Guild Wars 2

Pairing with a mace. I don’t understand the benefits of shield. I pick focus 100% of the time over shield. Is there something I’m not getting? The shield skills just seem lackluster.

heh, just answered your other thread.

if you’re an avid shield user and trait for it, you get reduced CD’s and +90 toughness.

namely for me, the bubble shield is just useful in so many ways so it adds a lot of utility to a group composition. even running solo somtimes, i’ve found it helps a lot. absorbs ranged, knockbacks, gives you some breathing room if needed.

few uses off top my head:

• knock people off cliffs
• push away enemies trying to stomp your down allies
• deny stealths by thieves, or even deny any burst skills by any melee oriented / burst classes
• even useful when i’m chasing down enemies for a quick knockdown so my allies can catch up to them
• protect siege if needed

and if you will, completes the “knight” or “soldier” feel to the Guardian lol.

shield for team support, focus for self support (roaming or duels).

The Shield is a great weapon(?), but needs a bit of effort on your part to truly shine. The knockback alone is invaluable in PvP and the fact that there’s a heal attached to it only makes it better. And giving out Protection is also great (but the cooldown there might be a tad long).

The Shield takes more effort to use well (because there’s little you can do wrong with the Focus), but it also has to fit in your build/playstyle.

I keep both with me. The focus just feels more useful when I’m roaming around on my own doing PVE which is a shame as the shield looks awesome, especially when aegis is up.

Shield is better team support → Protection and Projectile Blocking + AOE heal. Traited you get 24s cooldown Protection. Also, you can detonate the bubble for a decent sized AOE heal which is its main benefit.

The focus imho is better for personal survivability, but that 45s cooldown is really pushing it.

I prefer Mace/Shield when running +Boon Duration for perma-Protection. I like to pair Focus with Scepter as the blocks are very nice in a ranged situation. Both are good and have their place.

GL
Blood~

I prefer sword with focus for sword 2 > focus 5 > focus 4. Works great if you’re specced for blinds.

But when I’m running around WvW, even solo, I prefer the shield for the ability to bounce Thieves out of refuge. Mostly out of spite, to be honest. Rarely does it buy me much. It’s also helpful if I run across someone downed. Bounce away the stomper, then start healing.

Preference, really.

Shield is better in places with a lots of projectiles (lupi, uncategorized fractals, etc) while focus is a bit more offensive – shield of wrath deals a lot of damage.

Definitely make sure you have both in your inventory. I switch between them all the time depending on the situation.

Don’t underestimate the focus as a support weapon though:

Ray of judgement both damages/blind AND cures team conditions and pops regen.
Shield of wrath is great for res’ing downed team members AND is one of our hardest hitting single contact skills ( and it’s AoE )

As others have mentioned, shield is great for clearing mobs off yourself and your team, and basically having fun with, and despite what you might think, does absorb projectiles for a reasonable amount of time. ( you can never have too much protection either ).

The main issue being the shield really needs traiting before it’s viable, whereas the focus is useful from the get-go

In my opinion, when I use mace+focus or sword+focus, I find myself rarely using the focus skills. #4 is a slow moving projectile that just stops my main hand attacks and the damage it causes/blind duration is negligible. The shield however has another skill that does “eh” damage (#4) and shield #5 can prove to be invaluable in alot of dungeons and wvw.

Overall, i’d choose shield over focus. And like someone said earlier, it just makes me feel like a true “guardian”

Focus. 4 blocks or a nice explosion, and a blind come in very handy indeed. Combine with sword and alternate weapon as greatsword and you have yourself 3 blinds, a pull and 4 blocks just on your weapons.

Personally, I prefer shield. the prot on demand is just too good to pass up, and the bubble gives you a bit of breathing room/cc. also incredibly useful in wvw if you wanna separate a group of enemies. Run in, pop shield, then run back. The ones closest to your zerg should die faster :p

Bloodgruve.6038:

I prefer Mace/Shield when running +Boon Duration for perma-Protection. I like to pair Focus with Scepter as the blocks are very nice in a ranged situation. Both are good and have their place.

GL
Blood~

Do help me please.
How do you get perma protection?
If it lasts 4 seconds and its CD is 24 sec, how do you overcome the gap?

Bloodgruve.6038:

I prefer Mace/Shield when running +Boon Duration for perma-Protection. I like to pair Focus with Scepter as the blocks are very nice in a ranged situation. Both are good and have their place.

GL
Blood~

Same – these are the two pairings I use; I’ve grown to really love the knock back/interrupt on the shield, I just wish it had a slightly shorter CD.

Reihert.1509:

Bloodgruve.6038:

I prefer Mace/Shield when running +Boon Duration for perma-Protection. I like to pair Focus with Scepter as the blocks are very nice in a ranged situation. Both are good and have their place.

GL
Blood~

Do help me please.
How do you get perma protection?
If it lasts 4 seconds and its CD is 24 sec, how do you overcome the gap?

Well if you are a Shout guardian such as myself, you will have 10 seconds from Save Yourself, 4 seconds from Hold the Line, and 5 seconds from the shield – 19 seconds. Add some boon duration and you a lot of protection boon time. There is also Protector’s Strike from the mace.

I have 50% boon duration so just using those once would be almost 34 seconds.

I leveled from 1-80 using mace/torch and scepter/focus.
I liked the focus offhand skills as they seemed to compliment the ranged style of the scepter, however now that I am in Orr and dungeons, I am going to try the shield. That heal looks very tasty, and I for sure could use the knockback.

So you guys are basically saying “Wow, this is a cool support-weapon” but you want to use it in melee because…why? The Warrior has the shield there?
The shield on the Guardian works with one, and only one trait in the respective line other than “the shield gets better” and that is Altruistic Healing and even that is debatable.
But you know what? You’re right, don’t use it with the scepter in the backline for support where even the Shield of Judgement makes sense to support the melees.
Use it in melee to push enemies out of AoE’s and break aggro, because that is what worst case happens with the knockback, you break aggro and send the enemies onto the rest of your party.
And what does the Shield of Judgement do in melee? Well, you get protection but to hit your teammates with it you either have to position yourself perfectly with the enemies and your party or you hit nothing with it. Really, the protection it offers goes just so well in melee.

Honestly, just make the shield a support-weapon, put it into Honor and say it gets +90 healinpower instead, that way we might even break up that Honor is basically just there to push the two-handed-weapons.

Shield is a group oriented offhand, but it’s only good if you take the trait for it.
You get a total of 151armor,protection for the whole team and a knockback with a decent heal.
Focus doesn’t need a trait to be good,but it’s a more solo oriented offhand.

For PvE don’t bother with the torch, if you are using 1handers on both weapon sets then get the shield and focus. The torch is lackluster.
For PvP choose Focus first and then either torch or shield, they are both good,you just trade more burst for more group utility.