Why do the devs hate shields?

[^9[DSS]Dahaka]

One handed weapons were underpowered anyway, and now, having a -20% debuff for using a shield, makes them almost useless. The only valid playstyle now on medium and whoa, is sweaty tryhard parry master, or bruteforcing smoothie chugger.
Why on earth would I use shields at all, when I can just kill enemies 2-3 times faster with a club, and just use a smoothie mid fight to heal the damage I will take?
The only place where shields are useful is the mantis fight (which can be done with a crossbow and salt arrows, so shield is not necessary) and the Infected Broodmother, for which shield is necessary, but it shouldnt be what shields are balanced around....
That -20% debuff was needless. I dont really understand why the devs decided to make something underpowered even worse.

The only point in one handed weapons dealing less damage than two handed ones is that you can combine them with a shield. So what is the point of onehanded weapons now? All of them are outclassed by two handed ones anyway.

[Simple Tora]

One handed weapons are perfectly fine and did great damage idk where you got the idea they were underpowered, also Shields are meant to be a learning crutch, you get a bit of safety in case you miss a parry but they constantly emphasize perfect blocking throughout the game.

If you want to shield you can and you'll never have to learn to use a very important mechanic but you'll have to take the penalty for refusing to learn which is a 20% damage debuff. Unless you're on WOAH mode though it won't make any noticeable difference.

[Maya-Neko]

Underpowered? For someone who trained dozens of hours to perfectionize perfect blocking that might be true, but for most casual players it's actually the strongest item ingame, since it can easily block any attack, including one-hits, without the need to take hundreds of smoothies with you.

Even though not having the debuff and instead having something like a +20 % buff after a perfect block without a shield would've been nicer from the view of a casual/core player, but nonetheless, the advantages of the shield are still so strong, that the nerf doesn't really matter at all, as it is still a source of infinite health, which is what makes it so strong for me personally

So in the end it simply depends on your playstyle and i wouldn't be surprised, if the shield might be used by like more than 90 % of players (obviously just an assumption), given how unforgiving missed perfect blocks are. I will still not consider 2-handed weapons when playing against bigger monsters, but i might now look into it when i need to farm low level monsters.

[Serpiko82]

Shields become almost mandatory when facing certain late game enemies / bosses, whose attacks inflict heavy debuffs (often stacking with multiple hits) unless perfectly parried, and it's very hard to do so because they also attack with extremely fast combos, or AoE attacks, or both.

Carrying a shield negates the debuff effects just by normal blocking, so you can afford to tank a lightning-fast combo without adverse effects rather than trying to perfect block and fail, taking the damage AND debuffs.

As long as your blocking gauge allows it, that is.

[^9[DSS]Dahaka]

Originally posted by Simple Tora:

One handed weapons are perfectly fine and did great damage idk where you got the idea they were underpowered, also Shields are meant to be a learning crutch, you get a bit of safety in case you miss a parry but they constantly emphasize perfect blocking throughout the game.

If you want to shield you can and you'll never have to learn to use a very important mechanic but you'll have to take the penalty for refusing to learn which is a 20% damage debuff. Unless you're on WOAH mode though it won't make any noticeable difference.

So, my point stands, devs just hate shields. I've finished all the dark souls games, and while you had an advantage there if you learned how to parry, other playstyles were not invalidated artificially. Why should I use a toenail scimitar, or a spear, or a hammer, against, say, a black ox beatle, if i can just beat it down 2-3 times faster with the club of the mother demon, the sour battleaxe, or a mint mace? Even if I dont perfect block and take 1 or 2 hits, ill be fine from anything that isnt a boss, even in whoa mode, and the enemy will be dead much faster, leaving less room to make a mistake and take damage.

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Underpowered? For someone who trained dozens of hours to perfectionize perfect blocking that might be true, but for most casual players it's actually the strongest item ingame, since it can easily block any attack, including one-hits, without the need to take hundreds of smoothies with you.

Even though not having the debuff and instead having something like a +20 % buff after a perfect block without a shield would've been nicer from the view of a casual/core player, but nonetheless, the advantages of the shield are still so strong, that the nerf doesn't really matter at all, as it is still a source of infinite health, which is what makes it so strong for me personally

So in the end it simply depends on your playstyle and i wouldn't be surprised, if the shield might be used by like more than 90 % of players (obviously just an assumption), given how unforgiving missed perfect blocks are. I will still not consider 2-handed weapons when playing against bigger monsters, but i might now look into it when i need to farm low level monsters.

Why sit there are struggle with an enemy for minutes, when you can dispatch it in seconds? The more time it takes to take the enemy down, the more chances you have of making a mistake, or getting ganged up by other enemies that spawn nearby (mostly happens in upper yard).

The nerf matters, because instead of taking out lets say, a termite soldier with 6 hits from the salt morningstar, with a shield, you take them out with 8. And that is a fairly fast to take out enemy. I havent counted on the bigger enemies, but it takes a lot more time to take them out. I'm better off with a 2 handed weapon, especially when fighting multiple enemies.

Originally posted by Serpiko82:

Shields become almost mandatory when facing certain late game enemies / bosses, whose attacks inflict heavy debuffs (often stacking with multiple hits) unless perfectly parried, and it's very hard to do so because they also attack with extremely fast combos, or AoE attacks, or both.

Carrying a shield negates the debuff effects just by normal blocking, so you can afford to tank a lightning-fast combo without adverse effects rather than trying to perfect block and fail, taking the damage AND debuffs.

As long as your blocking gauge allows it, that is.

