Guild Wars 2

Only the first two attacks in the chain Cleave. The third in the attack chain does not Cleave. You have to have an enemy targeted for it to go off. Most other melee classes — and most other Guardian weapons — have attack chains that Cleave all the way through.

This is one of the big quality of life issues for Mace/Shield, in my opinion.

CHARR CARS FOR ALL!!!

(But, please, just for one weekend)

I play WvW exclusively unless forced to for things like crafting stuff I need to play WvW. No interest in the other game modes. WvW is enough fun for me.

WvW support guard here. I’m super happy with the changes except that:

• Shield 4 needs something more.
• Shield 5 needs a Blast Finisher and correct duration.
• Mace 1 should Cleave.

Otherwise, the changes put support guard in a great spot. Where before I had to choose, now I can run AH, Symbols and Battle Presence. Coupled with Signet of Courage and Pureof Heart/Communal Defenses, I am cranking out tons of support. I frequently am the last man standing, usually rezzing the downed commander until I’m dead. This finally feels like the bunker mode support guard I wanted from the start.

x indigo x.6981:

Rev vs guard healing :
Guard: frontline healer. Healing aoe around the guard himself.
Rev : midline healer. Healing aoe from a distance . Requires tablet management.

This, basically. I’ve run WvW support guard for about a year now. This weekend I ran different permutations on support Rev and Guard is still on top.

Rev Staff, as others noted, is not as good a fit as Rev Hammer. With Rev Hammer in dwarf legend mode, Rev feels tanky and strong with midline AOE and spammable Stability and a really strong elite Damage Reduction ability. But in Ventari mode, Rev feels helpless and ineffective except in niche scenarios: Choke points, defensive stand-offs and covering allies with projectile absorb while they Rez or retreat. Otherwise, the Tablet takes forever to spawn, then move into place. With a fast moving Zerg, you’re seemingly always behind on positioning and spending too much focus on Tablet management takes away from using other skills.

The WvW support guard has his nose up in it but is spamming heals, protection, Aegis, Regen, etc while still doing incidental damage, stopping stomps, rezzing allies, covering flanks with Wall of Reflection, etc. Support guard feels way more effective than Rec Ventari and evenly matched in terms of tankyness compared to Rev dwarf mode.

Even weak as it is, Tablet is now the undisputed champion of projectile blocks. If you have the energy, the Tablet dome blocks projectiles for a long while. But in general it will take more to make support Rev a reality.

I state no opinion on that. Teh cool down is really low for an elite that gives 50%(?) DR. At least it’s a useable skill. In Dwarf Legend, I found I could survive and participate. In Ventari mode, death would soon follow.

That’s the another point: Dwarf Legend’s heal is dependable and meaningful. There is no initial burst heal in Ventari and the tablet heals but a trickle even when traited for Regen.

I enjoyed the Revenant beta test this weekend. My feedback is from the perspective of a player who plays exclusively as WvW support guardian. All feedback is constructive.

I primarily tested the Ventari and Dwarf Legends with support traits and hammer. No comment on the DPS builds or staff.

High level observations:

• Dwarf legend is in a great spot. The 7 skill grants Stability and Weakness in an area. It’s ideal for dropping in choke points or keeping the frontline moving. The elite skill is a beast mode Damage Reduction ability on a very low cool down.

• Ventari is kinda meh. As a support Guard who runs symbols, I LOVE area control game play. And area heals are my Guard’s speciality. The tablet was too unresponsive (the best you could hope for is to drop it behind you as you move). Basically, it’s usable in nitch moments like defending and choke points but even then it can’t out-heal burst damage so it’s not worth it.

• Ventari’s 6 skill should cast the table at the pointed location, not on top of the Revenant. Basically, right now you need to switch to Ventari, cast the 6 skill, THEN move the tablet. In WvW the fight has been decided or moved to another location by then, and then you’re stuck playing catch up with the tablet since it moves so slowly.

