Ranking All 69 Elden Ring Shields From Worst To Best... 

🌏 Get an Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/rustyvpn It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ **VIDEO PATCH NOTES 1.01** Upward Adjustments: - Rickety Shield's incredibly low weight went mostly unrecognized in the argument. Willing to boost this one up to 63 but only because it can be made good with other ashes, not because the shield itself is good in any way. Downward Adjustments: - 11:44 The description example highlighted does not thoroughly communicate that the shield has good fire negation, specifically using the word "boosts", insinuating that it is an effect given to the player even though no such thing occurs. Red Thorn has been moved to 66. Bug reports: - Cuckoo Greatshield does not come with Contagious Fury as a default. This does not affect its current placement. Adjusted Ranking: 69 - Perfumer 68 - Marred 67 - Pillory 66 - Red Thorn 65 - Hawk Crest 64 - Black Leather 63 - Rickety 62-1 remain unchanged

You did rank all weapons. I respect that. But you didn’t do the biggest challenge possible, and that’s ranking all enemies.

Can’t wait for rusty to rank all versions of Elden Ring

Rusty, think it through: if you are a church soldier, the last thing you need to defend against is Holy, because it's the guy's on your side who have all the Holy attacks. It is more important to defend against the Magic heretics. The shields having inverted resistances to the faction makes perfect sense.

45:20 it is worth noting that at +25 and with a holy infusion, this shield reaches 98.75% holy absorption. You take 1.25% damage from Elden Stars while blocking with it, before your own holy negation comes into play. In other words, you effectively take 0 damage from the final boss's big signature move, and nullify half of the rest of his kit to boot.

Rusty descends deeper into madness after each upload

Playing devils advocate, the rickety shield is actually really good for min-maxing your build by allowing you to slap on carian retaliation or golden parry while only having to make room for 1 myazaki unit of weight

No, you're right. Brass Shield mogs all the competition. Not only does it have near-greatshield level stats while retaining the ability to parry, it is also the only holy-looking medium shield that doesn't look like overdesigned silverware.

Rickety shield has a lot of value in the fact that it is the lightest shield. It's obviously terrible as a functioning shield but ashes of war can be very valuable and you can put a shield AOW on it and it works just as well as any other shield, just for less weight investment. Put a parry, holy ground, or vow of the indomitable on it and it serves a very solid purpose. It's the same idea when people put golden vow on a dagger, use it, then switch to their real weapon.

can't wait for him to redo all of his lists and rankings when shadow of the erdtree drops

Can't wait to see where the 'duelist shields' from the DLC are gonna place

The damage negotiations from the Horse and Flame wooden crest shields make sense. After all, they are crest shields, so they depict what they are fighting for, not against. We know that Lindell fought against Raya Lucaria, so it's a holy themed shield strong against magic. The frencied flame as well as the Fire Giants are/were opponents of the Golden order, so it's a fire themed shield strong against holy damage. So they each are resistent against the enemy of what they show. If the stats are good or not, is another topic however. Same goes for the blue and red crest heater shield.

It is absolutely hilarious to me how I picked up the brass shield right at the beginning of my playthrough, and it was my go-to shield the entire game, purely because it was aesthetically really good (and was a medium shield). I tried other shields and was like “nah they don’t feel right” and I had no idea it was actually just objectively the best shield. Sometimes fashion does work out in games 😂

I love the Spiked Palisade Shield. With the Great Stars and Briar armor, its perfect for what I call the "Tetanus Titan" build

The humble brass shield carried me through my first playthrough. Has the best stability among the medium shields which gives it an excellent weight to protection and stat investment ratio.

Coil Shield has another advantage not mentioned in this vid - the snake attack can go through walls rather than bouncing off like normal weapon attacks. A huge advantage if you want to cheese something to death.

On launch the turtle shell shield had 100% physical reduction, barricade shield spell that came with it lasted 10 seconds, and combined with passive stamina regen it was pretty great, those bonuses outweighing an otherwise middling shield. Then they nerfed it to only 87 physical reduction, and the spell to only last 6 seconds, and it became worthless instantly. Such a shame. It was a massive nerf, probably a result of pvp before they started balancing that separately from the main game, same with the fingerprint shield.

We need an All Sites of Grace Ranked video

28:29 - his popup for the Cuckoo shield displays the skill as 'Contagious Fury'

Me this whole video: "Oh yeah, that one exists, doesn't it?"

