Thread: Make shield blow skill for all shield-wielding characters

It makes sense. Any idiot that can hold a shield can whack someone with it. It should be a common skill like the bow-skill. As soon as you get the passive shield skill, you can use the shield blow. Guardians would get (because we're special) the regular skill and the improved skill like before. This is my suggestion.

How would this be useful for any class?

It could be an interrupt. I dunno about anyone else other than champs (we get clobber and horns, and don't even have shields), and wardens get at least one interrupt (the boot). I assume guards must have some kind of interrupt?

Guards have several potential interrupts. Most are either gated by responses (Shield-Bash and Shield-Smash), or are gated and require a critical (Overwhelm and To The King). Stamp is a solid one, though, ungated, and potentially on short cooldown.

Interesting idea...

Guard and Ward both already have shield attacks, so we're really just talking about Caps and Minis.

A spammable interrupt is right out - thats something specifically granted to just a few classes. Other interrupts are on longer cooldowns. Giving that to everyone, or a plurality of classes at least, takes away from the value of the classes that already have it, and decreases the point of giving monsters interruptable skills. If almost everyone has a spammable interrupt, then there's no strategy left for dealing with interruptable monsters, its just "see green ring, everyone hit their interrupt and carry on".

So it'd really just be a weak melee attack on a short cooldown, akin to the racial attacks (Headbutt, Uppercut, etc). It would never be your best option in your melee rotation for either Cap or Mini.

Plus, if you're whacking someone with your shield, it's awful hard to continue to use it to Block, so shouldnt you have a few seconds of Block disabled and a small Armor debuff? Guards and Wards are much better trained in defensive warfare, so they know how to use their shields on the offensive as well without sacrificing their defensive position.

Interesting, as I was wondering about this as well. If I build my Captain as a shield-user, he should at least be able to bash the enemy every so often with it. However, I'd wonder about Minstrels. Why are they allowed to use shields if they primarily use instruments that require both hands? Otherwise, sure I'd be all for gaining a shield-based attack with a shield on my Captain.

Now, only the guardians, wardens and captains and minstrels use shields, but, no captain use, if he or she has a bit sense. The wardens can strike with their shields, and, well, the minstrels should not. One, who can kill with sounding a flute, don't need a shield to harm. My main character is a champion, and, I loved the days, when I could used heavy shields, and now, we even could not use a light shield. If the champions could use a shield-swipe skill, of course, with a heavy shield, it would be nice.

Originally Posted by Iscus

It makes sense. Any idiot that can hold a shield can whack someone with it.

No he can't. A shield is heavy and it would take quite some strength and skill to get any power behind the blow I reckon, certainly wouldn't fit for a minny... also I don't see the point of your idea...

You mean WL could actually use that big shield?

Meh...

Well, if Guardians on the other hand get stronger main hand attacks while not in overpower, I support it.

After all they are strong enough to execute a shield blow but hardly do any damage with the sword.

This is a horrible idea in a class system.

Anybody can whack someone with a shield, just like anyone can whack someone with a sword. The point is how effectively can you whack? Doing something well in the heat of a moment against dangerous foes is a bit of a task. It's enough that Captains and Minstrels have the option of using shields. Giving them this ability would detract from the glory of a Guardian and Warden.