Guild Wars 2

This is all in my opinion. This is coming from someone who primarily plays pve as a dpser. I don’t do much solo roaming, spvp etc on my guardian, though I do wvw at times.

Traits
Zeal
Binding Jeopardy : 5 vulnerability for 8 seconds on immobilize.
We have 2 immobs on a 15 and 20 second cooldown. This trait isn’t awful but if it’s damage you’re after, Fiery Wrath is much better.
Revenge of the fallen : People actually take these traits?
Shattered aegis : Damage is far too low to care about. We actually preferred the burning. A very poor change from last patch.
Spirit weapon mastery : Spirit weapons are garbage except the shield, which isn’t worth traiting.
Eternal spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.
Wrathful spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.
Kindled zeal : We don’t have enough conditions to care enough about 13% condition damage.
Zeal suffers from extremely poor high end traits. Going past 10 (15 for hammers) isn’t seen as very useful, with 20 for greatsword users only a half decent possibility. There’s almost nothing except straight damage modifiers.

Radiance
Healer’s retribution : 3 seconds of retalliation? Are you kidding me? Useless.
Shimmering defense : 60 second cooldown makes it worthless.
Innner fire : How often are we set on fire? 3 seconds is nothing.
Searing flames : Boons are too commonly applies in both pve and pvp. 1 boon every 10 seconds is nothing.
Radiant fire : Nobody uses the torch.
A fire inside : Nobody uses spirit weapons.
Inscribed removal : 2/4 of our utility signets have awful passives, none of the on-use effects are great either. Possibly the knockdown in pvp.
Perfect inscriptions : 20% extra of 180 stats = 36. 36 stat points for a grandmaster trait? What a joke.
My biggest complaint with radiance is that if you try to put points in it and don’t want to use a 1h weapon.. once you go past 15 points for the awesome minor trait I challenge you to find a half useful trait.. go on!

Valor
Valorous defense : I know it’s a minor trait but 90 seconds is a very long cooldown.
Defender’s flame : Burn on block. We don’t have enough blocks to make this useful. I care so little about 1 second of burning that I haven’t even tested if it procs of aegis. I’m guessing no.
Strength of the fallen : People actually take these traits?
Mace of justice : Mace is trash.
Glacial heart : Recharge is too long, too easily removed.
Honorable shield : Our shield is rubbish. With some tweaks the projectile block could be useful.
Overall valor could do with some less selfish traits. It is a trait line frowned upon in pve.

Honor
Wrathful spirit : 3 seconds of retalliation after aegis? Not worth it.
Writ of exaltion : 60 radius is too small even for symbol builds. Have it turn symbols into mobile auras.
Pure of heart : Awful healing amount, not enough to care about.Plus if you’re on 100% hp and get hit.. aegis blocks it.. you then outheal.. great.
Resolute healer : Why can’t we get something useful like mesmer’s feedback on revive? And this only lasts 1 second? Trash. Make it shield of wrath (focus #5) and now we’re talking.
Empowering might : 240 radius is too small to be useful. Also the inner cooldown of 1 second reduces effectiveness with weapons that have a 1 second attack time like staff.
Elusive power : More damage when endurance is full.. yet we get perma vigor from having traits in honor. This is poor synergy.
I like honor, it can be very useful. With a tweak to elusive power (10% dmg when endurance is full perhaps) it could compete with other trait lines for a spot in meta builds and increase choice and diversity. Symbols turned into auras would be good, otherwise rolling the symbol traits into 1 trait.

Virtues
Retaliatory subconscious : Really? Other classes get things like shadowstep away on cc, mirror the cc back to the enemy, create a static field around yourself… we get.. 3 seconds of retal? SRSLY?
Improved spirit weapon duration : Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits. I’m going to go copy paste what I wrote for the last several spirit weapon traits : they are trash!
Elite focus : I don’t know if many people use our tomes any more. Removing our utilities and weapon skills is a bit rubbish. Most of the time I see them used it’s for a quick zealot’s fervor (quickness) or 100% heal and then cancelled. I think tomes need a rework.
Supreme justice : Nobody cares about your burning.
Permeating wrath : Nobody cares about your burning.
Shielded mind : Decent I guess but highly situational and a long cooldown. Not great for a GM trait.

Utilities
Meditations : All except smite condition have a cooldown which is far too high. The teleport-heal one (merciful intervention) is especially useless.
Spirit weapons : All of these are completely useless except for the shield, which plays second fiddle to wall of reflect. Only intense projectile fights make you consider the spirit shield.
Signets : Bane signet (power) is okay for the passive. In PvP the knockdown is alright. Signet of judgement has a useful damage reduction passive. Wrath (condition) and mercy (healing) both have awful passives. Wrath has a half decent active but you have to put up with an awful passive if you want to use it. The active on mercy has a cast time far too long, the radius is far too small, and the cooldown is far too long. Why do so many other classes do utility revives better than the guardian?
Elites : Tomes are just meh. They need a real rethink.

Weapons I have issue with
Torch – useless. I don’t even know where to start.
Shield – #4 needs to do more damage and give more protection. Currently it’s barely worth using. #5 stops you doing other things and doesn’t last long enough, make it off the global cooldown and instantly pop up a projectile block around yourself which moves with you and lasts longer. Both cooldowns are far too high.
Mace – Awful dps, awful & slow auto attack heal, time wasting block which gives you either a tiny amount of damage after some seconds standing around like an idiot or a tiny amount of protection. Neither of which are worth hitting the #3 key for. Regen symbol is good in theory but suffers the same mobility problems as all symbols.

Virtues
Personally I think the cooldown on these is too long, and virtue of resolve is now too weak compared to where the game has come over the last year.

I partially agree with the list, I can’t seem to find a way to utilize most of the traits listed above. However, I find some of them are still viable in certain situations. This comes from a person who only does WvW.

Mace and Shield: Viable for defensive purpose. Their traits are fine.

Inner Fire: Great for WvW.

Defender’s Flame: It’s not very powerful, but Shelter provides a good amount of blocks. AFAIK Aegis triggers this, just like Might of the Protector trait.

