Shields in Borderlands

Information about shields in Borderlands.

Appearance

Shields are invisible when not active, however once a character takes damage a colored hexagonal grid contours to the character's figure as the bullets are blocked. The color of the shield (as it takes damage) denotes what kind of shield it is and what kind of special ability it has. Shields with fire resistance will be red, shields with shock resistance will be purplish-blue, shields with corrosive resistance will be green, non-elemental shields will be white. There are only a few shields that offer protection from explosive damage.

Gameplay

Shields are essential to any player as they recharge much faster than conventional health regeneration. An equipped shield will gradually recharge to full power during periods when the wearer is not sustaining damage. It does however take a slight delay after the last time damage was taken to initiate the recharge effect. When mostly depleted, a blue exclamation alert flashes above a character's Health bar to warn the player.

• Shields are acquired in the same manner as all other loot: dropped by enemies and chests, purchased at vending machines or rewarded by missions.
• Shield rarity is similar to that of all weapons, except that the rarity found among shields goes from purple to pearlescent with no yellow or orange rarity in between.
• Shield capacity can be increased by some character skills or COMs.
• Shield recharge rates (energy recharged per second) directly affect the time it takes to recharge to 100% capacity - the higher the recharge rate, the faster the shield recharges to full.
• Shield recharge delay is a hidden value that determines the number of seconds after taking damage that the shield begins to recharge. This delay is not directly related to the recharge rate. The only way of finding this rate is either through the debug info for PC users, or timing with a grenade. A bit of reverse engineering with gear-calc can also help.
• Shield recharge delay may simply be a dividend of capacity divided by recharge rate with the result measured in seconds.
• Shields with elemental resistances reduce damage taken by that element. 66% damage received for regular resistant Shields, 50% damage received for high resistant Shields & 33% damage received for extreme resistant Shields. For example, if a shock bullet were to hit a character for 120 damage (100%), then they would only receive 80 damage (66%) with a regular shock resistant shield, 60 damage (50%) for a high shock resistant shield, and 40 damage (33%) for an extreme shock resistant Shield. (Note that different elements naturally have different affinity for shields, for example, shock is 200% effective against shields, thus a shock bullet will actually do 33% x 2 = 66% damage to an extreme shock resistant shield)
• Shields which create elemental bursts when depleted will do so only if the shield was recharging or full before being depleted. However the skills Quick Charge, Girl Power and Unbreakable will not cause such shields to continuously emit elemental bursts if they are repeatedly depleted when the skill is active.

Shields are an effective defense against projectile attacks like bullets and rockets and will also protect against any melee attack. They are, however, extremely vulnerable to shock attacks and will diminish quickly if under constant fire.

Unique Shields

• Wee Wee's Super Booster - Dropped by King Wee Wee
• Cracked Sash - Dropped by Rakkinishu

Pearlescent Shields

These Shields are only available from The Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC. They are the first shields in the game to have red text abilities.

• Ironclad - "I stand unvanquished!" - Boosted Shield capacity.
• Omega - "The alpha and that other thing" - High recharge rate, buffed capacity.
• Rose - "Beauty and life" - Gives massive health regeneration when depleted, super fast recharge rate.

Special Effects

All shields in Borderlands are outfitted with special modules, giving them various effects, from offensive elemental properties to extra health or healing. The effects are chosen by the manufacturer, and the intensity of the effect by the Material Grade. As a general rule, effects or higher quality effects do not come at any trade-off to Shield stats. You do not "pay" to have the effect (unlike, for example, weapons that "pay" reduced damage, to have elemental ability).

Finally, note that this effect (material grade) is responsible for the Shield's name. Torgue will share several Titles for the same effect.

Shield Prefixes from Materials

Manufacturer	Name	Description	Effect
Anshin	Guerrilla	Fast Recharge	Recharge Delay -30%, Recharge Rate +20%
	Skirmisher	Very Fast Recharge	Recharge Delay -40%, Recharge Rate +27%
	Ambush	Super Fast Recharge!	Recharge Delay -60%, Recharge Rate +54%
Atlas	Grounded	Shock Resistance	Only 66% of shock damage taken
	Anionic	High Shock Resistance	Only 50% of shock damage taken
	Cationic	Extreme Shock Resistance!	Only 33% of shock damage taken
Dahl	Neutralizing	Corrosive Resistance	Only 66% of corrosive damage taken
	Dilution	High Corrosive Resistance	Only 50% of corrosive damage taken
	Hazmat	Extreme Corrosive Resistance!	Only 33% of corrosive damage taken
Hyperion	Thermal	Fire Resistance	Only 66% of fire damage taken
	Asbestic	High Fire Resistance	Only 55% of fire damage taken
	Endothermic	Extreme Fire Resistance!	Only 33% of fire damage taken
Maliwan	Shock Burst	Creates a small Shock Burst when depleted	Shock Burst radius 256
	Shock Wave	Creates a Shock Wave when depleted	Shock Wave radius 384
	Shock Nova	Creates a large Shock Nova when depleted	Shock Nova radius 512
Pangolin	Unyielding	High Capacity	+30% Capacity, +30% Recharge Delay
	Enduring	Very High Capacity	+40% Capacity, +20% Recharge Delay
	Fortified	Overcharge Capacity!	+60% Capacity, +10% Recharge Delay
S&S Munitions	Acid Burst	Creates a small Acid Burst when depleted	Acid Burst radius 256
	Acid Wave	Creates an Acid Wave when depleted	Acid Wave radius 384
	Acid Nova	Creates a large Acid Nova when depleted	Acid Nova radius 512
Tediore	Healing	Very slow health regeneration	+(0.4 Base + 0.04 per Shield Lvl) Health Regeneration/Second
	Restorative	Slow health regeneration	+(1.0 Base + 0.08 per Shield Lvl) Health Regeneration/Second
	Panacea	Quick Health Regeneration!	+(2.4 Base + 0.2 per Shield Lvl) Health Regeneration/Second
Torgue	Tough Guy	Health Boost 30%	Health Boost 30%
	Tough Guy or Muscleman	Health Boost 40%	Health Boost 40%
	Muscleman or Macho	Health Boost 60%	Health Boost 60%
Vladof	Fire Burst	Creates a small Fire Burst when depleted	Fire Burst radius 256
	Fire Wave	Creates a Fire Wave when depleted	Fire Wave radius 384
	Fire Nova	Creates a large Fire Nova when depleted	Fire Nova radius 512