• Didn’t really use the 8 or 9 skills on Dwarf stance. I found that spamming 7 for Stability and Weakness, the elite skill for tankiness and the hammer AOE skills was enough. The single-target 8 skill was not appealing given the other abilities. I wasn’t going for DPS so the 9 skill went unused by choice too.

• In terms of energy management, I was not clear how it worked. Is just being in combat how you get energy? Attacks only? But the most confusing part was I was no sure why the Dwarf Legend elite was grayed out all the time. Sometimes energy would naturally go up to 49, other times it would go up to 50 which is the energy cost of the elite. Still not sure here.

• In general, I found Dwarf legend to be very tanky. I basically stayed in that mode most of the weekend. Ventari will need big changes to make it effective, and that’s coming from a guy who doesn’t mind sacrificing a lot for frontline support/heals on his Guard.

I favor easy fixes to add functionality already in the game, not creating new mechanics. We already have a conal attack for Shield 4. Add Slow, Resistance, Chill or Aegies to it. Same with Shield 5. All it needs is a blast finisher upon casting. These are all existing mechanics which I would presume to be easier to add than some of the more “out there” proposals like thrown shields.

I’m rocking 3400 Toughness right now. Probably a bit too much given diminishing returns.

But that suggests that perhaps Strength in Numbers is not as effective for WvW frontliners since most should be gearing for significant Toughness.

Yeah, your math is my math now. While you have little control over when Communal Defenses goes on cooldown, the ICD is low enough to pop a few times in a WvW sustain fight. That means damage avoidance on the hit that Aegis blocks, plus an immediate 1k heal. While not a lot on its own, that heal fits nicely with all the other heals heals my support guard cranks out.

Thank you, Assic!!!

Wow. With about 700 Healing Power, Pure of Voice heals for almost 1k with each pop of Aegis. That’s not bad at all and comparable to dodge roll heals, Staff 2 and the Shield 5 double pop.

Any thoughts about whether Strength in Numbers “out-heals” the Pure of Voice heal by virtue of its damage mitigation from 150 Toughness to five allies?

Tarsius.3170:

You can check the healing spreadsheet link in my sig for some rough numbers.
It is unfortunately pre-patch information, but the communal/pure of heart info should still be reasonably accurate.

Fantastic, man, thank you. Question: why do you list a 15 second recharge time for Pure of Heart?

Assic.2746:

It’s more like old Glacial Heart (without CD reduction). It can be useful, but you won’t see much of a difference in battle. But if you have another Guard in your party with the same trait setup you will probably notice heals.

Yeah, I run double Sigils of Hydromancy which I try to pop on top of enemies. I guess I don’t see the effect of that either but it’s happening.

Would love for someone to run the numbers on effective heals per second on these traits. I don’t have the computer savvy to figure that out and, as discussed, observationally it’s tough too.

Because ANY Block will trigger Communal Defenses, it’s hard to time this in WvW with all the 1-attack-button spam. I’m mostly thinking of it as “just another heal” to go along with Battle Presence, healing symbols, Mace 2, dodge roll heals, Staff heals and the Signet of Courage passive.

I’m just wondering if Pure of Heart together with Communal Defenses amounts to a good amount of healing per second. I’m not relying on any one ability to be the be-all, end-all of my support guard’s healing. It’s hard for me to tell because I have so many green numbers in the middle of combat.

Has anybody tested the Pure of Heart trait with the Communal Defenses trait following the recent patch? I am wondering how helpful this combo is in terms of effective heals per second for a WvW support guard.

I understand that Communal Defenses has a 20 internal cooldown. But does Pure of Heart have an ICD?

For reference from the Wiki:
—Pure of Heart: Aegis heals when it blocks an attack. 645 heal plus 0.4 of Healing Power.
—Communal Defenses: Grant aegis to allies when you block an attack; Radius: 360; Unlike other traits that affect allies, the user does not gain aegis when this trait triggers; This trait does not have a target limit and will grant aegis to all allies within range. (a minimum of 8 targets affected has been confirmed).

