For the complete inability to shield and having to rely exclusively on dodging and crappy netcode to survive, not equipping a shield should give one, MSI very high, and sword ASI VH.
Obviously, this is mostly aimed at swordsmen and one might say that gunners get buffed for no reason, but think about it, what happens when you get caught at close range by a mob of monsters with only a gun and no shield?
The basic idea is to bring striker to PvE, and introduce an entirely new playstyle.
I'm going to say no. However, I will say if you wanted to introduce a shield line that has very low defenses but gives a sort of combat boost, that would be good.
Swiftstrike turns into sword ASI: high. Gunners would get a gun ASI: high shield, and bombers a bomb CTR: high shield.
Then we would have a universal ASI: medium shield, perhaps also a universal CTR: medium shield.
All of the shields listed above however have a -1 HP penalty. The universal ones would have -2 HP.
Next we have a mercurial shield that grants MSI: low and has shock resistance, plus a variant without shock resist and instead +1 HP.
What does this mean? It means we now have class shields to go along with damage resist shields, along with stat boost shields. All shields above are 3* and have swiftstrike-level defenses. Sword would have piercing resistance, guns elemental, bombs shadow. All others are normal defense.
This means that going in without your shield is still the "challenge mode" of this game, while each class gets a shield to boost their own effectiveness, and overall you can change your shield out to fit your playstyle, and it's not expensive. At the same time, this is not any more overpowered than the current swiftstrike buckler is.
@OP
-1 because I would stop bringing a shield. If it didn't overly trivialize the game like the "Assassain Shadow" shield suggestion did, then maybe. But, IIRC OOO devs have said a long time ago that the shield just became an integral part of the game, so they're probably not going to make shieldless better. This game is pretty much defined by having the shield as it's used for most of the offensive techniques, and it's also important for defense...
@Fangel
I feel like splitting the original Swiftstrike to sword and gun ASI is good enough of a debuff. In any case, the health modification is meaningless. Players would use it anyways albeit the very slight downside. 3* defense is enough defense to take a hit, which is all you need for general situations.
Uhhh... sure Mercurial Shield. But why the health modification? Makes no sense on it's own without reasoning.
A good change for these shields would be to make them 5* with 3* defenses, legitimizing these shields for Missions while making them less accessible like they should be.
I don't think there would be any mass migration from shield to noshield, or that noshield is by anyway better.
Have you tried playing most missions without a shield?
On a similar note, have you ever run the clockworks with MSI: VH and ASI: VH? This potentially grants players MSI: Maximum. Now, under your suggestion, if someone was wearing full black kat, they would have Damage bonus: Maximum, MSI: Maximum, and could potentially have a sprite perk to make ASI be maximum with swords too.
And Qwez, having the shields be 5* increases their shield bumping ability. Keeping them at 3* keeps players having to work on another shield anyways, but if they masted this shield they don't really need anything other than the default one given.
Health modifications I figure won't make a huge difference, unless in lower tiers. With these shields being 3*, they'll hurt their tier's (and below) total health ability, however in tier 3 it won't hardly be noticed at all.
The slight downgrade isn't supposed to make players not use the shields, but rather make players have a specialized shield for their combative abilities. We only have one glass cannon shield (no class shields), so why not give the other classes shields and make the glass cannon's one a bit weaker.
Mercurial having two variants is just because why not. I figure it only has a +1 on it's combat boost (MSI: low) whereas all other "class" shields have +2, but I don't really want to give MSI: medium on a shield. Hence, one has shock resistance and the other has a health boost. We really only need one or the other, but both of 'em sound like a different kind of useful per situation.
A good thing to point out is that the no shield would also be available from the beginning at no cost... just a little OP
don't ya think?
@Fangel
Shields' bump ability is tied to their defensive capability, or so some thread in the Arsenal forum said.
So if you just reduced the defenses of the shield to 3*, then you'd have 3* shield bump.
@Ellthan
I haven't played most missions with shield because I enjoy the shield-cancel tech and at the very least, having a Proto Shield is so helpful.
I have played a couple floors in clockworks and maybe a couple of T1 or T2 missions without a shield. I noticed that Flourishes are suddenly much worse for chip damage, Cutters are much better for chip damage, and chargespamming swords is a little harder without the safety of shield-cancelling.
With this Universal boost to non-shielding, I'd imagine some bombers would go haywire with Volcanic, Sprite Perk:MSI Med, shieldless. Cutter with innate ASI:VH and MSI:VH would be pretty ridiculous, because you can reposition much more quickly at extreme close range (you would have to basically go shieldless if you wanted to do this in the first place or else you'd shieldbump your enemy at this distance).
In terms of offense, most swords become significantly worse without a shield, most guns become somewhat worse, and bombs are unaffected.
In terms of defense, most of the major issues can be remedied with a Dash, or otherwise remedied by proper positioning (which is easier with boosted MSI).
The enemies in SK aren't made for this suggestion of shieldless where you can just run away from everything.
The ASI boost is pointless if you have no shield to cancel with. Shield cancelling is a much more valuable bonus, so I'd stick with Swifty. I can live without MSI VH.
MSI VH and ASI VH is quite overpowered for not using a shield. You're giving out free ASI boosts, which otherwise can only be obtained as late-game trinkets or UV's. The Swiftstrike is practically no shield in the first place due to its minimal protection. The only purpose of its shield function is shield cancelling. Second, MSI? I can see that happening on another 3* shield, but I would think even a medium boost to MSI is a lot for not using a shield. Very few entities even give a low boost.
This sounds like Rocket Hammers everywhere.
Once i went to the in cold blood mission, i unequipped my shield and i thought i should get faster attacking and movement speed both at very high
Also, you are supposed to have to wait for very high msi since you're gonna need mecurial demo set and swiftsteps II battlesprite perk
A HUGE component of this game is getting cool new stuff to wear, rewarding not equipping gear is counter-intuitive.
That said, I could see 000 going a route of adding new Swiftstrike-like shields. A movement speed shield with defense comparable to Swifstrike makes a lot of sense.
How is that even possible? I thought shields were mandatory. I understand having a shield with low defense and it boosts your attack power, but having the choice to remove the shield? Without a shield, are we really considered knights?
I would say yes to the idea, but sense it involves a whole other dimension of gameplay for swordsmen and maybe bombers, I think it needs a little more thkught put on it. I would do the thinking if I did not just spend a whole night awake watching manga, anime and playing games And if I was not in the middle of work typing this heheh.