One Hand and Shield needs a rework

WildRumpus

When I first started getting into tanking, the ice staff was an unwieldy and awkward weapon to use. Its only form of taunting was with a heavy attack, and it lacked access to important debuffs like minor breach. Since then, ice staves and the skill line itself have become so much better, more intuitive, and more fun to use with changes that not only plugged holes in its toolset, but also provided unique buffs and a clear identity for the weapon. With that being said, I think that the One Hand and Shield skill line would really benefit from a similar treatment. The weapon skill line is simply lackluster when you consider the competition, especially since build choices are at an all time high now with so many buffs and debuffs that can be sourced through scribing. Overall, one hand and shield is a weapon type that is almost synonymous with tanking, and it really deserves an identity that it's been struggling to find in the current game.

Let's start by looking at the actual skills in this line, many of which are either completely unused or just severely outclassed in a tanking role:

• Puncture
  This is probably the most popular skill in this line because of how central taunts are to tanking. Pierce armor is by far the most common morph with easy access to both major and minor breach. Unfortunately, the fact that this taunt is melee-only means that it is rarely the only taunt that a tank can slot. So, assuming that a player is running frost blockade on their backbar (as a vast majority of tanks do), then the debuffs condensed into this skill don't actually save any bar space compared to just dropping puncture for the already-slotted ranged taunt, and filling the newly-created space with elemental susceptibility. This new setup has all the same taunting utility, the same major and minor breach, but also regular access to chilled and concussed, all at range. With this in mind, it's not surprising that even for tanks that choose to use a shield, using this skill still isn't very desirable.
  That being said, puncture is much more appealing when paired with the Puncturing Remedy set, enhancing the taunt for more survivability. This won't be the only case of an otherwise mediocre skill getting chosen because of the arena set associated with it, which in my opinion is unfortunate.
• Low Slash
  Low Slash is a skill which provides minor maim, and its most common morph Heroic Slash provides minor heroism. Low Slash and its morphs are low damaging skills with no other utility besides the buffs and debuffs they provide. As such, considering how easy minor heroism and minor maim are to source from other elsewhere, especially from scribing, this skill seems very weak. Even giving Heroic Slash major heroism wouldn't introduce tanks to a new buff they don't already have, although it would likely become the most convenient source of it.
• Defensive Posture
  A damage shield costing stamina is already a generally undesirable trait, and Defensive Posture also has to compete with the plethora of customizable damage shields that scribing provides. This skill at least has a niche as an anti-projectile skill, but providing a damage shield as well simply inflates the cost when most tanks have better pure damage shield options and only want defensive posture when it comes to hard hitting projectiles.
• Shield Charge
  A gap closing skill like shield charge is quite difficult to make effective use of as a tank, considering that tanks prefer to bring enemies towards them rather than go chasing after enemies themselves. As a mobility tool its very unreliable since you need a target to be standing where you'd like to go. The most useful morph for PvE tanking merely provides a damage shield which, again, isn't really attractive with the many superior class and scribing options for damage shields.
• Power Bash
  Power Bash as a skill is basically just useless for a tank. The skill doesn't do relevant amounts of damage, and neither morph provides useful buffs or debuffs. Ironically enough, though, Power Bash is among the most commonly used One Hand and Shield skills because of how good the Void Bash set is, and players will use an otherwise completely useless skill (often unmorphed at that) just to proc this set. I think Power Bash and its associated arena set serve as fantastic examples of the contrast between skills that this skill line provides and the actual tools that tanks want.
• Shield Wall
  Shield Wall in my opinion is the best skill that this weapon line offers. It's a cheap ultimate that can have a variety of uses from reviving a dead groupmate to avoid a wipe, to recovering resources when things get hairy. Shield Wall usually competes with ultimates slotted for passive benefit such as Undo or Barrier, and Shield Wall serves a solid niche of being a cheap ultimate that's pretty useless passively, but quite helpful when cast.

Overall the skills provided by this line are either outclassed by other options, awkward to use due to a mix of actual utility and unhelpful bloat, or just outright not useful.

Since a shield is almost always competing with an ice staff for tanking, let's talk about what unique passive benefits are provided by choosing the former:

• Extra armor
• Extra armor glyph
• Stamina returned on heavy attack
• 5% weapon and spell damage
• Bash deals more damage and costs less
• Block slightly more damage from projectiles
• Move faster while blocking

It's already hard to justify using a shield when the skill line doesn't offer skills you want to use, and these passives are not really enticing either. Armor is only becoming more accessible in Update 46, which is a great thing but yet another example of QoL improvements for tanking that the One Hand and Shield line isn't keeping up with and made more irrelevant by. Besides that, most of these bonuses are either hard to actually notice or just completely useless such as extra bash damage. This leaves One Hand and Shield in a weird place where it's only worth slotting if you're choosing an arena weapon, if you're somehow really struggling with armor, or your stamina sustain is so bad you need the stamina heavy attacks. The latter two of these are quite easy to fix as well, making a shield even less useful as your build and skill improve.

