Most of the time I have boar jerky and honey up. But when in swamp, I used cooked meat until I had level 2 cooking for sausage. Guess I was not timing my blocks. Had the bone shield out in block mode to block damage to get closer for melee attack. Troll got me with ground slam attack. Undead meaning druagr. The archer version always stagger me with bronze buckler. Does around 30 pts damage with the stagger. Troll armor total is 33. Trying to get used to do it for elder fight. Deer boss was a breeze with wooden shield. With bronze buckler I can parry grey dwarves but have issues on druagrs (normal ones can parry, 1+ stars bit of issue), archer type have issues. Even skeletons I can parry. The bronze club seem a bit slow in swings to extra swing not allowing to block. I carry honey, jam, boar jerky, deer meat cooked, and assuage.

Draugr archers are a bit over tuned and the main reason to avoid the swamp surface. Dive into the catacombs first thing and start mining iron. Underground is many MANY times safer than the surface.

The jump from black forest to swamp is the single biggest difficulty spike in Valheim. The enemy stat growth is huge, and the constant wet debuff makes avoiding combat more difficult. Everything after it gets easier, at least going in the intended progression order.

Easy way to remember. The shield built using the ore from that zone will parry mobs / boss in that zone. Bronze buckler parries trolls, Iron buckler parries Abominations. I don't use shields anymore but when I did I always used them to parry, never to just sit there and block. In any case I would save on the mats and just go 2h + dodge.

your block strength is tied to your max hp, you need to eat better foods

Tried the same thing, this time with an abomination and a one star draugr.

Same armor, same weapons, same food.

I can say that troll armor with a bone shield works well with the abomination, but some hits seem to come through staggering you, but not taking much health.

Bronze armor with bone shield worked well, no staggering.

Bronze armor with bronze buckler works well, but there's some staggering, just like with troll armor and bone shield. Up to you what you prefer. You can stagger the abomination with the bronze armor and buckler, which seems to be the one redemption for bronze armor I can see.

One star draugr works only well with the bone shield, no matter the armor. The buckler just can't cut it as you get staggered most of the time.

I did not try the two star draugr, as that would've been devastating (for me). :D

Originally posted by El_Bastardo:

Originally posted by electricdawn:

The problem is that in bronze age, the only viable shield for tanking trolls (and later abominations) is the bone shield. The bronze buckler doesn't cut it. Even with bronze armor.

I tried both.

Once you got the iron banded shield, though, you're good, and you can parry to your heart's content. :)

Even fully upgraded? I'm fairly positive i did it last time i played, you still get some damage though, and if you fail an active block you're almost dead^^
I think i always did some kiting with fire arrows, and then i active block+heavy attack killed the troll from ~75% life.

Electric just talk about tanking hits ( standing a while blocking ) , not parrying , because bronze lvl 3 and 2 BF health foods can parry a troll smash , but bucklers are a shame when you just try to blocking , tower shields are best for that
With iron buckler i can parry all swamp and mountain mobs too....

Blocking depends on block strength, max HP, and armor. A deficit in any stat will make blocking ineffective.

Shields were rebalanced over the early days, bronze buckler is no longer a god shield. Parrying now has a huge stamina cost, so it's a tactical choice rather than the default goal of blocking.

For the most part, a proper tier shield and full food buff can block any regular enemy. One star enemies hit too hard for flat blocking, and two star enemies hit WAY too hard for shields at all. Keep bonemass power on hand at all times to deal with elite enemies, the massive damage reduction also boosts blocking.

What foods are you using and are you eating when they start flashing?

[edit] Recommend watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw33dzhz21c

Dumb question, but Is your shield actually equipped? Sounds like it is on reading your description. You didn't mention what your health and stamina were when being attacked. Low health = low stagger limit and of course, you need Stamina to successfully block. No Stamina = no block. Lastly, what armor if any are you currently using. Unless you're running around naked with no food then it's weird that a Skeleton would stagger you.
Bone tower shield has block armor of 32/38/44 depending on upgrade level.
Bronze buckler is 16/22/28.
Troll does 60 blunt, 1* Skeleton does 37.5 slash (sword)
Neither one can fully mitigate damage from a Troll. I can see you getting staggered if your health and stamina are low.
A banded shield will be a definite improvement over both the shields you mentioned.

