- Shields are VERY heavy. One of the lightest, commonly used shields is the Elite Cavalry. It has a weight of 5.5. By comparison, a German Greatsword has a weight of 2.5. To compensate for the very heavy weight, a shield user either needs to stack athletics (and have lower PS) or wear light armor. Otherwise they are stuck with turtle-slow moving speed, making them more susceptible to kicks, mauls, etc.
Heavy is a very subjective word, but I disagree on them being such a burden as you describe them. Yes, maybe it's because I used to play with 3 agi, but I play 18/18 with a plate covered shield and medium-heavy armor and I'm decently fast. No need to ''stack athletics'' or wear light armor.
Getting kicked or mauled is rare in battle mode.
Shields are breakable. So you bring along your big, expensive heavy shield and some asshole comes by and hits it a couple times with an axe. Whelp, there goes your shield. Even a sword can break most of them relatively quickly, but I still find it faster to either use a maul, or just hit them around their shield.
Shields are slow. Unless you are using the very fastest of shields, blocking with a shield is slower than manual blocking.
Shields telegraph your attacks. If you keep on eye on a person's shield, it's easy to know when they're feinting or not.
-Axes are made to counter shield. A MW shield with decent (5-6) shield skill doesnt go down in a couple of hits, even vs axes.
-Yes.
-Yes.
Still, I personally don't like to use shields. WAY too many penalties for my taste.
Well that's your point of view. I love manual block as it is what I find most interesting in the game and yet my main's last 3 gens have been shielders, because it has great benefits. I almost only use 2h or polearm on duel now. But that's my opinion.
If you would have taken a little visit to the "Game Mechanic Megathread" you would have noticed that this would have made the length difference between 1-h and 2-h even longer. I didn't think I even needed to mention this, as this should be a known fact by anyone playing this game, but here are the stats:
-Sorry to have doubted your skills Einstein. But please make sure you share all the info before presenting us poor peasants with all those complicated tables next time.
As anyone who has played this mod for any length of time should know, 1-handers are the easiest to land kicks on. Their shorter reach requires them to constantly move towards their opponent. That makes it easy for people with longer weapons to s-key and kick. With the huge cone-of-effect that kicking has now, it makes doing that even easier.
As anyone who has played this mod for any length of time should know, kicks are easily avoided by jumping before the animation. They also allow you to slash the oponent's face with extra speed rating, turning the kick into a powerful tool for you. But I'm sure you use that technique all the time wonderboy, you've been around for so long after all.
You need to be in facehug range to nudge at all. If you s-key someone who tries to nudge you, you'll never, ever get nudged.
You can hit someone while they're nudging, making it a risky move.
After someone nudges, they can't kick or nudge for a while.
The one nudge that can grant a free hit is the 1h-no shield attack nudge. I generally only use it against shielders as it's harder for them to move away and I can easily tell when they're going to attack.
Haha the first line made me choke on my sandwich. if you s key you'll never, EVER get nudged? Damn guys, I need to backpeddle MORE ! Fuck me
Second thing, doesnt it somewhat disturb you that 1h no shield can get a FREE hit with nudges? Dont you think thats a somehow relevant fact to this topic?
Well, I hope we all learned something today and remember kids, only you can prevent yourself from being an idiot.
Applies to all of us mate.