Resolute Healer: Shield #5 > Focus #5 in WvW reviving situation. Focus #5 does not stop enemies from stomping your ally, it also does not protect alive allies who are reviving the downed one. I use Shield and this is one of the useful things that you can do with Shield #5. It would be nice if the dome is longer than just merely 1 second tho.

Writ of Exaltation: Um, if you mentioned this before Anet increased the radius of all Symbols, I’d probably agree with you. But now that they have 180 base radius, 240 radius is enough. I mean come on, it’s as big as a Necro’s well.

Empowering Might: 240 is more than enough for WvW. This trait is a big boost self-heal for AH guardians. Um, AFAIK this trait did not have a 1 CD and Anet nerfed it because the healing that it gave was pretty ridiculous, similar to what happened with Omnomberry Pie/Ghost. This trait is EZ mode that I don’t even use it unless I’m fighting a giant enemy zerg.

Elusive Power: Honestly, I think this trait is fine. It encourages dodging, which is a big part of the Honor trait line.

Meditations: The cooldowns are fine, considering the amount if heal AND fury it gives. Merciful Intervention is not useless, it’s just not for DPS purpose. Isn’t it still bugged where you get 2x Monk’s Focus heal for a total of 1960×3 hp base heal?

I would like to point out that I would trade thieves shadow step away after CC for guardian’s retal in a heart beat. That just me though…..and every other thief in the game

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Zeal
Binding Jeopardy : 5 vulnerability for 8 seconds on immobilize.
We have 2 immobs on a 15 and 20 second cooldown. This trait isn’t awful but if it’s damage you’re after, Fiery Wrath is much better.

Agreed we don’t have enough immobilize to make this worth while. That even includes Signet of Wrath.

Revenge of the fallen : People actually take these traits?

Agreed. Needs to be merged with Strength of the Fallen.

Shattered aegis : Damage is far too low to care about. We actually preferred the burning. A very poor change from last patch.

Agreed. Up the damage or change it back to burning.

Spirit weapon mastery : Spirit weapons are garbage except the shield, which isn’t worth traiting.
Eternal spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.
Wrathful spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.

The spirit weapon traits aren’t bad. The problem is the weapons themselves, they need a buff to become viable.

Kindled zeal : We don’t have enough conditions to care enough about 13% condition damage.

Agreed, this whole trait needs to be redesigned.

Radiance
Healer’s retribution : 3 seconds of retalliation? Are you kidding me? Useless.

All heals have a fairly long CD. So I think it would be fair to up this to 8 seconds of retaliation.

Shimmering defense : 60 second cooldown makes it worthless.

Agreed, reduce to 30 CD.

Innner fire : How often are we set on fire? 3 seconds is nothing.

This I disagree on. This trait is very powerful in PvP and WvW. In PvE it’s very situational. Only thing I’d change is Zealot’s Flame also procs this.

Searing flames : Boons are too commonly applies in both pve and pvp. 1 boon every 10 seconds is nothing.

Again another powerful trait in PvP and WvW, but some what lacking in PvE.

Radiant fire : Nobody uses the torch.

Torch is used quite frequently in PvP and WvW.

A fire inside : Nobody uses spirit weapons.

This is true.

Inscribed removal : 2/4 of our utility signets have awful passives, none of the on-use effects are great either. Possibly the knockdown in pvp.
Perfect inscriptions : 20% extra of 180 stats = 36. 36 stat points for a grandmaster trait? What a joke.

Works well with Judgment and Resolve. Agreed the others are lacking.

Valor
Valorous defense : I know it’s a minor trait but 90 seconds is a very long cooldown.

Agreed, reduce to 45 seconds.

Defender’s flame : Burn on block. We don’t have enough blocks to make this useful. I care so little about 1 second of burning that I haven’t even tested if it procs of aegis. I’m guessing no.

Aegis does proc it. Guards have plenty of blocks to make this worth using.

Strength of the fallen : People actually take these traits?

Same as Revenge of the Fallen.

Mace of justice : Mace is trash.

Again Mace is quite good in PvP and WvW.

Glacial heart : Recharge is too long, too easily removed.

Agreed. Reduce CD to 10-15 seconds, and have it also add 5% damage to hammer.

Honorable shield : Our shield is rubbish. With some tweaks the projectile block could be useful.

Again another trait that is decent in PvP and WvW. However it’s lacking in pve because of the zerker meta.

Responses in bold.

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Honor
Wrathful spirit : 3 seconds of retalliation after aegis? Not worth it.

Agreed, increase to five seconds.

Writ of exaltion : 60 radius is too small even for symbol builds. Have it turn symbols into mobile auras.

I don’t agree with this. Symbols would become too powerful.

Pure of heart : Awful healing amount, not enough to care about.Plus if you’re on 100% hp and get hit.. aegis blocks it.. you then outheal.. great.

Somewhat agree. I use this trait from time to time. Increase to 50% of healing power up for 40%.

Resolute healer : Why can’t we get something useful like mesmer’s feedback on revive? And this only lasts 1 second? Trash. Make it shield of wrath (focus #5) and now we’re talking.

This is an extremely strong trait in PvP and WvW. Doesn’t need to be changed.

Empowering might : 240 radius is too small to be useful. Also the inner cooldown of 1 second reduces effectiveness with weapons that have a 1 second attack time like staff.

Maybe increase the radius. Other then that it’s fine.

Elusive power : More damage when endurance is full.. yet we get perma vigor from having traits in honor. This is poor synergy.

Again you have to look at this from other perspectives. If you had it when endurance is full. It would be useless in PvP and WvW.

Virtues
Retaliatory subconscious : Really? Other classes get things like shadowstep away on cc, mirror the cc back to the enemy, create a static field around yourself… we get.. 3 seconds of retal? SRSLY?

Agreed. Move to Grandmaster. Have it also apply stability. Up CD to 48 seconds.

Improved spirit weapon duration : Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits. I’m going to go copy paste what I wrote for the last several spirit weapon traits : they are trash!

Same as other Spirit weapon traits.

