does anyone upgrade shields?

[(Rúna)]

I havent made a build using shields yet, but am curious if I do, is it worth upgrading them - do resistances improve?

[Ignomyrmex]

I have upgraded a few medium shields of varying weight to +24. As far as I can tell, it increases attack damage and guard stamina usage stat when you upgrade.

[Weedsmell]

if your build uses it absolutley, it improves guard boost
first focus on your weapon tho

[ReBootXD]

I upgrade shields, not because I expect it to make a difference, but because I be rollin in smithing stones.

I think upgrading only affects attack power and guard/stability, not resistances, but I’m not entirely sure.

[Chris1]

Upgrading shields can also reduce the stamina used per block, which can make a huge difference between +0 and +24/+10. If you use a shield constantly as part of your build, chances are it will be worth it to upgrade it.

[HPLaserjetWirelessPrinter]

Definitely

[(Rúna)]

Less stamina use with upgraded sheilds sounds very useful, especially if do you the whole parry and crit-hit playstyle.

sorry, im a bit confused though. Is guard / stability the same as stamina usage? What is guard counter? Is that the same also

[Sonnenbank]

yepp its worth it.
the more you upgrade shield the less stamina you lose per block

[Detective Costeau]

Yep.

it's not as good as upgrading them in the older games used to be- I miss DS2's shield upgrades actually improving the damage absorption- but if you're going to use a shield extensively they're absolutely worth upgrading. A couple of points of Guard Boost might look small, but it really does make a noticeable difference at higher levels.

But, as has been said already, it's lower priority than your main weapon.

EDIT- Guard Boost (people will call it Stability because that's what it was called in the Souls games) reduces the stamina used when you block attacks.
Guard Counter is the special heavy attack you can do right after blocking.

[Tom]

Originally posted by (Rúna):

Less stamina use with upgraded sheilds sounds very useful, especially if do you the whole parry and crit-hit playstyle.

sorry, im a bit confused though. Is guard / stability the same as stamina usage? What is guard counter? Is that the same also

Guard boost is a percentage reduction in stamina used when blocking an attack, different attacks deal different amounts of stamina damage. If an attack does 100 stamina damage and you have guard boost of 30 thats 30% of 100 or 70 stamina used.

Guard counter is a special attack that can be performed after blocking an attack. Shortly after you block an attack press heavy attack to do a guard counter, its much faster than a heavy attack and does poise damage comparable to a fully charged heavy. If you're using M&K I would recommend binding heavy attack to your keyboard so you can access it without worrying about tapping shift while your right click is held down and accidentally using a skill.

Also to note is shield hardness. There's multiple tiers of it and it determines if an attack bounces, greatshields are tier 3 and the barricade shield war ash is tier 4.

[IchigoMait]

Yes well duh you should, better defense stats, better guard boost (less stamina loss) (the guardboost is only upgraded if you don't use an elemental type on it, otherwise it will default to base value), more damage. Stone Shield with the "constantly ramming" ash, you can kill any player character sized humanoids or smaller npcs without ever giving them the chance to do anything besides getting knocked over. Or use Moore's Shield called Verdigris Greatshield, which has a unique variant of the charge.
Or you can alter stone shield defense to be immune to fire dmg, or make it holy or magic orientated, so you can basically reduce most of Radahn's dmg in DLC, like the Holy Blast he does, becomes nothing as long as your shield is up.

Also you have the guard counter usage, it's useful against all enemy variants who are like stone, they're so slow with their attacks so it's pretty safe to use guard counter against them and stagger 'em, compared to using charged r2. Crucible Knights became basically a joke after I started using Guard Counters, before I was just blocking and doing charged attacks or just r1's but that doesn't work very well against them.
Depends though what weapon you're using.

[Fineous🔥]

Yes? Just the better guard boost alone makes upgrading the shields a no brainer and also you can imbue them (not all of course....) with whatever elements it suits you more to have elemental negation.

We also have the mortar and flamethrower (Visage and One-Eyed) shields to upgrade their ashes of war and do more damage.

[Nifty]

Yep, speaking for pvp either the brass doritto with barricade shield ash or a great shield with sufficient talisman stacking is very viable.

I went on a tear through pvp in like 30 games till 4 am last night and most were wins.

I was the only shield user in all 30 games but I know how to make it work competitively.

Like don't get me wrong there are easier ways to play Elden Ring against humans...but shield crashing straight through Rakasha's L2 spam is big MLG energy