[quote=@BCTheEntity]
I feel like a shield bash of that sort wouldn't necessarily need to lower his guard. An attack using a high Defense stat is no more absurd than an attack that completely ignores a target's Defense, after all; it just so happens that Metar is completely focused in Defense, which obviously has massive drawbacks in other notable areas.
[/quote]
We did try pointing out in the interest thread that a total defence character would run into problems like this.

Having said that, I'd say you'd need quite a high Energy cost for a Shield Bash attack if you weren't going to take a penalty on Defence for using it, otherwise you're pretty much doubling your overall stats for very little cost, since your Defence value would also count as your Attack value and every increase you bought for it would boost both attributes.

Going for the option to switch modes, swapping Defence and Attack, would be a more fair way to do things, since you'd still be suffering the same penalties as the rest of us when choosing how to upgrade your character.