Elite focus : I don’t know if many people use our tomes any more. Removing our utilities and weapon skills is a bit rubbish. Most of the time I see them used it’s for a quick zealot’s fervor (quickness) or 100% heal and then cancelled. I think tomes need a rework.

Agreed. Have it 50% duration increase and 20% reduced CD.

Supreme justice : Nobody cares about your burning.
Permeating wrath : Nobody cares about your burning.

Again two decent traits in PvP and WvW.

Shielded mind : Decent I guess but highly situational and a long cooldown. Not great for a GM trait.

The reason why this is GM because it’s an AoE stun break. That is extremely strong.

Responses in bold.

Fadeaway,

I took a look at this list and I think its pretty good. But my perspective is more reserved until we see what changes Anet will make in regards to zerker dominance in pve. A lot of the traits and weapons you listed are actually good, but because the way pve works they are overshadowed by ones that bring the most dps.

Here are some of my concerns about the class in general:

1. Meditations have no source of stability.

2. Contemplation of Purity condition conversion is horrible, it should be exactly the same as pure of voice. Also the durations of the boons you receive is just too short to be useful. The skill is also a bit on the bare side, it should be similar to gw1’s version. It heals you for a certain amount per condition converted, similar to anti toxin spray.

Elusive Power: Absolutely bad design, vigorous precision clashes with this trait. It should be changed to give the bonus when endurance isn’t full.

Spirit Weapons: Terrible in all aspects of the game: wvw, pvp and pve. Traits are scattered through out too many trait lines.

Signets: Except signet of judgement and to a extend bane signet, they are bad. Likewise the traits are also poorly designed.

Shield: The weapon is too niche, it even has limited purposes in pvp. It needs to have a more universal appeal.

Tomes: Terrible design, having no utilities really hurts the idea of using them. They should lower the effectiveness of some skills like #5 for tome of courage and make tomes like a 3rd weapon. I guess they would be similar to a engi kit.

Shielded Mind: Should be merged with indomitable courage.

Torch skill #5 needs its channeling time significantly lowered.

This is just some of the general ideas I have.

You guardians have no idea how much better these traits are than ranger’s mess.
Ex.
Opening Strike : Apply five stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds to player you hit when you enter combat.
Alpha Training : Your pet a applies five stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds to a player it hits when it enters combat.
Precise Strike : Opening strike is a critical hit.

You get all that for 25 points in one train line. LOL

my list
Zeal
Adept
Binding Jeopardy – Immobilizing a foe also applies 5 stacks of vulnerability to them (8 seconds)
+Only 3 sources of Immobilize: Scepter 3, hammer 3, Condition Signet. Never worth it compared to Firey Wrath
Revenge of the Fallen – Increased damage by 50% while downed
+Downed skill. Trait for it incase you go down and cripple yourself while you aren’t.
Shattered Aegis – When an aegis you applied is removed, it damages nearby foes
+Damage done is miniscule. Even if you multiply it by 5 for each person that gets aegis Courage is on too long of a cooldown to make it worth it.
Spirit Weapon Mastery – Reduces recharge on spirit-weapon skills by 20%
+Spirit weapons die quickly, attack slowly, have long cooldowns and require heavy traiting. Anything spirit weapon related is subpar at the moment.
Master
Focused Mastery – Reduces recharge on focus skills by 20%
+Shield of wrath is what you want this for but it only shaves off 7 seconds. Trait points could be better used elsewhere.
Scepter Power – Scepter damage is increased by 10%
+10% more damage for one weapon. Our only ranged weapon… that misses often at range.
Eternal Spirit – Spirit weapons are not destroyed when commanded
+Spirit weapons die quickly, attack slowly, have long cooldowns and require heavy traiting. Anything spirit weapon related is subpar at the moment.
Grandmaster
Wrathful Spirits – Increases spirit weapon damage by 50%
+Spirit weapons die quickly, attack slowly, have long cooldowns and require heavy traiting. Anything spirit weapon related is subpar at the moment.
Kindled Zeal – 13% of your power is converted to condition damage
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
Radiance
Adept
Healer’s Retribution – Gain 3 seconds of retaliation when using a heal skill
+Retaliation isn’t worth it as it scales with power but you need to be tanky to benefit from it.
Shimmering Defense – Burn nearby foes when your health reaches 25% (60-second recharge)
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration. And this one is passive.
Searing Flames – When you apply burning to a foe, remove a boon. This effect can only trigger once every 10 seconds
+1 boon every 10 seconds max isn’t worth what you’d be giving up.
Master
Radiant Fire – Reduces recharge on torch skills by 20%. All burning durations are increased by 20%
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
A Fire Inside – Spirit weapons cause burning
+Spirit weapons die quickly, attack slowly, have long cooldowns and require heavy traiting. Anything spirit weapon related is subpar at the moment.
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
Inscribed Removal – Using a signet cures a condition on you
+Signets aren’t instant and can be interrupted. The passives are good for signets (though selfish) and the actives arent worth losing for condition removal.
Grandmaster
Perfect Inscriptions – Signet passive effects are improved by 20%
+Slight stat boost. Not worth it for grandmaster trait.
Valor
Adept
Defender’s Flame – 100% chance to burn attackers when blocking
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
Strength of the Fallen – Lose health 33% slower while downed
+Downed skill. Trait for it incase you go down and cripple yourself while you aren’t.
Master
Glacial Heart – Critical hits with a hammer have a 50% chance to chill up to 5 enemies around a 180 radius for 4 seconds. This effect is unblockable and can only occur once every 30 seconds
+Not frequent enough and it only works with hammer.