Shield Anatomy

All shields have the same base stats that are entirely determined only by their level. The recharge rate is always 15% of the capacity, and the Recharge Delay is of 7 seconds.

Shields are constituted of 4 parts: The body, the left side, the right side and the manufacturer material. The shield stats are then modified by its parts. Shield effects have no effect on shield stats, apart from Anshin and Pangolin shields. Notice that part modifiers stack additively.

The left side and right side of the shield improves the shield's speed and capacity respectively. There is no trade-off: Higher quality is better.

Note: the parts of the shield known as "left" and "right" are relative to the shield's point of view. This means that on screen, the shield's "left part" appears on the right, and the "right part" appears on the left.

Left & Right Side Effects

Part Name	Effect	Graphics	Part Name	Effect
rightside1	-		leftside1	-
rightside2	Capacity +10%		leftside2	Recharge Delay: -15% Recharge Rate: +13%
rightside3	Capacity +20%		leftside3	Recharge Delay: -25% Recharge Rate: +27%
rightside4	Capacity +35%		leftside4	Recharge Delay: -45% Recharge Rate: +47%

The body is the most defining feature of the shield. The parts come in three categories: Balanced, High Capacity, and Fast Recharge. There is a choice to be made, as each have their ups and down:

• body1 and body1_balanced are of type rounded balance, with body1_balanced substantially better than body1.
• body2 and body4 are of type fast recharge, with body4 substantially better than body2.
• body3 and body3b_power are of type high capacity, with body3b_power being substantially better than body 3.

Note: The only way to tell apart two shields with the same body type is to use the shield code

Body Effects

Part Name	Type	Effect	Prefix	Graphic
body1	Balanced	-	OBS
body1_balanced	Balanced	+20% Capacity -25% Recharge Delay +33% Recharge Rate	OS
body2	Fast Recharge	-25% Recharge Delay +33% Recharge Rate	FRR
body3	High Capacity	+25% Capacity +30% Recharge Delay	OC
body3b_power	High Capacity	+40% Capacity +30% Recharge Delay	XC
body4	Fast Recharge	-50% Recharge Delay +66% Recharge Rate	AWE

Shield Name

Unlike weapons, the name of the shield has no incidence on the stats of the Shield. An Alacritous Shield will recharge quite fast, but this is just an indication, not an extra effect.

The shield's name is determined by the manufacturer and material quality. The shield's prefix is determined by the body type and the quality/rarity of the shield (and not by any actual stats):

Shield Prefixes from Modules

Obtained From	Prefix	Denotes	Requirements
All body types	Standard	No Particular Quality	Rarity <= 4
body1 or body1_balanced	Balanced	Good Quality	Rarity > 4
	Symmetrical	High Quality	Rarity > 7
	Sterling	Higher Quality	Rarity > 10
	Harmonious	Highest Quality	Rarity > 14
body3 or body3b_power	Reinforced	Good Max Capacity	Rarity > 4
	Hardened	High Max Capacity	Rarity > 7
	Unbreakable	Higher Max Capacity	Rarity > 10
	Impenetrable	Highest Max Capacity	Rarity > 14
body2 or body4	Quick Charge	Good Recharge Speed	Rarity > 4
	Accelerated	High Recharge Speed	Rarity > 7
	Rapid	Higher Recharge Speed	Rarity > 10
	Alacritous	Highest Recharge Speed	Rarity > 14

The shield code is determined by all of the above. It starts with manufacturer code, an hyphen, then the sum of the left and right side code and finally body code, as follows:

Shield Codes

Manufact.	Prefix		Left Side	Prefix		Right Side	Prefix		Body	Prefix
Tediore	TDR		leftside1	-		rightside1	-		body1	OBS
Dahl	DHL		leftside2	200		rightside2	100		body1_balanced	OS
Vladof	VDF		leftside3	400		rightside3	300		body2	FRR
S&S	SnS		leftside4	50		rightside4	500		body3	OC
Maliwan	MLN								body3_power	XC
Anshin	ANS								body4	AWE
Pangolin	PNG
Torgue	TRG
Hyperion	HYP
Atlas	ATL