Shield

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

Crafting
Unlike other items with durability, shields cannot be repaired by crafting two together. They can be repaired by adding a pattern to it or using wood planks in the anvil.

Usage
Shields are used for blocking incoming attacks. one causes the player to slow to a sneaking pace, and blockable attacks coming from the front of the player will do 33% damage from melee attacks and no damage from 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 lower resolution than banners, making patterns look slightly different.

Enchanting
A shield can not be enchanted using an enchantment table. However an anvil can apply Unbreaking to the shield.

Trivia

 * Curiously, custom shield textures do not use textures from the banner directory, but use a separate directory called entity\shield.
 * The resolution of the shield texture itself is only half the size of the banner texture, leading to a loss of resolution in banner designs placed on the shield.
 * 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 Tarcza