A shield is a tool used for protecting the player against attacks.
Obtaining[]
Crafting[]
Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
---|---|
Any Planks + Iron Ingot |
|
Shield + Matching Banner |
Repairing[]
Ingredients | Crafting recipe | Description |
---|---|---|
Damaged Shield | The durability of the two shields is added together, plus an extra 5% durability. The repaired shield has no pattern. |
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[BE only]/2⁄5[JE only] 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.[1]
Defense[]
Shields are used for blocking incoming attacks. Using[JE only] or sneaking[BE only] causes a player to slow to a sneaking pace, and after 5 game ticks (0.25 seconds)[2], attacks coming from in front of the player are blocked, dealing no damage. When the shield blocks an attack of 3 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[JE only], 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 are significantly reduced.
The shield directionally blocks all attacks coming from within the FOV of the direction the wielder is facing, providing a full hemisphere of coverage to them. If the wielder faces straight up, they are likely to miss their blocks.[3]
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.[4][5]
Blockable attacks include:
- Melee attacks, except by a warden, axe-wielding mobs or by a sprinting player wielding an axe, however even without sprinting an axe still greatly decreases the durability
- Status effects do not carry through to the blocker[JE only].
- Normal, tipped, and spectral arrows
- Flaming arrows
- Burning does not carry through to the blocker[JE only].
- Tridents
- Snowballs and eggs
- Spines from pufferfish
- Bullets from shulkers
- The levitation effect does not carry through to the blocker[JE only].
- 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.
- All explosions[JE only]
- 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 (only reduces damage by 50%).
- Damage reflected from Thorns enchantment / guardians.
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 [BE only] [6]
- Direct projectile damage is blocked, but the effect still carries through.
- Status effects from splash/lingering potions, evokers' fangs, or breath from the ender dragon
- Beam attacks from guardians or elder guardians, or the warden's sonic boom attack
- TNT that the blocking player lit themselves[BE only]
- TNT that a redstone mechanism lit[BE only]
- Fall damage, including that from ender pearls
- This also includes when the player rides an entity that died due to fall damage.
- Strikes from a warden or any axe-wielding mob (e.g., vindicators, piglin brutes, zombies after disabling players shield they attack another time immediately)
- Such strikes disable being able to use shields for 5 seconds.
Applying patterns[]
Shields can be decorated by applying a banner.
Ingredients | Crafting recipe | Description |
---|---|---|
Shield + Matching Banner |
Applies the banner pattern to the shield. The banner is consumed. The shield must have no preexisting patterns. Does not change existing durability or enchantments on the shield. However, if a player uses the crafter from the version 1.21 update, the durability is changed to maximum, no matter how much durability is left. |
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.
In Java Edition, shields with patterns can also be obtained using the same commands as banners, except banner
has to be replaced with shield
.
Enchantments[]
A shield can receive the following enchantments, but only through an anvil:
Name | Max Level | Method |
---|---|---|
Unbreaking | III | |
Mending | I | |
Curse of Vanishing | I |
Sounds[]
Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Shield blocks | Players | When an attack is blocked using a shield | item | subtitles | 1.0 | 0.8-1.2 | 16 | |
Gear equips | Players | When a shield is placed in the offhand slot | item | subtitles | 1.0 | 1.0 | 16 | |
Item breaks | Players | When a shield's durability is exhausted | item | subtitles | 0.8 | 0.8-1.2 | 16 |
Sound | Source | Description | Resource location | Volume | Pitch |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Players | When an attack is blocked using a shield | item | 0.7 | 1.0 | |
Players | When a shield is placed in the offhand slot | armor | 1.0 | 1.0 | |
Players | When a shield's durability is exhausted | random | 1.0 | 0.9 |
Data values[]
ID[]
Name | Identifier | Form | Translation key |
---|---|---|---|
Shield | shield | Item | item.minecraft.shield item.minecraft.shield.white item.minecraft.shield.orange item.minecraft.shield.magenta item.minecraft.shield.light_blue item.minecraft.shield.yellow item.minecraft.shield.lime item.minecraft.shield.pink item.minecraft.shield.gray item.minecraft.shield.light_gray item.minecraft.shield.cyan item.minecraft.shield.purple item.minecraft.shield.blue item.minecraft.shield.brown item.minecraft.shield.green item.minecraft.shield.red item.minecraft.shield.black |
Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Form | Translation key |
---|---|---|---|---|
Shield | shield | 355 | Item | item.shield.name item.shield.white.name item.shield.orange.name item.shield.magenta.name item.shield.lightBlue.name item.shield.yellow.name item.shield.lime.name item.shield.pink.name item.shield.gray.name item.shield.silver.name item.shield.cyan.name item.shield.purple.name item.shield.blue.name item.shield.brown.name item.shield.green.name item.shield.red.name item.shield.black.name |
Advancements[]
Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Not Today, Thank You | Deflect a projectile with a Shield | Suit Up | Block any projectile with a shield. | story/deflect_arrow
|
History[]
July 10, 2011 | During an interview, Jeb says that "shields for the left arm" might be added. | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Java Edition | |||||||||
1.9 | 15w33c | Added shields. | |||||||
Shields replace the blocking functionality of swords, although blocking more damage. | |||||||||
The current crafting recipe of shields includes wool, producing 16 possible colored shields. There currently isn't a blank, uncolored shield.
