Shields are definitely kind of meh. And is it just me, or does every shield only provide 11 magic armor? Seems bugged to me. If it gave equal magic and physical armor, the armor would feel a lot more significant. As is, my breastplate of the same level blocks more than my shield.
I like the idea of having a shield means you gain some bonus against frontal attacks (some form of blocking could return. Shield skills would be great too. Giving a bonus to battering ram or other certain skills would be nice. They need to be more than just stat sticks, as they basically were in D:OS 1.
I am glad they've mostly ditched the 100% damage reduction blocking from shields, though I did see a shield that provided 1% chance to completely block damage. Not sure how high that percentage will reach in later game, but probably should stay below 25%, maybe even 15%, top. Shields in D:OS EE actually were pretty ridiculous with how basically immune to physical damage you became (plus tons of elemental resists meant you were nearly unkillable.)
