Curse

Sankt Hallvard · Jul 26, 2011, 12:12 AM // 00:12

I didn't mean to make a case for sg's viability, just that if you WANT to take it it should easily fit onto the prots bar. Rof being the most obvious skill to leave at home as you rightly point out. I could make a case for how you could also skip one of the skills you mentioned(aura, sb, veil) but for this argument it's not necessary.

NerfHerder · Jul 26, 2011, 02:04 AM // 02:04

If Anet's goal was to undermine the effectiveness of ER Prots in PvE and Triple Melee in PvP, the results are underwhelming.

ER Prots easily took the bigger hit. I'm not saying ER Prot isnt OP. The old SG could really save your ass if you let yourself become over run in HM. Basically giving you an "I win" for poor positioning/gameplay. But, why start nerfing one of the only viable builds Ele's have, without any evidence that we will get something to replace it with? Meanwhile, the new SG seems about as useful in PvP as balls on a heffer.

I could understand if they went after ST defensive Rts, at least they would still have a plethora of viable builds available. With the list of OP and underused skills we have in the game, why target ER Prots now?

Araiia · Jul 26, 2011, 04:29 AM // 04:29

I was a big fan of shield guardian on my ER prot bar, but there are enough other mildly useful fast cast/short recharge prot spells that the loss isn't crippling.

This update is ambiguous enough that the dev's true intentions could have gone both ways as either a buff or a nerf.

On the other hand, Burning Speed still has 1/4s cast and no recharge.

Apok · Jul 26, 2011, 05:02 AM // 05:02

Why anyone would want to take off a spammable and mighty useful prot skill like RoF for a mini aegis that is only up for, in the best scenario possible, 25% of the time... that should not even process through anyone's mind.

Ensign · Jul 27, 2011, 03:52 AM // 03:52

I don't understand why Shielding Hands is a core untouchable Prot skill in PvP, and I don't understand why Shield Guardian became a key component of ER Prot bars in PvE.

EDIT: I'm not suggesting anyone is wrong for running either of these skills, but that they're the 7th or 8th skill on your bar - the first skills to change when you have to make an adjustment, or specialized skills to fill in the gaps of the bar.

Artisan Archer · Jul 27, 2011, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't understand why Shielding Hands is a core untouchable Prot skill in PvP

Dervish meta and abundance of enchant strips. Shield guardian would only be better than SH if you face trip front with hammers + a ranger. Otherwise SH is still better.

Also Shield Guardian not a skill I would want on my prot, for risk of getting pblocked, (cancelling 10e skills is not gonna happen). But on a fuse or midliner, sure.

Xenomortis · Jul 27, 2011, 09:45 AM // 09:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

and I don't understand why Shield Guardian became a key component of ER Prot bars in PvE.

Me and my friends* would use it on one of the ER bars since it had a 1 second recharge and could be spammed with Spirit Bond to offset the energy loss from maintaining Protective Bond on three or four frontliners.

*One of the few groups that actually regularly run ER bars in PvE and probably responsible for whatever is one PvX.

Killed u man · Jul 27, 2011, 02:11 PM // 14:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I don't understand why Shielding Hands is a core untouchable Prot skill in PvP, and I don't understand why Shield Guardian became a key component of ER Prot bars in PvE.

EDIT: I'm not suggesting anyone is wrong for running either of these skills, but that they're the 7th or 8th skill on your bar - the first skills to change when you have to make an adjustment, or specialized skills to fill in the gaps of the bar.

Well, the same can be said for almost any skill on any bar, as most bars are usually designed around 1 -In most cases broken- skill.

An RC Monk is designed around removing conditions, that will always be it's original purpose. Any prot you throw on that bar only lands there because RC happens to be in the protection prayers line and prots in general work. However, build records have shown us that prots can just aswell be placed on the heal monk or even the midline. Hence, any skill on the prot monk's bar can be argued to be inter-changeable with other options.

Shielding Hands is just really good at what it does, and is very versatile aswell. It's an amazing tool to stop spikes, it works good as a pre-prot (on a pushing flagger) because of it's long duration and it has very usefeull niche uses. A prot Monk would most likely die to an IoP mesmer if it wasn't for Shielding Hands.

