Guild Wars 2

Im a player playing a guardian and i find, as many other guardians, that the shield is really badly designed as none of its skills actually BLOCK! shields are made and used for blocking and since Shields dont have a block rate per se many people that do like using a shield find it kinda pointless cos in GW2 it doesnt actually block, in fact it blocks even less than the other off-hands available. Please GW2 devs and team look into this and consider suggestions and a re-design. I leave a post in which its better explained by Dragonhero.1852:
I love the guardian for the most part but one thing bothers me alot about its design. You can only block with one weapon. You can’t even use a shield for that it’s vary purpose?
The Guardian is melee class without block skills. Sure we have Aegis but due to its difficulty to control and long recharge time we often cant use it when we actually need to. Yes some of the weapons have blind skills but those cant be used to trigger our blocking traits. Probably the biggest issue is that you CANT EVEN USE A SHIELD TO BLOCK!. A shield is a device created specifically for that vary purpose and the guardian cant use it for that? Sure we can block ranged attacks with it but thats a mute point when we are usually fighting in melee range. You can say your supposed to dodge all you want but thats not the point. Their are some times when its a much better option to block than dodge but when you cant do it that can become a real issue. You can argue about originality but the when a design choice gets in the way of functionality it becomes a big issue.
Their is even a way to fix this easily. The mace a weapon that is terrible at blocking in real life is the only weapon that you can block with as a guardian. I purpose swapping the Protectors strike and the shield of Judgment ability’s. Giving the block to the shield and the buff/attack to the mace this wont mix up the mace/shield style it will just swap the functionality of 3 and 4. While adding a block to the Sword/Shield and Scepter/Shield styles. Creating three styles capable of blocking.
I would further suggest not swapping the names or cool-downs just the skill functionality. As the names would better fit each others functionality and having the guardian being able to pull off a manual block with Aegis might be a little Op if the block doesn’t have good cool-down. Also I have read complaints about the Shield of Judgments protection buff having too short a duration for its cool-down.
Thank you very much!

Oddly enough for the guardian they made the focus a melee weapon and the shield a ranged weapon; pretty backwards and they should switch their skills IMO.

If you’re locking for weapon skills that prevent attacks from landing try sword + focus; you get 2 skills that block and 2 skills that blind.

yah I know about that, it would be better if the GW2 team considered a re-design of the shield and switched its skills for the focus once, it would make way more sense. No one wants to have a shield that doesnt block melee attacks, its jsut ridiculous and actually kinda sad cos as a Guardian, who is more of like a paladin class, and without having dual weild, having a shield and a sword looks really cool.

I agree with this, maybe they could make it similar to utility skills where you could swap a few shield skills out to focus on an aggressive or defensive style. Or maybe just make a dedicated blocking skill for guardians shield.

I second that.
Also a cone defensive buff that is number 4 just seem silly to me. We are always in front of our party, never behind.

Making the shield into a weapon and not a piece of armor was anets first mistake. I think they wtched 300 too many times. “Our Arrows Will Blot Out The Sun!” Haha not with Shield of Absorbtion they won`t!

I agree that a shield with no chance to block attacks or any significant increase to defense is pretty much not worth using, I`m carrying something the size of a refridgerator door and the defense equals that of a lvl 10 breastplate. But yet a cowbell looking focus on a squigly stick will give me a blocking skill.

Anyone remember the Chappelle episode when Tyrone Biggums finds the camera with the power to see the futre and peoples thoughts? This my vision of the guardian skills dev in the same exact situation.

(Guardian Skills Dev find magic camera)
(Voice of Guardian Lead Dev calling to Guardian Skills Dev) Hey man, did you ever think of anything useful for the shield. I know whatever yopu decide on is gonna be friggin BOSS!
( Thoughts going through the mind of the Guardian Skills Dev that exact moment) I want some crack!

Guardian is exactly what it says. A Guardian protects people.
The 4 gives Protections to your allies.
The 5 knocks back all enemies in the area and creates a bubble that lasts a good amount of time (If you time it).
This bubble then reflects all projectiles from entering the bubble.

For example, my guild loved me to death when I found out that in Ascalonian Catacombs Explorable Mode, the first Boss’ attacks can be blocked as he throws projectiles which pull you into an instant kill.
So we timed everything perfectly and I PROTECTED (Hint word protected) then from the attacks with the Shield of Absorption (key 5) and nobody got hurt.

The shield works great, HOWEVER for some reason the cooldowns are WAY too long.

The whole sort of metaphorical way to think about it is that the shield represents protection, and being a GUARDIAN you PROTECT OTHERS with the shield.

However, Guardians don’t really work as intended because the Cooldowns on these shield attacks are WAY too long. 40 seconds before I can protect my allies for a few seconds (Not including melee damage).
With the way the Shield works now, the 5 needs to have a 10 second cooldown, and the 4 a 8 second cooldown. Then the Guardian will truly be a Guardian.

What good is a shield that doesn`t block? what good is a shield that doesn`t increase your defense by a good amount? Why in the world would they put a proctection buff on a shield instead of an aoe block? Would kind of make sense to block 3 attacks with your shield over seconds instead of just reducing damage by 33% wouldn`t you think?

