Originally posted by Sono:

apparently it calculates some formula with your max health, combined with the block strength, and if a shield has it like the serpent shield a damage reduction vs a damage type. Problem is how exactly max health affects it i have no idea on. It's also possible early game shields were made worse with some kind of shenanigans, as my late game characters received a max of 2 damage through a black metal shield from a Golems smash, with only about 70 health.

Yeah, I read something about max health factoring in to the blocking equation now. It shouldn't be a big part of it, but it means you need to stack health more than stamina if you want to tank damage with a shield.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Shields deserved massive nerf, they were beyond insane and made 2h weapons completely pointless.

Massive nerf? No, but I think shields needed balancing. Two handed weapons were never pointless. Some people love the atgeir or stagbreaker, both can be extremely useful.