Guild Wars 2

I’d like to hear peoples opinion on this. At the same time hoping it’s from people who use a shield in their main setup.

Although the #4 skill is useful theory wise, it’s a pain the the butt to line up and gain effectiveness from it since all of the combat is so hectic and involves alot of running around.

An easy solution would be to instead of a wave infront of you make it a circle around you, I fell the damage it does it pretty much minimal and I only use it for the protection buff anyway. It makes the shield much more viable in Dungeons.

Hi,

Shield tends to suffer a weak reputation among Guardians partly because Skill #5 is so situational, and Skill #4 while useful, rarely provides anything Focus #4 and Focus #5 don’t. However…

You’re right to suggest Shield is pretty useful in Dungeons. Most Champions are immune (or mostly immune) to Blind anyway, rendering Focus #4 not so useful except as condition removal. Still, I’d like to see a few improvements to Shield #4. Your suggestion of a circle is not a bad idea, although I’d honestly just prefer a wider arc. A limited duration (2s?) Aegis on the caster would help too.

Eveningstar.6940:

Hi,

Shield tends to suffer a weak reputation among Guardians partly because Skill #5 is so situational, and Skill #4 while useful, rarely provides anything Focus #4 and Focus #5 don’t. However…

You’re right to suggest Shield is pretty useful in Dungeons. Most Champions are immune (or mostly immune) to Blind anyway, rendering Focus #4 not so useful except as condition removal. Still, I’d like to see a few improvements to Shield #4. Your suggestion of a circle is not a bad idea, although I’d honestly just prefer a wider arc. A limited duration (2s?) Aegis on the caster would help too.

I’d say, block attacks until the cast time is done. Shield of Judgement has like 0.5s cast time?

Qelris.6901:

Eveningstar.6940:

Hi,

Shield tends to suffer a weak reputation among Guardians partly because Skill #5 is so situational, and Skill #4 while useful, rarely provides anything Focus #4 and Focus #5 don’t. However…

You’re right to suggest Shield is pretty useful in Dungeons. Most Champions are immune (or mostly immune) to Blind anyway, rendering Focus #4 not so useful except as condition removal. Still, I’d like to see a few improvements to Shield #4. Your suggestion of a circle is not a bad idea, although I’d honestly just prefer a wider arc. A limited duration (2s?) Aegis on the caster would help too.

I’d say, block attacks until the cast time is done. Shield of Judgement has like 0.5s cast time?

That’s not bad, but the window of opportunity is so short that successful blocks are either incidental or just exist as a safeguard. 2s is Shelter, so I’d say between 1 and 2 seconds. Another option is: remove the Protection buff and grant 1s of Aegis to all allies in the same cone. If the Aegis block is not used, grant Protection for 3s.

kipz.8701:

I’d like to hear peoples opinion on this. At the same time hoping it’s from people who use a shield in their main setup.

Although the #4 skill is useful theory wise, it’s a pain the the butt to line up and gain effectiveness from it since all of the combat is so hectic and involves alot of running around.

An easy solution would be to instead of a wave infront of you make it a circle around you, I fell the damage it does it pretty much minimal and I only use it for the protection buff anyway. It makes the shield much more viable in Dungeons.

In most PvE situations, it’s actually pretty easy to get your team in the cone. You should be turning enemies around anyway so that any of their cone isn’t hitting allies.

I definitely like the protection on SoJ and the range isn’t bad but I think the damage could get a boost. It’s got uses in all aspects of the game (sPvP, WvW, and PvE) so I can see why they’d want to keep the damage balanced with the rest of what the skill can do.

Eveningstar.6940:

Shield tends to suffer a weak reputation among Guardians partly because Skill #5 is so situational, and Skill #4 while useful, rarely provides anything Focus #4 and Focus #5 don’t.

That’s only guardians that don’t know how to play the class and/or understand the mechanics and insane utility of SoA (#5 skill). I have yet to find a fight where SoA isn’t useful. I can go 15-20 minutes w/o needing a skill on the Focus… I’ve actually been switching out my Scepter/Focus set to Scepter/Torch in PvE because Torch is all around better and more useful. You don’t need blocking in PvE and if you think you do stop trying to tank….

But the block is actually REALLY useful in PvE considering it mitigates 100% of an incoming attack. It’s not really about trying to tank but being able to block, say, a ranger’s shot in Ascalonian Catacombs is incredibly helpful. While there may not be any true tanks, the guardian is designed to soak hits via mitigation like Aegis or Blind.

