Shield

Shields are defensive tools used for protecting the player against attacks.

Defense
Shields are used for blocking incoming attacks. one causes the player to slow to a sneaking pace, and blockable attacks coming from in front of the player will deal 33% damage for melee attacks and no damage for projectiles. When the shield blocks an attack, it takes damage equal to the strength of the attack (rounded down) plus 1. Some non-damage effects of ranged attacks (such as being set on fire by a fireball) are prevented, while others (such as being set on fire by a flaming arrow) are not. Knockback from projectiles is prevented, but not from melee attacks. When a melee attack is blocked, the attacker may be knocked back slightly.

The shield blocks any directional attacks coming from up to (but not including) 90° away from the horizontal direction the player is facing, i.e. it covers almost a full hemisphere in front of the player. The player's vertical rotation normally makes no difference to the direction of blocked attacks, however a player facing straight up or straight down might be unable to block attacks from any direction. Similarly, an attack coming from directly above or directly below cannot be blocked as it has no horizontal direction.

Blockable attacks include mob melee attacks, arrows, fireballs, thrown items such as snowballs, damage from Thorns, and some explosions (e.g. creeper explosions or TNT ignited by another player are blockable, but not TNT ignited by yourself or by a redstone mechanism).

If attacked by an axe, use of the shield may be disabled for 5 seconds. The shield also does not block for 0.25 seconds after being selected.

When hit by an arrow, the arrow can ricochet off the shield and hit other entities.

Applying patterns
Unlike with banners, shields cannot be repainted or washed in a cauldron. Shields have only half the resolution of banners, making patterns look slightly different. In the game files, the pattern textures can be found in a separate directory called entity/shield.

Shields with patterns can also be obtained using the same commands as banners, except  has to be replaced with.

Enchanting
A shield can not be enchanted using an enchantment table, however an anvil can apply both Unbreaking and Mending to the shield using enchanted books.

Trivia

 * Shields do not block Guardian lasers.
 * If a shield reduces an attack's damage to being less than, the player will still take damage and be knocked back, but no visual change on the health bar will occur, nor will the sound of being damaged be heard. It is not until these fractional damages add up to or greater that the hurt sounds and visual changes in the health bar are present again.

Gallery
Schild (Kampf) Bouclier Schild Tarcza Щит 盾牌