The problem with shields needs to be addressed.

[GIRL]

Shields are fundamentally flawed in this game. In this post I'll explain how they're flawed, why they're flawed, and give some potential ways to fix them.

First we have to talk about parallel univ- I mean, one-shot protection.

One-shot protection is a mechanic in the game in which, if you're at 100% Health (including your shields), no single attack from any single enemy can deal more than 90% of that combined total. This means if you're at full Health (and shield), even if an enemy's attack was supposed to deal ten times your total Health, you'll only take 90% of it instead and live.

(By the way, I learned this from a Youtuber who's channel is called Woolie. He does a lot of great Risk of Rain 2 content, and I highly recommend him. He's how I even learned about one-shot protection in the first place)

What does one-shot protection have to do with shields? It's simple once you realize it. Shields take a whopping 7 SECONDS to even begin recharging. See where I'm going with this? One-shot protection only works if you're at 100% of your COMBINED Health and shield. Once your run starts nearing 2 hours, a lot of enemies will likely be able to trigger one-shot protection, meaning they would otherwise actually one-shot you.

This is bad if you have any shield, since even if one-shot protection saves your life, you're going to have to wait AT LEAST 7 seconds for your shield to start regenerating. Then you'll have to wait for your shield to fully charge, and only then can one-shot protection save you again. Even if you're at 99.99% of your total Health and shield, an enemy can still instantly kill you. Even though that's more than 90% of your total effective Health.

Normally, by the time you're 2 hours into a run, you'll have enough healing items (namely, Harvester's Scythes boosted by Crit glasses) that even if you get knocked down to 10% Health, you'd be able to heal all of it back almost instantly. If you don't have any shield, this is great, because now one-shot protection will be able to save you again! Have even one shield generator though? All bets are off. You're gonna have to go 7 seconds without taking a single point of damage before you're safe again.

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Point is, shield should be a GOOD thing. I should WANT to pick up shield generators, or the Wake of Vultures, or Transcendence. And it's not like this is Hopoo's fault, nobody probably expected this to be an issue. I didn't until I learned about it much later on. And I'm not saying "Remove one-shot protection", because that would be even worse.

You might think a solution would just be to make one-shot protection work as long as you have 100% Health, regardless of how much shield you have, but then Transcendence would be completely broken. Setting your health to 1, you'd never be able to die, except maybe to fire damage (By the way, this actually works if you set your Health to 1 using enough Shaped Glass, but good luck getting there).

So what can we do to fix this? I know you can just... not pick up shield items, but I don't think the devs intended for any items to be counter-productive. You shouldn't have to stand back from a chest (unless you're in Multiplayer but whatevs) to make sure you don't accidentally pick up an item that actually HINDERS your run rather than helping it.

My solution... I can't really think of a good one, honestly. I think one-shot protection could just work regardless of shield, so long as your HEALTH is at 100%. At least that way one or two shield generators won't get you killed. But unfortunately that would still mean Wake of Vultures and Transcendence would be harmful. Maybe add a legendary item that lets your healing items also restore shield? It would be kind of a weird item to get if you didn't have much shield, but at least there'd be a work-around.

Actually, why not just make that the function of the item "Aegis"? Aegis is a pretty terrible red item, if I'm being honest. Just one or two Golden Brooches essentially give you the same effect late-game. Actually, a Brooch is arguably even better than the Aegis, if you were to have to choose one or the other. That would at least give the Aegis some sort of unique purpose that could be exploited for interesting builds, like Transcendence + Aegis.

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Anyways, let me know what you guys think. I'm sure some people are perfectly okay with there being items that conflict with certain builds/strategies, and I'd like to hear your reasoning if that's the case. Of course I'd also like to see if anyone else has a better solution if they want to fix the shield problem, like I do.

[Boksha]

In all honesty, one-shot protection is bunk anyway. A lot of the attacks you should actually be worried about (Greater Wisp twin bolts, Golem lasers, Overlord nails, Elder Lemurian fireball sprays, any attack from from Blazing or Overloading elites) are technically multiple attacks so will go straight through one-shot protection. If you have even one Aegis or Topaz Brooch, your barrier will likely be higher than your shield anyway, kind of saving the little use one-shot protection has. The max on your barrier is health+shield, so shields don't hurt all that much there. As it is, especially with barriers in place, I feel one-shot protection doesn't really play a big enough role to worry much about shields not regenerating.

Personally, rather than have something weird like artificial "one-shot" protection where the max damage you can take is based on your own health (meaning increasing your health basically does nothing since it'll just increase the damage you'll take), I'd much prefer something that's independent on your health in the first place, like a max damage based on enemy level or difficulty, or just balancing enemies so that it's a non-issue (like reduce their raw damage but increase the speed and/or accuracy with which they attack, letting them properly overwhelm the player rather than randomly one-shot them). That would also fix shields immediately.

[Broadsword]

Yeah, there's a stupid number of attacks that're multi-hit or multi-projectile that will easily one-shot you.

I don't even know why people talk about it, it's kinda like they're aware of this mechanic...

...Yet in practice it doesn't do anything.

[Draygo]

Shields not helping and not being able to be healed, and the fact the one shot mechanic is basically the only way you survive past midgame, all big issues.

[Deathtank]

so topaz brooch yes
shiled generator no

is that it?