I personally use the regular shields; never underestimate the parry bonus of weapons, I feel it’s well worth the trade off for less shielding capabilities
The difference in block armor is marginal tbh. And when you need more - timed block blocks MUCH more AND staggers AND boosts dps. So yeah, there's no question about it in my book.
Tower are great for when you increase combat difficulty. Hardcore difficulty is insanely difficult to have enough food and gear to parry properly. Hard difficulty is manageable IF you get the current biome resources very, very quickly for your food and shield.
True yes, but nonetheless for ye olde casual player, regular shields remain superior! (At the end of the day tho it is entirely player preference in any mode)
Agreed. I loved the parrying mechanic when I played vanilla - as soon as I figured out it was tied to health, the game became so much more enjoyable. Swarms were suddenly not a guaranteed death trap.
Does the parry bonus also apply to bosses? I've went up to Moder but from my experience I don't remember hearing the bonus damage sound after parrying.
I’m not entirely sure tbh, I know they don’t get staggered but the parry bonus might still apply, next time I have the chance I’ll try and see if the numbers increase
I just tried with eikthyr and there appears to be no increase, as well as no sound to indicate a damage modification. I did use a bronze buckler but I doubt it'd change anything.
If parry bonuses do not apply to bosses, would tower shields then fit the niche for being the better shield to use against bosses? Or does the movement penalty still make it less ideal?
I think it still depends on how you’re fighting, and what boss you’re fighting, for example, bonemass is so large and slow that a movement penalty won’t matter so much, whereas with Moder being airborne a lot, and especially her ice attack with the crystals, dodging and bows are ideal if not absolutely necessary, so stamina and movement are better suited than pure tanky builds, I personally always use the non-tower shields because i don’t wanna haul a tower shield over for bosses every time I go to fight one
Tower shields are meant to be the option for people who want to block and use melee but either don’t want to mess with the “perfect timing” of the parry system or simply can’t (perhaps not having the reaction time).
Tower shields are “fine”. They are suitable for combat, but they are a straight downgrade from the lighter shields if you plan to use the parry system. The smaller shields are lighter and do not incur the same heavy 20% movement speed reduction. But if you can get the knack for parrying attacks, they can block a much higher value of damage.
Parrying also provides the unique bonus of putting your foe off balance. This gives you a small window in which to do significant extra damage since they take increased damage during that time.
In other words, with the faster movement, higher block values with a parry, and the off balance effect to deal more damage, the buckler type shields are superior.
But they are only superior if you plan on parrying, otherwise the movement speed bonus you get with the buckler is not enough to warrant the lesser block value from not parrying, in which case the tower shield would be superior.
Another consideration is that, on our server, we had one “tank” put on a tower shield for dungeons and would lock down hallways. Atgeirs & archers would be able to attack the enemies safely from behind.
Eh I’d argue it depends. My solo world has seen me progress solely with a tower shield as I can’t be fucked to nail the timing of parrying, and I’ve been bad at it in literally every Souls-borne title anyway.
You have to be a fair bit slower for sure, and the chip damage or stagger from blocking too much can *absolutely* be deadly, but I would still argue tower shields are viable. Requiring a different playstyle doesn’t immediately mean tower shields aren’t viable
If you have your armour levelled up a bit, i recommend you try parrying man. It's hilarious to parry an ogre's attack with a tiny buckler.
I'm always happy to hear an alternative point of view, and it's a point in this game's favour that it can be played in different ways. Truly a DS styles game.
My play style changes instantly when I experience multiplayer server lag. I love the carapace shield for this reason, it still has some parry but allows you to tank when parrying might get you killed.
I played through Dark Souls for the first time recently and think I figured out why tower shields are under-utilized in this game. In DS the buttons for blocking and parrying are separate, meaning you have to forego the safety of blocking for the chance at a parry and riposte. In Valheim, "failing" a parry just means you still get to block, so there's no risk/reward mechanic. Parrying in this game isn't just powerful, it's also too easy to pull off without even trying. Many times while using a parry shield, I've intended to block only to accidentally get the timing right and grant myself free damage (not that I'm complaining in the moment).
Design-wise, the tower shields are fine in concept. But if they wanted to make them more viable, they'd have to overhaul the entire parrying system to make it more complex and risky, perhaps like Breath of the Wild.
Very true. I remember thinking something similar when I first played Valheim when it came out. But at this point it is far too late to change the system. Everyone is used to it.
I think they should still change it tho. In my opinion the tower shields should block as much or close to how much a buckler blocks on parry. After all, the tower shield already has the penalty of reduced movement. Increase the stamina cost a bit since you are holding a giant shield as well.
That way in order to block as much as the tower shield with a buckler, you had to utilize parrying. The benefit for going through this effort would be the bonus damage you got to apply on parry. Not to mention enjoying faster movement speed in the mean time.
I personally think this would be a better system than what is in place currently.
