Shields Are Useless: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"If I were to pick up this cowering-plate, I would have to put down my [[Dual-Wielding|second sword]]," a Scotsman thinks. "And surely this is madness."''
|[[Team Fortress 2]], on the [[Averted Trope|Chargin' Targe]]}}
Shields. Big pieces of wood and/or metal that protect at least one half of your body against attack. Pretty useful in battle, you might think. And indeed some characters will gratefully sigh that [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]. Others, however, are not so sure.
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Closely related to [[Armor Is Useless]]. Not to be confused with [[Deflector Shields]]. Aversions are [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Samson is one of the few characters in ''[[Berserk]]'' to use a shield, and a single slash from [[BFS|Guts' swords]] went through it, [[Armor Is Useless|Samson's helmet]], and his entire head.
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== Film ==
* In ''Kingdom of Heaven'', when {{spoiler|the walls of Jerusalem are breached}}, Orlando Bloom's character throws aside his shield and charges into the fray with only his sword. In reality this would be a death sentence.
* In the ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' trilogy, shields are used for a variety of standard and creative purposes, but often we see the [[Redshirt Army|Red Shirt Armies]] on both sides just letting their shields hang by their sides as they're casually dispatched.
* In ''[[Hero (film)|Hero]]'', Flying Snow and Broken Sword fight through the entire imperial guard single-handedly, slicing through their shields like cardboard.
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* Shields in ''[[GURPS]]'' provide no help against guns and energy weapon unless they're big enough to hide behind.
* ''[[Dungeons
** ''Basic D&D'' shields only provides a nominal passive bonus to AC. However, they provide [[Breakable Weapons]] known as Shield Weapons that give an attack and a better AC bonus if you train them well enough.
** In the 4th edition of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', shields provide no armor bonus if the character has no proficiency.
* ''d20Modern'' allows the player to carry a shield. While it may seem like an odd choice in a game where firearms are generally quite available, sufficiently large shields (like riot shields) which also provide ballistic protection offer the benefit of ''cover'', a vital mechanic for staying alive.
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* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'': Played fairly straight with the Razorback, a shield for the Sniper whose only purpose is to prevent the inevitable [[Back Stab]] but has only one use and the Sniper might not even notice it breaking (and when he does, he only has the knife for self-defense at close range). The Chargin' Targe for the Demoman however provides decent protection and a charge ability, although the tradeoff (no sticky bombs) is also more noticable in this case.
* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', Kratos and Zelos can equip shields. They don't actually do anything except add a few points to the defense stat.
** Actually, the shields can occassionally deflect insignificant projectile attacks that happen to land directly on their hitbox. ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' (the first game in the series) had Cless, whose shield showed up on his sprite even when he didn't have one equipped, and could sometimes negate enemy attacks if he wasn't moving.
* ''[[Age of Empires
* Bastiodon from ''[[Pokémon]]'' has a shield as a face and is one of the most defensive Pokémon in the game, but that doesn't stop Ground and Fighting-type attacks from walking all over him.
* Played nearly (and painfully) straight in the Punchout-esque [[Wii Ware]] game ''Rage of the Gladiators''. While some attacks can be blocked with the shield, most simply go right through it and [[Nintendo Hard|deal full damage to you.]] Some of them can't be evaded and need to be blocked with a shield though, like most long-lasting beam attacks.
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