How good are the shields?

[Valefor]

Never really been a shield guy, how useful are they in this game?

Any sword and shield users care to comment how it feels to use both?

Viable "Mech Souls" playthrough?

[Donoghu]

In the Armored Core series, the shields has always been the most misunderstood aspect of it. Truth is, even in AC6, the shields remains OP for many reasons, but those reason are really situational. After all, the series has always been about adapting your AC to your mission/situation and while there are always good "general" build that can cover most situations more or less, any shield has almost always been about being specialized against a specific kind/type of target.

While I can't tell about the very first 2 ACs on Playstation since AC2 the shields has always been extremely useful for 3 things:

1) Reducing the repair cost of your AC mech.

This is not well understood by many, including veterans who never seen/tested the value of the shields or didn't need it. In AC, the repair cost is based on how much AP (your health) remains versus how much your AC has overall and then it's compared to the total value of you AC mech, then depending on which game, a % of that value remains as a repair cost. (The bullets are not counted yet.) The shield is the exception of that because their repair cost is evaluated based on the shield cost.

So, if your shield blocked 60% of all the energy damage your received and represents 5% of your AC value, then that means that you'll pay 32% of the repair costs that, without that shield, you would have to pay otherwise. (This also greatly help in maintaining a high score/rank at the end of any mission.)

2) Shields has the highest DEF rate in the game against specific type of damages.

The thing about damages blocked by a shield is that they reduced by the DEF value of said shield and what's not blocked is defended by the AC mech's DEF value.

As such, let's say that the shield is strong against explosion and kinetic. If you get hit from the front by a large shell shot from a cannon type (the powerful slow-reloading or low-mobility types), that shield will eat almost 90% of the damage into its own AP with a DEF value that is equivalent to the highest AC part in the game, but at a fraction of requirements. The remaining 10% will "bleed" through the shield and hit the AC's AP, but that 10% will also get deducted by the AC's kinetic/explosive DEF if applicable.

(Back before AC4, there was also the heat absorption rate, but that's gone now.)

With that said, if that same shield if hit by a laser weapon that deals Energy damages, you'll see an effect called "shield melting" where the shield AP gets dropped fast and doesn't seem to block much. That's the weakness of the shield: their opposite on the Rock (kinetic) - Paper (Energy) - Scissors (Explosive) layout. There are no shield that offer good DEF against ALL types unless it comes with a massive CON (such as low AP).
The shield usually joggle between low DEF in 1-2 types, low AP, heavy weight, etc. There's not a perfect "good-in-all-situation" shield in any AC with only the exception of unacquirable boss' parts.

3) Shields are lightweight compared to the alternative of setting up the other parts.

Shield are useful if you know what you're fighting against (which is typical in the AC series where you go blind in any mission only once). If you know that 1 specific weapon from a boss gives you trouble, a decent shield against that type of damages can make that boss a breeze in comparison.

Also, if you're piloting a light mech, they usually have no DEF in 2 type of the 3 main damages types. Using a shield can make it easily so that you're only weak against 1 instead of 2 types of damages if at all.

For example, an high Energy def light & agile Mech with a kinetic + explosion DEF shield can survive a surprising amount of beating against lots of stuff thrown against it until its shield gives up.

[Dex]

I seem to get stunned regardless of using a shield or not, so I figure it's better to just dodge and get more DPS on target instead of actively trying to NOT dodge and take a shot with a shield.

[The Man of Myriad]

Originally posted by Kristacular:

Never really been a shield guy, how useful are they in this game?

Any sword and shield users care to comment how it feels to use both?

Viable "Mech Souls" playthrough?

46 hours on me atm, plus currently at the final boss.
I'll tell ya, all the shields despite my rigorous testing and gameplay with them, are utterly useless. The shields we get and the shields an AI will use are entirely different in functionality.

Our's is more of a "Just Guard" (which wont guard anything cos 60% of the damage will bleed through, and cant block a variety of attacks - particularly from bosses)
While the AI Shields are more of a passive reduction to the front.

[Steve]

They're situational at best. Agility remains the preferred mitigation technique.

[Bigboss PC Faster]

Why waste your precious slot for shields when you can just dodge?

[Zogtar]

Originally posted by Bigboss PC Faster:

Why waste your precious slot for shields when you can just dodge?

