Tying status effects to magic shield & treating magic shield as a resource (i.e. HP/MP)

[MannajaX]

Having trouble tying magic shield with a return damage effect. this could be done by having magic shield depend on an invisible resource (shield_health).

This way you can check for shield health > 0 to do all sort of things (return effect that lasts for as long as the shield holds).
You can also regen shield if it's a resource, to have another layer of defense in your game.