That’s what doesn’t seem right in this game, the duration of skills. 5 or 6 seconds is ridiculously short, I don’t really see the point.
Sanctuary is not an awesome dome that shields you from harm, it’s just a stupid block. It doesn’t create a safe haven for your team to retreat into, it just stops one or two attacks… Maybe. Most of the time Sanctuary will disappear before people can even get into it.That kind of stuff should stay waaaay longuer. Maybe 15 seconds. It just feels ridiculous to block a single attack on a 5 or 10 minutes long boss. It’s the same for every “shield” ability in the game really.
It’s not like in WoW, where your tank’s panic button actually serves durint tight situations. In GW2 there’s no tank and no real heal, your life keeps going back and forth, and as soon as you get aggro you are forced to run away untill someone else gets it, then repeat. It’s kinda kitteny as it is, but it means that unlike WoW where you sometimes have dangerous situations, in GW2 the situation is always the same. As far as I saw, bosses don’t have super attacks once every 2 minutes, they just spam the same few attacks on a small cooldown. So there is no special moment to use your protection skills. You just drop them as soon as it’s up and soak up one or two hits that wouldn’t make a difference.
It would be awesome for Sanctuary to stay for 15 or 20 seconds, so you can actually run to it if you get damaged and regen a little before going back to the boss. It would be awesome for Wall of Reflection to stay 20 seconds, forcing the ennemy to get through it instead of just waiting (well the wall is 10 seconds, which is STARTING to get noticeable, that’s why it’s the only shield I like. Still feels a little too short). You know, create an actual wall that really modifies the battlefield.
I dunno about PvP but it’s all purely defensive. Maybe make it so you can’t attack either through Sanctuary and Walls, so it really becomes a way to temporize the fight (for both sides, so it’s not OP), giving you time to heal and get CDs back.
And I’m not even talking only about terrain spells. Stuff like Chaos Armor, Fire armor etc only last THREE SECONDS, or a CD of 30-40 seconds. WTF? I feel like many, many skills in this game seem useless because you don’t have time to see the effects.
I agree sanctuary needs a tweak, but definitely not the duration. A few seconds can make all the difference in this game, that’s what makes it more challenging. You have 5 skills, a heal, 3 utilities and an elite slot. You don’t just mash all the buttons at once and expect to win against a boss fight that takes over 10 minutes. I’m sorry but this game is great the way it is and the way you bring WoW into this is just stupid. If you want this game to be more like WoW then go play it. I’ve played GW1 for over 6 years and I enjoyed both that and GW2 thoroughly. Anet’s very good at balancing issues, listening to players and also keeping us updated on things they acknowledge need to be changed so be patient.
This game doesn’t need to be more like WoW like you are suggesting.