Would love a shield as primary weapon and damage

Forever I've been looking for a game that uses a shield not only to block but at my primary mode of attack screw the sword,axe, and mace image what you could do with your shield add spikes to it to do piercing damage, add blades to the front or bottom for slicing, or just a bare shield for blunt, or mix and match all!

Throw the shield, explode the spikes, crush skulls, dual wield and dervish two buckler shields in a flurry quick tornado attacks, don the massive man size tower shield for slow satisfying massive hits, there are a huge amount of possibilities, even a mode of magic perhaps? who needs a wand and staff?

just something i would really love to see and make this game truly unique? yeah would be awesome and you know it (opinions do vary and not speaking for everyone when i say you know it, but you know it )

 

I doubt episode one will have really complex, involved shield combat, but I'm completely on board with finding out how much the devs will let us center our combat style on the weapon WE choose. I mean, someone out there is going to go dual wield maces or hammers. Someone is going to go bow, someone is going to do two handed sword. Why not someone with dual shields? Or shield in mainhand and offhand free for a staff, wand, censor, or other magical accessory, so that all melee is routed through the main hand and they can also cast some stuff?

I'd love to see the variety.

 

I think it's an awesome concept i would love to see in game, woe it be a shield is always for blocking and mitigating damage .I believe it's time for a change, full dps from main hand shield,nothing holding it back
it can be used for range,melee,magic. Could imagine a number of different skills to be used with a Primary shield
Shield toss: obviously throws the shield for damage
Shield bash: a pretty standard shield attack
Hammer shield : a massive hit from a blunt shield with possible root effects
Razer shield : from a shield with blades on it for slicing damage and cause bleed
Blind: from the shields shine finish disorients your opponent
Shield bash: (with a spiked shield) pierce damage with a chance at parlyze
Spike projectile : (again with a spiked shield) shoots a magical spike protruded from said shield
Earthquake: slam shield into ground causing the earth to quake for possible stun or damage
Shield rain: an aoe attack where you throw your shield into the air and magically splits into smaller fragments, or creates more magical shield to rain down unto your enemies for damage
Skull crush: with a massive man size shield you raise over your head and smash into your foes skull for huge satisfying damage
Wall of pain: Plant your massive shield into the ground while taking double damage for 5 seconds your shield store energy which explodes for huge damage after 5 seconds are over


just a few a could thing of before bed. Now i'm really not 100% sure how the mechanics of this game work , but I'm sure these ideas can be incorporated somehow into the game with the mechanics they have set in mind


If anyone else has some ideas please feel free to post, i'm curious to see what skills and skillsets can be imagined up with a shield being as primary damage dealing destruction

 

I'm trying to imagine the practically here.. Specifically the bladed edges. You'd run the risk of doing serious damage to those edges but then again it really shouldn't be any different than a sword in that you should never block with the edge.

I've seen someone fight with dual bucklers before so I find this general concept interesting. I've long held that shields are a defensive weapon and should be thought of as such. Just as swords can be used to defense.. shields can be used for offense. It's not their primary design but.. to quote one of my favorite movie lines.. I don't care what it's designed to do. I care about what it CAN do.

I suppose the real challenge here is shield size and weight. So long as it's not too bulky or heavy I don't really see a problem.

 

Mmmh, very sorry to go slightly off-topic there but this is somehting I hear a lot, and I think it's a bit of a broad generalization. Here is a video that puts some perspective on the matter (it is the fourth of a series of five videos on blocking, but I think it is the most interesting here because it specifically refers to where people usually get the idea that edge parrying should be avoided altogether, that is fencing treatises, also referred to as historical systems here)

You'll have to excuse the bit about "the mystery of parrying", but you have to acknowledge he is answering to youtuber's comments, so not necessarily the most diplomatic or rigorous contradictors

Also I recommend this guy's channel because he both practices a lot and reads as much historical material as he can.

 

I've heard this dual wielding shields idea before, but I just don't see the practical use for it.

I do agree that a shield is as much a weapon as a sword is, but to forgo completely offensive weapons in favor of another shield seems silly to me. I would love to see the shield be more than just armor, which from the deep dives I would assume the devs feel the same way.

 

dual wielding shield is just one possibility and i agree with not forgoing a weapon, maybe used for parry? i'm more interesting in the shield being the main hand primary damage dealing source, but not necessary the only weapon equipped, but i do love the idea of a two handed shield too, and dual wield shield well why not? one for stand old boring blocking and one for you main damage? or in case like dual wield daggers if the shield are the size and shape why not both for damage? a shield isn't just a round hunk of metal it could be all shapes and sized, i wouldn't go so small as cuffs or bracers but not as big as a kite shield either, but could hold the same shape and blades edges would make a devastating weapon of choice

 

I can see this. The spartan shields were capable of dishing out quite a lot of damage. From the large, heavy face used as a crushing force to the edges used, with the weight of the shield, for more.. bloody... strikes, all while being a valuable method of defense.

