Guild Wars 2

I feel the shield is in bad state atm. Cooldows are too long and shield skills aren’t that good.

Suggestions:
Magnetic Shield
- Reduce cooldown to 15s.

Static Shield
- Reduce cooldown to 20s.
- Increase duration to 3s.

Throw Shield
- Unblockable.

Over Shield
- 50% damage reduction to 5 nearby allies while channeling shield skill. Radius 600.
- Remove 20% recharge reduction.

guildabd.6529:

I feel the shield is in bad state atm. Cooldows are too long and shield skills aren’t that good.

Suggestions:
Magnetic Shield
- Reduce cooldown to 15s.

Static Shield
- Reduce cooldown to 20s.
- Increase duration to 3s.

Throw Shield
- Unblockable.

Over Shield
- 50% damage reduction to 5 nearby allies while channeling shield skill. Radius 600.
- Remove 20% recharge reduction.

For the most part I agree with this post. Shield is… poor atm. With the access to unblockables on various classes (except for the most part engineers) this doesn’t even do well against warriors and especially necromancers.

I would instead not increase the block duration for Static Shield since that would probably make it too strong given it has as secondary use (Throw Shield).

As for the Over Shield trait I would change that to the following:
After blocking successfully your next attack is unblockable.
Reflected attacks deal 10% more damage and move 50% faster (lasts for as long as that individual reflect skill is active; it takes the used skill’s reflect duration as its own).
ICD 20s.

Unrelated to topic but still related to the trait line and spirit of this post as well… Consider making Experimental Turrets drop Throw Gunk when a turret is destroyed as well. This might make turrets (and their traits) more viable (regardless of weapon choice). With this change at least turret trait choices would also have some synergy with GM explosives trait lines choices as well #BuildDiversity.

Wahoo

Yea, I agree. The shield is too weak but even with CDR it’s still weak :/ The abilities are lackluster for the current meta.

I would like to see something unique, heavily defensive with the shield.

Shield #4 shoulc be a small dome (max 120 ø) that reflects (more reliable), wich then on second activation pushes back foes, further the longer you haven’t activated it. You can freely move during the channel, but not attack. Ofc still a blast finisher, but if you use it as a small knockback and short reflect, means if you activate it before 0.5s have passed, you get 2 blasts. 15s CD.

Shield #5 would be cool if it grants you and nearby allies a shock aura instead of stunning people directly! You yourself will still be able to block for 3s. On 2nd activation you release an EMP: a 2s stun that increases in aoe range the longer you channeled your block -> 1s = 120 ø, 2s = 240 ø and 3s = 360 ø. 25s CD.

But wahoo … just dreams((

Greez!
- Ziggy!

In pve at least, shield would have to be completely bonkers before people would actually start using it. The problem is that the only main hand you can use is pistol, and if you’re using pistol then you’re playing condi, and if you’re playing condi then you might as well run offhand pistol because blowtorch is already completely insane.

In fact, the current shield skills are actually pretty good if you discount their long cds. Shield 4 is a reflect, area knockback, and blast finisher. Shield 5 is a block, potential stun, area daze, and projectile finisher. Damage isn’t great but the utility is definitely there.

The real problem is that engineer has no weapon that can feasibly go with shield. If engineer had a main hand weapon that did nothing but deal good power damage then shield would be the go-to offhand, even if it didn’t get buffed at all from where it is now. So hopefully the next elite spec is a 1H power damage weapon!

Wahoo

I used to play with pistol / shield in “hard” fractals in the old days as a power engi. You don’t really lose much dps due to your kits. In fact, back then you only hade rifle 3 and 5.

Today you have hammer 2, 4 and 5. If the support of pistol 3 and shield 4 and 5 outweigth the damage increase of the hammer compared bomb auto, you could easily use it wihtout bad feelings.

I’d like to see pistol 2 buffed, so it has more power ratio, is faster and WHY THE kitten DOES IT SPREAD !? cough

greez

i say reduce cooldown (15-25s in that range)

no recharge reduction in inventions trait – give protection and maybe resistance – its defensive so it could be nice to have both.

compared to the same skills of other class then cooldown would be ok.
compared to hammer that every 6s reflects and every 20s blocks (while attacking) and attack too (in melee does both) is still to much but at least could give a sense of using shield again.

pistol 2 and 3 could be a bit buffed in power and behaviour (2 with that poison spread – circle too )

or… increase from 900 to 1000/1050 range as ehm was promised in baseline traits