At what point in your Souls career did you stop using shields?

[Greywander]

I have a theory based on my own experiences, and I was wondering how well it tracked with other peoples' experiences.

DS1 was my first Souls game, and on my first playthrough I relied heavily on using shields to block. However, I almost never use shields as intended anymore, and my theory is that this is largely down to design differences between DS1 and DS2.

In DS1, every class started with a shield, and shields with 100% physical block were easy to get. The game basically taught you to use shields as a standard tactic, and it was pretty effective. A good shield would carry you through the whole game. The game's slower pace compared to later titles also made it easier to time your blocks and manage stamina.

In DS2, none of the classes started with a shield, and shields with 100% physical block were much harder to find. You were basically left with no choice but to learn how to dodge, and by the time you actually found a decent shield you were already used to relying on nothing but dodging. With high Agility/ADP, your regular rolls were also competitive with DS1's ninjaflip and only slightly behind DS3's Quickstep, which was a major improvement over DS1's rolls without needing to use a ring slot or other enhancement.

So by the end of DS2 we'd all gotten used to ignoring using shields and just rolling through every attack, and then we carried that into DS3 and ER. How does that compare with your experience through the Souls games?

I'm not saying I've never used a shield since DS1, but I am saying that after DS1 it stopped being the default and is now deliberate build choice. And most my builds don't include a shield.

[Fedsmoker]

Right away from day one I didn't bother, preferred to light roll before the late game buffs to it even. Still now more than 1k hours split between pve and pvp I only ever use shields for their passive resists or stamina boosts. If i were to make a counter attack/riposte style build I would still rather block with the Ultra Great sword than a shield.

There was a time where you could build specifically for shields, either the Fingerprint or Spiked Palisade and really troll players with madness or blood buildups especially at lower levels but I believe both of those are nerfed big time now compared to how they were first 6 months of game.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Never used shields in DS 2 or 3. Didn't play much DS1. Only started using them in ER because they got massively buffed from DS and I started with nothing but a shield and a club so I figured I may as well try it. Stopped again partway through, maybe like level 60 or something.

[Deruvia]

I never stopped, but the speed and large stamina drain in DS3 made me heavily dependent on rolls. DS2 made me give up on parrying for a first playthrough, though I have been parrying more on 3's subsequent runs.

I think they're good training wheels for figuring out the hit timings, and it wasn't until Sif that DS1 said "Okay, shields aren't always the answer" with the 720 spin attack.

[Alby]

probably after beating DS1 when i went through the game 2 handing the bass canon. ever since the only shields i use are for the buffs or to parry (small shields)

[SnakeshyperTTV/Kick]

Since I first started with Elden RIng.

[impuretrash2878]

I've never really used shields in PVP and that dates back to the original unremastered Dark Souls. That's because I've always tried to create pvp characters similar to what you'd see in a fighting game like Mortal Kombat, with magic in their offhand as the "special moves".

PVE is another matter entirely. I do plan to take my weird shield-less PVP build into the actual game when the DLC comes out. A few weeks ago, I absolutely trounced Tiche in her evergaol playing as if I was in a pvp duel. She always gave me a lot of trouble before.

[Senki]

i always use shields in the early game but drop them afterwards

the only game where i didnt bother with shield at all is DS3

[1100011]

Can't really remember, but what completely changed my playstyle was Bloodborne. Fighting O&S using dodging and agression (used the Fury Sword) felt like a completely different (and better) boss fight. Then again, coming back from Sekiro changed Ludwig from a formidable boss to an endangered species :).

[Fahrenheit]

Since DS3. I was afraid of losing my health all the time, until invaders taught me that it was do or die. Now I don't even touch a single shield

[iriyap]

"Blocking is for noobs" is a bit of a meme and gets people absolutely slaughtered when they try some other souls-like games like Nioh (you need to BOTH block and dodge in that game, you can't just stick with one or the other).

But yeah, just do what makes sense. Blocking and parrying are very OP in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1, so going shieldless is discarding a lot of options for no good reason, I usually at least carry the Grass Crest Shield. In Dark Souls 2, powerstancing is OP, so going shieldless is probably better, but blocking is still very viable. Dark Souls 3 is all about timing dodges, and shields have been nerfed massively and aren't very useful outside of dedicated blocking builds (and yes, those can be very viable still, look up videos of people taking down Slave Knight Gael with Yhorm's Greatshield). Also, Black Knight Shield + straight sword (or another 1h weapon of your choice) is a good combo that doesn't require a lot of stat investment. However, 90% of my builds were shieldless and just used a caestus for parrying.

Elden Ring has guard counters and OP parry skills, so shields are more viable again, although in both of my playthroughs I eventually stopped using shields about half-way through, as powerstancing 2 weapons or two handing one big weapon gives much higher DPS. I just keep a small shield with Carian Retaliation for parrying annoying enemies like Crucible Knights.

