You shouldn't really compare sword/board vs 2 hander vs polearm in terms of straight 1v1 fights to determine balance, which the item balance guys seem to do.
Shielders don't have to manually block 90% of the time
They have protection from ranged
They can block more than 1 direction at once
Get out of clusterfucks easier
Their attacks naturally hit the head due to range and animations
Left swing can often force players to miss an attack phase
Fast faints
WPF is a less important stat than naturally slower weapons (although the importance of WPF for any melee is questionable after 100 odd)
For all that they get a bit less damage (except for pierce/blunt attacks). The range is often shorter but even that is deceptively long
I felt the EU1 meta was already favouring shielders, and then they increase damage? I think this is another attempt to sidestep the issue of ranged, by rather than nerfing ranged they try to buff ranged counters, and all they can find to do is buff shielders rather than hit the issue square on. If ranged are also using 1 handers then I don't see how that buffs the counters more than ranged. Crossbows going to 2 slots helps a bit, it forces people to use 1 handers I guess.
Everyone seems to have got increased movement speed, archers even mention how they move faster than pre-patch. I don't know how it affects kiting if everyone moves faster. Acceleration speed is what matters with kiting, and that probably increased so not sure if archers were actually buffed, especially with more sidearm variety while still having 2 arrow stacks. I know EU1 is still a ranged fest anyway
Don't want to make a premature judgement though, this is just my initial impressions
