Shield

Orb Shields or simply Shields are rechargeable shield generators that prevent characters from receiving damage, including projectile weapon damage, elemental, melee or even damage from falling, until a shield's charge is depleted.

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.

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. Because rate and delay are tied to the same shield part, the rate usually gives a good estimation of the delay (the higher the rate, the lower the delay).
 * 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 player 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 a extreme shock 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 and a chance to reduce damage from non-elemental bullets.
 * Rose - "Beauty and life" - Gives massive Health regeneration when depleted.

Special Effects
Shields are often fitted with special modules, which may increase or decrease shield capacity and recharge rate. Each manufacturer also has a unique effect applied to every shield they make (with the exception of Tediore Standard Shields found in the Vendor in Playthrough 1 Fyrestone). The Material Grade of the shield determines the strength of this effect.

1 This shield's name is bugged, in-game it will be only called a Shield instead of a Fire Burst Shield (eg. VDF-10FRR Quick Charge Shield). Vladof's other Shields are named correctly.