Shields are not that good for melee characters.
- Enemies will focus the weakest members of the group, and not the "tank", so what is the point of having crazy good armor if the rest of your team gets destroyed ?
- Taunt is a poor ability with bad range, bad duration, buggy AND it cannot bypass physical armor. So your only true "tanking" ability is pretty situational.
- 1h warrior outside of shield throw deals poor damages. Better just get a 2h warrior.
In short, you don't need a tank in this game, it's a wasted character slot.
The easiest way to protect your team is by destroying enemy's armor as fast as possible, only then you can alcually cc them : 2h warrior will destroy shield in 1-2 crit aa blows, while a 1h will need a tons more. The one who will help his team the most will be the strongest dps.
Shields are only good on mages right now, imo.
I was stuck at one part in the game on the guards near the black pits playing a knight ranger combo. I was two levels behind so the fight was quite difficult. I actually beat them once I gave my knight a shield and sword, which gave him a lot more armor and allowed him to use deflect. I actually beat them quite easily after switching to a sword and shield tbh, and after that I decided to run sword and shield for the rest of the game.
He definitely didn't do poor damage by any means, as I still put almost all his points into warfare and strength.