People playing overleveled "builds" with a towershield and a colossal weapon definitely make me scratch my head though. Like, why are you one handing a colossal weapon, just take it in two hands and it will stunlock everything and poise break bosses in 3 hits.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by iriyap:

"Blocking is for noobs" is a bit of a meme and gets people absolutely slaughtered when they try some other souls-like games like Nioh (you need to BOTH block and dodge in that game, you can't just stick with one or the other).

But yeah, just do what makes sense. Blocking and parrying are very OP in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1, so going shieldless is discarding a lot of options for no good reason, I usually at least carry the Grass Crest Shield. In Dark Souls 2, powerstancing is OP, so going shieldless is probably better, but blocking is still very viable. Dark Souls 3 is all about timing dodges, and shields have been nerfed massively and aren't very useful outside of dedicated blocking builds (and yes, those can be very viable still, look up videos of people taking down Slave Knight Gael with Yhorm's Greatshield). Also, Black Knight Shield + straight sword (or another 1h weapon of your choice) is a good combo that doesn't require a lot of stat investment. However, 90% of my builds were shieldless and just used a caestus for parrying.

Elden Ring has guard counters and OP parry skills, so shields are more viable again, although in both of my playthroughs I eventually stopped using shields about half-way through, as powerstancing 2 weapons or two handing one big weapon gives much higher DPS. I just keep a small shield with Carian Retaliation for parrying annoying enemies like Crucible Knights.

People playing overleveled "builds" with a towershield and a colossal weapon definitely make me scratch my head though. Like, why are you one handing a colossal weapon, just take it in two hands and it will stunlock everything and poise break bosses in 3 hits.

"Blocking is for noobs" is accurate. In DS2 & DS3 rolling is better so you should just learn to time dodges, and in ER blocking is overpowered defensively, so it's for noobs who are bad at rolling to crutch on.

[Maanestraale]

Just something to think about coming from a From a DS vet (I have around 5000 hours in these games over the last 10 years), there was a comment on the longsword that I can't remember 100%, but the same comment can be said about shields. It was something like this: ''New players pick it up, experienced players drop it, veterans comes back to it''.

Shields have advantages over rolling sometimes. You can play more aggressively as blocking comes out faster than dodging, in addition to less downtime as you dont loose the time of the roll. This ofcourse does not mean you should block all attacks, only the ones you know wont deplete alot of stamina. This counts for both PVE and PVP, less so for PVP in ER after the nerfs, but in DS3 Sword and board was really strong in PVP aswell.

An example, In ER shields are very strong if you level up mind abit and play the ''L2/AOW'' game with the NoSkill Ash on the shield. This is very strong in NG+7 and beyond as you really can not be hit.

Had to be said, so many comments here that are just plain wrong, and no, I dont need a shield myself, just dont assume a shield user is a new/bad player always :)

[Ted]

I played them all in the wrong order as this game is what made me want to go back and try the other games. But I tend to be more of a melee/dex type player and I tend to constantly keep a shield if it has passive buffs like Grass Crest in DS1, or a basic buckler for parry.

But generally with strength I stop once I have a weapon that can destroy most enemies two hand and bosses that cant be parried/blocked.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Maanestraale:

Just something to think about coming from a From a DS vet (I have around 5000 hours in these games over the last 10 years), there was a comment on the longsword that I can't remember 100%, but the same comment can be said about shields. It was something like this: ''New players pick it up, experienced players drop it, veterans comes back to it''.

Shields have advantages over rolling sometimes. You can play more aggressively as blocking comes out faster than dodging, in addition to less downtime as you dont loose the time of the roll. This ofcourse does not mean you should block all attacks, only the ones you know wont deplete alot of stamina. This counts for both PVE and PVP, less so for PVP in ER after the nerfs, but in DS3 Sword and board was really strong in PVP aswell.

An example, In ER shields are very strong if you level up mind abit and play the ''L2/AOW'' game with the NoSkill Ash on the shield. This is very strong in NG+7 and beyond as you really can not be hit.

Had to be said, so many comments here that are just plain wrong, and no, I dont need a shield myself, just dont assume a shield user is a new/bad player always :)

Shields do not block faster than rolls, rolling literally comes out frame 1. The advantages of shields are that you can hold block as a backup if you mess up the roll, and they have guard counters which are really overpowered in certain situations. They aren't allowing you to be faster or more aggressive.

[Maanestraale]

Hmm to be fair, I am not 100% sure if this was changed in ER post DS3, but I doubt it.

If you dueled with shield in ds3 and rolled backwards once and before you could get your second roll in you would be roll catched if your oponent was going for it. But if you rolled once, then instantly blocked out of the roll you would avoid that rollcatch. Maybe it was bad wording from my end, I ment the invinsibility frame more then the actual roll.

Guard counters are not really better than say, ''Stand off'' or ''Giant Hunt'' for bosses post a block.