| |||||||||
Any of the colored base shields can be crafted with a banner of the same base color, to produce a patterned shield. | |||||||||
15w34c | When an attack is blocked by a shield, the attacker now may be knocked back. | ||||||||
Being attacked with an axe now may disable shield use for 5 seconds. | |||||||||
15w37a | The crafting recipe of shields has been changed to 6 planks and 1 iron ingot.
| ||||||||
Crafting a shield now produces a base wooden shield that can be crafted together with any banner. | |||||||||
The cooldown of shields has been reduced from 0.5s to 0.25s. | |||||||||
Blocking with shields now prevents some side effects.[verify] | |||||||||
Arrows now ricochet off shields. | |||||||||
15w44a | Shields can now be repaired by combining with other shields. This removes any banner that had been applied. | ||||||||
15w45a | Crafting a banner onto a shield now consumes the banner. | ||||||||
15w47b | Added shield blocking sounds. | ||||||||
16w07a | Added more variation of shield blocking sounds. | ||||||||
pre1 | The durability of shields has been increased from 181 to 337. | ||||||||
1.10 | 16w21a | Shields can now be equipped by dispensers. | |||||||
1.11 | 16w33a | Crafting a shield with a banner no longer changes the durability, nor does it remove enchantments from it. | |||||||
16w35a | Shields now block 100% of damage/knockback/debuffs dealt in melee combat. | ||||||||
1.13 | 17w47a | Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 442. | |||||||
1.13.2 | release | Shields now properly block attacks when the player is facing down.[7] | |||||||
1.14 | 18w43a | The texture of shields has been changed. | |||||||
Shields no longer knockback attackers when they block due to a bug with rework of the blocking mechanic with the introduction of the ravager.[8] | |||||||||
19w11a | Shields can now be bought from armorer villagers. | ||||||||
1.14.3 | Pre-Release 3 | Shields blocking flaming arrows no longer put the player on fire. | |||||||
1.16 | 20w06a | Crimson planks and warped planks can now be used to craft shields. | |||||||
1.19 | 22w11a | Mangrove planks can now be used to craft shields. | |||||||
1.19.3 | 22w43a | Shields can now properly block all explosions. | |||||||
1.19.4 | 23w06a | A sound is now played when a shield is placed into the offhand slot. | |||||||
Upcoming Java Edition | |||||||||
Combat Tests | 1.14.3 - Combat Test | Critical hits now bypass shields. | |||||||
The warm-up delay has been removed from shields. | |||||||||
When in the off-hand, shields now activate when sneaking. | |||||||||
Combat Test 2 | Shields now protect against critical attacks again. | ||||||||
Shields can only be activated when the weapon is charged to 200%. | |||||||||
Combat Test 3 | A "Shield Indicator" option that displays when the shield is active, similar to the attack indicator, has been added. | ||||||||
An option to hide shields when active has been added. | |||||||||
The arc of available protection of shields has been decreased to 100 degrees instead of 180 degrees. | |||||||||
Combat Test 4 | An option to disable shields being activated by pressing crouch has been added. | ||||||||
The option to hide the shield has been removed. | |||||||||
Combat Test 6 | Shields now protect up to 5 damage for melee attacks (still 100% against projectiles). | ||||||||
Shields activate instantly regardless if the weapon is charged, similar to Combat test 1. | |||||||||
Shields now recover faster after an attack. | |||||||||
Combat Test 7c | Shields now add a 50% knockback resistance when active. | ||||||||
Shields now protect against 100% explosion damage. | |||||||||
Combat Test 8c | The knockback calculations for shields have been fixed.[more information needed] | ||||||||
Crouch-shielding while jumping has been disabled. | |||||||||
Shields with banners are now temporarily stronger than normal shields (10 absorption instead of 5, and better knockback resistance) to test different shield types. | |||||||||
Bedrock Edition | |||||||||
1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | Added shields. | |||||||
Shields cannot be customized with banners. | |||||||||
Shields are activated by crouching or mounting mobs. | |||||||||
1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.4 | Shields can now be bought from armorer villagers. | |||||||
1.16.210 | beta 1.16.210.51 | Now grants partial knockback protection from the goat ram attack. | |||||||
1.16.220 | beta 1.16.220.50 | Mobs that pick up shields now place them to their off-hand. | |||||||
1.18.30 | beta 1.18.30.26 | Being attacked with an axe now may disable shield use. This was not mentioned in the official changelog.[9] | |||||||
1.20.0 | beta 1.20.0.20 | Shields can now be customized using a banner. | |||||||
PlayStation 4 Edition | |||||||||
1.90 | Added shields. | ||||||||
Shields do not have banner application features. |
Issues[]
Issues relating to "Shield" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
An enchanted shield as seen in the inventory.
A shield with the ominous banner on it as seen in the inventory.
An image of Kai wielding a banner with a shield, used to announce the feature on Bedrock Edition.
References[]
- ↑ MC-111738
- ↑ MC-100949 — Shield blocking is delayed
- ↑ MC-109101 — Shields do not block damage while the player faces straight up
- ↑ MC-169167
- ↑ MCPE-119451
- ↑ MCPE-52904
- ↑ MC-92019 — resolved as "Fixed".
- ↑ MC-147694
- ↑ "We missed a change in recent changelogs for the Bedrock beta that you may like - we have now made a parity fix that makes shields get disabled for 5 seconds when attacked by an Axe-wielding mob or player. We will make sure to list this properly in the next beta :)" – @kingbdogz on X, March 17, 2022
External Links[]
- Taking Inventory: Shield – Minecraft.net on July 25, 2019