Shield Perks Work when Shield is Equipped but Sheathed
TL;DR: Some shield perks remain active, even when the shield is sheathed. This is 100% confirmed for "empowering breaker".
Question: What other shield perks remain active when the shield is equipped but sheathed?
Newbie here.
According to most of what I've read online, shield item perks (the perks tied to the actual item itself, and not the skill line) do not work while the shield is sheathed and the back bar weapon is equipped.
However, while leveling up my War Hammer today, I noticed that I receive stacks of empower when attacking an enemy that is blocking. Checking my skills and equipment, the only possible source of empower I could be getting is from the shield perk "empowering breaker".
If you don't believe me, this can 100% be replicated, and it is fairly easy to do. The steps to replicate my findings are as follows:
Equip a shield with the "empowering breaker" perk.
Switch weapons so that the shield is sheathed.
Attack a blocking enemy (a ton of them near the Elysian Shrine in Edengrove and watch the stacks of empower build up.
This finding has led me to perform a deeper dive into which, if any other, shield perks remain active while the shield is sheathed, and I uncovered this reddit post from a few years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/12zk23t/til_some_perks_on_the_shield_are_active_as_long/
Does anybody know what other shield perks remain active while the shield is sheathed? I would do my own testing, but I'm fairly new to the game and don't have the character level or crafting skills to easily conduct my own tests.