Guild Wars 2

I’d like to take a moment to discuss and compare two similar skills with the intent of questioning Shield of Absorption and the balance of the skills.

Similar
- They both have a neat magical bubble that stop projectiles.
- They’re both a light combo field.

Different
- Refraction lasts three seconds longer than Shield of Absorption. That’s one second off lasting twice as long as Shield of Absorption.
- Refraction holds you in place for half a second less than Shield of Absorption. Not really a big deal but hey.
- Refraction has half the cooldown of Shield of Absorption.
- Refraction gives out a five second Retaliation to allies.
- Shield of Absorption has the handy five target knockback.
- Shield of Absorption can be popped for a good heal.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining or anything and I really like the shield but I’d like to know why, for skills that behave so similarly, the underwater one can be used twice as often and last almost twice as long.

Does the knockback and optional heal on Shield of Absorption justify the longer cooldown? I guess so but it doesn’t really justify the shorter bubble duration if you ask me. If the heal on it adds to the cooldown, why does Empower have the same cooldown as Refraction when it generally heals for more?

Interesting, isn’t it? What are your thoughts?
I’d certainly like to see the duration of Shield of Absorption brought up to the same duration as Refraction at the very least if the cooldown isn’t going to be altered. I wouldn’t be against a shorter cooldown either. I can live with it the way it is but I just observed the differences between the two skills recently and thought the disparity was a little odd.

Just thought I’d add that the recent patch’s change to Empower only adds further questions to my point about the heal effect on Shield of Absorption adding to its cooldown. Empower now has less of a drawback, heals for more than Shield of Absorption generally and has the same cooldown as Refraction.
So I guess the question is, why does Shield of Absorption have double the cooldown of Refraction? If the only cause for the 40 second cooldown is the knockback, take a look at Warrior’s Staggering Blow. That skill also has the same cooldown as Refraction and knocks back five foes like Shield of Absorption does.

Well the thing is that refraction is an underwater skill and shield of absorption is merely for knock-back and minor healing.

I’m not entirely sure if you read any of this.

And I’m not entirely sure what you’re after with this post. Refraction would be a ridiculous skill on land but underwater it’s neat to have since only about 3% of combat happens underwater. Shield of absorption is for different kinds of situations and thus doesn’t need a longer duration because it does its job and it does it well.

Yeah, I think it’s allowed to make the underwater skills slightly more powerful. I doesn’t happen that often, and it could compensate for the confusion players experience when moving in a 3D environment.

But I wouldn’t mind if Shield of Absorption lost its heal and got a smaller cooldown. And I actually use the heal.
But don’t underestimate the power of the AoE-knockdown.

I’ve stated what I’m after, to try and figure out why two skills that behave so similarly have vastly different cooldowns.
Why do you claim Refraction be ridiculous on land?
Why would the skill being underwater have any bearing on the cooldown?
Why does using Shield of Absorption in different situations warrant not needing a longer duration?

Both skills have the same basic functionality, the projectile absorbing bubble. They both have an additional effect that happens every time you use the skill, Refraction gives out retaliation and Shield of Absorption has the knockback.
The only thing that would warrant the longer cooldown is the optional heal but by using the heal, you’re technically giving up the bubble anyway unless you have ridiculously good timing.
Does that little heal justify another 20 seconds on the cooldown whether you use it or not? If so, why?

I’m not disputing the usefulness of either skill. I quite like both of them.

A knockback is more useful than Retaliation?

Ynna.8769:

A knockback is more useful than Retaliation?

I won’t entirely deny that, although it is subjective, despite how people feel about retaliation, a well timed retaliation can be quite beneficial just as a well timed knockback is, however, look at Staggering Blow for Warrior. It, arguably, has the same knockback as Shield of Absorption and it has half the cooldown. They’re entirely different skills so comparing them is a little futile, however, I will anyway! One is a combo field, the other a finisher so that doesn’t explain the disparity in cooldowns as that’s about even, Shield of Absorption can heal damage (optionally) whereas Staggering Blow deals damage, that’s relatively even although the numbers aren’t the same, dealt damage is subject to crits though. The only thing that would justify Shield of Absorption having a longer cooldown (if comparing those two skills, which you wouldn’t, really ) is that it can stop projectiles for four seconds. Would those four seconds justify a further twenty seconds added to the cooldown? If the answer is yes, why then would Refraction stopping projectiles for almost twice as long not have a longer cooldown?