This is what I run for WvW frontline guard support:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-B;4NF-40M3sFF90;9;4nPQ;0056147247;4U3m6W;16TsW6TsW;0kyeiFA;2Ve5fafaHeIeJ9;9;9;9;9;9;9;84-6Q

As others have noted, it depends what your intended game mode and role is. I run a WvW frontline support guardian. My roll is to crank out boons and heals to the front line while staying alive with the guardians low health pool. For that role, I run Sentinel’s weapons (primary stat: Vitality), half Nomad’s armor (Primary: Toughness, plus Vitality and Healing Power), half Sentinel’s armor and a mix of Cleric’s and PVT trinkets.

Over time I’ve reduced the amount of Nomad’s in favor of Sentinel’s gear because I needed the extra health to survive with the frontline. I’m down to 666 Healing Power after the 6/23 patch stat conversion and I have monstrous survivability. That’s key to keeping up with the frontline and spamming Protection, Regen, heals and other support boons on them. It’s also key to clutch plays like rezzing the commander while standing in red circles which I do several times a night. Between Battle Presence, Healing Symbols, Mace 3, Pure of Heart and Signet of Courage, I am pumping out a hose of green healing numbers. And with a higher health pool, I can live long enough to do that.

Asides:
—I suspect Altrustic Healing is super powerful right now if it’s true that shouts have no target limits.
—Healing Power does not scale well with lots of abilities but it scales great with Selfless Daring dodge roll heals and Staff Empower.
—Someone will respond that I should be rocking the meta stat build instead of this support build but, while I respect that view, I don’t care.

The elite skill Feel My Wrath WILL grant Quickness to WvW siege operators (flame rams, ACs, etc) but NOT to Golem operators. This is a repeatable bug. Mesmer’s Time Warp ability still affects Golems as it always has.

My full support WvW build:

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIEqAN0Beg~

I run Mace/Shield and Staff. Utilities are: Stand Your Ground, Hold the Line and Wall of Reflection. Elite is Signet of Courage but I switch to the other elite during burn phases or to grant Quickness to siege operators.

Grandmaster Traits are: Battle Presence, Writ of Persistence and Altruistic Healing.

Traits by line:

Honor: Protective Reviver, Pure of Heart and Writ of Persistence

Valor: Strength of the Fallen, Communal Defenses, Altruistic Healing

Virtues: Master of Consecrations, Absolute Resolution, Battle Presence

This build has tons of survivability, support and sustain. Special features include:

—Mobile heals constantly ticking thanks to Battle Presence, Selfless Daring and Signet of Courage
—Area heals, Swiftness and Regen with Staff 3 and Mace 2 symbols which are stackable
—Tons of Protection and Regen for allies
—Blocking attacks grants Aegis to allies and when the enemy pops Aegis it heals your allies thanks to Communal Defenses and Pure of Heart
—Projectile Reflection with Wall of Reflection and Projectile absorption with Shield 5
—Double knockbacks when rezzing allies thanks to Protective Reviver and Shield 5
—Incredible survivability with Altruistic Healing and Empower.

I am often the last one standing and usually I’m rezzing the commander. Just love this build. This is the Support Guardian I’ve been wanting to play. We’ll see how it shakes out once things settle. I suspect Altruistic Healing is super strong right now due to the unlimited cap on boons granted to allies.

My guardian loves that Wall of Reflection Reflects Mortar 1 attacks but my engie doesn’t.

Just heads-upping y’all.

They were too stiff before and too loose and floppy now. Somewhere in the middle is recommended.

dace.8019:

Like the suggestions about just re-working the Shield skills based on their current intentions and would be happy with most suggestions. My own:

Shield #4:

Vulnerability on enemies (5 stacks, 8 seconds) on top of existing mechanics.

Shield #5:

Probable increase of Cooldown.

Dome is placed. Knockback as-is. Dome lasts 4s and heals every 1 second (~300 HP per tick). Enemies inside the dome take 1s of Slow pulsing each second the dome is active.

• Detonate dome: Blast finisher, ~700 damage.

