Originally posted by Bobucles:

The highest level shields are generally the best. Block strength determines how much stamina a block eats, and also determines how much stagger damage you take. The bronze buckler will no longer take you to end game.

Parry is much worse off than the early days. It consumes an extra 20 stamina, which will burn your bar out very quickly in battle. Standard blocking is convenient all around and works well for single player. Tower shields have a bit of extra block power, but the speed bonus hurts it badly. Try them in multiplayer with friends.

Them dont burn stamina if you have very high defense lol , burns in terms of how much base defense you have , its an extra payoff to parry a little more damage that you can
I never have stamina problems as you , at least with good gear equiped and kill the monster after the parry to not consume more stamina , not use critical hits its too wrong ...for using normal block or having a 80 years old man timing to be bad at parry ...



For OP :
use this in order : bronze buckler ( 75 parry + some extra with block skill and hp foods ) , iron buckler ( 100 parry ) , silver shield ( 107 parry ) , blackmetal shield ( 135 parry )
And remember , if you wantto be an efficient tanky try to parry every hit that is incoming to you and kill that parryed monster fast
Use top heavy gear ( iron > wolf > padded ) and hp+hp+stamina food combo , you will be so fine with all that