Guild Wars 2

I read the other topic currently on the Guard Forum about the “shield” and how it’s our class icon, yet rather useless. So I brainstormed some ideas for revamping our long-lost offhand. Feel free to tweak or add your own flavor and idea to the table. I really, really want shield to be a contender for best offhand.

Shield #4 –
Cooldown: 30s -> 20s
Effects
Damage: Remains
Cone Range/Width: Remains
Protection boon duration: 4s -> 5s
Additional effect: Applies weakness to enemies hit by shield of judgement, 5s.

Shield of judgement should have some additional defensive utility present in the weakness. Lower CD allows more uses (more fun!) and buffs/debuffs are active from it 25% of the time. Weakness addition makes sense in my eyes, it is a shield of “judgement” after all.

Shield #5
Cooldown: 40s -> 30s
Channel/Bubble duration: 4s -> 5s
“Burst” heal transformed to -> Regeneration granted to allies within, lingers for 4 seconds after bubble is dissipated.

Lowered CD for the ability to ACTUALLY SHIELD YOUR TEAMMATES FROM HARM. 4 seconds (current state) is simply not enough and ends up feeling like a 2 second duration. Now Guardians can sacrifice movement to actually benefit allies, and more often. Regeneration in the area instead of the “burst” heal, adding some synergy with boon duration.

Upon putting more thought into it, I think with the cooldown reduction and increased usefulness of the shield (with these changes), the current shield trait could be tweaked away from CD reduction and into something a little more interesting:

90 toughness while wearing a shield +one of the following
-protection boon (3s) when aegis ends
-regeneration boon (5s) when aegis ends
-increases movement speed (somewhat similar to warriors increase when wielding melee weapons
-Projectiles absorbed by Shield#5 provide additional healing to those inside
etc…

I think all of these add something new an interesting to the table, and could help shield get up into the tier of useful offhands