NOTE: All of this info is taken from the wiki and the Wurm forums. Credit to Kuvia, Oblivionreaver and Blob. The post originally by Kuvia was asking for verification on shield specifics, quoting Blob, and Oblivionreaver responded with the text found in Conclusion.

In PVP, to block arrows effectively, you need to turn your body approximately 90` to the right so that your shield is facing the enemy archer. The shield size also determines the effective arrow blocking radius. Smaller shields will have a tighter radius.

Therefore larger shields block ARROWS better.

With regards to shield bashing, metal shields have a slightly higher chance to succeed and deal a slightly longer stun as opposed to their wooden counterparts. Larger shields also have a slightly longer cooldown timer for shield bashing.

Therefore, small, medium, and large metal shields ALL stun better than wood, but stun at the same rate and intensity as each other? If so, small metal shield would be best for bashing.

Your shield is what you will block attacks with. Tests have shown that the size of your shield only matters when blocking ranged attacks, which are not an element of PvE.

Therefore, small medium and large shields, of wood or iron ALL block melee damage the same.

Items made from oak take 20% less damage during use.

Therefore, Oak is the best wood type for a wooden shield.

Metal and Armor

Large metal shields have the greatest chance to block, the highest bonus to shield bashing, and the highest stamina cost of all shields.

On 7/7/2013 at 4:23 PM, Blob said: Ok here is the deal ;) afaik there are complete blocks and partial blocks, i assume metal are better when partial blocks happen. 2, large metal shield have the highest block rate, the large ones are the best really. So LMS if u want the best shield i think, LWS (large wooden) if u want a more practical option and plan on making ur own shields.

Its generally important to stick with 1 shield, i would get skill to 20 when u can fighting a cow or something, ask ingame for more detail on this, its common knowledge on how it works. ABout getting to 70 as someone mentioned, will take ages not the best target for a new player :\, i know it was fast before but it has been nerfed some time in the games history and now its alot slower so vets had/have a advantage there (when it was nerf is undecided amongst players).

• Larger shields have a larger block arc.
• Heavier shields bash harder, metal gets a 2x bonus.
• Larger shields have a bonus.
• Oak and iron. Don't bother with other metal types as you have to reimp shields so often.
• Shields don't use too much stamina.
• There is no block partial block and full block, partial block is when you roll 0-50 and reduces their hit chance by that % but doesn't block, 51-100 is full block where you block.