Shields (Magical)

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Magical shields in Hellgate: London act as a buffer against monsters, limiting the amount of health lost. When a character or creature with shields is attacked, damage first depletes the shields, and once the shields are gone, will deplete health. Shields regenerate, by default, unlike health. Most pieces of armor increase character shields by finite amounts; shields can not be found on mods or weapons.

When a character has any amount of shields, a dome of shields crackling can be observed around the character when shields absorb damage.

Shield regeneration rates for characters vary, and seem to guarantee full regeneration of shields within 15 to 30 seconds. The shield regeneration rate is not increased by any bonuses on items. When shields are lost to damage, the regeneration does not start instantly, but instead, there is a delay of a few seconds. This "timer" is reset if more shields are lost. Regeneration of shields makes shields a good idea to have, as regeneration of health generally requires items with bonuses of this sort, health injectors, or certain skills, such as Brom's Curse.

There are two properties that attacks, items, and monsters can have which partially or completely negate shields: Shield overload, and shield penetration.

• Some demons can remove all of your shield in one hit with extremely high shield overload on their attack. The same ability is available to players on items (not just weapons) and mods. Overload is given as a percent, and seems to mean that damage done while destroying shields is that much stronger. For example, a weapon with 400% shield overload would destroy a shield five times as fast.
• Shield penetration allows players and some monster attacks to bypass your shield and damage your health directly. The item properties for shield penetration are also given in percents. This percent is how much of the damage bypasses the shields and goes directly to removing health. 100% Shield penetration can be attained, thus completely bypassing shields.

There are several one-use items that can be used to increase shields temporarily

• Basic Shield Booster (+100 shields)
• Advanced Shield Booster (+200 shield)
• Basic Shield Capacitor (+300 shields)
• Advanced Shield Capacitor (+400 shields)

The Evoker skill Arcane Shield adds temporary shields while the Evoker remains stationary. The skill also has the benefit of instantly replenishing shields. This may or may not be a bug.