On top of that, in these days of fragility (Though nerfed) and Flash enchantments, aswell as life stealing effects, such as Avatar of Grenth, Shielding Hands and SoA are arguably better than RoF. This is why I always die a bit inside when I still see prot monks take RoF over SoA when they know they're going to face a trip dervish guild.

Shield Guardian was just amazing at PvE: It healed all your frontliners for +-70 hp every 1.75 seconds, it gave them free blocks against monsters sometimes dealing 300+ damagee a hit and it fueled ER just aswell as RoF or burning speed.

The defensive side of the old skill could be argued to be overkill, since you got a guy spamming prot spirit and spirit bond anyways, but it still was a better option than RoF or burning speed.

Why negate 90% of the damage when you can negate 95%?

Ensign · Jul 28, 2011, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Current backlines are dominated by WoH and RC, for sure; it's a messy situation though and ways to open it up aren't immediately obvious.

I can appreciate the value of the second small prot. They've always been good against physical pressure teams; I can understand how the metagame shifts towards massive pressure and pure passive defense would amplify that. While they were clearly the 8th slot when I was playing more, it would make sense that they would rise in importance in the triple melee and dervish metas.

I still don't understand how Shield Guardian became a key skill in PvE though. I always thought it was complete trash, however, and found that in any actually difficult situation, the less I used it, the better. It had some marginal value in Protbond centered setups as a slightly more robust tool than overusing Infuse, but it's always been very close to Burning Speed caliber in my mind, or like running Orison - sure, you can spam it when you're not paying attention, but there's always a better skill on your bar to use in a pinch.

I'll have to mess around with Shielding Hands and watch it a bit more closely to try and see what's going on with it. Thanks.

Apok · Jul 28, 2011, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I still don't understand how Shield Guardian became a key skill in PvE though.

Concise reason, if anyone cares: It was a spammable and targetable enchantment spell that, when fulfilled it's purpose, would heal for a lot. ER Prots found this to be a handy prot spell to fuel their energy while keeping themselves alive.

Shortened reason: It was brainlessly OP for it's setting.

Xenomortis · Jul 28, 2011, 11:03 AM // 11:03

Reversal of Fortune can do that job pretty much just as well; that cycled with Spirit Bond is almost identical to SG cycled with SB.
FWIW: The only ER bar that had SG mainbarred was one that only had three short recharging spells (Infuse, SG, SB). It's value of Burning Speed was that it could actually achieve something.
The value of Shield Guardian in PvE was always 'it has a 1 second recharge, a 1/4 second cast and it does something'. Most of the time you never needed it; it was just an easy way to keep your energy up when four suicidal melee guys were triggering Prot Bond like it was the apocalypse.

Swingline · Jul 28, 2011, 07:01 PM // 19:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Artisan Archer

Also Shield Guardian not a skill I would want on my prot, for risk of getting pblocked, (cancelling 10e skills is not gonna happen). But on a fuse or midliner, sure.

I actually thought about this scenario the other day. It's downright terrifying and it should be a 1/4 second cast to really solve the 3 melee problem without a Mesmer coming into the picture with PB.

Ensign · Jul 28, 2011, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok

Shortened reason: It was brainlessly OP for it's setting.

See, again, that is 100% counter to my experience; that the skill was a steaming pile outside of an 'I have 4 Frenzied Warriors with Protbond destroying my energy and I absolutely need to keep casting no matter what' scenario - and Reversal of Fortune was actually better for that, since it cost less and achieved the same casts/second as Shield Guardian when combined with your better skills.

If you weren't maintaining Protbonds on everyone, then Protspirit, Spirit Bond, and Infuse did everything you ever wanted from Shield Guardian. Whenever I had Shield Guardian on my bar in addition to those three, I felt like my effectiveness dropped whenever I used it. I was always better off using some combination of Protspirit, Spirit Bond, and Infuse in quick succession than pressing Shield Guardian.

I came to think of Shield Guardian as the Orison of Healing of the Ether Renewal Prot bar - yeah, sure, you can always push it to get an effect, and spamming it with ER up will be moderately effective, but there's always something better you can use and there's no good reason to waste a slot on your bar on it.

