Main suggestion:
Even though Shields are supposed to have powerful staggers on their slam attack. They’re still unable to cause Packmasters to flinch. I find it inconsistent that the shield slam can disrupt berserkers out of their attack animation whereas heavier weapons cannot on the first hit. Yet heavy weapons can make at least the packmaster flinch? Something seems wrong here with how staggers are being applied.
Give shields the ability to flinch Packmasters as a way to balance its own short dodge window and low damage output.
Second suggestion:
Give shields the ability to slam Chaos Warriors out of their overhead attack, like the billhook can. Thank you.
Third suggestion:
Shields should have a longer push-range again. Aggro is pretty weak in this game and hordes tend to slip around shields easily despite heavy pushing and slam attack use. Beastmen are the worst to have a shield against since they have such huge collision boxes and pushes don’t seem to hit beastmen that are in the second row of a horde.
I would argue that Packmasters are beast tamers that may look fragile but can actually handle brutal rat ogres of clan Moulder. So from a lore perspective they may actually be more resilient than chaos warriors.
But in a balance sense, I would agree. Shields have so little dodge range and some may actually slow your dodge as well, so yeah, it would be fair to have another way of protecting yourself from grabs.
I don’t honestly know about shield bush stagger boost. They already have Tank stagger type (except Sword’n shield for some reason - this is actually a huge underdevelopment - even on shield bash it has only Linesman which HAS TO BE RE-BALANCED since we now have Cata and stagger shield meta).
But I do agree on push radius. It’s just 2.5 like all other weapons except for Kerillian’s new shield (because yeah, all that Elgi have has to be better, than others). Shiled push is a heavy swing of a huge plate of wood or metal. The radius must be significantly higer (especially with now rising problem of second and third rows of hordes)
I agree mostly for one reason. If you are using shield, you are fighting in first line, surrounded by enemies. In most cases, your visibility is very bad (and your movements are limited): a Packmaster can grab you without you being able to do anything. This makes very “risky” to be a tank (while a tank should give safety at the entire group).
From one side, CWs are slow and big, it’s comprehensible that they have an unstoppable attack… but there is a problem: sometimes you can see a CW in a position that you can stagger him, so you start the shield slam. But when the shield slam is already started, CW does the unstoppable attack and he just hits you, without you being able to do anything.
Moreover, sometimes (I don’t know if it’s a bug), there is also another attack (lateral one) that you can’t stop… but other times you can stop it.
This is the main shields’ problem: “open” hordes. If there is a place where you can “channel” the enemies, shields are very useful. But during an open horde in a open area… well, it seems you can’t tank, so you are useless.