Originally posted by M.Red:

"smaller" shields have a higher bonus on parry while the towershields are unbeatable at full blocking with almost no parry bonus

I tried. Trying to beef up with tower shields seems good only on small enemies, which you can use almost everything for without worry. The moment I face something more threathening, the towershield becomes deadweight instead. as mentioned with the trolls. Am I doing something wrong with the shield? I know bulking up hp helps with blocks, i think.

Originally posted by Anarchist Jurisdictor:

No, there's no reason, although they're at least reasonably usable now with the update. I only ever use the shields with the highest parry bonuses myself.

I see. I guess Ill stick with the bucklers from now on then.

I only used tower shields on my second playthrough, because my first time in Valheim I finished the game using bucklers only and it was too OP. So I kinda nerfed myself. But to each their own

Love tower shields, big tanking.

I feel the same way. Started a new world to try everything through progression and the bone tower shield just doesn't work well against trolls. You can maybe block a shot or two but when they break your block the fight is over. And it's harder to get openings to counterattack. You may as well just kite with a bow instead because you're going to end up dodge rolling and running around anyways.

A buckler and a knife just eat the troll alive, that damage bonus from parry is important. I haven't devoted a lot to time to playing this since the update, but I'm hoping that later tower shields feel better.

Originally posted by CritMasterFlex:

I feel the same way. Started a new world to try everything through progression and the bone tower shield just doesn't work well against trolls. You can maybe block a shot or two but when they break your block the fight is over. And it's harder to get openings to counterattack. You may as well just kite with a bow instead because you're going to end up dodge rolling and running around anyways.

A buckler and a knife just eat the troll alive, that damage bonus from parry is important. I haven't devoted a lot to time to playing this since the update, but I'm hoping that later tower shields feel better.

depends on the tactics and playstyle for me towershields perform well even against trolls if things went bad i can allways perform a dodgeroll and charge the troll, the towershield works outstanding on more than one enemy imho as i can force them to bunch together and clean sweep the mob afterwards

its a preferred playstyle decisison one can make

The serpent shield at least looks awesome, but the lack of parry and the additional slow down makes me rather use the black metal shield.

Yeah the tower shield is great for when You Are Being Hunted, because the huge knockback helps to keep the puppers off you. You can even use the huge knockback in combination with terrain to do fun stuff (like bumping wolves into a pit to capture them)

Tower shields are good for multiplayer. Tower shields can be given to someone who just wants to tank and disrupt enemies so others can pick them off

"smaller" shields have a higher bonus on parry while the towershields are unbeatable at full blocking with almost no parry bonus

No, there's no reason, although they're at least reasonably usable now with the update. I only ever use the shields with the highest parry bonuses myself.