The shield I’m using right now has a 20% Block Chance for a 50% Blocked Damage Reduction. If you do the math, 20% of 50% is only 10%. So on average, you get a 10% damage reduction from equipping a shield. That would be virtually equal to a 10% Dodge Chance. The armor I’m wearing from all of my items is 4x as effective at reducing damage as the huge shield I am carrying.
You could also ask why there are no unique shields or other off hand items.
Why are there no shields that have +10% bonus damage due spikes or elemental effects?
To be fair, you can get Thorns damage on shields.
Well, the shield, in theory, should give protection like that of NPCs (skeletons with shields), so armor is not required there, it is more useful in this form.
That is a different discussion altogether. If you had asked me if shield functions should have an added depth of having to actively block to get bonuses then it would be an idea worth considering.
However, i’m ridiculing what the guy said. That shields dont have armor ratings because he’s abstractly imagining that its because his character didnt block. That is a totally different idea to having a blocking mechanism in place.
Makes sense for that same shield to provide +2 ranks of curse spells and 10% run speed though?
Give over.