Falling in love with Tower Shields

[MyUrp1]

So I was lazy and didn't feel like grinding out a full set of iron kit in the swamp. I did max the banded shield, mace, and scale mail, and then figured my bronze cap and leggings would let me take on Bonemass.

40 damage per hit taught me pretty quickly how wrong I was.

So I took a look at the tower shield... quite a hefty blocking bonus over the banded (assuming you're a lazy skillless player like me who can't learn to parry properly). Grabbed a little more iron and a lot of wood, maxed it out, went back to visit Bonemass and was pleased I was only taking 10 hp per swipe, quite manageable!

Hmmm, that is odd, looking at the stats, it's only a 10 point gain (64 vs 54) vs damage, is it the block force that was doing the work? 100 vs 40 would seem to suggest I was failing blocks. 40 pts damage fits too, Bonemass is only hitting for 80. It's hard to see that block gauge when you're swimming in poison vomit.

Anyway, all of this makes me think that tower shields are the way to go in solo bossfights. I guess that means I need to figure out how to farm serpents...

[Screenblast89]

Get some chitin from the ocean leviathans. You can then harpoon the sea serpents and drag them into swamp for leeches to attack them, the shallow water of the swamp can also trap the monster making it easy to get scales. It is better to do it during the rain at day so you don't have to deal with the cold. The serpent shield is much better than an iron tower shield, never used the iron tower shield because you can get the serpent shield first.

[MyUrp1]

interesting strategy, thanks, I'll see if I can manage that!

[glass zebra]

Block force is the knockback you apply to creatures that you block in melee. Tower shields are good when you can't parry (e.g. lots of quick attacks coming in), need stamina (since parry tries to always use up 20 instead of 0-10) or want to knock back things.

If you do not get staggered after a hit with your shield up (which depends on block value and max HP), the block did not fail. The poison vomit like most persistent AOE is unblockable. Block reduces the damage first and then your armour reduces the rest. It follows this formula: https://valheim.fandom.com/wiki/Damage_mechanics#Armor

[MyUrp1]

OK, I see the formula, but it's not making much sense. Base armor 40-ish, banded shield 54, and a wolf's 80 pt attack hits me for 23 damage. Pick up my 64 tower shield and that same wolf does 3 points per hit and bounces back nicely. The 10 points of extra shield armor is taking off way more than 10 points of damage. Seems to be more like 30.

I wonder if they changed the formula. Whatever it is, my iron tower shield is far more effective than the banded.

[glass zebra]

Wolves are doing 70 damage and not 80. If you get hit by 23 dmg, it sounds like your block failed entirely (your stagger bar got full?) and it was only reduced by your armour.

[MyUrp1]

Yeah, a failed block makes more sense, I thought I saw a higher damage number for wolf attacks but 70 and missed block adds up right.

Are tower shields less likely to fail blocks? Or did the drake that was spitting at me fill my stagger bar while I wasn't looking? I just seem to consistently do better with the tower shield.

[glass zebra]

If a block fails or not depends entirely on staggering. The size of your stagger bar depends on your max HP and how much a block puts into that bar depends on damage vs block/parry value. It could be that the few block points the tower shield has more make it barely not fail while the branded failed.

Most elemental damage does not add to the stagger bar from taking damage (only lightning damage does).

[MyUrp1]

Ahhh, that would make sense. I am deliberately running a low HP food build (1x hp 2x stamina) so the tower shield's extra armor prevents the stagger / block fail. I didn't realize not having enough HP would negate the shield bonus.

[Shaken_Widow]

tower shields are for people who can't parry, you just hold block and it is supposed to absorb the damage more than a buckler would if you just held block and didn't parry.

if you can parry, then bucklers are the way to go at all times simply because of how fast you can take down an enemy when they're stunned - not to mention bucklers are lighter than towers.

there's also different types of staggers, certain attacks will net a small stagger while the bigger attacks will yield a bigger stagger, so picking the attacks to parry is an important note as well.

[MyUrp1]

yup, that's why I'm using a tower shield, because I'm awful at parrying. But I thought I could get away with a standard shield, I didn't realize that doesn't work with low HP.

[Shaken_Widow]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

yup, that's why I'm using a tower shield, because I'm awful at parrying. But I thought I could get away with a standard shield, I didn't realize that doesn't work with low HP.

yeah it's almost like taking the entire blow without blocking at that point.

each enemy has their own specific charge up animation before their actual attack follows through, once you learn those and which attacks are better to parry you will be set with bucklers but until then you should train with the tower.

you can still parry with it, it's just nowhere near as good as the bucklers stagger amount, so practice can literally make perfect with the tower shield and once you get there you can swap to the better bucklers, and down the line the bucklers get way better.

[Happy]

+1 on getting Serpent Scale shield, saved my life from a wolf attack recently. (new character) wearing Bronze armour & deer cape & troll helmet. Also has built in pierce resistance, so good for blocking archers, deathskitos, etc. Pretty sure it costs less iron to make too, can't remember though.