Shield Skill Feedback: I played them 100 hours so you don't have to

I played shield skills from the start of the game all the way into T16 maps. This is combined feedback on these skills and the state of melee in general.

The feel of shield gameplay like warrior is very visceral and rewarding. However, the feel of these skills is that a character using them always feels a level or two behind where they need to be damage wise. And this gets really bad around T14 maps where the damage of shield skills makes it so that killing white monsters is even a multiple hit proposal.

Shield Charge This skill feels decent when you use it and it is capable of doing a lot of damage. However even with area based supports this is really only a single target skill. The problem with this skill is that it frequently bugs out and misses the target sending the character across the screen.

Resonating Shield This skill feels horrible. It is low damage and even with a lot of supports and paired with break armour explosion it only does 25-50% of monster hp per hit. Meaning it will take 2-3 seconds to kill a white monster.

Shield Wall This skill is hard to use and very buggy. Monsters regularly walk and attack through it so it does not work as good defensive barrier.

Magma Barrier This skill has good damage and ability to clear. However it is hard to trigger as it has a small window. And until you use this skill you don't realize how infrequently monsters actually use blockable attacks.

Some problems with the skills as I see them:

* Even with the highest armour shield damage feels low and it is hard to even kill white monsters at endgame.
* Because most base damage comes from shield armour unique shields can not be used if you using shield skills as damage skills.
* They all seem very buggy and situational.
* There is no ranged skill meaning you area always on top of monsters.

The thing that makes shield skills very difficult to use at endgame is that you are always right on top of monsters. This means that every ground effect and mechanic will hit you. A lot of these like the lightning and chaos mechanics spawn on the monster which means they will frequently hit you before you even realize they are there because they have no travel time before the hit.

I am honestly amazed you got as far as you have using shield skills. Your assertions are dead on. Damage is awful, defense minimal. Support skills for shields are just laughably bad. Even the shield skills themselves are just, BAD. Part of the issue is armor 100%

Second issue block straight up does not work on half the projectiles or attacks in the game fired by any monster type.

3rd issue, I HATE active blocking. I hate the stagger bar, I hate it. Its garbage. Get rid of it or make it degen if your not taking big hits SOMETHING it is AWFUL.

no molten shell, no tempest barrier. Endurance charges do absolutely nothing. Its like GGG hates shields.

The shield playstyle currently is "get beat on by everyone with no ability to hurt them back"

We got es spellcasters face tanking stuff and doing 500k dps but resonating shield is SO OVERPOWERED it needs a gigantic drawback in the active block stagger bar.

Also mana costs are INSANE lvl 30 its 30 mana per second to use resonating. Thats what? 9% of my mana per second, lol. To do 1/50th the damage a spell would do? With worse regen mechanics? With 2k health?

[Removed by Support]. thats my personal feedback.