It's not "(Sheild × talisman) × barricade"
it's "(Shield × barricade) × talisman)"
So if your sheild manages to reach that GB cap whether on its own or with a buff, the talisman will not have a strong effect because it's calculates the total GB and not the Base GB.

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Does anyone know the formula after 1.04? Curious to know what kind of guard boost you can get on a medium shield with this.

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I keep seeing discussion about this with Fingerprint Shield, but how is it with Medium Shields? Weapons?

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It's nerfed all the way around. I use the brass shield + barricade and prior to the patch brass shield +16 at 65 guard boost + the greatshield talisman would get to 100 GB and no stamina loss. Now no matter what I do now I'm losing big chunks of stamina. The math is 65 x 1.04= 91 x 1.1= 100.1 GB. So no stamina loss. Yet I'm losing big chunks to even regular enemies.

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*laughs in duel wielding* you people are using block?

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*laughs in duel wielding* you people are using block?

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Wish the guard boost increase from this talisman would show up on your shield's stats because before you could just multiply the 10%(1.1) by whatever number your shield's current guard boost is but now IDK. Is it 8%(1.08) now? You know, part of me thinks the fingerprint stone shield going above 100 guard boost with this talisman was a bug and the 10%(1.1) guard boost increase from this talisman still remains. You multiply the 90 guard boost from the fingerprint stone shield by 10%(1.1) and you notice it sits just below 100 guard boost not above.

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Pretty much useless now. Big props to the innumerable crybabies that couldn't be bothered to just work around guarding-oriented PVPers. Shotel/vulgar militia shotel/weapon arts that bypass block/status effects(throwing daggers, pots, bolts/arrows; available to all regardless of their build), etc.etc. The bleed stun-lock nerf was necessary(because even if you're mid dodge-roll and avoid the attack itself, the bleed staggers you out of it and sets you up to get taken down from 100% to 0%). This was not.

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Haligtree shield +Scholars +this = 99.9 stamina block.
Probably better than fingerprint anyway

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Oh ye gods... this combined with a Blood affinity Greatspear (for that poke while guarding) and a maxed out Icon Shield with Shield Crash or Barricade Shield just sounds like a shortcut to winning every encounter

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Instead of nerfing certain great shields like fingerprint that had too much stability they instead nerfed this to ground lmao. Classic Fromsoft

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Why even mention the dragon? Also, it's south-east of the grace.

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The amount of anal anguish in these comments is staggering.
There is no worldstate where anyone should have 100% block with zero stamina drain on hit.
Yall can sit here and be like wahhh fromsoft nerfed my clearly broken and unintentionally strong toy, or you can be an adult and realize that it was clearly broken and unintentionally strong, adapt, and move on.

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Lol so the pvp sweats cried about an item that was easily countered in a game where From Soft has made CLEAR they don't care at all about your stupid invasions (see: pvp gutted), and they nerfed it for PvE. This dev team lacks any form of intelligence when it comes to balancing and literally have since DS1. Remember TWOP + Short Bow? Havel's? Power stance dex or that stupid santier spear? This has always been a problem man. Y'all need to balance **** to have different uses for pvp or only be effective when fighting hostile players or something because it's getting old.

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It got a considerable nerf, but is still worth using on the fingerprint shield, the bonus isn't negligible.

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Nerfed to the ground (very professional work of the balance team as always)
https://imgur.com/a/tCULOee

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After patch 1.04, this no longer negates stamina loss with the fingerprint greatshield :(

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It's dead with 1.04 patch.

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New patch changed this talisman. Would be interested to know what it did.

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Does this Talisman even work when blocking with a weapon? I didn't use it at all on weapons during patch 1.03, but it definitely had an effect for shields, I'm not seeing any stamina decrease at all when blocking attacks with the Guts Greatsword (I wanted to test the new guard effectiveness buff for 1.04).

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+5 now ? Not worth a slot anymore. Better options.

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Does anyone know how much the talisman was nerfed?

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Did the recent patch break this talisman?