9:43 I watched this entire video, then during my next session of Elden Ring I got this shield as a drop from a tomb skeleton. I couldn’t remember you saying anything about any scripture wooden shield so I thought you might have missed a shield, and I came back and watched this again and nope. You covered it. But that brief period of time when I thought a RU-vidr might have forgotten to rank it is the most interesting this shield has ever been.

Hi Rusty! Just wanted to let you know I respect and appreciate all the unique footage you get for your videos! I know it would have been easier to record footage fighting the same enemies with the same weapon but you went the extra mile and I appreciate it!

Day 1 million of asking for a sites of grace ranking

Ricketty is actually amazing in terms of weight/stat requirements for a parry tool. S tier shield in PvP.

Thank you very much for the rotating models of weapons and shields. There are a lot of cool details that can't be appreciated in-game. Specially the inner side of the shields.

0:33 "cardinal instrument of defense" *shows dueling shield that is also used for attacking*

You pretend to hate it, but you cannot resist ranking all of the weapons in various trenchcoat sizes.

The Lordsworn Shield is at least the lightest greatshield you can find really early in the game, so it's a good start if you want to be doing block counters. You'll replace that shit almost immediately, maybe even by grinding out a Gilded Greatshield in the same area, but that's waaaay heavier. It isn't much of a bonus, but at least it's an earlygame jumping on point to a tanky block-counter playstyle.

One thing people often overlook and also in this video, is that the rickety shield is the lightest shield, so you can just use it with a parry AoW of your choice, making one of the best options.

Glad to see some recognition for my boy Beast Crest Heater Shield, been using ol’ reliable on every single playthrough so far. Really does do anything well.

Im absolutely floored that you ranked my 2 favorite shields at the top of your list, proving you understand the heart of a shield user

The Sun Realm shield I believe is in reference to Lordran from Dark Souls. if it has any special lore, it might be talking about the lack of a sun in The Lands Between?

Wanted to say I really enjoy how informative you make your videos. Even the ranking videos talk about the practicalities of each thing in ways I never noticed

Came back to this because some poser a.i disagrees with your rankings and is taking it a bit personal.

I've waited for this category for a long time. I love using shields. My favorite being the wooden great shield. But my only gripe is the rank of the beastman's jar shield since you ranked it because of it's utility with a late game (or mid game if you are good, but you cannot get the shield until late game farum azula) incantation, rather than the raw stats you ranked the other shields.

These have become some of my favorite videos. I love the editing and commentary. Can you do a remembrance one at some point?

I went into this video not knowing what to expect, but was genuinely surprised by the takes on a lot of these shields and it makes me rethink how I'll go about some of these in future playthroughs. Great video.

I'm calling it, the seat of the sun is gonna be a major part of the DLC

I can't wait for the All Elden Ring rankings ranking video

I used the brass shield for my Golden knight build and never stopped using it. I tried using the Erdtree Greatshield but in the end I went back to the brass shield, because I preferred having a medium-sized shield. I started out using it because of the look, but as it turns out, it has excellent stats too once you fully upgrade it.

I realized that you are so entertaining, I’m watching a video about a part of the game I simply do not interact with. I’ve only run two handed weapons or spellblade builds, so I’ve never touched a shield outside of the first 5 minutes of the game

I’m gonna be honest, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen people use shields in this game as actual shields.

I had no idea there were this many shields. I've played this game for 400 hours and I recognized about half of them.

Jesus Rusty!!! 😂😂😂 I got this out of nowhere and I don’t know if anyone asked you to do this but I will never complain about a new video. Never change Rusty!

Yay! Shields was the one I was waiting for the most. Thanks, Rusty!

dear god, if it ain't broke don't fix it

0:30 Dueling shield mentioned!

Dude your writing is super funny and insightful. You could do these rankings for non video game stuff too if you wanted

so excited for the video where you rank every site of grace by how useful it is, and how nice it is to vibe there

When 14 year-olds think they're cool because they swear a lot......

I have two main characters, one is Tree Sentinel armour with the Treespear and the Golden Greatshield, for a true sentinel of the Golden Order. My other is pure Carian Knight and this is my fave, so for me the Carian Knight shield will always be NO.1. Good fun video as usuall.

Thank you for another lineup video. Your effort is appreciated. Looking forward to your Elden Ring DLC vids if that happens.

38:19 "No skill." is such a perfect and funny note to end the description with

Shields have bazookas, flamethrowers, snakes, spectral sea life and a raygun in this game. I love Elden Ring.

