@ klipik: What do you mean by "fix" shield canceling?

And on this subject as a whole, I'm fairly certain that you skip an attack because you can only do the amount of attacks in the weapon combo in a given time frame.
Lets take the hammer for example. Normally you hit-> Dash -> final hit
now if you do a shield cancel right after the first hit, then go for another combo it has to remove one of the attacks in order to limit you to only 3 attacks in that time frame. So it would look like this: Hit->Shield->hit->final hit. Why it skips the dash instead of the final hit, I have no idea.
This does cause quite the issue with heavy weapons however. Because it will always start with the first hit in a combo, if you shield cancel the first attack, then go for a combo the game will skip your second attack in to keep you to the weapons 2 hit limit.

This also has a good side for all you LD'ers that hate dem toothpicks. Because this limit is applied no matter how many attacks you do before or after shield canceling, toothpick users can only do 3 rapid shield cancel attacks in a row before they have to wait and let the timer reset. Granted this timer isn't very long by any means, but it can give you a chance to recoup and fight back.

@Mtax: This mechanic CAN be extorted. If you take your first swing and shield cancel, you can take your 2nd, then time the bigger damage of the last hit to do some surprise damage, seeing as no one expects the hammer to do the last attack before it does the dash :P

It's most certainly a glitch and it's highly dangerous when you, say, get interrupted in Lockdown. It's useful with some weapons, though few. Examples:

• If you need your WRH to act like a DA.
• If you wish to not move until the last strike of a 3-strike combo.
• If the second hit of a toothpick is unwanted (it's !@#$ty, really).

I wouldn't say its a glitch either. Just a game mechanic that was turned into a useful strategy for players. Don't forget its not only in Lockdown, but is used even in the Clockworks too.

And like I said before. Its been around a LOOOOOONG time. A lot of people already know of this, and since it is a universal part of the game, its not really game breaking, but just a good thing to have when you're trying to whittle away at an enemy (such as Vana for example,idk) but wanting to keep your shield ready and deployed right after the initial hit. Or if you're trying to safely get in a combo, and not wanting to launch yourself forward into potential death with a full normal combo.

I don't remember this ever being a problem with the game, or called a glitch. It was just accepted as Shield cancelling, and we left it at that.

EDIT:

This was also used by me and many others to slash through the elevator at the end of the level with the 3rd swing of a FF or BTB. You'd still continue to the next floor, but your character would stand alone outside of the elevator. That's the only "glitch" -y part about it, as far as I'm concerned, and all that is is just a fun little visual effect.

Also, does that still work? Its been a while since I've played :o