That would be along the lines of warriors being able to equip a gun but only use the knockback skill with it. What`s the point of a gun if you cannot shoot it? what`s the point of a shield if you cannot block with it?

Give the shield a significant def boost and trash the protection buff for the focus block skill with an aoe effect. Then it might start to seem more like what a shield should be doing.

Banewrath.5107:

What good is a shield that doesn`t block? what good is a shield that doesn`t increase your defense by a good amount? Why in the world would they put a proctection buff on a shield instead of an aoe block? Would kind of make sense to block 3 attacks with your shield over seconds instead of just reducing damage by 33% wouldn`t you think?

That would be along the lines of warriors being able to equip a gun but only use the knockback skill with it. What`s the point of a gun if you cannot shoot it? what`s the point of a shield if you cannot block with it?

Give the shield a significant def boost and trash the protection buff for the focus block skill with an aoe effect. Then it might start to seem more like what a shield should be doing.

You need to think metaphorically and less logically.
Guardian: Guards people
Shield: Protects things
Therefor, the Guardian using a shield protects his allies, by putting “Protection” on allies, and by using the 5 to protect them.

The warrior’s shield blocks things, because they do not guard others. They fight for themselves, therefor they only block for themselves.

Musta.9803:

Banewrath.5107:

What good is a shield that doesn`t block? what good is a shield that doesn`t increase your defense by a good amount? Why in the world would they put a proctection buff on a shield instead of an aoe block? Would kind of make sense to block 3 attacks with your shield over seconds instead of just reducing damage by 33% wouldn`t you think?

That would be along the lines of warriors being able to equip a gun but only use the knockback skill with it. What`s the point of a gun if you cannot shoot it? what`s the point of a shield if you cannot block with it?

Give the shield a significant def boost and trash the protection buff for the focus block skill with an aoe effect. Then it might start to seem more like what a shield should be doing.

You need to think metaphorically and less logically.
Guardian: Guards people
Shield: Protects things
Therefor, the Guardian using a shield protects his allies, by putting “Protection” on allies, and by using the 5 to protect them.

The warrior’s shield blocks things, because they do not guard others. They fight for themselves, therefor they only block for themselves.

Would an aoe block not be protecting or guarding someone? If this is how anet thinks when they design skills, I can see why everything is so kittened up. Pretty soon we will see armor penetration on swords and bleed damage on hammers with this line of thinking.

Musta.9803:

Banewrath.5107:

What good is a shield that doesn`t block? what good is a shield that doesn`t increase your defense by a good amount? Why in the world would they put a proctection buff on a shield instead of an aoe block? Would kind of make sense to block 3 attacks with your shield over seconds instead of just reducing damage by 33% wouldn`t you think?

That would be along the lines of warriors being able to equip a gun but only use the knockback skill with it. What`s the point of a gun if you cannot shoot it? what`s the point of a shield if you cannot block with it?

Give the shield a significant def boost and trash the protection buff for the focus block skill with an aoe effect. Then it might start to seem more like what a shield should be doing.

You need to think metaphorically and less logically.
Guardian: Guards people
Shield: Protects things
Therefor, the Guardian using a shield protects his allies, by putting “Protection” on allies, and by using the 5 to protect them.

The warrior’s shield blocks things, because they do not guard others. They fight for themselves, therefor they only block for themselves.

We are not saying a Guardian should’t protect people, we arent saying the skills the shield has are BAD per se. What we are saying is that the shield skills are not appropiate for a shield, whiel we have a focus that does what a shield has to do, it would be a better design decition to switch the skills of the focu for the skills of the shield.
If the DEVs team doesn’t want to do this then maybe it would be cool to re-design the skills for the shield and make them more block related and not jsut reflections and protection for ranged, cos honestly shield dont do that and its quite lame.

Please GW2 team and Dev’s look into this and try to solve it, its a pressing issue for many ppl playing guardians

Shield should be used for blcking melee mainly while focus should be used for making bubbles and blocking incoming projectiles. A focus is something youw ould use with a scepter, from far away , so blocking projectiles would be useful, while a shield is a more melee approach and should block close quarter attacks

Would it be acceptable to have passive block ratio? absolutely but it would have to be fairly low since Guardians are hard to take down already. They do get aegis every 45 seconds so I guess thats Areanets “block ratio” design but who’s to say the road less taken was a good choice?

yah we dont actually ask for a passive block ratio since we know the Guardian has quite an arsenal of damage mitigation skills, what we are asking actually is for a re-design of the shield, cos as it is at the moment the shield doesnt do what it should. Its a melee wepon for close quarters combat and the skills it has are useful for a caster. It would be better if the skill line the focus has was switched tot he shield (or at least the second focus skill) and the shield skills given to the focus (or at least the second shield skill).

any other thoughts?

I never use the shield, it just bugs me. I agree that 4 isn’t sensible for it, and the bubble is great except it moves my target out of range of my sword, and inhibits me from fighting. If the bubble moved everyone BUT my target, I would love it.

yah shields are badly designed and do not serve the purpose of a shield

Roll a warrior.

You can use shield stance to block things.

i dont want to cos i prefer Guardians and as I prefer a guardian im posting a suggestion given the fact that many people Do share the opinion that the shield is really badly designed for the guardian