Honor
Adept
Wrathful Spirit – Aegis gives 3 seconds of retaliation when it ends
+Retaliation isn’t worth it as it scales with power but you need to be tanky to benefit from it.
Protective Reviver – When you revive an ally, you both gain aegis, protection, and regeneration for 10 seconds
+Other traits are way more useful here.
Resolute Healer – Generates a Shield of Absorption when you start reviving an ally. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 60 seconds
+Cooldown is too long. Other traits are more useful here.
Grandmaster
Battle Presence – Nearby allies gain Virtue of Resolve’s passive effect
+Doesn’t work on other Guards. No self benefit. Healing given to other is pitiful anyways.
Virtues
Adept
Vengeful – Retaliation lasts 25% longer
+Retaliation isn’t worth it as it scales with power but you need to be tanky to benefit from it.
Consecrated Ground – Consecration skills use ground-targeting
+very little point to ground targeting consecrations. Better to just spend the points elsewhere.
Retaliatory Subconscious – Gain 3 seconds of retaliation whenever you are dazed, stunned, knocked down, knocked back, or feared. (30 second recharge)
+Retaliation isn’t worth it as it scales with power but you need to be tanky to benefit from it.
Improved Spirit Weapon Duration – Spirit weapons last 50% longer
+Spirit weapons die quickly, attack slowly, have long cooldowns and require heavy traiting. Anything spirit weapon related is subpar at the moment.
Master
Elite Focus – Elite skills last 50% longer
+Does practically nothing for Renewed Focus. It makes the books better but only slightly. Cooldown on the books are way too long and don’t last long enough anyways. And how come we never saw any changes to Tome of Wrath’s quickness duration after the nerf to quickness?
Supreme Justice – Virtue of Justice causes burning every 3 attacks instead of 5. When activating Virtue of Justice, the burn duration is increased by 25%
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
Grandmaster
Permeating Wrath – Virtue of Justice’s passive effect no longer burns your target, but instead burns the area around you each time it activates
+Condition damage related skills are subpar on guard because we only have one condition (Burning) that only stacks in duration.
Shielded Mind – Activating Courage also breaks stuns for any ally affected by the ability
+Cooldown too long on courage. Usage is extremely situation at best. Not worthy of grandmaster trait.

Thanks for the great responses guys hopefully devs are paying attention.

fully agree, not gonna complain as guard has great damage and great traits at the same time but lots of trash

Battle presence not working on other guards is an issue, but shush your mouth about it being pitiful. You stack that with regen in full clerics gear and all your buddies are benefiting from 500 hp a second, that’s a game changer in wvw. All the burning traits..well that’s conditions them selves that are the issue, not the traits. Shielded mind is crum since it doesnt really stack with the other VoC trait that well. (if you just got hit by a CC they probably arent going to have another one handy). retaliatory subconcious, lower the CD atleast. That retaliation buff in the adept tier is actualy pretty good since guards have alot of ways to cast it. Find it kinda bad tho that it and retaliatory subconcious are in the same spot

Thought we already had a thread for this, i’ll re post here for the case of Minor traits.

Minors: Pretty much the majority of these except for a select few: Radiant Power, Elusive Power, Might of the protector and Vigorous Precision. The only reason I don’t find Inspired Virtue a good trait because without it, Virtues in my opinion, are very sub par.

Can we get a Moderator to merge this thread and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/list-of-Useless-GuardianTraits/first#post3479878

To repeat my own post from that thread:

Useless traits are only part of the problem, no soft or hard CC (aside from VERY few weapons with very predictable and slow attacks), no escape mechanic, almost exclusively melee centric (unless you count that granny slow scepter attack). Next to useless virtues due to the huge cooldown for what little they give. 60 secs on Virtue of resolve, even traited for condi removal there’s purging flame that does the same thing on a 35 secs CD. VoC? Block one mighty random auto attack every 40 seconds or block one mighty attack of choice on a 90 second cooldown, even if traited for stability… 3 secs of stability on a 60 secs cooldown vs stand your ground’s 6 secs of stability AND a stun break on a 30(24) secs cooldown? I mean really? Virtues need to be reworked and either their cooldowns be dropped significantly or the benefit of using them to warrant that cooldown.

I feel that VoJ is probably the only one of the three, that has the right cooldown for what it does (if traited into radiance +5). And when you think about it, it does the same thing as VoC and in some situations it’s even better (think 1vX), on 3 times lower cooldown.

Then there’s the matter with the weapon skills (you know which ones) that require for you to be stationary for them to go off. By now the meta has evolved to the point where nobody will stay in your face for a second (consider latency) for you to put ring of warding on the ground, or banish them. In the current meta with everyone running at 25% speed it’s next to impossible to land a stationary Zealot’s Defense for more than a third of its total duration.

Finally, we finally deserve an alternative to Renewed Focus. Both Tome of Wrath and Tome of Courage are completely useless for anything outside of PvE and probably even there considering the huge cooldown and cast times on the good skills they provide. Renewed Focus itself isn’t something inspiring by any means, it’s mainly used as a tool to refresh the huge Virtue Cooldowns so you can squeeze another second or two of survivability while being on a low Cooldown (for an elite skill). It’s uselessness comes from the fact that:
1. It doesn’t bypass Daze so you’re likely to die in crowd control without even getting the chance to use it.
2. Invulnerable doesn’t really mean invulnerable as it prevents incoming direct damage but any applied conditions still tick so you still end up dying while being “invulnerable”

When you think about it, mesmers have a sword attack that does the same thing on a 12 second cooldown with an extra second of duration and dishing high damage at the same time. Renewed Focus might as well be demoted to utility skill as it can hardly be called an Elite Skill.

I’m sure there will be people to disagree with a lot of these points and people that would say those skills are really useful when paired with other skills (example being RoW/Banish with JI), but come on we ain’t supposed to have to use a second skill to get the first one to work.

Can’t say I disagree with some stuff here, but I can’t say I agree with everything.

You can’t call balance and just label torches, maces and Burn as “useless”.
If you really wish to balance, then you need to tweak those to become useful, instead of ditching then away.

In fact, I am a real Torch lover. Zealot’s Fire is an awesome skill and it synergies perfectly with the Scepter Chains of Light (and you can trait it for extra Vulnerability, not that useless trait right now huh!?).

Mace is the most important weapon for bunker guardians on PvP. Plus Guardians are remotely immortal on PvE while wielding a mace. Yes your damage sucks alright, but you can’t die using it. That means a lot.

Talking about burning. It isn’t useless. In fact, Burning is the best damage condition in the game. Only reason why ConD guardians are useless is because we ‘only’ have burn. If we had access to anything else, Guardian would be great in Dire Armor.

