Shields in Dark Souls were fucking useless due to bosses doing absurd Stamina damage. In Dark Souls 2, they were actually fine, but durability and stance breaking made you have to play around them. Dark Souls 3 copied Bloodborne and blocking was absolutely fucking useless.
Shields in DS1 were not useless at all. The issue with shields was that turtling was a shit playstyle outside of extremely high tier pvp. Enemy movesets were so rudimentary that experienced players didn't require shields except in specific scenarios and could just dodge through or strafe everything. There was no reason to dual wield either so shields tended to have use, even if it was only to block a single attack. There are shields in DS1 that would make its sequels blush.
- Black Knight Shield: 100% phys reduction, 95% fire reduction, 74 stability (approaching greatshield stability). This is THE best pvp turtle shield.
- Heater Shield: 100% phys reduction, weighs a mere 2 units, has the parry frames of a small shield
- Crest Shield: 80% magic reduction weighing only 3 units
- Buckler: 8 parry frames, assuming the game is running at 30 fps
And the grass crest shield used to give 100% physical block before the AotA patch. Three of the starting classes received a 100% phys block shield: knight, warrior, and bandit. Obtaining one early was paramount. Fortunately, the burg is packed with enemies that drop them and the merchant sells the heater shield. Mitigating chip damage was such a hassle for me the first time I played that I specced into faith just so I could cast the basic healing miracle, a habit that I've maintained for first playthroughs to this day. I just like it.
DS2 nerfed light and medium shields into the dirt. Shields were comparatively heavier, their resistances were worse across the board, though you could get 100% resistance in almost every element with a bit of infusing, and as you said, stance breaking was a constant issue. Durability was a detriment to everything, not just shields, so I won't hold it against them. You could also get a massive stamina bar in DS2, though stamina regenerated slower. That wasn't an issue until they nerfed buff stacking though. The only shield that stood out to me as super functional was the Gyrm Greatshield (100% phys and fire res). DS2 was a much more defensive focused game and the amount of resistance and mitigation available to the player was absurd. The sluggish movement and weird animation locking resulted in an experience focused on trading instead avoiding damage entirely. Very sloppy.
You're correct about DS3 shields. I remember nothing about any of them.
In ER, the extremes of the shield spectrum are good and everything in between is useless. Small shields with parry arts are good, greatshields with defensive arts are busted. I'm an unga bunga denthead player and rarely use shields but I haven't ever really felt the pressure to.