I'll finish off by again comparing to how ice staves were improved, and the big different between the two is identity. Ice staves have a clear identity as a status effect oriented weapon, which applies them more easily and benefits from statuses in unique ways while equipped or while using various destruction staff skills, all while having niche and helpful spells and tricks.
In contrast One Hand and Shield has no identity. It is not a more defensively-oriented weapon, and in fact lacks some of the defensive tools of ice staves such as major maim. It isn't better at crowd control, its skills don't synergize or work together at all. I don't think the skill line just needs the exact same things as an ice staff, but rather it's own identity and playstyle that at least competes. It should be something that tanks actually want to use, because what the weapon line really needs is a niche and a reason to run it.
In my opinion using One Hand and Shield looks and feels better on a tank, it's just a weapon that makes sense for a tank to use, and it should be made into one because time hasn't been kind and the weapon line itself is just not competing well with all the new tools to build and play tanks.

Sabre

Ice Staff seems easier to regen with heavy attacks because you can do so from range.

Wish the bash attacks were dependent on weapon damage. Such a waste to only be able to do a few bash attacks. Very underdeveloped.

Vaqual

Not saying that you are wrong, but what is the scenario you are aiming for? If all 1h+hield skills would be purely optimized for PvE tanks people would complain that they barely use other skill lines. This line is currently defined by its PvE-tank utility, but also the defense from just the shield+passives and its high compatibility with bash builds. The fact that there are non-specific utility abilities like gap closer, stun and otherwise easily sourced buffs/debuffs might appear as a draw back in a highly specific context (class, content, group composition), but it also contributes to the versatility of the weapon.

WildRumpus

Vaqual wrote: »

This line is currently defined by its PvE-tank utility, but also the defense from just the shield+passives and its high compatibility with bash builds. The fact that there are non-specific utility abilities like gap closer, stun and otherwise easily sourced buffs/debuffs might appear as a draw back in a highly specific context (class, content, group composition), but it also contributes to the versatility of the weapon.

I'd be more willing to accept this if we saw shields getting used frequently in non-PvE tank contexts but even in settings where players only want passive defense, such as a PvP backbar, ice staves are still really common for not only their range but actually generally usable skills across a variety of situations. I suppose bash synergy exists but as someone who built a bash build for overland content on my tank it's extremely underwhelming for that purpose as well. I think the One Hand and Shield line is many things but versatile is not one of them when there just aren't skills in the line that are worth using and the passives don't provide a meaningful improvement compared to the other defensive weapon option (which has a plethora of actually useful skills and traits).
I also don't think its fair to assume that tweaking skills to be useful for tanking means they wouldn't be useful in other contexts. Change power bash to literally anything else and it'll be more usable in just about any form of content. Things like stuns or gap closers are fine to keep, and with the number of basically pointless skills and just redundant morphs that don't change anything meaningful there's plenty of room to preserve whatever skills the small minority of non-tank shield players use while also adding tools that the main intended userbase of this skill line can actually benefit from.

Vaqual

WildRumpus wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

This line is currently defined by its PvE-tank utility, but also the defense from just the shield+passives and its high compatibility with bash builds. The fact that there are non-specific utility abilities like gap closer, stun and otherwise easily sourced buffs/debuffs might appear as a draw back in a highly specific context (class, content, group composition), but it also contributes to the versatility of the weapon.

I'd be more willing to accept this if we saw shields getting used frequently in non-PvE tank contexts but even in settings where players only want passive defense, such as a PvP backbar, ice staves are still really common for not only their range but actually generally usable skills across a variety of situations. I suppose bash synergy exists but as someone who built a bash build for overland content on my tank it's extremely underwhelming for that purpose as well. I think the One Hand and Shield line is many things but versatile is not one of them when there just aren't skills in the line that are worth using and the passives don't provide a meaningful improvement compared to the other defensive weapon option (which has a plethora of actually useful skills and traits).
I also don't think its fair to assume that tweaking skills to be useful for tanking means they wouldn't be useful in other contexts. Change power bash to literally anything else and it'll be more usable in just about any form of content. Things like stuns or gap closers are fine to keep, and with the number of basically pointless skills and just redundant morphs that don't change anything meaningful there's plenty of room to preserve whatever skills the small minority of non-tank shield players use while also adding tools that the main intended userbase of this skill line can actually benefit from.

I just have a bit of a hard time empathising with this sentiment, because I have found power bash to be an absolute beast and I am surprised to hear that you found it underwhelming even in overland.

This is of course another discussion, without knowing neither your build nor your exact priorities.

As I said I am not generally opposed to sensible tweaks, but from my point of view this is already one of the best balanced skill lines and I think the passive benefits are not as far behind ice staff passives as you make them out to be.

+ I think the identity argument is absolutely overused and highly subjective