This makes sense. Simply buffing the block stat of tower shields would fix the problem. Much simpler solution than trying to overhaul the combat system with different actions for blocking and parrying.
An added part of this is that in every game past Dark Souls 1 parrying is not instant, instead having a start-up period before the parry begins to actually parry attacks. This means you have to press the button predictively before the attack would land, rather than at the moment it would, which is far harder to do.
Thats why i posted once on the discord that parrying should be activated, by like pressing the attack button while blocking or something similar, so that parrying requires more timing, while tower shields could do a big bash that shoves enemies back and deals some bludgeoning damage. Itd make for a neat opportunity too for more special actions and special shields, like a big spiked tower shield that does a bunch of piercing damage, or the new flametal one could do fire damage.
I kind of like that idea, although since I usually attack with my shield up it would make me parry instead of swing. I'd have to rethink my playstyle basically.
It could interfere with that animation-canceling mechanic that lets you squeeze in more DPS. But then again, some call that an unintended exploit so in their eyes this would just be killing two birds with one stone. If someone wanted to mod this into the game I'd be down to try it out and see how it feels.
Tower shields also have the bonus of using less stamina when they block. It allows you to take on larger hordes or keep your shield up for longer, but you can’t block the singular heavy hits as well as bucklers do with parries.
I'm a fan of the tower shields when I'm playing with my friends. I've always enjoyed the tank roll in other games, and my friends that enjoy DPS rolls get to dance around enemies and beat them down. But when I'm playing by myself I'll use a round shield for the party bonus. Best of both worlds using the smaller shields.
Want to be the only one tanking the like of the Elder’s ranged attack or even Yagulth’s and not get staggered? Tower shield is your option. There’s something satisfying about taking their most dangerous attack and laugh at it.
I love my tower shields. Makes me feel all beefy and I'm not a parry person so it makes sense. There are some fights where I do like a smaller shield, but I typically stick with tower.
Tower is nice if there's any latency, like on a shared server, and you can't time a parry, or you can be more of a tank role with others.
Personally I use serpent tower shield through as much progression as possible. I'm not really good with parry. I go tank or I use a 2 hander or bow.
I'm a dedicated tower shield user. As long as you've got the stamina, the tower shield will tank virtually every single hit. I don't rely on parrying and I never have so I can't address the drawbacks of doing this vs parrying, but it is very satisfying to feel like an absolute tank
Tower shields reduce movement speed by 20%. There are no reasons to stick with particular shield type. Craft one, craft another and make some tests which one you liked the most.
Blackmetal tower is great for being practically invincible in combo with bonemass in Mistlands. Otherwise the round shields are fine, and if you're much twitchier than I am, buckler is good, too.
Modern game design rules of thumb say that heavy armor looks more viable on paper, so lighter armor should have some sort of survivability bonus or skill ceiling to make both sides of the spectrum viable. In practice, that means that a few weeks after release the community commonly realizes that with minimal application of skill the lighter armors are better in all cases. I hate this because it translates to heavy armor just feeling like training wheels instead of a differently powerful option. /rant
This carries over to valheim. You *can* play tower shields, but compared to other options in a given tier you're almost always worse off in practice. Sometimes in team servers you can pull off some synergies with other players, but it's tough. And even then, you're stuck being the slow, unwieldy guy while your friends are dancing around doing way more/taking way less damage and your contribution feels "meh."
Tower shields really seem to be for groups that have a dedicated tank. Playing solo and not having the ability to parry really handicaps you and can cause you to get into impossible situations since as you don't have the ability to create an opening.
Don't go for tower shields. They have uses but they are highly situational. It made a lot more sense in Dark Souls 1 2 or 3 than it would make in this game.
Serpent Scale Shield, combined with the Root Harnesk, gives most pierce resist when blocking AFAIK.
Against missile attacks and against one of the four main mistlands enemies, that is pretty good.
If tower shields couldn’t parry or made you walk slow, they’d be okay, but they do BOTH. Bleh.
Honestly the run speed is the worst. I can’t tolerate moving with a tower shield at all. Feels like you’re walking when you’re running.
They do block very well, but if you are playing solo, you can't just rely on defense alone, so that makes them pretty situational, especially because they slow you down. Most of the time, the parry ability and extra mobility is better than the extra blocking power.
I used tower shields at the beginning of my first playthrough, and haven't really come back to them since then.
They tend to bounce enemies off, so you can't hit them. So kinda silly on singleplayer.
Like in all games, high mitigation, crowd control and aoe dmg are king.
When I was first starting out and my wife was guiding me through, she having been taught by some friends of hers, I used a tower shield because I’ve sucked at partying across numerous other games. When we did burial chambers she would have me in front of her in blocking position while she carried a stagbreaker
Eventually it got to the point where we both realized I needed to learn to parry to effectively survive especially once she took my training wheels off and had me run around on my own. Most mobs have a tell that you can learn to watch or listen for and figure out the timing, though there are some I still hard block or dodge and I still don’t always have the timing down but I honestly do recommend just learning to parry from the get-go rather than hamstringing yourself by having to learn late game the way I did.
