[sadbot]

Making the argument that fang faced isn't that bad because it doesn't do a lot of damage ignores all context. Every fang faced user makes themselves as tanky as possible (and often runs other 'spikes' type effects for the meme) to essentially put a damage tax on you every time you hit them, while forcing you to now hit them an awful lot of times to get the job done. While this individually seems pretty insignificant, taking 20-40 damage every time you hit someone that never takes more than 80-100 damage at a time themselves just makes for a very annoying, nigh unavoidable situation where you're just forced to break yourself against them while they inevitably win the now snail pace damage race as long as they do any respectable amount of damage themselves. It encourages gameplay that's certainly not fun for their opponents if even the user.

Lackluster shield options do play a role in it being the basically omnipresent choice, but I think that 'spikes' type effects like these just don't lend themselves to fun or interactive gameplay due to almost always being taken to their logical conclusion of spiky doomwall that spikes you for almost as much damage as you're dealing.

[Poruku]

I think it should just be toned down to where it makes sense. It's a shield with spikes. Make it only trigger on melee attacks, and not from the back? How are you even supposed to roleplay your knight character winning the fight by shooting you with needles like a hedgehog?

Also shields aren't that bad, 2-4 stats with some ele res or minor bonus? That's not amazing, but you also get the guard skill and soldier stuff. I'm pretty sure if fang-faced was nerfed we would see some variety.