Shield Hearts

Shield Hearts in Nightfall is a survivor side Mechanic which takes the place of Absorption hearts.

At their core, any damage dealt to a survivor with shield hearts will be mitigated at the cost of a full shield heart. In exchange the survivor will also receive greatly reduced armor damage and mana drain as well as a brief blue glow.

## **Sources of Shield Hearts**

Shield hearts are commonly a source from various weapons and items. Different sources take priority for damage before others.

The sources of Shield Hearts and their max capacity, listed in order of damage priority1:

* Infused Ale - 4 Hearts ()
* Enchanted Aegis - 3 Hearts ()
* Spellbook's **Bolster** - 4 Hearts ()
* Diamond Ore - 1 Heart ()
* Resurrection - 2 Hearts ()
* Armor Repair (Dwarven Pickaxe, Full Broken Armor2) - 3 Hearts ()
* Avenge - 3 Hearts ()

1: damaged first to damaged last, top to bottom

2: Less than 50 Durability remaining, 1 half armor bar on the U.i.

## **Mechanics**

A survivor who takes damage with a shield heart will under most circumstances will have damage mitigated to 1 heart ().

Additionally they will only receive **half** armor shred and mana drain from the incoming hit.

As a side effect any survivor which possesses shield hearts will have an improved fall damage threshold.

Shield hearts will afflict the protected survivor with Glowing for half a second.

Damage dealt to a shield heart by any means, even **Shield Breaking** damage, will not count as progress toward monster damage quests.

### Effect Resistance

Shield hearts to a certain extent can mitigate damage over time effects.

Most attempts to apply **Poison** or **Withering** from damage that doesn't shield break will have no effect. Any persisting poisons or withers which are present when standard shield damage is dealt will be cleared.

Burning will take hold on a survivor which takes damage from a burn inflicting source but will be cleared as soon as they take any standard shield damage, as long as they don't remain in the burn inflicting source.

However, having **Taproot Armor** or **Fire Resistance** will naturally help preserve the integrity of shields vs applicable damage over time effects.

### Shield Breaking

Shield hearts in low light conditions and vs special forms of damage lose some of their properties.

At base, a **Shield Breaking** damage source cause the above effects to fail to apply.

* **TL;DR** full armor shred and mana drain, no glowing, damage over time effects are **not** cleared.

As far as damage calculations go a shield break will treat a shield heart as if it has 4 hp (compared to the standard 2 hp), any residual damage less than 4 remaining will be rounded up to deal an extra shield heart of damage.

**Example:** 4.00 and 4.01 damage deals 2 hearts () but 2.00 and 3.99 deals 1 heart ().

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{\displaystyle shieldsToRemove = (int) (damageAmount/4) + 1
}

Effects that can cause shield breaking are:

* Survivors being rendered under the influence of **Pitch Darkness**. This includes Ogre Shamans' **Curse of Blindness**.
* Wolves deal shield breaking damage with a minimum of **Moderate** **Darkness** instead.
* Tickers' explosion.
* Drowned's empowered attacks.
* Most damage caused directly by **Plague Events**.
* All of Silverbell's attacks, including their poison, will deal shield breaking damage.
* Similarly, Mirror Arthea's melee inflicted withering and Bones Malone's **Bomb of Disorientation** withering will also deal shield breaking damage.
	+ The priming hits of both sources do not shield break on their own which may cause the wither to not apply.
* BEES poison will shield break, but not the contact damage.
* Battering Ram's **Ramming Rush** attack.
* Torus's **Mach Punch**.
* The third stack of Mob Protection will cause shield hearts to be fully disabled, preventing them from blocking damage, instead dealing damage straight to regular health. This effect persists for as long as you stay in Mob Protection and for 15 seconds after leaving it, at which point you regain any previous **and** **new** shield hearts you gained during the effect.