Will Ungor Archers bring back shields?

I my experience shields are not seeing much use in vermintide 2, that I’ve seen. However as any desperate ratslayer caught in the open can tell you blocking ranged attacks (ie a ratling gunner) with a weapon alone can be done but not perfectly. And you can’t ALWAYS run for cover. So here is my question with hordes of archers coming in winds of magic, will we see an increase in shields or will people find a different counter. Thoughts? I can already see rushing the archers on higher diff being a bad idea.

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I would imagine that the Foot Knight’s charge or the Slayer’s leap would be pretty handy when it comes to closing in on these archers.

But it would be nice if shields became more useful, and if so, that perhaps more characters could also be equipped with shields?

From what I’ve been told, Kerillian’s getting a new Spear & Shield weapon in the expansion, which might see the Handmaiden being played as a Tank.

Interesting. Somehow I find it a bit hard to get Kerillian as a tank into my head, but I am totally open to that this could be an interesting build for her.

Believe me it’s quite possible already :grin:

Kerillian have no damage reduction, If her shield will hamper her mobility (slowed movement speed while attacking, only one dodge) it will be unplayble, so I think her shield and spear will give her more mobility than over shielded weapons.

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I don’t think even archers will make shields desirable, because some fundamental facts of the games design and balance make them useless.

-Damage avoidance is key, and dodging > blocking for that purpose. All shields have crap dodge, therefore.
-All weapons need to have some kind of access to anti armor moves (either armor piercing, high damage charge attacks, or moves that can headshot) and access to anti horde moves, or they will be useless during one half or the other of every map. All shields (Sword+Shield excepted) have either crap damage or crap cleave. Therefore.
-Very few enemies live long enough to be worth controlling (eg, stuns and knockbacks), and those that do are highly resistant if not immune to it. Shield attack patterns are focused on stuns crowd control . Therefore.

Kruber’s Sword and Shield is very good with the exception of it’s lousy dodge, thanks to it’s somewhat hidden anti-armor stab combo and acceptable cleave. All other shields are just plain terrible and need a major rework. Giving 1 or two niche encounters where a shield is useful will not compensate for them being useless during the majority of the map.

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She gets ungodly amounts of stamina regeneration though, and her dodge distance is already longer than other characters, which would make the reduced dodges somewhat more bearable.

This is not to mention her dash, which will also allow her to get out of bad situations in a pinch.

I do agree, she most likely won’t be able to Tank on the same level as someone like the Ironbreaker, but at least the option is there.

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That’s a good point, and it might mean there’s a weapon that the increased dodge talent is actually optimal for.

Still doesn’t help the other shields though. They need a little something.

I’m pretty sure thats not gonna bring shields at all, more just snipe it faster

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Well… Kerillian’s getting a shield and spear combo, so I personally don’t care if shields are bad or not xD

Axe and Shield is also pretty usable, thanks to its inherent anti-armor attacks, and it still has the shield bash for hordes (plus, Ironbreaker can just equip a Drakegun).

I think ranged enemies will give more use to shields, but I don’t think it’ll be make or break - it can’t be, or you wouldn’t be able to use anything but shields. The negatives of shields will still outweigh their defensive pros.

I think if shields+ got a bit more mobility, they’d become more viable.

Wait… what?! It can?!

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you have even challenge for that

edit: and actually that was only time i used shield

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I just don’t see shields being viable ever unless they really rework them, which will still leave the elf in a far better place due to her stamina and dodge distance passives. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Basically this. We will deal with ungor archers by sniping them, not by using shields. Unfortunately, shields have no big practical use in this game since pure dmg > tankiness. Take FK Kruber as an example: With right talents and a 2h mace in his hands, FK Kruber is a charging beast who deals with Stormvermins and Chaos Warriors much faster and much easier than when using 1h and a shield. Same goes for Bardin.

At this point its really impossible to say how impactful Ungro archers are going to be. If they spawn in say 2-3 packs then they will probably be sniped in matter of seconds with ranged weapons, kinda like how gun teams are killed currently. If they however spawn in massive packs with horde for instance then its totally different story.

Right now i think its bit to early to speculate if it does anything for shields. In general i do feel tough that without some massive changes its not really going to change anything.

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Yes but I do not recommend trying it. You will block maybe a third of the shots without a shield. You will only be slightly less swiss cheese

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I guess I’ve never really tried, I always just run in panic. But now, I really want to try and see if maybe it’s possible to be amazing and block all of them, Jedi style … xD

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Try if you like but dont blame me if you die, as I said it does NOT work well lol

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