Why are shields so useless?

[XuaXua]

And how can that be changed aside from removing shields?

All I seem to read is that shields are useless.
Is this for all character builds and all shield types?
Is there a point where a shield is useful?

What is it, mechanically, that makes Shields less useful than armour or dodging?

[Davion Fuxa]

Shields are useless - they are supbar.

The reason they are supbar is that for Melee Users they are better off using Two Handed Weapons since the best defense for a character is killing things quickly - that and too many things ignore Shields currently in game. For Spell Users they can do alright with Shields since they kill things with Spells - but they have to basically train up to the skill minimum so it doesn't hamper their spells.

In terms of how Shields might be made better mechanically may not be the approach the developers should keep trying to look at; instead perhaps its about time to start thinking about how Armour or Dodging might be made mechanically worse.

[pubby]

It's mostly because the likelihood of finding a good 2 handed weapon is much greater than that of finding a good shield.

[crate]

They're not that bad, but in many cases it is better to use a two handed weapon than not. I prefer to give simple advice so I would generally say don't use a shield if someone asked me for advice.

[mopl]

With a caster, I'll look for an artefact shield with good options, but it can be rare...

[jejorda2]

If I understand correctly, shields only defend two kinds of damage:
-Melee attacks
-Single target projectile attacks

AC and EV protect against these and, in addition:
-Pentrating Beams
-Area of Effect

I don't understand why a good shield wouldn't block a penetrating beam and stop it from progressing to my allies behind me, or stop a fireball from hitting the guy beside me. But right now, shields only have a chance to protect against some things.

[Siegurt]

Here's my list of why I rarely use a shield (not never, but rarely)

1. Two handed weapons are typically so much better than one handed ones, that it's hard to lean in that direction except in rare cases.
2. Shields aren't exceptionally effective, the sacrifice of your off-hand gets you some medeocre protection, but even at really high values of SH it doesn't confer a whole heck of a lot of protection, and there are some things it just doesn't protect against (Although there's a couple things it does protect against which is fairly nice, i.e. OOD)
3. Shields take a LONG time to wear and remove, so it's not possible to switch back and forth to a two-handed weapon should the situation call for it (Like for example a bow or crossbow) this is perhaps my biggest complaint, if I could strap on a shield and go to town, then remove it and shoot things with my bow, and then strap it back on in say, 1 turn, or half a turn, it'd be more worth it to carry one and use it for melee, and still have the option of using a bow/crossbow for ranged attacks.

That being said, I have won the game with a shield, they aren't a *handicap* they just are often not as good as your other options.

[WalkerBoh]

I think for most games shields are fine. I use them quite often, especially with long blades or maces.

[floatboth]

I think casters of large species really benefit from shields… On my first victory (NaAE), I used Donald's shield of reflection and it was great.

[wolfstalking]

Every other piece of armor adds the enchantment rating to AC. Why not make SH purely a function of Shield skill and type, and then add enchantment as an AC bonus? Or just make shields have inherent AC, like 1/5/10 or something, but boost the skill required to remove penalties to 10/15/20 so it's an actual investment?

People seem to sometimes bring up a heavy armor caster race/god/whatever, but if you wanted to be a caster with good AC you could invest in Shields, which you can fully pay off, and wear lighter body armor.

[cjo]

FWIW, the octopode ice elementalist I'm currently playing really struggled with ranged attacks until I moved from a buckler to a regular shield. I think next time I'll make the transition sooner.

[yogaFLAME]

It's mostly because the likelihood of finding a good 2 handed weapon is much greater than that of finding a good shield.

That has mostly nothing to do with it.

[pubby]

It's mostly because the likelihood of finding a good 2 handed weapon is much greater than that of finding a good shield.

That has mostly nothing to do with it.

Why not? The ratio of weapons to shields are like 1000:1. By the time decent shields start appearing you've probably already trained for a 2-hander.

[crate]

because finding a good shield has nothing to do with whether you want to use a shield, unless it is specifically The Shield of Resistance (which you can liken to finding specifically Plutonium Sword).

A much bigger concern is that good one handed weapons are much rarer than good two handed weapons.

[DracheReborn]

A much bigger concern is that good one handed weapons are much rarer than good two handed weapons.

Yes, exactly.

