Shielders vs ranged

[Spawny]

Shielders are a defensive class and the whole mechanic works on them defending, to rush out an archer and chase him is mostly a bad idea :/

Just standing there doesn't kill anyone.

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

Just standing there doesn't kill anyone.

Not in the short term, but an archer has gotta run out of ammo sometime, providing you can dodge some of his arrows, have a decent shield and this is the end of the battle, hes gotta run out sometime. Then he has to fight you :/

[dodnet]

Not in the short term, but an archer has gotta run out of ammo sometime, providing you can dodge some of his arrows, have a decent shield and this is the end of the battle, hes gotta run out sometime. Then he has to fight you :/

Which can take ages if the archer has a lot of arrows, runs around to collect more and time is running up.

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

Which can take ages if the archer has a lot of arrows, runs around to collect more and time is running up.

true but then i think in said situation the infantry can chase down and if the archer kites its the archer that is delaying

[Spawny]

Not in the short term, but an archer has gotta run out of ammo sometime, providing you can dodge some of his arrows, have a decent shield and this is the end of the battle, hes gotta run out sometime. Then he has to fight you :/

Standing there, waiting until the archer has to come to you out of fear of being kicked for delaying.

Just curious, but how often has that strategy proven succeful in battle situations for you in the generations you've played as a shielder?

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

Standing there, waiting until the archer has to come to you out of fear of being kicked for delaying.

Just curious, but how often has that strategy proven succeful in battle situations for you in the generations you've played as a shielder?

I dunno never been in said situation myself, but I can tell you I rarely die from arrows with a shield raised high But i do know I can stand and take arrows til kingdom come and thats without dodging ;)

[Dezilagel]

I've used a shield for quite some time now, and they're great!

...but not in the way you expect them to.

Their prime effect is that they simply make the archers shoot you less. They simply choose another target.

The actual effectiveness of them vs ranged on the other hand is rather questionable, but having a shield is still way better than not having one should you get shot at.

[Lech]

(click to show/hide)

The problem:
Shielders are supposed to be "the counter" vs archers/xbowmen. Currently they aren't. A few rounds last night made me terribly aware of this once again. Up to a point where there were 2 ranged left alive in one team and 3 shielders in the other. All of them were shot around/over their shield without getting close to the ranged guys.

In my oppinion, the only advantage of having a shield is you can block one couched attack with it.
Having an auto-block (as people like to call it) is not very usefull when blocking isn't really needed when you swing a great sword or a glaive. Hell, you can actually kill people when swinging a 2h weapon or polearm without blocking, but I've never seen anyone getting killed by a blocking shielder.
It currently looks to me, everything you can do with a shield, you can do better with a 2h/polearm.
I don't really care about all the rest, that's fine imo, but at least give shielders a use vs ranged.

I have no suggestion myself, as I can't really think of a way how to do this without increasing the forcefield on shields again.

tl;dr
Shields are pretty much useless when focussed by archers/xbowmen. Needs a buff of some sort to become "the ranged counter" once again.

Just increase weight of bows and arrows, to the level of shield weight each. Solved.

[Tears of Destiny]

(click to show/hide)

Just increase weight of bows and arrows, to the level of shield weight each. Solved.

With the latest damage nerf, I'm certain this is not needed anymore.

[Lech]

With the latest damage nerf, I'm certain this is not needed anymore.

It is needed, alternative could be:

(click to show/hide)

The real problem is blocking with a shield slowing you down. Shielders aren't as good as in real life against archers because in warband if you want to block arrows, you'll never be able to catch the person shooting them at you.

In reality, whether holding a shield in front of you or holding a shield by your side, you'd still be able to run just as fast.

As a matter of fact, you'd actually be able to run FASTER holding a shield in front than by your side, because being unbalanced towards the front would force you to run faster to keep your balance, while holding a shield at your side causes you to be unbalanced to the left, and thus unable to run as fast.

In reality, the reason that shields require real effort to use, is the moment of impact.

In order to keep your balance when a force impacts against your shield, the shielder must push BACK with the equal amount of force, or risk being knocked over (Newton's third law). Without anything impacting against against your shield, holding it up is no different than holding a dumbbell in your hand and running with it - pretty easy.

So the best course of action is not to add unrealistic, gimmicky effects to archery, but to change the mechanics of shields.

-----

Now that we got that out of the way, my suggestion is this:

1. Buff shielders' movement speed when blocking to nearly full speed.

2. Significant movement speed decrease for a brief moment after blocking an attack. A good idea would be to make the speed decrease depend on the damage the attack would've done had it not been blocked.

OR for a more realistic but harder to implement idea:

Instead of a movement speed decrease, it would be an acceleration in the direction of the attack.

For example, if you're running directly towards an archer, and you block an incoming arrow from said archer, you would accelerate in the direction of the arrow shot (pointing behind you) and be slowed down.

However, if you're backing away from an archer, and you block an arrow from said archer, you would speed up while walking backwards (acceleration in the direction of attack).

The magnitude of acceleration would depend on the strength of the attack. This would apply for blocking both ranged and melee.

Another can be changing run animation with shield and restoring idle shield hitboxes.

[Spawny]

restoring idle shield hitboxes.

I got hit yesterday in the shield without blocking with it. Unless I got it wrong, idle shields still get hit by ranged, just not by melee.

[Lech]

I got hit yesterday in the shield without blocking with it. Unless I got it wrong, idle shields still get hit by ranged, just not by melee.

But they are smaller than shields, it should be 'restore their size'.

[Phew]

Give archers their damage back, but take away their mobility. Archers should require melee support protecting them to be fully effective. Right now 4 archers is a more formidable team than 2 archers+2 melee, and it shouldn't be that way.

[dodnet]

I got hit yesterday in the shield without blocking with it. Unless I got it wrong, idle shields still get hit by ranged, just not by melee.

Yes they do - but only if the arrow hits them directly (thats as I understood it). I dont think melee will be blocked though.

[dodnet]

Give archers their damage back, but take away their mobility. Archers should require melee support protecting them to be fully effective. Right now 4 archers is a more formidable team than 2 archers+2 melee, and it shouldn't be that way.

They should add some kind of exhaustion. You will have a hard time targeting anything properly if you just ran around for a minute or draw the bow every second. Same for inf who holds a heavy hammer overhead for minutes.