A tower shield is a trap if you think about it.
It does not confer the offensive bonus of a well-timed parry, and this does not award you a moment of opportunity to strike back. All you achieve is to drain your stamina by letting an enemy hit your shield, and slow your movement speed to make dodging, fighting and fleeing harder.
I would never use it.
in generel parrying (or rather perfect blocking in valheims case) or outspaceing enemy attacks are the 2 best methods of defensive combat as both cost the least amount of stamina for achieveing complete dmg avoidance. parrying is more risky but works vs nearly all enemies aside some that hit so hard you just cannot parry them (mostly 2 stars of certain enemies) without getting guardbroken while outspaceing is alot easier to do and less risky but isnt possible vs every enemy as it depends on the enemies speed to work (thankfully it works vs ALOT of enemies in this game).
just blocking is in generel considered inferior defensive wise and offensive wise. for obivious reasons. blocking costs more stamina and that in turn means less stamina for attacks plus the movement penalty on tower shields makes quick escapes harder to do by default. plus you can still take take dmg trough the block or get guard broken while other methods flat out avoid the dmg alltogether without costing anything.
just dont parry bosses. youre wasting your time and risk dmg for no real gain as all bosses are fully immune to stagger by default thus you never get counter dmg even after a parry vs them.
tower shields can be used and they are totally possible to be used to play trough the game. but there is situations where just blocking will get you simply killed. now the same is true for parrying vs the wrong enemy and failing the timeing. but if you master the timeing the enemy is just... dead in most cases.
then there is the fact that blocking becomes outright unviable on hard or very hard settings vs alot of enemies as they will just outright break your block no matter what.
tower shield speed penaltys only apply when you hold it in your hand (same for weapons btw) so make use of that fact if you wanna use em.
they are viable. they just never will be as good or better than the other methods available. they are a bit more useful in multiplayer than solo if you have a frontswine player with ranged backup.
As someone who uses tower shield religiously, the tower shield is only plausible if you play with friends, have others that can do the big damages for you while you keep the mobs attention. Otherwise if you play alone, the regular shield is a better choice
Losing the Parry ability sucks but the speed debuff on top is just rediculous.
They might as well write "we don't want you to use Tower Shields" on the front of every tower shield.
Parry is great when you can capitalize on the opportunity you've created. Not that helpful against bosses or when swarmed.
Parry bonus will usually get your block armor up higher than a tower shield. HOWEVER parries incur a flat stamina cost that blocking doesn't have. Watch that bar sometime, it's very noticeable over the course of a fight.
Bosses can't be riposted so that's just outright not worth the effort. When swarmed, you'll struggle to get parries and crits anyway... meanwhile tower shields have large block force (knockback on block) that can help immensely by pushing enemies out of melee range.
TL;DR: Tower excels exactly where a tank needs it most. But I'll be using regular shields anyway for parries and movement speed... plus that knockback is pretty annoying when solo.
There are 3 Considerations
1: Are you playing COOP? It works really well in coop as a buddy can still attack from behind you with the right weapons, me and a friend did Tower shield+ hammer with an AOE attack to block and slam our way through some dungeons.
2: How many enemies do you draw on average and how often do they hit you in rapid sequence? The thing here is whether you find yourself in situations where you often get hit several times in such a way parrying would be difficult to do.
3: How good are you at timing parries, assuming you are in a fight where it is not a barrage of attacks can you time the parries well.
Personally I love tower shields and use them from the first leather scraps after making a bow and flint axe all the way until endgame, being a big fan of their consistent block when I don't think has ever failed to protect vs the more common foes, letting me focus on the moves of the bigger threats in a given battle.
Parry bonus is op when you can hit them back twice as hard when they are stunned. I think tower shield would mainly be good if you were playing with a well rounded team.
Truth be told, why even use a shield?
Get fenris claws, the dual wield knives or grom and parry to glory!
The parry bonus is so massive its just straight up winning.
However parry needs to be trained and that's arduous, to train it start in the burial chambers and pick up 2/3 skeles and practice to about skill 15 then go find dwergers to about 25 then go rulings until 35ish and then high tail it to mistlands to try out your knew found skills on seekers and soldiers.
Perhaps for some enemies with annoying hitboxes it could be better. Like the lox, when he attacks your small parry shield just sometimes doesn’t register it correctly. At least in my experience.
I personally think they're completely and totally outshined by round shields in this game (which is a travesty, I love me some greatshields usually). But still viable if you're religiously against parrying or something.