Retaliation is broken on WvW. Is the only freaking method (besides arrow carts) to hit more than 6 targets at the same time.
Besides, Rangers may agree with me here, casting Barrage in a Guardian with retaliation is NOT FUN AT ALL.

Consecration Ground is one of the main reasons people go 10 on Adept. How in the freakin heavens you can call this useless?

Lastly, Eternal Spirits and Spirit weapons are awesome for underwater fights. Sadly that’s all they are useful for though. (never really got why Spirit weapons got nerfed some updates ago).

I’m only talking from an sPvP point of view so I find Retaliation, when attached to only one person to be underwhelming. It’s great when your group has it but other than that, it’s not exactly the greatest of boons.

There’s a LOT of these traits that I’m seeing more useful as I get into SPvP. From a PvE/WvW/Dungeon standpoint, there’s a lot that really do suck, but are a whole other story in spvp. Stuff like Extra Vulnerability stacking…. man, getting more stacks of those gives 1% increased damage for each one (I believe). Now, imagine you’re trying to kill a bunker guardian (which I play, and it’s incredibly strong) those stacks will help.

Unless this thread is specifically for dungeon PvE, about 1/3 of the list is wrong in claiming traits, skills, and weapons are useless. For adept and master major traits, that’s not all that bad, since you have a selection. For the rest, many could be good, but their trait lines are brought down by awful minor traits or overshadowed by traits that are far better. And a lot of guardian abilities are for utility and suffer from the “PvE zerker is best” problem. For example:
- Inner Fire is a very good PvP trait. Players use burning a lot more than mobs.
- Searing Flames is good for an adept-level trait. But it’s overshadowed by other choices.
- Radiant Fire is used in sPvP DPS builds mostly for the burning duration increase.
- Valorous Defense is the same cooldown as Virtue of Courage. For a 5pt minor, it’s fine.
- Resolute Healer is used by many bunker guardians in sPvP. They take it over any master level trait in that line.
- Permeating Wrath & Supreme Justice aren’t that bad. Someone did the math on them in the Guardian forums a while back and even in a power build, they’re a decent damage gain (aside from the condition issue in PvE). The problem is that the Virtues trait line is about support, not damage.
- Meditations have all seen play in PvP and WvW (roaming) and are actually very popular right now.
- Mace is great in PvP for DPS (if you’re good at using #3) and defense.
- Torch sees occasional play in sPvP for DPS, though is a bit weak.

I already said it is from a pve perspective. If I’ve missed reasons why they are better in other game types please by all means point it out to me (which you have done) . Thanks.

I was speaking from an spvp perspective. I was also talking only about minors but let me see what you have.

-inner fire is pretty decent, it’s good against those who apply constant stacks but not so good against someone who’kitten you once.

-Searing Flames is a joke, I can honestly say I’ve never used this trait in spvp. But like you say, it’s easily overshadowed.

- Radiant fire was a nice step for Guardians to utilize conditions better but with the amount of condition clearing, it’s also overshadowed.

-Valorous Defense isn’t fine, this trait has to be one of the weakest ones I’ve seen.

-Resolute healer is good for bunkering.

-The two burning traits in the Virtues line are too easily overshadowed by Absolute and indomitable. Not to mention the fact that Supreme just burns around you and not your opponent makes little sense to me.

-Meditations are more popular because of the small buff it got recently. You’re pigeonholed between that and AH builds for your Guardian.

-Mace is only utilized for bunkering, outside of that it’s too slow.

-Torch can put out a decent amount of damage. However, Zealots fire is too predictable(especially at range where you can strafe dodge it).

Arken.3725:

I was speaking from an spvp perspective. I was also talking only about minors but let me see what you have.

-inner fire is pretty decent, it’s good against those who apply constant stacks but not so good against someone who’kitten you once.

-Searing Flames is a joke, I can honestly say I’ve never used this trait in spvp. But like you say, it’s easily overshadowed.

- Radiant fire was a nice step for Guardians to utilize conditions better but with the amount of condition clearing, it’s also overshadowed.

-Valorous Defense isn’t fine, this trait has to be one of the weakest ones I’ve seen.

-Resolute healer is good for bunkering.

-The two burning traits in the Virtues line are too easily overshadowed by Absolute and indomitable. Not to mention the fact that Supreme just burns around you and not your opponent makes little sense to me.

-Meditations are more popular because of the small buff it got recently. You’re pigeonholed between that and AH builds for your Guardian.

-Mace is only utilized for bunkering, outside of that it’s too slow.

-Torch can put out a decent amount of damage. However, Zealots fire is too predictable(especially at range where you can strafe dodge it).

Searing flames would be better as a minor trait than a major one. Its really hard to justify taking it over other options in radiance.

I’ve tried it after the buff and while its way better than how it was when it was on a 20sec cd, its still not on the same level as a trait like bountiful theft.

Useless or unworthy GM traits:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wrathful_Spirits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kindled_Zeal
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Perfect_Inscriptions
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Permeating_Wrath
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shielded_Mind

Useless traits?

All of Zeal.

Baels.3469:

Useless traits?

All of Zeal.

Fiery Wrath says hello! Very strong trait, especially for an adept trait. Zealots Speed is pretty good (even if it SHOULD be a symbol of speed, not wrath). Zealots blade would be more interesting in a different tree. Scepter power is alright if you’re into that sort of thing. Binding Jeopardy would be a decent enough trait if it did not compete with Fiery Wrath. That is all unfortunately. There is very very little reason to go beyond 10 in Zeal.

On a side note, I played with a condi guardian build for a while now and I have to say, Kindled Zeal is incredibly inferior to 25 points in radiance if condition damage is what you are looking for. It is insulting really.

I’d be happy with just making the shield a bit better! I love the aesthetics of shields but can’t find a reason to use one over a focus.

In regards to Searing Flames. Does it still go on cooldown whenever you apply burning regardless of wheter or not a boon is stripped?

Haven’t tested it in a long while. If it would only proc the cooldown when a boon was actually stripped this might see some more play.