And you actively have to use the block action (right click per default setting) when your opponent is attacking you.

Just equipping the shield is not enough.

I can block attacks from both kinds of troll and even abominations with a lvl 2 bone shield and lvl 3 troll armor. Some damage is coming through but your selfheal should be able to mitigate this.

Of course, as @blprice61 already wrote, good food is of utmost importance.

hey!
For starters, put the shield on a quick bar. you need to "actively" equip it, just like you would an axe/sword or mace, you can also just run around with shield "equipped" and no main hand weapon (for faster running e.g.). So it works like a weapon, not like armor.

A tower shield has more stats than a "regular shield", i.e. bucklers etc, but you cannot perform the "active block" with it. The active block is the timed block, when you do it right, you'll hear a "clash" sound and the enemy gets staggered - thus making regular shields alot better than tower shields imho. Depending on the enemy attack stat, you'll still get damage though, but the better your armor, the less it will be. If you block with a tower shield, it just reduces the damage you will take, but you cannot perform the active block (which i only realized after i got super hyped for an awesome, kinda hard-to-get shield, which turned out to be a tower shield).

I'm not 100% sure if the stagger works if you receive damage though - meaning that unarmored with just a wooden buckler you couldn't stagger a troll with active block, but if you have high enough armor to mitigate the damage when blocking, it should work. Active blocking really makes the game a walk in the park, since it works on every attack and when the enemy is staggered, you even do bonus damage (which makes the sword secondary attack MVP).

If anything changed and tower shields can now active block (or i got it wrong in the first place), pls correct^^

The problem is that in bronze age, the only viable shield for tanking trolls (and later abominations) is the bone shield. The bronze buckler doesn't cut it. Even with bronze armor.

I tried both.

Once you got the iron banded shield, though, you're good, and you can parry to your heart's content. :)

Edit: And no, tower shields cannot parry, only block.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

The problem is that in bronze age, the only viable shield for tanking trolls (and later abominations) is the bone shield. The bronze buckler doesn't cut it. Even with bronze armor.

I tried both.

Once you got the iron banded shield, though, you're good, and you can parry to your heart's content. :)

Even fully upgraded? I'm fairly positive i did it last time i played, you still get some damage though, and if you fail an active block you're almost dead^^
I think i always did some kiting with fire arrows, and then i active block+heavy attack killed the troll from ~75% life.

I was in mostly lvl 3 bronze armor and a lvl 3 bronze buckler, typical BF food, so deer stew, etc. Logger troll hit me badly with this.

Compare that to lvl 3 troll armor and a lvl 2 bone shield, and I could block them without getting staggered, taking not too much damage. I must say, though, that I was eating swamp food at that time, so sausages, probably deer stew and a muck shake. But it shouldn't make much difference.

Of course, if you miss-time a block, you will suffer. But that's what the shield is for. Armor only can do so much. ;)

Ooookay. I did another scientific experiment.

I dropped my main Dahlgren (skills in his twenties and thirties) in my handy-dandy arena I've built for such purposes with the following equipment.

Lvl 3 troll armor, lvl 3 bronze armor, lvl 3 bronze axe, lvl 3 bronze buckler, lvl 2 bone shield.

Food was deer stew, minced meat, queen's jam.

Spawned a troll three times one after the other and fought him.

1. Full bronze armor, bronze buckler, logger troll.
I was very surprised that I not only could block the troll but even parry it sometimes. Damage got through, but was mitigated by selfheal.

2. Troll armor, bone shield, logger troll.
As assumed, worked like above, but of course only blockable. Some damage got through, but was mitigated by selfheal.

3. Troll armor, bronze buckler, normal troll.
This was the real surprise! I could actually go mano-a-mano with a regular troll! Yes, damage was more, selfheal couldn't completely compensate, but it worked! Well, sorta.
I misstimed some blocks and I got crunched to 4 health.

At that time I cut my losses and flew the scene, with the tail tugged in. ;)

In the end, I was very surprised that the buckler actually could work in a troll situation as a last ditch measure.

Edit: I'm going to try this again, but this time with an abomination. Maybe a two star draugr as well.