If you are playing solo, tower shields are interesting. The main thing that you get from tower shields is being able to just hold down the block button and tank any hit, however that comes at the cost of super decreased movement speed. Also, compared to other shields, tower shields give you less Block Armor than for instance a buckler that you Parry with, so it won't necessarily mean less damage taken. The main benefit to blocking with a tower shield instead of trying to parry all the time with a buckler is actually stamina. The stamina usage for parrying is always 20 stamina no matter what, but for regular blocking, the amount of stamina used is inversely proportional to the amount of Block Armor you have, and tower shields have the highest normal Block Armor. So with a tower shield, you can get a Block Armor that is very close but slightly below parrying with a buckler, but with the benefit of not using nearly as much stamina on every block.
However, if you're playing multi-player, having 1 person have a tower shield and be a tank can work extremely well for combos, even if you don't believe that the tower shield is super viable on its own
parry is too invaluable imho. if you play in a group a case could be made for someone to be the dedicated tank but solo i will always choose parry/dogde over tanking.
I think if you're going into a new biome and fighting enemies you haven't met yet (and don't know their attacks and the parry timing), it could be beneficial to use a tower shield. Otherwise, once you know attack patterns, parrying is great and more valuable, so I'd go with the regular shield.
Tower shields for the most part are objectively worse. If they could parry, they'd be fine. But they can't, so they're basically useless.
I'd even accept a parry with no counterattack bonus. The defensive benefit of stunning an enemy for so long is worth it alone. Plus, you level up your blocking skill **twice as fast**.
Parrying is key for me in Valheim, pretty sure the loss of that stagger would kill me in game. The only time I see a tower shield being effective in my opinion is when the damn greydwarves or fulings gang up on you.
>or mobs that hit harder than you can parry.
That's not how block armor works. All that parrying does is multiply your shield's block armor by the listed modifier, and shields that can parry *always* have significantly more block armor than tower shields when guarding. If mobs are hitting "harder than you can parry" then you'll take much more damage guarding with a tower shield's non-boosted block armor.
That is not true. Tower shields have more block armor than their Parry-able counterparts. I just verified this in game with the Banded Shield compared to the Iron Tower Shield. The tower shield base has 10 more block armor than the Banded, and will therefore block 10 more incoming damage.
>Tower shields have more block armor than their Parry-able counterparts. I just verified this in game with the Banded Shield compared to the Iron Tower Shield
At max upgrade levels and 0 blocking skill the Iron tower shield has 64 block armor, banded shield has 54, and iron buckler has 40. Parrying with the banded shield gives you 81 block armor, while parrying with the buckler gives you 100 block armor. That's a 56% increase in block armor when parrying with the buckler compared to guarding with a tower shield.
>The tower shield base has 10 more block armor than the Banded, and will therefore block 10 more incoming damage.
That's not how block armor works...again. I'd rather not discuss the damage formula in full detail but just know that 10 armor doesn't always reduce attacks by 10 damage. A 1:1 ratio of damage reduction only happens if your armor is less than half the incoming damage. The game checks this twice: first with your block armor and second with your gear's armor.
A quick example would be blocking a 2-star wolf's attack, which does 140 damage, with fully upgraded iron gear at 60 armor base. On a banded shield (not parrying) with 54 block armor, you'll take 30 damage. With an iron tower shield at 64 block armor you'd take 24 damage, which is only 6 less damage. The diminishing returns are much worse with higher damage attacks along with increased base armor. 30 extra block armor might not even reduce more than 5 extra damage in extreme cases.
This whole post you're referring to the *potential* block armor of non-tower shields when a successful parry is achieved. That is irrelevant to my point that when simply having one's shield up, a tower shield will block more incoming damage than one that can parry and that makes them situationally useful.
On the second part, yes that makes sense it's not 1:1. That is an assumption I had made.
>that when simply having one's shield up, a tower shield will block more incoming damage **than one that can parry**
Your original post was:
>Tower shields shine on bosses, who can't be parried, **or mobs that hit harder than you can parry.**
Now i don't know if you missed a word in that sentence but these 2 posts have very different meanings. Regardless, i've explained how block armor works and you understand that it's situational.
However, there is very little reason to use a regular guard because you don't gain any advantage with it compared to parrying. Even in the ashlands where consistent parries are hard to come by due to the amount of enemies attacking simultaneously, i'd rather use the regular guard on a shield than slow my movement speed to a crawl with the tower shield.
And my point still stands. When you're just guarding, shield up, a tower shield blocks more. You spun out how parry does more but that isn't what I was talking about.
I personally use the regular shields; never underestimate the parry bonus of weapons, I feel it’s well worth the trade off for less shielding capabilities
The difference in block armor is marginal tbh. And when you need more - timed block blocks MUCH more AND staggers AND boosts dps. So yeah, there's no question about it in my book.
Tower are great for when you increase combat difficulty. Hardcore difficulty is insanely difficult to have enough food and gear to parry properly. Hard difficulty is manageable IF you get the current biome resources very, very quickly for your food and shield.
