Combat mechanicsBlocking, parry and stagger
0.25 s parry window · stagger at 40% of max health · 20 shieldsA block takes your block power off the hit using the same curve armour uses, so it stops nearly everything from small hits and much less of a big one. A parry is a block started in the last 0.25 secondsbefore the hit lands: it multiplies block power by the shield's parry bonus, costs no stamina and staggers the attacker. What gets through still fills your stagger bar, which breaks at 40% of your max health, and a block that staggers you lets the whole hit through.
Block power works like an armour value against everything except chop and pickaxe damage, which no block touches. If block power is under half the hit, you take the hit minus your block power. Otherwise you take hit squared over four times block power. Block power is the shield's value for its quality, raised by up to half again by the Blocking skill (1.5x at level 100). You cannot block a hit from behind.
A normal block costs up to 10 stamina, in proportion to how much of your block power the hit used, so a strong shield blocks small hits almost for free. The Ashen Cape cuts that by 20%. With no stamina left the block fails and the full hit lands. To check numbers against a specific creature, the damage calculator runs the same formulas.
Raise your block within 0.25 secondsof the hit and it counts as a parry, if the item's parry bonus is above 1. Bucklers multiply block power by 2.5, most shields and weapons by 1.5 or 2. 8 shields cannot parry at all: every tower shield and the Serpent Scale Shield, at 0, and the Iron Shield, at exactly 1. A parry costs no stamina, staggers any attacker that can be staggered by blocks, gives the item's parry adrenaline instead of its block adrenaline, and trains Blocking twice as fast. A few items go further and hand stamina back on a parry: Club (10), Torch (10) and Voidcaller (15).
Your stagger bar fills with the blunt, slash, pierce and lightning damage that gets past your block, and breaks at 40% of your max health, so 40 on a 100-health build and 80 on a 200-health one. It drains back to empty over 5 seconds. When a block fills it, you stagger and the block is cancelled, so the hit lands in full. That is why a heavy hit can feel unblockable: more health from food raises the bar as much as a bigger shield does.
A successful block of a melee hit pushes the attacker back with the shield's block force, the number some wikis call deflection. The push weakens the more of your block power the hit used, down to half, and arrows and spells are never pushed back. Tower shields carry the most, which is what buys room to swing.
| Shield | Block | Parry | Block force | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Wood Shield | 6 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 20 | -5% |
 Wood Tower Shield | 10 +6/lvl | none | 100 | -10% |
 Bronze Buckler | 16 +6/lvl | 2.5x | 30 | -5% |
 Iron Buckler | 28 +6/lvl | 2.5x | 30 | -5% |
 Bone Tower Shield | 32 +6/lvl | none | 100 | -10% |
 Iron Shield | 35 +6/lvl | none | 30 | -20% |
 Banded Shield | 42 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 40 | -5% |
 Shield of Roots | 48 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 40 | 0% |
 Iron Tower Shield | 52 +6/lvl | none | 100 | -10% |
 Serpent Scale Shield | 60 +6/lvl | none | 100 | -10% |
 Silver Shield | 60 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 40 | -5% |
 Black Metal Shield | 78 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 50 | -5% |
 Carapace Buckler | 78 +6/lvl | 2.5x | 50 | -5% |
 Nord Buckler | 88 +6/lvl | 2.5x | 30 | -5% |
 Carapace Shield | 96 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 60 | -5% |
 Black Metal Tower Shield | 104 +6/lvl | none | 150 | -10% |
 Flametal Shield | 114 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 50 | -5% |
 Nord Shield | 132 +6/lvl | 1.5x | 50 | -5% |
 Flametal Tower Shield | 140 +6/lvl | none | 150 | -10% |
 Nord Greatshield | 158 +6/lvl | none | 150 | -10% |