As for me personally, initially I was pretty down on the shield. After going back and using it more often, I’ve found that my preferred weapon sets in a dungeon are sword/shield and scepter/focus. The sword/shield lets me get up close to do some damage and get to melee range to pop the #5 bubble as a heal, and the scepter lets me do a bit more control from a distance.

Shield is garbage. Focus is the new shield.

The protection skill is fine, it just needs to be aoe both so you can grant it to all your allies easily and so its more likely to hit enemies given the low damage it deals

One thing about shield though is the trait that improves it can be easily picked up in a lot of popular builds involving Altruistic Healing. If you are going for a AH build, the other two major traits in line are not too terrific – perfect chances to pick up the shield trait. With it, you get a 24-second cooldown AOE damage that puts up a 5-6 second protection and a 32 second cooldown bubble. Outside of “hold the line”, it’s probably the most reliable way of group protection the Guardian has. Ain’t bad.

Anyone who says that shield is useless should learn how to play a guardian. #4 is huge, any damage reduction for your group mates is good. It is the role of the guardian, you are not soloing dungeons.

Nero.9741:

Anyone who says that shield is useless should learn how to play a guardian. #4 is huge, any damage reduction for your group mates is good. It is the role of the guardian, you are not soloing dungeons.

Of course group Protection is incredibly powerful, but the point is more that getting it to land on as many group mates as possible is a bit finnicky at times.

i think shield 4 should give 2 second of daze. Is more than justified with the long cooldown of the hability.

Edit: felt like it needed elaboration.

Im thinking about shield pvp-wise, guardian really lacks the traditional form of control on 1-handed weapons. Lets see. Every profession has some form of cripple provided by a weapon, except for the guardian and the engineer, the engi however has the tools kits and so on, that effectivelly act as brand new 5 skills on weapon slot.

so, guardian clearly lacks cripple, everyone else has it….

Daze: Every single class has daze in one weapon set.. except… the guardian.

The only control condition the guardian has with weapons is imobilize, provided by the hammer (2h) and the scepter 1h.

summing it up, there is no control if you want to use a mace or a sword. (seriously the mace doesnt daze? thats hilarious, getting hit by a metal ball on the head should give some daziness /rant)

doesnt really need daze or cooldown reduction. Personally i really like that guardian skills have high enough cooldown that it makes players try to actually use their skills in the right timing in a reactive manner.

The whole problem I have with the #4 is the fact that most of the time, my squishy buddies are behind me, and on top of that are usually spread out so they dont get smacked by a powerful aoe. Having the wave actually connect to them is just unnecessarily annoying

I’m not really sure I agree about the lack of control. As you said, Scepter 3 and Hammer 3/5 offer some control. But Tome of Courage includes a huge stun, Tome of Wrath has an AoE knockdown, and the charr have Shrapnel Mine for a bleed/cripple. I’m aware the books are a little more finnicky now they don’t provide Stability, but the options are there. You can also hold people off with Line of Warding. The Guardian isn’t really designed, I don’t think, to be some kind of huge debuff-applying class. Our focus is more on providing the buffs, a little bit of healing, and support while we scorch entire groups of people.

Anyone who says the Shield is OK either doesn’t play with it or never used Focus.

Nero.9741:

Anyone who says that shield is useless should learn how to play a guardian. #4 is huge, any damage reduction for your group mates is good. It is the role of the guardian, you are not soloing dungeons.

+1

We really need more players that are used to GW1 build creation, theorycrafting, etc. to start posting in these threads. People in GW2 have yet to get to the point that some people in GW1 were with knowledge of mechanics, swapping synergies, skill synergies, skill utility, etc. and it’s really showing in threads like this.

Knuckledust.5621:

Anyone who says the Shield is OK either doesn’t play with it or never used Focus.

You’re going to keep harping on this aren’t you? Focus is a useless weapon in most PvE situations and only really becomes very useful in WvW/sPvP. You like the block on Focus. Problem is 3 blocks aren’t useful in this game at all in PvE. 1 is all you need if you know what you’re doing and you aren’t trying to just stand there and tank. Stop trying to tank and start playing GW2…

4 could use an AOE buff though, because most people who use a shield are going to be in or near melee range, and often when a Guardian is playing in a group, all the other teammates like to stand farther away. If it got a buff, I’d want it to be able to affect those around and behind the Guardian.

If Shield #5 and Focus #5 were swapped, everything would be right with the world.

Knuckledust.5621:

Anyone who says the Shield is OK either doesn’t play with it or never used Focus.