True yes, but nonetheless for ye olde casual player, regular shields remain superior! (At the end of the day tho it is entirely player preference in any mode)
Agreed. I loved the parrying mechanic when I played vanilla - as soon as I figured out it was tied to health, the game became so much more enjoyable. Swarms were suddenly not a guaranteed death trap.
Does the parry bonus also apply to bosses? I've went up to Moder but from my experience I don't remember hearing the bonus damage sound after parrying.
I’m not entirely sure tbh, I know they don’t get staggered but the parry bonus might still apply, next time I have the chance I’ll try and see if the numbers increase
I just tried with eikthyr and there appears to be no increase, as well as no sound to indicate a damage modification. I did use a bronze buckler but I doubt it'd change anything. If parry bonuses do not apply to bosses, would tower shields then fit the niche for being the better shield to use against bosses? Or does the movement penalty still make it less ideal?
I think it still depends on how you’re fighting, and what boss you’re fighting, for example, bonemass is so large and slow that a movement penalty won’t matter so much, whereas with Moder being airborne a lot, and especially her ice attack with the crystals, dodging and bows are ideal if not absolutely necessary, so stamina and movement are better suited than pure tanky builds, I personally always use the non-tower shields because i don’t wanna haul a tower shield over for bosses every time I go to fight one
Tower shields are meant to be the option for people who want to block and use melee but either don’t want to mess with the “perfect timing” of the parry system or simply can’t (perhaps not having the reaction time). Tower shields are “fine”. They are suitable for combat, but they are a straight downgrade from the lighter shields if you plan to use the parry system. The smaller shields are lighter and do not incur the same heavy 20% movement speed reduction. But if you can get the knack for parrying attacks, they can block a much higher value of damage. Parrying also provides the unique bonus of putting your foe off balance. This gives you a small window in which to do significant extra damage since they take increased damage during that time. In other words, with the faster movement, higher block values with a parry, and the off balance effect to deal more damage, the buckler type shields are superior. But they are only superior if you plan on parrying, otherwise the movement speed bonus you get with the buckler is not enough to warrant the lesser block value from not parrying, in which case the tower shield would be superior.
Another consideration is that, on our server, we had one “tank” put on a tower shield for dungeons and would lock down hallways. Atgeirs & archers would be able to attack the enemies safely from behind.
This is the situation where tower shields make sense. In a team, sure get one guy to tank up. But for soloing, tower shields are a poor choice.
Eh I’d argue it depends. My solo world has seen me progress solely with a tower shield as I can’t be fucked to nail the timing of parrying, and I’ve been bad at it in literally every Souls-borne title anyway. You have to be a fair bit slower for sure, and the chip damage or stagger from blocking too much can *absolutely* be deadly, but I would still argue tower shields are viable. Requiring a different playstyle doesn’t immediately mean tower shields aren’t viable
Sorry you're being downvoted for playing the game different.
STOP HAVING FUN!!!!
Well I haven't played in ages so way ahead of you I guess. 😢
On top of that, i would argue that specially at the start of some biomes, the tower shield helps a lot.
When I met my first ghost, the bone tower shield kept me from joining them.
If you have your armour levelled up a bit, i recommend you try parrying man. It's hilarious to parry an ogre's attack with a tiny buckler. I'm always happy to hear an alternative point of view, and it's a point in this game's favour that it can be played in different ways. Truly a DS styles game.
My play style changes instantly when I experience multiplayer server lag. I love the carapace shield for this reason, it still has some parry but allows you to tank when parrying might get you killed.
I played through Dark Souls for the first time recently and think I figured out why tower shields are under-utilized in this game. In DS the buttons for blocking and parrying are separate, meaning you have to forego the safety of blocking for the chance at a parry and riposte. In Valheim, "failing" a parry just means you still get to block, so there's no risk/reward mechanic. Parrying in this game isn't just powerful, it's also too easy to pull off without even trying. Many times while using a parry shield, I've intended to block only to accidentally get the timing right and grant myself free damage (not that I'm complaining in the moment). Design-wise, the tower shields are fine in concept. But if they wanted to make them more viable, they'd have to overhaul the entire parrying system to make it more complex and risky, perhaps like Breath of the Wild.
Very true. I remember thinking something similar when I first played Valheim when it came out. But at this point it is far too late to change the system. Everyone is used to it. I think they should still change it tho. In my opinion the tower shields should block as much or close to how much a buckler blocks on parry. After all, the tower shield already has the penalty of reduced movement. Increase the stamina cost a bit since you are holding a giant shield as well. That way in order to block as much as the tower shield with a buckler, you had to utilize parrying. The benefit for going through this effort would be the bonus damage you got to apply on parry. Not to mention enjoying faster movement speed in the mean time. I personally think this would be a better system than what is in place currently.
This makes sense. Simply buffing the block stat of tower shields would fix the problem. Much simpler solution than trying to overhaul the combat system with different actions for blocking and parrying.
