One of Elden Ring's greatest joys is the freedom it provides for exploring different philosophies of combat. Maybe you favor the tried-and-true strategy of hitting things with extremely large swords. Maybe you delight in the arts of high wizardry, measured in laser beams and hurled boulders. The options are endless—but they're also wrong. Thanks to the new thrusting shields from Shadow of the Erdtree, players are discovering that they've been wasting their time finding the best builds for blood loss or Frenzied Flame incantations. Instead, they should've been asking one question: What if I was attacking while I was blocking?
Shadow of the Erdtree introduced two thrusting shields, a new weapon type based on a simple concept: blocking things is great, but blocking things would be better if it didn't keep you from hitting things. Presumably aided by the guidance of some divine benefactor, FromSoft designed the ultimate weapon to finally answer that age-old conundrum—by which I mean they made shields what got pointy bits on them so you can poke guys while you're blocking their hits.
