Shield

Shield

Rarity tier	Common
Durability	336
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No

{
    "title": "Shield",
    "rows": [
        {
            "field": "Common",
            "label": "(link to Rarity article, displayed as Rarity tier)"
        },
        {
            "field": "336",
            "label": "(link to Durability article, displayed as Durability)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Yes",
            "label": "(link to Renewable resource article, displayed as Renewable)"
        },
        {
            "field": "No",
            "label": "Stackable"
        }
    ],
    "invimages": [
        "Shield",
        "White Shield",
        "Light Gray Shield",
        "Gray Shield",
        "Black Shield",
        "Brown Shield",
        "Red Shield",
        "Orange Shield",
        "Yellow Shield",
        "Lime Shield",
        "Green Shield",
        "Cyan Shield",
        "Light Blue Shield",
        "Blue Shield",
        "Purple Shield",
        "Magenta Shield",
        "Pink Shield"
    ],
    "images": [
        "Shield.png",
        "White Shield.png",
        "Light Gray Shield.png",
        "Gray Shield.png",
        "Black Shield.png",
        "Brown Shield.png",
        "Red Shield.png",
        "Orange Shield.png",
        "Yellow Shield.png",
        "Lime Shield.png",
        "Green Shield.png",
        "Cyan Shield.png",
        "Light Blue Shield.png",
        "Blue Shield.png",
        "Purple Shield.png",
        "Magenta Shield.png",
        "Pink Shield.png"
    ]
}

A shield is a defensive tool that can be used to block damage from melee attacks, ranged attacks and explosions. Shields are temporarily disabled when hit by an axe while blocking, and certain damage sources ignore a shield's protection. Shields can have ornamental banner designs applied to them.

Obtaining

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Any Planks + Iron Ingot
Shield + Matching Banner

Generated loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Damaged Shield	Trial Chambers	Vault and reward chest	1	10.4% { "item": "Damaged Shield", "stacksize": 1, "chance": 0.10434782608695647, "structure": "Trial Chambers", "container": "Vault and reward chest" }
Bedrock Edition
Damaged Shield	Trial Chambers	Vault and reward chest	1	2.6% { "item": "Damaged Shield", "stacksize": 1, "chance": 0.02608695652173909, "structure": "Trial Chambers", "container": "Vault and reward chest" }

Trading

Villager	Probability		Villager wants	Player receives
	JE	BE
Journeyman Armorer	40%	33%	5 × Emerald	Shield

Usage

Defense

Shields are used for blocking incoming attacks. Using‌ or sneaking‌ causes a player to slow to a sneaking pace, and after 5 game ticks (0.25 seconds), attacks coming from in front of the player are blocked, dealing no damage. Shields deal knockback when blocking melee attacks, unless the entity is immune to knockback.‌ When the shield blocks an attack of 3HP or stronger, it takes durability damage equal to the strength of the attack rounded up. When a player enters a boat, their shields exhibit the blocking animation.

Most blocked projectiles that carry status effects (such as shulker bullets, flaming arrows, or tipped arrows) do not affect the blocker. Channeling tridents still summon lightning upon blocking, but the trident does not damage the player.‌ Tridents & arrows can be deflected into other targets. Knockback from melee attacks and projectiles is prevented, while knockback from explosions, hoglin, and ravager attacks are significantly reduced.

The shield directionally blocks all attacks coming from within the horizontal direction the wielder is facing, providing a full semicylinder of coverage to them. Pitch is unaccounted for.

Mobs that deal continuous contact damage such as the slime, magma cube, and blaze rapidly drain the shield's durability for as long as the shielded player remains within the mob's hitbox.

Blockable attacks include:

• Melee attacks from all sources. When blocking melee attacks from axe-wielding mobs, axe-wielding players, and wardens, only a single attack can be blocked before a shield is disabled for 5 seconds.
  • Status effects do not carry through to the blocker.
• Normal, tipped, and spectral arrows
  • Arrows other than Piercing are deflected and can hit other targets.
  • Status effects do not carry through to the blocker.
• Flaming arrows
  • Burning does not carry through to the blocker.
• Tridents
• Snowballs and eggs
• Spines from pufferfish
• Bullets from shulkers
  • The Levitation effect does not carry through to the blocker.
• Spit from llamas
• Fireballs, such as from blazes and fire charges
  • Burning does not carry through to the blocker.
• Direct hits from ghast fireballs
  • These still cause environmental damage.
• All explosions‌
• Explosion damage from creepers
• TNT that another player lit
• Ravager headbutts
  • These still knock the blocker back by about 3 blocks.
  • Blocking these strikes can stun the ravager for a moment, and it roars afterward.
• Ravager roars are blocked but still knock back the blocker.
• Bee stings are blocked, but bees continuously attack until the player stops blocking and the player is stung.