Small point: The dome is a Light Field, so if the Blast Finisher is triggered on detonation of the dome, it increases the chance that the Blast Finisher will trigger on the dome’s own Light Field which would always result in Area Retal. BIG supporter of adding a Blast Finisher to the dome but it should be upon dropping the dome, not upon detonation.

I do like the ticking heals though. I’d take four seconds of ticking heals to one dome detonation heal.

I would like to add my feedback to this thread: The revised wings — both white and black — are too floppy. As others have noted, the updated wings seem to have less underlying structure so they tend to blow in the wind when moving in ways that suggest that these are some truly boneless wings!

I also think the original wing structure was a little too rigid so some place in the middle is constructively recommended.

The cooldown seems too long. Think of what we are losing:

—Spammable 2k heals (Tome 1)
—AoE Blind/ GroupCondi-clear (Tome 2)
—10 seconds of Protection and Regen for allies (Tome 3)
—A pretty significant long-range Interrupt and Daze (Tome 4)
—A stylish and romantic book casting animation

What we keep is the same long-casting full party heal that everyone loves but on a very long cooldown. But we’ve also lost the trait that gives Stability while using the Tome so pulling off the long-cast heal is harder.

I’ve not run the numbers yet so I can’t tell you if the heal every 10 seconds is powerful enough. Nor do I know if the full party heal is worth it in light of how much healing is done automatically over time.

Vikkela.7261:

Having to run to the place where you want the WoR < can apply it there from distance

Ever used line of warding?

We have the tools to place WoR in the right place without ground targeting.

Here is a little tutorial video, the purpose of which is illustrate the tactic, not to denigrate or call out anyone in the video, friend or foe:

Want to chime in here. I am divided on this as an exclusively WvW player

On one hand, there are times when ranged targeting is a boon, like for placing one on a choke point that is taking heavy fire. It’s also great for placing it ahead or on the flanks to cover the zerg.

But the UI is killing me. The mouse is hard to see in general in this game and in the middle of a hectic fight WvW fight the orientation of the ground targeting symbol can be hard to see. Also: that ground targeting symbol doesn’t match the size of the WoR so you have to wing it by estimating from center.

But the worst part is this: Ground-targetted Walls of Reflection often wind up in very weird orientations. I had one placed vertically into the ground with only half of it popping up at an odd angle.

I’d favor an additional key bind to toggle ground targeting on or off. Otherwise, I think the certainty of placing it at my feet with a predictable orientation is preferable. Just my opinion.

I enjoyed the Ready Up too. Was watching it live when Twitch crashed. When they finally posted it to Youtube, it took forever just to fast-forward to the Guardian segment!

Those guys have incredible stamina!

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DroidDreamer.2861:

Lots of options for buffing shield and the shield trait. Many have been suggested, including by me earlier in the thread.

Shield 4 suggestions:
—Resistance Boon (5 allies; purity of purpose here: damage reduction)
—1 second Block for five allies

Shield 5 suggestions:
—Mobile dome that travels with guard as it’s channeled
—Stationary dome with no channeling

Shield trait suggestions:
—Move to adept to avoid conflict with Strength in Numbers
—Roll shield trait INTO Strength in Numbers by adding Shield CD reduction
—Shield 4 or 5 give Resistance to five allies

Add some AEGIS application to 4 & Taunt to 5 and I would be fine with any or a mix of these.
I suspect nearly every guardian would be as well.

Aegis is great but the only reason I didn’t mention it, and as I’ve said in a number of threads, in WvW Aegis doesn’t have a material impact in zerg fights. You could see it mattering in roaming or havoc fights for sure and in PvP but with an avalanche of zerg players spamming their 1 attacks, I suspect that Aegis won’t make much difference.

BUT it’s the kind of NEW FUNCTIONALITY — as opposed to a cooldown reduction — that I also suspect every guard would be ok with. So I’d be happy with adding Aegis too, I just think there are better flavors for the mix. Especially Resistance, Weakness, Chill or Slow for Shield 4 and Regen for Shield 5.

