The Force Shield is a shieldweapon which generates a force field protecting the player from any damage when held up. When the force field is ready, this shield cannot parry attacks. Otherwise, its ammunition (charge level) regenerates, and parrying greatly accelerates the process. In exchange for these abilities, the force shield has an extremely low percentage of damage reduction.
Used to be called the Front Line Shield and worked differently prior to v1.1.
It wasn't able to parry, but in exchange, it reduced incoming damage by 90%. This generated extreme infamy in the community and it was removed. The sprite was then recycled for the current Force Shield while the original force shield was renamed to the Rampart. The original Front Line Shield was later resurrected as an entirely different shield, which boosts melee damage upon parrying.