Shield builds

[Fox Tail]

Kind feel like playing with sword and board is very ineffective and unrewarding. Most the time you need to block huge combos that drain a lot more stamina than simple dodge rolling would consume, secondly you can't really afford to attack an enemy in their combo like you can if you just dodge roll behind them and slash them, and thirdly most one handed weapons are trash compared too the two handed ones. Seriously the starting iron swords and maces don't do enough dmg to even hurt most enemies in the starting zones and you'll likely run out of stamina before you get your enemy below 50% hp and even 75% in some cases. Overall sword and board just feels unrewarding and overall difficult to actual play and the only real benefit the shield has is blocking projectiles. Idk maybe it could work if you have some kind of ranged attack with the shield like magic or gun but i haven't tried that and i think guns are off-hand only could be wrong never used one yet.

[Kickinchicken]

You can get a fang sword and watch them slowly bleed to death. Is a bit tedious though but perfectly viable for the opening areas

Am hoping there will be better 1H swords when I move to another town

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

depends on your play style mostly, even if the iron sword is weak and you can run out of stamina.

A few hints and tips: as kick said, the fang sword is pretty good but you need to combo them with the Kick skill, the sword skill( you got it) or the the shield charge skill.
And aditionally you can use some potions to buff yourself or even traps or the bow. It's about using 1-2-3 weapons and more tactics until you have all the skills, stats and armors you need.
I prefer to also have a dagger and a pistol that i sometimes use to switch for the shield since some enemies are harder need a different tactic.

Other than that...build your character as you want but remember that you need different gear for different situations
I am using the sword and dagger here, not even the fang sword and don't have most skills...i also didnt practice my hotkeys enough....anyway experiment and have fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqR-Z0UNRVo

[Halfhat]

I'm not sure I can agree. From my experience, shields seem incredibly strong and almost too reliable in the early stages of the game. Personally I think the mace is more usefull than the sword because of its higher damage, impact, and ability to reliably get a brutal club in the first area.

But there is a key difference between fighting. You have to go into it knowing how the shield works. In other words, you have to know that attacks with a blast radius cannot be blocked by the shield and must be dodged. All other attacks can be blocked. The key way to fighting with this build is therefore observation. You need to tell when an enemy is going to attack and what the combo pattern they are using looks like. Once you do this, you can simply press your right mouse key to block the attack at the last second to save your stamina. You can also always hold up your shield for longer periods of time at the begining of a fight to scout out your opponent's attack patterns. In this case, watch the guard of an enemy (if it's an enemy that guards) and look for when the enemy is guarding and when it is not. If the enemy is guarding, drop yours to save and replinish stamina until you are ready to exchange blows.

I will say one of the biggest problems with the class is that it takes up two hot bar keys to switch weapons. This is a little annoying as it means using something like a bow to attract the attention of a single enemy require 3 hot bar keys, 1 for thee bow and 2 for your weapon and shield. I do recomend this however. Its important to note that a shield doesn't make you a tank that can deal with a hoard of enemies. You should still be attempting to only take one on one fights and using a bow to attract enemies into a duel makes things much easier.

This need for a bow can later become lessened if you decide to breakthrough as a spell blade... and by later I mean once you've earned the large sum of money you need to buy the skills. You can learn "cool" spell from the watchers to give yourself the cool boon. With spell blade you then get options of a skill that allows you to actually fire a bolt of ice magic from your weapon or you can use "Gong strike" which is a good out if you do find yourself in a position fighting more than one foe.

[Dudeskio]

I have gone mace/shield Spellsword combo, and it's working out incredibly well for me. I can currently butcher just about anything I come across between Cierzo, Enmerkar Forest, and the desert ( I live in the desert now, I love it ).

I open with either my fire sword projectile spell or flamethrower, depending on the toughness of the opponent. I finish anything off with a flame enchanted golden lich mace and the Mercenary elemental shield block/explosion.

It was kind of tough going in the beginning, but once you get a good weapon/shield, it turns into something great.

[Racoona]

I'm using tower shield. I didn't find a better shield yet, but I'm okay with the tower shield for now. I think it's pretty strong to be honest, as most enemies get parried by it.

I just get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by spells tho. Not sure how to combat enemies that cast strong spells from far away. And I'm still not sure which spells I should get for myself too.

[Captain Nyet]

Sword & Board is for little children, Mace & Board is where it's at.

I will just ignore the shield's defensive merits for a while to get my point across:

1. Maces are, in general, the best 1h weapon (stat-wise) as they offer higher damage output than other 1h weapons, and they deal impact damage that puts some 2h weapons to shame.

2. multiple shield skills have excellent synergy with Maces:

-Shield Charge applies confusion (+25% stability dmg) and obviously maces, with their disproportionately large impact stats, benefit from this more than other 1h weapons do.

-Gong Strike requires an infused weapon, Mace infusion provides.

3. Maces have a pretty good 2 hit combo (LH) it lets you hit two times in very quick succession, great for quickly punishing recoveries after a blocked attack.

So to sum it up: Shields offer more than just better blocking, they offer a few skills that can be very powerful in combination with a mace; so get a mace and enjoy the carnage.

[Fox Tail]

Sword & Board is just a saying used to say your using a shield be honest tho i never used a 1h mace i switched to using 2h greataxe because it just plays better.