Just a quick 2 cents…

Xar.6185:

In regards to Searing Flames. Does it still go on cooldown whenever you apply burning regardless of wheter or not a boon is stripped?

Haven’t tested it in a long while. If it would only proc the cooldown when a boon was actually stripped this might see some more play.

Just a quick 2 cents…

There was a post from Anet stating that they were aware of searing flames activating even when the target had no boon and had a fix in the works. No idea if that fix has ever made it into any of the recent patches though.

Hi, great post! Sadly we must pray to some Dev read it. Let’s pray.

My suggestions for traits:

Mikau.6920:

There are just too many useless traits, maybe on Guard than other classes. I’ll give some ways to fix (not make OP) them:

ZEAL – The problem: This should be more a “selfish line”, oriented to DPS, but the options are very poorly.

• I – Binding Jeopardy: The vulnerability duration is increased to 12 sec, up from 8 sec.
• IV – Revenge of the Fallen: Merged with Strength of the Fallen (III on Valor line).
• IV (new) – (Name?): Critical hits have 30% of chance to apply 1 sec cripple.
• V – Shattered Aegis: Increased the dmg. (I not tested, but this trait also works on allies?)
• VIII – Focused Mastery: -20% CD reduction and Activating focus skills remove 1 condition from yourself.
• X – Eternal Spirit: Merged with Spirit-Weapon Mastery (VI).
• X (new) – (Name?): Increases the move speed by 25% when using melee weapons.
• XII – Kindled Zeal: Replaced the effect to “apply <put a condition that does dmg here> on critical hits. Duration: ?; CD: ?”. Alternatively, it can make Vulnerability do damage (same as bleeding) – similar to Necro’s trait, Terror – in this way will offer a new play style and synergy with the traits I (Binding Jeopardy), 15 (Symbolic Exposure) from Zeal and VI (Blind Exposure) from Radiance and will fit with the theme of the Guardian.

In this way this line would be a lot more attractive, while not being overpowered. This also would fix the lack of soft CC and very low mobility that Guardian have and both options make sense in this line.

Also are a problem with focus (You’ll need to use mace), scepter and even with sword (a selfish weapon) in this line becouse of the Symbolic Exposure (15) that have no synergy with. Maybe if they change the Scepter #2 to a symbol (changing the skill to not become OP, of course) and the #2 sword to “apply symbol of fury on hit” (consideirng that the dmg from sword #2 is lame) would allow those weapons to have more synergy with the symbol traits.

RADIANCE – I think that this line is also more oriented to dmg and more selfish, but have better traits than Zeal line.

• I – Healer’s Retribution: Increased the retal duration to 5 sec, up from 3.
• III – Shimmering Defense: Increased the Health threshold to 50%, reduced the CD to 45 sec and reduced the burning duration to 4 secs.
• IV – Inner Fire: Chaged to work with #4 torch.

VALOR – Pretty much an ok line.

• 15 minor – Courageous Return: I feel that this traits should be redesigned. No idea, though.
• VIII – Glacial Heart: Reduced to CD to 15 sec (or even 10 sec) and increase the damage of Hammer by 5%.
• X – Focused Mind: Increased the fury duration to 5 sec, up from 4.

HONOR – Also, an ok line (The best line).
I only feel that Battle Presence (XII) is weak as GM trait (I can have a similar effect with only 5 point in Water line with Ele). I have no suggestions to change in this line.

VIRTUES – There are some junk traits.

• IV – Retaliatory Subconscious: Changed to “cast Stand on Your Ground when disabled. CD: 60 sec”. This change would be really good, this trait wont be a junk any more and could have synergy with shout traits.
• V – Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration: Removed. Its effect is applied permanently.
• V (new) – (Name?): Activating a virtue (or maybe only VoJ) you – only the Guardian – gets 3 sec fury. (In this way the guardian will have a effective way to get fury, without been forced to meditations and this fits with the line theme).
• X – Indomitable Courage: Merged with Shielded Mind as GM trait (considering the insane CD of VoC).
• X (new) – (Name?): Increases the Staff and Trident damage by 5%, also Staff and Trident skills heals nearby allies (not yourself) for a small amount – 60 healing per skill usage, 600 range, 3% scaling with healing power (Considering that are no traits related with staff/trident and this is a support line).

For real, what you guys think about these changes?

@edit
Added new suggestions to Zeal XII, Valor VIII and Virtues V.

My suggestions to skills:

WEAPONS:

Mace: It is awful at PvE and very weak at PvP/WvW. It is just too slow and boring to use.

• Reduce the cast of the last hit of #1 to 3/4 sec, down from 1s;
• From skill #2, reduce the cast to 1 sec or even 3/4 sec;
• Make the “Grant protection to yourself and nearby allies if you are not struck” from #3, a sequence, allowing to use any time when casting the block.

Scepter: In theory have a good DPS, but all skills hardly hit, you can go full zerker and do no damage at WvW. I think that all skills should be redesigned. All main weapons should have a symbol.

Torch: Half support, half DPS: They don’t combine very well, even considering that the #5 don’t affect yourself.

• Make the #5 affect you or increase its damage. If the Cone of Cold (#2 dagger from Ele, can affect the Ele, why it cannot the Guardian?)

Shield: It have way too much CD for its effects.

• #4: Make it also apply cripple or weakness on enemies and reduce the CD to 25 sec;
• #5: Allows it to move with the Gaurdian, and increase the duration of the bubble to 6 sec or reduce the CD to 35 sec.

Hammer: Some skills are awful to use.

• #1: Before the “buff” (fix) on Writ of Persistence trait, the Symbol of Protection was really bad (too much cast time), now it can be good, but you’ll be forced to take the trait;
• #4: This skill makes no sense at all. This may be only used to throw people off cliffs, only for that. And I hate when some troll pushes away the guy that I was going to stomp, really annoys me. Suggestion: New skill: “Hammer Throw” – Throws the Hammer, hitting foes in line, knocking them back. Does decent dmg. Cast: 1 sec. CD: 30~35 sec. (I’ll feel like Thor =P)
• #5: Is almost impossible to land without Judge’s Intervention. Allows it to cast while moving.

