I can explain to you why a shield helps you hit better be cause i do it for a living and have done for nearly 5 years... My job is to be a knight and put on a show with my fellow nights, this includes joust and sword/mace fights once you have been knocked to the floor... and from my personal xp, i can tell you now that when you block with a shield it is easier to hit your enemy as they can be knocked off balance or be countered....

*waits for pics of Archaon at work*

hehe, maybe i will

I study martial arts and find that w/ two handed weps you can get the same effect since you just vary angles and footwork especially with a wep in each hand (depending on teh weps and the weight of the weps used). If you use dynamic blocking and vary shoot in angles it works very well. I am sure there are guys you are with who are great w/ a sword w/ no shield and can have you on your heals very easily. Just there is less room for error without a sheild. But most of this is based on fighting on foot since I have never ridden a horse.

Oh yes, I wold love to see some pics of you in action as well.....lol....

Disagreeing would never be a reason for a lock. How posters treat each other would be.
Let's remember 2 things.

1) Respect your fellow posters even if you wish they were Rez killed all night :-P

2) Good discussion can lead to change. Lousy discussions get ignored.


Let's strive to keep the discussions animated, productive and non-aggressive.

~ Se'an

I think DCI makes a lot of sense, and HCI does not make a lot of sense on a shield. I am in the situation many players are, I have a lot of 10+ HCI shields kicking around and am just waiting to sell or not to sell.

I do like the ideas I read above about the diferent shields having different caps for each skill. All in all however, I don't think a shield should help you hit better.

You need to study martial arts, and history. Certainly a shield was often used for increasing ones chance to hit.

The shield can be used in a parry to deflect the attackers weapon into a comprimising position. In the well trained hands a shield becomes an assistant to the weapon.

Remember that a weapon (a sword in this example) is for offense and for defense. With a sword one can stab, slash, parry and feint. With a shield one can deflect or trap a weapon out of a defenseive position, if only for a moment. Since the sword is momentarily out of attacking position the shield is still doing its defenseive job, and since the sword is momentarily out of defensive position, the shield also helped in hitting the target.

And if this simple historical example of common martial technique isn't enough for you... it is magic man! How does ground up pearls in a jar with water do... anything?

*waits with Damin*