As much as i can say it, where your opinion goes towards depends who you faced against in the field. An actual expert or beginner. The thing with shielders is that they really dont stand out aswell as greatswordmy old friends do, even when high on scoreboard. Hence the term "2h heroes" is used a lot and not "shielder heroes" or "swashbuckler heroes". So when they get schooled by them they get rather suprised, totally forgetting that many shielders have played this game for years now sticking to their class same as some popular pole or 2h players.
As for the king of the battlefield thing. I kinda agree. There is no class better then shielder, for charging straight in the middle of the shitstorm hoping to come out alive. But it does have a lot of minuses for that matter. Not being in the shitstorm and going 1 vs 1 is really not so easy anymore.
This is neverending fight, shielders (or at least a big part of them) will whine how weak their class is, the other classes will whine how OP are shielders. When devs will nerf shielders there'll be whining that some other class is OP. The point is not to catch the cat but to chase it (um, is there such a saying in english? probably not
). Discussion can be entertaining from time to time, but shouldn't be taken too seriously.
To the topic; dunno if shielders are OP, maybe they are, maybe not, I'm not the one who can judge it. After 2 years of playing exclusively as 2h, currently I play only as a shielder/1h and in some circumstances I think this class is really OP, but sometimes, e.g. when I fight with someone with bardiche and get stun after every single hit, I feel so weak...
But I try not to look for easy explanations, whinning that this or that is OP. If I screwed, I screwed, noone else to blame but me
Which doesn't change ofc that maybe shielders are OP, 1h nudge+hit combo is OP, that's for sure, I have no problem with admiting it
At the end of day I don't think it really matters. There was plenty of buffs and nerfs through last 3 years and we're still here. It's the only game I play since spring 2010 and I'm sure one more buff or nerf will not make me quit