Uhm, yeah, I had the faint suspicion the Red Mother is different from a Rockslide, thanks for making that clear.
Point being, shields are not a feature in the game, they are additions; the entire game is roll-on-queue in my perspective. Sinking 20 points into a skill should yield expected results, but things are what they are. I shall leave it at that. It is my perspective.
Prompted by your comments I spawned a decent shield, Ymir’s Targe, and blocked Red Mother’s breath every time, as I did block all her swings. Not level 60 yet, do not have shield Master, 59 on a new run so…
You can lock onto enemies and circle around them. The epic version of Freya’s sword is pretty good too, and it can be repaired at a blacksmith bench without losing durability.
I’ve used a shield for years until i recently switched to a katana. Never had any issues with it, made fighting much easier. You have to act fast with it, though. The enemy starts a new attack quicker when you block than when he just misses the combo while you dodge.
Most folk seem to think otherwise. I have 5k hours of gameplay (noob) and been trying hard to make the shield work, only to ditch it every time, this being a dodge-on-queue game. You must play a lot better than I, because my survivability and success have been hampered by a shield when compared to it under the dodge doctrine.
It was there from the beginning, so you can call it option.
Try to defeat in this 59 lvl the giant snake or rockslide or the Rotbranch with dodging, please!
If you succeed start this …
I have some time to go there with shield, thanks a million for the feedback. I have a specific Tango with this lady sometime now and i always enjoy it .
This argument has grown stale. You go on with your challenges, I know now what I know: put the shield away. Ya know, for someone who creates ridiculous challenges, it astounds me you did not know the Red Mother’s breath could be blocked by a shield.
Anyway, I shall leave you with your precious last word, I’m discreetly walking towards the exit door as we speak.
P.S. If you cannot recognize a metaphor when you see it, that’s on you. Very well, I shall be literal: not additions, or an afterthought, but options.
It wasn’t always . But i believe that i already thank you for this, didn’t i?
You know my friend @Boulderkin in this game nobody knows everything, even devs .
I thought it was a friendly conversation, why people love to argue on things they don’t own and neither will ever possess.
From my side it’s always a friendly conversation between burned players. But i will accept my mistake, since you felt argument i must said something wrong.
@SpherisCore created an astounding challenge, i enjoy it pretty much. You should give it a try, it’s really educational, i learned a lot while doing it.
The shield is very quirky in this game. You can’t depend on it because sometimes it doesn’t even come up at the right time.
You can use it to stagger the enemy and then counter. That’s basically it. You need to know the moveset of the npc so you know which attacks are not blocked by the shield (i.e. special move of the greatsword).
In early game PVE it’s useful if you want to cheese more powerful enemies safely to get armor or weapons while your level is low. Late game, you’ll do better without it.
Yes, if you maximize Grit. But early game you won’t have that perk. That’s when the shield is more useful. Late game, you’ll trade it for dodge easily. Early game, a hiccup dodging and you are toast against a simple zerker. Late game, even if it happens, you can run circles around him. The shield helps when you are risking taking down targets above your paygrade. You can dodge, but the shield is safer in those circumstances. You can easily beat the Arena Champion very early with a shield as long as you recognize the mace heavy opening (that you won’t be able to block and is a death sentence when you are bellow lvl 40 or so).
A more realistic use is taking a stone weapon and a pair of wood shields right when you come out of the desert and farm the Hanuman’s Grotto until you land some silent legion gear and the legendary pike. If the pike doesn’t drop, there’s always an exile in those fires that is bound to drop a falcata. It’s steel, it will do. Then you breeze through the Darfari and the Dregs. You’ll get a few legendary weapons there ( 2 if you didn’t get a skeleton key before going in). Then, straight to the mounds, to kill the “lone berserker on the lake” and get epic heavy armor. After that, you are basically set to do whatever you want. There"s nothing you can’t beat on PVE if you have such kit.
It’s actually Grit, but the general consensus is to put away your shield. Just get the Dragonscale Helm and forget about temperature; food alone will get you through just wearing that helmet.
Myself, I take it easy, exploring, sweeping zone by zone. I, and most of us, knew the drill: Falcata, hardened steel whatever, starmetal. But that’s only if you want to forgo most of the game, heh, that recipe is for a short, inocuous run, if you ask me.
Translation: You want shields to be an instant, “I Win” button, so you can stand in one spot like a rock outcropping while the whole world whizzes past you with zero consequences.
Shields have their place with plenty of value in plenty of circumstances, something that multiple people, including yourself, have given examples of. What shields are not, is they are not an opportunity to stand there like a bump on a log without ever needing to dodge.
There’s no such thing as WoW-style tanking in this game, but shields still have plenty of value and utility in multiple situations.
I use them mainly for environmental reasons, as some shields offer resistance to cold/heat. There are some shields, that inflict bleeding on enemy, if enemy tries to hit you through it, but it’s just 1 instance of bleeding, so not very useful, and shield breaks quickly from it as well.
Purpose of shield during combat is protection from ranged attacks, such as arrows, as many melee attacks bypass shield(have “shieldbreaker” property or just can’t be blocked).
Which is legendary item, that you need to find, and you may find other helmets more useful. While shield can be equipped to withstand elements and then put away without opening inventory.
Some thralls survived purge due to having shield, as they are somewhat better at blocking attacks, than players.
On the Grit tree there is steel thewed. A very useful perk, but doesn’t do anything for your shield. It just avoids you from taking more dmg than 1/3 of your HP. It means you can always take 3 hits from enemies that could otherwise one or two shoot you. That’s a rather situational perk unless you are going in over your head. Very useful early on, not so much when you are fully developed. However, the stamina system was reworked again, so we might see more builds going for grit/agi. I haven’t tested it yet.
As long as you have spicy food and ice, you can be naked everywhere on this game. Temperature is not much of an issue but both solspeil (for cold) and mistmourn (for heat) can be useful if you don’t mind having one hand taken. However, keep in mind that to climb/hold you will automatically put your shield away. That might be a problem if you see yourself in need to grab on to something and your armor doesn’t provide temperature protection. If the climb ends up being long enough because you slipped more than you antecipated, you might find yourself in deep shit.
PS- thralls SUCK with shields, unless this was solved (I doubt it). NEVER EVER give a shield to your thralls.
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