Differentiating Shield Ideas

[Teri]

Q:The different types of shields: Buckler, Round Shield and Kite Shield, are planned to have statistical differences? If so, what differences?
A: They probably should. The buckler is light weight maybe would get reroll from bonus for use for bashing or something
The kite shield might get some kind of numeric bonus or something like reroll against ranged

Rias would like suggestions/ideas

[Gorth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we get an extra rerole on Block Defense roles. This is good, very good. Perhaps we could shift this around a bit. My imagination of the situation is that, from most to least defensive, the shields rank: Kite Shield, Round Shield, Buckler. Perhaps we could distribute the reroels to something like +2 reroles on Kite shield, +1 on Round Shield, +0 on Buckler. We could trade the Defense Reroles on Buckler for Offense Reroles on things like Shield Bash, Counterbash, etc.

I'm not good at balancing, so perhaps we just keep the rerole as it is on all of them and come up with niches for each type of shield.

I could personally see Maya switching shield for the situation, provided they're balanced in a way that supports it.

My ideas for differing effects based on Shield follow:
Kite Shield:

• Higher chances/reroles on the Guard chance role.
• Alternatively, ability to guard people from Ranged Attacks better in particular.
• Higher balance loss/lowered damage from bashes.
• Stance: Immovable. I'm unsure about tying abilities to gear, but my idea was for a way to plant the shield, or angle it in such a way that it's more difficult to be staggerd/knocked down/generally bullied. Basically a tank move. I know I'd love this in particular, as a group leader, as I tend to get ganged on, plus also protecting someone. I feel like there's a seperate topic to be discussed about group roles and leaders more often being tanks, but I'll add that to my list of things I need to write up.
• Perhaps raise the weight, a lot. I'm unsure how we'd swing this, but I feel like having a big ass shield is something that should be hard to lug around, especially on your back.

Buckler:

• Lowered defense, but higher offense. I'm almost unwilling to suggest stacking more bash reroles especially on rerole monsters like Duelist and Marauder. However, it's in character. I also dislike systems in which you either choose offense or defense and you're staggering good at what you choose and just lackluster or even bad at the other, Ala strikers/hitters in MMOs.
• Instead of bash reroles, someone offhand mentioned the buckler might be faster. I believe this could translate to lowered Roundtime on the Bash. The issue comes in with, if you lower it even by one, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to get an attack off during the stagger, which isn't the intention of the ability (Note this purposefully ignores knockdown chance).
• Perhaps higher damage/staggering in return for tiny or no knockdown chance.

Issues:

• I'm not any good at balancing, but I feel like these are decent guidelines someone smarter might go off of.]/*]
• I don't know exactly how to make Round Shield feel like the optimal midroute option ala middle weight, middle offense, middle defense, just turning you into a wonder machine of offense and defense. Perhaps one might think up some way to make the Round Shield be the shield one uses when soloing, when not trying to fill a particular role in a group.
• Most of my ideas for Buckler are making it more offense, but my minimal research shows people didn't really use shields for offense, very often, at least. Also, Shield Bash is a very limitted ability, so i'd like some way to make the Buckler applicable for certain situations for everyone.
• But I also don't want to stack shields up with too many abilities, as there's a small niche of players who use them, and I'd personally like to keep it that way. I've stated before I really, desperately wish this game to stay away from a true Meta for as long as possible. It's unavoidable, some people will find the best builds and that's fine. i'd just rather there not be builds people specifically build to hit as numerically optimally as possible or similar. and I think buffing shields to the moon, as they're already decently good, could result in this, or push it along.
EDIT: Fixed my spelling errors, finally.