Sword: Somewhat good.

• #1: The last hit from the chain (Sword Wave) can be sometimes really awful to hit objects or be reflected/blocked as projectile;
• #2: Is one of the sources (there are really very few) of mobility that Guardian has, in my opinion, this is what makes this skill “good”. This should be a leap finisher, both Phase Retreat (Staff #2) and Swap (Sword #3) from Mesmer are leap finishers, why it cannot be? Also it should have a sequence skill to create some symbol (all main weapons should have symbols).

HEALING SKILLS:

• Healing Breeze: Junk. Make it a aura that heals around you and reduce the CD to 30 secs.
• Litany of Wrath: Junk. Increase the duration from 6 to 8~10 sec, increase the initial heal or reduce the CD. Now is just useless.

UTILITY:

• Hallowed Ground: I’ll never take this skill over Stand your Ground. Not even if I need insane amount of Stability to equip both. This skill should be a Stun Breaker, then I’d consider to use this.
• Sanctuary: The CD is too high, it should be ~90 sec.
• Contemplation of Purity: The CD should be reduced to 45~50 sec.
• Merciful Intervention: Junk. You should be able to set where you wanna go (area target), then it might be useful.
• Signet of Mercy: There are too much cast time and too much CD. The Cast should be 2 sec and the CD 90 sec. The Passive is ok.
• Signet of Wrath: We have conditions? Make guardian have a good source to apply conditions that do damage or change it to give precision. The Active is ok.

SPIRIT WEAPONS: All of the suffer of a high cast time and they die too easy.

• Bow of Truth: Junk. Make its atks AoE, increase the healing and make it scales to healing power. The Command should scales with healing power and should be area targeted. Reduce the CD to 40~50 sec.
• Hammer of Wisdom: Junk. Is awful to use with melee weapons, make it knockdown instead of knockback.
• Shield of the Avenger: Junk. We have Wall of Reflection that have better uptime, reflects instead of absorb and don’t die. The shield should alwayws follow and stay aside the guardian at least. The command also should apply cripple or vulnerability.
• Sword of Justice: Junk. Too much CD. It should be reduced to 20 sec. Also the Command should be area targeted and the sword should “leap” to the area.

ELITES:

• Tome of Courage: The #4 and #5 skills have too much cast time to be useful – considering that #4 can be used only once – twice if traited – and #5 only once every 180 secs.
• Tome of Wrath: Suffers the same problem of Tome of Courage.

Exedore.6320:

- Mace is great in PvP for DPS (if you’re good at using #3) and defense.
- Torch sees occasional play in sPvP for DPS, though is a bit weak.

You know what DPS stands for?

While talking about PvE, I agree with the most things you people wrote down here.

Something about mace and shield. Both aren’t the best weapons, yeah, but they are useful in their own way.

What I like on shield is #4 as an opener and #5 is a fine heal and the knockback and projectile can be useful as well, e.g. CM.
The mace brings some good thins as well imo. #2 maybe at the beggining or if you need some heal. #3 can sometimes save your kitten and does some good dmg. But yeah, the auto attack is garbage and that the last hit of the chain only hits 1 target..

So yeah, both weapons aren’t made to use as primary weapons imo, but as a scondary to get some heal and support, it’s nice.

Thorwyn.8469:

Exedore.6320:

- Mace is great in PvP for DPS (if you’re good at using #3) and defense.
- Torch sees occasional play in sPvP for DPS, though is a bit weak.

You know what DPS stands for?

While talking about PvE, I agree with the most things you people wrote down here.

Something about mace and shield. Both aren’t the best weapons, yeah, but they are useful in their own way.

What I like on shield is #4 as an opener and #5 is a fine heal and the knockback and projectile can be useful as well, e.g. CM.
The mace brings some good thins as well imo. #2 maybe at the beggining or if you need some heal. #3 can sometimes save your kitten and does some good dmg. But yeah, the auto attack is garbage and that the last hit of the chain only hits 1 target..

So yeah, both weapons aren’t made to use as primary weapons imo, but as a scondary to get some heal and support, it’s nice.

I don’t feel the individual you quoted understands what dps means. Mace is so slow, that aside from skill #3 you will never hit anything. I feel there is a problem if you can even consistently land your auto attacks. Its rare for me to even land the third mace blow against live players.

Mace is another “stationary” weapon which makes me cringe. I’ve voiced my opinion many times on the subject of static play from which Symbols derived from. It’s a pretty decent weapon for bunkering but not much else.

It would be nice if a dev replies and says what they think about the list, before this thread runs amok and filled with suggestions like “buff this buff that for no reasons”; just like any other previous similar threads. It would be too overwhelming to read when that happens, to filter which suggestion is legit from ones that come from people who have no idea how powerful their suggestions can turn out to be.

I originally posted this thread at a time I knew Jon to be browsing the forums, so hopefully someone has seen it.

We do get a severe lack of dev presence on the guardian subforum, this is commonly thought to be because the devs think guardians are decently well balanced – which I’ll admit they are, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve and make better diversity.

Decently balanced in a defensive role yes: Good survivability, excellent support, low damage, very low mobility.

Not balanced in an offensive role: Good damage, low survivability, low support, low mobility.

Meditation guardians can be pretty good at making up some mobility and survivabilty, but still suffer too many deficiencies to make them viable offensive roles or roamers.

Condi guardian is non existent. I have spent the past 2 month in search of the strongest condi guardian build and think I have found the best I’m goung to be able to get out of this class. And it is still terrible.

Arken.3725:

Mace is another “stationary” weapon which makes me cringe. I’ve voiced my opinion many times on the subject of static play from which Symbols derived from. It’s a pretty decent weapon for bunkering but not much else.

I agree, in a action oriented game a stationary weapon doesn’t make much sense. The design of guardian is rather interesting I’d say. They designed them to have area control, but the bigger the area becomes the more useless their speciality becomes. Its a diminishing return effect that other classes do not have.

