First, I want to show you some numbers
| Attack | Shielded | |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 4 | |
| 7 | 4 | |
| 6 | 3 | |
| 5 | 3 | |
| 4 | 2 | |
| 3 | 2 | |
| 2 | 1 | |
| 1 | 0 |
Notice something?
So this is how damage is blocked by the shield ability. There are two important things I want to emphasize, then make a proposal to fix both of them.
First off. In the chart above, all incoming damage is halved, rounded up. This makes it so that there is two of every number that gets through the shield. However, there is an exception. If an attack of 1 is made, which many level 1 cards have. The damage is completely nullified. This makes it so that many of the cards cannot be used against a card with shield. Even if you have, for example, a tank that can stay alive and sneak, snipe, and opportunity cards taking out the rest of the team. The card with shield can still win on its own just by nullifying the 1 damage sneakers.
The second part to this is that, when the game was initially released, summoner abilities, such as the -1 melee from Zintar Mortalis, were able to reduce the melee ability below 1. Since then, this was removed... with good reason. However, the shield ability still causes this to be a problem at lower ranks, completely nullifying multiple cards.
While the argument can be made that you should "Just pick magic cards" or something of the sort, it does not solve the issue, it only avoids it.
My proposed solution is to change the shield ability, so that it doesn't reduce physical attack damage below 1, just like debuffs to attack, speed, and health are currently.
Here is an example of three of my opponents cards being nullified by shield:
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=dbf7a1f49b228182ac6ff31df7e7b205f687f9cd&ref=buddyboyb
(The Demoralize only affects his Goblin Thief, which doesn't even attack my Living Lava)
Thank you for taking the time to read this,
If you have any questions or comments, please reply!
-Buddy
