Guild Wars 2

From all the great changes of this patch, including the rework of Radiant Retaliation to Righteous Instincts and the Spirit Weapon rework, there’s one big, isolated problem. The dome from Shield of the Avenger barely lasts 3 seconds, while before the patch the dome lasted for 20 seconds, it’s really shoddy for projectile absorption now. If you guys could change it so it has a 10 second absorption duration with even a 10-15 second cooldown it’d be really great. The secondary effect isn’t bad.

Good luck with that. I don’t think 40 seconds (even more considering charge cooldown) of nearly 100% uptime projectile blocking in an AoE is very likely to happen.

I mainly just want the cast time reduced a bit so you can use it on reaction better.

Wow, of all the changes made on guardian THATS what you have issue with?! I’d argue its better then it was before. You can actually micro manage it better. No more guesswork, or it dissipating unexpectedly.

Electro.4173:

Good luck with that. I don’t think 40 seconds (even more considering charge cooldown) of nearly 100% uptime projectile blocking in an AoE is very likely to happen.

I mainly just want the cast time reduced a bit so you can use it on reaction better.

That’s pretty much what I’m thinking. 3/4s is a long time when you have projectiles incoming, and the shield only lasting for 2s means it certainly does seem to be intended as a reactive skill rather than WoR or even SoA which do last long enough to create an effective (albeit temporary) ‘safe zone’.

draxynnic.3719:

Electro.4173:

Good luck with that. I don’t think 40 seconds (even more considering charge cooldown) of nearly 100% uptime projectile blocking in an AoE is very likely to happen.

I mainly just want the cast time reduced a bit so you can use it on reaction better.

That’s pretty much what I’m thinking. 3/4s is a long time when you have projectiles incoming, and the shield only lasting for 2s means it certainly does seem to be intended as a reactive skill rather than WoR or even SoA which do last long enough to create an effective (albeit temporary) ‘safe zone’.

Sure, but with a 3/4 cast time, you can’t react to anything.

If it’s to last 2-3 seconds, it should at least be instant cast.

RabbitUp.8294:

draxynnic.3719:

Electro.4173:

Good luck with that. I don’t think 40 seconds (even more considering charge cooldown) of nearly 100% uptime projectile blocking in an AoE is very likely to happen.

I mainly just want the cast time reduced a bit so you can use it on reaction better.

That’s pretty much what I’m thinking. 3/4s is a long time when you have projectiles incoming, and the shield only lasting for 2s means it certainly does seem to be intended as a reactive skill rather than WoR or even SoA which do last long enough to create an effective (albeit temporary) ‘safe zone’.

Sure, but with a 3/4 cast time, you can’t react to anything.

If it’s to last 2-3 seconds, it should at least be instant cast.

SW were a problem even with 1 second cast..(snipped / edited wiki gw2 not showing properly o this laptop, might have interpreted wrongly the value)

Can any one tell me how long is the cast of the SW???

IF 1 second with auto domes pulses was troublesome plus aegis and stun-breaker was still a troublesome skill…. with this i have my doubts its positive.

I have my doubts anyone tested this skill before going live.

A cool yet very situational skill is now utterly useless :/

They could increase the duration to 4 seconds, bring back the AoE aegis and make as stun breaker. Increase the cooldown to 8 seconds and reduce the ammo to 2 from 3.

Then might become usable.

RabbitUp.8294:

draxynnic.3719:

Electro.4173:

Good luck with that. I don’t think 40 seconds (even more considering charge cooldown) of nearly 100% uptime projectile blocking in an AoE is very likely to happen.

I mainly just want the cast time reduced a bit so you can use it on reaction better.

That’s pretty much what I’m thinking. 3/4s is a long time when you have projectiles incoming, and the shield only lasting for 2s means it certainly does seem to be intended as a reactive skill rather than WoR or even SoA which do last long enough to create an effective (albeit temporary) ‘safe zone’.

Sure, but with a 3/4 cast time, you can’t react to anything.

If it’s to last 2-3 seconds, it should at least be instant cast.

That’s pretty much exactly what I was saying, but in different words?

It might not need to be instant, and ArenaNet probably don’t want it to be activated while other skills are activating, but 3/4s is clearly too long.

The only almost positive change i could find was the BoT (bow SW) command that could be casted more times, even the condi removal got well....removed.

Guardians tough would be a good day...

There are basically two directions this skill in its current form can go, and as it stands it’s useless for both of them.

First, it could be used as a reactive tool when you see a big incoming projectile. As it stands, the 3/4 second cast time makes it all but useless for this purpose. Except against all but the slowest PvE projectiles, even casting it at the beginning of the animation will result in a hit before the barrier pops up. For it to actually be useful at this purpose, it needs to be instant cast (1/4s at the absolute maximum), and ideally I’d like it to get its stunbreak back but that’s obviously not needed.

Secondly, it can be used as an area defense tool, like its previous iteration was. Right now, it… can’t do that. With a 1s (maybe 2s, there’s no tooltip and the animation is very unclear) barrier on a 5s cooldown, it is absolute garbage at preemptive defense. To make it actually useful for this purpose, it needs the barrier duration to be at least equal to the recharge. There would still be a small window for projectiles to slip through during the cast time (just like the old SoA had) but it could at least keep up a semblance of defense until charges wore off. I feel like the fair duration is around 4 seconds (and knocking down the recharge to 4s as well), which gives up to 12 seconds of shielding. That’s a little better than Wall of Reflection but also a) doesn’t reflect and b) has a 75-second effective recharge. Traiting the skill would give 16s of blocks on an 80-second effective cooldown, which seems strong but not unreasonably so.

Honestly, I’d be fine with either option since both result in a useful skill. I just hope they do something to it.