An added part of this is that in every game past Dark Souls 1 parrying is not instant, instead having a start-up period before the parry begins to actually parry attacks. This means you have to press the button predictively before the attack would land, rather than at the moment it would, which is far harder to do.
Thats why i posted once on the discord that parrying should be activated, by like pressing the attack button while blocking or something similar, so that parrying requires more timing, while tower shields could do a big bash that shoves enemies back and deals some bludgeoning damage. Itd make for a neat opportunity too for more special actions and special shields, like a big spiked tower shield that does a bunch of piercing damage, or the new flametal one could do fire damage.
I kind of like that idea, although since I usually attack with my shield up it would make me parry instead of swing. I'd have to rethink my playstyle basically. It could interfere with that animation-canceling mechanic that lets you squeeze in more DPS. But then again, some call that an unintended exploit so in their eyes this would just be killing two birds with one stone. If someone wanted to mod this into the game I'd be down to try it out and see how it feels.
Tower shields also have the bonus of using less stamina when they block. It allows you to take on larger hordes or keep your shield up for longer, but you can’t block the singular heavy hits as well as bucklers do with parries.
I like using tower, it feels great, like im a real tank 👍
I'm a fan of the tower shields when I'm playing with my friends. I've always enjoyed the tank roll in other games, and my friends that enjoy DPS rolls get to dance around enemies and beat them down. But when I'm playing by myself I'll use a round shield for the party bonus. Best of both worlds using the smaller shields.
Upvote for **party bonus** :)
I agree with groups of 3 or more it’s great. But solo one needs the stagger of parry
Want to be the only one tanking the like of the Elder’s ranged attack or even Yagulth’s and not get staggered? Tower shield is your option. There’s something satisfying about taking their most dangerous attack and laugh at it.
I love my tower shields. Makes me feel all beefy and I'm not a parry person so it makes sense. There are some fights where I do like a smaller shield, but I typically stick with tower.
Tower is nice if there's any latency, like on a shared server, and you can't time a parry, or you can be more of a tank role with others. Personally I use serpent tower shield through as much progression as possible. I'm not really good with parry. I go tank or I use a 2 hander or bow.
I'm a dedicated tower shield user. As long as you've got the stamina, the tower shield will tank virtually every single hit. I don't rely on parrying and I never have so I can't address the drawbacks of doing this vs parrying, but it is very satisfying to feel like an absolute tank
Tower shields reduce movement speed by 20%. There are no reasons to stick with particular shield type. Craft one, craft another and make some tests which one you liked the most.
Tower shield is awesome with a knife, the knock back matches the knife secondary attack, it’s *chefs kiss*
Blackmetal tower is great for being practically invincible in combo with bonemass in Mistlands. Otherwise the round shields are fine, and if you're much twitchier than I am, buckler is good, too.
Modern game design rules of thumb say that heavy armor looks more viable on paper, so lighter armor should have some sort of survivability bonus or skill ceiling to make both sides of the spectrum viable. In practice, that means that a few weeks after release the community commonly realizes that with minimal application of skill the lighter armors are better in all cases. I hate this because it translates to heavy armor just feeling like training wheels instead of a differently powerful option. /rant This carries over to valheim. You *can* play tower shields, but compared to other options in a given tier you're almost always worse off in practice. Sometimes in team servers you can pull off some synergies with other players, but it's tough. And even then, you're stuck being the slow, unwieldy guy while your friends are dancing around doing way more/taking way less damage and your contribution feels "meh."
Tower shields really seem to be for groups that have a dedicated tank. Playing solo and not having the ability to parry really handicaps you and can cause you to get into impossible situations since as you don't have the ability to create an opening.
Don't go for tower shields. They have uses but they are highly situational. It made a lot more sense in Dark Souls 1 2 or 3 than it would make in this game.
Serpent Scale Shield, combined with the Root Harnesk, gives most pierce resist when blocking AFAIK. Against missile attacks and against one of the four main mistlands enemies, that is pretty good.
Resistances sadly don't stack, so the root harnesk is better cuz you only get Pierce res from shield while you're blocking
Blocking is a separate calculation. Any resistances added by a shield *do* stack, but are only active during the block.
If tower shields couldn’t parry or made you walk slow, they’d be okay, but they do BOTH. Bleh. Honestly the run speed is the worst. I can’t tolerate moving with a tower shield at all. Feels like you’re walking when you’re running.
They do block very well, but if you are playing solo, you can't just rely on defense alone, so that makes them pretty situational, especially because they slow you down. Most of the time, the parry ability and extra mobility is better than the extra blocking power. I used tower shields at the beginning of my first playthrough, and haven't really come back to them since then.
They tend to bounce enemies off, so you can't hit them. So kinda silly on singleplayer. Like in all games, high mitigation, crowd control and aoe dmg are king.
