Shields Are Useless: Difference between revisions

{{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 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]], on the [[Averted Trope|Chargin' Targe]]}}

In reality, people covered by a shield from shoulder to knee are rather difficult to hit. Only their head and calves/feet are exposed. This meant that in the [[The Middle Ages|Middle Ages]] a popular trick was to stab your opponent in the foot and then, when they cringed and let down their guard, stab them in the face. Which is arguably less [[Rule of Cool|cool]] than [[Slice -and -Dice Swordsmanship|heroic slashing]].

[['''Shields Are Useless]]''' applies whenever shields are shown to have a negligible effect in combat. A [[The Hero|Hero]] may discard his shield before charging the [[Big Bad]] just to show how [[Badass]] he really is. Yes, our hero is so awesome that he doesn't need a shield. In the villainous version, [[Mooks]] will have shields - but the good guy, armed with the [[BFS]] or [[Dual-Wielding]], will still slaughter them by the hundreds. Apparently they learn to use their shields at the medieval equivalent of the [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]].

== Anime and Manga ==

* 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 (Filmfilm)|Hero]]'', Flying Snow and Broken Sword fight through the entire imperial guard single-handedly, slicing through their shields like cardboard.

* ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'': Shields give a passive bonus to your AC, typically by a mere 1 or 2 (5% or 10%) without any modifiers. In doing do, however, they take up a hand, preventing your character from using both hands for offense. Various magical enchantments, feats, and different rule systems can be used to make shields more useful. These examples should be listed in [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]].

** ''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.

* Sniper Joes are shield-toting enemies you'll find in many of the classic ''[[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Mega Man]]'' games. Their shields are quite effective at blocking even fully charged buster shots, but are useless against weapons that go ''through'' enemies, like the Elec Beam. Similarly, [[Spell My Name Withwith an "S"|Mettool/Metall/Mettaur]] hide under hard hats, and there are weapons that can destroy them while they're hiding.

*** Nowadays however, the tank specializations for warriors and paladins can be quite deadly in [[Pv PPvP]] if used right through combination of being able to survive normally lethal burst and being concentrated on while being able to deal decent enough damage to be a threat as well as taking up time from people who try to kill them while their allies enjoy not being attacked. A well geared warrior/paladin designed like this can tear lesser geared damage specialized classes apart, especially cloth wearers. One on one fights with them can be quite unfair due to their survivability as well.

* ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|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 (Video Game)|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 (Video Game)|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 I (Videovideo Gamegame)||Age of Empires I]]'': Several units carry shields (in some cases added by upgrades) without getting any tangible benefit from them.

* ''[[Earthworm Jim (Videovideo Gamegame)|Earthworm Jim]]'' will encounter Lawyers who hide behind their bulletproof briefcases. Luckily Jim can whip them out of their hands easily.