| Shielding/blocking is still young and unexplored. Intuitively, I assume it will have two uses:
1. PvE Tanking, you can learn patterns and adapt. Even if it's not viable for regular attacks you can "triple shield right" to avoid Earpunch, just like you would shield block to avoid Shear in WoW. Might be useful for normal attacks too though, if some boss has a predictable hit pattern or just really slow animations.
2. For PvP, I expect it to mostly be a matter of weighting shields towards where you know a majority of his combos are. If barbarians turn out to have 4 good combos hitting right, 2 good combos hitting up, and 1 good combo hitting left, you probably want to shift 1 shield up and 2 shields right, leaving left undefended. Might be used adaptively also if you can predict certain preferred combo patterns (Cheap Shot -> Kidney Shot stuff). | 