Herald Shield

Is the shield a worthwhile weapon for Herald?

No. Though it was a step in the right direction with a shield trait to let shield 5 pulse condition removal.But as long staff 5 exits, revs are shackled to it for offset weapon.

No. Even if the staff dissapeared from the game, shield won't have a place in any game mode in its current state.

It's useful in some niche defensive situations, such has Hand Kiting the raid boss Deimos, and maybe for some PvP builds.

It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

PvP, well, the root man. It really kills it. If anet removes the root it could possibly become a good PvP weapon.

@otto.5684 said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

Politely disagree. In open world PvE staff lets you to soloing a lot of champions, because a well placed Surge of the Mists deletes the defiance bar, and timed to prevent their most dangerous attacks rend them defeated.

I don't known why ANet is delaying the inevitable: they made Renewed Focus a mobile skill. In its current state has no single use. Either revert the nerfs to HoT or make it mobile. Or revamp it entirely as happened with off hand sword.

@Buran.3796 said:

@otto.5684 said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

True. Much of the champions you can solo though do not need to break bar. You can also use shield and staff. I actually used thwt build against Tarui Ossa. But all this is beyond irrelevant ?

I was excited in this herald revamp looking forward for shield revamp. And that did not happen...

I wouldn't use shield on revenant. When offhand sword blocked I used it for that purpose, now I just use 2x sword for max damage.

Staff has heal + condi removal if that's what you want. Skill 3 also happens to be a block.

For shield to be worth using it would need to be mobile and give you barrier , reduce facet of elements/strength cooldown, or something worth it on skill 5. Right now it is a block+ weak heal.

The fact that there are unblockable skills and that you are immobile means if you get caught in AOE with poison you're worse off than not casting it.

Its only viable use is for a full commit rev healer. x/shield + staff.

@Radjan Majere.4208 said:Its only viable use is for a full commit rev healer. x/shield + staff.

Even then, it sucks. Shield 4 is terribly designed in its mechanics and is only ever reliable in chokepoints or when sending backwards while your group is running away. Shield 5 is a death sentence with the root. For a support weapon, it is very poorly implemented. For a defensive weapon, it is very poorly implemented. They just need minor mechanical tweaks and it will be a massive step in the right direction. I use it now but it's mostly because I have a matching skin for my mace and I like the mace for its blast finishers. Also I am a stubborn idealist.

@Buran.3796 said:

@"otto.5684" said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

I think Anet wants to fully force the usage of the theme of crystal hibernation, yet do how weapon roots target and the unblockables single and aoe spam nowadays skill need a huge update.

Yet if Anet pusnihes players on offense.... they will QQ, if isnt somethign that they cant easilly counter.

Lots of players even complained DH f3... since they didnt want effort to hit arround the wall nor usage of unblocables.... even aoe would damage if caster after the DH...

Due how dumbed down game needs to be on offensive for casuals satisfaction IDK how Anet can make Crystal hybernation a "balanced" mechanic(atm is a self kill).

My simple sugestion would a small redesign on animation and remove the root....Maybe Anet can make some sorta transformation for the shield( its actually the legend entering in hybernation crystal thing and not the player, who would sleep in the midle of the battle lol!), shield becomes a a crystal wall on the arm of the toon and they would remove the root?

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@"otto.5684" said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

It would be easy to change the animation. It is already a full sphere, like most domes are. Just go near a ledge and you can see. For the character animation, it is easy: Overload Water. Boom. Done.

With all thr unblockable shits around using shield5 in wvw while roaming or pvp is like saying: Hey I'm here rooted interrupt me with an unblockable.And shield 4 is a too low healing and just for 2 seconds protection for 15 secs cd, pretty bad.

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@"otto.5684" said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

I don't think thats the real issue. Shields on other classes have a utility aspect to them, because most of the weapons they get paired with are offensive oriented. The other shield sets also have access to CCs (or more specifically a counter move), which Herald Shield does not.... and I think thats what the real reason its impossible to pair it with Core Mainhands, and why Staff is so much stronger in fights where Defense matters. Core main hand weapons don't have the necessary CCs to make up the lack of offensive support in shield, and shield itself doesn't have enough group or personal utility to compete with taking an entirely different weapon for just 1 or 2 skills.

But with only 2 skills to work with.... its hard not to overload them to fit in some kind of universal utility aspect. As it stands, Envoy is a fairly balanced skill in its current state.... but Crystal Hibernation is lack luster due to how little it does. Part of me wants to bring back the Defiance bar idea from its original design, but thats insanely powerful and a major liability in PvP depending on if the "Stun on break" is present or not.

I would actually like to see Shield 5 skill renamed to "Crystal Bastion", and have it pulse some kind of defensive effect to allies in addition to its current effects. Or make the healing contingent on "being struck", but have it trigger as an AOE heal or barrier that consumes a stacked effect like Charges to offset the rooting. This sort of helps a bit in PvE, but still can't address a lack of utility in PvP.

Otherwise rework both skills to try and split utility between them. But right now its hard to cover what needed (without over stacking) because of how little the main hands do for CCs.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@"otto.5684" said:It is possibly the best off hand to have in open world PvE with off hand sword. Since staff is not important you use off hand sword and switch to shield if you need some sustain.

Or the Shield of Absorption animation with a smaller sphere.

Shield is a 100% support utility weapon. <- That is the problem why it isn't popular choice. I have to admit, the condition cleanse is a great idea.It roots you in place so this is the opposite of the Revenant class which people describe as Warrior+Thief.
In time ANet will probably find solution to the shield's use.

