Guild Wars 2

Hey, let me first say, that I love hammer-scrapper. Its got a lot of combat flow, intuitive combos, and generally fun gameplay.

Now here’s the thing. Shield and Hammer each have two defensive abilities. Hammer has Electrowhirl and Shock Shield, which do reflect and block respectively. Shield has Magnet Shield/Inversion and Static/Throw Shield.

Electrowhirl gives 1 second of reflect while damaging with a 6 second cooldown. Magnet shield gives 3 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown.

Shock shield gives 2 seconds of block and has a 20 second cooldown, and Static shield gives 1.5 seconds of block and has a 40 second cooldown.

At the end of the day, I mostly like my weapon choices to actually be choices. I suppose Static shield can give you an insane interrupt on specific bosses, but so does the thunderclap rocketcharge combo. Any ideas on when to use shield over hammer?

Well you got range. The problem is that the pistol is inherently best used as a condi weapon in combination with an offhand pistol. This go very poorly with the sheild.

So the answer is – nothing. It offer absolutely nothing.

If the engie could dual weapon, then pistol/shield/hammer could work great. But he cant. So meh.

With shield, you don’t have to take the Scrapper traitline to use it. Also, the pistol gives ranged ability, though not much, as the above poster said.

The Scrapper traitline is quite good, but two of it’s minor traits feel designed for PvP mainly, and don’t really do anything for you unless you’re in a group. Having alternative minor traits to pick too would be nice.

Also, the Magnetic Shield can be used for knockback, something the hammer’s reflect cannot do. That being said…the hammer’s block and reflect skills overall are superior, at the cost of having one traitline locked for it and less ranged ability.

I used Pistol/Shield build when I play support in WvW. Its better at performing for a support role than hammer because the shield 4 is great for the projectile reflect, but better for the blast finisher flip over skill, which can be used on water fields to heal allies, which hammer can’t do. Plus the shield 4 lasts 3 seconds so if needed it can block a full Rapid Fire or a few autos rather than a couple shots of a RF and 1 auto.

Shield 5 is great too as its a block, though short you have to remember it stuns too, and this stun can go through mesmers Blurred Frenzy and a Thief’s Pistol Whip, so even though they are evading they will get stunned when they try to hit you with it because the stun goes through the evade. Its great in these situations because mesmer/thief are the gank classes so they will try to take down the back/supporting enemy and this stops them somewhat. The flip over skill is also a bit better than Hammer 5 because though Hammer 5 stuns, the shield 5 dazes on the way to and the way back, so it can strip 2 stacks of stab, or if the target only has 1 stack it will strip then interrupt them finishing a downed ally.

Also all the shield skills can be used to the full potential before using the flip over skills. So I can block 3 seconds worth of projectiles with shield 4 then blast after if its well timed. So say you’re charging a LB ranger you can reflect all of the projectiles then knockback when you’re close.

Shield definitely better for support, for offense I’d stick with hammer. I’ve made a few builds which a power pistol/shield work well, but the build uses pistol/shield for utility and not main damage, I’ve still crit 3-4k with Poison Dart Volley before on some squishier players though, but I used P/S with a FT for the most part.

For pvp/wvw in my opinion, shield offers nothing good. WHy ? easily … it has too long colddown. The skills can be good but offhand pistol is better … and hammer is much better for the colddown factor. I don’t love hammer

Hmm…most notable thing I’ve found here is that Static shield goes through pistolwhip/blurred frenzy. For stripping Stab, Shield 5 might strip two, but remember that hammer5+hammer2 strips 2-4 as well and has a shorter cd. It might require timing the two together, but its an easier trick than getting a full channel on shield5 and throwing it. Its also nice to be able to reflect a full rapid fire. The knockback is nice on shield4, but these days there’s so much stab it feels more like a hail mary than an actual control tool. How many water fields does engie have? Healing Turret, Supply Crate overcharge, Healing Turret Toolbelt, and elixer gun toolbelt? I suppose it certainly enough to reliably heal off shield 4.

Shield offers nothing over hammer. The question should be “what does shield offer over pistol”. It’s more defensive and rarely used, only for exceptions.

I agree that the shield requires some major buffs. The cd are too long, block, reflect and utility in general too low. I mean look what they did to the guard shield, it was terrible, after the minor buffs it became awesome! That’s the QoL changes I want for engi shield too. To make it a good weapon, even for power. Sure pistol mainhand offers no damage, but at least it got a blind. Maybe pistol 2 should get some love too … aim … heh.

Greez!
- Ziggy

As people said above, it’s Shield + pistol over hammer. So you are looking at a condition or hybrid build (celestial). Hammer is a power build so it gives you more vuln and some defense. Shield is purely defensive when traited. I would say that in the current PvP meta, shield 4 is good for reflecting rangers, dragon hunters, pistol thieves (etc) since they will be fighting you out of hammer range. The protection + reflect is good plus the knockback if they are on point.

Shield five is good for AoE daze on hit plus blocking and it has a range interrupt. Overall, I find that celestial is the way to go for pistol/shield. Soldier hammer is better and carrion p/p is good.

carrion p/p means you play without incendiary powder .. is it correct ? is not it a great dps loss ? how do you set with carrion ?

Sorry, I should have said viper.

viper is really a high dps setup … it is ok for pve but i don’t think it can work in spvp / wvw … you die too fast ….