Guild Wars 2

Armor Type: Heavy
Weapon Types: Sword, Dagger, Scepter, Greatsword, Torch, Warhorn, Spear, Trident
Description: Vanguard would be a profession that wears heavy armor and uses wards and fields in battle.

Wards Mechanics: Similar effect as in GW1, except it is projected around your character like an aura-type effect that helps yourself and allies and in some cases harm foes inside it.

Ward Rules:
-Only 1 ward can be activated at once, using another one will remove the previous one and send it on cooldown.

-Similar to Necromancer’s Summons, once a ward is activated, it is always active until canceled (or removed/dispelled), and once removed, begin the cooldown on that skill.

-Casting a ward will give yourself an icon with a number, everytime you get hit, that number decreases, once the number reaches 0, the ward is dispelled. (Example: Cast a ward with a value of 25, once you get hit 25 times, you lose that ward, will call these Charges for now)

-Has its own category, like auras, they are not considered a boon or debuff.

.

Possible Ward Skills: (Either have utility wards or have 1 ward per weapon type)
Ward of Regeneration (Heal Skill): 25 Charges, 900 Radius, 30 second Cooldown, Inital self heal like every heal skills and the ward effect: Grants 3s Regeneration to allies inside the ward every 5 seconds.

Ward of Shielding: 10 Charges, 600 Radius, 90 second Cooldown, Grants a random 5 second aura every 5 seconds.

Ward of Movement: 10 Charges, 300 Radius, 60 second Cooldown, Grants 3s Swiftness to allies and 3s Cripple to Enemies inside the ward every 5 seconds.

Ward of Battle: 15 Charges, 400 radius, 45 second Cooldown, Grants a random 3s boon to allies in the ward every 5 seconds.

Ward of Corruption: 15 Charges, 600 radius, 45 seconds Cooldown, Grants Poison, Bleed or Burning for 3 seconds to Enemies inside the ward every 5 seconds.

Frost Ward: 10 Charges, 300 Radius, 60 second Cooldown, Grants Chill for 3 seconds to Enemies inside the ward every 5 seconds.

Nullifying Ward: 10 Charges, 400 radius, 60 seconds Cooldown, Removes a debuff on allies and a boon from Enemies every 5 seconds.

Paragon Ward (Elite): 5 Charges, X Radius, 240 second Cooldown, Grants the effect of every wards at once.

.

Some possible utility skills:
“Go for the eyes!” (Shout): Very similar from the GW1 version, makes all allies’ next attack cause blind.

“Destroy Them!” (Shout): Grants 3s quickness to all allies.

“Finish Them!” (Shout): Grants +25% damage to all allies against enemies under 50% health for 10 seconds.

Signet of Leadership: Passive: Deal 3% more damage for each ally near you. Active: Grant yourself a random boon for each ally near you. (Max 12%, which is a full party, doesn’t count yourself)

Corrupt Ward (Counter): Convert a enemy ward, giving them 25 charges, 600 radius, and preventing them from using another ward until that one is gone. Causes the enemy’s allies and himself to take damage every 5 seconds. To remove the charges, the enemy has to attack 25 times (25 hits, doesn’t have to hit anything to count).

Boon Converter (Counter): Places a debuff that causes every new boon received to become debuffs instead.

Fast Metabolism (Counter): Places a boon on yourself that causes every new debuff received to become boons instead.

So confused are wards the class mechanic or just heal/utility skills? They seem to make more sense as utilies.

Not sure you need charges as it sounds like the pulse so you just need the duration and pulse times.

If its a class mechanic am I right in interpreting it as one ward that changes with the wespon equiped that you have off most of the time popping when you get incombat hoping it doesn’t run out before combat ends or face a hefty cooldown. Seems a bit off potentially either weak or overpowered if the duration power or duratiin isn’t just right

Yup wards would be the Vanguard’s class mechanic. Either have 1 per weapon set or have them in utilities, similar to mesmer’s phantasms, there would be a ward heal and elite skill either way.

The charges is mainly to give a better form of balancing, especially in pvp, if you couldn’t break the Shielding/Frost wards in any way it could become quite overpowered.

The ward stays active in and out of combat, it only wears off if you get hit X number of times or if it gets removed.

The thing is the game considers you an ally so any that grant bonds would just cycle straight thru

I designed it so the wards affect you as well, exception being the signet skill.

Take you movement ward.

As is it would grant you 3 seconds of swifness every 5 seconds for 50 seconds. It would then shut off for 60 seconds. Then start over again. There would be no holding it. It would trigger for 50 seconds straight. You would be stuck in a 110 second loop that never ends.

Add to it that your movement speed when it is up would be in flux could lead to motion sickness with the rapid swings in speed

Hm… I don’t understand how you got the 50 seconds duration and 110 second loop?

Ward of Movement has 10 charges, grants you 3s swiftness every 5 seconds, and has a 60 second cooldown once is it dispelled/cancelled.

My bad rereading it for the 5th time I finally registered the on hit part. Had been registering the always on part and was seeing the every x seconds as a pulse like a well or symbol. Not as an internal cooldown.

That being said why even have a full cooldown? In fights you will still end up in the loops as you will likely get hit each time the icd is up. Meaning that after 50 to 60 seconds of buffs you will have 60 seconds of nothing. Would be better to adjust the icd for each to balance than worry about number of charges vs downtime. Especially as you can only have one at a time. That aso makes little sense to have the auras as both class mech and skills.

Too me if now seems even clunkier than I originally perceived. Los of timers and counters to watch. Goes against the design philosophy of playing the game not the interface.

Well with 2 weapon sets you’d have 1 on each weapon, so if one breaks, you can use your other one. Same would apply if they were utilities, equip 2+ of them.