Guild Wars 2

I am trying to get the darn thing to detonate and heal me/others.

But when I hit 5 the channel ability is 1 1/4 seconds. I hit 5 again and nothing happens.

Tried holding down 5 then releasing, again does not detonate.

Is the ability bugged? Be great to have an aoe heal like the tooltip says..

Hopefully it is user error and I am just doing something wrong..

I’m in the same boat. Don’t think I’ve ever had it work either lol

It always works perfectly with me. In what area are you using it? I had issues with it in the past, but only in PvE content.

I didn’t think shield #5 was supposed to heal. I thought it was push foes back and absorb projectiles…

Just tried it to see if there was an issue introduced… seems to be working. You can really just double tab 5 to test it, you should even see an extra shield bubble animation burst out.

If that does not work, unsure how it could be user error.

Hmm ok will try a double tap of #5 for the heal and see..

I thought I tried that, but will give it another shot

Lysico.4906:

Hmm ok will try a double tap of #5 for the heal and see..

I thought I tried that, but will give it another shot

Yes, number 5 on the shield will offer a pretty decent AoE heal if you hit the button again while the bubble is up. It will collapse the bubble early though.

Part of the problem why this may not be activating for some people comes down to the timing. If you hit the button too quickly the game may not register the action and the heal won’t activate. Once you activate the bubble give it about 1 second before hitting the button again to activate the heal.

At about 1000 healing power i think it’s about 1500 healing to every ally within a medium sized radius.

Ok, got it to work. It is more just a timing issue.. if you double tap #5 it does not work..

You need to hit 5 and if you want a heal, you wait like 1/2 second and hit again for it..

I can’t seem to get it to trigger if I wait longer (ie when the channel bar is still going up).

but at least I can use it to heal as needed.. thanks all..

The irony here is that the tool tip actually has two parts to it. The main part of the tool tip says all the stuff about knocking back enemies and absorbing projectiles. The second part of the tool tip, the box just above the main one, states that you can collapse the shield early for a large AoE heal. I learned about it by reading the tool tip. It still surprises me to this day just how few people seem to know about that feature… even though it clearly states it within the game itself.

The ability is buggy, after activating the shield, you need to wait at least 0.5seconds before clicking the button again to detonate and activate the heal.

If you click the button too fast, the ability bugs out and your character stays in a bugged state unable to move.
No heal will activate and you will have to wait for the ability’s duration to end before you can even move.

This is a very nice move for PvE I use it all the time.
Never had an issue with it not working before, unless everyone is on full health then it won’t heal obviously.

but if it apsorbs projectiles why i got hit every time by ranger or in pve ranged mobs? if the heal is true it would be great tho

ryan.5106:

The irony here is that the tool tip actually has two parts to it. The main part of the tool tip says all the stuff about knocking back enemies and absorbing projectiles. The second part of the tool tip, the box just above the main one, states that you can collapse the shield early for a large AoE heal. I learned about it by reading the tool tip. It still surprises me to this day just how few people seem to know about that feature… even though it clearly states it within the game itself.

One thing I’ve noticed is that since a certain patch (don’t remember which but I think around Halloween) the tooltips in the Hero tab don’t show the full chain of a skill anymore, just the 1st part. So if you’re examining your shield skills there before deciding which item to equip, and don’t then read the tooltip in your action bar, you’ll miss the 2nd part.

Spam 5, it works!

I haven’t actually looked into the wiki/forums to confirm this – however there does appear to be some throttle/buffering applied to the keyboard input on some things – with stable network/graphics latency it can feel like double-tapping doesn’t work as its a bit too quick and the second tap is being ignored.

If double tap to dodge and double tap an ability like this the dodge always comes off, the ability is iffy – tripple tapping at the same speed will trigger the “second click” on the third tap.

This could potentially be related to Nagle’s algorithm, I’ve not yet bothered to log/analyse how GW2 uses the network but similar behaviour has been attributed to Nagle’s in other games (though I’m skeptical of their anecdotes, erm – evidence).

thisolderhead.5127:

I haven’t actually looked into the wiki/forums to confirm this – however there does appear to be some throttle/buffering applied to the keyboard input on some things – with stable network/graphics latency it can feel like double-tapping doesn’t work as its a bit too quick and the second tap is being ignored.

If double tap to dodge and double tap an ability like this the dodge always comes off, the ability is iffy – tripple tapping at the same speed will trigger the “second click” on the third tap.

This could potentially be related to Nagle’s algorithm, I’ve not yet bothered to log/analyse how GW2 uses the network but similar behaviour has been attributed to Nagle’s in other games (though I’m skeptical of their anecdotes, erm – evidence).

So… Nagle’s algorithm huh? I’m not ashamed to admit that I have no idea what that is. What is Nagle’s algorithm? I’m assuming it has something to do with software programming.

Its a networking thing – to simplify it a bit – if every time you hit a key your PC sent a packet to the internet, the overhead of packets to the data they hold would be like using a truck to ship one smartphone at a time.

The solution is to wait until the truck is full, or an interval has elapsed – that interval could be the difference between double and tripple keying, not sure without actually looking at the network traffic/behaviour.

To make life fun – some of the “improve your ping” mobs for other MMORPGs changed the system default where this is implemented in Windows, so it could be on/off/thresholds altered on any given system (if memory serves me right).

If you need a fast heal, or just want to keep fluidity of movement and don’t care about projectile absorption, you can spam 5 for the fast heal, and as soon as the heal goes off, press esc (sheath weapon/swap weapon works also iirc) to get out of the crouch and move on.

When you “detonate” the shield, it does not end the spell. However, it does heal.

thisolderhead.5127:

Its a networking thing – to simplify it a bit – if every time you hit a key your PC sent a packet to the internet, the overhead of packets to the data they hold would be like using a truck to ship one smartphone at a time.

The solution is to wait until the truck is full, or an interval has elapsed – that interval could be the difference between double and tripple keying, not sure without actually looking at the network traffic/behaviour.

To make life fun – some of the “improve your ping” mobs for other MMORPGs changed the system default where this is implemented in Windows, so it could be on/off/thresholds altered on any given system (if memory serves me right).

Learn something new every day. This is good to know, and i’m pretty sure it can be applied to more than just GW2. Thanks for the explanation