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This just got nerfed pretty heavily. Pre-patch Fingerprint + this = 100 guard boost. Now it's somewhere between 95-99, but not 100.

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As of todays patch
Using fingerprint stone shield+25 with greatshield talisman, blocking takes your stamina (Tried on godfrey). So guardboost doesn’t go past 100 anymore I think

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RIP as of patch 1.04

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They killed the Greatshield PvE Meta.. We Cant have sh*t anymore

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Since 1.04 not worth with +25 Fingerprint Stone Shield.
Till 1.03 you had no stamina loss whatsoever when blocking with a +25 Fingerprint Stone Shield (90 Guard boost) and this Talisman.
This changed with 1.04.
After a few tests with multiple enemies, the bonus this offers for a GB90 Shield now is next to zero. Definitely not worth the slot.
A GB76 Shield + this Talisman is also significantly worse than a GB90 Shield without the Talisman. (It was always worse, but not this noticeably.)

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Patch 1.04 says:
"Decreased the effect of Greatshield Talisman for weapons with high block rate."

However the data files in the game indicate that the talisman no longer has any effect for any weapons or shields whatsoever. Might be completely useless now.

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As of 1.04 this is now basically obsolete. The only real reason for sacrificing an entire talisman slot for this was to enable ultimate turtle mode in combination with the Fingerprint Stone shield. That no longer works, so this talisman is mostly useless now, GG.

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With a good greatshield this is practically god mode in PVE, especially when paired with a thrusting weapon. Only grabs can do **** against you. How could Fromsoft not have predicted how bullshit this would be?

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In my testing, the +25 finger print shield at 90 guard is able to get past the 100 guard for not taking stamina when blocking. Implying it's shield guard * 1.1 recursive. However, on a shield with base 60 guard, it blocks a little more than a shield with base 66, and a little less than a shield with 67 guard. So yeah, most likely base guard * 1.1111111111111

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Does this work on weapons guardboosts? I cant see a change in stats on the status screen

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Does this function on small/medium shields at all? Eyeballing it I don't really notice a difference between my max upgraded brass shield (69 boost) with or without this.

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Everyone talks about putting this on their shield but I use it to block on my two handed epee. Two handing also boost the invisible stability stat.

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Hmm idk, but for a medium shield like brass shield i think getting 70+ guard boost is fairly decent for a faith caster/tank build I'm rolling. I keep melee to a minimum with bosses and usually blast through them with incantations and ashes and tank any hits that get through but I've noticed like recently the double crucible boss fight this helped me out with taking hits and not getting my stamina broke through. Perhaps not a long term useful talisman but definitely has its moments i enjoy/need it.

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fingerprint shield +25 60 endurance this talisman turtle shield on my back and turtle talisman, stand in required doorway while invading, doxxed 4 time so far, im going for the world record

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Actually it's found south of the erdtree-gazing hill in the solders camp site in the black chest

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This talisman, as the name suggests, is best paired with greatshields that have high guard boost (e.g. the Fingerprint Stone Shield) as it will push them to either 100 guard boost (eliminating all stamina consumption) or near it. Using this on smaller shields will yield a low advantage.

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Good talisman... But i'd say not worthy of a Talisman Slot honestly ( Having something like Turtle Neck Talisman for +17% Stamina Regen is massively better than this.... Of course with other useful Manditory Talismans like Radagon's Soreseal etc. ). Now if you compare this Talisman which is roughly from +10% upto +12% Guard Boost... Barricade Shield Ashe of War gives 35 Guard Boost which is Massive compared to this Talisman which normally the Flat Values are from 1-10 maybe ( 35 Guard Boost is better than 10 Guardboost specialy a Talisman Slot is used ). However , this Talisman only gets Worthy when you have a big Massive Greatshield with atleast 82+ Guard Boost in which saves up your Ashe of War slot from your used Shield. ( Basically Greatshield Talisman is not worth Talisman Slots if your using Small or Medium Shields... Stick with the awsome Barricade Shield which is a Must Ashe of War Skill in Elden Ring and the Journey ahead ).

