I've changed my Crusader build recently and included Shield Bash, which I had never tried before. Now I'm rather confused about how the Shield Cross rune is "supposed" to work, versus how it actually works. I'm not 100% certain yet, but I think that the frontal shield specifically might not work as intended.
The description for Shield Cross says: " Additional shields erupt from you in a cross formation. Enemies hit by any of the additional shields take 155% weapon damage plus 100% of your shield's Block Chance as damage. "
Now, visually when I shield bash a target and I deal damage I only see one damage number pop from the target even if the frontal additional shield visually hits. The cross formation itself is "fixed" in that there's always a frontal shield (one in front of the character), one erupting from the back and two on both sides. Now, the two shields erupting from the sides and the one from the character's back do seem to work, in that they do damage enemies as I see it occur when I activate damage numbers from the game's options.
But when I charge at a target and visually run toward and hit it, there's then a frontal shield that erupts from my character's front (yeah, duh) after the initial hit occurs. You know, it goes like this; Initial charge hit = damage, then additional shields erupt. The shield's eruption is almost immediate after the initial hit, but not quite instantaneous per se, it's easy to see on-screen. That specific frontal shield does visually "hit" (or rather, gets through) my target, but as I mentioned earlier I only see one damage number pop from the target which happens to be the damage number from the initial hit, and none from the following frontal shield.
Now the problem is that the only damage number I actually see pop out from the target is singular, be it a normal white damage number of a critical hit. Note that I have tested Shield Bash without a rune and the damage number that pops out is within the same range as the one that pops out when I use Shield Cross, which leads me to believe that the extra frontal shield isn't doing the damage that it's supposed to (I.E. 155% weapon damage), or simply don't work at all. I want to repeat that I'm talking about the frontal additional shield here, not the other three (from the back, and the two others from the sides).
Also, it appears that all four shields don't do critical damage, but during combat it's difficult to see. I know that the back and side shields do normal damage as I've tested them, but I've never seen a single critical hit damage number from any of those three additional shields hitting a target. I do see a critical hit damage, however, as the initial charge hits, but never from the additional erupting shields.
I think I still need some testing to make sure but so far that specific Shield Bash rune doesn't seem to be working as intended... or simply that the rune's description itself just lacks details and everything works well on paper.