Why Shield is broken in Splinterlands
First, I want to show you some numbers
| Attack | Shielded | |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 4 | |
| 7 | 4 | |
| 6 | 3 | |
| 5 | 3 | |
| 4 | 2 | |
| 3 | 2 | |
| 2 | 1 | |
| 1 | 0 |
Notice something?
So this is how damage is blocked by the shield ability. There are two important things I want to emphasize, then make a proposal to fix both of them.
First off. In the chart above, all incoming damage is halved, rounded up. This makes it so that there is two of every number that gets through the shield. However, there is an exception. If an attack of 1 is made, which many level 1 cards have. The damage is completely nullified. This makes it so that many of the cards cannot be used against a card with shield. Even if you have, for example, a tank that can stay alive and sneak, snipe, and opportunity cards taking out the rest of the team. The card with shield can still win on its own just by nullifying the 1 damage sneakers.
The second part to this is that, when the game was initially released, summoner abilities, such as the -1 melee from Zintar Mortalis, were able to reduce the melee ability below 1. Since then, this was removed... with good reason. However, the shield ability still causes this to be a problem at lower ranks, completely nullifying multiple cards.
While the argument can be made that you should "Just pick magic cards" or something of the sort, it does not solve the issue, it only avoids it.
My proposed solution is to change the shield ability, so that it doesn't reduce physical attack damage below 1, just like debuffs to attack, speed, and health are currently.
Here is an example of three of my opponents cards being nullified by shield:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=dbf7a1f49b228182ac6ff31df7e7b205f687f9cd&ref=buddyboyb
(The Demoralize only affects his Goblin Thief, which doesn't even attack my Living Lava)
Thank you for taking the time to read this,
If you have any questions or comments, please reply!
-Buddy
Shield is just very powerful in the lower rankings, once you get up to higher ranks it's by no means broken. Overall I have experienced the game to be really balanced. Some cards or abilities are more powerful than others, that's part of the game I would say.
My original title said "in low ranks" but I removed that and forgot to mention it. I believe that it's generally ok, because most of the monsters it's on have lower health anyways. But one card alone can beat many, depending on the other team.
The problem is if you changed Shield this way it would become too useless at lower levels. At low levels, most attacks are going to be for 1 damage. With your proposed solution, Shield doesn't help at all.
Would you also suggest the same changes to Void?
It would be interesting to see actual usage statistics.
I see the reason for it working like it does, but there are so many cards that are themselves worthless. Most of the cards with shield are almost worth their mana without shield, whereas many other cards are too expensive without having to fight shield, and when against shield, they are moot.
I disagree.
Frozen Soldier, Tortisian Fighter, Naga Fire Wizard, and Skeletal Warrior are not very strong cards even with Shield. (Their main weakness being very vulnerable to magic damage).
Serpentine Soldier (at lower levels), Frost Giant, and Gloridax Guardian have narrow uses but generally aren't that amazing despite having Shield.
Elven Defender and Chain Golem are rarely used in Ranked and All Edition tournaments but are actually very strong in Untamed only events.
I feel like even though your point that shield is OP is valid, I believe the point of shield is to block the 1 attack monsters. Monsters with more attack will still be able to get through and monsters with shield are usually very vulnerable to those with magic attack. Splinterlands is a strategy game and therefore you need to work around this instead od complaining about it. Abilities should stay like that I believe.
You have a point at lower levels. That's the kind of scenario which would make me simply not bother with the game.
At higher levels shield is a must for some battle sets.