Shield

A shield is a tool used for protecting the player against attacks.

Repairing
Shields may also be repaired on an anvil by using planks or another shield. Shields repaired on anvils retain their pattern.

Trading
Journeyman-level armorer villagers have $1/3$/$2/5$ chance of selling a shield for 5 emeralds as their sixth trade.

Usage
Despite using iron in its crafting recipe, it cannot be smelted into iron nuggets.

Defense
Shields are used for blocking incoming attacks. or causes a player to slow to a sneaking pace, and after 5 ticks, attacks coming from in front of the player are blocked, dealing no damage. When the shield blocks an attack of or stronger, it takes durability damage equal to the strength of the attack rounded up.

Most blocked projectiles that carry status effects (such as shulker bullets, flaming arrows, or tipped arrows) do not affect the blocker. Tridents & arrows can be deflected into other targets. Knockback from melee attacks and projectiles is prevented, while knockback from explosions, hoglin and ravager attacks is significantly reduced.

The shield directionally blocks all attacks coming from within 90° of the direction the wielder is facing, providing a full hemisphere of coverage to them. If the wielder faces straight up or straight down, they are likely to miss their blocks.

Mobs that deal continuous contact damage such as the slime, magma cube, and blaze rapidly drain the shield's durability for as long as the shielded player remains within the mob's hitbox.

Blockable attacks include:
 * Melee attacks, except by axe-wielding mobs or by a sprinting player wielding an axe, however even without sprinting an axe still greatly decreases the durability
 * Normal, tipped and spectral arrows
 * Arrows are totally deflected and can hit other targets.
 * Status effects do not carry through to the blocker.
 * (Note the contradiction below.)
 * Flaming arrows
 * Burning does not carry through to the blocker.
 * Tridents
 * Snowballs and eggs
 * Spines from pufferfish
 * Bullets from shulkers
 * The levitation effect does not carry through to the blocker.
 * Spit from llamas
 * Fireballs, such as from blazes and fire charges
 * Burning does not carry through to the blocker.
 * Direct hits from ghast fireballs
 * These still cause environmental damage.
 * Explosion damage from creepers
 * TNT that another player lit
 * Ravager headbutts
 * These still knock the blocker back by about 3 blocks.
 * Blocking these strikes can stun the ravager for a moment, and it roars afterward.
 * Ravager roars are blocked but still knock back the blocker.
 * Bee stings are blocked, but bees continuously attack until the player stops blocking and the player is stung.
 * Beam attacks from guardians or elder guardians (but only in 50%)
 * (Note the contradiction below.)

They cannot block:
 * Arrows from a crossbow enchanted with Piercing
 * This does not reduce the shield's durability.
 * Status effects from tipped arrows or shulker bullets
 * Direct projectile damage is blocked, but the effect still carries through.
 * (Up above, it says normal, tipped, and spectral arrows are blocked, and that: "Status effects do not carry through to the blocker." So, which is it?)
 * Status effects from splash/lingering potions, evokers' fangs, or breath from the ender dragon
 * Beam attacks from guardians or elder guardians
 * (Up above, it says beam attacks from guardians and elder guardians are blocked. So, which is it?)
 * TNT that the blocking player lit themselves
 * TNT that a redstone mechanism lit
 * Teleport and fall damage
 * Strikes from any axe-wielding mob (e.g., vindicators, piglin brutes, zombies after disabling players shield they attack another time immediately)
 * Such axe strikes disable being able to use shields for 5 seconds

Applying patterns
Shields can be decorated by applying a banner pattern.

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.

Enchantments
A shield can receive the following enchantments, but only through an anvil:

ID