When the player clicks or presses the key associated in the Keybindings with the "Block" mechanic--usually the right mouse button--the player shield appears. The player shield is an arc that has the potential to block other opponents. By blocking them, the other opponents are unable to attack or shoot for a brief period, supposedly giving you an advantage in the fight. Then again, if the mechanic gives an advantage, it might be important to figure out how it works, and that is what I've come here to do.

As it would appear, if the player shield is some color, it will not block other players, however, when it is white, and another player punches, or in some cases, uses melee weapons, and touches the shield during this interval, they will be blocked in the process. Moreover, most bullets and some other projectiles can also be blocked if they contact the player shield during the block interval.

As it seems, during the block interval, it flickers about 3 times, and thus, when blocking, there is a small chance that other players could phase through the shield during the short periods in between the times you can actually block.

Over a period of about 1.5 seconds, the player shield will go from it's maximum size to it's minimum size. Although, when spamming the block key, it seems to take about 1 second. To regenerate, the shield takes about 1.5 seconds from min to max.

As it would appear, if you wanted to block a player, wait for them to approach you, and once they are about 2 to 4 player lengths away, click and briefly hold the block key. Supposedly a click takes about 100 ms to perform, and from my testing, holding for about 250 to 300 ms is optimal.

When blocking, clicking too sparingly or too often can leave you open to attack during the moments between block intervals, and as it would appear, 3 cps is too slow and 7 cps is too fast with an optimal range of 4 to 5 clicks per second. In practice, it is the pace where the shield does not disappear.

Supposedly, it seems like most matches are laggy to some degree unless you're the host, where the latency is usually less noticeable. Part of the chaos of the common Stick Fight match is where players seem to be delayed slightly. Punching and blocking them becomes difficult, and bullets and thrown items seem to occasionally graze them with no effect. Part of problem being exemplified by ping, where ping is the time it takes to receive a signal from another device, like the device of another player. Since Stick Fight seemingly displays the other players on your screen based on the information it receives from their devices, that ping is essentially the degree of the delay of their "true" position and the position they appear to be--their "desynchronization" or desync for short. To block a desynchronized player, depending on the degree of desync, you hold block for a bit longer, and block when they are further away. Since their true position is typically ahead of their shown position, you're essentially trying to block a player you can't see but whose position you can vaguely predict.

When it comes to blocking other players, bigger shields are typically better, and thus, one usually needs to wait for their shield to regenerate for a higher likelihood of a block.