Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Shields Up Suggestion

Suppose you have 0 armor in combat. If you equip a shield, use Shields Up, and then take it off you still have armor left.

I've had to do this sometimes as an emergency recourse to keep a character from being CCd in one shot.

I don't think this is a major issue, but I wonder if that's how the mechanic is intended to work.

I understand that Shields Up is a skill like any other, but something feels weird about being able to do this. Thoughts?

It's probably fair considering you have to spend the AP to equip the shield and re-equip whatever you had on before. It's actually a really interesting strategy that i hadn't thought of before.

I feel like this is something that should be addressed.

A similar scenario is to unequip an offhand or equip a 1-hand to gain access to "Sucker Punch" for an extra Knockdown.

It's way to easy to swap weapons to pick up these 2 abilities, in particular.

In fact, any time a character has lost enough armor, unequipping the shield has no drawback (your max armor will be reduced, but not your current armor) and you then gain access to a great CC skill, and unequipping costs 0 AP.

Perhaps when these abilities are granted they should be on-cooldown. Then swapping weapons in combat would be a trade-off instead of just picking up another skill.

In the case of Sucker Punch, I think usually it'll be more advantageous to re-equip your weapon, therefore you will ultimately be spending that 1AP to use the skill. Of course, the utility of dropping that offhand for the free knockdown is a powerful recourse, and consequently the battle may tip in your favor.

In general I agree with the idea that fiddling about with weapons shouldn't reset cooldowns (I think this was discussed in another post, just can't find it), but I am not sure about your suggestion of having the skill already in cooldown, especially in the case of Shields Up since it does cost 1AP to equip the shield.

The direct solution with shields, I think, is that Shields Up only restore "shield armor". Basically, say you have a total of 50 armor, 20 from shield. If you get brought down to 0 armor, you can only get 20 of it back.

Sure, that sounds like a huge nerf, but then maybe its AP cost could be reduced to 1AP.

I don't know, I just think there is something weird about the shield skill giving your other armor armor. It's not like fortify or armor of frost. Honestly why is there even a shield-exclusive skill like that? Why isn't there a Leggings Up! or a Chest Plate Up! ?

lulz

The weapon-style exclusive skills were added to give more identity to the different weapon options.
Also, raising your shield up to gain a defense boost makes sense as a thing you can do, not so much with a "Chest Plate Up".

The fix here comes down to whether the devs envision players committing to a single weapon style in combat, or whether they want to support swapping them around.
Personally, I feel the benefit/convenience of swapping to the Sucker Punch knockdown, or popping on a Shield to prevent further CC is strong, and something I wouldn't want players to have to worry about abusing. If they *want* this flexibility, then there isn't even an issue here.

The fact that this exists already serves to benefit some builds more than others. It's a lot easier for a Dual-Wielder to pick up an on-the-fly Sucker Punch when needed, even though the ability wasn't intended to be available to their build. Since the unequip is free, and requipping the weapon after is only 1 cost, you're essentially Paying 2 AP for a stun, which isn't a bad deal when you need another. This amounts to a 3AP-cost stun for those that have to first equip a 1-hander and then re-equip their 2-hander.

Shields have a separate issue. You can use one to regain armor, and then unequip it and still retain that armor (up to your max allowed sans-shield). This doesn't make sense and isn't an easy fix.
Shield users also have a big advantage of being able to start a fight with a lot of extra armor, and then swap to a stun after that armor is depleted. They get to double-dip on weapon-granted abilities without even a drawback as they will be scaling off of the "One-Handed" skill the whole time too.

I think you have illustrated the situation perfectly.

The question now is do they *want* this flexibility? I am not strongly for or against it, but I am interested in the dev's opinion on the matter. Was this just an oversight or was it intended?