+3 knightly heater shield has ~1.4x more armour, but a +3 hand pavise has ~1.47x more hp and 0.5 more weight. I think it's tough to say which is better out of the two. Board shield also has less speed and armour than its neighbors, as well as +1 weight and the inability to be used on horseback. All that for roughly 100 more hp and better width coverage.
I always just look at how many 7PS, 120 wpf hits from a 40cut weapon a given shield can survive, and in that context the hand pavise, board shield, and triangle significantly outshine other shields with the same width+speed. Now that almost every shield stops bolts, the only "special" attribute that you gain with >24 armor appears to be resistance to ballista penetration, a very niche attribute.
That being said, I'm not too concerned with shield internal stat balance, because the differences between shields are still mostly cosmetic (they all offer basically the same benefits and drawbacks). My gripes with shields are mostly related to their mechanics in-game and the shield skill itself. Specifically, lately I've been particularly annoyed by:
-Lateral coverage in melee, specifically against polearm sideswing animations. With even the slightest bit of server lag, polearm sideswings seem to routinely go right around shield blocks even when you are seemingly facing directly at the guy. Manual blocking appears to have roughly three times the lateral coverage against melee as shields.
-Crushthrough calculation doesn't seem to properly account for shield weight. Case in point, ~2-3kg weapons seem to block crushthrough attempts more frequently than 4-5 kg shields, which seems odd.
-The "forcefield" against projectiles is virtually nonexistent in the lateral plane, even with 7 shield skill. Shield width seems to be the only thing that matters when you are trying to block projectiles that are coming slightly from the side. Longitudinal forcefield (especially downward) is almost excessively good, but lateral forcefield is nearly nonexistent. This makes approaching two or more archers nearly impossible.
-The shield nudges all have severe deficiencies; the defensive nudge doesn't block projectiles during any part of the animation, so there is basically nothing you can do when approaching an archer/xbowman other than wait for them to get tired of holding their shot or let them kick you. The defensive nudge should block projectiles during the early part of the animation, so you could use it to interrupt a ranged enemy that is holding a shot on you. The neutral nudge has a bizarre hitbox, and it frequently whiffs when it clearly should have landed.
San, do you mind sharing the new shield skill mitigation formula? Is it 8% base and 6%/skill?
