That's the point. You don't maximize shield protection for each damage type. You maximize shield protection for statuses. Shields work very differently from weapons and armor in this game. For example, if I'm going into a freeze-shadow level, I would rather have a freeze-elemental shield than a fire-shadow shield.

But, to answer your first question:

* Ironmight Plate Shield: Stun resistance is nice, but it's not common enough or dangerous enough to choose a shield around it. BTS' offensive bonus is much more valuable.

* Royal Jelly Shield: Same as for IPS.

* Barbarous Thorn Shield: No status resistance, but the competitors don't have great status resistance anyway. The offensive bonus makes this the winner.

And, for your second question:

* Volcanic Plate Shield: Fire resistance is great. Stun is nice but not great.

* Ancient Plate Shield: Stun is nice but not great. I would rather have the fire resistance of VPS.

* Omega Shell: No resistance, but extra health. I've never used Omega Shell, but some players claim that the extra health is really valuable. In a fire level VPS still wins. But elsewhere Omega Shell beats VPS.

Shields either nullify statuses if they resist naturally or take A LOT of damage from them. Unique Variants aren't as helpful.

Get dread skelly shield for freeze/poison. Ironmight plate shield for dreams and nightmares.

I'm aware that you already explained it. The Facebook Prince appears to have not read your post, so I re-wrote it but shorter in hopes that the fewer words will appease their desire for concentrated and brief bouts of knowledge. In fact, I just re-wrote your initial help a second time so as to further shorten the phrase... yours may sound nice and be more correct, but mine is written in cave man.

BOPP KNOW SHIELD NULLIFY STATUS EFFECT. MORE IMPORTANT THAN DAMAGE TYPE.

BOPP SAY GET SHIELDS FOR STATUS NOT DAMAGE. COVER ALL STATUS EFFECT. GOOD.

Finer words have never been written.

Your plan was to get one shield for each damage type when it should have been to get shields that cover each status effect type. This was the paradigm that needed correction. To answer you more fully, enemies with statuses have less attack and added status. The added status translates into a large bout of unnecessary damage to your shield that can be completely removed, and is almost always going to be larger than the amount your piercing or shadow resists. We don't fully know every detail of how status is applied on a hit by hit basis as many enemies seem to vary their attacks but that is the gist of it.

You're correct in that damage type matters, but you can't cover everything concisely so you're going to have to either get them all or make do with less than optimal sometimes. My advice is to just make omega shell and forget about it unless you want a shield for one specific run you're attempting to grind heavily, like dreams and nightmares, fsc, etc.

I assume that Fehzor means "less damage and added status". I've never heard of that, and it seems doubtful. But it doesn't change the fundamental point for Wild-Cisco, which is:

Ideally your shield would match the damage and status of your enemies' attacks. But if you can match only one of those, make it status. So, as you plan your first few shields, try to cover all important statuses, rather than all damage types.

Topics like These remind me why we actually started the shield Analysis Topic there

http://forums.spiralknights.com/de/node/110324

Yea, I wanted to continue it for a Long time already, but I kinda lost Motivation since in the end I was the only one delivering data there.

Fehzor, please post your test results into that shield test Topic.

@Wild-Cisco:
Status strength does Change in many various ways. If you Play often on normal difficulty then stati are weaker than playing on elite difficulty. There are also People telling that Monsters deal more normal damage than specialized damage, if you Play on normal difficulty.

You started this Topic by asking what shields are best for meelee combat. You are right that meely attacks do usually have a higher part of normal damage than specialized damage which would make the Plate Shields interesting due to their natural high defense against normal.

But then again you should remember that - even as swordman - you Need to dodge projectiles, too. And those are very often pure specialized damage with a high Chance to deliver a certain Status. Just imagine yourselfe beeing stuck in an Arena room with 8 turrets of any Kind who just love to turn your safe ground into a bullet hell. In such a Situation you are greatful to have a specialized shield as mentioned by other Posts above.

To give a glimpse on my Play style:
I have one Plate shield: the strongest shield in puncto normal defense: Ancient Plate Shield. As General all-round shield and as shield for dreams and nightmares.
And then I got various shields for different situations.

I usually like to Play on distance and block projectiles with my shield or dodge them while getting rid of stuff from a safe range.

If something Comes Close, I like to prevent that my shield gets even a hit in first place: here is where shield-bumping gives enemies a push to push them out of their attack range.

This might be nice but this misses your Initial question, too. What you want to know isn't someone who tries to prevent damage on your shield or who (like bopp) values offense over defense.

You morely Need someone who favours a meely playstyle and uses his shield in combat as real shields.

Holy-Nightmare, where are you? We need you here :)

(blame my autocorrecture of another language for missspelled words)

Yes, in my heart I am a gunner ;)

As such I am morely interested in blocking the ranged attacks of monsters, keeping my shield alive permanently (which also includes taking a bare hit instead of using my shield, so my shield doesnt break - so my shield can recover and is able to eat the next 2 hits) and use the shield bump effect very often if monsters come close (don't mix this up with shield bash).

I use other weapon types, too but my focus is ranged combat (combat with guns and other weapons that work on distance like brandishes or Dark Reprisal), so a sworder who uses defensive shields, too, should join this discussion and make some statements (let's hope for Holy-Nightmare).

To give a really full-depth answer to your question it is necessary to analyse shields to a deeper degree. I will continue that topic of shield analysis and collecting data of shield durability. Hopefully we can reach a point where enough data is collected to compare each single monster and to be able give a clear statement about a question like yours like: what is the best shield if fallowing attacks from monster x,y and z with status a on difficulty b. Well, but much work to do then. Till now we rely on generel opinion and experience ;)

From the feel of it, I would recommend to you the Dread Skelly Shield, since it grants poision and freost status, too. But let me be honest with you: I myselfe have the 3 star version of it with heat level 7 lying around for like 2 years already and never felt the urge to spend enough money into this shield to upgrade it after all. Here is where I value distance to fiends and gunning down with little shield contact. And I also did not take frost and poision serious enough (well meanwhile I morely stumbled over the Gorgomega and Omegaward which made my DSS-desire sink even deeper)

The only one shield that I really recommend to you is Dragon Scale Shield, but this would be almost only useful in Compound 42, but there it shiney so bright that everything becomes white - even after closing Spiral Knights and shutting down the PC ;)

Before the bomber update (or something like that), bombs were able to shoot pretty far (shard bombs)
Nowadays, you can't do that.
However, as Bopp said, you can plant it then go away. Nitrome is good because
1. It is fast
2. It deals decent damage
3. It knocks back monsters

And also, bombers don`t always use bomber sets. Some (or most, idk) use Kat cowls/raiments, while others wear the infamous chaos set.
As for shields, idk. I use Aegis (only because it's the easiest shield to make). I guess SSB is good, along with heavy shields.

Bombs are amazing. Don`t forget that.