Shield5 being root should seriously offer a lot more to be viable, should for example works as Infuse light, so you punish people from attacking into it and you get fully healed instead.Or should reflect projectiles too.

If you remove the root it becomes just a copy of warrior shield5 probably even better so I don't know.

Shield4 maybe should have like 7-8 seconds of protection and could be already a decent weapon, or maybe give 4-5 seconds of stability, which seems op but actually it is balanced.

@whoknocks.4935 said:With all thr unblockable kitten around using shield5 in wvw while roaming or pvp is like saying: Hey I'm here rooted interrupt me with an unblockable.And shield 4 is a too low healing and just for 2 seconds protection for 15 secs cd, pretty bad.

Don't forget to sort of look at the skill from a support-build perspective too. Because it is honestly just that, a support-oriented weapon. In Harrier's and not taking into consideration our various modifiers, it heals for more than Renewing Wave at about 2200 HP, and the Protection will go up to lasting for around 3 3⁄4 seconds. It's quite easy to cap boon duration too, and thus have it reach 4 seconds. With Superior Sigil of Transference (10%), Invoking Harmony (20%, easy to maintain), Serene Rejuvenation (15%) and Selfless Amplification (which should be around 20% in Harrier's with buffs) that means you should heal other players for around 3700 health when using Envoy of Exuberance, which is honestly not bad. The rooting from Crystal Hibernation is very frustrating though, I will agree there. Although, that's not to say I never find a use for it while in Ventari stance and are moving- and healing with the tablet, while I am crouched down blocking incoming damage while healing myself. That said, it is a very selfish skill and doesn't feel very supportive. Perhaps it could provide some sort of boon with the pulsing of heals, or even become another heal for allies that are within a certain radius, not just yourself, a small radius AoE pulsing heal that affects allies and yourself alike.

As a side note; it does stink a bit that in order to give our Shield a condition removal, you need to take a vastly inferior trait in Hardening Persistence which has very little support for anyone on your team and are frankly really difficult to use with how fast that depletes your energy in any sort of situation where you'd want to try ramp up the damage reduction to a somewhat reasonable level. It's a very awkward trait and competes with Shared Empowerment which is just vastly superior in pretty much any situation with how it makes it very easy to maintain some might generation in your team.

I agree that the shield needs more cc and needs something to allow it to be comparable with other profession shield skills, Guardians for example or even Engineers. I'd rather take the staff. The shield just seems very... non-misty. I mean it has the Glint protection/crystal theme going on , but if I am to swap it out for a sword or axe, it has to at least compensate for cc. Envoy of Exub works with higher healing and boon duration, but Crystal Hibernation is not cc, not support, nor dps. For a Glint-oriented skill, its really selfish.

My biggest problem that I have with shield is #5 skill is root. outside of Open World there isnt point to use it . In PvP/WvW areas root yourself is bad and there isnt much compensation for it. Staff much better for utility.

They missed an opportunity with Hardening Persistence. They should have made traiting this not root you when shield 5 is activated. This would make shield half decent to use.

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:They missed an opportunity with Hardening Persistence. They should have made traiting this not root you when shield 5 is activated. This would make shield half decent to use.

I disagree. They should not lock such an important feature behind a trait. The trait itself is fine and needs no changing, it is the skill itself that needs changing.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:They missed an opportunity with Hardening Persistence. They should have made traiting this not root you when shield 5 is activated. This would make shield half decent to use.

The trait promotes passive playing (you gain irrelevant damage reduction in a game designed to actively evade damage sources) in return of being unable to use skills (which is always a cool idea in an action oriented combat system), so the trait is plain gabage. But even disabling the root in the skill I wouldn't touch the shield with a ten feet pole (and I'm talking as a player which crafted The Flameseeker's Prophecies just for the Rev, because at the time the Guardian's shield was a pile of crap). The shield is useless in PvE and detrimental at everything else.

@Buran.3796 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:They missed an opportunity with Hardening Persistence. They should have made traiting this not root you when shield 5 is activated. This would make shield half decent to use.

The damage reduction aspect is only half of the trait. To me the condition removal aspect totally validates the trait because of shield 5 pulsing removal. I admit I'm a bit disappointed by it because I thought it would affect allies based on the preview article (does shield 4 if it lands?), but I still think it's a fine trait.Not really sure how shield is useless in PvE? PvE is where the limitations and flaws of shield are least notable. Rooting yourself isn't a death sentence in most PvE content like it is in PvP/WvW. Unblockables aren't nearly as rampant (not even sure which NPCs have unblockables). Obviously if you are dps-ing, shield probably won't serve you as well as an offhand sword or axe, but you shouldn't expect it to fulfill that role; it serves a different purpose, as it should. Shield is in theory a good sustain and support weapon, but it struggles with both. Trust me, I feel like the shield needs changes and I am very vocal in my opinion on this, but it is not an absolutely useless weapon and it can easily be made into a very solid one. To me, what it needs is a couple functionality changes: a more reliable way of hitting allies with shield 4, and ideally for shield 5, a removal of the root. Disabling the root would be a massive buff to the weapon.

I'd suggest adding a pulse heal to nearby allies on Shield 5. If not the pulsing health, make it pulsing regen or protection. Since Revenant is rooted during this skill it will fit the theme perfectly, because you support others and are unable to move anyway. Just add a little flavor to that skill and I think that it will be perfect with recent changes! :)