Thank you for the effort you put into these videos. They keep me coming back to the game and to the channel. All of your videos have inspired me to try new runs and new builds using weapons or items I never thought too and make the game just that much more enjoyable.

Love this shield history lesson. XD Also, that transition tho. Thanks for the video!

My first playthrough of the game was all about the brass shield. Though later on my stategy rejected it either for weight reasons (going for light roll) or if I didn't want to be light I went for a tower shield. The brass shield was too middling for my characters with high carrying capacity.

You NEED to rank all crafting cookbooks!

Coil shield carried me through a randomizer when the only other weapon i got was a spear and misebegotten shortbow. Never would I have expected a shield to dish out such DAMAGE

I love Spiked Palisade with Shield Crash. It’s hilarious. Poison or cold infusion alongside it is doubly hilarious.

I actually love the Rickety Shield, as it feels awesome to swat a Tree Sentinel’s halberd away with two toothpicks held together with a Demi-Human’s dental floss.

In my first playthrough, I had no idea the brass shield was this good. I just used it for guard counters and thought it had a good design that fit my current loadout aesthetically. It feels cool to have used a top tier item by complete accident. Thank you Rusty

13:51 I think the Sea of the Sun referenced in the Sun Realm Shield has to do with a DLC coming after Shadow of the Erdtree. If you notice, there is no sun in the skybox at any point in Elden Ring. There's something going on with Miquella, the Eclipse, the Shadow Lands, and the inland sea at the center of the Lands Between.

Fun fact, if you want to be the heaviest stoney boi around, wear the bullgoat set, giant crusher, and finger-print shield. You need exactly 60 STR and 60 END JUST to be able to reach 98.75% equip load and be able to use this gear (charms not included). With great-jar arsenal (and whatever else charms), you can make do with just 49 END. Still, you'll be somewhere in the 90 - 100 level range just to get the bare minimum stats for this build.

Lore gimmicks (nerd time): Some additional reasons: - Take it with a grain of salt; many of it is through interpretations and we dont have better. But lore wise it's the best connections you can make. The resistances in terms of lore reads very false sometimes. Because they either defend against a certain magic type that doesnt matches its own faction or it defends against its faction. The second reason in lore usually refers to the "corruption" that has taken place. Basically how the golden hue is gone or the location theyre from or the Ice shield from North and connection to the Moon protects against Magic and Frost. Black Leather Shield protection against Frost because of the North. Also note that the Erdtree represents Nature. Which means all elements in balance including war, death, sorrow, madness etcetera. This means all factions were always prepared for conflict or always did so as said that the Tarnished (you) come from lands far away where you've waged war and the other champions/soldiers. And ofcourse the history throughout the Erdtree provides evidence of battles and wars. @6:00 Black Leather Shield resists frost because they're from the North, its also where Frost Magic comes from. @7:00 Most Basic crest shields date to factions and possibly used by foot soldiers. The more advanced shields by knights etc. Since the Shattering all factions and gods went to war pretty much. @13:00 The Seat of the Sun is talking about the Sun being present. Because the God or Lord in the Seat of the Sun is Godwyn. He represents the Sun. When he died the Eclipse happened and so did the warmth. The Erdtree provides warmth to the planet or realm now as evidenced by all the Sunflowers pointing towards it and not the Sun. The Sun still exists because the Body exists, but not the Soul (Thus the reason why the Sun lost its shine). Because of that the Erdtree eclipses the Sun and balance is lost. @22:20 The Blue and Red crest shields is location based: The Blue shield (forest and water) represents Liurnia or the Siofra River or the Ainsel river (or its part of it). Its speculated and theorized a river once flowed through that area, before the Shattering. Both Carians and Ancestrals employ magic. The Confessor class also starts with it and they're Church spies and they may have infiltrated the Carians or Ancestrals/Nox. The Red crest shield is sold at Altus Plateau probably indicating these shields were to battle fire which is close with Mt. Gelmir. @23:30 The Eclipse shield is pretty much what it says; lost its power because of the Eclipse. Probably wielded by foot soldiers. @23:50 Yeah thats totally true, very disappointing that it doesnt pierce. @27:22 The Blue Gold crest shield has a misnomer in its lore, not from that time, but in your characters time. It represents the Erdtree that's under control. Where Death doesn't exist anymore because Marika was interested in the Elden Ring and its mechanics, she removed the Rune of Death. This is a shield from that time. The Inverted Hawk represents Stormveil, and the Stormlord, Stormveil being up and the Inverted for those plunging in the depths. And its slaves who they sent to explore Siofra and its Eternal City, possibly due to war. "The Fallen Hawks were a band of soldiers who were once ordered to explore the Eternal City, and now prowl the underground rivers. When the band's last embers were used up in their long search, they began to burn the bones of their fellows, acquiring the cold ghostflame, which allowed them to cause magic damage and afflict foes with frost. However, it also meant sealing their fate as dwellers of the underground for all eternity." -- Note that it says Soldiers instead of Slaves, which means the Slaves wielded the shitty Wooden shields and the Soldiers the metallic ones. These are ancient explorers. Farum Azula is very connected to Stormveil and Time/Dimensional manipulations. @36:37 I'm impressed they added an easter egg and lore ingame to it as well. As the Scorpion is part of Rot and Poison (Scorpion's Stinger) "Dagger fashioned from a great scorpion's tail, glistening with scarlet rot. A ceremonial tool used by heretics, crafted from the relic of a sealed outer god." @43:03 It doesn't protect against Death Blight because the Eclipse didnt need to defend against it lore wise, you as a Tarnished however is lore wise very susceptible to Death (Fia's Lore and Quests etc) in the characters timeline. Death Blight is an unnatural result possibly because of Godwyns death. Since his soul is gone and his body retains it's being used as nourishment. It's an effect of balance because Marika removed Death, it's Part of the Rune of Death. Aka the Prince of Death Godwyn. The description specifically mentions the Mausoleum Knights who are hellbent on duty. They're not Tarnished nor graced, they're bound, enslaved spirits. They cannot die anymore. They used to protect Godwyn and now serve the soulless Demigod (Dead Godwyn). They failed to protect him against Destined Death. Death Blight can only be stopped by Vitality/Arcane. The Eclipse Shotel is so powerful it still contains Death.

