Guild Wars 2

So yeah, the shield is rarely ever used and I just feel bad for the thing. I think you could make it a much more viable offhand while still being balanced for both pvp and pve. I’m going to almost exclusively look at skill 5, because I think skill 4 is decently useful.

Currently skill 5: locks you in place for the duration (4sec) unless you want to burst it for a small heal. It absorbs almost all projectiles (except unblockable) and then you are sitting on a 30s recharge (not traited). Overall this makes it pretty useless in PvE because you are sitting there doing 0 damage for the 4s duration, some could argue it has uses and I won’t deny it could be useful. However, it could be way more useful while still being balanced.

Option 1: Make the bubble a little smaller and reflect (not absorb) projectiles, does not lock you in place (leaves the bubble where the skill was activated) or have a pushback. Give protection to up to 5 targets for 5s and provide a light field. 5s duration, 35s cooldown (untraited), and 1s cast time.

Option 2: Make the bubble a little smaller and still absorbs projectiles, does not lock you in place (leaves the bubble where the skill was activated). Pulses pushback every second and is a blast finisher. 5s duration, 35s cooldown (untraited), and 1s cast time.

Let me know what you think, or if you think the options are OP or have any ideas yourself.

The 1,5k heal from bursting teh bubble isn’t small. It’s AoE after all.
Personally I used to love the shield because of the knock down.

If they would get rid of the difference between PvE & PvP for skill 4 that would be a nice improvement.

As for skill 5, it would be great if they made it an AOE knockback that applied AEGIS to allies.
After that reduce the CD to 30ish seconds & the shield would be nice.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

If they would get rid of the difference between PvE & PvP for skill 4 that would be a nice improvement.

As for skill 5, it would be great if they made it an AOE knockback that applied AEGIS to allies.
After that reduce the CD to 30ish seconds & the shield would be nice.

I would do a lot for a weapon skill that gave Aegis to allies. I don’t know how to balance it, but giving my team Aegis with any method besides Virtue of Courage has some fun combo potential with traits.

I enjoy using the shield when I solo pve. The five second protection adds up to a lot whit a few baddies in front. Just before going down the knock back follwed by the smaal heal and then signet of resolve gets you ready to finish off whatever is left quickly.

It certainly helps me because I don’t have a large dps build (in fact I still dont’t have any build at all, just a mix of stuff). With my first exotic build’s 37 percent damage mitigation a 70 percent reduction for five seconds sounds good.

Softspoken.2410:

I don’t know how to balance it, but giving my team Aegis with any method besides Virtue of Courage has some fun combo potential with traits.

Uhmm… Retreat? Yeah, it isn’t a weapon skill, but Virtue of Courage isn’t either.

Naryoril.6507:

Softspoken.2410:

I don’t know how to balance it, but giving my team Aegis with any method besides Virtue of Courage has some fun combo potential with traits.

Uhmm… Retreat? Yeah, it isn’t a weapon skill, but Virtue of Courage isn’t either.

Forgot about that, even though I use it when I want to try Aegis shenanigans. But I need mooore.

I, personally, have dropped focus in favour of shield a looooooong time ago and have found it to be incredibly worth while. Coupling it with mace gives you the best defensive setup available to the guard with a ton of healing and damage mitigation. The damage isn’t that bad to boot.

Also, shield of absorption DOES provide a light field.

Although I appreciate the idea of a guardian with a shield is supposed to be a protector, the idea of using a shield and not blocking anything is just ludicrous to me.

I’d rather they scrap and overhaul shield in order to actually obtain the theme of a shield, such as physically blocking instances of damage, and providing some type of defensive buff to allies.

ANET needs to put their foot down with shields, is it an offensive tool or defensive?

Focus ultimately is a defensive tool that provides defenses through blinds, a bouncing heal and a shield that blocks instances of damage.

Torch is an offensive tool with both AOE Immolate effect + a Nuke throw on a relatively decent CD.

I would love it if the shield became a hybrid of the type, but provided some utility through some type of finisher / field effect. For instance, I have 2 particular variations of shield I would like to see implemented, offensively oriented, or defensively oriented
but I’ll just list my defensive variation to keep it from taking up the entire page.

Defensive Theme

4 – Light of the Radiant

• This ability is now a type of radial blind with a decent radius that works as a blast finisher. This would use the shield 4’s old base damage. This would be the intervene type of skill, with a sword in hand you can blink in, and blind foes, or in zerg groups for PVE use it to activate fire fields, the usage would be the same in sPVP.

5 – Vindicator’s Resolve

• The first-part of this ability is a 1.5 second block(half-the duration of all other existing blocks in the game) that absorbs instances of damage, with a maximum charge of 10(You may block infinite instances, but the effect only works up to 10). AFTER 3 SECONDS, the next effect will register.
• When the time runs out, the more instances you’ve blocked the larger the symbol you drop, which provides a Protection buff, and a light field of 3.5 seconds. This heals for 860(0.20) Immediately, and allies who were standing in the light-symbol as it appeared receives the Guardian’s Virtue of Resolve passive effect for 4 seconds.

The theory behind this skill is that you use this before using your 4 ability, allowing your nearby allies to benefit from retaliation. from your light field.

5 – Second Activation – Justicar’s Fury

• If you choose to reactivate the ability before the charge ends, the Guardian blasts all targets in front of the shield backwards, increasing the duration they are knocked down by 0.1 second per (2) charges absorbed. They are also struck with Virtue of Justice’s Active Effect, regardless of whether or not it is on CD. Allies caught in the blast wave gain swiftness. The base swiftness gain will be 6 seconds, 10 stacks would effectively double it’s duration to 12. The shockwave itself does not deal damage.

What do we know about the current shield?