Lots of options for buffing shield and the shield trait. Many have been suggested, including by me earlier in the thread.

Shield 4 suggestions:
—Resistance Boon (5 allies; purity of purpose here: damage reduction)
—1 second Block for five allies
—AoE Chill
—AoE Slow
—AoE Weakness

Shield 5 suggestions:
—Blast Finisher upon casting
—Regen (5 allies)
—Increased heal amount on dome pop (current it’s about the equivalent of one dodge roll heal)
—Mobile dome that travels with guard as it’s channeled
—Stationary dome with no channeling
—Projectile Reflect

Shield trait suggestions:
—Move to adept to avoid conflict with Strength in Numbers
—Roll shield trait INTO Strength in Numbers by adding Shield CD reduction
—Shield 4 and 5 give Regen to five allies
—Shield 4 or 5 give Resistance to five allies
—Shield 4 Protection duration increase doubled
—Shield 5 Reflects Projectiles

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just want to clarify since I saw this come up a couple of times in this thread and we haven’t actually released our full official patch notes for 6/23 yet….

Ascended Gear will be staying 5% better than Exotic Gear. Gear beyond the tiers we already have are not going to be added and our existing tiers won’t change, they won’t be our main end-game form of progression for your characters/account for all the reasons we’ve covered before – it isn’t what we think Gw2 is about.

Masteries is being added to PvE to help provide this system as our form of progression for PvE moving forward, and the WvW ability system exists for WvW and will be what we use to expand WvW in the future.

To more directly answer some of your point….We are adding a system that lets you change the stats for your ascended gear next Tuesday – which will cost a combination of 10 spirit shards, piece you don’t want anymore, 5 ectos, and an exotic insignia of the stats you want to convert to. Legendary Gear will remain the gear that can freely change stats any time.

-CJ

I need to pick up more gems because I gotta support a game that provides other forms of progression besides gear grinding AND keeps the difference between BiS gear and second-tier gear low enough to prevent the delta from being a barrier to entry.

So nice. I can just spend my time playing for fun instead of grinding forever at my casual pace until I get to some goal post so I can compete, only to have the goal posts moved again. High praise for having the opposite philosophy, Anet! High praise!

Azoqu.8917:

I say they take protection off of number 4 and add resistance with the same duration.

Disagree. Protection for allies on a low cool down is a key feature of Shield. Protection PLUS Resistance on Shield 4! With added or improved functionality for Shield 5 (Blast Finisher? Mobile dome? Projectile Reflects?) and Resistance on Shield 4, Shield in a great spot for support. Lots of options here. Weakness, Chill, etc. But I think the group damage avoidance of the Resistance is most thematic for Shield.

The Shield trait also needs some love. Perhaps moving the master shield trait to the adept level (so it does not conflict with Strength in Numbers) or improving what it offers to justify it above Strength in Numbers. Lots of good options here too. Put it this way: if Focus gets 4 seconds of Protection per ability (8 seconds total, I guess?) when traited, Shield can get something equally as good but consistent with group support. Regen on five allies upon popping the Shield of Absorption, group condi clears, Reflects on the dome, persistent domes, domes that move with the guard while channeling are among the many options.

Purity of purpose for the Shield is group support via damage avoidance, damage reduction and heals. But in addition to purity, we also need parity.

I recommend against this change. Anet is removing vitality and power stacks provided by WvW skills to keep the playing field fair for new players but then increasing the difference between ascended and exotic? That’s not consistent. The low difference between BiS and the next tier is what makes this game awesome for relatively casual players like me.

snoow.1694:

2nd change which I think is necessary is to switch the Valor traits Smiters Boon and Stalwart Defender, because I as a competive Guard would never run Focus AND Shield, so I’d like to choose between those Weapons and take their matching Traits, without missing Smiters Boon. It would even make playing Shield much more rewarding since you could combine Stalwart Defender with Strength in Numbers for Bonus Toughness

I highly recommend this change. No need to force support guards to choose between Stalwart Defender and Strength in Numbers. The choice should be between playstyles, not artificially removing one option from a single playstyle.

