Talk:Crystal Shield/@comment-6020897-20130120124408/@comment-1687225-20130120130931

the crystal shield is misleading. Most shields suffer a significant durability reduction when upgraded down the crystal path; the crystal shield only appears to have more durability because it's already named the crystal shield and cannot be upgraded down any path.

As far as I can tell the dark souls community reserves the crystal path for special occasions (and on powerful, but fairly easy to obtain weapons) in PvP.