Guild Wars 2

I’m still dreaming of having a guardian with a sword & board. But the skills for shield are terrible in PvE/WvW and only somewhat useful for PvP.

Shield of Judgment – 5 seconds of Protection on a 30 seconds cooldown is awful. If we need protection we have better alternatives (hammer gives permanent protection and shout also regenerates health).

Shield of Absorption – a knock back skill with a 40 seconds cooldown. Other than knocking people out of capturing points in PvP I don’t see the purpose for this skill. It also awkwardly makes you stuck in your current position.

Same story with torch. Guardians only have access to one condition which makes it impossible to build around it.

These two weapons deserve a better spot in our kitten nal.

Leave torch alone, it’s fine. it’s a great weapon for solo roaming in WvW and Spvp to a certain extent, it has a nuke and basically a high uptime on Fiery Wrath’s 10% damage trait. Shield could use some love though, since it’s just mainly a spvp bunker offhand.

Shield is useful in WvW. Not everyone like to spam hammer #1 and some people like mace — shield is the perfect off-hand for it, defensive wise.

The reason it’s not useful in PvE is similar to the reason tanks are not useful in PvE.

It does what it’s designed to do. It would be nice to add new effects tho, such as daze on #4 and automatic heal at the end of #5. It would also be nice for #5 to have an effect that the more time you have the dome up, the more heal you get.

5s protection on 30s cooldown is reasonable considering it’s the only weapon skill that gives on-demand AoE protection. Get the trait for shield and boon duration if you think it’s too long.

Shield definitely needs something else. Mace/Shield is okay in a group, but hammer blast finishers edge out on top of team support in my opinion. Adding even one effect to it might make it a lot more viable than it currently is.

-5 must be channeled, but now
A)Reflects projectiles back at the attacker
or
B)Gives a block effect vs melee attacks.
or
C)Popping it prematurely clears a condition or two
or
D)Heals like shelter for the duration

OR

-4 is a knockdown/daze/stun/interrupt

Like…any ONE of these things will not break it, just make it worth taking. Right now I’m basically only using a shield over a focus cause I love how the Flameseeker Prophecies looks.

Lucentfir.7430:

Leave torch alone, it’s fine. it’s a great weapon for solo roaming in WvW and Spvp to a certain extent, it has a nuke and basically a high uptime on Fiery Wrath’s 10% damage trait. Shield could use some love though, since it’s just mainly a spvp bunker offhand.

torch #5 is bullkitten, looks cool, but still bullkitten

Torch 5 is amazing for clearing condis. Problem is, it’s hard to see it’s full effect. I do think that it needs something to make it more noticeable. Maybe changing it to one condi removed per second to guard and allies, along with 5 target aoe cap instead of the current 3.

Shield could also use some more synergy with other parts of the guardian. Most of the other suggestions given would all be welcome.

xFireize.6318:

Shield is useful in WvW. Not everyone like to spam hammer #1 and some people like mace — shield is the perfect off-hand for it, defensive wise.

The reason it’s not useful in PvE is similar to the reason tanks are not useful in PvE.

It does what it’s designed to do. It would be nice to add new effects tho, such as daze on #4 and automatic heal at the end of #5. It would also be nice for #5 to have an effect that the more time you have the dome up, the more heal you get.

5s protection on 30s cooldown is reasonable considering it’s the only weapon skill that gives on-demand AoE protection. Get the trait for shield and boon duration if you think it’s too long.

But focus isn’t exactly an offensive weapon either yet almost all Guardians use it as their off-hand. As far as protection goes for weapon skills we also have the hammer that gives on-demand permanent AoE protection (but includes an annoying light field) and therefore outperforms shield by a long shot.

I like your ideas to improve shield and they look somewhat similar to that of the Engineer. For example, if we look at the weapon skills for the Engineer’s shield they are far more superior to the Guardian skills. It reflects, blocks, dazes, stuns AND functions as a blast finisher.

For the people who say torch is fine please do explain me in which situations it would be the best choice of weapon? Because I have never seen a Guardian in PvE, PvP or WvW use the torch. I have a torch precursor myself and would be happy to craft it if I would know where I could effectively utilize it.

focus is superior to shield in any way except throwing noobs from bridges in EOTM.
shields must get a tweak to be useful and not a niche gimmick,
warriors have the same issue with shield, to a point when warriors use offhand sword for block because the overall block uptime from sword is higher than from shield.

edit:
torch is offensive weapon that can trigger lots of on crit effects on torch 5
and torch 4 used for damage multiplier in some builds for extra 27% damage on sword or scepter.( 10% burn from trait, 10% condition from trait, 7% burn from set of runes)

Noah.4756:

xFireize.6318:

Shield is useful in WvW. Not everyone like to spam hammer #1 and some people like mace — shield is the perfect off-hand for it, defensive wise.

The reason it’s not useful in PvE is similar to the reason tanks are not useful in PvE.

It does what it’s designed to do. It would be nice to add new effects tho, such as daze on #4 and automatic heal at the end of #5. It would also be nice for #5 to have an effect that the more time you have the dome up, the more heal you get.

5s protection on 30s cooldown is reasonable considering it’s the only weapon skill that gives on-demand AoE protection. Get the trait for shield and boon duration if you think it’s too long.

But focus isn’t exactly an offensive weapon either yet almost all Guardians use it as their off-hand. As far as protection goes for weapon skills we also have the hammer that gives on-demand permanent AoE protection (but includes an annoying light field) and therefore outperforms shield by a long shot.

I like your ideas to improve shield and they look somewhat similar to that of the Engineer. For example, if we look at the weapon skills for the Engineer’s shield they are far more superior to the Guardian skills. It reflects, blocks, dazes, stuns AND functions as a blast finisher.

For the people who say torch is fine please do explain me in which situations it would be the best choice of weapon? Because I have never seen a Guardian in PvE, PvP or WvW use the torch. I have a torch precursor myself and would be happy to craft it if I would know where I could effectively utilize it.

I like focus too, as a balanced offensive/defensive weapon. Shield is still superior defensive wise. 3 blocks are nothing when you fight a zerg and good players who know that they simply have to land 3 attacks to avoid a burst.

The reason almost all guardians use it is because it has better offense. People like DPS more than tanking. It’s the same reason why more people use sword than mace.

Hammer’s AA protection can be permanent, but definitely not on-demand.