Shields for all their faults are still a great boost to early game survivability. As a melee character, if you find a regular shield/large shield on D1, would you avoid using it? I'd certainly consider it a lucky find. (I think we'd all agree that an early buckler is almost a no-brainer for any character.)

The tricky bit is that you probably don't want to invest a lot in Shield training, since you'll probably ditch it anyway once you find a good 2-hander. If there was a decent chance of finding good one handers fairly early, then sticking with Shields becomes more viable.

I think that's exactly the reason why it makes more sense for casters to use shields than melee guys. Casters can get by pretty well with mace/flail of protection or enhancer staves; melee guys really need that big bad 2-hander.

[Sandman25]

Shields are very bad in extended. See viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7926&p=107978#p107978 where I had the best large shield in the game on a species who loves shields. I felt really bad that I didn't go with 2-handed Axe (I had hand axe of pain and war axe which I used with Warp Weapon for temporary distortion brand). SH 59 is not that good when you can't kill monsters with torment and hellfire fast.

[bobross419]

I've never been able to ascend with a 2H melee, but I've ascended quite a few times with 1H+Shield and cleared a couple Zigs with that combo. Anecdotal yes, but to say that shields are "very bad" in extended is a bit of a stretch. It may not be optimal, but it works well enough... Most of the creatures that torment/hellfire die to 2 or 3 hits from a Trishula and proper positioning cuts down on the amount of crap coming your way.

Shields are nice for a sloppier play style... they give you a little more margin of error, especially early and mid-game. Plus they give you an extra slot for resists. Sure resists aren't all that effective, but again... a little more margin of error.

@Sandman -- Hand axe of pain isn't all that great of an extended weapon anyways, and distortion brand would just as soon push a tormentor away as it would give the extra damage or banish which leads to other issues... A solid broad axe would have probably made a big difference.

[crate]

Yes if you have the best one-handed weapon in the game (which is so exceedingly rare that it literally never generates as far as I know; even eudemon blades and sacred scourges generate on enemies in some situations) then one handed weapons, and thus shields, are good.

If you have a mundane weapon like a regular trident then meleeing things with that trident instead of using a halberd or glaive is not going to be very fun, and believe it or not demon weapons are much rarer than decent twohanders (great sword, glaive, great mace, battleaxe are all orders of magnitude more common than demon weapons)

Bringing up zigs when talking about how good items or spells etc. are is not a good idea, they are extremely different from anything you run into in actual crawl. Shields are much better in zigs than in actual crawl, simply because the ratio of attacks you perform to the attacks you defend against is so skewed in a zig.

[bobross419]

I don't think I've ever had a problem getting a demon trident. If there aren't any red devils carrying them in Lair:8 or Vestibule, I usually find one of those red knight guys with one. Worst case you just find one in the first few levels of Pan, but I've never had to wait that long to get one.

I'm not saying 1H+Shield is better than 2H, just that it shouldn't be discounted outright. I have a hell of a time getting a 2H melee off the ground, but I can get a 1H+Shield to mid-game without batting an eye.

[crate]

well the thing is, if you want to use a onehander on a character who kills things with melee, you really need to find one by the end of lair or so, since otherwise you'll be better served by continuing to train weapon skill for the common twohanders that you've found and then you have 20 skill and there's no point to bothering with onehanded weapons any more since even a demon weapon is only as good as your current weapon (and the common onehanders are much worse), and you've already put a lot of xp into weapon skill so you don't really want to also put a lot into shield skill to make a shield make a difference

for characters who start the game with a way of killing things other than "slash/poke/smack it with a big sword/stick/club" then I very often don't use twohanded weapons, even though I often finish the game meleeing things instead of primarily using conjurations or whatever I started with

[evilmike]

crate didn't say you're unlikely to ever find one, just that good two handers are a lot more common. All of them can be found quite early, and in good quantity which means you're likely to find a branded one (with great swords, practically guaranteed in deeper levels). Getting 2 handers to min delay takes a while longer, but they're good weapons before hitting that point, so just make sure the attack delay is non-suicidal and you'll be fine. To me that counts as "getting off the ground" with them.

Regarding the op, the problem with this thread is it's confusing "not always the best choice" with "useless". Shields could be designed better but there are legit reasons for using them right now.