No opposition to the gear grind, including the so-called treadmill of newer and newer tiers. That’s how MMOS work. It’s the difference between the second and top tiers that I recommend against changing. It’s been working just fine at 5%.

This site purports to have the June 23rd patch notes one of which is as follows:

—“The attribute difference between exotic and ascended gear has been changed from 5% to 10%”
Source: http://www.dragonseason.com/activity/390/

If true, I highly recommend against such change. The small difference between exotic and ascended is one of the reasons a gem-purchasing, comparatively casual player like me has loved this game. It is not hard at all to get in and play WvW without a high barrier to entry. Keeping the difference low is consistent with removing the WvW skill stacks to make it easier for new players. Keeping the difference between the top and second gear tiers makes this game more accessible and fun for relative casuals like me while still rewarding the dedication of players with far more game time.

Josh Davis.6015:

How about this?

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

Added to the release notes maintained in General Discussion.

Edit: For clarification, the shield recharge trait is still there on top of this. It brings the cooldowns from 24>19s, and 20>16s.

Grateful, very grateful for the Dev effort and attention to this issue. The cool down reduction is nice but I would recommend something more functional like:

—3 to 5 seconds of Resistance (5 allies) added to the 5 seconds of Protection on Shield of Judgement.
—A Blast Finisher upon the initial casting Shield of Absorption (upon casting, not upon detonation of the dome).

Black Box.9312:

What makes this even more hilarious is that the focus trait that grants protection on focus use is an Adept tier, and the shield trait that gives 180 toughness while wielding a shield is a Master tier that’s in direct competition with Strength in Numbers, which grants a guaranteed 150 toughness to yourself AND ALLIES at all times.

This. As a mace/shield support guard, I have to take a Strength in Numbers. Shield is not so great that the reduced cool down tops what the other trait offer. Let’s hope there are yet to be announced buffs for shield. Focus continues to outshine. Need not nerf Focus to make Shield better. But Shield and its trait need some lovin’.

The supply trolling issue is for real in the current system. But you can eliminate it with respect to upgrades by requiring a certain number of Yaks. Yaks could still drop supply to be used for siege or defending, etc. But each Yak shipment would also count separately toward the upgrade.

This preserves the importance of the Yak, the thrill of fights around a Yak that will survive if escorted and foils the trolls.

TheGrimm.5624:

Concur, will have to catch the ready up but I hope they really do not mean you do not have to have supply coming in to upgrade a structure. Today that is a valid strategy to block an enemy from doing upgrades, take out the yaks and camps and starve them out. I like that Yaks will be more important to speed up the upgrade but they also need to retain their value in delivering the supply needed for the upgrade in the first place.

This. Big Time. Especially since Yaks are getting some kind of combat buff. Let the fight be on the Yaks.

The current model imposes defense costs and time and lack of karma train opportunities on defenders. There is no reward for Yak slapping which I do all the time. Some of my best havoc fights have been defending Yaks! I’m not opposed to the new system removing some of the burden on selfless defenders; there will still be siege to refresh and defending gets you no bags much of the time. But these auto-upgrading structures without the need for Yaks is too much.

Auto-updates WITH required Yaks and separating upgrade supply from usable supply, that’s ok. But don’t remove the supply meta altogether with structures that upgrade even when the server is empty.

If Shield granted Aegis to allies, one hit from an enemy Guardian Staff 1 (or any other spammable weaksauce AOE) would wipe it out in WvW.

Not sure how this will help improve Guardian Shield. I guess the folks who think this is a good idea are PvP’ers? Because I am not seeing that change help in most of WvW.

A one-time AOE application of Aegis by Shield in WvW? Kinda like pee’ing in the ocean: feels good but doesn’t make much difference.

Unless Shield is going to be pulsing out repeated applications of Aegis, that would be very underwhelming. Meanwhile Focus — which is already better than Shield at Blocking — gets a trained application of AOE Protection (5 seconds) each time a Focus skill is used. I get that this stuff is in development and subject to change but what’s going on? When will Shield occupy it’s rightful place as a desireable defensive offhand?