I'll see you in the arena, Raven.

[Commander Hitman2b]

Originally posted by Kristacular:

Never really been a shield guy, how useful are they in this game?

Any sword and shield users care to comment how it feels to use both?

Viable "Mech Souls" playthrough?

doesn't seem like they are that great i goes throught them like butter with with my shotgun and canon atleast on AI

[Krynis]

shields are very good against either A. against attack you struggle to dodge (missiles) or B. small arms fire from trash enemies such as MTs, in the latter case it will allow you to lower your repair cost and improve your mission rating if you are the type to take lots of small hits.

[kknd]

From my experience, which has been basically only with the first one unlocked? Shields have some really strong nitch uses.

Being able to shield parry (The initial guard window) the Balteus grenade shots saved my bacon a few times, similar to shotgun blasts and even his assault armor. In several arena fights, shields have let me deal with grenades, missile spam or shotgun blasts without issue. (Especially the stagger mitigation helps.) Edit: The Balteus shot especially, most of the damage is in the explosion, which blocking it with the shield negates. I took about 3k if he missed me, and 900 damage if I blocked.

While I am tempted to try for the parry shields (bucklers) and the strongest one is ~99% damage and 96% stagger mitigation that 0.3 second IG window intimidates me.

Another use I've occasionally remembered to do is to cross back through machinegun fire by IGing it while switching directions. A lot of getting work out of a shield seems to be a combination of muscle memory and the right weapon to counter.

Shielding the C-Spider's plasma blasts for example, doesn't help much. In fact, shields biggest problems are energy weapons in general.

[Varivox]

so many of the bosses seem to want to stress a "DPS race" where not everything is able to be dodged. Balteus is a great example, where you can dodge the vast majority of missiles, but not ALL of them. So, the shield taking up a weapon slot is a huge issue imo.

Add in that it is effectively "planning for failure" and it doesn't even block 100% of the damage while it's up... more importantly, it doesn't block all the stagger... you know what does all that though... dodging!

From what very little I saw of it, I just don't see it being worth taking up the slot.

[Sin1328]

Originally posted by Kristacular:

Never really been a shield guy, how useful are they in this game?

Any sword and shield users care to comment how it feels to use both?

Viable "Mech Souls" playthrough?

I tried to like them, they seem sorta useful if you have a good set of weapons in other slots.
But ultimately I prefer going full pew pew.

[Baklavah]

Originally posted by Kristacular:

Never really been a shield guy, how useful are they in this game?

Any sword and shield users care to comment how it feels to use both?

Viable "Mech Souls" playthrough?

Shields are only good if you're not a player. They negate basically everything if you're an AI AC. They're actually pretty difficult to use effectively as a player... but if you go online there's always at least one person who uses them and are unkillable... but it's never you. So... yeah.

[Valefor]

Originally posted by kknd:

Shielding the C-Spider's plasma blasts for example, doesn't help much. In fact, shields biggest problems are energy weapons in general.:raven:

there goes my idea to try shield with tank build against sea spider... I've came close to beating him with a couple different builds and would probably just beat him if I stuck to one for more than a couple attempts (and dodged a bit better). Was hoping the shield would help against his consecutive laser shots as tank tread build has a very long dodge recharge so even if i dodge the first the second usually gets me. You know if he himself is weaker to energy damage over kinetics/explosives?

[Intel]

Originally posted by Kristacular:

Originally posted by kknd:

Shielding the C-Spider's plasma blasts for example, doesn't help much. In fact, shields biggest problems are energy weapons in general.:raven:

there goes my idea to try shield with tank build against sea spider... I've came close to beating him with a couple different builds and would probably just beat him if I stuck to one for more than a couple attempts (and dodged a bit better). Was hoping the shield would help against his consecutive laser shots as tank tread build has a very long dodge recharge so even if i dodge the first the second usually gets me. You know if he himself is weaker to energy damage over kinetics/explosives?

i beat him with purely kinetic build. dual gatlings and dual burst rifles. not the assault rifles either, the high impact burst rifle

[Intel]

My experience, Shield is a sacrifice to better gear, and more than likely, when you need it, it won't help you much anyways. This has been with both OTS shields and the upgrades from the core expansions. I tried both, and neither seemed to work well for me. Maybe there is some mitigation i hardly notice, but my experience is just better off without one.