You know what would make shield a viable weapon?
Skill 4 becomes Symbol of Judgement.
Grants Weakness to foes and Resistance to allies. The cooldown would have to be longer than most symbols as it is somewhat OP, but think about the options for this! You’ll be able you wield a mace and a shield at the same time and have two symbols at your disposal. For the first time since launch, Guardian shields would have a place in dungeons as a DPS option and defensive Guardians can lose the poor amount of protection up-time Shield of Judgement currently gives to gain multiple 1-second pulses of Resistance, while also applying Weakness (perhaps as a Trait, perhaps even Grandmaster) to foes as a way to indirectly protect themselves and their allies. Shield would be viable in WvW zergs as well, as, currently the only access players have to resistance is from mid-backliners, such as Engineers and Mesmers.
Just a thought I was having as I was thinking about how much I’d love to use the Flameseeker Prophecies that I recently crafted in a setting that’s viable for it, but for the most part, the only situations in which the utility a shield provides is actually helpful is to clear a path for you and your allies when running through trash mobs like in Arah or TA, or when you need to knock an engi or necro off of the Skyhammer in Unranked Arena.
I hope arenanet takes the suggestions of the players seriously, because nobody knows the game better than the people who have invested time and money into it through the years. Whether Guild Wars veterans or new aficionados of the franchise, the players know the most about their classes and what works and what does not, and this is something that I hope other people will agree on and perhaps anet would consider for a future revamp of shield (if there ever is one).
Thanks for reading
Holy Angel Ithuriel
