Guild Wars 2

So in this post Ill be talking about the guardian consecration Sanctuary, and why nobody uses it. The fact that nobody uses it means it hasn’t been balanced and the fact that it hasn’t been balanced means nobody uses it. A Vicious cycle. But today I shall break that cycle by telling you all just what needs to be changed about it.

Disclaimer: This is a powerful utility, the issue is its not balanced so that the uses it does have can’t really be used properly.

First and foremost, it doesn’t block AoEs. This is the HORRIBLE DESIGN FLAW that keeps it from being useful. Its not balanced for one person, its balanced for a team of people, or ALOT of people, however many you can fit into it. And what attacks a lot of people? AoEs. and what are enemies going to throw when there’s a lot of people sitting like ducks in one place? AoEs. In conclusion Sanctuary needs to block AoEs, bad. A warrior should not be able to go “oh let me aim this exploding arrow a couple feet to the left so that the explosion hits, instead of it getting stopped by that bubble”. Not to mention necromancers practically laugh at this move as they lay down their marks and watch us all run in fear of death.

Secondly. It lasts to long. Now I know that may seem like a good thing but its not. It lasts 6 seconds. 8 if traited. Thats enough time for somebody to decide what kind of soup they’re going to put you in once they break through that bubble and tear you to pieces. There are plenty of attacks/players that can bypass this bubble. They will surely be there because again its made for multi player fights. One of the largest bonuses for this bubble is that it can be used as a rally point for high dps players to use ranged attacks from while they’re covered from the enemies. If they try staying in there for 8 seconds they are all going to die. Also this becomes an issue with its knockback effect. I actualy use this move as an OFFENSIVE measure in an attempt to pin enemies into corners or to box them into some places. 8 seconds is a long time to be stuck against a wall. Also such a high uptime gives players PLENTY of time to go “oh look a safety bubble, lemme run over there”. It lowers the necessary skill gap for strategetic positioning in fights

Third, it doesn’t scale with healing well enough. This is basicly covered in the previous paragraph. If you try to stay in the bubble and use it as a healing device…your gona die. When looked at from a party standpoint it does offer a fair bit of healing but again it requires everybody in one place, and with its CD it just doesn’t compare to Hold The Line!.

Fourth, its CD. Anything that cannot be used twice in the same fight just isn’t worth having. my ELITE has a lower cooldown than this does even with being traited for consecrations.

Fifth, this is a minor concern but its radius is so small that if your not EXACTLY in the center enemies with melee attacks can actualy cleave through and still hit you

Overall I think we need to have it protect the players from more kinds of moves(Barrage, exploding arrow, Marks, and yes even arrow carts). Reduce its cooldown, and increase its rate of healing. To balance it its uptime needs to be reduced. This will give less time for allied players to get to it and enjoy its benefits, and it won’t be useful in “Bunkering down” It’ll just give you enough time to get your brains togeather to figure out how your going to escape whatever you got yourself into. Its weakness will be (still) a high CD (not as high as before though). The fact that its a support move and will require coordination to be used to its best potential. and that fact that players can be removed from it by CC effects, and anybody with stability can just walk right on it.

Comments? Concerns? Crys of OP? Please post.

I have forever been a fan of both halving concecration durations and conceration cool downs. Purging flames is the exception, that one is fine. Shelter could use a slightly larger radius.

Well, 6 seconds is indeed extremely long. It seems to me that this skill should be used with good timing, so it blocks one burst of attacks (so half the time perhaps?). But then yes, it should block all damage. However, there should also be a counter to it. A necro should be able to fear people out of the field, as an effective counter. But stuff like fire aoe and projectile attacks should all be blocked.

It shouldn’t be a tank-skill I think. It should be an effective counter to a single burst.

I agree with you completely OP.
Lasts 4 sec, 5 if traited.
CD 90 sec, 72 if traited.
Very slightly larger.
Heals 1k at creation, heals 200 per pulse for the 5 sec.
Is not a combo field.
Makes people inside invuln to all aerial/ ground based channeled/pulsing. Effects siege.
Yes? No? Maybe so?

Silhouette.5631:

The fact that nobody uses it

I use it…

Silhouette.5631:

Fourth, its CD. Anything that cannot be used twice in the same fight just isn’t worth having. my ELITE has a lower cooldown than this does even with being traited for consecrations.

Fifth, this is a minor concern but its radius is so small that if your not EXACTLY in the center enemies with melee attacks can actualy cleave through and still hit you

I, too, feel the cooldown could go down a bit… not a lot, maybe down to like 90s instead of 120s.

As for melee still being able to hit you, there’s no real “melee” wall in the game. For instance, if a person with ranged attacks gets stability they can walk in the sanctuary, but I believe it will still block the projectiles despite the fact that they are “inside” the bubble (shield of absorption works the same way). But it doesn’t “absorb” the melee attacks, they just go through it.

I don’t really think the game is built to handle that, technically speaking, without a lot rework. But it would be cool if it was built to absorb those attacks as well instead of just letting them pass through. Maybe that could be compensated with a slightly larger raidus.

I suppose one way they could work around it (assuming they even want to do this) is to make it so that any allies in the bubble are invulnerable while they are inside it (kind of like the effect of renewed focus). Then it doesn’t matter if it’s in AoEs, people aren’t using projectiles, or melee people stand just beside, since you couldn’t be damaged. Stability would allow people to go through it so the barrier function of the skill could still be countered, but it would guarantee that you and anyone inside are safe for the duration.

This would probably be OP in some regard, but I can’t really think of many at the moment… maybe in PvE where mobs can’t really do anything about it. Obviously the invulnerability would have to dissipate immediately upon leaving the orb, and maybe the duration of it would need to be lessened to compensate. It should also perhaps have a maximum of 5 people it could apply to so you can’t like sticks whole zergs in there and rotate bubbles (not sure if it currently has any defined sort of player limit currently). I guess it would end up making you immune to seige attacks too, unless it was like a non-traditional form of invulnerability. But it would at least better warrant the current cooldown if it was like that.