Turtle Shield has increased capacity, at a cost of decreasing the user's max health.
Usage & Description[]
Turtle Shields have a higher capacity than other shield types, but also reduces the character's maximum health and have a slower shield recharge rate.
At higher rarity levels, Turtle Shields have greater recharge rates and reduced health penalties.
Notes[]
In Borderlands 2, most variants of the unique Turtle shields will be effectively unusable at higher Overpower levels, as character max health doesn't scale there, whereas the shields' penalties do, causing it to reduce their health to 1. Any damage that gets through the shield will cripple them easily.
Turtle Shields work extremely well with Nisha, as the lesser max health can work well with gaining stacks of Order from taking damage. The high capacity also works well with her Bottled Courage skill, which can instantly regain a percentage of shield capacity when activating Showdown as well as granting a buff to shield recharge rate and delay whilst it is in the process of cooling down.
Turtle Shields are much more effective with Axton, because his Willing, Healthy, and Pressure skills compensate for the recharge delay and health penalties.
Health reduction is calculated before percentage-based health bonuses (e.g. from skills, relics, badass ranks) are added. Thus, even if the character's overall health is higher than the shield's health reduction, it will still be reduced to 1 if their base health is lower.
Variants[]
Borderlands 2[]
Fabled Tortoise - Legendary shield that increases movement speed when depleted.
Hoplite - Seraph shield that increases in capacity bonus and movement speed penalty with each copy in use.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel[]
Fabled Tortoise - Legendary shield that increases movement speed when depleted.