Anything other than the Mantis, wasp queen, and infected brood mother is perfectly doable with a couple smoothies, or just plain food from weevils/aphids/grubs/gnats. I literally brute force the regular broodmother with a coaltana and 30 smoothies. I use up around 4 bandages and like 10 smoothies per attempt in whoa mode.
A slightly better player than me can probably beat the mantis and the wasp queen without a shield at all, in fact, I find that the wasp queen fight is best done without a shield. It takes significantly less time to complete the fight, therefore the wasp queen can summon less stuff, therefore my life is easier. And all I need is to bring some smoothies, and apply the mithridatism mutation.

[happygiggi]

You forget how STRONG a shield is. With heavy armor too boost the block gauge you block everything for 0 damage and trivialize everything by just holding right clicks (and saving stamina for block).

I think the dev's intended idea was to put make the shield a massive trade-off of being defensive focus vs agressive focus. Hence the name of the debuff "defensive stance". I have a friend that is very agressive playstyle, he use 1 handed weapon without the shield. That's it.

[CRABSQUID]

weevil and the black ant shield are the only shield I would valid as useless

[Simple Tora]

Originally posted by jclair79:

weevil and the black ant shield are the only shield I would valid as useless

Honestly Fireant shield is the only one I would use. Maybe weevil since it's early and I suck at perfect blocking early game creatures despite being amazing at it vs late game ones. Ladybird's effect is pretty unimpactful too though.

Back to OP: They don't HATE shields they just don't WANT you to depend on them. It makes literally every encounter super trivial if you can just ignore the damage all the time with no real punishment. Learn to parry and you won't need your shield. If you don't want to learn that's perfectly fine just deal with the damage reduction.

Game needs to have some sort of difficulty afterall

[^9[DSS]Dahaka]

Originally posted by Simple Tora:

Originally posted by jclair79:

weevil and the black ant shield are the only shield I would valid as useless

Honestly Fireant shield is the only one I would use. Maybe weevil since it's early and I suck at perfect blocking early game creatures despite being amazing at it vs late game ones. Ladybird's effect is pretty unimpactful too though.

Back to OP: They don't HATE shields they just don't WANT you to depend on them. It makes literally every encounter super trivial if you can just ignore the damage all the time with no real punishment. Learn to parry and you won't need your shield. If you don't want to learn that's perfectly fine just deal with the damage reduction.

Game needs to have some sort of difficulty afterall

But once you get an upgraded club, you dont really ever need to parry. Anything that isn't a boss you can take out before it can take you out. Things like black oxes can't even touch you, you just attack with the clubs a couple times, then back away when it's about to attack. Ladybird the same, only the rolly polly you need to block or perfect block, because it hits like a truck and you can't outrun it. Even the infected wolf spider I don't have to parry. It hits me once and then it's stunned and dead.

I get why they buffed 2 handed weapons, and it was a good thing to do. They weren't useful before. But the damage debuff for the shields was needless.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by ^9DSSDahaka:

Why should I use a toenail scimitar, or a spear, or a hammer, against, say, a black ox beatle, if i can just beat it down 2-3 times faster with the club of the mother demon, the sour battleaxe, or a mint mace? Even if I dont perfect block and take 1 or 2 hits, ill be fine from anything that isnt a boss, even in whoa mode, and the enemy will be dead much faster, leaving less room to make a mistake and take damage.

You're expecting every single player being a good player, which can't be further away from reality. Most people simply can't tank the hits (or stunlock or evade or whatever), will die and then loose like 20 times the amount of time, if not even more (maybe not every time, but i've already died quite often, when i messed up my block cycle). That's why shields are strong in the hands of someone who doesn't put dozens of hours into testing and/or calculating the best strategies.

Also most players doesn't look up wikis constantly, so you can't just assume that everybody always uses optimal armor. Depending on what you're carrying it might even be a one hit, especially when you first visit the upper yard and might not even have upgraded your armor or using non-battle armor to begin with.

Originally posted by ^9DSSDahaka:

Why sit there are struggle with an enemy for minutes, when you can dispatch it in seconds? The more time it takes to take the enemy down, the more chances you have of making a mistake, or getting ganged up by other enemies that spawn nearby (mostly happens in upper yard).

Well, if you're comparing the strongest 2-handed weapon to the weakest 1-handed weapon, then it's definitely not the shield that's stopping you from doing the appropiate amount of damage.

Also your assumptions about risk management is quite off given the tolerances for mistakes. The 2-handed weapon might be twice as fast, however the possiblity to take a hit is like 30 times as high. Before i die with a shield i've already died 15 times with a club. The only way to turn that calculation against the shield is when you're so good at perfect blocking, that you're barely taking any hits anymore anyway, rendering the shield useless and thus, having an actual reason to have the fight taking not as long.

Originally posted by ^9DSSDahaka:

The nerf matters, because instead of taking out lets say, a termite soldier with 6 hits from the salt morningstar, with a shield, you take them out with 8. And that is a fairly fast to take out enemy. I havent counted on the bigger enemies, but it takes a lot more time to take them out. I'm better off with a 2 handed weapon, especially when fighting multiple enemies.

Also again, using that example only matters, if you can prevent dmg to yourself with the 2-handed weapon. However for me termites are hard to read, so i would easily take dmg. with a 2-handed weapon, which would make me loose HP, then i've to drink smoothies and in the long run, farm more ressources to make more smoothies. The time i would get by using the 2-handed weapon i would easily loose again later on due to this high risk gameplay. And not just this, but i also run the higher risk of dying or needing to return earlier to refill my smoothies.

And yes, that even happened without the 20 % nerf, which is why i've stopped using 2-handed weapons at all against T3 monsters due to how much more time i would need to waste to learn all attack patterns. The 20 % might matter to you, but not as much to me and probably most other shield users.