i think the flame crest shield has holy negation to represent the antagonism between the frenzied flame and the golden order

the add fit so well i almost thought it was a joke at first but it really is the best ad to run with this video

I think the icon shield is nice to put on your back when fighting that tree sentinel in the rot with the tailsman too. Passively nerfing the rot damage a little is at least something. But Eardtree greatshield is my favorite. First playthrough I saw it and just thought it was cool and wanted to build up for it. Turns out the free skill on it is also a ton of fun to use, especially against godskins.

That sponsor segway was smooth af. I normally skip ahead but I let this one roll. 🎉

The rickety shield does have one use: it is an early access to a decent parry window that something like the leather shield lacks. The frames are significantly better than most options available to a starting player and can come in handy if you want to take on the first crucible knight out the gate.

That was the cleanest Segway into an ad I’ve ever seen in my time on RU-vid

My takeaway from this video is that it's criminal how much better the Knight armor set looks on a really skinny character compared to how excessively bulky it looks on any character of average human proportions. Like, I actually had to go in-game and confirm it in the character editor because I honestly thought it was one of those alternate body type mods that adjusts armor to have a tighter fit

With how consistent this man is on making sure he gets his bag how has he not made like a RU-vid membership or something? He could just do weird cryptic community posts in it and we could all take turns rioting at him for placing something bad (,for me nobody gives rom her proper respect. She usually belongs in the top three cause my Gods the meteors combined with the spiders. No matter how many times you've killed her, one slip on the scales of rng and your next four runs at least are fucked. Even with the locke shield, I know about the locke shield shut up about the locke shield xD

I know it was probably comment bait to rank Rickety Shield the worst shield, but as others might have pointed out, it actually does have a valid use-case: It's the lightest shield you can put Golden Parry/Carian Retaliation on. If all you care about is parrying and you can do it without getting half parries, it's not that bad, it's just ugly.

I know it's a meme at this point with the rankings but good lord at this rate I'd not be surprised if he ranked every piece of armour (separately) in this game

Now that the DLC has been announced, I've been planning how to build a character for the DLC, and videos like this are really helpful. I've been thinking of doing a block-counter sword-and-board build (I've previously done pure Faith Caster and Death's Poker-Magic Caster runs, so going a pure melee or melee-focused run will be a novelty for me lol), and I think the Eclipse Greatshield will be a good choice for either a Lordsword Knight's Sword or a Noble's Slender Sword. Add in maybe Greatblade Phalanx or Glintstone Pebble for the Ash of War, and I think I've got a well-rounded build lol

35:10 I remember when that thing was a machine gun back when its parry proced with self immolation

My favorite shield in Elden Ring is the 85% physical block while 2 handing the Greatsword

Renala can actually be pretty tough when you’re a pure magic build and the albanuric shield is also helpful for Astel’s blasts too.

