Shields

Shields are a kind of weapon that primarily protect the player from damage, rather than killing enemies.

Passive effects
Carrying a shield creates a force field for half a second when the player takes damage. This barrier absorbs most damage, but not damage-over-time from status effects like poison or darkness.

Since active force fields reduce the rally effect’s recovery by 65%, carrying a shield makes it more difficult to recover recently-lost health.

Active effects
Holding down a shield's assigned button holds it up after 0.37 seconds. Attacks that hit the front of the shield are reduced by the shield’s damage absorption percentage (usually 75%) before any other damage reduction effects. Shields’ block damage, listed as their non-critical damage, is also dealt to enemies using melee attacks.

Blocking, apart from mitigating damage, also blocks Malaise infection.

Tapping a shield's assigned button instead attempts a parry. If no attacks connect within the parry window, the player cannot block or parry again for 0.6 seconds. If a non-shockwave attack hits the shield during the parry window, the attack deals no damage, you can block/parry again immediately, and additional effects occur depending on the attack:
 * Melee attackers take parry damage, indicated on the shield as its critical damage value.
 * Ranged attacks are reflected for 80 base damage.
 * Bombs are reflected for 90 base damage.
 * Explosions are absorbed without retaliation.
 * Purulent Zombie eggs turn into three biting worms, which attack enemies.

Note: Attacks are also automatically parried if they land within the first 0.2 seconds of holding up the shield and the shield's button is still held.

Effect scaling
Shields’ damage usually scales with the player's Survival stat, but some also scale with Tactics or Brutality.

Damage absorbed while blocking can only be increased by the Shield Absorb affix.