Umm, you seem to go to great lengths to disregard what people write. Prior to this update (and 1.21a for that matter) the damage negated by a shield was almost negligible to the amount of damage that could be taken. As I pointed out, I could partial parry something like Coincounters 100 Tonze Swing which would normally be devastating for either job to under 600, if I blocked the same move with my shield w/o Aegis Boon chances are I would be lucky to see 100-200 damage taken off the top of the 3k+ move.

Even with Divine Viel addition you would have had to block at least 15 times to make up for that one random partial parry, and pre-1.21a there was little difference in the proc rate between parry and shield so you'd take forever just to make up for that single random parry in mitigation. So I don't see how your argument's are any more valid than his.

However this recent shield update looks promising. I've thus far been negating 50% of the damage taken whenever I block with my Vintage Kite Shield regardless of how much or little damage I take. The block rate increase is noticeable, but frankly still feels a little lacking.