Shields

Shields come as round shields, tower shields and bucklers, with 6 to 158 block armour. A shield replaces the block power, parry force and parry bonus of whatever is in your other hand.

Combat

Pros

• It overrides the weapon entirely, which frees your weapon slot to be pure damage. A Mistwalker's own 48 block armour stops mattering the moment you equip a shield.
• A parry costs no stamina at all, while a block costs up to 10, and it multiplies the shield's block armour by the parry bonus: 1.5x on a round shield and 2.5x on a buckler.
• A successful parry staggers the attacker. A staggered creature cannot move and takes double damage until it recovers, which is the largest damage multiplier available to a melee build.
• A successful block stops status effects from landing at all, so a blocked Blob hit applies no poison.

Cons

• It costs the off-hand, so a shield build can never use a two-handed weapon and gives up the reach and stagger those carry.
• Tower shields cannot parry at all. In hand they usually cost 10% movement speed against 5% for the others, which raises the cost of a dodge roll by the same amount.
• The parry window is under 0.25 seconds before the blow lands. Miss it and you have paid a block's stamina for a block's protection.
• Bosses are immune to stagger, so the parry payoff, the whole point of the buckler, does nothing in the fights that matter most.

Builds

Buckler if you can parry, tower if you cannot. A buckler has the best parry bonus at 2.5x and the worst raw block armour, while a tower shield has the highest raw numbers and no parry. A round shield sits between them at 1.5x, with the same 5% movement cost as a buckler.

Parry, then hit. Time it under 0.25 seconds before the blow and you spend no stamina, while the attacker staggers and takes double damage. The loop is a parry into the 3-hit combo, and it is worth more than any weapon upgrade in the game.

Know what a shield does not stop. Slash, pierce, blunt and lightning fill your stagger bar, which is 40% of your maximum health. Fire, frost, poison and spirit are reduced by block armour but never stagger you. Bigger health pools therefore block bigger hits.

The Blocking skill adds 0.5% block armour per point, 50% at 100. It levels on every blocked hit, with a bonus for a parry, so the shield improves just by being used the way you were going to use it anyway.

Shields are made at the Forge, the Workbench, the Black forge and the Frost Foundry, and on Console.

The skill is Blocking, and it levels by use rather than by choice.

Best Shields

Build	Weapon	Image	Key Figure
Best guard	Nord Greatshield		158 block armour
Lightest to carry	Bronze Buckler		3 weight
Longest lasting	Nord Buckler		400 durability

Notes

• A block uses up to 10 stamina, in proportion to the damage that got through. It fails if that leftover damage fills your stagger bar (40% of maximum health) or if you do not have the stamina.
• Block force is the knockback dealt back to a melee attacker, and it scales from 50% to 100% with the block armour actually used.
• Weapons carry their own parry bonuses too: 4x on a knife and 6x on flesh rippers. Those beat every shield, though only on the weapon's own small block armour.

All Weapon Categories

All Shields

*stats displayed are item's base values. See upgrades under each item for item stats per level.

Name	Image	Block	Weight	Durability	Crafting Materials	Crafting Station	Spawn ID
Banded Shield		42	-	200	10x Finewood 8x Iron	Forge	spawn ShieldBanded
Black Metal Shield		78	-	200	10x Finewood 8x Black metal 5x Chain	Forge	spawn ShieldBlackmetal
Black Metal Tower Shield		104	-	200	15x Finewood 10x Black metal 7x Chain	Forge	spawn ShieldBlackmetalTower
Bone Tower Shield		32	4	200	10x Wood 10x Bone fragments 3x Skeleton trophy	Workbench	spawn ShieldBoneTower
Bronze Buckler		16	3	200	10x Bronze 4x Wood	Forge	spawn ShieldBronzeBuckler
Carapace Buckler		78	5	200	16x Carapace 3x Scale hide 10x Refined eitr	Black forge	spawn ShieldCarapaceBuckler
Carapace Shield		96	-	200	20x Carapace 3x Scale hide 10x Refined eitr	Black forge	spawn ShieldCarapace
Flametal Shield		114	-	200	10x Ashwood 8x Flametal 2x Asksvin hide	Black forge	spawn ShieldFlametal
Flametal Tower Shield		140	-	200	15x Ashwood 10x Flametal 5x Asksvin hide	Black forge	spawn ShieldFlametalTower
Iron Buckler		28	4	200	10x Iron 4x Ancient bark	Forge	spawn ShieldIronBuckler
Iron shield		35	4	200	Cannot be crafted	-	spawn ShieldIronSquare
Iron Tower Shield		52	4	200	15x Finewood 10x Iron	Forge	spawn ShieldIronTower
Knight shield		120	4	100	Cannot be crafted	Console	spawn ShieldKnight
Nord Buckler		88	4	400	1x Cast: Nord Buckler 5x Liquid Frost	Frost Foundry	spawn ShieldGoldBuckler
Nord Greatshield		158	5	400	1x Cast: Nord Greatshield 5x Liquid Frost	Frost Foundry	spawn ShieldGoldTower
Nord Shield		132	5	400	1x Cast: Nord Shield 5x Liquid Frost	Frost Foundry	spawn ShieldGold
Serpent Scale Shield		60	-	250	10x Finewood 4x Iron 8x Serpent scale	Forge	spawn ShieldSerpentscale
Shield of Roots		48	4	200	10x Finewood 1x Writhan Roots	Workbench	spawn ShieldRoots
Silver Shield		60	-	200	10x Finewood 8x Silver	Forge	spawn ShieldSilver
Wood Shield		6	4	200	10x Wood 4x Resin 4x Leather scraps	Workbench	spawn ShieldWood
Wood Tower Shield		10	4	200	10x Wood 6x Leather scraps	Workbench	spawn ShieldWoodTower

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