Hello!
I am Delcore.2078
I’ve been an active player since almost a year ago clocking in around almost 1,700 hours.
I’ve spent roughly 1,400 of these hours on my Guardian. I love this class, and I love this game.
Over the course of my time here, I’ve had the opportunity to come into many different weapons and have added many of the beautifully designed weapons into my arsenal.
My favorite weapon set and playstyle across all fantasy games such as Guild Wars happens to be “Sword and Board”.
There’s nothing quite like charging into the heat of battle with your blade and shield out and ready.
This post here is just a suggestion and my complaint about the shield. I’ve spent a good amount of time learning my class and being comfortable in my own skin as a player and I feel that the shield for Guardians could use some tweaking.
The shield as of now feels weak and more often than not a liability.
My biggest complaints about the weapon are that the cooldowns are really long and the abilities on the shield feel lackluster.
Shield of Judgement is the best ability on the weapon. It offers protection to allies for 5 seconds and is the ‘shield bash’ ability. The “bashing” part is weak. My suggestion is that the damage from Shield of Judgement be buffed to about the same damage as the Guardian focus’ “Shield of Wrath”s explosion if the charges on the focus aren’t used up. The range is great, the fact it offers protection is good fun and the animation is lovely. It takes too long to recharge and ends up making the weapon not that fun to wield.
My suggestion to improve “Shield of Judgement” is as follows:
Have the burst damage from casting “Shield of Judgement” be increased so that it rivals “Shield of Wrath”s damage and lower the cooldown so it matches “Ray of Judgement”.
I feel this would make the “bashing” part of the shield much more enjoyable while not being too unreasonable.
Shield of Absorption is the next ability on the shield for Guardians. The first ability is the actual shield part of ‘Shield of Absorption’ creates a dome that absorbs projectile. The second activated ability is to detonate the dome and it heals nearby allies.
My complaint about Shield of Absorption is that, again, the cooldown is way too long and it makes it a less fun weapon to use. The dome’s range is nice but mobs can just walk back right in after being pushed back. The detonation of the dome for the heal is also very lackluster. It’s very tiny. The amount healed by the detonation is pitiful.
My suggestion to improve the shield’s “Shield of Absorption” ability is to change it so the casting of “Shield of Absorption”s knockback is stronger, making the dome act like a giant “Sanctuary”. The Guardian’s utility “Sanctuary”, I mean. Let it do the same thing: Allies inside the “Shield of Absorption” receive the same regeneration and at the same time, prevent enemies from walking through the shield while blocking projectiles until the shield gets detonated.
Speaking of which, the base heal from having your dome detonated should be increased enough to make sacrificing your ‘Absorption’ for a burst heal worth it.
These changes would make the shield a much more viable weapon for Guardians.
As of right now, the shield isn’t very fun for me.
After a year of playing this class, I’ve come to the conclusion that while the shield has a cool concept, it’s not that great to use and ends up causing you to be a liability save for the most niche encounters.
I firmly believe that the suggestions I made in this post would give a greater incentive to all Guardians to take up their sword and shield again instead of just using it to look pretty in cities.
Please improve the shield for Guardians.
Thank you.