Have people gone back to using Glyph of Swiftness as well? That's another skill where you sacrifice a bit of power and flexibility for ease of use. It's not nearly the offender Shield Guardian was, but it's in the same vein.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

I actually thought about this scenario the other day. It's downright terrifying and it should be a 1/4 second cast to really solve the 3 melee problem without a Mesmer coming into the picture with PB.

Well Power Block is one of the biggest problem skills in the game, so I'd rather they deal with that one than lock us into a 'everything must be 1/4 cast because Power Block is retarded' paradigm.

Kunder · Jul 28, 2011, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

See, again, that is 100% counter to my experience; that the skill was a steaming pile outside of an 'I have 4 Frenzied Warriors with Protbond destroying my energy and I absolutely need to keep casting no matter what' scenario - and Reversal of Fortune was actually better for that, since it cost less and achieved the same casts/second as Shield Guardian when combined with your better skills.

If you weren't maintaining Protbonds on everyone, then Protspirit, Spirit Bond, and Infuse did everything you ever wanted from Shield Guardian. Whenever I had Shield Guardian on my bar in addition to those three, I felt like my effectiveness dropped whenever I used it. I was always better off using some combination of Protspirit, Spirit Bond, and Infuse in quick succession than pressing Shield Guardian.

I came to think of Shield Guardian as the Orison of Healing of the Ether Renewal Prot bar - yeah, sure, you can always push it to get an effect, and spamming it with ER up will be moderately effective, but there's always something better you can use and there's no good reason to waste a slot on your bar on it.

Have people gone back to using Glyph of Swiftness as well? That's another skill where you sacrifice a bit of power and flexibility for ease of use. It's not nearly the offender Shield Guardian was, but it's in the same vein.

I think the usage for which most liked SG was due to 7H team situations where the player is too lazy to flag things around (and naturally all heroes are casters that will clump up). In this instance, which is probably what 90% of players face 95% of the time, it was basically a cheaper HP on a 1.25 cycle instead of a 4s cycle. Outside of this it was at best marginally useful and nowhere near worthy of bar space on a build so already cramped.

Coast · Jul 29, 2011, 09:45 AM // 09:45

Shield Guardian Shield Guardian: increased casting time to 1 second; increased recharge to 15 seconds, decreased energy cost to 5 energy [sic]; changed functionality to: "For 1...3...4 seconds, all party members in earshot have a 75% chance to block attacks. If an attack is blocked, all allies in earshot are healed for 10...34...40 Health and Shield Guardian ends."

Discuss, give your criticism on it.
My 1st concern might be that 15recharge could be slightly too powerfull and should be increased to 20 if it turns out this way.

Swingline · Jul 30, 2011, 03:46 AM // 03:46

5 energy is too low with that recharge.

Coast · Jul 30, 2011, 07:54 AM // 07:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

5 energy is too low with that recharge.

5 energy so u can fake it obviously without burning your energy immediatly...
Also, read my whole post... not partitially

Swingline · Jul 30, 2011, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

5 energy so u can fake it obviously without burning your energy immediately... Also, read my whole post... not partially

SG is one of those skills now where it's either incredibly good or incredibly useless. Even at 5 energy and 15 recharge it would be an OP skill that takes zero skill to use except in the case you have to cancel against a rupter. For the fire and go type of skill it is I think its best left as is, just hope your 40/40 set gives you love which it will a lot of the time.

Coast · Jul 30, 2011, 09:46 AM // 09:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

SG is one of those skills now where it's either incredibly good or incredibly useless. Even at 5 energy and 15 recharge it would be an OP skill that takes zero skill to use except in the case you have to cancel against a rupter. For the fire and go type of skill it is I think its best left as is, just hope your 40/40 set gives you love which it will a lot of the time.

[QUOTE=
My 1st concern might be that 15recharge could be slightly too powerfull and should be increased to 20 if it turns out this way.[/QUOTE]

Then make it 20sec so u can chain it less easy when ran on several people

Wenspire · Jul 30, 2011, 09:33 PM // 21:33

I think for PvE, a 10en at 12-15sec recharge would be decent. It falls in line with Shield of Absorb and Shielding Hands. Those two skills have a duration effect where-as SG "potentially" triggers only once (per person) per cast and only vs attacks. Not to mention, they also cost 1/2 as much EN to cast.