Edit -> people are misreading what I’ve said here, so let me do a tl;dr version:
I’m not complaining about them being overpowered, I’m complaining that they’re extremely unfun during swarms or when they attack in pairs. There’s extremely narrow counterplay for shield vermin if you don’t have a weapon designed to beat them, and relying on others at higher difficulties or during boss/swarm encounters isn’t always possible.
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They’re not too bad with the flail or some of the weapons that can beat armor, but how are you supposed to beat them if you don’t have one of those? You can’t headshot them because they magically raise their shield to block incoming projectiles, even if they’re mid-attack or not paying attention to you. Also, unlike the other shield enemies, they never drop their shield no matter how many hits they take, so unless you can flank them it can end up taking a ridiculous amount of time to kill these guys. But then sometimes you can’t rely on flanking, due to enemy swarms, your positioning, or the environment.
I know success is a team effort, but I don’t think characters should be hard-countered by a single type of unit. You can normally kill armored units even with non-armor piercing weapons by using charged attacks or headshots. However, the way shield vermin block makes it extremely difficult to get these attacks off in their brief (if even existent) openings.
I’m probably doing something wrong, but I’d literally rather fight a patrol of normal stormvermin than a pair of shielded ones (and It’d probably take less time, honestly). Maybe they should drop their guard after like 5 attacks, or at the very least have a smaller block angle so it’s easier to flank them?