That new shield feels a like a little bit of a slap in the face directly after making the arsenal forum and asking us for our feedback on balancing issues. Hopefully, they have plans to implement for bombs and ESPECIALLY guns that they plan on doing soon. But as is, i don't really see anywhere in our feedback that there was a general consensus that swords needed a buff from a shield *crazy face*.
It's hard to say what effect this new shield will have on armor sets with any certainty, but it seems like this is going to push us more towards homogenization of armors. On the surface, won't it make skolver less common, as now you can have vog + thorn shield to get speed and attack power increase?
Lastly, given our feedback it just feels like the new shield should have had a strong gun buff, not a sword buff. My only hope is they have bigger plans for guns (i don't use guns, but for gunners i hope...) that they want to address independently of this patch, and soon.
It has piercing defense and some sword users has the tendency of being hit, comes with the front line thing you know... having something to use to defend either with higher sheild HP or high common defensive stat on a defensive item feels more important to me then extra damage with swords.