Guild Wars 2

I’ve had a few ideas about how to make shield a more attractive choice, since it’s very plain in flavor, and base cooldown reduction isn’t cutting it. it’s also not really worth it compared to Focus or Torch for that matter. So here it is, an attempt at making shield a better choice, as well as making the trait for shield a little more fun and interesting.

I like it! I’m just confused as to what synergy the extended duration for conditions would give, but great use of resistance, and even better use of the reaction skill.

Would be great to have some interesting shield skills, the current ones are very boring.

these changes would be great! the shield is so iconic for guardians, it’s so sad that our current skills are so lackluster.

although having the symbol of protection on that skill 5 might be a little overboard. a block, group aegis, damage, and group protection is REALLY strong.

Anything to make guardians use shield!

Also, with the new tech, it would be interesting to see them implement something like Rev’s Field of the Mists on the shield.

Maybe on Shield of Judgement? 1st phase could be a light field that reflects projectiles. Then you can detonate it to damage foes and give allies protection/resistance (maybe even Aegis when traited?)

Personally I think shield of absorption should be scrapped completely. (there are enough “CREATE DOME AT TARGET” skills in this game)
What if they were given something like a mantra with a different effect each cast?

Resonant Wave:
-Bash your weapon against your shield 3 times, each time causing a different more climactic effect.
1st cast: Heals allies around you a small amount, gives them stability.
2nd cast: Heals allies slightly more, cleansing x amount of conditions
3rd cast: Heals allies again (heal is increased if they are hit with both previous waves), enemies are pushed back.

OR

Enticing Light:
- Your shield begins to glow bright. The next enemy to strike you is blinded and taunted towards you. If you no one hits you you may cast this again, you unleash the light around you, causing blind and vulnerability.

these are probably overpowered… but eh, the more ideas the better.

As of right now Anet has abit of a split between the on block effects and the on aegis effects
Focus is our solo block weapon
Shield needs to be our group Aegis weapon
Number 4 needs to be for helping close range allies
Number 5 needs to be for helping long range allies (keep that knockback but let us not root so that we can keep on the pressure)

If they allow the moves to be more CCish than getting a toughness buff from our trait would actually be useful since enemies offense would be supressed unless they targeted us first

OR WE COULD JUST GIVE IT AN EFFECT WHENEVER WE ACTIVATE A VIRTUE (had to caps that just kuz) And then we could just switch its spot with the hammer trait.

Wait.. conditions duration? dont like it… since meta now is condi bunker guard it would make sense but that also would be only viable with that build and thus limiting the game just play for condi. (funny how everyone is tunning to easy spam of condi since pressure makes easy to stress up most players) even i ended droppign guardian to play dd ele, condi engie, necro condis…

Btw i have no problem killing bunkers or forcing them out of circle, that would even make them squishier.
Shield users have very low mobility most of the time, since they also use focus, and high mobility burst classes can down easilly any guardian bunker if they dont spam randomly their skills.

I would Merge SD with SiN and add the new trait in place of SiN, by taking out the 20% shield CD and adding anything else, or making boon durations % of your vitality or toughness, since guardian is heavy dependable of boons for a good performance.
Also added some new bonus to retrebutive armor for better “interaction” between radiant defender and retrebutive armor

Loved your skills on shield, the shield root is a ver yeasy way to get youself killed, a guardian that gets spiked by heavy AOE at that time might not have time for reaction :P

Thomas.8130:

although having the symbol of protection on that skill 5 might be a little overboard. a block, group aegis, damage, and group protection is REALLY strong.

Well it requires you to actually block an attack to create the symbol(not hard at all), the way it’s set up makes it a very good competitor over focus and torch, and keeps it’s signature group support design. By having a symbol on shield, this will give one hander builds some synergy with Zeal, and Honor (pretty much all minors in zeal are symbol related), and things like the scepter trait seems okay(could still be changed to something more useful.). This is also why I bumped up the cooldown back to 30s to help balance it out. Not to mention it doesn’t last too long unless you’ve traited for the symbol trait in honor(For this symbol just think of the hammer symbol duration as base), and requires you to position near allies to give the the short duration of protection, as well as anticipate where and when you’ll be struck.

nice job man! i really like Radiant defender

Lucentfir.7430:

I’ve had a few ideas about how to make shield a more attractive choice, since it’s very plain in flavor, and base cooldown reduction isn’t cutting it. it’s also not really worth it compared to Focus or Torch for that matter. So here it is, an attempt at making shield a better choice, as well as making the trait for shield a little more fun and interesting.