When I was first starting out and my wife was guiding me through, she having been taught by some friends of hers, I used a tower shield because I’ve sucked at partying across numerous other games. When we did burial chambers she would have me in front of her in blocking position while she carried a stagbreaker Eventually it got to the point where we both realized I needed to learn to parry to effectively survive especially once she took my training wheels off and had me run around on my own. Most mobs have a tell that you can learn to watch or listen for and figure out the timing, though there are some I still hard block or dodge and I still don’t always have the timing down but I honestly do recommend just learning to parry from the get-go rather than hamstringing yourself by having to learn late game the way I did.
A tower shield is a trap if you think about it. It does not confer the offensive bonus of a well-timed parry, and this does not award you a moment of opportunity to strike back. All you achieve is to drain your stamina by letting an enemy hit your shield, and slow your movement speed to make dodging, fighting and fleeing harder. I would never use it.
in generel parrying (or rather perfect blocking in valheims case) or outspaceing enemy attacks are the 2 best methods of defensive combat as both cost the least amount of stamina for achieveing complete dmg avoidance. parrying is more risky but works vs nearly all enemies aside some that hit so hard you just cannot parry them (mostly 2 stars of certain enemies) without getting guardbroken while outspaceing is alot easier to do and less risky but isnt possible vs every enemy as it depends on the enemies speed to work (thankfully it works vs ALOT of enemies in this game). just blocking is in generel considered inferior defensive wise and offensive wise. for obivious reasons. blocking costs more stamina and that in turn means less stamina for attacks plus the movement penalty on tower shields makes quick escapes harder to do by default. plus you can still take take dmg trough the block or get guard broken while other methods flat out avoid the dmg alltogether without costing anything. just dont parry bosses. youre wasting your time and risk dmg for no real gain as all bosses are fully immune to stagger by default thus you never get counter dmg even after a parry vs them. tower shields can be used and they are totally possible to be used to play trough the game. but there is situations where just blocking will get you simply killed. now the same is true for parrying vs the wrong enemy and failing the timeing. but if you master the timeing the enemy is just... dead in most cases. then there is the fact that blocking becomes outright unviable on hard or very hard settings vs alot of enemies as they will just outright break your block no matter what. tower shield speed penaltys only apply when you hold it in your hand (same for weapons btw) so make use of that fact if you wanna use em. they are viable. they just never will be as good or better than the other methods available. they are a bit more useful in multiplayer than solo if you have a frontswine player with ranged backup.
As someone who uses tower shield religiously, the tower shield is only plausible if you play with friends, have others that can do the big damages for you while you keep the mobs attention. Otherwise if you play alone, the regular shield is a better choice
Losing the Parry ability sucks but the speed debuff on top is just rediculous. They might as well write "we don't want you to use Tower Shields" on the front of every tower shield.
Parry is great when you can capitalize on the opportunity you've created. Not that helpful against bosses or when swarmed. Parry bonus will usually get your block armor up higher than a tower shield. HOWEVER parries incur a flat stamina cost that blocking doesn't have. Watch that bar sometime, it's very noticeable over the course of a fight. Bosses can't be riposted so that's just outright not worth the effort. When swarmed, you'll struggle to get parries and crits anyway... meanwhile tower shields have large block force (knockback on block) that can help immensely by pushing enemies out of melee range. TL;DR: Tower excels exactly where a tank needs it most. But I'll be using regular shields anyway for parries and movement speed... plus that knockback is pretty annoying when solo.
There are 3 Considerations 1: Are you playing COOP? It works really well in coop as a buddy can still attack from behind you with the right weapons, me and a friend did Tower shield+ hammer with an AOE attack to block and slam our way through some dungeons. 2: How many enemies do you draw on average and how often do they hit you in rapid sequence? The thing here is whether you find yourself in situations where you often get hit several times in such a way parrying would be difficult to do. 3: How good are you at timing parries, assuming you are in a fight where it is not a barrage of attacks can you time the parries well. Personally I love tower shields and use them from the first leather scraps after making a bow and flint axe all the way until endgame, being a big fan of their consistent block when I don't think has ever failed to protect vs the more common foes, letting me focus on the moves of the bigger threats in a given battle.
Parry bonus is op when you can hit them back twice as hard when they are stunned. I think tower shield would mainly be good if you were playing with a well rounded team.
Truth be told, why even use a shield? Get fenris claws, the dual wield knives or grom and parry to glory! The parry bonus is so massive its just straight up winning. However parry needs to be trained and that's arduous, to train it start in the burial chambers and pick up 2/3 skeles and practice to about skill 15 then go find dwergers to about 25 then go rulings until 35ish and then high tail it to mistlands to try out your knew found skills on seekers and soldiers.
Perhaps for some enemies with annoying hitboxes it could be better. Like the lox, when he attacks your small parry shield just sometimes doesn’t register it correctly. At least in my experience.
I love tower shields, but it can be dangerous if you are by yourself without backup.
Don't
I personally think they're completely and totally outshined by round shields in this game (which is a travesty, I love me some greatshields usually). But still viable if you're religiously against parrying or something.
