Shield simply not working

[Xenos]

Having an issue where occasionally, despite being held up to block before an attack has occurred, enemies will inexplicably bypass my shield and damage me directly without any stamina cost.

This is not an issue of the slight delay between input and block frames beginning. Some attacks seem to innately dead-angle me for no discernable reason even 8f the shield has been up for several seconds and the input is not released.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[Xenos]

I'll get footage when I find time, but half the problem is that its inconsistent, which is what makes it annoying.

[Clail]

Going off of previous games, some attacks, particularly some from bosses are literally unblockable and must be dodged.

I've been using a shield since the game launched and have had no issues blocking.

[Xenos]

I highly doubt a Godrick Shield Knight's spear is an unblockable doomsday attack

And to my knowledge, actually, EVERY attack in the entire Spuls series is blockable, but many just use too much stamina and force a guard break into death.

Like I've said four times now, no stamina is being used, I'm just being hit through my block.

[Malecite]

There is an issue with input lag.

I've noticed the same behaviour with parry, there seems to occasionally be a delay with when you press the button and the physical shield going up.

I've noticed to guarantee I don't get hit I have to have shield fully up before the attack starts.

It was pissing me off to the point where I just switched to 2H weapons...

[LinkDead]

I'd only imagine this happens when you aren't locked onto the enemy your fighting

[Xenos]

Perhaps. I'd like to find the root of the problem; I'm running a glass cannon caster so I NEED my shield to do its only job when I get rushed down.

[Xenos]

I've FINALLY discovered the cause of the problem: Its the sneak button.

For some unfathomable reason, Fromsoft coded their game so that pressing in the left stick to sneak TEMPORARILY overrides the held guard input, causing you to drop your shield for a split second, before the game realizes you're still holding the guard button, and thus in that same split second, takes you BACK out of sneak and into guard again, causing about a 0.5 second gap where you aren't guarding at all, but your animation barely changes.

Meaning, if you're like me, and tend to grip the controller harder in tense situations, there's a VERY high chance that when you physically "brace yourself" for an attack to connect, you press the trigger in, causing your guard frames to instantly vanish and resulting in you getting hit for max damage, but it happens too fast for you to see the sneaking animation of your character ducking down trigger.

I discovered it while fighting a whole bunch of fat mushroom-covered enemies in a dungeon, since they had absolutely relentless combos and did a lot of damage, I was constantly on-edge and it felt like every other attack was dead-angling me since I was so tense. Once I made a conscious effort to keep my left thumb as slack as I possibly could, they suddenly stopped hitting me through my guard.

There could be OTHER causes as well; it wouldn't surprise me with how glitchy the game is, but this seems to be the cause that was plaguing me this whole time.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Some attacks have penetrating status as well. They can just go straight through your shield.

[Leepus]

yea, I hate those birds

[Xenos]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Some attacks have penetrating status as well. They can just go straight through your shield.

Im aware of their existence but I genuinely doubt one of them is "giant fat man in a dungeon with an axe" or "every single big enemy I fight"

The vast, vast majority of true penetrating attacks are PvP only, which I dont participate in at all, like whips.

[jyn]

i'm late to the conversation, but can confirm that block (Banished Knight's Shield +16) doesn't block consistently. i've been farming around 60 levels (level 90 - 150ish) in the catacomb on the north edge of Radahn's arena to simply understand combat at a deeper level. the block mechanic is unreliable and frustrating.

you can block the same way all of the time, but 10-20% of the time hits will make it through your guard inexplicably. i'm not talking about a penetration through your block, i'm talking about you blocking and the game ignoring it, no stam loss, just full HP loss as if you were not blocking.

unless it's intentional for block to "miss" sometimes, i agree that this is a huge negative in fun factor. if it is intentional, ok... but still fun factor takes a major it. ie: why am i carrying around this heavy shield if i cannot rely on it?

sneak has nothing to do with what i'm describing.

[Nibbie]

Originally posted by bohdai:

i'm late to the conversation, but can confirm that block doesn't block consistently. i've been farming around 60 levels (level 90 - 150ish) in the catacomb on the north edge of Radahn's arena to simply understand combat at a deeper level. the block mechanic is unreliable and frustrating.

you can block the same way 80-90% of the time, but 10-20% of the time hits will make it through your guard inexplicably. i'm not talking about a penetration through your block, i'm talking about you blocking and the game ignoring it, no stam loss, just full HP as if you were not blocking.

unless it's intentional for block to "miss" sometimes, i agree that this is a huge negative in fun factor. if it is intentional, ok... but still fun factor takes a major it. ie: why am i carrying around this heavy shield if i cannot rely on it?

sneak has nothing to do with what i'm describing.

You are most likely missing something, perhaps you are standing too close to the enemy, perhaps you aren't facing them properly, or any other number of things. The advice to record a video of this issue applies to you as well, if you want help.

You may also need to make your own thread if this gets locked because of the necro.

[jyn]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

You are most likely missing something, perhaps you are standing too close to the enemy, perhaps you aren't facing them properly, or any other number of things. The advice to record a video of this issue applies to you as well, if you want help.

You may also need to make your own thread if this gets locked because of the necro.

if i'd only been at this for a little, i might agree. but i've killed hundreds of these mobs, if not thousands at this point. i am in tune with the subtleties of what works and what doesn't. and what works is not reliable.

[⛧Vinn⛧]

Now thats a nice necro 👍

[Adam]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.