-Faster movement speed while holding blocks
-Lower effective shield weight
Would be cool.
These were asked, and I believe these would break WSE or the server or something. I also asked for the possibility of shield skill having a larger effect on shield speed, too, and that can't be done.
Damnit...
-Increased shield bash capability (damage/reach/speed/recovery time/etc) like you mentioned
As a non-shielder (who does rarely play as a shielder alt) I kind of have to agree to disagree on this point. If you have variable range then shield bash becomes super useful in a fight, since your opponent would never know how long your range is on it until they are hit with it, and even then it might be hard to judge its true range, espeically since I doubt the animation would be tweaked at all depending on skill. Be awfully unfair to have the same animation but giving different ranges to different players... your opponent just won't have any clue as to how close they can be to you. More damage would be nice, but also having an effective non-blockable attack is kinda unfair for all the other classes who don't have one. The 'bitch slap' nudge with a shield can occasionally do somewhat significant damage to lightly armored players, but other than that it does effectively none. There is little reason why getting smacked with a shield would do damage while getting smacked with the pommel of a sword or shaft of a polearm doesn't. Perhaps improving the recovery time would be acceptable. Whenever I play a shielder, all I want from my shieldbash is for the range to make sense. I oftentimes bash through my enemy and end up hitting my ally or a different enemy who was standing behind him... leading to many accidental tks in siege during moshpits on the walls. It is times like these when shieldbash seems to have a massive range (at least long enough to hit through someone, apparently) and yet when I try and hit someone at that range (the range that corresponds to the fully extended animation) it never connects. I think it is simply a matter of optimizing the animation to make active hitbox to line up better with it. It kind of feels like the old 1hand stab at the moment.
-Resistance to block stun/crushthrough (I still feel there is a bug where shields behave lighter than their weight stat indicates for these purposes)
Yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss, please yes!
I believe it could work, but I think crushthrough and block stun should have their place for more of an incentive to use heavier shields.
Dangit! Shield weight barely seems to even matter, as phew mentioned. I can block nearly any long maul or great maul hit with confidence with my 18 str (6 PS) and weight 3 axe, but I can never manage to block (with confidence anyways) either with my 6 shield skill and weight 5 knightly heater or even my weight 8 huscarls shield.
-Better coverage against melee and ranged (lateral coverage against melee is too ping-dependent right now, and lateral "forcefield" against ranged is nonexistent for anything but HRS/huscarl shield)
While side coverage in melee would be nice, I imagine it would be pretty difficult, if at all possible, to tweak without breaking melee combat. Oftentimes I will swing (overhead) at someone from behind and if I am standing a little too close, my weapon will collide with the shield that they are holding IN FRONT of them before the back of their head. It rarely ever happens, but I can only imagine the funkiness that could ensue if the same proved true for side swings all the time. Also ranged have a hard enough time hitting shielders (at least archers, anyways... throwers can just hit you once your shield breaks after a few hits, and crossbows can just shoot you through the shield half the time). Shields shouldn't be a "hold RMB for invincibility" item. They should require at least some skill to use effectively, which they currently do. You gotta aim at the archers shooting you... if there are two archers, well... aim at the right one at the right time!
