of course how much HP/AP a shield should have is a different matter open to debate lol I'd probably say something like 50% of the characters current AP ... so if a player can take 4-5 rounds before their AP is gone then the shield could absorb 2-3 rounds while its inactive (by their side) before damage "breaks" the shield and damage goes through to character AP/HP while its raised/active then the shield could absorb 3-4 rounds before it "breaks" and damage goes through to the players AP/HP the term "break" in this regard doesnt mean the shield drops or the player is staggered merely that damage has accumulated beyond the shields AP and is now damaging the characters AP/HP directly ... though while the shield is raised the forcefield damage mitigation would still apply (the shields forcefield would still require a damage bar to enable its mitigation effect to be overpowered at some point ... probably around the same it takes now to create the "drop/stagger" affect) numbers are all hypothetical of course the intent would be to give the GA a rough equivilancy to the MoN in some ways so if you hit the GA from the front through a raised shield it would take ~double the amount of damage to down them (shield AP + character AP/HP + 66% damage reduction = 225% effective downing damage) if you hit the GA from their left side through a lowered shield it would take 150% of the damage to down them (shield AP + character AP/HP = 150% downing damage) if you hit the GA from any angle that doesnt hit the shield (right side, above, behind) then they take the normal amount to down them
I'd like to see it tested if they could still play around with ideas like that. Sounds good to me, a little bit more passive defense at the cost of 33% active impenetrable defense 180 degrees infront of the character. Really though its just an added armor bar with toughness then, like carrying a mini MoN lol
Except that the shieldbro would be exactly as "immune" to damage as he is now- i.e. "not." The supposed immunity is an ablative defense, exactly like what you're describing; the only difference is the numbers. Makes just as much sense to do: 1. physical shield- mitigate a percentage of damage that strikes the shield hitbox- basically, a high-toughness hitbox. 2. shield HP/AP- force field integrity, only factors when shield is raised, extends shield hitbox to ~120-150 degree frontal arc 3. character HP/AP- as above. Under that model, a user wouldn't lose access to the class feature unless they were actively "expending" it, but would also always take at least some damage from every attack (Again,unless actively using the feature, and therefore ablating it). Another facet of my logic: the current state of the game doesn't seem to tend towards Toughness being expendable or ablative. The complaints about the shield seem basically twofold- one, that it absorbs "too much" damage when raised, to which I reference the myriad counters that can rapidly ablate or effectively bypass the shield- it absorbs a great deal of punishment from bolt weapons; everything else is a functional counter in one respect or another. Two: that it is far too effective when NOT raised, and on that, I can agree, but I favor an approach that doesn't constitute a return to the days of eternal stagger that accompanied the shield's introduction, such as by simply taking the active defense out of the loop when... inactive.
