Guild Wars 2

I took this picture the other day noticed something that I thought it would be a good “discussion” question. How many people actually know/realize that your “main-hand” side should have more protection from your cuirass/pauldrons/gauntlets than your “off-hand” side when you are using a shield.

This can best be explained by looking at the attached screenshot of the mithril barbaric armour. The heavy pauldron and glove should actually be over the sword arm and NOT the shield side.

Has anyone seen any other armours that are asymmetrical with a lightly armoured side being on the same side as the shield?

I seriously love this mithril suit, except for that small oversight (if that’s what you’d call it…) and was wondering what others’ thoughts were.

(Clarification: main hand= the hand you’d write/hold stuff with)

i pray for the day when an MMO gives me the ability to be left handed.

I don’t know that I agree. You need more dexterity in your sword arm, and your shield arm is going to be in front of you most of the time, this suggests you need the protection alongside the shield, as tht side of your body is closer to your enemy

if an arm has no pauldrons that is usually the sword arm, and not the shield arm.
take a look in medieval armors. the giant shoulderguard is always on the left side, while the tiny one on the right.
i guess it is because you raise and swing your sword arm all the time and the shoulderguard would get in the way of your movements.
the sword arm usually has more protection on the part of your wrist and elbow.

ostracize.8316:

You need more dexterity in your sword arm, and your shield arm is going to be in front of you most of the time, this suggests you need the protection alongside the shield, as tht side of your body is closer to your enemy

Yes your sword arm needs more dexterity, but the idea is that your shield would protect the side its on, so having all that extra armour would be kind of a waste.

Trismegistos.3046:

take a look in medieval armors. the giant shoulderguard is always on the left side, while the tiny one on the right.

Can you post some images of the armour you’ve seen on the internet? I keep finding images of armour that is designed symmetrically.

Edit: it just seems counter-productive to have a larger shoulder pad on the side with the shield, because the main purpose of a shoulder pad like that is to deflect arrows, which the shield does all on its own.

Here is a gladiator, and it has the right side with the sword having all the armour.

GW 1 also had the elite and regular gladiator armour that had the right side with more protection.

So, here’s the thing. Historically, single-pauldrons and asymmetric armor isn’t that common. When you do see it, it’s because armor had to accommodate for additional gear (i.e, some armor was cut away or asymmetrical to accommodate for lance couching), or because the combatant wearing the armor wants to be flashy and showy.

This is why the most common images of asymmetrical armor are gladiatorial. In fact, gladiatorial armor covered the right arm or the left arm depending on the style of gladiator.

Which is to say that the type of gladiator you linked in your image was specifically designed to fight another net-and-spear wielding gladiator whose pauldron and armor would be on his left side. So in this case the armor was not designed to balance encumbrance, but designed so that two gladiators facing off against each other would have their armor on opposite arms, since they’d be facing each other. One with an armored right arm. The other with an armored left arm.

Just a bit of trivia.

That’s very interesting. I figured light armour like this wasn’t ever that common for real combat. Odd that gladiators actually wore armour to complement their opponent. I wonder how that’d actually work for the guy in the photo with the shield and the short sword and a shield. If he fought an opponent using a sword and shield, would he have to switch his shield to his right hand as well?