These look amazing!, but I agree lets just get rid of the dome all together. The 1st 2 skills would work well with guardian. The first skill could be shield 4 and the second would be shield 5. I like the shield trait as well!

I dislike the idea of shield increasing condition or boon duration. That seems like its kinda stepping on the toes of other weapons (staff and torch) and I would rather see it buffed in the one area it is supposed to reign supreme. Active Group Defense.
A Burst Heal. Aegis. Blind is possible but I would rather not see it since that usually goes along with Blades and VoJ. So besides Aegis and burst heal some kind of CC like taunt. Resistance is ok but it seems kinda futile since we have other ways of ACTUALLY clearing the condition for good.

With so many shield comply, INC more CD reducer !!!

>:D

Wow I love this a lot. Though I agree with Silhouette about the about boon duration. I’d love some more aegis supply for my allies or even that burst heal he/she mentioned.

Great skill rework ideas! It maintains the theme of shield while making it more viable and giving it an ACTUAL BLOCK (we’re going to be the only class with shield that can’t block….).

Seriously, they need to re-work shield. I absolutely love shield, and I’ve tried my hardest to make it work. In every case that I’ve found some minor success with it, I’m better off just taking focus instead. There are PLENTY of things that could be done to shield to make it viable/useable. Lets just cross our fingers and hope that anet takes a look at our pleas here after they’re done developing HoT. I highly doubt anything will be done until then :/

Silhouette.5631:

I dislike the idea of shield increasing condition or boon duration. That seems like its kinda stepping on the toes of other weapons (staff and torch) and I would rather see it buffed in the one area it is supposed to reign supreme. Active Group Defense.
A Burst Heal. Aegis. Blind is possible but I would rather not see it since that usually goes along with Blades and VoJ. So besides Aegis and burst heal some kind of CC like taunt. Resistance is ok but it seems kinda futile since we have other ways of ACTUALLY clearing the condition for good.

The things I will say when it comes to shield trait versus actual boon duration, is it would only effect boons that are currently active/on you and allies you hit and only extends it two more seconds. Where as actual boon duration improves initial application without having to take another step to use a skill. The condition duration extension is so it can play into other traits and impairment conditions from allies and yourself which can help support your team by furthering things like cripple, immob or chill.

I’ve thought about adding a stun or daze on the shield for better control though I felt to really capture a support aspect with shield, the boon and condition extensions were a bit better. Not to mention you do have a form of interrupt with Shield 5’s detonate active, daze not doing much for both skills, and making shield skills stun just feels over the top to me

. Regarding Resistance, we do have a lot of team clears though it’s mainly on shout builds, we’re also making shield a better choice to compete with our other off hands in terms of usefulness for all builds though mainly for more support. The resistance is there so you can possibly save your allies from things like condition bombs, and ultimately relieving pressure. In this aspect I’d find Shield of Judgement’s Resistance application to be a lot more useful team/group wise than focus 4 with bounce.

(Edit: and thanks all! Glad to see alot of you like this idea of a shield rework.)

Lucentfir, I see your point with the extension of boon duration, but I still disagree with the extension of condition duration. This doesn’t thematically match the concept behind guardian’s shield (group support, and cc). Adding extra boon duration would be great for giving our team mates additional protection up time, as well as juicing up our virtue activations. Perhaps cleansing conditions, or dazing enemies on shield #4 would be a better fit over increasing condition duration on shield?

Arcaedus.7290:

Lucentfir, I see your point with the extension of boon duration, but I still disagree with the extension of condition duration. This doesn’t thematically match the concept behind guardian’s shield (group support, and cc). Adding extra boon duration would be great for giving our team mates additional protection up time, as well as juicing up our virtue activations. Perhaps cleansing conditions, or dazing enemies on shield #4 would be a better fit over increasing condition duration on shield?

Mmm like i said it was part of the thought process of the trait I was making. You’re kind of right about condition duration extention though not really fitting with Guardian’s theme. Daze can be a substitute if it’s the better idea.