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"This talisman multiplies your 'Guard boost' rating by 1.1, reducing the amount of stamina that is lost when you block attacks."

I had a question of whether that multiplier is applied to the BASE guard boost of the shield or applied to the LEVELED guard boost. But I guess it wouldn't matter that much with the rounding:

Current stats:
1.) Applied to BASE: 61 + (59 * 0.1) = 66.9 guard boost rounded to 67
2.) Applied to CURRENT: 61 + (61 * 0.1) = 67.1 guard boost round to 67

Icon Shield+5. Base boost: 59, +5 leveled boost: 61

Max Stats:
1.) Applied to BASE: 64 + (59 * 0.1) = 69.9 guard boost rounded to 70
2.) Applied to CURRENT: 64 + (64 * 0.1) = 70.4 guard boost round to 70

Icon Shield+10. Base boost: 59, +10 leveled boost: 64

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FYI as of 1.03.2 this + Finger GShield +25 is 99 Guard Boost.

You're pretty much regaining stamina while blocking than you're losing (1%)!

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10%. According to the regulation.bin file viewed in Yapped, the bonus on this talisman is 10%.

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The guard boost it gives to shields may not be a fixed value but based on small/medium/great shields and maybe also by percentage.
Many ppl said +10 boost but I have no stamina consumption when using this talisman with my Fingerprint stone shield +20 (89 GB).

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Does this work on weapons also? can i two-hand a weapon with this talisman and get a stability/damage reduction boost on that too? obviously not 100% physical reduction but enough to warrant a more comfortable use of two-handed guard counters?

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Can confirm with +25 Fingerprint shield and this I take no stamina damage from anything in the game. Including Fire Gaint.

You want to be the Great Wall of Havel? Mandatory. Suck at dodging? Get this and a great shield.

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Just tested this on a +9 visage shield w/81 boost and it doesn't entirely negate stamina loss like the fingerprint shield does. I'll test at +10, but I doubt it'll work because it's only 1 point difference (82).

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Brass Shield +3 (57 GB) + Greatshield talisman + Barricade = Tiny stamina cost block
Brass Shield +5 (58 GB) + Greatshield talisman + Barricade = No stamina cost block
Someone else infer what percentage the talisman gives.

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I think the talisman gives a different amount of guard boost depending on whether you are using a greatshield or a normal shield. On a partially upgrade brass shield I had 59 guard boost and +35 from the barricade shield weapon art. I put on this talisman and was losing slivers of stamina from blocking massive hits. I upgraded the shield to get a base 60 guard boost and lost no stamina from blocking with the talisman and weapon art combo. This means it was adding a flat +5 guard boost to my medium shield. Other comments have been saying it adds +10 guard boost to there shields, but seem to be testing it with greatshields mostly. It appears to give +5 guard boost with normal shields and +10 with greatshields.

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There's easier way to get this talisman. Just simply go to Altus Highway Junction then head west till you see a bandit camp with two black carriages. That's where the talisman will be at. The wiki information is noob...

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I don't think this talisman increases a flat amount of guard boost, but a % amount. With brass shield and barricade, I stop losing stamina at 58 base guard boost. But other post said that at 90 base guard boost (Fingerprint Stone Shield +25) the talisman was enough to not lose stamina. So, it looks like something a bit more than 10% increase.

Also, Scholar's Shield sorcery made my shield stop losing stamina before 58 guard boost. I don't have the necessary shields to confirm (between 50 and 55 guard boost), but I would guess it enhances the guard boost by 15 points flat or around 15%. If someone has tested, please reply here

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This boosts your guard ability on your shield, but isn't reflected anywhere on your stats. When attacked the amount of stamina it takes to block damage is based on guard ability.

For sword and shield users, this is a big deal, and having this talisman on/off is very noticeable.

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It DOES NOT add a flat 10 guard boost. Tested on an unupgraded brass shield (56) with barricade shield activated (+35), still drains stamina when guarding enemy attacks.

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whats the difference between the dragon greatsheild talisman vs this one?

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Does this stack with barricade shield in a medium shield?

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