It has an AOE protection buff that is lackluster. The skill itself deals damage, however you must choose between shielding allies or damaging foes, more than often you don’t get both. It has a projectile shield that is ultimately useless in every-way due to it’s duration and CD, and is used 99% of the time for a knockback / heal.

So what did I do in my variation?

For one, I put an ACTUAL block skill into the rotation, so “Defender’s Flame” trait has even more usage outside of using Shelter.
This is one of the biggest reasons I hate the current version of shield. Defender’s flame is really worthless outside of using Shelter, this gives you a little more leeway.

I reworked 4 into a damage tool that provides an AOE blind on a small radius and a blast finisher. This VS the idea of the current shield 4 makes it so that you don’t enter a fight, turn around to apply protection on your allies and have a CD wasted. Guardians often are in the heart of the fight, so this is another way of protecting allies. By mitigating a strike through blind, and in a light/water field you provide a blast finisher providing retaliation / healing to allies. You can enter a fight with a GS, finish your rotation, drop Symbol of Wrath, swap to Sword&Board and Blast the area for AOE retaliation.

I reworked 5 in a fashion that has actual usage VS it’s old variation. You have a block, that turns into a protection symbol that doubles as a light-field and a minor heal, you also have the option of using your charges into a form of AOE knockback/ micro-stun that grants a swiftness buff, and ignites your enemies.

But most importantly, the shield 5 skill, TIES INTO the CLASS ABILITIES of the Guardian. Something I wish ANET did a bit more with Guardians in general was if Guardian class abilities tied into their kits more.

But of course it’s just a dream of mine shield gets reworked the way I’d want it to.

Holy kitten, thats a really good idea. Drop it in the actual suggestions area and I’m sure the entire guard population will sign.

Interesting ideas, I just think the chance of Anet actually doing an overhaul over a skill tweak is, well… Extremely small/no chance at all. And yes, a 1.3k heal is very small and again in PvE if you stop attacking to do a small heal you are supporting the team less than if you had never stopped attacking.

Renshu, I like your idea for a skill 4 tweak for sure.

The entire point of a tweak to shield IMO is to make it a support skill that doesn’t require a completely defensive channel.

@Renshu.5329

I love the skill 4. I wouldn’t change nothing to your proposal and would love for it to get implemented.

Now skill 5 sounds good but I don’t understand some things:

“AFTER 3 SECONDS, the next effect will register.
•When the time runs out, the more instances you’ve blocked the larger the symbol you drop”

So by instances I presume attacks blocked in that 1,5 frame? And the effect that you are talking about with the symbol it’s a passive effect that procs after you begun blocking those attacks after 3seconds? Making it more stronger with the more attacks you blocked?

Now for the second part, this seems a little bit weird.

“If you choose to reactivate the ability before the charge ends”
When does the charge end? Does it work like an engineer shield second function?

“the Guardian blasts all targets in front of the shield backwards, increasing the duration they are knocked down by 0.1 second per (2) charges absorbed”

You mean like moving them physically behind the guardian like a CC similar to Mesmer focus 4 or just a AoE knockdown?

Sorry if I misunderstood, I don’t main English

Overall I like the idea of 5 also, the selling spot being that it can actually block and has a secondary function buit into it.

creepmatic.9435:

So by instances I presume attacks blocked in that 1,5 frame? And the effect that you are talking about with the symbol it’s a passive effect that procs after you begun blocking those attacks after 3seconds? Making it more stronger with the more attacks you blocked?

I can see why it gets confusing but for this first part, after 3 seconds total the Symbol will drop, including the blocking time. So 1.5 seconds of block, then 1.5 seconds later the symbol will drop. This is more for the having a longer window for you to choose whether or not you want to activate for the secondary effect, 1.5 seconds isn’t a lot of time to choose between knocking back enemies and setting them ablaze, or letting the Protection Symbol Drop, I hope this clears this up! :]

Most importantly, there is no animation to this! It just happens!

creepmatic.9435:

Now for the second part, this seems a little bit weird.

“If you choose to reactivate the ability before the charge ends”
When does the charge end? Does it work like an engineer shield second function?

“the Guardian blasts all targets in front of the shield backwards, increasing the duration they are knocked down by 0.1 second per (2) charges absorbed”

You mean like moving them physically behind the guardian like a CC similar to Mesmer focus 4 or just a AoE knockdown?

Sorry if I misunderstood, I don’t main English

How this works is, my 5 ability will grant a buff similar to Shield of Wrath(Guardian Focus 5 Ability), to register as the “charge”. So what happens is, when you activate Vindicator’s Resolve you will receive a 1.5 second channeling bar for your block, but also receive a buff that gains stacks as you block. I’ll edit it into my post, but the “Charge” will be that buff. If you activate the 5 skill again while having that Vindicator’s Resolve buff, you’ll activate Justicar’s Fury!

Now Justicar’s Fury is something I’d really love to see implemented. It functions similar to the Mesmer’s Greatsword blastback skill, but deals no damage other than the ignite effect from Virtue of Justice. Basically it knocks enemies on their butts and nudges them back. It’ll have the similar range of knock back of the previous 5 ability with a little twist added to it, foes are set ablaze, and if you have stacks it becomes a micro stun, something I’d love guardians to have in sPVP to gain more point control.

creepmatic.9435:

Overall I like the idea of 5 also, the selling spot being that it can actually block and has a secondary function buit into it.

I’m glad you like it! If you still have any clarity issues please ask away! I’ll edit my main post accordingly.

I’m a little sad to say I find the Guardian shield easily the weakest of weapons in the entire game, with very little practical use, which brought me to the idea of overhauling it. I don’t think many guardians are akin to the idea of having a shield not block anything, and provide so little to the group. A shield is not a focus, and in it’s current state it may as well be. I just hope in some way ANET somehow realizes this.