Guild Wars 2

Can anyone tell me if AoE attacks or other magical attacks are reflected by Swirling Winds, or is it just physical projectiles like arrows, daggers, axes, bullets, catapult/treb stones?

As far as I can tell, it’s just physical attacks. I’ve tried using it when a trebuchet or other piece of siege is under attack and it looks like magical damage still gets through

machine attacks are not influenced by projectile destruction/reflection ability (tested many time with different ability but without any effect)…

all the phisical projectile finisher are effected by them and some other skill too (no GT as far as I’ve seen… but skill like fireball that is a targeted AoE are reflected/destroyed by them)

probably it only works on ranged targeted skill that have a projectile animation regardless of they being single target or aoe (note that blade trail from warrior GS is reflected too)

AoE’s and ground-targetted attacks are not effected by projectile blocking / reflection (Winds only blocks / destroys projectiles, it doesn’t reflect). Unless the AoE in question is not a true AoE, but rather a series of projectiles launched at intervals / randomly (like Guardian’s Whirling Blades). Beams are also unaffected by reflection, though I’m not sure if they can be blocked.

Also, it only works on projectiles that hit the shield directly. Not an issue with Swirling Winds since that covers a large area as it is, but if you use something like Magnetic Shield for instance and a projectile with a splash AoE lands near you but not on top of you, it’ll still do splash damage and you won’t block or reflect it.

I am pretty sure that swirling winds is also not friendly.
It may be visual but i am pretty sure it destroys the flame bolts from the great sword autoattack.