Guild Wars 2

Wow, what is pulsing blade turn?

Ex-DAoC players will be very familiar with this skill type. It’s an aegis that is refreshed at a regular interval, primarily used to defend allies from incoming attacks.

Why should a guardian block attacks aimed at allies anyway? Oh wait.

Right. I was just looking at a piece of profession art and thought it ironic that the guardian is represented by the shield and mace. The mace can block an attack but the shield is a pretty bad weapon for negating attacks aimed at allies, or even yourself.

GW1 had a warrior skill called Protector’s Defense, and I thought GW2 could bring back a similar skill on the guardian shield on slot #4. This would be called Symbol of Aegis.

The basic symbol would last 3s with a 20s cooldown and apply aegis for 1s on creation and 3 further times on each pulse on up to 5 allies. Like other symbols it would tick for damage and be a light field.

Existing traits in Honor and Valor would allow the duration to be extended to 5s and the cooldown reduced to 16s, radius increased and pulse healing added like any other symbol.

Think about this symbol in conjunction with existing main-hand weapons: mace, sword, scepter. Defend your allies while using any of these weapons!

Does guardian shield still need some improvements? Definetly.
Should it be like OP suggested?
No. Nonono. Just think about it- a symbol granting a short lasting Aegis every second with an uptime of 5/16 when traited. So regarding PvE group play… take three guards, add just a tiny bit of + boon duration and what you get? Perma Aegis for the entire party + party wide heal.

For all and everybody then can do everything without any effort. Dodging? Pfffff. Having to pay a minimum attention what the enemy does? Nah, why should I anymore? New lazy man’s meta confirmed- 3 shield guards + 2 “whatever is top dps at that moment”.
No thanks. There’s already plenty of input on how to make a guardians shield a solid and viable choice- this aint one of them, sorry.

I think it’d be a great skill, providing it’s properly balanced of course. Traited with Writ of Persistence, a CDR trait, and Pure of Heart would probably make it pretty broken, but increasing the cooldown or placing the skill on something like a conjured weapon would probably negate abuse. Alternatively, if it provides too much bunker potential, then the symbol could just not affect the user (à la monk runes).

Nash.2681:

New lazy man’s meta confirmed- 3 shield guards + 2 “whatever is top dps at that moment”.

Three guardians traited for that skill on one team would be a pretty bad idea even with permanent aegis on one point. After all, there’s more than one point/objective in a match. I can see how it might be abusable though, I guess.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Nash.2681:

New lazy man’s meta confirmed- 3 shield guards + 2 “whatever is top dps at that moment”.

Three guardians traited for that skill on one team would be a pretty bad idea even with permanent aegis on one point. After all, there’s more than one point/objective in a match. I can see how it might be abusable though, I guess.

Should have mentioned that I’m talking from a PvE only perspective, my bad (gonna edit this in my post).
You’re correct that the impact on sPvP would prbly be lower since splitting up is important there.

Not perma Aegis per say. You only get 1 aegis per second, technically you can get hit numerous times between each Aegis application.

This is what makes it overpowered:
-Aegis gives retaliation
Perma team retaliation
-Shattered Aegis: Aegis can hit up to 500 damage or 1k if it crits.
-Burn on block
-Aegis heals when it ends
In 3s that’s 3k heal
-Writ of Persistence: Symbols lasts 2 seconds
This just broke the game

Any variation of this is very much unbalanced, especially on a full guard team.

The closest you can get to this is Sanctuary. It used to be an elite that was a bigger bubble and lasted longer, until it became a utility skill instead.