One of the greatest pleasures of Elden Ring is the freedom to explore different combat philosophies. Perhaps you prefer the tried-and-true strategy of hitting things with very large swords. Maybe you prefer higher magic, making use of laser beams and thrown boulders. The choices are endless, but so are the mistakes. Thanks to the new thrusting shields in Shadow of the Eldestree, players have found themselves wasting time searching for the best build for bleeding and frenzied flame spells. Instead, they should have asked one question: what if they attacked while blocking?

Shadow of the Erdtree introduced two thrusting shields. This is a new weapon type based on a simple concept: the shields are a new type of weapon. From Software, perhaps by divine guidance, has designed the ultimate weapon to answer this age-old conundrum.

Wielding a thrusting shield with both hands, you can hold down the block button while attacking, safely exposing yourself to light attacks; the two thrusting shields in the DLC's Shadow Keep dungeon can be modified at will to suit your damage type and scaling preferences. Even better, they add counterattack damage from the spear talisman, and since they are two-handed, they also benefit from the damage boost of the two-handed sword talisman

As Elden Ring subreddit players have noticed, the thrusting shield is very powerful. Because they can be attacked without risk or worry, players argue that this weapon type trivializes boss fights. Redditor Drstrangelove899 called the weapon "absolutely bankrupt," saying, "It's insane that you can tank through everything just to spam the attack and take chip damage."

You may be right that it is a bust. Tarnished people who have tried the thrusting shield have noticed that the thrusting shield's stamina drain is notably lenient; according to a thrusting shield test video released by YouTuber mmlubergames, attacks guarded normally with the thrusting shield shave off a predictable chunk from the stamina bar, but safety thrusts with the attacks guarded during an attack will shave off only a fraction of a chunk. This is a huge disparity in both PvE and PvP, where a person wielding a thrusting shield can functionally ignore almost any attack coming at him. I would agree with the assessment of Japanese Twitter user @pirochanbanzai. He posted a video with the caption "Nerf inevitable" in Google Translate showing how simple the thrusting shields make the battle of Lerana.

Of course, we can only speculate whether the thrust shield is due for a healthy adjustment. Nevertheless, if you've been tempted by a tricky boss to try out a thrusting shield yourself, you might want to do it sooner rather than later.