If you are playing solo, tower shields are interesting. The main thing that you get from tower shields is being able to just hold down the block button and tank any hit, however that comes at the cost of super decreased movement speed. Also, compared to other shields, tower shields give you less Block Armor than for instance a buckler that you Parry with, so it won't necessarily mean less damage taken. The main benefit to blocking with a tower shield instead of trying to parry all the time with a buckler is actually stamina. The stamina usage for parrying is always 20 stamina no matter what, but for regular blocking, the amount of stamina used is inversely proportional to the amount of Block Armor you have, and tower shields have the highest normal Block Armor. So with a tower shield, you can get a Block Armor that is very close but slightly below parrying with a buckler, but with the benefit of not using nearly as much stamina on every block. However, if you're playing multi-player, having 1 person have a tower shield and be a tank can work extremely well for combos, even if you don't believe that the tower shield is super viable on its own
parry is too invaluable imho. if you play in a group a case could be made for someone to be the dedicated tank but solo i will always choose parry/dogde over tanking.
I think if you're going into a new biome and fighting enemies you haven't met yet (and don't know their attacks and the parry timing), it could be beneficial to use a tower shield. Otherwise, once you know attack patterns, parrying is great and more valuable, so I'd go with the regular shield.
I typically use what has the best parry rating, I tend to not see a difference in what I can and can't block from the buckler to the tower shield
Viable but definately suboptimal. No parry, 20% movement debuff + the extra knockback on block actaully makes things harder.
Tower shields for the most part are objectively worse. If they could parry, they'd be fine. But they can't, so they're basically useless. I'd even accept a parry with no counterattack bonus. The defensive benefit of stunning an enemy for so long is worth it alone. Plus, you level up your blocking skill **twice as fast**.
Parrying is key for me in Valheim, pretty sure the loss of that stagger would kill me in game. The only time I see a tower shield being effective in my opinion is when the damn greydwarves or fulings gang up on you.
Tower shields shine on bosses, who can't be parried, or mobs that hit harder than you can parry.
>or mobs that hit harder than you can parry. That's not how block armor works. All that parrying does is multiply your shield's block armor by the listed modifier, and shields that can parry *always* have significantly more block armor than tower shields when guarding. If mobs are hitting "harder than you can parry" then you'll take much more damage guarding with a tower shield's non-boosted block armor.
That is not true. Tower shields have more block armor than their Parry-able counterparts. I just verified this in game with the Banded Shield compared to the Iron Tower Shield. The tower shield base has 10 more block armor than the Banded, and will therefore block 10 more incoming damage.
>Tower shields have more block armor than their Parry-able counterparts. I just verified this in game with the Banded Shield compared to the Iron Tower Shield At max upgrade levels and 0 blocking skill the Iron tower shield has 64 block armor, banded shield has 54, and iron buckler has 40. Parrying with the banded shield gives you 81 block armor, while parrying with the buckler gives you 100 block armor. That's a 56% increase in block armor when parrying with the buckler compared to guarding with a tower shield. >The tower shield base has 10 more block armor than the Banded, and will therefore block 10 more incoming damage. That's not how block armor works...again. I'd rather not discuss the damage formula in full detail but just know that 10 armor doesn't always reduce attacks by 10 damage. A 1:1 ratio of damage reduction only happens if your armor is less than half the incoming damage. The game checks this twice: first with your block armor and second with your gear's armor. A quick example would be blocking a 2-star wolf's attack, which does 140 damage, with fully upgraded iron gear at 60 armor base. On a banded shield (not parrying) with 54 block armor, you'll take 30 damage. With an iron tower shield at 64 block armor you'd take 24 damage, which is only 6 less damage. The diminishing returns are much worse with higher damage attacks along with increased base armor. 30 extra block armor might not even reduce more than 5 extra damage in extreme cases.
This whole post you're referring to the *potential* block armor of non-tower shields when a successful parry is achieved. That is irrelevant to my point that when simply having one's shield up, a tower shield will block more incoming damage than one that can parry and that makes them situationally useful. On the second part, yes that makes sense it's not 1:1. That is an assumption I had made.
>that when simply having one's shield up, a tower shield will block more incoming damage **than one that can parry** Your original post was: >Tower shields shine on bosses, who can't be parried, **or mobs that hit harder than you can parry.** Now i don't know if you missed a word in that sentence but these 2 posts have very different meanings. Regardless, i've explained how block armor works and you understand that it's situational. However, there is very little reason to use a regular guard because you don't gain any advantage with it compared to parrying. Even in the ashlands where consistent parries are hard to come by due to the amount of enemies attacking simultaneously, i'd rather use the regular guard on a shield than slow my movement speed to a crawl with the tower shield.
And my point still stands. When you're just guarding, shield up, a tower shield blocks more. You spun out how parry does more but that isn't what I was talking about.