I’m just discussing for discussion’s sake here, I’m not demanding we get Shield of Absorption buffed (although it would be nice and we’d, perhaps, see less hate towards shield) but as I mentioned earlier, the skills Refraction and Shield of Absorption are remarkably similar, yet have a vastly different cooldown and I don’t really think that Refraction being underwater is really a good enough reason.

I can (kind of) see your point and discussing is not bad. Shield is a good weapon but mostly in WvW because of its #4 skill (AOE protection and damage) and the bubble that can save you from very dangerous bursts. You just need to time it correctly. We already have a long duration, projectile protection shield (shield of the avenger) even tho it requires you to actually hit something before the shield pops up.
As mentioned above: shield of absorption is a lot more situational than refraction and if it had longer duration or shorter cool-downs; guardians could negate VERY high amounts of enemy zergs ranged attacks only by switching his utilities to walls/bubbles: Wall of reflection, sanctuary, shield of the avenger and shield of absorption.
It would be cool to have a long duration bubble as a weapon skill but we need to take a look at the big picture and that is balance.

That is indeed true, however, we can already do all that to a large extent, it would only be another three seconds on top really. I don’t know about you but I certainly wouldn’t be running Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger and Sanctuary in all my utilities. That isn’t to say people wouldn’t do it but I see it as a fairly large build gimping just for projectile denial. AoE effects wouldn’t be affected by them anyway, which is a large portion of the zerg damage if you’re trying to control a choke point of some kind. That AoE damage would eat up Shield of the Avenger in no time anyway.
We already do have a long duration bubble as a weapon skill! It’s Refraction.
What makes Shield of Absorption situational? Well the knockback and heal definitely do but I think it’s largely because of the long cooldown, you don’t want to just blow it on any old attack because you won’t be able to use it again for a good while. Once again, if it either had the same cooldown as Refraction or even a 30 second cooldown people would be more willing to use the blasted thing and complain less about the shield. The combo opportunities it offers are slim because the light field it creates only has a 10% up-time (and that’s only if you use it on cooldown). Even keeping the cooldown as it is but increasing the bubble duration to that of Refraction would greatly increase team play, which is what the shield appears to be all about.
Granted, it’s not like we don’t have light fields to spare but it’s undeniable that our one handers are certainly lacking in the combo department compared to the two handers.

Silver.8023:

Why do you claim Refraction be ridiculous on land?
Why would the skill being underwater have any bearing on the cooldown?

3D environments means that its harder to hit stuff, especially with aoe or melee. This is why every class has a ranged option underwater, why there were originally no combos underwater, no ground targeting, etc.

In reverse, it means its harder for your allies to gain refraction’s benefits, whereas on land its much easier. Also, retaliation is a really weak boon underwater

I could be completely dense right now as it’s late but I don’t quite understand how what you mentioned completely addresses what you quoted me on. :S

Every profession has ranged options regardless of whether they’re on land or underwater and always have. It doesn’t matter where you are, people are going to be firing stuff at you.
If you’re saying that it’s harder to hit foes in melee underwater so people use more ranged therefore we need more measures against ranged, I would argue that every single spear skill set for each profession that can use them either has one or more very effective gap closer skills, which I think addresses the problem somewhat nicely. The other thing with that is, why then don’t other professions get extra measures against projectiles? They certainly get options for it on the land based weapons.

I understand that a longer duration bubble would allow people more time to see it and hop inside it (assuming they even do) and I understand that it may take a little longer to do so underwater, however the exact same problem still occurs on land, distance is distance and due to Shield of Absorption’s short duration, generally nobody’s going to see the bubble and make a bee-line for it because they know that by the time they get to it, it’ll be gone unless they’re already close by. What that means is we have to use Shield of Absorption more situationally (is that a word?), saving it for just the right moment, especially when all our allies are already where it will appear. What this can often lead to though (not every time of course), is not using it at all because the situation may not have called for it enough.

I would also argue that retaliation isn’t weak underwater at all, there are plenty of attacks that you’ll encounter that hit rapidly, Zealot’s Flurry, Mariner’s Frenzy, Tsunami Slash, Repeating Shot, Man O’s War, Feeding Frenzy and Boil to name the ones I can think of. A lot of these aren’t projectiles and will be able to get to you inside of Refraction’s bubble. I know that if I had retaliation on and a Warrior or Guardian came up to me and hit #2 on his spear and I couldn’t avoid it, I’d be a happy diver knowing that they just did over 2000 damage to themselves.

So, while I mean absolutely no disrespect at all, of course, I still don’t quite agree with all that justifying Refraction’s extra length and shorter cooldown when compared to Shield of Absorption.