Clearing up Breath of the Wild's BIGGEST Misconception - The Shield Stats

Breath of the Wild has already been out for 3 years now, and a lot of us already know a TON about the inner workings of this game - such as all the flashy combat maneuvers, locations of the best items in the game, and even a great understanding of this games physics system to help them in their adventure. But out of everything a player may have learned about this game over the last few years, one of biggest misconceptions that tends to be a mystery for most players has to deal with this games shield system, and what exactly the little numbers that reside by them actually mean. You see, unlike the numbers by the weapons and armor, which clearly reflect the weapons damage output and the armors defense level respectively, the game never once explains to the player exactly what the shield numbers mean.

Considering that all sheilds in this game work the exact same way, by blocking 100% of all incoming damage, most players just assume that this number must simply be the shields durability stat, which is in fact, not the case at all. So I thought to myself. .

. simple - what better way to find the answer to this question then by looking in the OFFICIAL guide book for Breath of the Wild - and to my suprise, there it is - on page 290: Now this is VERY wrong The only shields that do damage in this game by parrying are the Lynel shields, and even then, the number by them has NOTHING to do with the damage it outputs. It really beats me why the OFFICIAL guide book for this game would spread such misinformation, but then again, this is also coming from the same people who said that a green rupee is worth 5.

. . so thanks Piggyback!

! So, since both the base game and the official guide are incompetent on explaining what these numbers mean, I took it to myself to actually do some research both in game and out to finally solve this so called mystery once and for all. And, as it turns out, these numbers actually have a lot more meaning that one may think.

For starters, I’m gonna start calling these numbers by their proper name “the shield guard stat”, as that's what they are referred to as when you find one of the upgraded versions later in the game. So as it turns out, I found that the shield guard stat effects a total of 3 different properties of the shield itself - its parrying, blocking, and its resistance. The first 2 are quite simple to explain, but I'll save the resistance property for last, as it's a bit more complicated.

So, the first thing the shield guard stat can effect is the capability of disarming an opponent upon performing a perfect parry against their attack. This can only be done when the shield guard is HIGHER than the damage output of the enemy that you are facing. Let's take one of the red moblins you can find off the plateau for an example, which natively have a damage output of 2, plus the 9 point clubs that they hold, which bring it up to 11.

If I try to parry one of their attacks with a wooden shield, which has a guard of 2, the parry will simply stager the opponent, while his weapon will stay in his hand. But if I perform this move with a Minds eye shield which has a guard of 18, the parry will cause the moblins weapon to fly out of his hand, leaving him far more vulnerable then he was before. This is very similar to another property that the shield guard stat can effect, which is its blocking capability.

Similar to how a shield with a higher guard then the enemies damage output can cause them to be disarmed upon parrying, simply blocking an enemy's attack without parrying in this same scenario will cause an enemy to be staggered, unlike with lower rated shields, where they will continue to hit right through it. Like how we can see this Blue Bokoblin constantly smack through a weaker shield like a wooden one, while a stronger one like the lynel variant will cause him to be knocked backwards upon hitting it. But the only thing is, these special characteristics only apply to the normal enemy types in this game, such as Bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizarfos.

Enemies like Lynels cannot be disarmed by using a perfect parry, and Hinoxes will still be able to knock a player back regardless of what type of shield that they are using. However, the final characteristic that the shield guard can affect - its resistance - is a bit more complicated to explain then the other 2 - as it has to deal with some behind the scenes math that relates to how the shield itself takes damage upon being beaten. First off, I just want to clarify that this is NOT its durability stat, as that is a completely separate and hidden value each shield has that is unrelated to the shields guard stat.

For an example, the wooden shield has a guard of 2 but a durability of 12, while the royal guards shield has a guard of 70 , but a measly 14 durability - Ill include a link to all the shield guard ratings and hidden durability stats in the description below for those of you interested. But the biggest misconception about the durability stat is that every hit to the players shield consumes 1 durability point, which is not the case at all. In actuality, its the shield guard stat determines how many durability points will be taken to the shield upon getting struck, with the minimum cap being one.

For an example, let's take 2 different shields with different guard stats, and test them against a Red Hinox - whom has an attack output of 24. The first shield, which is an Emblazoned Sheild with a durability of 12 and a guard of 3, can only take a measly 3 hits before shattering. Meanwhile, a savage lynel shield with a guard buff of 78 and a durability of 20, takes a full 20 hits to break, which is the same as the number of durability points of the shield.

So after doing this, I came to the conclusion that having a lower shield guard then the enemy's attack power would cause the shield to take more then one durability point away upon a strike, while having a higher guard then the enemy will lower this number all the way down to one. Except there is one slight problem to this. .

when testing this theory again against the same Red Hinox, using an Emblazoned shield with a durability of 12 and a guard of 18 - which is lower then the Hinoxes attack power of 24, the shield was still able to break in a solid 12 hits. It was then when I knew that there must have been some hidden math behind this to be able to explain how exactly the durability is calculated, but after dozens upon dozens of more tests with different shields, I was unable to crack this code. Until I stumbled across a Gamefax thread by user Thrasher7170, which I'll link in the description, that provided an accurate formula used to calculate the way shields take durability in this game.

So, you math fans are probably gonna love this. In order to calculate durability loss, the game uses a rule system to check how many points will be taken out of the shield. If A, the attack power, <= 10 + G, the shield guard, then the shield only loses one point of durability upon strike.

However, if the attack power is Greater than 10 plus the shield guard, then the shield will lose more then one point of durability. So, going back to the Hinox example, if we plug in the attack output of 24 in place of the A, and we plug in the Emblazoned shields guard of 18 in place of G, the 18 adds to the 10 to create 28, which is greater than the rating of 24, which is why the shield was only taking one point of durability per hit - when I originally thought it would take more. So theoretically, any shield with a guard of 14 or higher will work the same against this enemy, as the only other stat that would make them differ is their base durability.

But if we plugged in the values of the first shield we tested against the Hinox which had a guard of 3, it falls under the second equation, meaning that it will take more damage then one per hit. And the way that this is calculated is by using the following chart provided in the same gamefax thread, by subtracting 10 + the guard rating away from the enemy's output, and matching it up with its corresponding value. So in this example, the 24 base damage minus 10 minus 3 will equal 11 - which the chart tells us that the durability done to the shield upon each hit will be 4 - which explains why it was able to break in a mere 3 hits in the past example.

For those of you who want a better understanding of the chart without having to memorize it, it basically equates to 1 extra point of durability loss for every 5 extra points of enemy damage - so it's really not as complicated as it looks. But other than that, that's basically everything to discuss when it comes to the hidden characteristics of shields in this game. Although there's a lot of math behind the last one, its easiest just to remember that the higher numbers help preserve a shield's durability more than the lower ones.

It's the reason why a wooden shield will shatter upon a single blow from a Lynel, while a royal guards one can take multiple, despite having similar durabilities. But with everything that I’ve explained about this games shield system today, through the parrys, blocking, and the shields resistance and durability stats, I hope this helped clear up one of Breath of the Wilds most confusing systems, and hopefully you'll be able to use this information well in your future playthroughs of this game. But anyways, thank you so much for watching!

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