Just wanted to share something I stumbled across some time ago. Albeit I was aware of the shift key's quirky ways I never gave it much attention. You see the thing is that when you hold down the shift key when standing near a foe your character will begin a sort of back and forth motion. It looks kind of like a skeletons parry animation. For the longest time I had written it off as another one of Ancaria's strange ways but recently that changed.
After a bit of testing here and there it turns out that holding down the shift key while under attack can significantly reduce the damage you recieve from foes. In the case of melee attacks on you holding down the shift key appears to act as though it has increased your defence, reducing the # of hits the enemy lands on you. What's more interesting is that holding down the shift key can reduce magical attack dmg to about half the expected dmg. I tested this against an Orc Shamman. When he casts meteor strike on me while I'm holding down shift the dmg I recieved was exactly half the norm.
Now here's the catch. The shift keys defensive function is dependent on your proximity to the foe and it does not appear to work if you are holding a bow, staff or on a horse. As far as proximity goes just give it a try and you'll see.
So there you go folks. Something to toy with. I really haven't played around with it extensively and quite possibly there is more to be understood. I imagine it being very useful for close quarters builds or maybe even if you've been frozen in place by an enemy spell and are being pounded on by a mob whilst waiting for a CA to regen. That's happened to me more than a few times.
And here is a DivX video example of using the shift key to defend against attacks:
REMOVED VIDEO BECAUSE STAGE6 DIED... BOO HOO.
In the above video I have recorded 3 different examples of Shift Shielding, (Or how about just "shifting"?). The first is against skeletons melee. The second is against A skelly mages fireballs. The third is against an Orc Shamans Meteor strikes. As far as reducing damage is concerned the amount at which the damage is reduced varies greatly on the types of attack. If I had to guess based on these 3 examples I would say that Shifting is most effective at reducing physical damage but further observing is needed to be sure.
Cheers all and good game.
