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[Headless]

I have two artifact bucklers one bone one leather.  Are they good or am I better off with shields?

[Absentia]

I can tell you that bucklers are armor level 1 and shields are level 2, and shields have a greater coverage area. I've tried to find details on blocking mechanics in the past and come up empty, so I can't tell you what that means in practical terms or whether the artifact bonus would  offset the apparent deficiencies of the buckler.

I'm not aware of any thorough science on the matter, but I did once give a legendary shield user an artifact buckler and he wasn't doing any worse with it (which is to say he was blocking everything with a regular shield, and continued blocking everything with the buckler).

[Naryar]

They're artifact bucklers. They should be pretty good.

[Chaosegg]

The only shield/buckler science I know relates to what they are made of:
 material has no effect on the performance of shields/bucklers beyond being heavier or lighter
(and thus potentially slowing your dwarf).

One might speculate that shields would be better at blocking ranged attacks,
while bucklers could be better in melee....

[taptap]

If you write science on top, people expect some science. Please test.

I always went for shields, but reflecting on things - it is not clear at all that blocking even calls armor level etc.

[Naryar]

Considering their materials, they shouldn't last long to dragonfire.

Well actually since they are artifacts they should be indestructible... however i am somewhat worried the dwarf wielding an !!artifact buckler!! will soon become a !!dwarf!! wearing an !!artifact buckler!!.

[vjmdhzgr]

Well this is really simple. A buckler has a block chance of 10 which I'm guessing means 10% and shields have 20. Artifacts have a 3x Weapon to-hit or armor deflect multiplier chance. By that logic the base block chance of an artifact buckler should be 30 which is pretty good considering that's probably for dwarves completely unskilled in shield use. The exact modifiers for quality levels other than masterwork and artifact are unkown, but masterwork is 2x so a masterwork shield is better than a masterwork buckler at what exact quality level they become better is unknown and incredibly difficult to test well since arena doesn't have quality levels, but given there's 6 ranks starting at 1x and ending at 2x that would mean that each quality increase is probably 0.2x. Which would mean that at superior(1.6x) a shield would have a base block chance of 32 and would be better than an artifact buckler.