Shields- But Not In The Way You Would Think

Alright so I'm sure people must have suggested shields before and I'm sure there's reasons why they wouldn't be implemented but hopefully this suggestion will get around some of those reasons. Now, I'm not suggesting shields as a standalone item, but rather as a fabled item.

So first off some ground rules. The item will be unique to each class as this will most definitely be needed for balancing purposes. But here's the catch. The shield will COMPLETELY change the way the class is played, without changing any of the mechanics. The shield will also probably take the place of like a ring. It will also be used realistic to how each class would have used a shield in real life. Each shield will have a different shape depending on what it is used for and will directly effect how much defense it provides. Last thing is shield probably wouldn't really function like a vanilla shield Idk if the developers could do that it would be cool and would fit with the suggestion if it did.

Also not going to use specific stats for this because who has the time, you understand what I mean by reading it.

ASSASSIN - The assassin would pretty much be your typical infantry man from any number of games. The shield would give a bit of slowness to counteract the assassins speed and in return would give a bit of defense. Blah boring moving on. JK it would be sick.

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ARCHER - Wait, archers don't have shields? (Insert well yes but actually no meme here). So archers didn't really have shields because uh, duh. Crossbowmen on the other hand. They had huge shields to hide behind as they needed to concentrate on reloading. So while making the shield specific to only crossbows would make sense it well, wouldn't. For the sake of this not being dumb we're going to say that any archer gets a big heavy shield (wee!). It will provide a lot of defense and a lot of slowness. To counteract the archers OP damage it would also probably slow attack or something. You know because you have to pop out and look around for your enemy? Yeah that's a good excuse.
WARRIOR - Like assassin it seems the most natural to have a shield. But uh... yeesh. It already has 2 tons of defense. And I hear you one dude in the back. "Why Splint, why even give warrior a shield?" Because DUH. Spear and shield. There you go you have officially made the Holy Roman Empire congrats. Now. What to do about this defense problem. It would obviously get the basic defense boost and slowness... unboost. Not a lot just like assassin as it wouldn't be a big shield like archer but a decent one. It would honestly most likely be the same as assassin. For now I'll leave it at that and we'll see what people come up with I guess.

MAGE - Ok so Harry Potter gets a shield. Uh. Maybe it would float along next to you idk. There's a couple of ways I think this could go. First will be kind of controversial. Basically the shield would offer it's typical defense buff walk speed nerf. But it would also give a healthy amount of reflection and a little negative mana. Second would be the same except with no mana debuff and less reflection. Third is just a basic shield, defense buff, walk speed nerf.
Annnnd that's about it! I made this after pulling an all nighter so please excuse... everything. But, uh, yeah tell me what you think!

 

introducing shields or just guarding to combat in games is a great thing in my opinion, and can lead to some very nice combat mechanics. that being said, wynncraft is absolutely not built assuming the player would have a shield.

this suggestion treats shields more like another item to build with, which while I have no problems with, it takes up a ring slot and to that I say, why not just add in new rings that do these things? it would certainly save a lot of time, not needing a developer to implement a "shield" feature and not needing a modeler to actually make all these shields.
back to the topic of wynncraft not being built around shields though, is that if shields were made to be an actual combat mechanic, whether it be guarding parrying or whatever, it could possibly trivialize various enemies, not fit in with the classes design, lead to janky playstyles, etc. this isn't really related to this specific suggestion, but it's good reasoning as to why shield mechanics would need other mechanical changes, and good reasoning as to why shields are unlikely.

lastly, I just see adding shields in this form to be quite unnecessary. with how builds currently work, using a shield would be basically tank slap, providing little changes in how you fight and instead just making you generally slower and more tanky.
if shields were to be added, I'd want them more as something that you play around rather than just another item you modify your stats with. as I said earlier though, it would require lots of mechanical changes to how wynn combat works which is why I see it as unlikely in general.

 

did you mean shields?

 

All good points and in response to them I wanted to say firstly that I did not envision shields as having it's own shield like mechanics and as just a visual thing. Second, it is supposed to change the way a class is played make it almost like a seperate class in it's self. Thirdly you said you would want them to be something that you could play around with more and I completely agree. I just didn't really spend much time on the suggestion to give more ideas to the shield.

As I said I pulled an all nighter before writing this xD. Thanks for catching that.

 

I don't like the idea but I like the effort you put into this, maybe a bit less slang to get it across but you do you lol, thanks for posting this. I enjoyed reading it!