Current shielder meta

[UnholyRolyPoly]

Hello all!

Before you read, please keep in mind that there is always counter-examples against caricatural examples. Just like we all know that GET A SHIELD LOL does not provide a 360° protection from arrows, my observations are certainly not the absolute truth, but I think I found a tendency I personally dislike. If I am just not skilled enough to play a shielder well, please excuse I have said anything. And as usual, I hope I am not making you bored or offended with this opening thread.

I am very happy about additional speed for many weapons. The greatswords and long polearms are viable alternatives to their more spammish familiars. The last patches were successful.

However, it turned out that one-handed players do no longer have any class-specific speed advantage at all. My favorite example is a Long War Axe vs. Round Steel Buckler fight. Please ignore that the Buckler would die in a few hits whatsoever, let's assume a shielder with 8 shield skill, a Round Steel Buckler +3 and a very short fight, which is exactly what happened to me several times:

- Shielder (S) holds block.
- Polearmer (P) holds sideswing.
- S has a plan to kill P: "I pretend to attack for a split second, but immediately right-click again. P will release the swing, I will block. It's my turn now, I can make one feint, hold my next swing and get a hit on P."
- S pretends to attack for a split second and immediately right-clicks, even before the character executes the attack animation on the screen with a ping of 25.
- P observes that the shield goes down for a split second and releases the swing.
- S's shield is not ready to block yet and the sideswing kills S.

Try holding the attack button down to feint instead of letting it go.  It reduces the amount of time to bring the shield back up to a millisecond.  You can also set up chambers using the same method.  Most 2h/polearms will try to use their footwork (Maximum Distance) and hold their attack vs a shielder.  They are waiting for you to get frustrated and try to hit them.  As soon as you drop your shield they attack... back up/side step... and attack again.  Good players will turn heavily into their swings.  (Allows them to set up quickly and spam the shit out of you.)  Next time you are in this situation feint with the shield not the weapon.  Hold the attack... drop the shield for a split second and bring it back up to absorb the blow.  Then attack from the same direction as him and you will set up easy chambers.  If his blow lands early it hits the shield.  If it lands late you set up a chamber.  If he holds don't release the attack and bring the shield back up.  Do that a few times and you will take him out of his game.  Most players have spent their entire CRPG career developing one fighting style and a build to match.  Make it harder for him to play that way.  Don't let him position himself the way he wants.  Make him uncomfortable.   

Also.... just in general.... rarely if ever feint with your weapon (letting go of the attack button.)  Instead feint with your attack held.  It's faster and allows you to pull the shield immediately. 

And of course..... the best way to kill anyone in CRPG is...... have a good partner you are use to fighting with.  I suck at dueling.  But If it's me and 1 other Black Company dude.... we're a pretty good unit.  Especially if it's another shielder.  Instead of "master dueling skills" we use team switching etc.  It makes the game a lot more fun and the unit more effective.  I don't do very well on my own.  But I can top the boards with a partner. 

[San]

^Good advice. I personally find that there's a use with release feints as well (mostly with overheads), but what you described seems to be overall superior with shield and is a commonly used tactic.

There's a learning curve, just like everything else. After a while, you just learn how to fight without becoming susceptible to the shield lag and not even having to think about it. Fighting with shield isn't that bad, though I haven't really felt a need to use tricky shield-only feints in a long time. It is pretty hard if you find yourself in a 1v1 with low health, however.

A good 2h/polearm would probably be 22-3, while a good shielder will get 16-2, 9-1, etc. Shielders don't get destroyed by cav as hard as they used to, especially with the addition of rolling. You can keep yourself alive much more consistently than 2h/polearm, which get screwed over more often if they ever find themselves getting focus fired.


You have both a variety of weapons as well as a good number of shields to choose from, so your purpose is decided by that equipment choice.

[Kafein]

It's amusing when NA players talk about k/d ratios. Do you have peasants running around everywhere or something ?

The problem with shields in this meta is that the meta is spam spam spam spam. If you try to not be boring, chances are you'll get hit by a random swing.

[San]

Okay, then. What do you usually notice with k/d ratios?

[Admiral Ballsack]

It's amusing when NA players talk about k/d ratios. Do you have peasants running around everywhere or something ?

The problem with shields in this meta is that the meta is spam spam spam spam. If you try to not be boring, chances are you'll get hit by a random swing.

What is your stance on shields at the moment then? I never have problems with fighting off spam, unless my footwork is bad and they are using a longaxe(similar polearm) and normally get decent k/d's as a shielder.

[Kafein]

Okay, then. What do you usually notice with k/d ratios?

On EU servers, only the top players reach scores like 22/3. And by top I mean top. The second and third are usually around 10 kills or less at the end of a map. That's how it was the last time I played battle, anyway. Scores on siege tend to get higher.

What is your stance on shields at the moment then? I never have problems with fighting off spam, unless my footwork is bad and they are using a longaxe(similar polearm) and normally get decent k/d's as a shielder.

My stance on shields is that I personally use a 1h without shield most of the time and most of the time it works better than with a shield. Unless I'm fighting someone really skilled who can actually open my defense without using cheesy techniques, a shield has trivial utility.