100% agree. I am a shield lover (in concept) i just think of the shield as an iconic aspect of “guarding”. I tried soooooooooooooo hard to make shield work for me, but I just cant. Focus is WAY better and works so well with a ranged option like scepter.

I’ve had to give up the idea of playing the kind of guardian that I really want because shield just feels so kitten.

(edit: i love the fact that the system changed my gim-to-the-p word into “kitten”, ha!)

oaken, did you try sPvP? Shield is a beast there.

Ynna.8769:

oaken, did you try sPvP? Shield is a beast there.

…what? I use shield, just because I like the appearance better than focus. But focus is without a doubt better in every aspect. Skills for shield are lameeeeee.

Though its nice to have shield of absorption actually healing now.

But really, the blind on focus in sPvP is great and so is the shielding skill.

I think #5 is OK, it’s a really powerful ability if you think about it… projectile protection, knockback, and AoE heal? It’s awesome.

But #4 really has issues… it’s not a bad ability, but like most have pointed out, the Shield isn’t really good for melee, but for ranged (does this even makes sense?).
Skill #4 should be an ability that gives some sort of awesome protection, or preferably, a damage oriented skill. The protection buff is good but it doesn’t really helps since the CD is long, the targeting is annoying, the duration is short, and the Protection boon is situational where you are taking hits you can take or aren’t supposed to avoid.

In my opinion, make #5 gives any sort of block, like granting an Aegis to the Guardian, then it will be more viable for melee – though the Focus 3 blocks will still make it appealing – and #4 needs more damage and/or a condition, such as Daze.

lol@Kousei,

There is always a player like him/her who shows up and proclaims everything is fine and pulls out the l2p card since you know, he/she is the super player who knows what they are doing. And that a mmo is so complex it requires extensive training similar to a advanced college level mathmatics.

Here is the deal:

Everything shield skill #4 does, Hammer combo does better, with more damage, healings allies and yourself if you spec for it and with no cd.

The shield skills are absolutely horrible. If I were to change them, I’d make shield of judgement exactly like shield of judgement in gw1:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Judgment

A boon that lasts for several seconds, anyone who attacks you or allies is knocked down for a couple seconds and is set on fire.

Shield of Absorption would probably be better if it worked similar to the original as well:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shield_of_Absorption

Regards

It’s absolutely terrible. Yes, while protection for up to (4, 5?) allies in a cone is GREAT, there are some serious issues.

1. You have to be facing your allies (usually required that you turn around to buff them, if you’re in melee, making the attack miss the enemy and you waste time)
2. Protection only lasts five seconds
3. Long cooldown

I think we should get a personal block iteration of the skill (somewhat similar to warriors, maybe more “magical”) or have the #4 apply aegis and protection to those (4, 5?) allies.

kousei.5914:

Nero.9741:

Anyone who says that shield is useless should learn how to play a guardian. #4 is huge, any damage reduction for your group mates is good. It is the role of the guardian, you are not soloing dungeons.

+1

We really need more players that are used to GW1 build creation, theorycrafting, etc. to start posting in these threads. People in GW2 have yet to get to the point that some people in GW1 were with knowledge of mechanics, swapping synergies, skill synergies, skill utility, etc. and it’s really showing in threads like this.

Knuckledust.5621:

Anyone who says the Shield is OK either doesn’t play with it or never used Focus.

You’re going to keep harping on this aren’t you? Focus is a useless weapon in most PvE situations and only really becomes very useful in WvW/sPvP. You like the block on Focus. Problem is 3 blocks aren’t useful in this game at all in PvE. 1 is all you need if you know what you’re doing and you aren’t trying to just stand there and tank. Stop trying to tank and start playing GW2…

Focus useless in most PvE situations? Wow.. I’ve truly never heard that one before. I never knew a bouncing regeneration + blind that even does damage at range could be considered useless. Oh that’s only skill 4, I almost forgot, skill 5 blocks 3 attacks (NO DAMAGE MAXIMUM) and if not? Does GREAT aoe damage upon exit. AND the shield is an instant cast and can be applied mid-attack or mid-heal, and is a fantastic option when you find yourself without endurance for a dodge.

Shield, on the other hand, has a 30 second cooldown MEASLY damage cone + buff.
And a 40 second AOE mini-knockback (doesn’t work on boss mobs) with minor heal. If you think the fact that it absorbs projectiles is it’s strong suit, you obviously have never used a wall of reflection. (Also a 40 second CD, lasts 10 seconds, REFLECTS projectiles for damage back to the enemy)