The idea of a 2 handed shield sounds interesting, making the character essentially a mobile piece of armor for a larger construct, such as a siege engine of sorts.

I'd love to see a good balance of offense and defense with shield use, just something that would be believable in the context of the game world.

 

The more the game can imitate real choices i.e. a character could choose to bash with a "blinged out" shield the more immersion ..
I'm for it.

 

Spiked shields are a staple of Ultima games, I don't see why this couldn't be possible.


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When I first posted about this Dual Wielding Shieldbearer concept a few months back, what was in my mind was a secondary caster who specialized in Aoe damage, probably from the Death school, so he got life leech, with Heavy Armor and Shields. I pictured dual kite shields, with the leading corners spiked. He settles into a crouching stance, the shields covering him from almost all forward angles, and casts a spell that begins draining enemies while healing him (and maybe a little healing to his nearby friends?)

Finally an enemy comes forward who requires more than simple delaying tactics as the death field eats them up, and his style and moves are... boxing. He's got what ammount to massive spiked gauntlets, while using most of his time to defend and maintain the lethal field of magic, an opponent who thinks two shields aren't a big deal will be singing a different tune through his punctured rib cage after a right jab with a 15 pound spiked shield. The style lends itself well to dual wielding, to shields (quick withdraws and keeping the arms up defending and framing the body), and the three pronged combo of a self healing mound of armor who damages all nearby foes and can deliver intermittent severe and disabling blows... not bad for a one man band. Now put him in his place in a group, supporting ranged characters, or working with two or three others who employ a similar technique, overlapping their death fields (assuming the magick can understand FoF tags) and supporting one another with shield wall training...

This is, of course, only one use for dual wielding, and I came up with it on a whim looking at the proposed system. I would hope it could be used and implemented in dozens or even hundreds of unique, equally viable builds, so that I never know WHAT I'm going to see.

 

I would like to see this too. The shield should not just be for melee (tho my preference would be melee assault) it could be an instrument to project magic or channel magic and your concept looks great, i would like the option to go either melee, magic, or a combination of both. would be so nice

 

I certainly don't mind this in concept, but I can't imagine that a shield would be an ideal weapon in the end.

 

Well, there it all depends on your definition of "ideal". If you want maximum possible damage per hit, that isn't the same as maximum possible range, or maximum possible rate of fire, or maximum possible damage per second, all of those are likely to be different weapons. And none of them are likely to be shields, although it would be hilarious for the devs to throw a monkeywrench at us there.

A shield as primary damage source gives the advantage that when your opponent attacks YOU, you are holding a shield. Using your offhand to cast, or carry a bottle of wine, or even carrying a second shield would not detract from the fact that you had a shield in your first hand to start with.

Theoretically (totally my theory here), having a shield in each hand could grant even more defensive options than having only one, and could result in a very very defended character. Provided a shield is allowed to be used to deal damage in some way, or even an interesting and entertaining variety of ways, that character could fight. Now, will that turn out be IDEAL? Will it even turn out to be VIABLE? Will the double shielded turn out to be helpless clowns waiting for a polearm user to come mutilate them? Only the devs can tell us that.

 

I'm not quite sure how it couldn't be viable or an ideal weapon a shield can be crafted into anything or any size to deal massive damage stand alone shield or in use with a secondary weapon be it wand, staff , sword, the shield doesn't need to block at all to be a weapon , but you can block and counter or reflect the incoming hit it's all in the mind of the designer. If the game mechanics or lore won't allow it to have a melee attribute cause it goes against the rules make it all magic , there are no rules in magic lol

 

One of the big challenges in allowing a mechanic like this is balancing it so that it isn't suddenly the ultimate answer. If a shield can be the biggest, fastest, hardest hitting AND block damage, and has magick powers, and range... why bother using anything else?

I'm good with the shield being weaker than the sword for dealing damage, after all, the sword is weaker than the shield in blocking it. At equal levels of quality, that is.

 

In one of the deep dives (the combat one I suspect) LB seemed very enthusiastic towards having a shield bash and a shield edge attack in game, so fingers crossed, we will see this for episode 1. Also as pointed out by Ned888, attacking with spiked shields was used in other Ultimas (in U6 I definitely recall using them).

 

I belive blocking could become less effective depending how it's crafted and could still block but do more damage in turn
I wouldn't expect 1 shield or shield type to do ranged and magic and melee I had in mind different types of shields like there are weapons