They cannot block:

• Arrows from a crossbow enchanted with Piercing
  • This does not reduce the shield's durability.
  • Direct projectile damage is blocked, but the effect still carries through.
• Lightning, even from Channeling tridents
• Status effects from splash/lingering potions, evokers' fangs, or breath from the ender dragon
• Warden's sonic boom attack
• TNT that the blocking player lit themselves‌
• TNT that a redstone mechanism lit‌
• Fall damage, including that from ender pearls
  • This also includes when the player rides an entity that died due to fall damage.

Laser beam attacks from guardians or elder guardians are only partially blocked (reduces damage by 50%).

Disabling

• All of a user's shields are disabled for 5 seconds if hit by an axe-wielding player while the user's shield is up.
• Melee strikes from a warden or any axe-wielding mob (e.g., vindicators, piglin brutes, zombies, etc) also disable shields for 5 seconds.
• A shield cannot be disabled during their 250 millisecond blocking delay. The shield must be fully active to be disabled.

Applying patterns

A custom shield.

Shields can be decorated by applying a banner.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
Shield + Matching Banner		Applies the banner pattern to the shield. The banner is consumed. The shield must have no preexisting patterns. Does not change existing durability or enchantments on the shield.

Unlike with banners, shields cannot be repainted or washed in a cauldron. Shields have only half the resolution of banners, making patterns look slightly different. In the game files, the pattern textures can be found in a separate directory called entity/shield.

In Java Edition, shields with patterns can also be obtained using the same commands as banners, except banner has to be replaced with shield.

Repairing

Combining

Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Description
2× Damaged Shield		The durability of the two shields is added together, plus an extra 5% durability. The repaired shield has no pattern.

Ingredients	Grinding recipe	Description
2× Damaged Shield		The durability of the two shields is added together, plus an extra 5% durability. The repaired shield has no pattern.

Unit repair

Ingredients	Anvil recipe
Damaged Shield + Any Planks	Shield

A shield can be repaired in an anvil by adding planks or another shield. Shields repaired on anvils retain their pattern. One plank restores 25% of the shield's durability.

Enchantments

A shield can receive the following enchantments:

Name	Description	Max Level	Method	Weight
Unbreaking	Grants a chance to negate durability consumption.	III	Anvil	5
Mending	Repairs the shield when obtaining experience.	I	Anvil	2
Curse of Vanishing	The shield vanishes upon death, not dropping as an item.	I	Anvil	1

Despite using iron in its crafting recipe, shields cannot be smelted into iron nuggets.

Sounds

Java Edition

Sounds
Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Shield blocks	Players	When an attack is blocked using a shield	item.shield.block	subtitles.item.shield.block​	1.0	0.8-1.2	16
	​Gear equips	Players	When a shield is placed in the offhand slot	item.armor.equip_generic​​	subtitles.item.armor.equip​​​	1.0	1.0	16
	​Item breaks	Players	When a shield's durability is exhausted	item.shield.break	subtitles.entity.item.break​	0.8	0.8-1.2	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sounds
Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Players	When an attack is blocked using a shield	item.shield.block	0.7	1.0
	Players	When a shield is placed in the offhand slot	armor.equip_generic	1.0	1.0
	Players	When a shield's durability is exhausted	random.break	1.0	0.9

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Shield	shield	Item	item.minecraft.shield item.minecraft.shield.white item.minecraft.shield.orange item.minecraft.shield.magenta item.minecraft.shield.light_blue item.minecraft.shield.yellow item.minecraft.shield.lime item.minecraft.shield.pink item.minecraft.shield.gray item.minecraft.shield.light_gray item.minecraft.shield.cyan item.minecraft.shield.purple item.minecraft.shield.blue item.minecraft.shield.brown item.minecraft.shield.green item.minecraft.shield.red item.minecraft.shield.black