Brass shield even got nerfed at one point. On my first playthrough blocking Radagon's charge attack with it only ate about a 1/6th of my stamina bar (no greatshield talisman).

My buddy loves the sword and board playstyle, and he picked up brass shield before we even found torrent. We kept thinking that as time goes on, he might find a suitable replacement but no, 200+ hrs later, and we find out that the single best sheild possible was sitting 3' front the start of the game.

I'm happy to see that Ant Shield this far up on your shield. Not only do I love bugs, but I love poison builds and that Shield Bash is fun in the Colosseum.

34:06 "Getting hit with fire is as inevitable as the sun coming up tomorrow" the fact you said this *as* I got hit by a flame pot-

As the target shield's number 1 fan, buckler so low is a mortal sin.

I love when something I used through the whole game without looking up if it’s good is rated highly. Yay brass shield number 2

18:55 I think something else about this shield that's irritating is the less than 100% physical negation. It means that if you are doing a regen build and decide to use it to block, it will still leave you with less than 100% health, meaning ritual shield/sword are less useful, when arguably they should be a good match for a regen build.

i actually like the perfumer's shield...put golden parry or carian retaliation on it, makes for a good looking parry tool

Silver mirror shield gets some points for me for being PURE ART. Honestly, kind of shocked that my old reliable gilded iron shield was so high on the list when I genuinely just use it constantly because I like to roleplay with a holy/faith build and it was the best visual candidate for Golden Parry that is a small shield. I think parrying is fun and I'm also stupid so I keep forgetting about the block/riposte ability in Elden Ring to the point that I never remember what it's called.

The Rickety Shield is the lightest weight option for parries and other shield ashes like Vow of the Indomitable. Since you're not blocking with most small shields, that gives it a leg up over a good number of them.

i remember picking the Palissade Shield on day 1 of the launch, later on i slapped Shield Crash ash of War on it, it never left my hand for the entire playthrough. So much fun to use, and i could easily bully a large number of ennemies by slamming them down on the ground and making them bleed of all their orifices.

That had to be the greatest goddamn ad I’ve seen in my life

Rusty, how does it feel knowing that in a couple of months you'll essentially have to redo all of these tier-lists?

My first build is always a cleric/paladin sort of character. Looking at those "golden" brash shields I knew I needed it for my character. My fashion ended with the Erdtree Sentinel armor, with that .1% gold crown that was totally worth farming (😭), and all my weapons were just as golden and holy. Brash shield fit perfectly, and I was happy to later learn it is hands down the strongest medium shield no contest. I wish I could have said the same with holy damage though...

From a fashion perspective, brass and scorpion kite are my 2 favorites. But tree sentinel shield for its magic parry is also awesome

23:00 "For all intents and purposes... This is the exact same shield with a different coat of paint." Yes, that is accurate. All the heater shields are, in fact, heater shields... with different paint. That said, the people in the lands between clearly believe in the power of paint. PS Don't know if you particularly care about typos or such, but you gave the cuck-oo greatshield Contagious fury as a skill, likely from the jellyfish shield before it. Love your stuff!

The invasion of the golden doritos is a real crisis, for sure.

I'm gonna be honest, I don't care about the shields, I watch these because Rusty is hilarious

One pro for the Silver Mirrorshield is for PvP, specifcially for pure sorcerer builds who build around oneshots. Is it optimal? no of course not, but leads to some great hatemail.

Bro y is ur voice so nice to listen to, I feel like u could give a tier list on something stupid and I would enjoy it

fun fact, back when main hand weapon buffs affected off hand weapons, the spiked pallisade shield used to be an absolute monster If said shield was infused with frost with the shield crash as its ash, with the main hand weapon buff being blood flame, it would not only keep your opponent stunlocked thanks to a large spiked wall being forced into your opponents face, but also because said frost debuff is constantly getting reset by the bloodflame buff that would also add more bleed to the shield, which already has bleed as a natural modifier, making one of the scariest older settups you could come across, and of course, the one reason why you should be thankful main hand buffs no longer affect offhand weapons.