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Improved spirit weapon duration : Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits. I’m going to go copy paste what I wrote for the last several spirit weapon traits : they are trash!

If you think this trait is trash, then you don’t know how to play guardian vs alphard. This allows your shield of avenger to last for 30 seconds instead of 20. That’s 30 seconds of not having to worry about her hooking you. Running the x/x/0/x/25 build, you can swap your master skill to this when you need long shield duration, then swap it off when you are done. This is a very powerful skill when you change it for a certain situation.

I’ll readily admit to that. I rarely fight alphard to be honest.
Besides, shield being the most useful spirit weapon, extended duration for a very reflect intensive fight doesn’t mean spirit weapons and their traits don’t need a large rethink.

So much ignorance in this thread. I do hope the DEVs are not listening.

Please enlighten us with your opinions then. If you have nothing constructive to add, I will assume you don’t know what you’re talking about & are purely trolling.

Please don’t rework banish. It’s an amazing skill; the problem is that many people use it without thinking whether or not the situation calls for it.

Thorwyn.8469:

Exedore.6320:

- Mace is great in PvP for DPS (if you’re good at using #3) and defense.
- Torch sees occasional play in sPvP for DPS, though is a bit weak.

You know what DPS stands for?

Mace is an awesome burst tool. Protector strike deals a huge amount of damage on a single hit (unlike most other guardian damage skills, which are channeled and almost never will fully land).
Mace obviously only aggravates guardian mobility issues and is one of the worst options if you want to chase someone who is running around, but it still can apply decent pressure on a small point and has, as already said, an insane burst potential.

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Zeal
Binding Jeopardy : 5 vulnerability for 8 seconds on immobilize.
We have 2 immobs on a 15 and 20 second cooldown. This trait isn’t awful but if it’s damage you’re after, Fiery Wrath is much better.

Unless you’re sylvari. Then this traits is easy 25 stacks with binding roots, yahoo!!

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Spirit weapon mastery : Spirit weapons are garbage except the shield, which isn’t worth traiting.

Shield is worth 10x it’s weight in gold. Anything that shortens downtime for shield of avenger is a blessing and a most valuble trait to me. I have that trait on for most of my dungeon/fractal runs.

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Eternal spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.
Wrathful spirit : See above comment on spirit weapons.

Trait idea is good, it’s the offensive spirit weapons that aren’t cutting the cake (too low rate of attack, going into coma after being commanded with this trait on.

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Radiance
Radiant fire : Nobody uses the torch.

I use the torch. It’s pretty powerful on both attacks and clensing fire is a good condi removal without taking up utility slots

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Inscribed removal : 2/4 of our utility signets have awful passives, none of the on-use effects are great either. Possibly the knockdown in pvp.
Perfect inscriptions : 20% extra of 180 stats = 36. 36 stat points for a grandmaster trait? What a joke.

OBJECTION! Signet of resolve’s valuable passive gets upped to 200% efficiency. Other then that, yeah, just sad

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Valor

Mace of justice : Mace is trash.

Mace owns – the aoe block, great regen symbol on very short cd and cleaving, healing auto attack

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Honorable shield : Our shield is rubbish. With some tweaks the projectile block could be useful.

Our shield is one of the very few good, non gimmecky sources of protection for self and party. The shield of absorption may pale in comparison to shield of avenger, but it’s a good panic button when all else in on cd (absorption and pushback)[/b]

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Honor
Writ of exaltion : 60 radius is too small even for symbol builds. Have it turn symbols into mobile auras.

Either something changed, or i’m missing something here, cause last time i checked traited symbols were huge

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Virtues
Improved spirit weapon duration : Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits. I’m going to go copy paste what I wrote for the last several spirit weapon traits : they are trash!

I dare you to say that after fractals with and then without shield of avenger. For shield alone that trait is DIAMONDS. And it’s whooping 50% at adept tier!

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Elite focus : I don’t know if many people use our tomes any more. Removing our utilities and weapon skills is a bit rubbish. Most of the time I see them used it’s for a quick zealot’s fervor (quickness) or 100% heal and then cancelled. I think tomes need a rework.

I agree this trait has very powerful competition on it’s tier, and thus is ommited most of the time. Still tome of courage is pretty sweet. Saved many lifes with it and also it’s a good aggro pull with toughness increase

Anything i did not mention i agree upon.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

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Radiance
Radiant fire : Nobody uses the torch.

I use the torch. It’s pretty powerful on both attacks and clensing fire is a good condi removal without taking up utility slots

I use torch as of recently for added single target burst and I’m loving it, with that being said I still wouldn’t pick the trait for it because it’s just not appealing enough.

Not sure I understand the fascination with mace ‘burst’ – if hits about as hard as two auto attacks from a sword or greatsword. I didn’t know that about the signet though. Thanks for your thoughts.

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Not sure I understand the fascination with mace ‘burst’ – if hits about as hard as two auto attacks from a sword or greatsword. I didn’t know that about the signet though. Thanks for your thoughts.

It’s just about dealing the maximum amount of damage on a Judges Intervention instant teleport.
I don’t like the palystyle (too one-trick-pony for my taste), but mace is hardly matched at it.

Mace is decent, the biggest problem is the long casting time of faithful strike. In pvp you will rarely ever finish the entire chain because of this. I suggest that faithful strike have its casting time decreased by a bit so it becomes more reliable outside of a pve setting.

I see a lot of players not liking the shattered aegis change. On paper it seems weak, because people tend to look at it as a skill that only works with guardian.

Shattered aegis is quite good with allies stacked around you. It becomes like a burst damage retaliation. Hitting for around 1k per ally, so with four allies around you this becomes 5k aoe damage which can be chained again if you use virtue of courage and chained again if you use retreat.

Problem is that its very situation and would require a bit of coordination to maximize the damage. But overall, I’d say for a adept trait its quite powerful. It does not need to reverted or changed at all.

Shield is still a bit too niche, a change they could do is to make #5 detonate scale better with healing power and increase the base healing.

Overall I’d say guardian is in a relatively good spot. Aside from spirit weapons and signets, both of which need a severe rework in order to be competitive choices to other signets we have.