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Shield	shield	355	Item	item.shield.name item.shield.white.name item.shield.orange.name item.shield.magenta.name item.shield.lightBlue.name item.shield.yellow.name item.shield.lime.name item.shield.pink.name item.shield.gray.name item.shield.silver.name item.shield.cyan.name item.shield.purple.name item.shield.blue.name item.shield.brown.name item.shield.green.name item.shield.red.name item.shield.black.name

Item data

Java Edition:

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] components: the item's components tag.
  • [NBT List / JSON Array] minecraft:banner_patterns: List of all patterns applied to the banner or the shield.
    • [NBT Compound / JSON Object]: A single pattern.
      • [String] color: Dye color of the section.
      • [String][NBT Compound / JSON Object] pattern: One banner pattern (an [String] ID, or a new [NBT Compound / JSON Object] banner pattern definition).
        • A banner pattern see Template:Nbt inherit/banner pattern/template
  • [String] minecraft:base_color: The base dye color of the banner applied on a shield.

Bedrock Edition:

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Not Today, Thank You	Deflect a projectile with a Shield	Block any projectile with a shield.

History

July 10, 2011							During an interview, Jeb says that "shields for the left arm" might be added.
Java Edition
1.9			15w33c				Added shields.
							Shields replace the blocking functionality of swords, although blocking more damage.
							The current crafting recipe of shields includes wool, producing 16 possible colored shields. There currently isn't a blank, uncolored shield. Recipe Ingredients Crafting recipe Matching Wool + Any Planks + Iron Ingot
							Any of the colored base shields can be crafted with a banner of the same base color, to produce a patterned shield.
			15w34c				When an attack is blocked by a shield, the attacker now may be knocked back.
							Being attacked with an axe now may disable shield use for 5 seconds.
			15w37a				The crafting recipe of shields has been changed to 6 planks and 1 iron ingot. Recipe Ingredients Crafting recipe Any Planks + Iron Ingot
							Crafting a shield now produces a base wooden shield that can be crafted together with any banner.
							The cooldown of shields has been reduced from 0.5s to 0.25s.
							Blocking with shields now prevents some side effects.
							Arrows now ricochet off shields.
			15w44a				Shields can now be repaired by combining with other shields. This removes any banner that had been applied.
			15w45a				Crafting a banner onto a shield now consumes the banner.
			15w47b				Added shield blocking sounds.
			16w07a				Added more variation of shield blocking sounds.
			pre1				The durability of shields has been increased from 181 to 337.
1.10			16w21a				Shields can now be equipped by dispensers.
1.11			16w33a				Crafting a shield with a banner no longer changes the durability, nor does it remove enchantments from it.
			16w35a				Shields now block 100% of damage/knockback/debuffs dealt in melee combat.
							Shields are now always disabled 100% of the time when blocking an attack from an axe-wielding mob or player.
							An attacker's Efficiency level on their axe, as well as whether or not they're sprinting, no longer impact shield disabling chance.
1.13			pre6				Enchanted shields now show the enchantment glint.
1.13.2			release				Shields now properly block attacks when the player is facing down.
1.14			18w43a				The texture of shields has been changed.
							Shields no longer knockback attackers when they block due to a bug with rework of the blocking mechanic with the introduction of the ravager.
			19w11a				Shields can now be bought from armorer villagers for 5 emeralds.
1.14.3			Pre-Release 3				Shields blocking flaming arrows no longer put the player on fire.
1.16			20w06a				Crimson planks and warped planks can now be used to craft shields.
1.19			22w11a				Mangrove planks can now be used to craft shields.
1.19.3 Experiment Update 1.20			22w42a				Bamboo planks can now be used to craft shields.
1.19.3			22w43a				Shields can now properly block all explosions.
1.19.4			23w06a				A sound is now played when a shield is placed into the offhand slot.
1.19.4 Experiment Update 1.20			23w07a				Cherry planks can now be used to craft shields.
1.20.3			23w40a				When a player is blocking with a shield, the arm with the shield now follows the direction the player is looking at, when viewed from third person perspective.
							Shields now properly block attacks when the player is facing straight up.
1.20.3 Experiment Update 1.21			23w45a				Damaged shields can now generate in reward chests inside trial chambers.
