This is going to be a lengthy post, but it's also going to be as general as possible. Feel free to skip to the end of it if you want a TL;DR.

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Shields are an interesting piece of gear. They are so important yet at the same time horribly uninteresting. The plan of this post is to go over new and interesting ways to enhance shieldplay. Some ideas may seem similar since I do bring them up in other threads all the time, but I figured I have enough to actually make a full suggestion essay now.

Let's start off by defining what shields currently do:

• Block damage
• Resist status
• Give small combat boosts similar to armor
• Deal insignificant damage and minor stun on shield bash
• Give you small amounts of breathing room via shield bumps
• Mandatory for advanced combat techniques, such as shield canceling and switchshooting

So shields work as a great defensive barrier, yet the best thing a shield can do is move enemies away from you and make your weapons stronger. The goal of the shield isn't to take a hit, but rather to avoid getting hit in the first place. While that's a good rule of thumb in general, it ignores what shields are designed to do - take a hit so you don't have to.

No matter how many choices you give to players, they will always fall back to one of a handful of shields. Crest of Almire, volcanic plate shield, swiftstrike buckler, and barbarous thorn shield are all the "in" shields, with grey owlite shield sneaking up for a second place mention. There are a vast amount of shields out there that are all good to use as well, but it doesn't matter because they're situational and why would you want a shield for every situation when you can use the same shield for the same purpose everywhere?

There is a solution to this - you add additional combat methods to your shields. This makes players want to use more than one shield depending on what they're fighting. Weaponizing shields allows for more intricate defensive playstyles while not forcing the offensive folks into a handful of choices.

Without further ado, let's get to the suggestion!

NEW SHIELD TYPES

Parrying Shield
Mirror Shield
Reactive Shield
Vacuum Shield
Aggressor Shield

How they work

Parrying Shield

Parrying shields act like a normal shield, up until it takes a hit. The shield user will swipe forwards with their shield, dealing a fair amount of normal damage to any enemy immediately in front of them. The shield still takes damage, and this behavior will cease when the shield is out of health. The invulnerability time is the same for parrying shields and normal shields, however parrying shields will leave you vulnerable for a small amount of time after attacking.

Parrying shields would come in three flavors - light, moderate, and heavy. Damage and knockback on the parry attack increase as you move from light to heavy, but the amount of time that you're vulnerable after parrying increases as well.
Light shields would likely only be vulnerable for a moment, making their vulnerable state only noticeable while under a barrage of attacks or while standing on a trap. Medium shields would be vulnerable for about 3/4ths of a player's invinciframes while heavy shields would be vulnerable for 1.5x a player's invinciframes.

Parrying shields, additionally, deal their parry damage on shield bash.

Mirror Shield

Mirror shields act like a normal shield as well, however it also has unique behavior. Upon being hit by a projectile attack, the mirror shield will fire a normal-damage projectile in the direction the player is facing, reflecting the projectile. The shield still takes damage, and this behavior will cease when the shield is out of health.

Unlike parrying shields, mirror shields only come in one flavor. There are various resistances for mirror shields, but their general purpose will always be the same. There is potential for projectile speed to increase or decrease depending on the shield, but it's not mandatory.

Mirror shields do not have any unique shield bash behaviors.

Reactive Shields

Reactive shields act like a normal shield, until the shield is broken. Upon the shield breaking, the shield releases an explosion of varying strength and effect.

Reactive shields can have a number of effects - exploding with a high-knockback moderate damage, exploding with a high knockdown followed by a status mist, exploding and sending several high damage projectiles out in all directions, the number of possibilities and unique behaviors can really stretch your imagination!

Reactive shields do not have any unique shield bash behaviors.

Vacuum Shield

We've covered some great offensive types of shields, but let's get into some more interesting mechanics for other shields. The vacuum shield would act as a defensive shield for your team. While active, all projectiles within a 5 tile radius will home in on you. Upon the shield breaking, the user would be thrown backwards, a small vortex appearing where their shield broke. Being thrown backwards would act like a shield bash for any monster you come in contact with.

Vacuum shields would act like a defensive barrier for your team. These shields would have high specialized resistance but small or no normal damage resistance. You can stay back with your gunner and prevent them from getting hit by projectiles, nullify devilites attacking your team by taking their hits, or even running into a crowd of melee monsters and having them break your shield, allowing for easier attacks on their group! This would be an amazing support shield class.

Vacuum shields would create a vortex at the starting point of a shield bash, and additionally break all projectiles the knight comes in contact with while bashing without taking damage.

Aggressor Shield

Aggressor shields would act like the shields we currently have, however their specialty is in their shield bash. Upon bash, the shield will deal both stun, knockback, and another status. Shield bashes from aggressor shields also only take 33% of your shield health, and simply require you to have more than 50% of your shield health to perform a shield bash.

Aggressor shields turn the current shield formula into a more advanced tactic. You can take hits and bash so long as you plan it before getting swarmed. Aggressor shields would likely have higher health than other shields, however have less defensive powers. I would even say to give aggressor shields "green" health, similar to how players cross over to "silver" health when they get enough. The shield bashes would work as 33% of the bar we know currently, effective giving players 5 shield bashes before they have to stop and let the shield heal. Damage will still be similar from monsters, but players can shield bash more often.

Transferring over to the new system

With any large overhaul to a system, it might be fun to try out the new features for yourself. We can limit the new abilities to new shields entirely, or we can add new shields while revamping some of our older shields. If we were to revamp older shields, here's an idea of what some could turn into:

This shield would become a "vacuum" shield. Shield health would increase slightly, but otherwise its stats would remain the same.

• Dragon Scale Shield

This shield line would become a "vacuum" shield. Shield health would increase slightly, but otherwise its stats would remain.

• Omega Shell

This shield line would become an "aggressor" shield. Shield would have potential to upgrade its stun from minor to moderate. Increased health and slightly decreased defenses.

• Heater Shield

This shield in particular would become a reactive shield. Upon breaking, enemies are knocked back via a nitronome-esque explosion and lit on fire.

• Royal Jelly Shield

This shield line would become a mirror shield. No stat changes.

• Barbarous Thorn Shield

This shield line would become a parrying shield. It would be a moderate-tier parrying shield. No stat changes otherwise.

• Grand Tortoise/Savage Tortoise/Omegaward/Gorgomega

These shield lines would become aggressor shields. Their unique shield bash behavior would remain in-tact. Increased health and decreased defenses. Have a chance to shock enemies on the shield bash.

• Breaker shield lines

These shield lines would become mirror shields. No stat changes.

• Scarlet Shield

This shield would get an extended line up to 5*, and would become a reactive shield. Upon breaking, enemies are knocked down via a dark briar barrage-like explosion, and enchanted to drop more hearts like an un-upgraded seraphynx heart attack.

• Celestial Shield

Yes, it's a promo shield, but it's actually garbage. This shield would become a vacuum shield. No stat changes other than a slight shield health increase.

From here, new shields can be added with these mechanics. I can imaging parrying shields having visual appearances of swords. Reactive shields that explode like a big angry bomb, dark retribution, current or old shard bombs. Aggressor shields that deal a variety of statuses. There's so many things that would change under this sort of update, and honestly most of it would be player-side, which makes it more interesting to work with.

TL;DR: introduce 5 new shield classes - one deals melee damage after being hit, one fires a projectile on being hit by a projectile, one explodes upon being depleted, one attracts projectiles to you while active and creates a vortex upon being depleted, and the last one lets you shield bash a whole lot more. Unique behaviors are added onto these base ideas, and some current shields would be shifted into the new method while new shields that are built for the mechanic would be introduced as well.