Interesting idea, but do we really want the focus of shield play to be on blocking? Pretty boring if you ask me.
I think it’d be more fun to push them more to the offensive side. Why be a wall when it’s more fun to be a bulldozer?
Gonna start a brain dump here. I haven’t thought any of them through, some are more ridiculous than others, and I’m sure most have been suggested elsewhere:
What if shield slams took longer to fully charge, but a full charge could knock down a CW like a FK ult?
What if shields had ‘Opportunist’ or ‘Off Balance’ built in?
What if slammed enemies took more damage?
What if slammed enemies were less resistant to cleave?
What if a well timed push could reflect a gas globe?
What if shields had a small aoe taunt as an ‘offhand’ ability?
What if shields had a mini FK ult as an ‘offhand’ ability?
What if shields were less affected by enemy knockback attacks?
What if shields could withstand attacks that normally break your guard and drain all stamina?
What if a charged slam alone could break open a shieldvermin’s guard?
What if I could ride my shield down stairs like legolas?
What if shields could push through trash enemies while block was up?
What if pushes and slams had a longer reach?
Always fun to just spit out every idea that comes to mind. Highly recommended.
Block is so bad you have to go parry and 60 bcr and its still not enough. Guess why? Cause you are limited. You can take exactly this number of hits and not more, while dodging is kinda “yes” or “no” and yoy can reset it with jump. Imagine reseting stamina with jump
As far as I know, you actually don’t reset dodge with jump. Jumping and hitting the ground again is around the time it takes roughly to recharge your dodge count.
Also @Adeon , I’m pretty sure CW overhead and mauled heavy take all stamina as well.
But I agree with @Tzcheese, blocking isn’t the most fun mechanic. You just hold a button, there’s no aiming, unless you’re using Parry there’s no real timing. Pushing it at least something you actively do and decide the precise timing of - I completely agree that being able to be more offensive with shields (in a way that makes sense for them) is probably the best option, to make them some kind of viable weapon.
And let’s not forget; shields are weapons. They’re not just for being defensive, attacking with them is totally a thing in historical combat.
Unfortunately elites likes to come closer and push you, disrupting your block stance, so you forced to dodge, and back down a bit to prevent it. I would like if it was removed (block stance disruption for shielded weapons), so you could stand your ground properly.
In your first video, you were on UC, which has a talent for 50% block cost. Not sure if you were using that as even CW side swipes will take around 3-4 stamina. On your 2nd video, it looks like parry kicks in? Also, is that legend? I play nearly every single day and CW overheads completely wipe out 4 shields of stamina I have on my Glaive. So you have to be using block cost or shield already takes less stamina to block. You didn’t even lose 1 stamina on the 2nd overhead and only lost 2 on the first. Something is not adding up me dude.
EDIT: you were using the talent as I see your heat drops when you get hit on UC. You are posting some very misleading info and videos mate
The question about shields is indeed one of broader concepts of gameplay. One thing that makes VT2 so engaging is its focus on offensive, high mobility play and almost all incentives are geared towards promoting this kind of gameplay. You still need to be able to read the game’s ebb and flow and know when to play it more defensively, but overall, the game tells you to push forward and slay as quickly as you can. In a sense, it’s like what made old platforming games like Sonic the Hedgehog so great and timeless: You want to move fast, you want to keep your flow going most of the time, but sometimes you gotta slow down, pay attention and be patient. Good game design feels rewarding to that patience and not like the break ruins your flow.
This is why I see it as only natural that a focus on blocking will simply not go well with how VT2 play out, and shields need to be able to bring something to the table that fits into this formula. Standing around holding M2 most of the time and just blocking is not an engaging playstyle, nore is it an intruiging concept for a weapon, carreer or anything else. Dodging, attacking, pushing, push attacking, combining light and heavy strikes, and occasionally blocking, all that weaves seamlessly together into a skill set that requires split-second decision-making, well-developed muscle-memory and high awareness. A shield-style that is focused on shield"tanking" is essentially just finding a comfortable position and then holding M2, maybe occasionally pushing.
Don’t get me wrong, shields having high stamina and good block cost are things that should not be underestimated and have their place, but I guess someone hugeley misjudged the impact of those two aspects and that the rather hefty penalties need to be there in order for them to be balanced.
Both sword and shield and axe and shield are actually not too far off from where they need to be, but they do suffer from penalties that are simply unnecessary, being a very low dodge distance and count and hefty movement slowdown while attacking. Especially the latter needs to go, because it sometimes makes it very hard to capitalize on your staggering and knockdown because you are moving so slow. Both these weapons have actually quite good elite killing power when stacked with the right bonusses. A&S can easily hit 4 light attack breakpoint against SV, or 2 light 1 charged against them, and hitting the head is actually a bit easier than on 1h axe. Push attack has surprisingly high cleave and it chains into 2nd charged, which also cleaves alot and can help with horde clearing. Sword and shield can 2 shot SV on headshots with one push attack followed by 1 charged stab, and push attack chains into charged stab, and the little lunge on the push attack alos helps the lack of mobility. But as one can see, it requires to remember alot of different attack patterns and how to combo into specific attacks. The shield slam is one of the best CC tools in the game (and probably the best temp-health source when combined with temp health on stagger talents), but its usefulness gets severely hampered by the fact that even one light attack hitting a downed enemey gets them back up on their feet.
If I had a say in it, I’d just remove the movement penalty on attacking, increase the dodge distance a bit (the slower attack speed when compared to 1h counterparts is fine by me) and make enemies who got knocked down behave more like downed CW: Don’t let light attack stagger get them back up on their feet.
I play a ton of sword and shield on Kruber, can confirm that overheads do not cost all stamina. I do have block cost reduction on both weapon and necklace, I think an overhead from CW costs me two shields worth or four stamina. Thusly I would stay the CW overhead normally costs ten stamina, which would take all of your eight stamina on your glaive.
Pretty sure that he got shoved in the 2nd one and opened the guard for split second and gained parry there so the example is indeed little bit awful.
From my personal experience i also feel like especially with some block cost reduction is that you don’t fully lose your stamina if you block rather the value is just super high (5-10 area) so you need pretty significant amount of stamina to notice it.
Then again it would be good if someone actually tested this stuff WITHOUT BOTS and with single CW to confirm it.
Yep, confirmation from here. The heavy attacks from Elites don’t immediately drain all Stamina, but the cost is high enough to put down any weapon without (high) Block Cost Reduction. Using a shield with additional BCR you can, iirc, reduce those hits to costing 4 or 5 Stamina (2-2.5 shields). I have a vague recollection of it appearing in some patch notes or another, but it wasn’t in the BBB’s final notes or the one after it, at least (and I’ve no time to check more right now). I could remember wrong, though, and it could be an undocumented change.
Can you show us the properties of your weapon and accessories? Unless shields have built in BCR, that doesn’t make any sense. Unless damage resistance from Krubers passives helps with block cost as well? You’re only losing around 1 shield per hit? Meanwhile a side swipe from a CW will drain all my stamina on elf?
Use the mods Luke, most weapons have 0.5 block cost modifier, and shields have 0.2.
I have +60% block cost reduction, each overhead eats ~3 stamina id est 1.5 stamina shields.