1.20.5 Experiment Update 1.21			24w05a				Damaged shields can now be ejected as loot from vaults.
1.21			24w18a				While holding a shield and an axe, blocking with the shield is now prioritized over stripping or scraping blocks with the axe.
1.21.2			24w33a				Enchanted shields now have the same reduced glint as enchanted armor.
Upcoming Java Edition
Combat Tests			1.14.3 - Combat Test				Critical hits now bypass shields.
							The warm-up delay has been removed from shields.
							When in the off-hand, shields now activate when sneaking.
			Combat Test 2				Shields now protect against critical attacks again.
							Shields can be activated only when the weapon is charged to 200%.
			Combat Test 3				A "Shield Indicator" option that displays when the shield is active, similar to the attack indicator, has been added.
							An option to hide shields when active has been added.
							The arc of available protection of shields has been decreased to 100 degrees instead of 180 degrees.
			Combat Test 4				An option to disable shields being activated by pressing crouch has been added.
							The option to hide the shield has been removed.
							Shields in the offhand now activate when forced to sneak in 1.5 blocks tall areas.
							Shields in the offhand no longer activate when flying down in creative mode.
			Combat Test 6				Shields now protect up to 5 damage for melee attacks (still 100% against projectiles).
							Shields activate instantly regardless if the weapon is charged, similar to Combat test 1.
							Shields now recover faster after an attack.
			Combat Test 7c				Shields now add a 50% knockback resistance when active.
							Shields now protect against 100% explosion damage.
							Pressing use on a shield when it is already activated by sneaking no longer slows down the player even more.
			Combat Test 8c				The knockback calculations for shields have been fixed.​
							Crouch-shielding while jumping has been disabled.
							Shields with banners are now temporarily stronger than normal shields (10 absorption instead of 5, and better knockback resistance) to test different shield types.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				Added shields.
							Shields cannot be customized with banners.
							Shields are activated by crouching or mounting mobs.
1.11.0			beta 1.11.0.4				Shields can now be bought from armorer villagers.
1.16.210			beta 1.16.210.51				Now grants partial knockback protection from the goat ram attack.
1.16.220			beta 1.16.220.50				Mobs that pick up shields now place them to their off-hand.
1.18.30			Preview 1.18.30.27				Being attacked with an axe now may disable shield use. This was not mentioned in the official changelog.
1.20.0			Preview 1.20.0.20				Shields can now be customized using a banner.
1.20.30			Preview 1.20.30.20				A sound is now played when a shield is placed into the offhand slot.
1.20.40			Preview 1.20.40.21				The effects from a tipped arrow or shulker bullet are no longer transferred to the blocking player.
1.20.80			Preview 1.20.80.22				Shields can now partially block damage from guardians' and elder guardians' laser beams.
1.20.60 Experiment Update 1.21			Preview 1.20.60.20				Damaged shields can now generate in reward chests inside trial chambers.
1.20.70 Experiment Update 1.21			Preview 1.20.70.21				Damaged shields can now be ejected as loot from vaults.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90							Added shields.
							Shields do not have banner application features.
1.91							Enchanted shields now show the enchantment glint.

Data history

Java Edition
1.13			17w47a				Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 442.

Issues

Issues relating to "Shield" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Gallery

Renders

• 

  Shield

• 

  White Shield

• 

  Light Gray Shield

• 

  Gray Shield

• 

  Black Shield

• 

  Brown Shield

• 

  Red Shield

• 

  Orange Shield

• 

  Yellow Shield

• 

  Lime Shield

• 

  Green Shield

• 

  Cyan Shield

• 

  Light Blue Shield

• 

  Blue Shield

• 

  Purple Shield

• 

  Magenta Shield

• 

  Pink Shield

• 

  Ominous Shield

Screenshots

• 

  One of the first images of shields. Jeb wearing diamond armor while holding a creeper-emblazoned shield during MineCon 2015.

• 

  Jeb crafting a shield.

• 

  Player holding the default shield.

• 

  A player blocking with a shield.

• 

  Blocking with a shield as seen in first person.

• 

  An enchanted shield as seen in the inventory.

• 

  A shield with the ominous banner on it as seen in the inventory.

• 

  An image of Kai wielding a shield decorated with a banner, used to announce the feature on Bedrock Edition.

• 

  Custom shield examples.

External links

• Taking Inventory: Shield – Minecraft.net on July 25, 2019