I also agree with those who note that Strength in Numbers is far better than the Shield trait, especially if a team-support Guardian must choose one over the other.

I’ve been running my Warrior lately and it’s amazing how much better Warhorn is by comparison to Shield but you don’t need to leave the class to see that Guardian Shield is underpowered.

I had ability lag delay today too.

Silhouette.5631:

The day you manage to dodge roll into a zerg and hit shield #5 is the day you weld that thing to your arm and never let go.(This is of course assuming your something other than zerker)

Or when the other side is trying to regroup, might up and ready for another push and you knock them back to keep them from reforming… So good.

Nyta.4769:

Omega shots and disablers are projectiles and can be blocked by anything that blocks a projectile. I’ve had my disablers blocked by guardians and eles. And even blocked by aegis.

Interesting. Good to know. I wonder where the best place is for the WoR. Right on the siege or in front of it? In order to prevent the disable, I mean.

Nyta.4769:

Ballista bolts are not projectiles.

One counterpoint is that Mace 3 Blocks some balli shots but I think it’s just for you, the shot continues and hits players and siege behind you. That’s what I’ve observed but I am not sure.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

They should change shield number 5 and make it an AOE centered on the guardian which knocks back enemies & grants AEGIS to allies on a 25 second cool down.

I don’t agree with that for WvW at least. Aegis to five players is a drop in the bucket in WvW during burst damage phases. One hit from an basic attack like Guardian Staff 1 wipes out Aegis for the whole group and mitigates minimal damage. That’s why Retreat! is kinda meh in in WvW. It grants Aegis to five players but Aegis is not much help in a zerg fights.

Granted, in small man, you can pull of a series of clutch blinds and Aegis for serious damage mitigation which is tons of fun but I don’t think replacing Shield 5 with Aegis is the way to go. Adding Aegis to Shield is the kind of buff that would make Shield usable for those who want parity with other offhands.

I really think the new Resistance Boon would be a great addition to either Shield 4 or 5. A short duration (3 seconds?) of Resistance Boon on top of Protection would do much to make this the butch tanky offhand it should be!

And Shield 5 should include a Blast Finisher.

Please check my signature for the full write-up on the tools Guardians have to protect against enemy siege and protect friendly siege as well as my support Guardian build. My Reddit post explains the context of these videos which are posted here just for demonstration purposes and not to call out any person or group friendly or enemy. On the contrary, I salute friend and foe.

Wall of Reflection Reflects Omega Projectiles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHlz43MkICA

Mace 3 Blocks Omega Projectiles too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4NvUK_kILc

Tutorial on using Guardian abilities to protect friendly siegers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzoH7vl8BS4

Not confirmed:
Are ballista shots Projectiles? They are not Reflected by the Wall of Reflection or Absorbed by Guardian Shield 5

Are Siege Disablers Projectiles? They always seem to go through WoR and Shield 5 but I can’t tell if that’s because they are ground targeted.

My opinion:

PPT gives fights meaning. Fights give PPT action and excitement.

Otherwise, fights without purpose get boring after a while; likewise PPT is a little ho-hum without the risk of conflict.

As usual, somewhere in the middle is just right.

If you want to run Shield for fun, then go for it! I think there’s way too much emphasis on required builds and configurations. But then I don’t play “meta” or “FOTM” builds in any game.

I’m having a blast with Shield! I think if they added the Resistance Boon plus a blast finisher, it would be in a great shape.

I run a WvW support guard mace/shield build. Check my signature for the build and lots of gameplay videos, including a video that focuses exclusively on the wonders of Shield 5 knockback.

But, yeah, the consensus is that Guardian Shield needs some serious lovin’ especially compared to Focus. I run it because it suits my play style and I’m a sucker for punishment and working withing narrow constraints. Let’s hope the expansion brings a refresh for this offhand.

As others have noted, a good Altruistic Healing is very bunkery/tanky and fun.