[Unwilling_Villain]

Playing shielder I have 3.4/1 KD which is the same I had playing polearms. Shielder is a really good class I think because you can fight multiple opponents easily. Also shielder is there to provide front line support - they can go into places where two handers/polearms would be cut down from 3 block directions at once.

If you have troubles fighting two handers and polearms I would advise to be patient and surprise them with range of right swing and stab. When they are distracted and on the defense you should push forward, striking left and overhead swings on them in quick timing.

Basically shielder is a very different style of play to 2h and polearm. You should not duel them where they have the advantage. You must be tactical about how you kill them.

[Konrax]

I think the recent 2h buff just outpaced the speed of my current build.

Heavy round shield isn't exactly fast, with 7 shield skill its pretty quick, and worked fine before, now I just seem a smidgen too slow.

That being said I always release faint with me shield, and I am going to try holding my attack down as I didn't even realise it mattered.

Thanks for the tip

[Wesleysnipes]

Non the less a 2h unbalanced axe should not be able to double swing a 104 speed 185wpf 1h weapon just because of "shield lag". Fuck that. Shielders also get fucked over with their builds because they have to get shield skill. Leaving them under one or two levels under their opponent. And stop saying "oh yea look at my kdr, or explain what techniques you practiced for 2 years". Chances are you're a high level 1h shield anyways. (Unholy, havelle, cough cough San). Any polearm/2h has a huge advantage over a shielder. (Back pedal, side step, hold, while using their range and breaking your shield. Yea of course a good 1h sheilder has ways around it. But when  a good 1h vs pole/2h, the one hander has a great disadvantage, range of weapon. "But Shielders are designed to stay at the front line to absorb enemie dmg and not duel". No, this mod is not based purely on teamwork. The only advantage is against ranged. But the time you get to the ranged the shield is gone. Without a shield it's sometimes easier to wiggle wiggle around them arrows.

Reduce the speed of all polearms and two handers. Or if you want to be fair, the more 1h wpf, the more shield skill.

[Gravoth_iii]

I dunno why you people say shielders arent good in duels, maybe not necessarily with a shield but just having a 1h weapon in a duel is really good because of the high speed and often slim sword weapons with left swing and overhead being very easily confused with eachother. Some feints like left>overhead>left or just overhead feint spam is IMO incredibly confusing and hard to follow. There are few feints from 2h that gets me, and pretty much none in polearm. Hold attacks are the best because everyone is impatient.

Everytime on battle when im at low hp i do everything to avoid shielders because im most likely to miss a block vs them compared to a 2h or polearmer.

[Penitent]

Shield is great for duels.  You can't block wrong when the opponent is spam feinting.  It's quite nice.

[Rico]

It's probably me just feeling uncomfortable about playing 1h/shielder. I perform better as a Swashbuckler, Hoplite, Archer and Crossbower, so I will just stick to these classes. The "turns" in the sense of hit (+hold/feint), block, hit, block... and a chamber once in a while are more clearly separated when playing shielder because of the weird block timing. Trying to break out of this scheme and dancing around the enemy trying to get an extra hit or a last minute block is not that easy with a shield, but I keep trying it and it gets me killed. So I'll just stop being a shielder, since I do not want to obey to the rules of this class.

[ecorcheur_brokar]

I think the real issue is that half of the shields/one-hands aren't used/useless.. Maybe you just aren't used to playing shielder, because I have no problems feinting unless it's against like a longaxe or similar spammy polearm. They do need to slow down some polearm stats though.

I think there you pointed out the real problem with shield, most of them are useless.  Norman shield, elite cav shield, Knightly Kite Shield are good for cav. steel, huscarl and round good for tank.

But when it comes to hybrid shield, fighting shield, the problem is none are better than the elite cav shield as they are all much slower than the cav shield. I would say less protecting against arrows ,I have the impression that only round shaped shield are efficient against ranged, all the others dont block projectile efficiently, and that is an especially important point in those days with serv full of ranged.
I used to have a knightly kight shield but with the increasing number of ranged, it became useless, I was getting everything in my right hand.

And all this tradeoff, for only a small gain in resistance, that is imo useless as an axe will break it with just one more hit.

My point is all the non-round-shaped shield should get an increase in their size.

[Phew]

The OP is referring to a specific mechanic whereby every shield has a significant delay (>0.5s) after releasing a block until they are able to block again (I'm not talking about the shield raise animation, which still occurs, I'm talking about the block actually being active). This mechanic is independent of shield skill, shield speed, etc., and it is probably the #1 thing that kills experienced shielders. It's the reason dueling with a shield is boring, because you can't ever drop your block while your opponent is holding an attack. When I'm fighting other shielders, I rarely even bother to switch to my axe, because it's faster to kill them just by holding sword attacks to exploit this mechanic. Just wait for them to get bored and temporarily drop their block, then release. This tactic isn't as effective against non-shields, because they can drop their block and still recover in time to block anyway.

 The neutral nudge is the only thing I've found that can break the monotony, but it's risky due to the wonky nudge hitbox. The chamber technique that Roly mentioned is probably even more risky, and more of a gimmick to mess up top-tier players than a strategy you can rely on.

Since no dev even knows about this mechanic, I'm not going to hold my breath about it being fixed.

[phnxhdsn]

Try the recently buffed Brown lion heater shield? IMO it's slightly better than Elite cav now but with a few drawbacks.