This Dragon Shield is effectively available the moment you gain entrance into the Great Western Sea, because you can find a Dragon Skin in a chest in SW Atteka Islet, which can be forged into this shield at Yallam. At that point, it is a strong and practical shield for a warrior Adept to hold because of a high defense rating and some resistances, but being a forgeable item it is often missed by players because they would get one of the other items that can be forged from Dragon Skin. By the end of The Lost Age, this Dragon Shield is ultimately inferior to what should be considered the best shield in the game, the Cosmos Shield which can be forged from an Orihalcon, because it has a defense rating of 49 and increases all of an Adept's resistances by 20.