Shields are an amazing tool to block damage from enemies, but in their current state they’re flawed.
In their current state, when you’re blocking stamina regeneration is negated, and all damage is absorbed at the cost of some durability loss. When an attack is blocked, the enemy is “stunned” but the effect doesn’t last long enough to punish the attacker. There’s also a huge problem vs AI. Blocking an attack with your shield pauses them for a second and they attack straight away. It’s currently impossible to block -> hit -> block you’ll be hit if you try to attack after blocking their attack. Shields are currently just good to heal while blocking forever or in groups to tank the enemy.
Changes are required to make shields more effective while also making them fair.
1 - Stamina should still regenerate while blocking, but at a very slow rate.
2 - Whenever one blocks an attack with a shield, stamina damage should be inflicted on top of durability.
3 - The stagger effect of attacking someone blocking must be increased to punish the attacker.
4 - Shield breaking weapons should stagger the shield user on top of going trough their defenses.
5 - If one blocks an enemy attack, they should be staggered for a longer period of time and not reset and attack straight away.
Bonus point:
6 - Make thralls use shields again! At the moment they are not using them!